Mother Xiao sat for a moment before leaving with a smile.
Shi Qingluo had woken up early today, and she was feeling sleepy now.
After washing up, she returned to her room, scanned Xiao Hanzehng's bed, and then looked at the small couch in the corner.
She decided not to wrong herself.
She walked up to Xiao Hanzehng's bed quite openly. "Do you prefer sleeping on the inside or the outside?"
Xiao Hanzehng wasn't actually that surprised by Shi Qingluo's choice.
He chuckled softly. "I thought you would make me sleep on the small couch."
Shi Qingluo said crossly, "If it weren't for the fact that you're a patient right now, I would definitely have made you sleep on the small couch."
"I thank you for that," Xiao Hanzehng said, caught between laughter and tears.
Shi Qingluo waved her hand. "Don't mention it."
"Why don't you sleep on the outside?"
Xiao Hanzehng didn't mind. "Alright!"
Thus, Shi Qingluo took off her shoes, stepped over his legs, and got into the bed.
Xiao Hanzehng's bed was about 1.8 meters long. Since both of them were thin, there was a lot of empty space when Shi Qingluo lay down.
She pulled up the quilt and looked at Xiao Hanzehng, asking, "Aren't you going to sleep yet?"
Xiao Hanzehng felt she was quite thick-skinned. "Aren't you afraid I might do something to you?"
Shi Qingluo rolled her eyes. "Give me a break. With my bean sprout physique and sallow, thin appearance, I look quite unsightly myself. Could you even bring yourself to do it?"
Xiao Hanzehng couldn't help but laugh. "It does seem a bit difficult to bring myself to it."
What kind of girl talks about herself like that?
Shi Qingluo raised an eyebrow and scanned Xiao Hanzehng with her gaze.
She smiled meaningfully and said, "Besides, with a body like yours that could be knocked over by a gust of wind, even if you could bring yourself to it, are you sure you could actually do anything?"
Xiao Hanzehng, who had been smiling, couldn't help but let his face darken. This woman truly had no sense of shame, actually doubting his abilities...
He explained, "Before I fell ill, my body was very strong."
Shi Qingluo gave a careless yawn. "Even if you recover to how you were before, you aren't allowed to act up or move around without my permission. If you dare to molest me, I'll smash your head in."
"I'm sleeping now. Do as you please!" Then, she curled up in the quilt, turned her back to Xiao Hanzehng, and closed her eyes.
Xiao Hanzehng: "..." Not only was she thick-skinned, she was also a little tigress.
He sat there for a while, thinking about what to do next.
His little wife had previously said she would earn money to support the family, but he hadn't taken it to heart.
It wasn't that he looked down on her, but as a man, he felt he should bear the responsibility of this household.
Of course, he wouldn't oppose his little wife earning money or anything of the sort.
Since they had decided to try a trial marriage and become a family, being overly calculating would only lead to estrangement.
Hearing the sound of steady breathing, the corners of his lips curled up slightly. He blew out the oil lamp and lay down to sleep.
In his past life, he suffered from insomnia every day, finding it especially difficult to fall asleep late at night; he had to rely on medicine just to get two or three hours of sleep.
He had originally thought that having another person suddenly by his side would make it even harder to sleep.
To his surprise, when Xiao Hanzehng woke up again, the sky was already bright, which surprised even himself.
By this time, Shi Qingluo had already been up for a while, practicing a set of health-preserving Tai Chi.
In the original host's memories, her days at the Taoist temple had been decent; the old Taoist hadn't mistreated them, and they were able to eat their fill every day.
However, the old Taoist did not eat meat or animal products, so they followed a vegetarian diet. After years of not eating meat, the original host's body had become nutritionally imbalanced.
After returning home, she worked from early morning until late at night, doing a vast amount of chores. Not only was the food poor, but she wasn't even allowed to eat her fill.
The original host had become directly malnourished, causing her once fair skin and normally weighted body to become sallow and thin, with a weak constitution.
In her past life, she had been a stunning beauty with curves, and the original host looked about seventy to eighty percent like her, but her current appearance was truly difficult to look at.
Fortunately, there were no mirrors, so she could only see herself in the reflection of the water; otherwise, she would have cried.
Therefore, she had to quickly nourish this body. Even if she couldn't restore the ten-out-of-ten beauty and perfect figure of her past life, she should at least reach seven or eight.
As she was thinking, she felt someone staring at her back.
She turned around to see Xiao Hanzehng standing at the doorway, leaning on a cane.
Last night, she had given him glucose and nutritional supplements again. Most importantly, she had given him several doses of the Space Spring water, so he was able to walk today.
Xiao Hanzehng asked with a smile, "What kind of martial arts are you practicing?"
He had never seen such a style of boxing; it looked soft and flowing, yet it seemed to hide an underlying strength.
Shi Qingluo replied, "Health-preserving Tai Chi. My master taught me."
"Once your body is no longer so weak, I will teach you this set. It can clear the meridians, balance the Yin and Yang qi and blood, and strengthen the body."
Xiao Hanzehng nodded and smiled. "Alright!"
He had seen that "Old Immortal" mentioned by the villagers twice.
Seeing how the man was skin and bones and didn't look very healthy, it seemed as though he was obsessed with something and often stayed up late, exhausting himself.
He didn't look like someone who would practice martial arts to strengthen his body.
Shi Qingluo had finished her routine.
While wiping the sweat from her forehead, she looked at Xiao Hanzehng and asked, "Do you know about tofu?"
Xiao Hanzehng was puzzled. "What is tofu?"
Shi Qingluo smiled. "A type of food."
There was no mention of tofu in the original host's memories, but she wasn't sure if it existed in this world.
Hearing Xiao Hanzehng's reaction, it clearly didn't exist here.
The first definitive historical records of tofu were from the Song Dynasty; currently, in the Great Liang, things were similar to the early Tang Dynasty.
Even if it existed elsewhere, it definitely hadn't reached this area yet.
Shi Qingluo said, "Let's make tofu to eat today."
During one of her travels, she had visited a place called Tofu Village.
Tofu was their main tourist attraction; visitors could not only tour the tofu workshops for free but also learn how to make it.
She had learned it once with a friend.
Before leaving, her friend had bought some bittern (brine) and even stuffed a portion into her hands, saying she could make tofu herself when she got back.
On the way, fearing the bittern would leak in her suitcase, she had placed it in her Space, and then gradually forgot about it.
While organizing her Space at the Shi house, she discovered this bittern in a corner. Time in the Space was frozen, so it wouldn't expire.
That was why she had asked the Shi family for soybeans as part of her dowry.
Xiao Hanzehng looked at her with a half-smile and asked, "Was this also taught by your master?"
Meeting his dark eyes that seemed capable of seeing through everything, Shi Qingluo did not look away guiltily.
Instead, she nodded righteously. "Yes! The bittern for making tofu was also something I brought down from the mountain."
With a smart person like Xiao Hanzehng, she would surely reveal her tracks if they spent a long time together.
It seemed he was already somewhat suspicious that the things she knew weren't learned at the Taoist temple.
But even if he was suspicious, so what? She wasn't afraid.
She would simply insist until death that her master taught her. No matter who investigated, it wouldn't matter, since the old Taoist had already passed away and had even blown up the main hall of the temple—there was no way to prove otherwise.
"Fine. How do we make it? Do you need help?" Although Xiao Hanzehng was half-doubting, he did not expose her.
Since his little wife said she learned it from the old Taoist, then in the future, whenever anyone asked, it would all be because of the old Taoist.
In the eyes of the villagers, that old Taoist was an Old Immortal, after all.
And immortals, naturally, would know many things that ordinary people had never seen.
Shi Qingluo did not yet know that Xiao Hanzehng had automatically helped her smooth over the inconsistency.
She only felt that this fellow was quite decent and very understanding.