Meanwhile, inside the Jiang family courtyard.

“I told you so! We shouldn’t have helped that heartless ger! Like father, like son—a rat’s son knows how to dig holes! So what if he looks pitiful? He was born to that heartless couple after all—how could he be any good?” Jiang Laoda, seething with anger, kicked the back basket, sending it tumbling several times.

Five hundred wen—that’s five hundred wen! That’s enough to feed the whole family meat at every meal for a whole month!

Jiang Er’s wife, Li Honghua, was also seething with frustration. She complained, “Father, why did you give so much? Even if you had to give something, a hundred or eighty pieces of cash would’ve been plenty.”

“Exactly, five hundred wen is way too much,” Jiang Er chimed in.

“You’re absolutely right! Even if that ger took it to the pharmacy himself, he might not be able to sell it for that much!”

The Jiang family’s grandchildren felt the same way, nodding in agreement one after another.

Seeing that his family was blaming him, Old Master Jiang shook his head in disappointment and sighed repeatedly to himself. But remembering that they were all his own flesh and blood, he patiently explained his plan.

“Eldest son, go to town right away and buy some provisions for the displaced families—and make sure they’re the best quality. You must get at least two catties each of fine grain liquor and white sugar. Take them to the Wan family when you return. You needn’t say much; just tell them…”

“I’m not going!” Jiang Laoda cut his father off before he could finish, flatly rejecting his father’s plan. “The Wan family isn’t exactly some high-and-mighty household. Their little girl just ruined things for us, and now we’re supposed to rush over and curry favor with them? Are they some kind of government officials?”

Hmph!

“What’s so great about the Wan family? The Wan family has a big landowner, but Wan Changlin isn’t a landowner himself. They also have that third son—an old man with no wife, who’s just a nuisance to everyone. Do you really think they’re something special? If they really had what it takes, how could they have just sat back and watched my family run things for all these years? They’d have jumped into this business long ago—it wouldn’t have been left for my Jiang family to monopolize.”

While the eldest Jiang brother continued to explain and complain, the second Jiang brother recalled an incident from a few days prior. After hesitating for a moment, he finally spoke up.

“Eldest Brother has a point. Just the other day, he told Wan Dongyang to go ahead and become the village doctor himself if he had the ability—and if he didn’t, he shouldn’t be recklessly prescribing medicine and killing people.”

“Second Brother, what nonsense are you spouting!” It was true that Jiang Laoda didn’t want to go to the Wan family, but it was also true that he regretted saying those words that day. He feared the Wan family might use his words as an excuse to get the idea of becoming the village doctor.

He’d enjoyed the momentary satisfaction of his sharp tongue that day, but soon enough he’d regretted it. He hadn’t dared mention a word of it once he got home, yet it turned out the second son had no intention of letting him off the hook!

The three Jiang brothers had never split up their household, but it wasn’t because they were close and loving toward one another. As for the real reason, only they knew it themselves. Seeing his two sons about to come to blows, Old Man Jiang quickly called out to stop them.

“What are you doing? What are you doing? I’m not dead yet!” Watching his two sons, still in a daze and squabbling amongst themselves, Old Master Jiang was truly disappointed.

He couldn’t understand it. He hadn’t done anything to offend heaven or harm others, so why was fate treating him this way?

Heaven had blessed him with three sons, yet not a single one possessed a talent for medicine. The eldest and second couldn’t even sit still long enough to take a pulse; the third was willing to learn, but he was so clumsy he couldn’t even steady his hand to feel a slippery pulse.

That alone would have been bad enough! But not only did they lack any aptitude for medicine, but they were also utterly foolish as people, devoid of any foresight, fixated only on petty, short-term gains. Worse still, the daughters-in-law they’d brought into the family were just as bad!

What a disgrace to the family! What a disgrace! 

On to the Liu family

On the way home, Liu Qishuang was scolded the entire journey by Liu Congxiang, who accused him of being a grown man yet unable to protect his own mother, letting her get beaten until her nose bled.

Liu Qishuang didn’t dare admit that he simply hadn’t wanted to protect her; he only said he’d been held back by the Jiang family and couldn’t do anything about it. Naturally, his mother didn’t believe him. After returning home, she even blamed Xu Shifan along with him, but Xu Shifan shook his head and denied any involvement.

“If two women are fighting, just pull them apart. But if family members get involved, it turns into a brawl, and bystanders won’t dare to intervene for fear of getting caught up in it. The Jiang family has so many men; they’d beat us to death.”

“Hmph! You’re the one who’s good with words!” Liu Congxiang couldn’t win the argument and sulked for a while, but she was also pleased to have received five hundred wen, so she didn’t argue further. She told Liu Qishuang to prepare breakfast, gave her face a quick wash, and went inside to count the cash.

Liu Qishuang had originally thought that with the incident of changing the medicine having come to light, he was bound to get a beating. To his surprise, his mother didn’t even mention it. He felt relieved, yet he also felt it would have been better if she had made a scene.

If his mother had made a scene about it, the matter would have been settled, and he wouldn’t have to live in constant fear anymore.

Today, the grandfather and grandson had gone out to work. By the time they returned, it was already late in the morning. If they stopped by the Jiang household for a while, they wouldn’t finish breakfast until noon, and they had to hurry back to work.

The most important task for the day was spreading fertilizer in the paddy fields. After lunch, the grandfather and grandson still had to go to the paddy fields behind the village, and to get there, they had to pass by the Wan family’s house. Before they left, Liu Congxiang handed Liu Qishuang a basket filled with five dozen eggs.

“Take these to the Wan family. Their daughter was a huge help today. And regarding that Dongyang lad, ask him to put in a good word for you. His family has a good relationship with Chanqing’s, so having another voice speak up for you can’t hurt.”

“Mm-hmm.” Liu Qishuang picked up the basket of eggs, and it was already beginning to click in his mind. He understood why his mother hadn’t made a scene over the incident where he’d swapped the medicine with the Jiang family.

It was all about reputation—she was now using his good reputation to secure a marriage alliance with the Wan family.

Wan Changqing’s parents were about the same age as his own grandparents. They’d been close friends in their youth, but after his grandmother passed away, Wan Changqing’s mother had harbored resentment toward his family. Now, the most direct way to win her favor was to be kind to his grandfather, and only then to try to curry favor with the Wan family.

The Liu family lived at the foot of South Mountain on the south side of the village, with no neighboring households nearby. The closest neighbors were the Zhang family across the paddy fields and the Wan Changqing family behind them; next was the Wan Dongyang family, located further up South Mountain.

Wanjia was generally flat, but the village naturally had some undulating terrain.

As Liu Qishuang and Grandpa Liu walked up the gentle slope leading to Wan Dongyang’s house, they happened to run into the uncle and niece returning home after picking flowers.

Wan Dongyang was clutching a few flower wreaths—presumably for his niece—while Wan Xiaohua held a bunch of flowers in each hand and wore a wreath on her head. Her eyes were red, and she looked as though she’d been crying.

They bumped into one another, and it wasn’t until they’d walked a short distance that Liu Qishuang learned the reason.

It turned out that Wan Xiaohua had been stung by a wild bee—though it was a honeybee, so it wasn’t too serious.

“It hurts so much, and my uncle still says I’m being a wimp. It’s not like he got stung—he’s just good at making snide remarks.” Wan Xiaohua walked behind Liu Qishuang, complaining to her in a low voice.

Although her uncle doted on her, he also liked to discipline her, so she didn’t dare act too defiant in front of others; she had to keep her voice down when speaking ill of him.

Liu Qishuang worked hard all year round and spent plenty of time in the grassy fields during the summer, so he’d naturally been stung by wild bees before. He wasn’t afraid of any of them except the hornet—a sting from one of those honeybees was just a bit painful, but nothing serious.

But hornets were a different story. If stung by one, he’d feel drowsy and disoriented, and a single sting would cause his whole body to swell. Two years ago, while picking maize, he’d been accidentally stung by three hornets. His entire body had swollen up, and he’d been drowsy and disoriented for several days.

That time, he almost thought he was going to die.

Listening to Wan Xiaohua’s complaints, Liu Qishuang stole a glance at Wan Dongyang. He thought Wan Dongyang wasn’t wrong, but in the next moment, he wondered if perhaps Xiaohua just had a low pain tolerance—and that getting stung by a honeybee hurt her just as much as getting stung by a hornet hurt him.

In the time it took to exchange a few words, they arrived at the Wan household.

Liu Qishuang held out the eggs in his hand, but Wan Xiaohua just stared blankly and didn’t take them. It wasn’t until Wan Dongyang nodded that she finally accepted them with a smile. She thanked the person, then asked them to call her when they returned so she could bring out the basket.

“Okay, I’ll come get it from you when I’m heading home after finishing my chores.” Liu Qishuang agreed and was about to leave, but suddenly found a woven flower wreath in front of him.

“Take it! What are you standing there for? Don’t you gers like this sort of thing?” Wan Dongyang’s urging voice rang in his ear. Upon hearing this, Liu Qishuang reached out to take it and quickly walked away.

Wan Dongyang watched his retreating figure with a touch of displeasure. The young man had stared at the wreath for ages, yet hadn’t spared a single glance for the person who’d given it to him.

The Liu family’s paddy fields lay beside the large irrigation ditch at the foot of the mountain. The scattered plots totaled half an acre, and it took the grandfather and grandson two trips back and forth to spread the fertilizer evenly across the fields.

Farm fertilizers are divided into grass manure and animal manure. Animal manure is mostly used to promote fruit set after the crops have sprouted, while grass manure is spread over the fields to enrich the soil before sowing.

But regardless of their purpose, one thing remained constant: both types of fertilizer were filthy and stinking. Not only did young gers and girls find them repulsive, but even many women who had worked the fields for years shunned them. This dirty work was almost always left to the men of the household.

As Liu Qishuang scattered the finely chopped grass fertilizer across the field, he found himself thinking about Wan Dongyang, with whom he had walked briefly just moments ago.

Today, Wan Dongyang wore a set of spring clothes in a mountain-green hue, cinched with a bordered sash a few inches wide. He was tall to begin with, and the sash made his legs appear even longer. He didn’t have the stocky build of a typical burly man; his arms and thighs weren’t particularly thick, yet they looked rock-hard, giving the impression he possessed boundless strength.

He glanced down at himself. Two patches larger than his palm were stitched onto his knees. Not only had the hems of his sleeves and trouser legs been washed until they were faded and white, but they were also torn beyond recognition, with frayed threads hanging from them.

Never mind that—he was carrying the manure everyone despised, yet Wan Dongyang held a beautiful wildflower in his hand.

“Shuangshuang, we’re out of fertilizer. I’m going back for more.”

Lost in thought, he worked quickly; in the blink of an eye, nearly half an hour had passed, and the grass fertilizer he’d carried was gone.

“Grandpa, I’ll go.” Snapping back to reality, Liu Qishuang shook the jumble of thoughts from his mind and went back to fetch more manure.

However, by the time he returned with the manure, Grandpa Liu wouldn’t let him help with the work anymore. Instead, he told him to go play by the big ditch nearby for a while. It was already mid-March, and the wild raspberries growing by the ditch were ripe—the kind children loved to eat.

Liu Qishuang glanced up at the sky. They’d left at the Hour of the Goat; it was probably only the Hour of the Monkey now. A little delay wouldn’t hurt—it would spare him from finishing this task early only to have to tackle another one. So he smiled and agreed. “Grandpa, I’ll be back in a bit. Take your time.”

“It’s no trouble; this isn’t tiring at all,” Grandpa Liu said with a cheerful laugh.

After taking those few doses of medicine, his cough had improved considerably; he felt much better and had the strength to work again.

After leaving the paddy field, Liu Qishuang spotted the wreath he had set aside earlier at the edge of the field. He hesitated for a moment, but then went to the irrigation ditch at the edge of the field, washed his hands thoroughly, picked up the wreath, and headed toward the large water channel.

This large ditch flowed out from the mountains; even in winter, the water flow was strong. Along its course, who knows how many farmlands it irrigated and how many farmers it sustained.

Along the ditch grew many water hemp trees and prickly fruit bushes. At this time of year, the fruit was still unripe and inedible; wild raspberries would appear in a few months, in March.

Liu Qishuang walked upstream along the ditch for a while and spotted a tung tree. It was currently in full bloom; among the clusters of tender leaves were large, eye-catching white flowers with red stamens, striking and beautiful.

While Liu Qishuang was picking wild mulberry leaves to make a pouch, he climbed onto a large rock beneath the tung tree and broke off a branch. He plucked the few fully bloomed flowers from the branch and pinned them onto the wreath of fragrant-leaf flowers. The wreath, made of small purple blossoms, instantly became much more beautiful with the addition of the large white flowers.

“It’s really beautiful.” He held the wreath to his nose and took a light sniff; the scent was quite pleasant. The oil-tea flowers had a faint, slightly sweet fragrance, while the fragrant-leaf flowers had a faintly bitter aroma. The two scents blended together nicely, not at all cloying.

He glanced nervously around, and after making sure no one was nearby, Liu Qishuang made his way toward the nearby rice paddy. Crouching on the embankment, he placed the wreath on his head and then timidly gazed at the water’s surface.

Today, the sky was clear, and the water’s surface had become a vast mirror, clearly reflecting the figure standing on the embankment.

The reflection in the water had a fair, unblemished face; a pair of eyes framed by long lashes held a sense of caution. Just as he realized the object on his head wasn’t strange

A smile was just beginning to form at the corners of his mouth when a voice reached his ears.

“Hey, Xu-ger, you’ve gotten a bit vain, haven’t you? Are you desperate to get married?”