BDSMST -Chapter 64 The First Meal — The General’s “Show of Authority”

Jiang Suisui paused and turned back to look at him calmly.

Gu Yan’s deep, unfathomable eyes locked tightly onto her.

“Shouldn’t we have a talk?”

His voice was hoarse and oppressive—the same tone he used to issue orders in the army, accustomed to having everyone hold their breath and listen.

Jiang Suisui looked at him. The faint flush on her face from the kitchen heat had already faded. She did not answer his question. Instead, she walked back to the table, took out a clean set of bowls and chopsticks from a nearby cabinet, and placed them in front of the empty seat before him.

The crisp clink of porcelain sounded especially clear in the quiet warm chamber.

“Eat first,” she said, her tone flat and without a ripple of emotion, as if speaking to an ordinary guest. “We can talk after the meal. The rule of the estate is that no matter how important the matter, it doesn’t interfere with mealtime.”

All the questions, anger, and inexplicable frustration Gu Yan had built up along the journey were stopped in his throat by her light remark. He looked at the woman before him. She was busy handing out bowls and chopsticks to Gu Xuan and the boys who were peeking in curiously. Her movements were brisk, her expression natural. She did not treat him—the head of the family, the marquis who had just returned from the battlefield—as someone who deserved special attention.

He felt the powerful aura he had accumulated along the way hit nothing but soft cotton—soundless, forceless, with nowhere to land.

“Come in and sit properly. Time to eat,” Jiang Suisui called.

The boys immediately cheered and crowded in. Wei Ziqian, Qian Duoduo, and the others voluntarily brought over long benches and squeezed in around the stone table. They looked at Gu Yan with curiosity and a bit of awe, but more than that, there was distance. To them, this man was merely a “Marquis” from legend—a symbol belonging to the capital, to another world.

Gu Xuan sat beside Jiang Suisui, with two seats separating him from Gu Yan. He picked up his chopsticks but did not move, instead stealing glances at his father from the corner of his eye.

The dishes were quickly served.

A large basin of steaming lamb stewed with napa cabbage, the broth milky white and fragrant. A plate of vibrant green stir-fried vegetables, a dish of golden scrambled eggs, and a small plate of crisp pickled radish. The staple was mixed-grain rice—plentiful and filling.

Simple home-cooked food. Not a trace of the refinement found in the Marquis’s residence.

Yet the boys ate voraciously, sweat forming on their foreheads.

“Slow down. No one’s going to steal it from you,” Jiang Suisui said, placing a piece of lamb into Gu Xuan’s bowl and adding more rice to Wei Ziqian’s. She took care of everyone naturally, like the matron of a large household.

Except she did not look at Gu Yan.

Gu Yan sat there, his bowl and chopsticks still clean before him. He had not moved.

At the entire table, only he seemed like an outsider. The boys’ laughter, the clatter of bowls and chopsticks, Jiang Suisui’s gentle reminders—all felt separated from him by an invisible barrier.

He was used to eating coarse rations in the military tent while discussing battle plans with his generals. He was also accustomed to banquets in the capital, navigating political exchanges amid clinking cups.

But he had never experienced a meal like this.

There were no strict hierarchies of subordinates, no fawning colleagues. Only a group of boys who were not particularly afraid of him, a son who barely spoke to him, and a wife who seemed to pay him no mind at all.

“Why isn’t the Marquis eating?” Wei Ziqian finished a bowl of rice and, seeing Gu Yan’s untouched bowl, blurted out, “Do you think the food at our estate is too crude?”

The moment the words left his mouth, the atmosphere at the table froze. Under the table, Qian Duoduo stomped hard on his foot. Realizing his mistake, Wei Ziqian shrank back, not daring to speak again.

All eyes turned to Gu Yan.

His expression revealed neither joy nor anger. He picked up his chopsticks, served himself a bowl of rice, and placed a piece of lamb into his mouth.

The lamb was tender, melting at first bite, infused with the sweetness of cabbage and the layered aroma of spices, without the slightest gaminess. The cooking method was simple, yet it brought out the ingredients’ flavors to perfection.

It was delicious. More appetizing than any rare delicacy prepared by the chefs of the Marquis’s residence.

“No,” he swallowed and replied in a deep voice to Wei Ziqian’s earlier question. “It’s very good.”

After saying that, he spoke no more and ate silently, bite by bite.

His table manners were impeccable. His movements were precise, making not a single sound—discipline carved into his bones since childhood. Yet at this lively, bustling table, that refinement only made him seem more out of place.

The meal ended in this strange atmosphere.

The boys, full and satisfied, laughed and took their leave, returning to their rooms to rest. Chunxing efficiently cleared the dishes.

Soon, only the family of three remained in the warm chamber.

Gu Yan set down his chopsticks and wiped the corner of his mouth with a napkin. He felt that now, at last, they could talk.

He looked at Jiang Suisui, about to speak.

But as if knowing exactly what he intended to say, Jiang Suisui stood up first.

She walked to the corner of the room, where several farming tools were stored. From among them, she picked up a brand-new firewood axe and brought it over to stand before him.

“Finished eating?” she asked.

Gu Yan nodded, puzzled.

Jiang Suisui held out the heavy axe toward him.

“There’s still a pile of logs in the woodshed that were delivered a few days ago. It’s cold—both the floor heating and the kitchen need firewood. Go split them.”

Her tone remained calm—so calm it was as though she were instructing any ordinary hired hand in the household.

Gu Yan froze completely.

He looked at the axe in front of him, then at the woman before him.

He, Gu Yan—Marquis of Yongning, commander of a hundred thousand border troops, the ever-victorious general whose name struck fear into enemy nations—had just returned home in triumph. After finishing his first meal, his wife handed him an axe and told him… to chop firewood?

For a moment, he wondered whether the wind and snow on his journey back to the capital had frozen his brain, causing him to hallucinate.

Beside them, Gu Xuan’s mouth fell open at the sight. He wanted to say something, but after glancing at Jiang Suisui’s expression—leaving no room for negotiation—and then at his father’s indescribable face, he wisely kept silent.

“What?” Jiang Suisui saw that he did not move and pushed the axe slightly closer. “Doesn’t the Marquis handle everything personally in the army as well? Or is it that the Marquis only knows how to wield a blade, but not an axe?”

There was a faint, almost imperceptible hint of provocation in her words.

Gu Yan’s gaze darkened. He stared at Jiang Suisui for a long moment, trying to find even the slightest trace of jest in her calm eyes.

But there was none.

She was completely serious.

At last, he reached out and took the axe. The handle was rough hardwood; the blade, cold steel—solid and weighty in his grip.

“Where’s the woodshed?” he asked, his voice carrying an emotion difficult to name.

Jiang Suisui tilted her chin toward the door. “Out the door, turn right, walk to the end. Stack the split wood by size.”

Gripping the axe, Gu Yan said nothing more. He turned and strode out of the warm chamber.

The cold winter night wind hit his heated face, clearing his chaotic thoughts slightly.

Standing in the backyard, he looked at the pile of logs stacked like a small hill, then at the axe in his hand—so utterly mismatched with his status. A vast, absurd sensation enveloped him.

He raised the axe and brought it down hard on a thick log.

Thud—!

A dull crack sounded as wood chips flew in all directions.