Green Lotus Peasant Girl

01

Chapter 1: Change

Li Qinghe was startled awake in a dim room by the high-pitched crowing of a cock. When she moved, there was a sharp pain in her chest. She felt stunned as she glanced around with the help of the faint light coming from the sky. She felt that her strange surroundings seemed a little familiar. This seemed to be the house she had lived in before she was married. The sound of the cock crowing outside was mixed with occasional dog barking, and the sharp pain in her chest reminded her that this was not a dream.

She had died once.

Not only had she died, but she had also been married then. Thinking of her marriage, feelings of regret and anger instantly filled her chest, and the wound seemed to hurt even more, bringing exhaustion.

Xu Changjie, the son of the Xu household, looks handsome and has been reading books for several years. He works as a bookkeeper in a shop in the town. He travels between the town and the village every day. He was easy-going and knows many people. He wears a blue gown and is suave and romantic. Many girls were secretly infatuated with him, and Li Qinghe was similar to those girls in her past life.

But now, she and the other person only had an encounter from a distance and didn't know each other. The two of them would meet each other again, but we must start with the story of how she was injured first to understand why.

While she was coming back home from the town, she happened to run into someone who was holding a knife facing Xu Changjie. Seeing that her sweetheart was in danger, she believed that she could save him with her strength and ran over to fight the bad man. As a result, she was injured in the chest. And because the commotion had drawn people, the hoodlum escaped. In return, the Xu family came to thank her.

It was explained in the novel that to repay the favor of Li Qinghe successfully saving Xu Changjie, he had to devote his life to her. Li Qinghe abruptly proposed that instead of a gift as thanks, she wanted to get married to the elegant and graceful young master.

Everyone present at the scene was stunned. The Xu family only said that they would consider it at the time, but two days later they came over to send xiăodìng. Because she took the initiative to propose marriage, the Xu family's betrothal gift was almost negligible, but she hadn't cared. The joy of marrying her sweetheart had made her feel that such things were unimportant.

[T/N : xiăodìng - Elders conclude marriage preliminary formalities, the groom goes to the bride's with ornaments and so on as a scheduled ceremony.]

After getting married, Xu Changjie went and stayed in town for a month or two before returning home. The jade-like young master was still unattainable. Even after they had gotten married, she couldn't get close to him. The relationship between them husband and wife was cold, and her excitement was as if drowned into a pot of cold water.

The Xu household has a lot of family members and as such, has many complicated affairs to take care of. She had a pile of complex household tasks to do every day. Mother Xu often found excuses to scold her, and she had to go to the farm alone to plant crops in spring and harvest them in autumn.

All the longing she had felt for her husband before marriage was broken by the realistic environment after their marriage, and her naivety as a young girl was no more. She had originally thought that Xu Changjie was different, but what if he was really just the same as others? Whose fault was it that she had lived her life fulfilling his family's daily necessities and domestic trivialities?

Later, she also learned that Xu Changjie had a sweetheart from before he married her. A year later, the bookshop Xu Changjie was working for was bought by someone, and overnight, the owner was left with nothing. Thus, the owner had to sell all his property and move to the countryside and live next door to the Xu family. Xu Changjie took good care of the owner and his family, especially Yang Lanrou, his daughter.