After all, Su Liyan had formally paid respects to the ancestors with Lu Yuan and was his proper wife.
’What did that make the two of them?’
However, they were still lost in thought.
As they mulled it over, Aunt Zhao and Aunt Song looked up to see Lu Yuan staring at them with a mischievous smile.
In that mont, they seed to understand.
The two won glanced at each other, and a blush crept onto the faces of these two charming, mature beauties.
Just then, with two soft yelps,
Aunt Zhao and Aunt Song were both pulled into Lu Yuan’s embrace.
Then ca two crisp SMACKS. Lu Yuan raised an eyebrow and said:
"Go change into warr clothes. You’re coming back with us!"
The two won gave Lu Yuan a bashful glare, then held hands and hurried toward the East Wing.
As it happened, they ran right into Su Liyan, who was just coming out of her room.
Seeing the two aunts in such a state, Su Liyan threw herself into her husband’s arms and cooed:
"Dear~~
You’re teasing Aunt Zhao and the others again~"
Lu Yuan was taken aback for a mont, then said with an amused laugh:
"Oh?
So you’re on their side now?"
But Su Liyan just giggled in Lu Yuan’s arms.
"I’m always on your side, dear~"
...
As the sun began to rise, the Zhao Family’s carriage made its way down the main road of Taiping City.
The air in Taiping City was filled with the sll of gunpowder and sulfur.
Ordinary families couldn’t afford fireworks, but they could manage a few strings of firecrackers.
The ground was littered with the red paper shreds of exploded firecrackers.
But what was even more nurous than the firecracker debris was the people!
Every household was out and about, paying their New Year’s visits.
The New Year’s visits in Taiping City, in particular, were not so different from those in Shandong back on Earth.
Here, people paid their respects in large groups.
A single family could have dozens of people turn out.
Adults, youths, and even seven- or eight-year-old children.
After gathering in the west of the city, they would head to the ho of an elder—an old matriarch or patriarch—in the east to pay their respects.
The processions were a truly spectacular sight.
It almost looked like a scene from sumr, when villagers would grab their tools to go fight over water rights.
So people even began their obeisances right there on the main road.
Dozens of people knelt and kowtowed together to an old woman with gray hair, who, despite leaning on a cane, was dressed in bright new clothes.
The old woman, her face wreathed in smiles, repeatedly waved her hands, urging them all to rise quickly.
Sights like this were incredibly common.
In just a short while, Lu Yuan’s group had already seen several such processions.
"Dear~
When we’re old, let’s be like this too~"
Su Liyan, sitting in Lu Yuan’s lap, cooed as she watched the scene outside the window before turning back to look at him.
Lu Yuan hugged his wife, grinning.
"We’d have to have so many kids for that."
Those dozens of people weren’t all the old woman’s own sons and grandsons.
It wasn’t like that.
It just ant the old woman held an extrely high rank within the large, extended family.
The ones kneeling to her might be her nephews and other relatives.
If it all depended on one person, how many would she have to bear?
But Su Liyan cooed:
"Let’s have ten sons~
Besides, there’s still Aunt Zhao and Aunt Song. They can have children too~"
Regarding the matter of her husband and the two aunts, Su Liyan had naturally felt a bit awkward about it at first.
After all, no matter how virtuous or considerate Su Liyan was, the sudden developnt had been unsettling.
But while it had been unsettling at the ti, she later thought it over and realized it wasn’t a big deal.
The whole family had long been living under one roof.
And since they all got along so well, Su Liyan no longer felt awkward about it.
In fact, it was Song iqin and Zhao Qiao’Er who were still a bit bashful, acting like young maidens.
They would get embarrassed whenever the topic ca up.
Especially in front of Su Liyan, they would avoid it.
Su Liyan, however, had long since co to terms with it and spoke about it openly.
As soon as Su Liyan finished speaking, both Zhao Qiao’Er and Song iqin’s faces turned red.
They glanced at each other, their expressions incredibly bashful.
But they didn’t say anything.
Lu Yuan, however, just hugged his wife and chuckled.
"We don’t need that many. What would we do with so many? Two for each of you is plenty.
One boy and one girl each—how nice would that be."
Giving birth was a dangerous affair in ancient tis.
Forget commoners—how many of the Emperor’s own wives had died in childbirth?
Heck, forget ancient tis.
Even in modern tis, childbirth was a grueling ordeal.
A woman who could successfully give birth to six or seven children would be awarded so title like "Hero Mother" or what-have-you.
But Lu Yuan’s words displeased Su Liyan, who imdiately protested in a coquettish tone:
"Oh, dear~
Everyone wants to have boys. Who wants girls? No, we have to have boys.
Don’t say things like that during the New Year."
Lu Yuan held his wife, who had a completely serious expression, and burst out laughing.
’If his wife said sothing like that back where he ca from, she’d be in for a world of trouble.’
But this era was different, and it was perfectly normal for his wife to have such thoughts.
Not to ntion, she was a village girl who had seen all sorts of things growing up.
Every family wanted a son, not just to carry on the family line, but also to be cared for in old age.
A family without a son was unacceptable—there would be no one to carry on!
If a family only had daughters, then after they died, there would be no one to burn incense and paper money for them during the New Year.
This was what was known as having one’s family line end.
Take Lu Yuan himself, for instance. If he weren’t the only son in the family, who would have returned for the New Year?
The ancestral tablets would probably grow moldy and get covered in dust, and no one would ever touch them.
After a long ti, if the village ran out of space for ancestral tablets...
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