Xu Shifan’s mother’s maiden name was Bai. Her parents had given her a lovely name: Fengxian. She had certainly lived up to that name throughout her life, excelling in every way.

Before her marriage, she was renowned for her beauty; before she turned sixteen, the matchmaker had practically worn out the threshold of her home. After marrying into the Xu family, she never suffered the hardships of a new bride and immediately took charge of the household.

Moreover, she was blessed with children; she became pregnant within a few months of entering the Xu household and gave birth to three sons and two daughters over the course of a decade, making countless people green with envy.

Xu Shifan is his second son, born the year after his eldest son. Xu Shifan is thirty-six this year, born when she was seventeen. Bai Fengxian is now only in her early fifties, a good ten years younger than Grandpa Liu.

“Oh my! What on earth are you doing? If you have something to say, just say it! Why are you taking it out on the child?” As soon as Bai Fengxian stepped through the courtyard gate, she stumbled upon Liu Congxiang scolding her ger. Without even putting down the basket she was carrying, she rushed over to pull him away.

Liu Congxiang had very mixed feelings toward her mother-in-law. She harbored plenty of resentment over her favoritism, yet she couldn’t help but try to curry favor with her, hoping it would make her in-laws treat them better as a couple. But right now, she had no time to think about any of that.

She couldn’t help but wonder: Had her mother-in-law gone mad today? Was she actually pleading on behalf of this brat? Hadn’t she always disliked her son the most?

Liu Congxiang was puzzled. Liu Qishuang wasn’t in much better shape either; perhaps avoiding a beating was a blessing in disguise. He quickly called out “Grandma” and dodged his mother to get back to work. Xu Shifan, who had heard the commotion in the courtyard from inside the house, also came out.

“Mother, why are you here?” Xu Shifan didn’t look particularly pleased to see his mother; on closer inspection, his brow was faintly furrowed. Bai Fengxian over there feigned a glare at her son and scolded him in mock anger, “Why shouldn’t I be here?”

Both mother and son were now slightly frowning, making them look even more alike; even someone unaware of their relationship could tell at a glance that they were mother and son.

To be honest, Liu Qishuang’s features closely resembled Xu Shifan’s; the area around his eyebrows was practically identical to his. His handsome features were tinged with a touch of delicacy—striking at first glance and evoking a sense of tenderness upon closer inspection. Back in the day, it was precisely Xu Shifan’s striking good looks that had captivated Liu Congxiang, causing her to obey him in everything.

“Mother, you know my husband didn’t mean it that way.” Liu Congxiang instinctively stepped in to explain for Xu Shifan, but Bai Fengxian paid no heed to her—or even to Xu Shifan—and instead headed toward Grandpa Liu. Xu Shifan went back inside.

“In-law, when my second son and his wife came home last time, I learned that you’ve been feeling a bit under the weather. I brought you some eggs, and I’ll have Shuang’er go pick some shepherd’s purse flowers to cook for you.”

Having said this, Bai Fengxian held out the basket in her hands toward Liu Congxiang. Liu Congxiang took the basket, lifted the cloth covering it, and saw that there were indeed more than ten—nearly twenty—eggs inside. She frowned at first, and then, far from looking pleased, she shot a glare toward the house.

“So that’s why,” she thought. “This old woman was being so ‘kind’—she was just using these rotten eggs to get some silver!”

Knowing she’d have to fork over the silver anyway, Liu Congxiang could only console herself: at least this time they’d given her a little something in return. Usually, the old master would just open his mouth and demand it—not only that, but she’d have to bring it right to their doorstep.

“Mother, please have a seat first.” Liu Congxiang took the eggs to put them away inside, but to her surprise, Bai Fengxian actually intended to give the eggs to Grandpa Liu—and she wasn’t just saying it to save face—so she immediately called out to her.

“Second daughter-in-law, I left home early and am feeling a bit hungry. Let’s boil them right now.” After saying this, Bai Fengxian turned to Liu Qishuang, who was chopping thick-skinned vegetables, and said, “Child, go out and dig up some shepherd’s purse flowers. We’ll have shepherd’s purse flowers and eggs for dinner today—we only get to eat this once or twice a year.”

Liu Qishuang was genuinely taken aback by this, his hands stopping mid-motion. Equally surprised were the father and daughter from the Liu family standing nearby, and of course, Xu Shifan, who had just come out with the silver.

They all wondered if the person before them had been possessed by a ghost.

Come to think of it, there were indeed two mounds of graves along the path between the two households. Judging by the time she arrived home, she must have left before dawn. Could it be that she really had been possessed by a ghost and gone mad?

Xu Shifan immediately stepped forward with a worried look on his face, but Bai Fengxian didn’t appreciate her son’s concern; she simply rolled her eyes at him, cleared her throat uncomfortably a few times, and resented the fact that her second son and his wife—who clearly had no sense of propriety—were making her look bad.

It was hard enough for her to come over and try to win their favor; now they were making such a scene. Wasn’t this just reminding her brothers at home that she used to be a different person?

“Enough, enough! You’re my own son, and we’re all family in this room. Can’t your mother even give you a few eggs to eat? What do you take me for?” Since being nice to them wasn’t working, she might as well just start yelling!

After Bai Fengxian’s stern outburst, Liu Congxiang and her husband’s expressions softened, and Liu Qishuang was sent out to dig for shepherd’s purse. Once he stepped outside the courtyard gate, Liu Qishuang couldn’t help but glance back.

“Strange.” The Xu family had visited the Liu household before, and Liu Qishuang had been to the Xu household as well, but whether it was the Xus coming to them or them going to the Xus, it was always their family that brought things over.

When had the Xu family ever given them anything? Never mind eggs—they hadn’t even given them a single head of cabbage. Liu Qishuang was quick-witted; after mulling it over, he came to his own conclusion.

He suspected that perhaps his mother still wanted to have a son and didn’t want to keep giving away the family’s belongings to the Xu household. His grandmother, growing anxious, couldn’t treat them the way she used to, so she had to offer a few trinkets to save face.

Hadn’t his parents just argued this morning over whether to give them silver? They never used to fight like that—whenever the other side asked for something, they’d simply hand it over. He knew his father’s temperament better than anyone; as long as the grandparents on the other side asked, his father was willing to give them anything.

He didn’t even need to be coaxed.

“It’s actually a good deal.” A half-basket of eggs for seven or eight taels of silver—where else could you find such a bargain?

Once Liu Qishuang figured out the reason behind Bai Fengxian’s unusual behavior, he didn’t feel angry at all. The family’s silver wasn’t going to be spent on him or his grandfather anyway, so he wasn’t worried about it. Besides, he still had eggs to eat, which were actually pretty good.

In March, every household had to tend to their vegetable patches, planting beans, chili peppers, and the like. The field ridges also needed to be replastered, so wild greens naturally became scarce in the fields and along the edges. If you wanted to eat a mouthful of wild greens, you had to go out into the wild to dig them up.

After leaving home, Liu Qishuang walked upstream along the ditch by his house, gathering a few things along the way. Near the Wan family’s place, he ran into Song Saixue, who even slipped him a few pieces of dried sweet potato to eat.

“Shuangshuang, I’m going into the mountains with my mom tomorrow morning to dig for bamboo shoots. Do you want to come?” Song Saixue was carrying a back basket filled with firewood ash mixed with fertilizer. The girl didn’t seem to mind the strong smell at all; she was still munching happily on her dried sweet potatoes.

Liu Qishuang simply shook his head to decline. He certainly wanted to go into the mountains to forage for wild produce, but now was not the time.

The two had merely run into each other by chance; after exchanging a few casual words, they went their separate ways. Song Saixue headed to the fields with the fertilizer on her back, while Liu Qishuang carried a basket of wild turnip greens home.

He was actually quite pleased on his way back. Normally, he would have been carrying wood to the fields at this hour, but now he’d managed to escape for a while—a moment of freedom was certainly welcome.

As Liu Qishuang neared his home, he noticed a large mass of dark clouds hovering over South Mountain. He quickly looked up at the sky above the village, only to find that elsewhere there was just a thin layer of white clouds—there was no sign of rain today.

What a pity.

As soon as he stepped into the courtyard, Liu Qishuang caught the scent of roasting meat.

Today, his grandmother had arrived early, and they hadn’t eaten yet.

On the surface, the Liu family appeared to be a single household, but in reality, they didn’t even eat from the same pot. Yet, remarkably, today they were all eating together as a family.

It had been a long time since he’d shared a meal with his parents, and Liu Qishuang still felt a bit out of place. But what surprised him even more was that his grandmother was actually serving him food—and it was meat, no less!

“Thank you, Grandma.” Surprised as he was, he still had to eat the meat.

Liu Qishuang thanked her, deliberately ignoring the glare his mother was shooting him, and popped the meat from his bowl into his mouth in one bite. It was cured meat smoked with fragrant leaves—absolutely delicious.

It was already a rare treat for Grandma to serve him meat, but what Liu Qishuang didn’t know was that even the chicken eggs boiled with shepherd’s purse flowers were meant for him and Grandpa—they’d each been given an egg to eat. Yet what he hadn’t anticipated was yet to come.

“You two are such fools! What are you staring at? Go do it yourselves!”

After dinner, just as he was about to carry fertilizer to the fields, his Grandma not only stopped him but also gave his parents a stern scolding, saying they shouldn’t let a young ger do such dirty work!

To Xu Shifan, Bai Fengxian’s words carried as much weight as an imperial edict. Though he found it odd, he still called out to Liu Congxiang and obediently set off to carry manure to the fields.

Thus, the Liu household was in an unusual state today: the daughter and son-in-law had gone off to work, while the grandfather and grandson were left at home to enjoy their leisure.

After Liu Congxiang and his wife left, Liu Qishuang dragged a stool over to sit beside his grandfather and help him sort through the white-stem reeds. Bai Fengxian followed suit, sitting down right next to Liu Qishuang, looking at him with a look of deep affection.

“Grandma, it’s enough that Grandpa and I are here.” Liu Qishuang felt that his grandmother was acting very strangely today, being uncharacteristically kind to him.

In the past, when Bai Fengxian heard Liu Qishuang call her “Grandma,” she’d only felt smug. So what if her son was a son-in-law who’d married into the family? The child he’d fathered was still a member of the Xu family. Not only that, but even the Liu family belonged to the Xu family.

But hearing that title again now, a knot of resentment tightened in her chest, and she simply couldn’t bring herself to feel at ease.

“Shuang, from now on, you shouldn’t just call me grandma. Never mind that for now.” After a moment’s hesitation, Bai Fengxian ultimately didn’t cut him off completely; she simply changed the subject to the Xu family’s fields.

“Shuang-ger, you didn’t know, did you? Our family bought several more acres of paddy fields last winter. Right now, we can’t even manage to farm them all ourselves—we have to lease some out. In a few years, people will call us little landowners. There are plenty of people who envy us.”

“Grandma’s really lucky.” Liu Qishuang didn’t understand why she was telling him all this—was it to show him just how shameless she was? If they couldn’t even manage their own fields, naturally, they’d have plenty of grain. Yet every year, they still came begging for food from his family.

If they hadn’t shamelessly taken the grain away, perhaps some of it might have ended up in his and his Grandpa’s stomachs.

Liu Qishuang didn’t care for the Xu family’s grandfather and grandmother and didn’t much want to talk to them. But today, for some reason, his grandmother seemed to have an endless supply of things to say to him—first about their family’s fields, then about his cousin, practically praising him to the skies.

“Cousin Shun is a lucky man.” As usual, Liu Qishuang was praising him, but this time his grandmother reacted strongly. She clapped her hands once and then looked at him, saying, “It’s his future fulang who’s truly lucky. Where else could you find such a wonderful husband?”

“…….. “ What kind of good fortune is it to marry a fat, lazy good-for-nothing?”

Just as Liu Qishuang was mentally complaining, it suddenly dawned on him that his grandmother had said “fulang” instead of “bride.” Hadn’t she always looked down on gers? Why had she changed her tune?

Could it be that his cousin’s leg, which he’d broken recently, wasn’t healing? Had the family lowered their standards?

Regardless of what he was thinking, Liu Qishuang replied calmly, “Grandma is right.”

“…….. ” Bai Fengxian shot a disdainful glance at the person beside her, then glanced over at Grandpa Liu across from her, thinking that the Xu family’s roots were just as wooden as that of the old man from the Liu family, but then she quickly thought that it was better they weren’t related, and a smile finally appeared on her face.

Today, Bai Fengxian had left home early. By the time she arrived at the Liu household and finished breakfast, it wasn’t even noon yet. The group sat together sorting white-stem reeds. Liu Qishuang felt terribly uncomfortable and was just wondering why his grandmother hadn’t left yet when Bai Fengxian announced she wasn’t leaving today.

“She’s not leaving?” Liu Qishuang clenched the white-stem reed in his hand.

Not leaving? In the past, whenever his grandmother came to the house, she’d just pick up her things and leave—she’d never stayed overnight. What on earth was going on this time?

Since Bai Fengxian was staying the night, and the Liu household didn’t have many rooms, Liu Qishuang naturally had to make arrangements. He was preparing to make do in the woodshed that night, but then something unexpected happened: his grandmother told him not to bother and that they would sleep together that night.

“Huh?”

“You silly boy, what’s with that look? Grandma doesn’t mind you at all.” Bai Fengxian said, reaching out to pat Liu Qishuang on the head. Liu Qishuang stiffened his neck, lowered his head, and couldn’t help but twitch the corner of his mouth.

He did find her repulsive.

Besides, he had other things on his mind.

Liu Qishuang had been preparing to make the bed, and it wasn’t entirely for his grandmother’s comfort.

Last night, his room had a leak. He’d quickly pulled back the sheets and other bedding, but the straw underneath had gotten wet, and there was likely quite a bit of water pooled under the bed. He planned to cover it up to prevent his parents from discovering that his room had been leaking for some time.

But he never imagined that while his grandmother hadn’t actually slept on the wet bedding, the rain had fallen directly onto her face. In the dead of night, there was a sudden crack of thunder.

It was raining. It was pouring.