A Country Lad's Tale of 'Marrying' a Wife

Little Hanzi Lu Bai wants to earn money to marry a wife. He farms, gathers medicinal herbs, and runs small businesses. Getting married costs a lot, and raising a chubby baby will cost money too, so he works very hard. One day, on the mountain, he runs into a hunter who looks fierce. The hunter is very handsome, but people often say he drinks and visits courtesans in town. His mother says that men who go drinking with courtesans usually can't be relied on. Even so, girls and shuang'er still like him. Lu Bai himself is fair and tender. When he was little, girls and shuang'er would play with him, but none of them treated him like a man. They still don't now that he's grown up, and Lu Bai is jealous. Then the little fellow is rescued by the hunter. The hunter isn't fierce at all: he even helps him gather herbs and escorts him home, and comes over to help with the farming. Now Lu Bai doesn't think the hunter is scary. He's a good, warmhearted person! The tuft of hair on the little fellow's head bobs as he sits on the field ridge with a sprained ankle, watching the tall, broad-shouldered hunter transplant rice seedlings. Resting his tender cheek in his hand, he ponders. What a good person, little Hanzi Lu Bai thinks, unaware that the good man surnamed Shen only wants to take him home. A warm, sweet little story. There is no angst or misunderstanding between the main characters. It's a lighthearted read. The author writes without pressure, going wherever inspiration takes them. Readers can enjoy it without pressure too. This is an extremely relaxing, simple farming story. You don't even need to think too hard about the logic, because the author is a pigeon spirit with no sense of logic. Coo coo coo. The setting is entirely fictional, so please don't nitpick the customs, prices, or anything else. If you ask, it's all author-created. Please add my upcoming novel, Good Little Husband, to your favorites! Lu Gu is promised in marriage and made to marry in place of his older brother, to the fierce hunter from Qingxi Village. No matter how wronged and unwilling he feels, he is beaten and threatened until they force him into the bridal sedan. How could the Shen family let such an outrageous substitute marriage go unchallenged? After a bitter fight that turns into a shouting match and a complete falling-out, Lu Gu is taken back to the Shen family. He prepares himself to struggle through life in fear, but married life is nowhere near as hard as he imagined. He can even eat his fill, and nobody beats him. Shen Xuanqing also buys him chicks and ducklings, then fences off the backyard so he can raise them. Lu Gu crouches in the backyard, touching the little chicks and ducklings. Once his fear passes, all he feels is delight. Shen Xuanqing says they all belong to him. For the first time, Lu Gu timidly tugs at Shen Xuanqing's sleeve as he is about to leave the house. Shen Xuanqing stops and sees his little husband give a brief, shy smile as he offers him a small cloth bag of thin flour cakes, saying they're food for his trip into the mountains. Shen Xuanqing eats the cakes in the mountains with a blank expression. He thinks his little husband is obedient and hardworking, and looks quite pretty when he smiles. He's just too thin. He needs to earn more money and fatten him up, or his health will suffer when he bears a child. Blurb saved on October 9, 2019. Theme: A lighthearted farming story