17 Little Housekeeper

Su Caier held a pile of silver coins in a daze and quickly returned them to Zhao Ce. She hesitated and said, "Husband, I'm afraid I'll lose them." She had never held so much money before!

Zhao Ce took the coins and smiled, saying, "It's okay. There's a wooden box in the room for storing money, and there are also two land deeds inside. Let's go hide the silver." He then took the little girl back to the room.

Zhao Ce opened the wooden box with the land deeds and placed the silver ingots inside, along with some copper coins. The rest he planned to keep for incidental expenses when they left the city.

He handed the box to the little girl and pointed to a small hole next to the bed, saying, "This is where the money box goes. You'll be in charge of it from now on."

Su Caier held the money box tightly and nervously nodded her head. She seemed to have accepted a major task, her small face serious as she promised, "I will take good care of it!" She then followed Zhao Ce's instructions and put the money box in its place, before tucking the bed sheets in and patting them solemnly.

She added, "Husband works very hard to earn money, so we must keep it safe."

Zhao Ce watched her series of ritualistic actions and felt fulfilled. After all, there was someone who valued his hard work so much.

Su Caier finally came back to her senses and asked curiously, "Husband, how did we get these five taels of silver?"

Zhao Ce explained that he had written some lantern riddles for a bookstore, and they had been chosen. He received the silver as a reward.

Su Caier praised him, saying, "Husband, you are so knowledgeable. Even the scholar-officials want to use your lantern riddles." Although her wording was not quite right, Zhao Ce was still pleased.

He laughed and said, "However, this amount of silver is still too little. Today, we need to process the sugar and exchange it for money tomorrow."

Su Caier nodded quickly and said, "Okay, I'll help you, husband."

After hiding the silver, the two of them left the room. Su Caier had just finished washing clothes, and they were not completely dry yet. She said, "Husband, I'll finish hanging up these clothes, and then we can have dinner."

Zhao Ce nodded and saw the little girl walking over to continue hanging up the clothes. There were already many pieces of washed clothing in the courtyard, and the bedsheet was also taken out for drying.

The little girl was not very tall and had to stand on her tiptoes, sometimes even jumping a little to hang the clothes on the bamboo pole. Su Caier had just hung up a piece of clothing when a shadow fell over her. She turned her head and saw that it was her husband coming to help.

She looked up at him and said, "Husband, let me do it. You just came back from the city and must be tired. Go inside and rest for a while."

Under the sunshine, Zhao Ce looked into the little girl's eyes again.

Her eyes sparkled with a fine light. Su Caier felt nervous when she saw her husband staring at her eyes and lowered her gaze, leaving only her thick eyelashes. "I, I can do it..." But she heard Zhao Ce whisper, "Your eyes are really beautiful."

Su Caier's small body trembled slightly, and her pupils involuntarily contracted. She gathered her courage and raised her small face again.

"Husband, you said..." Zhao Ce draped his clothes on the bamboo pole and casually said, "Your eyes are the most beautiful I've ever seen." The color of the little girl's eyes was not as exaggerated as in the anime that Zhao Ce had seen.

But with her pair of round apricot eyes, and long and curved eyelashes that blinked, Zhao Ce, a modern person, could only think of one word - cute. Zhao Ce thought that with this little girl's appearance, she could easily pass as a beautiful ancient girl with just a little bit of dressing up.

After receiving Zhao Ce's affirmation, Su Caier only felt her nose tingling. Husband... He was the first person to praise her eyes. They say that she was born with heterochromia, which was a bad omen.

When her father died, the villagers said that she caused his death. She and her mother were driven away.

Her mother could only bring her back to her maternal home in order to survive. Fortunately, her grandfather took them in and let them live in the village. Her mother cultivated half a mu of land in the village and barely survived.

Even so, the villagers still rejected them. Every day, someone would follow her and curse her as a bad omen.

When her legs were just starting to have problems, her mother cried all night, saying that her eyes were not good and that she couldn't do anything about it.

Later, her grandfather died, and her mother also died. Without anyone to protect her, her uncles also said that everyone in the family died because of her. They even wanted to sell her outright.

If it weren't for meeting her husband, Su Caier would have never known that there were such good people in the world.

He fed her, gave her a place to shelter from the wind and rain, didn't mind her legs, and helped her with her work. He even praised her eyes as beautiful.

After Zhao Ce finished hanging up the clothes in the wooden basin, he found that the little girl next to him had gone silent.

He lowered his head in confusion and found that the little girl was silently shedding tears. Zhao Ce was a little panicked. Did he say something wrong? Shouldn't he have mentioned the little girl's eyes?

Zhao Ce realized his mistake. The little girl must have suffered a lot because of her eyes, and mentioning them so casually might have touched upon her sadness.

Zhao Ce quickly apologized, "I'm sorry, I won't mention your eyes again." He reached out to wipe away the little girl's tears. Her small face was covered in tears, and she cried pitifully.

Zhao Ce felt helpless and said, "I don't know how to comfort you when you cry like this." Although they hadn't been together for long, the little girl was obedient and well-behaved and was his nominal wife.

Zhao Ce felt sorry for this pitiful little girl, but he had always been a single dog and didn't know how to comfort children of her age. "Wu~" Su Caier wiped her tears with her hand and said choked up, "I'm just too happy..." After speaking, she raised her red and swollen eyes and said, "Husband, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cry." She was usually a very strong person, because crying was useless, and no one would care if she cried.

But since coming to her husband's home, she had been crying for the past two days. Su Caier knew that it was not good for her to cry like this all the time. It would make her husband annoyed.

But for some reason, she just couldn't hold back her tears. Zhao Ce rubbed her little head and said, "Okay, stop crying, let's eat fried pork lard." Su Caier's eyes were still wet, but she smiled slightly.

"Okay, after the clothes are dry, I'll go cut the meat!" Zhao Ce laughed, "Good." "I boiled some sugar, we can dip the pork lard in it and eat it." The little girl whispered, "Sugar is expensive, we should save it to sell." "Having meat to eat is already good enough," Zhao Ce nodded. "Okay, we'll do as you say. You are the little housekeeper of the house, you can decide how we eat."

After speaking, he saw the little girl's nose was still red, but she smiled and showed a few small white teeth. Su Caier smiled and murmured, "I...I'm the little housekeeper..."