Marrying a White Snake Wife is Super Cool-Chapter 57: If You Don’t Talk, I’ll Castrate You All

Chapter 57: Chapter 57: If You Don’t Talk, I’ll Castrate You All

"Once it’s redecorated according to the blueprints I designed, it’ll be gorgeous. Just you wait and see!"

On the street, Lu Yuan squeezed his wife’s soft little hand and said proudly.

Su Liyan leaned closely against her man, her face a picture of bliss as she nodded.

For the past six days, Lu Yuan hadn’t been idle for a moment.

First, he briefly looked over the two books the system had just rewarded him with.

One was the Multiplication Factor reward from his mother-in-law, *Shennong*.

As the name suggested, he knew what it was for the moment he saw the title.

It was all about farming—increasing crop yields, grafting, selective breeding, and the like.

However, Lu Yuan had no intention of becoming a farmer anytime soon.

So after a quick glance, he set it aside.

The other book was the Multiplication Factor reward from his brother-in-law, Su Changliang: *alchemy*.

As far as Lu Yuan was concerned, this was a real treasure.

Alchemy was all about fusing various materials together.

With alchemy, Lu Yuan could upgrade the crude lathes of the Divine Ling Empire—machines that could currently only produce simple items like washbasins, mugs, or thermoses.

He could upgrade them into precision stamping presses capable of manufacturing ammunition.

This was difficult stuff, though. He would have to learn it slowly, one step at a time.

After all, he also had to study *Celestial Master*.

Besides studying the system’s rewards each day, Lu Yuan also had to teach his wife how to read every day.

His wife was no dumb beauty; she was incredibly smart and understood things instantly.

But no matter how smart she was, for her to go from being completely illiterate to fluently reading all kinds of texts...

...that would take at least half a year.

After all, it wasn’t as if they spent all day just reading and writing. They had other business to attend to.

Over the past six days, Lu Yuan’s main project had been the Underground Heating System.

Well, not exactly. The Underground Heating System itself was simple; Lu Yuan had already mastered it from studying *Craftsmanship*.

Lu Yuan’s main focus lately was renovating his new house.

Lu Yuan had inspected the mansion Zhao Qiao’Er had bought for him, and it was quite impressive—a grand residence with two main courtyards.

In Taiping City, this was considered top-of-the-line. The only residence larger, a three-courtyard mansion, belonged to the Zhao Family.

Even the County Magistrate’s residence was only a two-courtyard estate.

The location was excellent, situated in a bustling district and only about a half-hour walk from Aunt Zhao’s home.

Lu Yuan had seen that Aunt Zhao was already having people furnish the place.

But Lu Yuan wasn’t completely satisfied.

As someone from the modern era, his sense of aesthetics was vastly different from that of the locals.

Other aspects were manageable, but the main problem was a common flaw in these large city mansions.

The courtyards were small and cluttered with various side buildings, and the windows were also small. This made the entire interior dark and gloomy, with terrible natural lighting.

It was nothing like his village house, which was just one main building, with two small wings at most, facing south with a large, well-lit courtyard.

Living in such a dim and dreary house just felt... off.

It felt like one of those old, haunted mansions from a horror movie.

Lu Yuan didn’t like it. So, with a decisive wave of his hand, he decided, ’Forget it, I’ll renovate it myself.’

Besides, installing the Underground Heating System would require gutting the place anyway.

He didn’t discuss this with Aunt Zhao; there was no need to.

After all, Lu Yuan was paying for the renovations out of his own pocket, and he was drawing up the designs himself.

He would also be the one buying the materials and hiring the workers.

Lu Yuan had spent most of the past six days at the mansion, measuring the dimensions of every room.

Then, every evening after returning home, he would stay in his room and brainstorm the renovation plans.

He had finalized the plans today. Tomorrow, he would go find workers to get started.

Once he had the workers, he would also demolish the East Wing of Aunt Zhao’s house and start work on the Warm Pavilion with its underground heating.

As for his relationship with Aunt Zhao after moving in these past few days... how had that changed?

People say that absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Before, when they weren’t living together, perhaps Aunt Zhao had been desperately fond of Lu Yuan.

Besides, people can be fickle.

When you can’t have something, you desire it so badly it drives you crazy.

But once you get it and the desire is satisfied...

...you find out that, well, it wasn’t all that special after all.

How to put it? It was hard to say, hard to tell for sure.

So what was the situation...?

The truth was, Aunt Zhao was just too busy.

Despite living under the same roof for the past six days, they had barely seen each other.

Often, Aunt Zhao would leave in the morning without breakfast and return very late at night.

Sometimes, two or three days would pass without them even seeing each other.

But even if they didn’t cross paths, every time Aunt Zhao returned, she would send someone to deliver something to them the next day.

For instance, if she saw a beautiful piece of clothing in a shop while in the southern part of the city yesterday, she would buy it.

If they had breakfast together the next day, she would personally give it to Lu Yuan and Su Liyan.

If she had to leave early again and couldn’t see them, she would have a maid deliver it instead.

Of course, the gift-giving wasn’t one-sided.

Lu Yuan wasn’t short on cash himself. Whenever he was out with his wife and saw a beautiful bracelet, piece of jewelry, or something similar, he would buy two.

One for his wife, and one for Aunt Zhao.

If he didn’t see her, he’d have a maid deliver it.

Every time Aunt Zhao received a gift from Lu Yuan, she would beam, unable to close her mouth. She would immediately take off whatever jewelry she was wearing and replace it with his gift.

In any case, Lu Yuan knew that Zhao Qiao’Er treated him differently from everyone else.

But Lu Yuan knew how to handle the situation and wouldn’t stir up any trouble.

So there was really nothing to worry about.

They arrived home shortly after. Squeezing his wife’s soft little hand, Lu Yuan walked along the covered corridor toward the central courtyard.

From a distance, he could see a crowd of Daoists gathered in the main hall of the front courtyard.

Inside the hall, a heated argument was taking place.

Lu Yuan led his wife closer to listen, and he immediately understood what was happening.

The moment he heard it, that was it. Lu Yuan took his wife by the hand, ready to go in and set things straight.

First of all, his wife had done nothing wrong that day.

He knew this because he was also an expert on the matter now.

Especially over the past few days, his understanding of things like Daoist Talismans had improved by leaps and bounds.

And there was only one reason for that: his wife was an excellent teacher.

She might be illiterate, but being unable to read words didn’t mean she couldn’t understand images.

The book *Celestial Master* contained diagrams of Daoist Talismans, and although his wife couldn’t read the text, she could understand the diagrams.

Once she understood them, she would explain to Lu Yuan what each one was and what it was used for.

With his wife’s simple, straightforward explanations, the dry and obscure terms in *Celestial Master* became easy to comprehend.

Now that he understood, Lu Yuan knew for a fact that his wife had done nothing wrong that day.

He had to go clear this up. Besides, if he didn’t go now, someone would come looking for him eventually.

The guards had seen them swap the Daoist Talisman at the time.

Just as Lu Yuan took his wife’s hand and was about to step inside,

he saw Zhao Qiao’Er. Her body, a thing of beauty coveted by countless men, was lolling in a wooden chair, one leg crossed over the other.

At that moment, Zhao Qiao’Er was holding a Jade-Mouthed Pipe, her expression as sinister as a viper’s.

She stared at the guards kneeling in the main hall and said in a bone-chilling voice:

"You were the ones on duty in the central courtyard these past few days."

"If you claim you saw nothing, nobody will believe you."

"Talk, or I’ll have you all castrated. Not a single man in your families will be spared!!"

Lu Yuan had stumbled right into this scene, and her sinister appearance and bone-chilling words made him shiver involuntarily.

’Aunt Zhao is actually kind of terrifying like this...’

’Sure enough, Aunt Zhao is still Aunt Zhao—the Black Widow who terrifies all of Taiping City.’

’She’s just different when she’s around me...’