After Retiring to the Countryside, I Was Recruited as a Matrilocal Husband - Chapter 2

Cui Jun had been born into a family of scholar-officials; her father, Cui Yuanshu, had served as the Military Administrator of Ruzhou.

Four years ago, the rebel leader Li the Jiedushi of Huaixi had risen in open revolt, capturing Ruzhou. Her father had been slaughtered by the rebel forces, and the young Cui Jun had fled northward in frantic haste with her mother to seek refuge with her maternal uncle, Dou Liang, in Bianzhou.

Yet, the rebel army had advanced with unstoppable momentum. Following the fall of Ruzhou, Bianzhou quickly fell into enemy hands as well.

Dou Liang’s daughter, Cui Jun’s maternal cousin Dou Ying, was widely renowned for her extraordinary beauty. Consequently, she had been forcibly taken by the rebel leader Li to serve as his concubine. When imperial forces subsequently recaptured Bianzhou, the rebel leader executed a tactical retreat toward Caizhou, taking Dou Ying along with him.

Following that bitter separation, the two cousins had completely lost all track of one another.

Now that someone had delivered fortunate tidings regarding her cousin, Cui Jun naturally burst into tears of absolute relief.

She instinctively accepted the silk fabric to dry her tears, only remembering it belonged to someone else when a foreign fragrance drifted into her senses.

A wave of social awkwardness hit her, and she raised her eyes to steal a glance at Zhang Zhaoge. Observing her from such close proximity, she discovered to her absolute shock that the young officer possessed an remarkably clean, pale complexion and delicate features. With her ruby lips and pearly teeth, she could easily pass for a young mistress herself.

Recalling the historical accounts of Gao Changgong the Prince of Lanling during the Northern Qi dynasty, whose countenance was described as “resembling a woman” paired with the fact that Zhang Zhaoge was clad in heavy leather armor, Cui Jun found herself temporarily unable to decode the commander’s actual gender based on baseline physical traits.

Appearing entirely accustomed to the evaluating looks others directed toward her gender profile, Zhang Zhaoge remained completely unbothered. She smoothly directed the local garrison soldiers to transport the bandits’ corpses back, ordering them to be hung securely atop the gatehouse of the military pass to serve as an absolute deterrent to anyone plotting to emulate their outlaws.

Eradicating bandits counted as a substantial military achievement, and the garrison troops cheered in absolute jubilation. Fastening the outlaws’ corpses behind their steeds, they dragged them away, kicking up dense plumes of dust along the highway.

Zhang Zhaoge smoothly swung herself back into her saddle, lowering her chin to fix her eyes onto Cui Jun once more. Pointing a finger toward the girl’s face, she murmured, “There is blood on your cheek. Rinse it with water and wipe it clean.”

Only then did Cui Jun decode the young commander’s true intent behind presenting the silk.

“Many thanks, General. However, I—” Finding it improper to retain a silk piece belonging to an absolute stranger, Cui Jun prepared to return it. Yet, Zhang Zhaoge spurred her horse a fraction closer, tilting her chin up. “Refrain from addressing me as ‘General.’ I operate merely as a Vice Commander. There remains a final stretch of road ahead; I shall escort your party out of the pass since it is en route.”

Navigating the highway under the protection of garrison troops was naturally far safer than relying on her wounded private retainers. Setting aside the logistics of the silk piece for the moment, Cui Jun ordered her guards to lift the casualties onto the remaining two oxcarts, rapidly organizing the convoy to track the steady pace of the soldiers.

En route, Zhang Zhaoge deliberately decelerated her steed’s pace until she was riding parallel to the Cui family’s oxcart. She prompted, “Why does Seventh Young Mistress Cui not reside within Ruzhou?”

Cui Jun felt a trace of surprise. Why on earth would this officer raise such a query?

Reining in her thoughts, she realized that when Dou Ying commissioned someone to seek her out, she must have disclosed her background parameters. Her father had served as an official in Ruzhou during his lifetime, and the bulk of her family estate was located there as well. Anyone would naturally deduce that she still resided within Ruzhou.

No wonder Dou Ying had failed to locate her; her cousin had obviously never anticipated that she had been retrieved and brought back to the ancestral estate in Dengzhou.

Cui Jun replied, “I no longer possess close relatives within Ruzhou. My eldest paternal uncle retrieved me and installed me within Dengzhou to settle down.”

Zhang Zhaoge probed further, “In that case, why are your father and mother interred within Lushan County?”

“My late father perished near this region, so a burial site was selected locally. Following my mother’s passing, I had them interred together.”

Zhang Zhaoge let out a wave of absolute exasperation. “Ah! Had I known earlier, I would have commissioned someone to run inquiries throughout this exact Lushan County! No wonder we ploughed through the provincial capital for so long without gathering a single shred of useful data. Is this what they call the blind spot right beneath the lamp?”

The lively, playful register of her exclamation caught Cui Jun entirely off guard. It completely dismantled her initial thesis concerning these garrison soldiers whom she had coded as operating under a danger parameter no less severe than actual bandits. The grip Ye Tong held around the dagger hidden up her sleeve relaxed slightly.

Exiting the Luyuan Pass, Zhang Zhaoge led her detachment of one hundred garrison soldiers back toward the walled town.

Having successfully mapped Zhang Zhaoge’s identity parameters, Cui Jun was in no rush to extract further immediate updates regarding Dou Ying’s status from her mouth. Exchanging formal farewells, she accelerated her convoy toward Zhaoping Township in Lushan County.

The Cui Clan possessed extensive arable land, mountain timber, and a prominent country estate here an asset her father had meticulously managed for numerous years during his lifetime.

When the rebel forces had previously carved a path through this sector to march upon Ruzhou city years ago, they had subjected this exact country estate to a thorough campaign of plundering and destruction. Throughout these past two years, the villa had undergone a succession of renovations, restoring roughly seventy percent of its structural layout and gardens, successfully dispelling its former aura of absolute ruin.

Outside the estate gates, a young male servant stood alongside two adolescent attendants, tracking the horizon from a distance. The exact moment the familiar oxcarts materialized, the young servant advanced at a brisk jog, bowing low. “Young Mistress has endured a grueling journey.”

By the time Cui Jun stepped onto the pavement, she had already donned her traditional veiled hat.

Bypassing baseline social pleasantries, she commanded, “Secure physicians from the local township to treat the wounded immediately. As for those who unfortunately perished, ensure they are buried with absolute honor. Allocate thirty shi of rice and five duan of fabric [1] to each of their households, and see to it that their immediate families are properly settled.”

Catching sight of the casualties, the young servant’s face darkened with grief. He complied, “Understood.”

Entering the main hall, Cui Jun removed her veiled hat. A middle-aged maidservant advanced to meet her, only to halt dead in her tracks upon mapping the dried blood splattered across her features. Clamping a hand over her mouth, she let out a hushed gasp, “Heaven forbid, what on earth transpired out there?”

The moment the twin-bun maid, Chaoyan, spotted the senior servant, it was as if she had located the absolute outlet for her grievances. She immediately treated her to a comprehensive retelling of the bandit ambush they had encountered today.

The senior servant’s expression turned distinctly complex for a fleeting second bearing what almost looked like a trace of profound disappointment.

Assuming her eyes had played tricks on her, the maid prepared to evaluate her features closer, but a warm smile had already flooded the senior servant’s face. “The heavens be praised; as long as the Seventh Young Mistress returns in absolute safety, all is well. Those outlaws truly deserved to be slaughtered a magnificent execution.”

Cui Jun’s reaction remained completely flat, as though she hadn’t fully processed the shock of the day. Walking directly toward her private chambers, she summoned her maids to fetch water so she could wash her face.

Behind her back, the senior servant fixed her silhouette with a sharp, resentful look.

Washing her face and stripping away her blood-stained attire, the heart that had been suspended in absolute anxiety throughout the day finally settled into place. Warmth gradually flooded her icy extremities once more.

As she sat lost in thought, a chaotic wall of noise drifted in from the outer courtyard. Stepping out to investigate, she found the young servant clashing furiously in an argument with the senior servant.

The young servant was named Qingxi a hereditary retainer of the Cui house [2] whose father had served as a trusted personal administrator by her father’s side, only to be slaughtered alongside his master when the elder Cui perished.

Upon Cui Jun’s return to the Zhaoping country estate, facing a severe drought of trustworthy personnel, she had proactively elevated Qingxi to the track of Head Administrator, charging him with the uniform execution of all logistical matters across the estate.

The senior servant, however, was an asset deployed directly by her eldest paternal uncle, Cui Yuanfeng.

Her father and Cui Yuanfeng had been biological brothers, but because their third paternal uncle had passed away without leaving male heirs, her father being the youngest son had been formally adopted into that line to preserve the succession.

Regrettably, her father had likewise failed to produce a son, leaving Cui Jun as the absolute sole bloodline of his branch.

Following her father’s demise, while her mother and Cui Jun were securely trapped within Bianzhou, the extensive arable land belonging to their house had been smoothly assumed by Cui Yuanfeng’s management.

When her mother subsequently succumbed to illness, Cui Jun had transported her mother’s remains back to Ruzhou to be interred alongside her late father. She had originally intended to observe the traditional three-year mourning period right here at the Zhaoping villa. However, leveraging the thesis that a solitary young woman residing alone in the countryside would be vulnerable to exploitation, Cui Yuanfeng had aggressively relocated her to Dengzhou.

By the time Cui Jun reached her legal adulthood (Ji ji), more than half of the seven hundred qing of prime arable land belonging to her lineage was being actively farmed by the retainers of Cui Yuanfeng’s house, and her country villa was tightly policed by the senior servant standing before her face. It was all masked under the beautiful banner of worrying that the fields would go fallow without cultivation, or that the villa would be seized by outsiders claiming they were merely managing her empire on her behalf for the time being.

The friction between Qingxi and the senior servant stemmed precisely from Cui Jun’s directive to allocate compensation to the deceased guards and their families. The senior servant maintained that granting thirty shi of rice and five duan of fabric per person was far too extravagant, insisting the figures be downsized to ten shi of rice and three duan of fabric.

Given that the vast bulk of the estate’s yields had been coded by the senior servant as the private asset of Cui Yuanfeng’s primary branch, she naturally refused to permit Cui Jun to leverage “Cui Yuanfeng’s private property” to subsidize her own private guards.

Cui Jun’s eyes darkened significantly. Closing and opening her eyelids, she stripped every trace of sharp intellect from her expression, murmuring mildly, “Let us execute it based on those parameters then. The residual balance shall be drawn directly from my personal dowry reserves.”

The mistress’s immediate concession signaled an absolute victory to the senior servant. She threw a thoroughly haughty, dismissive glare straight at Qingxi.

Qingxi glared back, chest heaving with fury.

Cui Jun smoothly added, “Nanny Du, the compensation and rewards intended for the local garrison soldiers shall be drawn straight from the estate’s primary operating fund! After all, my eldest paternal uncle constantly emphasizes that he cherishes me exactly like his biological daughter. Were he to learn that my life was saved, he would undoubtedly mobilize the collective fortune of the entire clan to reward the garrison forces.”

The senior servant’s face rigidified instantly. Why on earth are the garrison soldiers suddenly being brought into the equation?

Had it merely concerned the private guards of the house, their deaths were entirely inconsequential—hardly worth investing actual coin to settle their families. Yet, the local garrison troops operated under completely different parameters. They carried the formal title of imperial soldiers, but in this chaotic era, what substantial difference existed between government soldiers and common bandits? If Cui Jun failed to deliver a proper reward, she could simply retreat back to the safety of Dengzhou. Should the garrison troops execute a campaign of retaliation in the future, the individual doomed to suffer the blunt force of their wrath would be none other than she, Nanny Du!

“What scale of reward must be prepared? Would ten thousand copper coins suffice?” Nanny Du inquired, her tone shifting.

Cui Jun tilted her head, her face a picture of pure, naive innocence. “The Vice Commander commands a detachment of over one hundred soldiers. If each man receives a mere one hundred coins, I am terrified they will decode the gesture as an absolute insult directed at their honor.”

Following the collapse of the traditional Fubing conscription system, the imperial military tracks had shifted completely toward aggressive recruitment drives targeting the destitute civilian population. The sole parameters governing a soldier’s loyalty were liquid coin and grain rations. Should the compensation downsize or the treatment slip, a military mutiny was an absolute certainty.

Case in point: barely five years ago, because a detachment of soldiers failed to receive their promised imperial rewards while executing a campaign to suppress a regional rebellion, they had instantly staged a violent mutiny, terrifying the Emperor into fleeing the capital of Chang’an entirely.

Nanny Du did not dare gamble her life against the baseline conscience of those rough garrison troops.

Cui Jun addressed her in a thoroughly innocent tone: “Since Nanny Du currently commands the estate’s primary fund, the logistics of preparing and personally delivering the rewards shall be executed by Nanny Du in person!”

This is nothing short of ordering me to march straight into my own execution! Terrified, Nanny Du’s legs began to shake violently. Should those ravenous garrison soldiers prove completely insatiable and take offense at the value of the gifts she brought, what on earth would happen if they detained her inside their military encampment?

Nanny Du opened her mouth to voice a protest, but Cui Jun casually dismissed her with a wave of her hand.