Ch 2: Reborn to Raise My Husband

It was the middle of the twelfth lunar month—deep winter.

In the mountain village of Ling County, Linzhou, the courtyard of the Xiao family was covered in a layer of frost as white as sugar. The biting wind rattled the paper-covered windows.

Young Xiao Yuanbao was struggling to pull a pair of thick, clumsy gray cotton trousers over his short little legs.

The scrawny child had barely any flesh on him; his legs looked like peeled banana stems—pale, thin, and a bit soft.

Once he’d bundled himself up in the thick clothing, the skinny little boy finally looked a bit rounder.

He sniffled through his reddened nose and slid down from the kang bed to the cold ground.

The house was freezing like an ice cellar. The paper windows glowed with light—it was already late in the morning.

Worried, he hurried off in his thick pants to the kitchen, afraid he’d woken too late to help Qin Niazi start the fire, and that she’d be angry.

To his surprise, the kitchen was still quiet.

He peeked into the stove—only cold ashes lay inside. There were no signs that a fire had been lit, and he let out a quiet sigh of relief.

Suddenly, he remembered overhearing Qin Niazi and Chao Ge’er talking last night. With the New Year approaching, they said they needed to go to town to prepare for the festival.

Chao Ge’er mentioned wanting to eat fresh pork wontons at a street stall and buy firecrackers. They had probably really gone.

Xiao Yuanbao rubbed his cold hands. The chilblains on them itched and hurt badly. Scratching didn’t help—his little fingers were red and swollen like tiny clubs.

But his hollow belly, after only half a bowl of thin porridge last night, made him forget the pain in his hands. He stood on a small stool and opened all the pots on the stove—nothing but a pool of cold water.

He turned to check the cupboard, but it was locked from the outside.

Disappointed, Xiao Yuanbao carefully climbed down from the stool, not knowing how to fill his belly.

After thinking a bit, he ran to the storage room and soon came back happily with three small, gray dusty taro roots.

He washed them clean and, without peeling, dropped them into a pot of boiling water. Soft and starchy, the taro would be tasty and filling.

After lighting the fire in the stove, he quickly washed the taro and placed them into the pot while standing on the stool, then hurried back down to warm his frozen red hands by the flames.

Now that there was fire in the kitchen, even with the wind seeping in from the walls, it was much warmer than before.

Taro needed time to cook. Xiao Yuanbao added two logs into the stove, then used the heavy iron tongs to stir the fire, which immediately flared up.

Only then did he go to open the door that led to the courtyard. The heavy wooden door creaked open, and the icy wind rushed in, making him gasp and hug his arms tightly.

The courtyard was frosted white, shining brightly but biting cold.

On the thin frost were two sets of footprints—one large, one small—leading out the gate. Sure enough, Qin Niazi and Chao Ge’er had gone out.

Shrinking his neck against the cold, Xiao Yuanbao grabbed a broom made of bundled bamboo and swept a path through the courtyard.

The wind had reddened his little face, almost to the point of chapping.

The chickens and ducks in the shed squawked loudly when they heard the broom outside.

Xiao Yuanbao put down the broom, let the poultry out, and scattered some grain husks to feed them.

Once he was done bustling around the yard, the taro was cooked soft and ready.

After eating his simple breakfast and still not seeing Qin Niazi or Chao Ge’er return, he scooped up some charcoal into a brazier and brought it into his own room.

Occasionally, loud firecrackers could be heard from the village outside—there was a hint of New Year in the air.

Xiao Yuanbao sat on a small stool at the doorway, holding the brazier close, quietly staring into the yard like a little guard dog.

He counted the days in his head—only half a month until the New Year.

Father would definitely be home before the Little New Year. He just didn’t know which day.

His father was a hunter—with prominent brow bones and round eyes, and rarely spoke. He looked fierce.

Xiao Yuanbao was a little afraid.

But when father went into the mountains, he was often gone as long as the number of fingers on both hands, he thought.

He didn’t dare ask Qin Niazi when father would return. She’d snap that a bear had killed him and he wasn’t coming back, complaining that he kept bringing it up and it annoyed her.

Chao Ge’er also said there were not only bears in the mountains, but also tigers and wolves—creatures that would bite and eat people, leaving not even bones behind.

Thinking of all this, Xiao Yuanbao worriedly rested his head on his knees.

Suddenly, there was a plop—something had landed near his foot.

Before he could look, bang!—a firecracker exploded, bits of paper flew everywhere, and a puff of foul smoke rushed up.

Startled, Xiao Yuanbao fell backward from the stool and landed on his rear, nearly knocking over the brazier.

His ears buzzed with the shock.

“Hahaha!”

“Mother, look how scared he is!”

A boy ran into the yard, wearing a fuzzy ring of rabbit fur around his neck. He was at least a head taller than Xiao Yuanbao.

Seeing him on the ground, he burst out laughing, the firecrackers and fire striker trembling in his hands.

“Boys love firecrackers! You little sissy are brave, aren’t you?”

Behind him came a plump woman in her early thirties, arms full of shopping bags.

Her hair was neatly combed and pinned with a simple silver hairpin. Her brows arched slightly upward—she looked energetic and well-kept.

These were Chao Ge’er and Qin Niazi, as Xiao Yuanbao called them.

Seeing Xiao Yuanbao slowly getting up from the ground, tears brimming in his eyes, Qin Niazi scolded Chao Ge’er lightly, but there was no real reprimand in her tone.

She questioned the boy standing under the eaves, “Did you feed the chickens and ducks?”

Xiao Yuanbao sniffled and nodded, speaking softly, “I did.”

Qin Niazi said nothing, her eyes scanning the courtyard.

“This little path you swept—how’s anyone supposed to walk through that? Since you swept, why only bother with two swipes?”

Xiao Yuanbao pressed his lips together and quietly went to fetch the broom again.

Only then did Qin Niazi slowly twist her waist and head back into the house. “So hard to teach. Being a stepmother isn’t easy~”

Wang Chao (Chao Ge’er), tired from setting off firecrackers and seeing that he only had two left, decided to save them to light with the village boys during New Year. He gave up on teasing Xiao Yuanbao further.

He walked over and pulled the brazier over to his own feet. After riding the ox cart home, both he and his mother were stiff from the cold, and the warmth of the fire instantly made them feel much more comfortable.

“It’s year-end now, and the city’s really lively. Street performers line the roads, one after another—you’ve got sword swallowers, strongmen smashing stones on their chests, trained monkeys jumping through fire hoops, parrots mimicking human speech—so many tricks you couldn’t take your eyes off them.”

“Guess what I ate in the city today?”

Wang Chao sat on the small stool, taking the spot where Xiao Yuanbao had been sitting, and looked at the little boy sweeping frost.

Xiao Yuanbao glanced at him cautiously, holding his broom tightly. Seeing that the firecrackers were put away, he relaxed a little.

Wang Chao didn’t care if he responded or not and continued, “A big bowl of fresh pork wontons! The vendor was really skilled—the wontons were big and stuffed full, looked like little ingots. The broth was made from simmered pork bones. A hot bowl—so savory and fragrant, you’d want to drink it dry.”

“I had a whole bowl of wontons. Mother had four scallion meat buns. We bought a stick of candied hawthorn—coated in syrup so sweet it’d rot your teeth, and the hawthorn wasn’t even sour. Then Mother went to Wang Si’s shop and bought dried dates and peach meat pastries.”

Xiao Yuanbao quietly listened to Wang Chao talk about all the food from the city.

He had filled up earlier on taro and wasn’t hungry, but hearing all that delicious-sounding food made him crave it anyway.

But he knew—even if Qin Niazi had brought back snacks, let alone eat them, he likely wouldn’t even get to see them.

Wang Chao stared at Xiao Yuanbao, pleased to see him involuntarily licking his lips and swallowing. That was exactly what he wanted—to make him hungry and envious just by hearing about it.

And not only had he made Xiao Yuanbao crave it, he’d gotten himself hungry again too.

He pushed aside the brazier, grinning, and happily went into the house to beg his mother for snacks.

Soon, Xiao Yuanbao heard voices coming from the room:

“You greedy brat, nothing stays uneaten for even a day.”

“Eat it in the house. If someone sees you out there munching, they’ll gossip…”

The bamboo broom scraped against the flagstones with a brushing sound—the frost had melted a fair bit.

Xiao Yuanbao lowered his head and stared at his toes, sweeping slowly. His little hands were stiff and cold, barely able to grip the broom.

He wondered too—when father came home, would he bring back a bag of sugar-roasted chestnuts…

“Xiao Bao?”

Suddenly, someone called from above. Xiao Yuanbao froze.

His delicate brows furrowed. The gentle voice and affectionate tone triggered the vague memory of a face that had long since blurred.

His nose twitched with sudden heat.

He quickly lifted his head—only to see a stranger’s face.

Xiao Yuanbao blinked, confused, staring at the teenager standing at the gate with a bundle slung over his shoulder and a long trunk in hand.

The boy was tall, hair neatly tied back, and his eyes shone brightly.

Though Xiao Yuanbao rarely left the village, he still recognized most folks around. This person—he had definitely never seen before.

He was timid around strangers.

Gripping his broom tighter, Xiao Yuanbao instinctively wanted to run and hide—but his legs felt like they were filled with lead. Heart pounding in fear, he looked toward the house for help.

But the two inside seemed not to have heard the noise outside.

Seeing no adults coming out, Xiao Yuanbao’s heart thumped in panic. He warily kept his eyes on the young man locked outside the gate.

“Who are you looking for? How do you know me?”

Qi Beinan hadn’t been completely sure—until he heard that soft voice, no louder than a mosquito’s.

Now he was certain he hadn’t come to the wrong place.

He looked at the boy hugging the broom, bundled up round and small.

So obviously dazed, with a voice soft and sticky like glutinous rice, yet his big eyes tried their best to look fierce—it was honestly endearing.

He had never kept a portrait before, so this was Qi Beinan’s first time seeing what Xiao Yuanbao looked like as a child.

The boy’s features hadn’t fully matured—still a ways off from adulthood—but the resemblance was there.

Qi Beinan hadn’t expected to see him so soon. A strange mix of tenderness and sorrow suddenly surged in his chest.

Looking at the little Xiao Bao, his emotions were tangled, and his eyes shimmered faintly with moisture.

All the exhaustion from his long, bumpy journey from Qiu County vanished in an instant.

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