Ch 63: Guide to Feeding a Villainous Husband

Qin Xia didn’t want to pressure Yu Jiuque, so he closed his eyes, appearing to fully enjoy the moment.

Once his hair was wet, Yu Jiuque lathered it with soap beans, and foam filled the once-clear basin of water.

After washing twice, Yu Jiuque replaced the water and used a small gourd ladle to gently rinse out the soap from Qin Xia’s hair.

The process was quiet, with Qin Xia seemingly asleep, while Yu Jiuque remained entirely focused on his task, his mind completely at peace.

When it was done, Yu Jiuque grabbed a towel to help dry Qin Xia’s hair, but Qin Xia took it from him and gave his hair a quick, careless rub.

“Is there any hot water left?”

Yu Jiuque lifted two kettles and shook them.

“There’s still over half a kettle.”

“That’s enough.”

Yu Jiuque prepared a basin of water for Qin Xia to wash himself. He didn’t leave but stayed to help Qin Xia wipe his back.

“Good thing we lit the brazier, otherwise it really would be a bit cold.”

Qin Xia muttered as he put on his underclothes.

“Ah, it always feels good to be clean.”

He threw the towel over his shoulder and started talking about his old plans.

“Once I save enough money, I want to build a proper bathroom connected to the kitchen, with a heated wall like those bathhouses.”

Yu Jiuque responded in agreement, “But our courtyard probably isn’t big enough for that.”

Qin Xia laughed. “Then we’ll just get a bigger house.”

After all, the Qin family’s home wasn’t truly his, only the original body’s. His attachment to this place was limited.

“But we should still keep this place—it’s where we lived when we got married.”

With that, he went outside to empty the water.

Behind him, Yu Jiuque silently set up the small table on the bed, moving the candle to the center.

When Qin Xia returned, this was the scene he saw.

He paused for a moment before casually walking over and sitting on the other side of the table.

Countless nights had been spent like this, counting money, doing accounts, and enjoying small snacks.

But now it felt different, as if one was waiting for the other to admit to something.

Suddenly, Qin Xia found the table between them bothersome.

He got off the bed, circled around to Yu Jiuque’s side, and sat down next to him.

Yu Jiuque was startled. He looked up to meet Qin Xia’s gaze, and what he saw there was the same gentle expression Qin Xia had always shown him.

It overwhelmed him with emotion.

“Husband,” he called softly, finally uttering the word.

Qin Xia didn’t say anything. He simply pulled him into his arms.

“I know you have something to tell me. I understand.”

Yu Jiuque stiffened in his embrace, and Qin Xia gently patted his thin back.

“I just want to tell you before that, everyone has their secrets, and sometimes, lies can be well-meaning.”

“You already know.”

Yu Jiuque didn’t want to continue clinging to Qin Xia’s tolerance in this moment.

He bit his lower lip and sat up straight, deliberately putting some distance between them before pulling out the papers he had hidden in his sleeve.

“This writing…”

Yu Jiuque took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly, letting his shoulders relax as he repeated, “Everything written on this paper is true.”

Qin Xia looked at Yu Jiuque, then slowly reached out to take the paper from his hand.

What he did next made Yu Jiuque’s eyes widen in surprise.

Qin Xia leaned forward, reaching past Yu Jiuque, and used the paper to ignite the candle’s flame. He then let the fire consume the inked words before tossing the burning paper into the charcoal brazier, where it quickly turned to ash, indistinguishable from the blackened coals.

After all of this, Qin Xia straightened up and said, “Whatever was written on that paper, Ah Jiu, it doesn’t matter. I only want to hear the story you’re about to tell me.”

“After that, I’ll tell you my story.”

For a long while, Yu Jiuque remained silent before finally nodding.

Sitting close to Qin Xia, he could feel the warmth radiating from him, and it made him feel warm from head to toe. The words that had seemed so difficult to speak now felt easier to say.

“This story isn’t very long,” he began.

He started from the beginning, recounting how he had been abandoned and left to wander the streets of Shengjing. Meeting Eunuch Yu was the first turning point in his life.

“I once considered taking his life. In the palace, it wouldn’t have been difficult for a eunuch to disappear without a trace. But he didn’t harm me, and he even gave me the opportunity to enter the Inner Library.”

Without the education from the Inner Library, Yu Jiuque knew he would have had no future in the palace, even if he had made it there. His entry into the Inner Library was partly due to Eunuch Yu’s influence, but also because of his own sharp mind—and, of course, his appearance.

In the palace, even the servants were chosen for their looks.

Even a lowly maid in the palace would be considered a beauty outside the palace. But in the imperial harem, filled with concubines as beautiful as a field of flowers, these beauties were easily overshadowed.

“I figured out how to climb the ranks, understanding more and more clearly who in the palace was useful and who wasn’t.”

“And then… I met my current master.”

Yu Jiuque couldn’t go into too much detail with Qin Xia about this part, so he mouthed the words “prince,” letting Qin Xia understand. Though the crown prince had been deposed, referring to him as a prince was still accurate. Qin Xia was surprised by how candid Yu Jiuque was being.

Yu Jiuque took a deep breath and continued.

“…I was sent out of the palace on an assignment, but I was ambushed and injured along the way. The attackers were trying to silence me. At the time, I still had some skills, so I fought back and killed them, but in the process, I hit the back of my head and was knocked unconscious.”

Yu Jiuque didn’t know what happened afterward, nor did anyone else. Somehow, he was rescued and eventually fell into the hands of human traffickers.

“After that, it leads to yesterday.”

Yu Jiuque glanced sideways, catching sight of Qin Xia’s shoulder.

“My movements in Qinan County were discovered by the same group that attacked me before. They attempted to strike again, but my former… colleagues intervened, rescuing me and bringing in a renowned physician to perform acupuncture, restoring all my memories.”

So that’s how it happened, Qin Xia realized.

Indeed, the crown prince’s loyalists had been lurking in Qinan County all along. Though reality had diverged from what he knew from the story, this part of the timeline aligned.

“So, the story about the officers bringing you home last night was just for the neighbors to hear.”

Qin Xia thought for a moment, then asked, “And those two men, they weren’t real officers, were they?”

Yu Jiuque nodded in acknowledgment.

“You could say they were sent to protect us.”

“Us?”

Yu Jiuque nodded.

“You are my husband, and we are one. Of course, it includes you.”

Not only that, but he had also explained to Liang Tianqi that besides the Qin family, there were also the Liu family, the Wei family, Zheng Xinghua, the restaurant staff, and even Xing Yiming.

There could be no room for these ordinary people who were connected to him to suffer any harm because of him.

With Liang Tianqi’s absolute authority in Qinan County, dispatching extra people to protect these places was a simple task.

Qin Xia sighed, “You’ve thought everything through so well.”

With that, Yu Jiuque’s “story” came to an end, and he noticed that Qin Xia wasn’t nearly as shocked as he had expected.

Was it because he had already seen the contents of the paper?

The young man felt a bit lost.

At that moment, Qin Xia gently pinched his cheek. It didn’t hurt, but it tickled a little.

“You’ve finished, now it’s my turn.”

Before he began, Qin Xia leaned in and whispered in Yu Jiuque’s ear, “The guards you mentioned… they can’t hear us right now, right?”

Yu Jiuque froze for a moment and then assured him, “They can’t hear.”

The shadow guards, no matter how vigilant, wouldn’t be eavesdropping on a couple’s private conversation in bed.

Otherwise, after last night…

He would have died of embarrassment!

Qin Xia was now at ease.

He tugged the young man a little closer on the bed and whispered, “What I’m about to tell you may sound rather unbelievable. If you believe me, that’s fine. If not, just think of it as me telling a story.”

Yu Jiuque looked at Qin Xia in confusion, but soon, he understood why his husband had said that.

Because the story was not just unbelievable—it was downright supernatural.

By the time Yu Jiuque finished listening, he felt as though his own secret was nothing compared to Qin Xia’s, like comparing an eagle to a sparrow.

He swallowed hard.

“So… you’re not Qin Xia. I mean, you’re not the Qin Xia from Qinan County.”

Saying this out loud, Yu Jiuque felt cold sweat breaking out all over his body.

Not from fear, but from shock.

Qin Xia held onto his now cold hand.

“That’s right. My name is also Qin Xia, but I’m not the Qin Xia from here. I don’t know why… but one day I woke up and found myself in his body.”

He left out the part about the “book.” No one would want to hear that they were originally just a character on a page, with even their fate determined by an author.

Nor did he mention that he had known about Yu Jiuque’s identity all along—he didn’t want to make him feel uncomfortable.

He simply explained that he had come from another world and ended up in Qin Xia’s body.

“No wonder, no wonder that night… you were completely different from before.”

Yu Jiuque still remembered the way Qin Xia had looked at him. His gaze was sticky and wet, much like the clammy hands that undressed him that night.

What would have happened to him, still amnesiac and frail, if the man he had married hadn’t changed souls on their wedding night?

He couldn’t bear to think about it.

“You can rest assured—I don’t think I’m a ghost,” Qin Xia said gently.

Qin Xia joked, “Remember when we went to Wenhua Temple, the Buddha’s light was shining down on us, and I didn’t feel the least bit uncomfortable.”

The heavy atmosphere lightened a bit with that comment, and Yu Jiuque gave him a playful slap on the arm.

“Don’t say things like that.”

After a pause, Yu Jiuque asked, “Is the reason you can cook so many dishes because you learned it in your previous life?”

Qin Xia nodded, “Yes, I was a chef before.”

“Did you run a restaurant too?”

“Yes, it was about the same size as the one we have now.”

Qin Xia then explained his previous life experiences, using terms Yu Jiuque could understand.

“My grandmother and mother were both chefs, and I learned from them. When I grew up, I went to school, and after graduating, I worked as an apprentice at a restaurant. Once I saved enough money, I opened my own place.”

At this point, Yu Jiuque couldn’t help but ask, “So… were you married?”

Qin Xia replied earnestly, “Don’t worry, I wasn’t. I didn’t have the chance to get married before I came here.”

He hugged Yu Jiuque a little tighter.

“You’re the first person I’ve ever loved.”

Yu Jiuque couldn’t help but smile.

Qin Xia lightly tapped his dimples. “Finally, I get to see your smile.”

Still smiling, Yu Jiuque tilted his head up and kissed Qin Xia on the corner of his lips.

“You’re also the first person I’ve ever loved.”