BDSMST -Chapter 67 His Son’s “Disdain”

At lunchtime, Gu Yan was so exhausted that even the hand holding his chopsticks trembled slightly.

Only today did he realize that turning soil consumed more stamina than swinging a blade for hours on the battlefield. The soreness stretching from his lower back to his arms and down to his fingertips was a kind of fatigue he had never experienced before.

The boys, however, were full of energy. Though they were tired too, years of labor had long accustomed them to this rhythm. Now they were wolfing down their food while excitedly discussing the morning’s amusing events.

And naturally, the center of discussion was their “clumsy” Marquis.

“You should’ve seen it—when the Marquis brought that hoe down, I thought the whole greenhouse floor was going to collapse!” Wei Ziqian said through a mouthful of rice, his face full of mischievous delight.

“Exactly! And when he tried to pull it out, his face turned red like Lord Guan’s!” Qian Duoduo chimed in immediately, vividly imitating Gu Yan’s strained expression from earlier.

“Hahahahaha!”

The dining table once again filled with cheerful laughter.

Gu Yan held his bowl, listening to the boys’ teasing. His face alternated between pale and flushed. He wanted to flare up—but looking at their young faces, devoid of malice and filled only with genuine amusement, he found himself with nowhere to direct his anger.

He could only lower his head and eat in silence. This meal felt even more stifling than yesterday’s.

Jiang Suisui sat at the head of the table. Occasionally, she reminded the boys to keep their voices down and not disturb others while eating, but she did not sternly stop their jokes.

It seemed she deliberately wanted Gu Yan to experience the opposite of being the center of admiration.

Gu Xuan sat on Jiang Suisui’s other side. He did not join Wei Ziqian and the others in their teasing. He quietly ate his meal, but his dark, round eyes would occasionally glance toward his silent father.

His gaze was complicated—there was curiosity, a trace of sympathy, but more than anything else, something hard to describe…

Disdain.

Yes, disdain.

In his heart, his father was supposed to be tall, mighty, and invincible—just like in the legends.

But reality?

Reality was that his father didn’t even know how to turn soil, couldn’t handle a hoe properly, worked less efficiently than he, a ten-year-old boy, and was even made the subject of jokes at the dinner table by Wei Ziqian and the others.

The enormous gap between expectation and reality left him somewhat disappointed.

In the afternoon, after a brief rest, everyone returned to the greenhouse.

The afternoon task was fertilizing.

Shen Qinghe—also known as Xie Zi’an—personally came to instruct them. He taught everyone how to adjust fertilizer amounts according to the different growth stages of the vegetable seedlings.

“For seedlings that have just sprouted like these, their roots are still very fragile. The base fertilizer can’t be too thick, and it must be kept at least three inches away from the roots to avoid ‘burning’ the seedlings.”

As he spoke, he demonstrated himself.

Using a small hand trowel, he dug a shallow pit beside a seedling, sprinkled in a small handful of fermented manure, and gently covered it with soil. The entire process was careful and deliberate, as though he were tending to some rare treasure.

The boys nodded repeatedly, then began imitating him.

Gu Yan was also assigned an area.

He looked at the delicate seedlings with only two tiny leaves, then at the basket of strongly scented fertilizer in his hands. He felt even more at a loss than he had that morning.

He tried hard to recall Xie Zi’an’s movements, then awkwardly crouched down.

He dug a hole beside a seedling with the hand trowel. Perhaps he used too much force—one scoop went down and directly damaged the nearby seedling’s roots.

The poor little seedling immediately tilted and fell over.

Gu Yan’s heart lurched. He hurried to prop it back up with soil. But the more anxious he became, the less controlled his movements were. In his fluster, he accidentally knocked over several more seedlings nearby.

“Father!”

A clear voice tinged with irritation rang out behind him.

Gu Yan’s body stiffened. Turning around, he saw Gu Xuan standing there with his hands on his hips, his small brows tightly furrowed, his face filled with undisguised frustration—an expression of “how can you be so hopeless?”

“Do you even know how to work?” Gu Xuan stepped forward, looking heartbroken at the seedlings lying crooked and scattered. “I’m telling you, this batch of seedlings is the ‘cold-resistant variety’ that Madam Jiang worked so hard to cultivate. If you kill them, we’ll have one less batch of vegetables to eat this winter!”

Gu Yan was stunned to be lectured in such a tone by his ten-year-old son.

“I… I didn’t mean to,” he stammered, attempting to defend himself. His voice, unexpectedly, lacked confidence.

“Not meaning to isn’t good enough!” Gu Xuan’s little face was taut with seriousness. “Didn’t Mr. Shen just teach us? Keep three inches away from the roots! Three inches! Your trowel was practically stabbing them in the waist!”

As he spoke, he crouched down and took the small hand trowel from Gu Yan.

“Watch carefully! It’s done like this!”

Carefully, he dug a hole beside another seedling—perfect in both depth and size. Then he pinched a small amount of fertilizer between his fingers, sprinkled it evenly into the hole, and gently covered it with loose soil.

His movements were skilled and precise—far better than Gu Yan’s.

After finishing, he looked up at his father, who was still standing there in a daze, and sighed. That little grown-up manner of his was exactly like Jiang Suisui when she usually lectured them.

“Forget it. Don’t touch this patch. Go over there and rake through the soil that’s already been turned. Break up the larger clods. You can at least manage that, right?”

Gu Xuan pointed toward an open patch nearby, his tone brimming with distrust.

Gu Yan looked at his son.

He looked at those bright eyes, plainly declaring “You’re really bad at this,” and at the way the boy so naturally directed him. Something sharp stabbed deep into his chest.

In all his life, this was the first time he had been so openly “disdained” by his own son.

He opened his mouth, wanting to summon the authority of a father and scold him for being disrespectful.

But seeing his son’s serious and anxious expression, he found himself unable to utter a single word.

In the end, he could only silently stand up, pick up the rake lying nearby, and walk to the patch of land to begin his new—equally clumsy—task.

Gu Xuan watched his father’s tall but somewhat forlorn back and sighed again.

He felt that aside from being tall and strong, his father didn’t seem to be particularly useful at anything else.

If they were counting on him to help with work at the estate, they might as well hope that Qian Duoduo—the glutton—would eat two fewer bowls of rice.

That night, Gu Yan once again could not sleep.

What echoed repeatedly in his mind were not the clashing weapons and galloping warhorses of the battlefield, nor the intrigues and schemes of the imperial court.

But his son Gu Xuan’s crisp, disdainful voice—

“Father! Do you even know how to work?”