Chapter 3: Spineless Man (Athena)

Congratulations Athena on completing your first task.

I heard the system notification as I was sitting on the bed while I watched my husband Seth be busy packing up whatever things that were brought in the hospital.

"Wife, are you ready?" Seth asked as he looked at me and I nodded.

He went to carry one of the twins while I got the other one. After resting for two days, I was able to walk the whole corridor without panting. The nurse helped me sit down on a wheelchair while I held the other twin.

"I especially asked my little brother William to drive us home today." He said as we walked out of the hospital.

I looked through the recipe that the system gave me as a reward to help me nourish my body for the confinement. The next problem now is how am I supposed to prepare this? The ingredients aren't exactly rare, there are some herbs but I'm sure these herbs can be bought here in the hospital.

"Umm… Seth… Um… Can… can we… buy some herbs? We… I… am lacking them at home… Umm.. It's good… for nourishment." I told him, pretending to be meek.

It's really too troublesome to pretend to be meek. I am not a meek person. I sighed thinking about it.

"That's a great idea. We need to buy things to nourish your body. You are still weak. I'm scared that you would float in the wind and leave us. How am I supposed to live without you?" He replied in that annoying tone he used to coax me.

I honestly want to punch his face but let's conserve energy. It's not worth punching his face. I told the nurse the herbs that I want and asked her if she could get it for me. It didn't take her long to retrieve the herbs. Seth paid for them and we went out of the hospital.

I saw William, Seth's 21 year old younger brother, leaning on the family truck and waiting for us impatiently.

"What took you so long brother?" William asked, annoyed.

"Your sister-in-law is still so weak. I couldn't bear letting her move fast as she might get tired." He replied.

Seth opened the door and helped me get inside the truck. He also handed me the other twin so he could get inside.

"Thank you, beautiful." He said to the blushing nurse as she handed him the herbs I asked him to buy.

I rolled my eyes and focused on the ingredients. I'm racking my brain on how I can ask him to buy me the rest of the ingredients. Seth finally got inside the truck and waved to the nurse as the truck drove off.

I can't believe I'm married to such a womanizer. I swear someday I'm gonna get rid of him but for now, he has to stay. I still need him as my shield. I just simply need to find a way to control him.

New Task Notification.

I heard the system notify me. I looked at the next quest and saw 3 quests. The first one is to learn how to read and write until elementary level, the second one is to nourish the body of family members(children) to reach normal BMI, and the last one is to earn 2,000 owo. Owo is the currency of this world. How much is 2,000 owo? Let's see a regular employee in this world earns around 300-400 owo a month so that's like 6-7 months salary.

How am I supposed to earn money? I am not even given money by his stepmother.

I looked at the rewards and noticed that this time there's a time limit for the first two tasks. The first one is 3 months while the 2nd one is 6 months. The third task has no time limit.

The rewards were to gain a skill for the first quest, receive a luck talisman for every person that gets normal BMI for the second quest, and the last reward was access to the system store.

The punishment for failure of the first two quests was I would feel body pain like I'm being pricked by needles for 1 hour for the same duration of the failed quest, in short 3 months for the 1st quest and 6 months for the second quest. I shivered thinking of the consequence of failing. I must not fail.

I looked through the skills that I could gain once I successfully finished the first quest. There's a lot to choose from like sewing, farming, cooking, sales talking, designing, managing, and many more, it's sad that I can only choose one.

As for the luck talisman, it is something I can use to improve my luck by 30% in specific situations for an hour. I need to specify in which situation I need to improve my luck. It can't be too generalized.

Like let's say I got kidnapped, and I want to improve my luck on escaping then I should write in the talisman 'escape kidnapping'. The talisman effect would disappear once I successfully escape or when the time is up.

"Wifey, there's a market here. Shall I buy some nourishing food for you?" I heard Seth ask and I almost shouted yes.

I nodded shyly and whispered the things I wanted him to buy. William looked very annoyed when he saw that I agreed to buy food in the market.

"Brother, mother said to go home directly as she would be preparing lunch for us." William stated.

"Don't worry little brother, we won't take long. We need to buy food for your sister-in-law. Look, how thin she is." Seth explained.

"Mother, would surely take care of her." William insisted.

"I know, mother would take good care of her. I just want to show my love to my wife. Come on, park the truck there and let's quickly buy food." Seth said nonchalantly, ignoring William's resistance.

William couldn't stop him so he parked the truck and they both roamed around the market, while I quietly waited inside the truck. I also want to go out and have a look around but I just gave birth, I don't want to push my already weak body plus I'm carrying both twins in my arms.

After an hour, they both came back with arms full of supplies with some people behind them helping them carry 5 cages of live chicken. There were 3 chickens per cage. I'm surprised that a lot of things were bought.

"Wife, I'll ask mother to cook some chicken soup for you later." He told me proudly after they put everything at the back of the truck.

William didn't waste anymore time and directly headed back to the house. The Zhangs house was surrounded by high walls and a gate like a courtyard in old east asia but rather than having an inner and outer courtyard, there are 4 houses, one big house at the back, I assume that this is the main house.

You can see a small yard once you enter the gate then there are two 80 sqm houses on both corners and a path way in the middle and another 80 sqm house in the middle left, and in the middle right there's a yard.

Our house is the one in the middle left. All of the houses were two storey buildings. When we got out of the car, Seth's stepmother was already waiting in the yard. She looked very displeased. I lowered my head and pretended to be meek.

"What took you so long?" She said as soon as she saw her son.

"Big brother Seth wanted to go to the market and bought a lot of stuff." William complained.

"What did you buy?" She asked and looked at the things that Seth bought.

"Why buy these things? Even chicken? Seth, this is not a farm. If you want to eat chicken, you just need to tell your mother." She told Seth.

"Mother, this is for Athena. Her body is still weak and needs more nourishment." Seth explained.

"So many things. Did you beg my son to buy all this useless stuff for you? Tsk." Stepmother criticized me.

"I know Seth is very kind but you shouldn't always listen to your wayward wife. There is no need for all of these." She continued to criticize us while Seth tried to placate his stepmother.

What a spineless man. I can't bear watching him coax her stepmother.

After almost half an hour of her finding faults, we can finally enter our house. I saw Ashley, the eldest child, together with Brittany, the second child, feeding their younger sisters. My sons are probably in the main house being spoiled rotten by Seth's stepmother.

The children looked like they saw their savior when they saw us.

"Mother, are you alright?" Irene, the 7th child and my 5th daughter asked tearfully.

"Mother is alright. Come, meet your new younger sisters. This one is Kelly and this one is Lisa." I introduced the twins to them while their father was busy bringing all the things he bought in the market inside the house.

He put the live chickens in the small backyard that we have while I put down the sleeping twins on the bed. The children were curious but they didn't follow their father.

Once he's done arranging the things he bought. He looked at us as if he was hesitating on something. He sighed and grabbed a raw chicken, he quickly cleaned it and filled a pot with water and started heating the water.

"Wife, I'll leave the rest to you. Mother would be waiting for me in the main house." He said after putting the chicken inside the pot.

He left immediately after that as if he was escaping. Was he that scared that I'm going to ask him to cook food for me?