Cheap Husband - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The wooden bed creaked, accompanied by the clear chime of bells.

Inside the white bed curtains.

I was playing with the new bell toy I had bought, teasing Shen Yunshi.

When I hooked a finger around the cord, his strong, muscular body was forced to lean in and kiss me.

The room was dim.

His expression was indifferent, making it impossible to see what he was thinking.

But I saw rows and rows of words.

Those comments said Shen Yunshi was the eldest son of the famous imperial merchant Shen Family, and I was just the vicious Female Supporting Character who tortured him.

He was the type to repay every grudge.

By marrying him into my household, I was humiliating him, and one day he would surely torture me to death.

Once his childhood sweetheart came looking for him, I would be sold to a brothel and left to fend for myself.

I was so frightened that I dodged his kiss and hurriedly undid the chains on him.

The bell fell to the floor.

I climbed off his lap and covered him with the quilt.

The thin blanket rose in a curved mound.

Shen Yunshi looked at me in confusion.

He signed, “You don’t want to play anymore? Do you want to continue somewhere else?”

I shook my head and gave him a stiff smile.

“No. I’m a little tired. Let’s forget it.”

Shen Yunshi moved his fingers. “I can do the moving.”

That would not do either.

The moment I thought about how I would be sold to a brothel and tortured to death in the future, panic seized me.

Before my mother died, she told me to live well.

How could I die?

I pushed Shen Yunshi away and went to bathe.

He wrapped an arm around my waist, lifted me into the wooden tub, and carefully washed me.

These were all things I had trained him and ordered him to do.

[The Male Lead is still acting like a servant for some village woman. Seriously? That’s disgusting.]

[The Male Lead is only reluctantly using her for practice because he owes her a debt. Once he goes back, he’ll be even better at serving the childhood-sweetheart heroine. They grew up together, and the Male Lead has had a crush on her for ages.]

[Just thinking about the Male Lead making the heroine unable to get out of bed gets me excited. Can we fast-forward already? I don’t want to watch this idiot Female Supporting Character. Other than being pretty, she’s completely useless.]

Childhood sweetheart?

So Shen Yunshi had someone he liked.

No wonder every time I teased him and asked if he liked me, he stayed silent and avoided my eyes.

I had thought he was simply bad with words.

So it turned out he hated me.

That made sense.

He was a precious young master. How could he possibly fall for me?

He had repaid his debt by serving me for so long. I should be satisfied.

I pushed his hand away and turned my back to him.

“You can go out. I can wash myself.”

He pressed his lips together and stiffly withdrew his hand.

I had been born with a cold constitution and could not do too much work.

I needed to find a husband to drive the cold from my body.

That was what my mother had done too, which was how she had me.

I bought Shen Yunshi from a human trafficker.

Back then, I had taken one look and set my heart on this tall, sturdy man.

His arms were so thick.

His thighs were so thick.

Yet his waist was very slim.

At a glance, anyone could tell he was fine stock for working the fields.

He was mute, so no one had wanted him.

The trafficker sold him to me cheaply, and I got a bargain.

The first thing I did after bringing him home was tell him what a live-in son-in-law ought to do.

I was also afraid that since he could not speak, he would not know what husband and wife were supposed to do.

So I bought an illustrated booklet for him to study.

Flushed with shame and anger, he stuffed it under the quilt and signed at me, scolding me for being shameless.

The older girl next door used to be mute too, so I could understand some simple signs.

But after she got married, I no longer had the chance to learn sign language.

Seeing his face turn red, I asked if he understood.

He said nothing.

After that, he kept his head down and worked the fields. Even though he lived in the same room as me, he never touched me at all.

He slept below the bed, and I slept on the bed.

I secretly tried to seduce him several times, but he would not even look at me properly.

If the temperature had not dropped in late autumn and left me shivering from the cold, he would not have reluctantly lifted the quilt and held me tightly.

After that, however, he became more and more skilled.

He had only looked at that illustrated booklet once.

How did he know how to do everything?

I could barely withstand it.