Chapter 36: I’m Also Waiting to Marry You

Chapter 36 I’m Also Waiting to Marry You

Young men who have just tasted desire always lack restraint. Even though Zhao An had once slain a frenzied mutated beast and Hu Sheng could secure victory from a thousand miles away, they still found themselves inevitably obsessed with exploring each other’s bodies.

Zhao An ended up staying at Hu Sheng’s place for three days. During this time, whenever he was lucid, he would only cultivate some sweet potatoes and pick out the larger ones to use as seeds for the next round of cultivation.

After more than twenty iterations, the sweet potatoes, originally only the size of a child’s fist, had grown as large as an adult’s fist. The number of fruits each plant could bear also steadily increased from the initial two or three to four.

It seemed Zhao An hadn’t been completely unproductive these past few days. However, when he went downstairs for lunch on the third day, he overheard Sister Li, who was helping with the cooking, complaining, “The firewood in the kitchen has been depleted too quickly lately. We’ll have to send Liang Hong to gather more this afternoon.”

This casual complaint made Zhao An blush. The reason for the increased firewood consumption was that he and Hu Sheng were always taking baths. At this thought, Zhao An felt he could no longer afford to be immersed in such a life of comfort. Even though he had already asked Hu Sheng to send a letter home to reassure Hai Bo and Qin Tong, not returning for several days still made him uneasy.

During this time, he hadn’t checked whether the village militia was diligently participating in training or whether grain prices in the city had dropped following the elimination of the bandit threat.

In contrast, Hu Sheng appeared much more responsible. Even though he also wanted to be intimate with him at every meal, he had already managed to have thousands of people build simple, livable wooden huts and had begun effective training.

This sense of urgency weighed on Zhao An. There was no competition between him and Hu Sheng, but he couldn’t let the militia in Zhao Village, which had been painstakingly organized, fall apart while Hu Sheng was managing thousands of people in perfect order.

So when Hu Sheng returned for dinner, Zhao An told him, “I need to go back this afternoon.”

“I’ll take you,” Hu Sheng said. He actually wanted to keep Zhao An by his side forever, but he knew that doing so would mean losing him for good.

The return journey was much slower than the trip there. Hu Sheng held Zhao An’s hand as they walked leisurely through the mountain forests. Yet, before nightfall, they still managed to pass through the final stretch of bamboo forest and arrive at the entrance of Zhao An’s home.

They didn’t speak much along the way, but they could both feel the attachment between them. It was only when they had to part that Hu Sheng finally spoke his mind: “I’ll find someone to select an auspicious date tomorrow.”

“Are we really going to have a wedding?” Zhao An felt both anticipation and flustered. Even in this era of spiritual resurgence, where people no longer cared about the gender of their partners, same-sex couples usually just started living together directly without holding a wedding like heterosexual couples.

Unlike Zhao An’s confusion, Hu Sheng grew even more resolute. “You were the one who initially said you wanted to get married. I know holding a wedding in Zhao Village might face criticism, so let’s hold the ceremony up in the mountain stronghold instead. At the very least, we should let heaven, earth, and our loved ones bear witness to our feelings.”

Once again, Zhao An felt assured that he had fallen in love with the right person. Seeing him so dazed, Hu Sheng couldn’t help but kiss him on the lips. “Wait for me to marry you.”

Zhao An immediately snapped out of it, pulled him by the neck, and kissed him back. Finally, he gave Hu Sheng’s lip a firm bite and said, “I’m also waiting to marry you.”

Hu Sheng licked the tooth mark on his lip and smiled. “Alright, I’ll wait for the day I marry you.” Then he reached out and touched Zhao An’s cheek. “I’m leaving now.”

Zhao An watched as Hu Sheng’s figure disappeared into the bamboo forest. Turning around, he saw Hai Bo, who had been standing at the door for a long time. Rubbing his nose, Zhao An smiled and said, “Next time I go out, I’ll definitely let you know in advance.”

Hai Bo opened his mouth, wanting to ask if he could just not go out at all. But seeing the happy, radiant look on his young master’s face, he couldn’t bring himself to say anything. He simply turned around and walked back inside, complaining, “Big Black hasn’t seen you these past couple of days and has been howling randomly at night.”

Zhao An followed him inside and saw the large black wolf standing up to greet him. He scolded it sternly, “No more howling at night from now on. If you do it again, no bones for you.”

But Big Black didn’t retreat because of his scolding. It continued pacing around his feet until Zhao An smoothed its fur and rubbed its ears. Only then did it contentedly return to its den.

And so, the matter of Zhao An being away from home for three days was considered behind them.

The next day, he went to observe the militia’s training and found that everyone was still diligent. Their movements—charging with wooden sticks, swinging machetes, and holding wooden shields—were all executed with proper form. The militia, which had initially become complacent after defeating the bandits, had instead become more disciplined in Zhao An’s absence.

Zhao An glanced back at Qin Tong and nodded at him, making the already somewhat proud boy break into a wide smile. The militia’s discipline was partly due to Qin Tong’s efforts.

Over the past few days, Qin Tong had continued to lead the training sessions in Zhao An’s place every morning. He told them that grain prices in the city had risen, not all the bandits had been captured, they could return for revenge at any time, and the high grain prices could lead to instability. He also mysteriously mentioned that Zhao An would be away for a few days but didn’t specify why, leaving it to their imagination.

Through a mix of intimidation and persuasion, he managed to keep them in line. Zhao An was very satisfied with their training progress.

After everyone had dispersed, Zhao An said to Qin Tong, who was following him, “You’ve done well. It seems the years you spent studying with me weren’t in vain.”

Qin Tong couldn’t help but chuckle proudly at the praise. Then he heard Zhao An continue, “You’re so capable. It’s really a waste to have you chopping firewood and fetching water at home all the time.”

Qin Tong, floating on the compliments, almost nodded in agreement. But remembering his place, he managed to stay grounded. “Young Master, you’ve been so good to me. I don’t feel wasted at all.” Other than suffering a bit when he first arrived in Zhao Village, his life afterwards had been even better than in the capital.

Zhao An wasn’t praising Qin Tong to make him belittle himself. Zhao An had never had any ambitions, but now that he was about to start a family, he felt it was time to develop some ventures. That was why he had been thinking about opening a shop. However, his activities in the village were already high-profile enough, though they could still be attributed to collective village decisions. If he expanded beyond the village, it would inevitably attract the attention of the emperor, who didn’t want him to stand out.

After much thought, Zhao An decided that the only solution was to have Qin Tong manage his external business. The boy was clever and quick-witted, and he had a father- and brother-like dependence on Zhao An, so there was no worry about betrayal.

Even though having Qin Tong step forward also carried significant risks of exposure, Zhao An still wanted to give it a try. After all, he had found a man who could defeat even Zhao Nanyu, a top-tier fighter from the books. It had to be said that Hu Sheng’s presence made Zhao An feel as though the invisible pressure weighing on him had lightened considerably, giving him more room to maneuver and thrive.

He patted Qin Tong’s shoulder and continued kindly, “Although you’ve done very well, I have even higher expectations for you. We have so many good things—strawberries, grapes, wine, shower pipes—but we’re selling them all to Ruyi Restaurant, letting them take the lion’s share. I’m not happy about that. But I’m too busy to handle the business myself. Fortunately, you’re here—clever and educated. How about you help me open a shop to sell these things?”

“M-me? M-me?” Qin Tong’s heart raced. He knew this was a great opportunity, but the thought of being solely responsible was still daunting.

Seeing how nervous he was, Zhao An reassured him, “Don’t worry. We’ll take it step by step. It’s too chaotic outside right now, so we can’t open a shop immediately. First, I’ll teach you the multiplication table. You can start by keeping accounts for the village, calculating daily consumption of grain and meat, and managing the output from the kiln.”

If Zhao An had initially proposed having Qin Tong help with accounts, the boy would have likely recoiled in fear. But with the goal of opening a shop in the city dangling before him, managing accounts suddenly seemed like a natural step.

Over the next few days, nothing major happened in the village. Zhao An went into the city to deliver a basket of grapes and told Manager Feng of Ruyi Restaurant that he had sold out of all the fruit he grew this year and wouldn’t be coming back.

Manager Feng was disappointed, but when he heard that Zhao An had also brewed thirty jars of wine, his eyes lit up with excitement. “Five taels of silver per jar. Ruyi Restaurant will take all of them.”

“Twenty taels per jar, and I’ll only sell twenty jars. The rest I’ll keep for myself,” Zhao An said firmly, leaving no room for negotiation.

Manager Feng opened his mouth to say more, but Zhao An cut him off. “I heard from Young Master Feng that you sell the wine in the capital for a hundred taels per jar.”

But that high price included expenses for bribes and long-distance transportation. Manager Feng wanted to carefully explain the costs to Zhao An, but the latter turned to leave.

Manager Feng quickly stopped him and said, “Fine, twenty taels it is. But sell me all thirty jars.”

Zhao An thought it over. He could always cultivate more grapes to make wine, but recently he had been focused on improving the sweet potatoes and likely wouldn’t have extra Supernatural Power to spare for a while. Besides, brewing wine took time. He didn’t know whether the wedding date Hu Sheng was having calculated would be soon or later, so it was best to keep some wine for the ceremony.

So he still insisted on selling only twenty jars to Manager Feng. In the end, Manager Feng had no choice but to give Zhao An four hundred taels of silver and personally drove a mule cart back to the village with him to pick up the wine.

With this money, Zhao An finally spent forty taels to buy two strong draft horses and a large covered cart from the city. He also hired villagers to build a stable next to his courtyard.

After all this, six days had passed since he came down from the mountain, yet there had been no word from Hu Sheng.

On the seventh day, the stable sweet potato seeds were finally confirmed. The mature sweet potatoes could grow to the size of an adult’s palm, and each vine could yield five sweet potatoes.

On the eighth day, Zhao An planted forty sweet potatoes in his small orchard. Then, in eight rounds, he cultivated lush sweet potato vines, cutting them all down and stacking them together. From a distance, the pile almost resembled a small mountain.

He decided not to wait any longer. He would take these sweet potato vines, which could be used as cuttings, up the mountain to Hu Sheng.