Liu Congxiang’s face flushed crimson from the villagers’ taunts. Only now did he remember to ask what was going on. The villagers who had been watching the spectacle explained the situation to him in a few words. She made a move to hit her son again, but was shouted down by Wan Dongyang.

“Enough with the act. If you’ve got the guts, go ahead and slap yourself across the face.” Wan Dongyang didn’t sound the least bit like he was joking; he looked as if he was genuinely waiting for her to slap herself.

Liu Congxiang certainly wasn’t going to hit herself. She quickly put on a smile and begged for mercy. The villagers, having had their fill of the spectacle, began to look the other way and mediate, urging Wan Dongyang to just let it go. They suggested that if his family ran short of rice seedlings when it came time to transplant the rice, he could simply go pull some from the Xu family’s field.

“Is it okay if I don’t pay for the rice seedlings? I can work instead.” Liu Qishuang had just been falsely accused and had nearly been beaten by her mother, yet he hadn’t been scared then; now, however, he was truly terrified.

His father was a miser who wouldn’t even let a single drop of urine go to waste. The seed rice they used had to be bought from the imperial court—it was incredibly expensive!

Every year, their family bought the exact amount they needed, leaving absolutely no surplus. If they lost a few back baskets of rice seedlings, that meant several plots of land would go unplanted with rice. If his father found out, he was sure to get a severe beating!

His father kept a golden bamboo root several feet long hidden at home, reserved specifically for beating him. That root was incredibly tough; if struck with full force, it would tear the skin open, and the pain wouldn’t subside for at least half a month. Moreover, if the beating was too severe and the wounds ran deep, they would leave scars—irregular, jagged scars that were truly hideous.

Seeing that Liu Qishuang was so ungrateful and stubborn, the villagers all felt that Wan Dongyang would surely lose his temper this time and give him a proper beating.

But to everyone’s surprise, Wan Dongyang—whose temper was usually as explosive as firecrackers—remained silent today. Though his face was still as dark as the bottom of a pot, his hands didn’t move; clearly, he still had no intention of punishing him.

Wan Dongyang’s behavior, combined with the earlier remarks of those women, brought the matter back to the minds of the remaining villagers. After some deliberation, they all came to believe that this might indeed be the case.

Wan Changqing and Wan Dongyang had been close since childhood; everyone knew the two were as thick as thieves. If the Xu family had indeed aligned themselves with Wan Changqing, Wan Dongyang would have to show at least some respect to his brother’s future fulang.

With this in mind, everyone felt reassured and urged him to let it go.

“It’s just a patch of rice seedlings. Xu-ger is still a child and doesn’t know any better. Let’s just let him off the hook.” The villagers began to persuade the others again. Just then, a hunched-over old man appeared on a nearby field ridge and called out to Liu Qishuang in the crowd: “Shuangshuang, you’re back! Come back quickly!”

“It’s Old Man Liu.”

The “Old Man Liu” the villagers referred to was none other than Liu Qishuang’s grandfather. The old man had not had a daughter until he was nearly thirty; she married at sixteen and had a child at seventeen, so he was nearly fifty when he became a grandfather. Now that his grandson was about to turn fifteen, he himself was well into his sixties.

In the village, reaching sixty was considered a long life. Given Grandpa Liu’s age, anyone in the village with a shred of decency would show him some respect.

Wan Dongyang was no exception.

When Grandpa Liu’s voice reached him, his expression softened. He looked at the men and Liu Congxiang and her son, and especially when his gaze fell on Liu Qishuang, a plan had already formed in his mind.

“Since we can’t sort this out today, none of you will get off scot-free.” Wan Dongyang looked at the destroyed rice seedlings in his family’s paddy field, then at the two puddles—one large, one small—in the field, and his gaze toward the Wang brothers grew three times as fierce.

“I didn’t see how the older Wang brother fell in. I don’t have special abilities, so naturally I can’t tell for sure. Therefore, both your families must compensate for the rice seedlings he trampled. As for my end, my sister-in-law will settle accounts with you shortly.”

“I don’t know who pushed Wang Dage, but Wan Dongyang was definitely pushed in by Liu Qishuang.”

“On what grounds, Brother Wan?” Wang Dage refused to accept Wan Dongyang’s words, and just then, his younger brother arrived.

With his younger brother’s arrival, Wang Dage’s face grew even more aggrieved. In the blink of an eye, a stream of tears began to fall, and he said with deep resentment, “Brother Wan, how can you be so unreasonable? I was pushed into the paddy field by that ger. I suffered from the cold just like you—I’m a victim too! How can you lump everyone together and unfairly blame us all? By taking your anger out on me like this, are you trying to make me suffer not only from this muddy, freezing water but also face a scolding from my parents? It’s so unfair!”

As soon as the Wang family’s eldest son spoke, the onlookers all nodded in agreement. They were all taking the Wang brothers’ side; not a single person believed Liu Qishuang.

To be sure, the Wang family was a newcomer; they’d only been in Wanjia Dam for about ten days. But with two handsome, smooth-talking gers who are just at the right age, and given the family’s decent means, the villagers were naturally eager to associate with them.

In contrast, Liu Qishuang’s parents weren’t exactly upstanding citizens, and he himself was usually quiet and reluctant to speak with others. Who knew what mischief he might be plotting? Even though they lived in the same village, no one believed he was innocent.

But Wan Dongyang couldn’t care less about the Wang brothers or the villagers’ attitudes.

He suddenly seemed possessed. After Liu Qishuang pushed him into the paddy field and he climbed back out, he was like a different person, lashing out viciously at the Wang-ger. Wan Dongyang’s eyes flashed coldly as he looked at the eldest Wang-ger as if he were an idiot. “What do your parents have to do with me?”

Wang Dage was so taken aback by this that he froze in place, clearly not expecting him to be so clueless!

He wasn’t talking about his parents at all; he was clearly venting his own grievances. But before Wang Dage could compose himself, Wan Dongyang spoke up again with righteous indignation, “Enough with the nonsense. You and that Liu guy are both going to compensate my family. When the time comes, we’ll take as many rice seedlings from your fields as we need to make up for what we’re missing. If you refuse, don’t expect to keep your own rice seedlings either.”

The Wang brothers were handsome and had a way with words; they’d always been well-liked. They’d never suffered such an injustice before, but Wan Dongyang couldn’t be bothered with that. 

Besides, the onlookers seemed to have grown accustomed to his attitude.

After all, everyone in the village knew that Wan Dongyang, the third son of the Wan family, was just that kind of brute. When he was displeased, he wouldn’t give anyone any face.

Having said his piece, Wan Dongyang had nothing more to say to either the Wang brothers or Liu Congxiang and her son. He turned to leave.

Just before leaving, he glanced back at the Liu family—mother and son—and was about to say something to them, but then he noticed that the Liu family’s little simpleton was staring at him with wide-eyed wonder, his mismatched eyes brimming with joy, though he had no idea what exactly he was so happy about.

Liu Qishuang was naturally delighted; Wan Dongyang had just called him “the one surnamed Liu.”

“‘The one surnamed Liu’—he knows my surname is Liu!” The teenager’s face still bore traces of hurt, but a smile had already begun to form at the corners of his mouth.

For as long as he could remember, the villagers had called him “Xu Ger,” but “Xu Ger” was merely a nickname the villagers had grown accustomed to using. His real surname was Liu—even his official household registration listed him as Liu.

His name was Liu Qishuang, and it had been given to him by an old Xiucai—a true Xiucai, no less. In all the years of their village, only the Wan family, the local landlords, had ever produced a Xiucai.

Back then, just as Liu Qishuang’s mother was giving birth, an old Xiucai came to the house asking for a drink of water. Seeing the Xiucai’s robe, Grandpa Liu knew the guest was an educated man, so he asked him to help name the child.

Liu Qishuang was born in late autumn and had such fair skin that the old Xiucai named him Qishuang. In fact, the Liu family wasn’t the only one that year to receive a name from that Xiucai.

On the same day, the Song family in the village welcomed a baby girl, whom the Xiucai named Saixue. Perhaps because of this shared connection, the two children had been close since childhood, and Song Saixue was Liu Qishuang’s only friend in the village.

Once Wan Dongyang had left, the commotion naturally died down. Before long, the mother and son met up with Grandpa Liu, who had been waiting by the roadside. Grandpa Liu looked at his daughter and grandson with concern etched on his face.

The Liu family had a habit of hiding things from their elders out of fear of causing them worry, so the mother and son quickly explained everything in just a few sentences.

“Ahem, ahem, ahem. As long as everything’s all right.” Grandpa Liu, having heard the full story, nodded while coughing, his heart finally at ease.

Grandpa Liu’s health had been a bit frail lately. During the day, it wasn’t too noticeable—he’d just cough a few times lightly—but come nightfall, his coughing would become severe, especially around the second hour of the night, as if his heart, liver, intestines, lungs, and kidneys were all about to be coughed out.

As the three of them stepped through the courtyard gate, Liu Congxiang addressed the grandfather and grandson: “Today’s incident is over. Don’t say a word when your father returns. When it’s time to transplant the rice seedlings, I’ll sneak a back basket over to the Wan family, and that will settle the matter.”

“Oh,” Liu Qishuang replied, though he didn’t believe her.

His mother always made things sound better than they actually were. She had never kept a single promise she’d made to his grandfather or to him; she always turned around and sold them out, only to end up getting a beating from his father.

As soon as Grandpa Liu entered the courtyard, he headed straight for the outhouse. Before long, a series of coughs could be heard from inside.

Liu Qishuang had been cleaning the mud off the soles of his shoes by the gutter along the courtyard wall. Hearing his grandfather’s persistent coughing, he was about to go check on him and bring him a cup of water, but just as he started to move, his mother called out to him.

“You little brat, now you should know I was doing this for your own good. Today, if it weren’t for Wan Changqing’s influence, that demon wouldn’t have let us off so easily.” As she spoke, Liu Congxiang glanced toward the bamboo grove in the village. When she looked over, her face was full of determination, but by the time she turned her gaze back, she had already lost all her spirit.

“Changqing’s mother is truly foolish and petty. Your grandmother clearly died of illness, yet she insists on blaming her death on your father and me, and takes it out on our whole family. All these years, she’s never given us a friendly look. But it doesn’t matter—after all, we’re related. If we just put up with it a little, we’ll probably still manage to get things done.”

Liu Congxiang was still chattering away, giving instructions to Liu Qishuang, who nodded absently as he made his way to the outhouse.

He was fifteen this year, old enough to start thinking about marriage. But his family had a bad reputation in the village; no one in the village looked favorably upon them. Since he was their only child, neither he nor his mother wanted him to marry into another village.

He and his mother were in perfect agreement on this matter; both had set their sights on a suitor from the Wan family, one of the village’s prominent clans. The only difference was that his mother had her eye on Wan Changqing, while he himself had his heart set on Wan Dongyang.