In the past, mail traveled slowly by horse and cart, so a lifetime was just enough for…
But damn, was it really too slow.
When the three of them arrived in town and went to the post office to send a letter to Old Mr. Feng’s family, they were told it would take a month to reach the recipient.
Gong Ze: …?
Lu Youling: ??? How many did you say?
The postal worker told them that was still considered fast.
They were using human couriers—many mail carriers had to travel on foot across mountains and rivers to deliver letters. During heavy storms or blizzards, letters would blow away, get soaked by snow, or the courier might fall and lose an entire bag of mail. It happened all the time.
“So, are you going to send it or not?”
“…Send it.”
Gong Ze was helpless.
The postal worker, sitting lazily behind the counter, glanced at the three of them with an impatient expression. “If you want to send a letter, you need to buy stamps, envelopes, and paper at the post office.”
“Oh, right. Do you have a pen?”
The three of them: …
Having not brought a pen, they had to spend two cents to use the worker’s pen to write a letter. They briefly explained the situation, folded the letter into thirds, and stuffed it into an envelope.
Then they used the old-fashioned glue on the counter to seal the envelope flap, stuck on a stamp, and dropped it into the mailbox.
The three of them watched the envelope sink into the mailbox. Lu Youling was speechless.
“By the time Old Mr. Feng’s family receives the letter, he’ll already be better. What’s the point of them coming then?”
He had originally been excited to see a 1950s post office, but now his entire impression had shattered.
“Mail is just too slow.”
He really didn’t know when phones would become widespread. This was only the 1950s—even telegrams wouldn’t be available to ordinary people for another thirty years. It was incredibly inconvenient.
“Don’t dwell on it.”
Seeing Lu Youling lose interest because of how backward this era was, Gong Ze, ever skilled at soothing his partner, said, “Since we’ve come into town, why don’t we buy some things and look around?”
Lu Youling nodded eagerly at this.
“Yes, yes!”
Market!
Delicious food!
Fun stuff!
Seeing Lu Youling practically drooling, Gong Ze couldn’t help but chuckle. He turned to Shuisheng and said, “Tell me if you want anything. There are no outsiders here.”
Moved, Shuisheng replied, “Thank you, Second Master.”
With that decided, the three of them asked a passing mail carrier for directions to the market. Since there were no outsiders around, Gong Ze and Lu Youling openly held hands, looking like a newlywed couple out shopping.
As soon as the three arrived at the town’s largest market, they were hit from afar by a pungent stench of livestock.
It was an instant turn-off.
Inside, the cacophony of hawking nearly burst their eardrums. The ground was covered in animal droppings.
Vendors drove donkey carts, led cows and sheep, and carried chicken and duck cages as they walked past them. Ducks stuck their heads out through the holes in their cages and pecked furiously at the floral pattern on Lu Youling’s clothes.
Even Gong Ze’s sleeve got chewed on by a sheep’s mouth.
Gong Ze looked down at the sheep chewing on his sleeve. He was silent for a moment, then as a vegetable vendor walked by with his shoulder pole, he grabbed two chili peppers, broke them in half, and stuck them up the sheep’s nose.
The sheep: …
The sheep looked up in shock at this cruel human: (ΩДΩ)
Gong Ze: ^_^
“Baaaa—!”
The goat, in extreme spiciness, cried out incessantly. It let go of the sleeve in its mouth and shook its head vigorously, flinging the chili peppers out of its nostrils. Its nostrils burning, it widened its eyes and stared at the man quietly looking down at it—and actually showed a frightened expression. It clip-clopped its hooves several steps backward and hid behind the goat vendor.
Human. Terrifying. Human.
The smile on Gong Ze’s face grew even gentler.
“Wow, so cute.”
The system: …
I’ve been saying he’s an animal, haven’t I ( Д)!
The three of them pushed through the crowd and the rear ends of various livestock to make their way inside. Shuisheng reminded at this point, “Second Master, Miss Lu, there are a lot of pickpockets here. You have to guard your wallet tightly, or it’ll be gone in no time.”
“You could also hide your money in your socks. It’s less likely to get lost that way.”
“Really? Is that kind of sneaky trick allowed?” Lu Youling was shocked. He looked down at his cloth shoes and socks. “What if someone has athlete’s foot… You touch money that’s been in someone’s sock, then use that money to buy food, then eat with your hands… Holy crap, how do you get athlete’s foot on your mouth?!”
“Ha.”
Gong Ze was amused by his frightened expression. He said gently, “Don’t worry. You don’t have any money anyway, so you don’t have to be afraid of pickpockets.”
Lu Youling: “…That’s true. But why do I feel so sad about it?”
QnQ How annoying.
Shuisheng was right. As soon as the three of them entered the market, Gong Ze—with his wealthy appearance and scholarly, gentle demeanor—was targeted by pickpockets.
Before Shuisheng or Lu Youling even noticed, Gong Ze had already taken care of one pickpocket after another.
He caught a hand that had a blade hidden between its fingers, his own hand moving imperceptibly amidst the crowd. Under the pickpocket’s nervous gaze, Gong Ze squeezed the man’s wrist hard, then released it gently as the man’s face went pale in an instant.
In just one brief second, the pickpocket realized he had misjudged his target.
The man was no fat sheep—he was a tough nut to crack.
Holding his hand, which felt like it was splitting apart from pain, the unremarkable-looking pickpocket hung his head and hurried away.
Pickpockets operated in organized groups. After Gong Ze taught a few a lesson, none of the others dared approach him again.
Acting as if nothing had happened, Gong Ze held Lu Youling’s hand with his other one and, like an innocent scholar unacquainted with the world’s evils, stopped in front of various stalls.
A woman selling yarn and various small trinkets hawked her wares enthusiastically.
Seeing Gong Ze and Lu Youling’s clean attire, she grabbed hold of Lu Youling.
“Miss, want to buy a hair flower? You’re such a fair-skinned young lady—a hair flower would look beautiful on you. Have your husband buy you one.”
As she spoke, she picked up a hair flower from her stall and started holding it up to Lu Youling’s head, moving incredibly fast.
And even though her goods were clearly meant for Lu Youling, her eyes never actually landed on him.
She only spoke to Gong Ze: “Look, look, young man! Look how pretty your wife looks wearing it! She has fair skin—she’d look good in any color.”
“All the husbands bring one home for their wives. It’s very fashionable. You wouldn’t bear not to buy her one, would you?”
Most men had a harder time resisting enthusiastic sales pitches. They would often half-heartedly agree to buy something without even bargaining.
Young men were especially like this.
Usually, after the shopkeeper said something like this, the young fellow on the other side would feel embarrassed to refuse and would hesitantly buy one.
“You’re right, it does look nice.” Gong Ze could see through the shopkeeper’s tactic, but a hair flower wasn’t expensive anyway, and he rather wanted to see how Lu Youling would look wearing one while dressed as a woman. So he pretended to be an easy mark who didn’t want his wife to miss out on what everyone else had, and pulled out his wallet. “Then I’ll buy—”
The shopkeeper’s eyes lit up.
Sold!
But before Gong Ze could even pull out the money, Lu Youling slipped out of the shopkeeper’s grasp like an eel. With an innocent expression, he rattled off at lightning speed, “Sorry, I’m not buying. Hair flowers get in the way when I fight.”
The shopkeeper: …
Excuse me, what kind of young wife goes around fighting?
The shopkeeper managed a strained smile. “Miss, you’re so funny. You—”
“Oh, Gong Ze, look! They’re selling candied fruits over there! Let’s go check it out. Come on, come on.”
“…”
Before the shopkeeper could try to stop them, Lu Youling grabbed Gong Ze and ran.
Force a sale? No way!
Once they were far away, Lu Youling looked at the gentle, soft-hearted man with a sense of frustration. “You were just going to buy it because she said so?! That shopkeeper was clearly trying to take advantage of you. You need to learn to say no, understand? You’re so naive, you wouldn’t even know if someone was scamming you.”
Lu Youling glared at Gong Ze, worried.
Gong Ze was taken aback. Hearing his scolding, his eyes curved into a smile, and he obediently nodded. “Alright. It’s just that the shopkeeper said all the other girls have one, and I didn’t want you to be without.”
“She says it and you believe her.”
Lu Youling made a dismissive sound, but deep down, he felt sweet. Holding Gong Ze’s hand, he thought to himself that although his man was well-educated and refined, he had read too many books and become a bit simple. There wasn’t a single cunning bone in his body.
“Sigh, you’re way too easy to fool. That sales pitch—the shopkeeper has probably used it on countless people. Good thing I was here today, or you’d definitely get taken advantage of!”
Lu Youling subtly emphasized his own importance, the corners of his eyes twinkling with a lively, irrepressible joy.
Gong Ze, ever good-natured, curved his lips and agreed. “Yes, thanks to you, Youling.”
Hearing this, Lu Youling’s little tail nearly shot up to the sky. “It’s nothing. After all, you’re my boyfriend. If I don’t protect you, who will?”
Little did he know that this gentle, ethereally beautiful man, whom he saw as a delicate, frail counterpart to a tragic heroine, had already made several pickpockets wince in pain with just a squeeze of his hand along the way.
Lu Youling wasn’t very interested in the stalls selling chickens, ducks, and livestock, but he loved the ones selling puppies and kittens.
Back then, there wasn’t really any concept of expensive purebred dogs.
The animals for sale were all litters from household cats and dogs—usually tabbies, village dogs, or large wolfdogs.
Lu Youling couldn’t walk past them. He would squat in front of the stall, making “tsk tsk tsk” and “meow meow meow” sounds as he petted the dogs and cats.
Watching a bunch of little tabby kittens meowing at him, his face practically melted into a cartoon.
“Ah, surrounded by cats and dogs. So happy~”
“Hey, Gong Ze, do you like cats or dogs?” Lu Youling looked up and asked the man beside him.
Gong Ze said, “I like dogs.”
“Why?”
“Because…” A dog will obediently follow any command its master gives. The super sadistic Gong Ze’s smile deepened as he said to the curious Lu Youling, “They’re very cute, so I like them a lot.”
“Oh, that’s true. Puppies really are obedient and affectionate.”
Seeing how much he liked them, Gong Ze asked, “Do you want to buy one to keep at home?”
But Lu Youling reluctantly shook his head. “Never mind. I’m not even doing well for myself right now. Raising them would just make them suffer alongside me. Once I’m living a good life, then I’ll get one.”
In the end, Lu Youling patted the head of every single cat and dog, then reluctantly stood up and continued shopping with Gong Ze.
Aside from the pets, the only stalls that made Lu Youling’s eyes light up were the snack vendors.
Even though he kept complaining that everything was too expensive and he definitely wouldn’t buy any.
This time, however, Gong Ze knew better. He took out his money and bought every snack Lu Youling was curious about but had never tried.
One package for Lu Youling, one package for Shuisheng.
After all, for a foodie, you could go without a hair accessory, but you must never neglect your only mouth!
They bought a big pile of dried fruits, candies, and cookies. Then they came across a stall selling oranges and apples.
Lu Youling looked at the bags and bundles already in his hands and hesitated over whether to buy more.
They had already spent so much today…
Gong Ze saw through his thoughts and encouraged him, “We don’t get to come here often. Buy more of whatever you want to eat. Who knows when we’ll be able to come again?”
Seeing Lu Youling still fretting over the money, Gong Ze stepped behind him, leaned down close to his face, and gave him a kiss.
His voice was gentle and alluring.
“If you want to eat it, I’ll buy it for you.”
“Oh…”
Lu Youling pouted, but his cheeks flushed a rosy pink.
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