Chapter 406: Childishness
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Hearing Wan’er’s words, Fan Xian’s face immediately darkened. Remembering that his wife wasn’t feeling well, he quickly pushed a warm smile on to his face. Smiling slightly he said, “Why think about what you can and cannot have? Sir Fei is my teacher and has watched me grow up from a young age. That medicine is something that the teacher brought over from Dongyi with great difficulty when we got married. How could he not understand the logic of powerful medicine being complementary? In this year, when you took the medicine, your body clearly improved. You can’t stop taking it…you little silly egg.”
Lin Wan’er smiled slightly. There was a trace of exhaustion in her smile and she said lightly, “Naturally, Teacher Fei’s medicine is good, but…Grandmaster Ku He said…”
Without waiting for his wife to finish speaking, Fan Xian was already saying resolutely and decisively, “When it comes to fighting and debating martial arts, of course, Grandmaster Ku He is a leading figure in the world, but when speaking of diagnosing illness and taking medicine, he can’t even compare to one pinky finger of teacher and myself. Listen to him? You might as well listen to a sow.”
Although he controlled himself, Wan’er still heard the anger deep in his voice. She gently pulled his hand and said comfortingly, “Don’t be angry. Although I stopped taking the medicine, the doctor has seen to me and said that the old illness is already gone. Only, I might be a bit bloated recently and so my body might be a bit weak.”
Fan Xian shook his head. Half sitting on the bed, he held Wan’er in his arms and gently patted her shoulder, “Your body is the most important thing. Don’t listen to what other people say.”
Wan’er leaned into his embrace. After a moment of silence, she slowly said, “But…I really want to have a child.”
Fan Xian was silent, thinking of something. A moment later, he said, “I don’t want to be angry with you…but I want you to know that this matter is not up for discussion. As long as you are healthy, whether or not we have children, what does it matter?”
In this world, it was a great crime to not have descendants. Wan’er and Fan Xian had already been married a year and a half yet there had not been not a peep from her stomach. Wan’er often remembered this in her everyday life and felt unhappy. Yet, at this moment, hearing Fan Xian’s powerful and resonating tone, she was momentarily shocked.
Wan’er emotions were complicated. It seemed that she should feel happy, yet there was a faint sorrow and some feelings of regret.
Fan Xian watched his wife’s unhappy expression and couldn’t help letting out a sigh. He extended a finger to rub gently between her brows and gently said, “In this world, there are many who stupidly think…that not being able to have children is the fault of the woman, but in reality, let me tell you, whether or not there are children is the business of the couple…I think, it is very likely that I have some kind of deficiency of semen disease. How is that related to you?”
This was a naughty hoke to comfort Wan’er but hearing this, Lin Wan’er was dumbfounded. She thought her husband really was thick skinned to say those words out loud, but she completely did not understand what illness Fan Xian was talking about. She only faintly understood that Fan Xian wanted to pull the blame onto himself and couldn’t resist rolling her eyes. “What nonsense are you saying? Whether or not we have children? What does that have to do with the men?”
Fan Xian laughed out loud and said, “Who says it has nothing to do with them? Otherwise, you try to have Lao Yao and Lao Dai from the Palace have a few children?”
Lin Wan’er was shocked again.
Fan Xian continued with a smile, “Even the most profound Eunuch Hong, if you ask him to have children, he wouldn’t be able to do it…thus, having children involves both the man and woman.”
Lin Wan’er immediately recovered her spirit. Her cheeks flushed red and huffed, “The more you talk the more unreasonable it is.”
Fan Xian contained his laughter and said seriously, “Then let’s talk about something serious, you have to keep taking the medicine.”
Lin Wan’er listened and made a sound of acknowledgment, but her eyes flashed. Fan Xian watched with his head lowered and couldn’t stop a sigh in his heart. He knew he wouldn’t be able to convince her. Wan’er, this girl, was usually very simple-minded and pleasant but sharp as ice within. However, when faced with an important matter involving her and Fan Xian, she was unusually stubborn.
The scientific logic that Fan Xian had spoken of, probably even the very unconventional Haitang wouldn’t be able to believe it, so naturally, Wan’er was like this.
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“Why must we have children?” Fan Xian held his wife tenderly and said gently. “Look at your life as a child in the Palace or think of my exile as a child to Danzhou and you will know. After you’ve had a child, you have to raise them. If you don’t raise them well, it would have been better not to have had them in the first place.”
Lin Wan’er lowered her head and pursed her lips. Very calmly and confidently, she disagreed, “We are not them. We can raise our child well.”
Fan Xian felt a thread of helplessness. “But…if it is really because of me that we cannot have children, then we won’t have any. It’s not as important as your health.”
Although Lin Wan’er felt warm, she still stubbornly shook her head. “I want a child.”
Fan Xian said, with a headache, “Always this stubborn.”
Lin Wan’er raised her head to look at him. Her long eyelashes lightly fluttered. “I want to have a child with you…this year, you’ve either been in Northern Qi or in Jiangnan, I’m very lonely…”
Although it was only part of the reason, hearing it still made thick remorse rise in Fan Xian’s heart. He didn’t know what to say.
The two of them hugged quietly. Perhaps incited because of their body temperature, Wan’er gently began to cough again. She didn’t want Fan Xian to worry, so she did her bests to suppress it causing her face to flush bright red and become very pitiful. Fan Xian felt his heart twist and gently rubbed her chest. Comfortingly, he said, “Don’t think so much. After we reach Hangzhou, I’ll take of you carefully…as for Sir Fei’s medicine, I’ll analyze it carefully again. No matter what, you can’t stop taking it.”
Lin Wan’er raised her head and looked pitifully at him like a little cat.
Fan Xian set his face and put on a fiendish expression. “This matter is not up for discussion.”
Lin Wan’er pouted with her full lips and rubbed her head on his chest.
Fan Xian sighed and began to massage her to relax her state of mind. As his hands rubbed in circles, he used a thread of the pure zhenqi of the Tianyi Dao. Wan’er only felt her body warm and her thoughts gradually clearing. The exhaustion in her body after the long journey became stronger and just like that, she peacefully fell asleep leaning on his body.
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Fan Xian walked out of the bedroom. He stretched and eased his rigid limbs.
The wife of the Teng family approached and talked to him about what happened on the trip. As Fan Xian listened he nodded. It seemed like after leaving Jingdou and away from the surveillance of his father, Wan’er had begun to stop taking her medicine. This action could be said to be brave, but it could also be called impetuous.
However, Fan Xian could not feel an iota of anger. Although he still felt, in the depths of his heart, that Wan’er should care the most about her body as it was for the matter of children, how could he bear to let Wan’er be unhappy?
Ordering the wife of the Teng family to prepare the medicine usually used, she said, awkwardly, “If the Mistress won’t take it, then what?”
Fan Xian lowered his head and thought for a bit. “After it’s prepared, come tell me. I will give it to her.”
Joy welled up in the Teng family’s wife’s face. After praising heaven a few times, she went in great spirits.
Arriving at the front hall, he was greeted by Deng Zi Yue, whom he had sent to Shazhou to pick up Wan’er. He gave him another run down of what happened on the trip. The Jiangnan water bandits were very well behaved, and there were also Jiangnan navy stationed here so Wan’er and her group had not run into any problems as they followed the river down.
Fan Xian nodded. He sat down and suddenly sighed, worry rose on his face.
Deng Zi Yue was slightly surprised, thinking, This commissioner, even when he was facing the Second Prince in Jingdou or when he was killing people in Jiangnan in the night, he had never shown such a grim expression, what had happened? He guessed in his heart that perhaps the battle for the position of the main wife in the Fan manor had already begun. This scared him and he became quiet and lowered his head, not saying anything.
Fan Xian had no idea what Deng Zi Yue was thinking, he was just remembering Wan’er’s earlier words. Did Sir Fei’s medicine…really have such severe side-effects?
Before he went from Danzhou to Jingdou to be married, before he met Wan’er at the Qing Temple, Fan Xian already knew that his wife had long had tuberculosis. This kind of illness, in this world, could practically be considered a terminal illness. However, when young men and women left, they also had endless courage to welcome future illness, so at that time, he only strongly suppressed that faint fear.
Fortunately, there was Sir Fei Jie. On the night of their marriage, Sir Fei returned from Dongyi with great difficulty and brought back a miracle medicine just for tuberculosis. The medicine was called Iced Smoke and took Sie Fei four years to acquire.
Four years before the wedding, there was already the rumor in the Palace of a marriage between the Fan and Lin families.
The medicine that had taken so much time and energy was indeed effective. Wan’er persisted in taking it. Each time, she only scraped a little off from that medicinal pill and use a medicinal soup to take it. Her body gradually improved, and she no longer coughed. The doctors in the Palace all agreed that the Princess’ tuberculosis completely disappeared like a miracle.
But…side-effects?
“Tortoiseshell soaked in vinegar,” Fan Xian recalled the ingredients in the medicinal pill, “foxglove, donkey-hide glue, beeswax…what do these have to do with having children?”
But he immediately remembered, on the night of his wedding, Fei Jie’s expression as he spoke.
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“After taking the medicine, all bedroom matters must stop for a month.”
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Naturally, this was a naughty joke, but recalling it now, Fan Xian found that his teacher did seem to have been hiding some important information. And later…Fan Xian always found it strange why Sir Fei Jie very rarely saw him as if the other party was hiding from something.
Was it to say…the true side-effects of the Iced Smoke was that it would damage the patient’s ability to have children?
Sitting in the chair, Fan Xian couldn’t help but shake his head. As long as Wan’er’s illness could be cured, as long as the tuberculosis never came back, as long as she was healthy, what did it matter whether or not they could have children?
Speaking of which, in his previous life what Fan Xian found the most perplexing was that sometimes on TV or in novels the doctor of the delivery ward would have a very serious expression and come out of the delivery room to tell the pregnant woman’s family that it was a difficult birth and they could only save one. Did they want to save the adult or the child?
Save the adult or the child? Did this need to be asked? Fan Xian had always thought this was the stupidest question, definitely stupid to the extreme.
Fan Xian was not stupid.
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“Old bald donkey!” Fan Xian stared coldly at the stone tiles in front of him. A dark fire grew in his eyes and he said sinisterly, “You idiot!”
Deng Zi Yue started, he didn’t understand the phrase “idiot” but it was clear that the commissioner was angry to the point of exploding. He quickly comforted, “Sir, calm down, calm down.”
Fan Xian cursed explosively, “Calm the f*ck down!” He slammed down with his hand and shattered the table beside him. He cursed sinisterly, “That bastard old bald donkey, just what evil intentions does he have?”
Putting aside whether or not Sir Fei’s medicine had side-effects, they had truly benefited Wan’er’s body greatly. After she stopped taking the medicine, her body clearly became weaker. Who knew what would happen in the future? Wan’er had stopped taking the medicine because Ku He had exposed this matter…but why would Ku He do this?
Fan Xian did not believe that Ku He was a pure person who bemoaned the state of the universe and pitied the fate of mankind. Fan Xian believed that the matter of whether or not his wife could have children would not be so important to Ku He.
Each time he thought of the fact that Wan’er old illness had almost relapsed due to these words of Ku He’s, Fan Xian’s finger began to shake and his anger rose. He felt it difficult to suppress the urge to kill someone.
He rose with his eyes full of a sinister fire. He stared at Deng Zi Yue and said, “Send an order to Su Wenmao and Xia Qifei. Lower by one grade the goods being sent North this year!”
Deng Zi Yue gaped wondering what had just happened. In their deal with Northern Qi, both sides had been very happy this entire time. Suddenly this happened, it seemed that it would damage the big picture. He couldn’t help but try to mediate. “Sir, although I don’t know what has happened, if we lower the grade by one, that would mean that Northern Qi would lose hundreds of thousands liang of silver…this is a big matter.”
Fan Xian knew that Deng Zi Yue was advising him not to let his personal grievances hurt the bigger picture. He smiled coldly and said, “I am a person who will get revenge if wronged. Someone doesn’t want my family to be happy, so I will make his country not happy. To use a few hundred thousand liang in exchange for a dozen days of my wife coughing is already letting him off easy.”
Deng Zi Yue heard the sinister chill in his voice and did not speak of again. He carefully asked, “Just what happened?”
Fan Xian did not reply.
“Sir, you said a bald donkey…what donkey is that?”
Fan Xian smiled coldly and said, “It is Ku He of Northern Qi, that hairless old donkey.”
Deng Zi Yue was silent. He was so shocked he didn’t dare say anything. He quietly thought that since the commissioner dared to curse out Sigu Jian—or perhaps it wasn’t Sigu Jian—in the middle of the street, to curse Ku He as an old donkey in his own home at this time did not seem to be a big deal.
Fan Xian continued coldly, “Send a message to Wang Qinian, have him be ready to announce the news.”
“Yes.” Deng Zi Yue accepted his orders and asked, “What specification, around what time?”
“Specification?” Fan Xian narrowed his eyes. “Within three days, have everyone in Northern Qi know of a story and have the people believe in this story…as for what time, listen for my order.”
“Yes.”
If it wasn’t for the fact that Ruoruo had gone to study under Ku he, Fan Xian wished he could have sent out the message of Ku He’s oppressive actions today. Although he knew that this kind of rumor would not significantly damage Ku He’s majestic reputation, he would not gain any true benefit from it. It definitely was not the best time to put out this information.
Fan Xian could not endure it. Since he could not kill Ku He, then he had to do something in revenge. Most of the time, Fan Xian appeared to be a dark and sinister person, but when it involved the people he cared about the most, he would be angry like a lion. Even though he knew he wouldn’t get much out of it, or even suffer a loss, he would still roar to protect his territory.
No matter what Ku He was thinking, Wan’er had indeed stopped taking the medicine because of his words, so Fan Xian would certainly make sure Northern Qi and Ku He himself suffered some losses.
Perhaps it was a bit childish, but Fan Xian could still be considered a person because of this childishness.
