Divorce with three kids? I'll build a house and eat meat, driving my in-laws crazy.

Chapter 40 She looks a bit like my mother.

“What prostitute? She’s the most beautiful courtesan, she sells her art, not her body,” Chu Xiu argued. “Besides, Lady Li helped me choose her, she wouldn’t harm me.”

Magistrate Chu's head throbbed even more upon hearing this. "And what's with this Lady Li? You marry one woman and then take her as a concubine?"

Chu Xiu stared at him without saying a word, "Father, do you agree or not?"

The magistrate of Chu County knew that his son was good-for-nothing. He was already 15 years old, and not only was he not good at studying, but he also spent his days eating and drinking and fooling around with cats and dogs.

Lately, he's been staying at Chunfeng Tower and hasn't come out at all.

Between starting a family and establishing a career, he chose to let his son start a family first, thinking that his son would definitely change once he started a family.

He couldn't control his son, so he only hoped that his future daughter-in-law would discipline him.

But this so-called courtesan in front of me doesn't look like a good person at all.

If these two got together, that would be a disaster.

"I disagree! I strongly oppose it!" Magistrate Chu slammed his fist on the table, his beard bristling and eyes wide with anger, expressing his strong dissatisfaction.

"Xiao Wu, take this courtesan away and send her back to where she came from."

Xiao Wu was Chu Xiu's personal page. He was originally there to take care of Chu Xiu's daily life and supervise his studies.

Unfortunately, Chu Xiu was disappointing, so he could only take him around to play.

"Yes."

The courtesan was completely dumbfounded; her immense wealth had vanished just like that!

Before she could react, Xiao Wu had already pushed her away.

With no outsiders present and the study door closed, Magistrate Chu sighed deeply, truly at a loss for what to do with his son.

The father and son remained silent until the father finally spoke up, "Are you very familiar with that Lady Li?"

Chu Xiu stared blankly. "We're not close. We've only met once."

"You've only met her once and you're already asking her to help you choose a wife? Is she that beautiful? Are you too good for her?"

Magistrate Chu imagined a dramatic scenario: his son, unable to win over Lady Li's heart, had no choice but to accept her choice.

Chu Xiu thought about it seriously for a moment, "She is a peasant woman with three children, and she is a very cheerful person."

Magistrate Chu was startled and almost lost his balance.

A peasant woman with three children?!
A peasant woman raising three children alone meant that she had either been divorced or her husband had died.

Since very few people actually divorce, Magistrate Chu did not consider this possibility at all.

He felt utterly hopeless; his son had fallen for the widow.

She's a widow with three children; at that age, she could already be a mother to her sons.

"You...you can't just look at a person's character when you're looking for a wife; you also have to consider her age and her family background."

Chu Xiu blinked his big eyes, "Father, what are you thinking? How can your thoughts be so filthy? My trust in Madam Li is just..."

"What is it?" Chu Xianliang roared, his belly fat jiggling.

Chu Xiu was most annoyed by his father's tendency to slam his fist on the table and get angry, so he simply said, "I don't want to talk about it anymore."

"Explain yourself. You're not allowed to leave if you don't. You'll be locked up in solitary confinement."

Magistrate Chu was furious; he wanted nothing more than to find the woman named Li, whom his son had mentioned, and tear her to pieces.

Chu Xiu's eyes suddenly reddened, and he said in a low voice, "I only thought she looked a bit like my mother."

Chu Xiu's mother, the wife of Magistrate Chu, passed away from illness when Chu Xiu was young, and he has never remarried all these years.

He said he was too busy to have time, but actually he was afraid that Chu Xiu would be wronged, after all, no child would like a stepmother.

Few stepmothers can treat other people's sons as their own.

Upon hearing his son's reply, Magistrate Chu suddenly felt his mind go blank and slumped heavily into his chair with a thud.

"Father? Are you alright?" Chu Xiu asked cautiously.

After a while, Magistrate Chu finally calmed down and said gently, "When you have time, please have Madam Li come to your residence for a meal."

His son doesn't dislike Li Niangzi, so he can try to learn more about her.

Li Ruru, who was at the market, was unaware of the thoughts of the Chu father and son.

After delivering the goods to Chunfenglou, Li Ruru and her group returned to their old stall location.

As soon as the konjac tofu was displayed, it attracted a group of people.

Business was booming. Li Ruru and Da Ya and Er Ya were busy, while Xiao Yishan took San Ya to buy a sugar figurine to play with. In less than an hour, their konjac tofu was sold out.

Li Ruru, who was packing up her stall, hadn't seen Sanya for a while, so she asked Daya, "Where's Sanya?"

Daya looked around but couldn't find Sanya. Just as she was about to go look for her, she saw Sanya sitting on Xiao Yishan's back, waving her little hands happily.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, and Xiao Yishan calmly told Li Ruru what had just happened.

Sanya was just called away by Granny Liu, who sells straw sandals.

Holding a candied hawthorn, Granny Liu asked Sanya, "Little girl, do you know how your mother makes konjac tofu? What's in it?"

Sanya blinked, seemingly trying to understand the question.

Seeing that she didn't speak, Granny Liu hurriedly said, "If you can answer the question, I'll give you this candied hawthorn."

Sanya's mouth watered involuntarily at the mention of candied hawthorns. Although she had just eaten a candied figurine, she still wanted to eat candied hawthorns.

“Swill…swill!” She remembered her older cousin saying yesterday that this was how they made it.

"Nonsense!" Granny Liu's face fell. "If you don't tell me, I'll sell you to some remote mountain forest."

When temptation failed, she resorted to threats.

Xiao Yishan happened to overhear this, glared at Granny Liu, and took Sanya away.

Li Ruru frowned. It seemed she would have to be careful around this old woman, Liu.

She smiled and said to Sanya, "Don't run around anymore, and don't say anything if anyone asks you anything. I'll buy you candied hawthorns every day."

When Sanya heard that there would be candied hawthorns, she smiled and showed her white teeth, "Okay, okay, I'll listen to Mother."

Now that she has made money, Li Ruru loves to visit the market.

Daya knew that her mother had fallen into her habit of wanting to buy things whenever she saw them, so she didn't stop her today, since everything her mother bought was useful anyway.

Mother knew what was going on; she didn't want to be the one spoiling the mood every day.

Li Ruru waved her hand and bought a candied hawthorn for everyone.

Da Ya and Xiao Yishan both declined to eat, and Li Ruru pretended to be angry and said, "If you don't eat it, I'll take it home and feed it to the dog."

Sanya's eyes lit up, "Give it to Qiqi!"

Daya quickly took the candied hawthorn; she didn't want such a good thing to go to waste.

After everyone finished eating the candied hawthorns, Li Ruru bought a few sesame cakes from Aunt Pang's house next door.

After taking two bites, Li Ruru frowned and stopped eating.

This sesame seed cake is not tasty at all.

Although the others didn't find it very tasty, they were already quite satisfied to be able to eat the sesame seed cakes.

Daya sighed, "At Grandma's house, we couldn't even get wild vegetable porridge. We ate candied hawthorns and sesame cakes with Mom."

These days are wonderful!
Li Ruru felt a pang of heartache and ordered a few more meat buns and several bowls of spicy soup.

"Eat up, there's plenty to go around."

Daya was taken aback; it turned out that Meimei's days were even more beautiful now.

Aunt Pang's expression turned somewhat unpleasant when she saw that Li Ruru had only taken one bite of her sesame seed cake. "Young lady," she said, "I'd like to ask, is there something wrong with my sesame seed cake?"

Her business was not doing well, but she couldn't figure out why.

Seeing the sincerity in her question, Li Ruru said, "Is your sesame seed cake made with unleavened dough? It'll be too hard to bite when it's cold."

Aunt Pang looked grim; she couldn't solve this problem because her home was too far from the market.

Li Ruru continued, "Why don't you sell fried dough sticks? You can sell them for a higher price, make them fresh to order, and bring the pot over too."

Aunt Pang carefully considered Li Ruru's suggestion. She knew that there was a fried dough stick shop on East Street that did a good job.

That shop rented a small storefront and sold their food right at the entrance; it was all made to order.

Aunt Pang can't afford to rent a shop, so she can bring her own pot and cook on the spot, which is not impossible.

"Thank you, little sister. I'll try it tomorrow."

Li Ruru smiled and said, "Auntie Pang, wouldn't you like your pancakes to sell out every day?"

"You...you have some good ideas?" Of course, Aunt Fatty had been thinking about it, she was thinking so hard that she almost lost all her hair.

(End of this chapter)