Chapter 3: Pumpkin and Corn

  A little maid with a double braid and wearing a pink underskirt stood at the entrance of Zhao Yan's bedroom, her round face and round eyes, plus a delicate small nose, looked cute no matter how you looked at her. Of course, if she could close her mouth and stop making that terrifying shriek, she would be even cuter.

  "Stop!" Zhao Yan's ears hurt from the other person's sharp cry, and he let out a loud roar, which finally made the other person stop crying. However, when this little girl saw that Zhao Yan was surrounded by smoke and had a cigarette in his mouth with a glowing ember, she immediately let out another sharp cry "Fire!", and then a basin of washing water was poured over him.

  "Ah~" Zhao Yan felt a chill run down his entire body, as if a basin of cold water had been poured over him from head to toe. Fortunately, it was already May, and although it had been raining continuously, the temperature wasn't low. Otherwise, if this had happened in winter, Zhao Yan would have frozen stiff.

  "Soybean sprout, I just smoked a cigarette, why did you splash water on me?" Zhao Yan spat out the wet cigarette butt from his mouth and shouted with a face full of grief and indignation. It's really when people are down on their luck, even drinking cold water can get stuck in their teeth, and smoking a cigarette will be splashed with cold water.

  "I...I..." The little maid named Xiaodouya was still confused, earlier when she came in, she saw smoke coming out of Zhao Yan's mouth and nose, which made her think it was a ghost, so she screamed. Later, seeing the smoke in the room, she instinctively poured water on it. Now her little head is still spinning, and she can only stare at Zhao Yan with wide, innocent eyes.

  At this moment, two women suddenly rushed in from outside. One of them was not very old but already dressed as a married woman, with a beautiful and elegant appearance. This woman was the first Northern Song Dynasty person Zhao Yan saw after crossing over, and also his nominal wife Cao Ying.

  "Xiao Douya, how are you? Have you been bullied?" Cao Ying and another maid rushed in and immediately asked Xiao Douya with concern, while giving Zhao Yan a wary and disdainful look. Since the night of the wedding, Cao Ying had been extremely disgusted with Zhao Yan, and if it wasn't necessary, she didn't even want to appear in front of others at the same time as Zhao Yan.

  "It's...it's nothing!" Xiaodouya replied, still somewhat flustered. She was a maid who had come with Cao Ying as her dowry and had been taking care of Zhao Yan, who had been bedridden after being struck by lightning. She was also the person Zhao Yan had the most contact with, but this 11- or 12-year-old little maid seemed to be very cautious around Zhao Yan too. Usually, apart from helping Zhao Yan with her daily needs, she never said an extra word to him.

  "Hey, are you kidding me? It was clearly Xiaodouya who splashed water all over me, how come you're not even asking if I'm okay?" Zhao Yan said discontentedly.

  After crossing over, he inherited some fragmented memories of the original Zhao Yan in his mind. These memories were scarce and mostly incomplete, but coincidentally included what happened to Zhao Yan on their wedding night. This made him quite disdainful of the original Zhao Yan and somewhat sympathetic towards Cao Ying. Adding to this, he had been dazed for the past few days, so he didn't have the mood to care about Cao Ying's atrocious attitude. However, now that he felt he should put down his emotional baggage and blend into his current life, seeing Cao Ying ignore him after being splashed with water without even asking a question made him somewhat indignant. After all, no matter what, he was still her husband.

  In response to Zhao Yan's dissatisfaction, Cao Ying just gave him a light glance and then slightly opened her vermilion lips, saying: "Although Xiaodouya is my dowry, she is still young. Moreover, the Duke was previously ordered by the imperial court and the empress herself to avoid women before his body recovers, so please, Your Highness, restrain yourself!"

  After Cao Ying finished speaking, she didn't listen to Zhao Yan's explanation and took Xiao Douya away. Zhao Yan was so angry that he almost jumped up and scolded his mother. Cao Ying thought that he had done something to Xiao Douya without asking about the situation, which is why Xiao Douya splashed water on him. This is an insult to his character. You should know that Xiao Douya is only 11 or 12 years old, just like the students he taught in the future. No matter what, he would not take advantage of a young girl who has not yet developed physically. Moreover, he is currently prohibited from approaching women by his nominal parents in this life because the imperial physician said that there is a problem with his body.

  As soon as Zhao Yan thought of his physical problems, he suddenly became worried again. In his previous life, he had also seen many cross-dressing, and the most common cross-dressing was being struck by lightning. Unfortunately, he was a victim of this kind of cross-dressing. Not only was he struck by lightning in his previous life, but when he came to the Song Dynasty, he was also struck by lightning, and it was the mysterious ball-shaped lightning in nature.

  What's even more unfortunate is that before the ball lightning struck Zhao Yan, it circled around the Wang Mansion, and many guests and people in the mansion saw it. As a result, on the second day, the news of the Guangyang Duke being struck by lightning on his wedding night became the biggest news in Kaifeng City. Everyone who mentioned this incident would become an eight-trigram god, exercising their imagination to add oil and vinegar, and rumors about Zhao Yan's lightning strike had already spread throughout the land, even reaching Liao and Western Xia. As a result, Zhao Yan has now become a famous person among the three countries of Song, Liao, and Xia, but unfortunately, this fame is mostly negative.

  Zhao Yan was originally a dissolute person, his body had long been hollowed out by wine and lust, otherwise he would not have used aphrodisiacs on the wedding night, and then being struck by mysterious spherical lightning, this not only made Zhao Yan become the later Zhao Yan, but also caused some unknown harm to Zhao Yan's body. These days, Zhao Yan has been bedridden, apart from being unable to accept the fact of crossing over, his body is also very weak.

  What worried him even more was that after several imperial physicians had diagnosed him for a few days, they came to the conclusion that Zhao Yan's body was very weak and needed to abstain from sex and rest for a period of time. In terms of diet, he also needs to be careful not to eat greasy or fishy foods, which means he needs to cultivate his mind and desires for a long time. As for when his body will recover, the imperial physician couldn't say for sure, and could only check Zhao Yan's body every now and then and make adjustments accordingly.

  Before, Zhao Yan didn't care much about his physical condition, but now that he thinks about it, what if he really had erectile dysfunction or some other problem? That would be too depressing. Thinking of this, Zhao Yan quickly pulled down and took a look at his little brother, and fortunately, the foundation was not bad. Then he looked around to make sure no one was watching, stuck his hand in, and felt it out, recalling the Japanese adult films he had seen in his past life, especially the scenes with "Yatouweng" (a mythical creature).

  "It's great, there's a reaction, I finally don't have to be a eunuch!" Zhao Yan looked at his little brother who had lifted his head and let out a relieved sigh. Then he took off the wet clothes on his body and changed into dry ones. To say that he originally had his own maidservant taking care of him, but since being forbidden from desire, the Emperor and Empress had assigned the task of supervising him to Cao Ying. As a result, Cao Ying had transferred all the female creatures around him away, leaving the inner courtyard of the Duke's mansion empty and desolate, with only the people Cao Ying had brought with her remaining. That little bean sprout was one of the maidservants assigned to take care of Zhao Yan, but she ended up splashing water all over him.

  Her body was fine, which made Zhao Yan feel great. The depression from being wronged earlier also disappeared. Seeing the items on the bed that had not been tidied up yet, Zhao Yan sat back down and continued to tidy up.

  Apart from the daily necessities and lighter, there wasn't much left. The most eye-catching things were two corn stalks and a piece of pumpkin. Looking at these two things, Zhao Yan's mood, which had just improved, became gloomy again. If it weren't for these two things, he might have already returned to school to teach his students.

  Zhao Yan originally took the package with the microscope from the county town and was taking the bus back to school, but unexpectedly the bus broke down halfway. Looking at the sky getting dark and the distance to school not being too far, Zhao Yan decided to get off and take a shortcut walking back to school. At that time, he had skipped lunch in order to catch the bus, so his stomach was growling all the way.

  Zhao Yan walked along the shortcut, both sides of which were cornfields, and occasionally someone planted a little pumpkin. Zhao Yan felt that his stomach was really hungry, so he dug up a piece of pumpkin from the field to fill it first. However, what Zhao Yan did not expect was that after digging up the pumpkin, he found that at the head of this field, there was a sign standing upright with six big words written on it: "Stealing pumpkins will be struck by lightning".

  Originally, people who walked on the land would get hungry and pull out a piece of pumpkin or pick two cucumbers, which didn't count as stealing. At least that's what Zhao Yan's students told him, so when he was in school, if he got hungry at night, he'd go to the fields outside the school and pull out two corn stalks or get some peanuts, boil them and have a decent midnight snack. No villagers ever blamed him for it, but unexpectedly, he ran into a petty ghost here who would curse him to be struck by lightning just for taking a piece of pumpkin.

  Zhao Yan was a young man with a somewhat stubborn temper. Originally, he just wanted to grab a piece of calabaza to alleviate his hunger. But now that he saw the sign erected by the other party, his temper flared up. He immediately went down to the field and pulled off two green corn stalks from the cornstalks, stuffing them into his bag for a midnight snack. He wanted to see how this petty ghost would get struck by lightning.

  In fact, Zhao Yan was also wrong. Since someone had set up a sign, they wouldn't want others to take the grain they grew. Of course, this also shows that the other person is petty, but no matter how petty they are, it's still their private business. This land is their private property, and without their consent, Zhao Yan taking away the crops from the land is against the law.

  Zhao Yan was also choked with rage, stuffing corn and pumpkin into his pockets as he walked back on the road. Just as he thought of taking out the small knife from his keychain to peel the pumpkin, something he never expected happened - the curse of the field owner actually worked! A blue lightning bolt suddenly appeared in the clear sky and struck him right on the head, rendering him completely unconscious. When he opened his eyes again, what he saw was Cao Ying, the new bride, and his identity had changed to that of Zhao Yan, the third son of Emperor Song Yingzong of the Song Dynasty.