Mother Meng and Meng Sijing no longer bothered to hide, walking openly into the house. The candle was relit, making the already cramped space feel somewhat crowded all at once.
Cheng Nuo wrapped her padded jacket tightly around herself and poured herself a cup of hot tea.
By dusk, her period had arrived, and her lower abdomen felt rather uncomfortable. She had originally intended to settle accounts with Mother Meng and her son tomorrow, but she hadn't expected them to lose patience first.
It seemed that tonight, unless Meng Nanzhou made his purpose clear, he would not let the matter rest.
Sure enough, a thoroughly impatient Meng Nanzhou spoke up first: "Siniang, I have an important matter to discuss with you."
Cheng Nuo gave a noncommittal response.
Meng Nanzhou continued on his own: "You are illiterate and uneducated, so you probably don't understand the laws. Although our dynasty isn't as harsh as the previous one—which strictly forbade men who marry into a bride's family from taking the imperial examinations or serving as officials—the reputation of a matrilocal husband is still unseemly. In the future, my colleagues and seniors will inevitably ostracize and mock me behind my back because of my status.
You also know how hard my life has been all these years just to study—well, of course, mostly the hardships faced by my father-in-law's family. If I can place among the advanced scholars in next spring's metropolitan examination, I will inevitably enter the Golden Luminous Hall to have an audience with His Majesty. When my background is asked about... if I fail because of this and it affects my official career in the future, wouldn't all the hard work put in by me, my father-in-law, and you, Siniang, be in vain?
Siniang, you wouldn't want me to be looked down upon for the rest of my life and denied fair treatment, would you?"
At this emotional juncture, Meng Nanzhou even choked up a few times, his eye rims turning red.
Had this been the former Cheng Siniang, goodness knows how much her heart would have ached for him. Even if Meng Nanzhou had asked her to pluck the stars from the sky at that moment, she would have gone, risking the chance of falling to her death.
But Cheng Nuo was not the original owner; she would not lose her senses over a few scare tactics from Meng Nanzhou and easily believe his words.
She gave a light chuckle: "What is it you want?"
In the dim candlelight, Meng Nanzhou could not clearly make out the expression on the face of the person before him, but under the flickering flame, he noticed that the scar on her face was not very distinct.
He had never realized before that Cheng Siniang's facial features were three-dimensional, upright, and pretty. Sitting quietly without making a fuss, she actually possessed a certain charm—bright eyes, white teeth, and captivating glances.
Meng Nanzhou shook his head. It must have been his imagination; Cheng Siniang was a notoriously ugly woman across a dozen villages, so how could she have anything to do with beauty?
The heartfelt yet deceitful confession he had just made should surely have softened her heart.
For six years, the Meng family—and indeed the entire Cheng family—had regarded his future as the most important matter, willingly stepping aside for anything that might hinder his pursuit of official honor.
Meng Nanzhou leaned closer to Cheng Nuo: "Back then, our family was poor and couldn't afford an eight-bearer sedan chair and ten miles of red dowry to marry you. That was the Meng family failing you. Now that I have achieved official recognition, things are different from before. If you are willing, why don't we dissolve our husband-and-wife relationship first, and then go through the three letters and six etiquettes, announce it to our ancestors, revere heaven and earth, and marry you through the proper front door?"
Seeing Cheng Nuo's dark, deep gaze as if she were deep in thought, he felt more confident, sensing that success was nearly halfway there.
Pressing his advantage while the iron was hot, he said, "I've already had someone look into the procedures. As long as you bring out the document from when I joined your family as a matrilocal husband, sign this new document, and let me write a letter of divorce, you can just go back to the Cheng family and wait for my news."
A document he had prepared long in advance was placed before Cheng Nuo.
Mother Meng rarely showed such good temper: "Yes, exactly, Siniang. Nanzhou is doing this for your own good, so hurry up and sign it."
With that, she thrust the brush into Cheng Nuo's hand.
Cheng Nuo glanced over the document on the table. When she last broke into the study to "relocate" things, she had already familiarized herself with the script of this dynasty.
It was very similar to the traditional characters of her past life; while she couldn't recognize every single one, she could manage fifty or sixty percent of them.
What she held in her hand was clearly a transfer deed for farmland and property.
It included the grey-tiled brick house they were currently living in, as well as the seven or eight mu of fertile land to the west of the village.
The Meng family was not only going to divorce her, but they also intended to swallow her dowry whole. Their plotting was practically hitting her right in the face.
Utterly preposterous! A letter of divorce, my foot! Since when did a matrilocal husband dare to divorce his wife?
If this were fifteen years ago, a man who married into a bride's family was required to spend his entire life living with the wife's family, holding a status roughly equivalent to a servant. Aside from doing hard physical labor, he had to pay respects to his elders every few days—and these weren't his own parents, but his wife's parents.
If the wife was unhappy, beating or scolding the matrilocal husband was completely acceptable. If she ever grew tired of him, she could tear up the marriage agreement on the spot, keep the children, and chase him out the door.
Unfortunately, the current Emperor—being the greatest matrilocal husband in the realm—had altered the rules just a few years after ascending the throne, allowing matrilocal husbands to study and take the imperial examinations. That was what allowed men like Meng Nanzhou to straighten their once-bent spines.
Even so, she had never heard of a matrilocal husband having the right to divorce his wife.
Meng Nanzhou had been doted on and praised so much by the Cheng family over the years that he had probably forgotten who it was that sat inside the sedan chair back then, waiting for the bridegroom to kick open the door.
Knowing that Cheng Nuo was illiterate and certainly had no idea what kind of document she was about to sign, Meng Sijing smiled until her face crinkled: "Sister-in-law, my brother truly loves you. You've finally made it through the hard times, and Little Sister is so envious."
Cheng Nuo let out a cold laugh and put down the brush: "I'm not signing."
The faces of the three members of the Meng family stiffened instantly, turning as colorful and chaotic as an overturned palette.
Meng Nanzhou forced the corners of his mouth to twitch, only to find he couldn't smile at all: "Why? Is Siniang unwilling to marry me again in style and glory?"
Resting her chin in her hand, Cheng Nuo looked at him and smiled faintly: "Yes, I'm unwilling."
With that, she picked up the document, held it directly over the candle flame until it burned completely to ashes, and then turned to pick up the fire poker from the floor, twirling it in her hand with a fierce, whistling momentum.
"Get out."
Mother Meng's face turned livid with rage: "You shrew! You... how dare you strike your mother-in-law?"
Cheng Nuo stared straight at her, and Mother Meng felt an inexplicable chill run down her spine.
"I'm not going to hit you."
Mother Meng let out a breath of relief, only to watch Cheng Siniang pull out a knife from goodness knows where.
"Beating people takes too much effort. A knife is much quicker."
"Ah!"
Screaming at the top of their lungs, the three members of the Meng family scrambled over one another to flee the house.
The door slammed shut heavily behind them, and even the windows were bolted tight without exception.
"She's gone mad! Cheng Siniang has lost her mind!" Meng Sijing cried out.
Mother Meng grabbed onto Meng Nanzhou's sleeve: "Son, think of something! We cannot let this wretched woman manipulate us."
Meng Nanzhou felt a dull, persistent ache in his back from anger: "Cheng Siniang is a tough nut to crack, but are all the members of her family equally difficult to chew through?"
Since he couldn't get to her directly, he would just target the Cheng family instead.
No one was going to stop him from marrying Feng Zhiyi!
That very night, Cheng Nuo—who rarely dreamed—suddenly had a very long, very realistic dream.
She dreamed that Cheng Sanhu, who had always been sturdier than an ox, was out hunting in the mountains when he was suddenly caught in a torrential rainstorm. Eager to get home, he took a shortcut—a path that was inconvenient and steep, but very short—and accidentally missed his footing, plunging down into a ravine.
By the time his family found him, his left leg was severely damaged from the freezing cold. When they brought him to the medical hall, the physician declared that the leg could not be saved and had to be amputated.
At that moment, someone recommended a highly skilled doctor who claimed he could save the leg, but the consultation fee was exorbitant—twenty taels of silver.
With no other choice, the Cheng family sold their fields and land, even sacrificing the paddy fields to the west of the village that belonged to Cheng Nuo. In the end, Cheng Sanhu's leg still could not be saved, leaving them with both people and money lost.
When she woke up in the morning, Cheng Nuo was still somewhat unable to separate reality from the dream.
The scenes in the dream had been far too vivid, giving her an immersive, visceral sensation.
She couldn't help but recall the ultimate fate of the original owner's family in the book.
She found that try as she might, she couldn't remember it at all—either because she hadn't paid much attention to the lives and deaths of minor characters when she first read it, or because the author had dismissed them with a few brief strokes and never introduced their ending at all.
Presumably, without the "exceptionally filial daughter" Cheng Siniang who constantly pushed her elbows outward, the diligence of the Cheng father and son should have allowed them to live a fairly decent life.
The grief of losing a daughter might linger for a while, but people always had to look forward, and the living still had to carry on.