When Mrs. Wan opened the door, the smile hadn’t yet faded from Liu Qishuang’s face, and she immediately smiled back. “My child, why did you come so early?” Mrs. Wan said, beckoning him over. Liu Qishuang hurried forward.

Seeing how well-behaved he was, Mother Wan couldn’t help but think of the few blind fools at home. Even with his squint, Liu-ger was still handsome, and she thought to herself that when it came to good taste, she was the one who really knew her stuff.

She gave Liu Qishuang a gentle pat on the head and smiled at him again.

Of all the Wan family members, Liu Qishuang liked Mrs. Wan the most. He quickly called out, “Aunt Wan.”

“Here I am.” Mrs. Wan replied promptly. Though she’d had many children, most were rambunctious boys; her only daughter had married far away, her two sons had both taken wives, and her only grandchild was also a girl. She was quite fond of this little ger.

“Child, please sit here for a moment. I’m going to wash my eyes first.” Mrs. Wan spoke again, and as she turned to head toward the kitchen, Liu Qishuang hurried after her. “Aunt Wan, let me stoke the fire for you.”

It’s still cool in the mornings and evenings, so she needs hot water to wash her face—she’ll have to boil some water anyway.

It was his first time in the Wan family’s kitchen. He found it neat, bright, and spacious. The Wans really loved to keep things tidy—everything was spotless. It was lovely.

Seeing how eager he was to help, Aunt Wan—who hadn’t originally planned to ask him to do anything—didn’t refuse. It would be nice to have someone to chat with.

There were bundles of straw tied up under the Wan family’s stove; all she had to do was toss them directly into the firebox. As Mrs. Wan ladled water into the pot, she glanced at the fair-skinned, well-behaved ger standing there, and a pang of regret tugged at her heart.

The child had certainly lived up to the name of that old Xiucai. Despite working outdoors regardless of whether the weather was sunny or rainy, he hadn’t grown the slightest bit sallow or tanned; his face remained as fair as ever. It was a pity the Liu family hadn’t raised him properly—they were careless about his food and clothing, and his frame had grown too frail.

Ah, Mother Wan couldn’t bear to think about it any further. She felt that life was never perfect—there was always something lacking. While others envied her for having three sons, she envied them for having a close son or daughter to share her worries and confide in. If only Liu-ger were her own, she thought. She would certainly have raised him to be plump and fair and dressed him up beautifully.

The Wan family’s courtyard was spacious, yet the household was small; there were no more than eight people in the entire family. Moreover, since the second son, Wan Yougu, and his family had already moved out, the household had grown even smaller.

The Wan family had few grandchildren; their only grandchild, Wan Xiaohua, was already ten years old and old enough to understand things. The house was very quiet, with not even the sound of children’s noise.

While Liu Qishuang was tending the fire under the stove, the gate to Wan Yougu’s house swung open. The couple stepped out, hoisting their hoes—presumably to repair the field ridges. In just over a month, it would be time to transplant the rice seedlings, so the ridges had to be in good shape to prevent them from collapsing. If they did, it wouldn’t just be a hassle for their own family, but would also cause trouble for their neighbors.

Back at home, Wan Yong’an—the eldest son of the Wan family—and his wife, along with Wan Changlin, Father Wan, had also gotten up.

As soon as she got up, Mrs. Lin Qiuyue headed straight for the kitchen. Since she’d been woken by Wan Dongyang, she knew Liu Qishuang was already there. Seeing him tending the fire beneath the stove didn’t surprise her; she merely gave him a faint smile as a greeting.

Eldest brother Wan Yong’an also headed out, hoisting his hoe. Wan Changlin, however, didn’t follow him to work; he was sitting on the steps rolling a cigarette. Wan Changlin had a habit of smoking pipe tobacco; his family even cultivated a mu of local tobacco leaves on their land. As the name suggests, this tobacco was believed to relieve fatigue when smoked. Quite a few people in their county smoked it, and the leaves could even be sold in town for cash.

In the blink of an eye, the clouds on the horizon cleared, sunlight returned to the earth, and the sky brightened. The Wan family had finished washing up and began their respective chores.

Wan Changlin went to the back of the house to tend to the pigeon coops and feed the pigeons. His wife, Lin Qiuyue, was in the kitchen preparing breakfast for the family. Mother Wan was doing needlework under the eaves by the front gate, while Liu Qishuang sat beside her with a worried look on his face, helping to sort the cotton thread.

“Aunt Wan, is there any other work to be done around the house?” Liu Qishuang had originally intended to help sweep the courtyard, but it was spotless—it must have been cleaned just yesterday. Since the Wan family had no children, there was no one to play and make a mess in the courtyard; once swept, it remained clean for days.

Before coming to the Wan household, Liu Qishuang had prepared himself for hard physical labor. She hadn’t expected the Wans to assign him such an easy task as sorting cotton thread. No, wait—how could this be called work? It was practically the same as doing nothing.

Mother Wan noticed the unease on his face and thought that if she didn’t assign him some work, he’d likely feel even more uncomfortable. So she brought out the family’s stone mortar, scooped out a measure of corn and wheat kernels, and had him grind them into pigeon feed.

The stone mortar and pestle were heavy—it wasn’t exactly light work—but this made Liu Qishuang happy. The look of unease vanished from his face, and he sat obediently beside Mother Wan, beginning to pound the pigeon feed.

When Wan Xiaohua came over holding a comb, she was still rubbing her eyes. Mother Wan immediately teased her, “The sun’s already high in the sky.”

“Grandma, there’s no sun today.” Wan Xiaohua had just turned ten this year; she wasn’t very old, and since she was the only young grandchild in the family, everyone doted on her.

Just as Mother Wan set down the shoe upper she was working on, Wan Xiaohua had already dragged over a small stool. She sat obediently in front of her grandmother, waiting to have her hair braided. Liu Qishuang stood right beside the grandmother and granddaughter. He couldn’t help but glance twice at the pretty hair ribbon clutched in Wan Xiaohua’s hand.

He had never even touched a hairband made of such beautiful red silk; his own hairbands were just strips of cloth. He wondered when he would ever get to use a pretty hairband like that.

After glancing at the hair ribbon, Liu Qishuang’s gaze kept drifting back to Wan Xiaohua. Today, she was wearing a light pink, sheer jacket; its pale, vibrant color was as beautiful as a begonia blossom after the rain. Since he could never wear such a thing himself, he figured it was fine to look at it a little longer.

As Wan Xiaohua’s attire caught his eye, his gaze naturally drifted to her shoes. Seeing the embroidered cloth shoes on her feet, Liu Qishuang instinctively drew his own feet back and dared not look in that direction anymore.

He had left the house in the dark this morning, in such a hurry that he’d put on the wrong shoes.

Never mind the clothes he was wearing—they were just a few patches here and there, something most people in the village had, so it didn’t matter. It was the shoes on his feet that were too shabby; the big toe on his right foot was even sticking out.

He shouldn’t have worn those cloth shoes—they were made two years ago. He’d grown a bit since then, and his old clothes and shoes were now too small to wear.

He should have worn straw sandals today. The ones his grandfather wove covered his whole foot, and the white-stem reed cores on the soles felt just as comfortable as cloth shoes—and they could even be sold for cash.

He knew how to weave these straw sandals, too, though his work wasn’t as good as his grandfather’s, so they wouldn’t fetch much cash. But he was still young; with more practice, he’d surely develop a skill worth selling.

Thinking about a skill that could earn him cash, Liu Qishuang smiled, and the strength in his hands seemed to grow.

━━ 🐈‍⬛ ━━

When Wan Dongyang arrived at Baiwei Lou, it wasn’t quite daylight yet, though he was a bit later than usual. He delivered his goods at the restaurant’s back door and was met with some complaints.

“Why are you so late? You’ve messed up the lunch service. We won’t even have enough cash to cover the cost of these pigeons.” The manager looked displeased and began sorting through the pigeons in the cage, as if planning to return a few.

Wan Dongyang knew the pigeons in his hands wouldn’t actually be rejected. The restaurant had recently introduced several new dishes that required pigeon meat; if they turned him down, where would they find ingredients to make up for the shortfall? The manager was just trying to make things difficult for him in order to drive down the price.

The shopkeeper was still pointing out a few pigeons with ruffled feathers from fighting, but Wan Dongyang didn’t want to waste any time. He smiled and spoke up. “Oh, shopkeeper, you wouldn’t believe it—I was walking down Shao’er Alley when an old man stopped me. He said he was from some place called Huiwei Lou. He kept dragging me along. It took me a while to get through that; I’d have been here much sooner.”

Wan Dongyang still looked a bit annoyed. The shopkeeper fell silent for a moment, his expression betraying a hint of surprise. But being a man of some age and experience, he quickly composed himself. The earlier reproach and nitpicking vanished from his face, replaced by a smile, and he motioned to an assistant to bring him another fifty pieces of cash.

“I’ve had you deliver three times this month, five pairs each time, for a total of two thousand five hundred and fifty wen. You were delivering goods even on New Year’s Day last month—that must have been hard work. I’m giving you an extra fifty wen, making it exactly two thousand six hundred wen. Please count it.” The shopkeeper handed over the money; fifty of the coins were loose coins—the very ones the clerk had just counted.

The Wan family’s pigeons were well-fed; a pigeon weighing about a catty could fetch a hundred wen at the market. Though they only received eighty-five wen per bird when delivered to the restaurant, it was a straightforward transaction—very convenient and hassle-free—so there was no need to quibble over the fifteen-wen difference.

Wan Dongyang didn’t bother to count the cash in detail. He took it with a smile, exchanged a few pleasantries with the shopkeeper, and thanked him repeatedly before leaving.

The moment he turned away, the smile vanished from his face.

His words just now weren’t entirely a lie; people from the Huiwei Lou had indeed approached him—it just hadn’t been today. He was too lazy to get entangled with them and didn’t want to be picked over, so he brought up the matter from a few days ago.

When the people from Huiwei Lou had approached him, he hadn’t given it a second thought—after all, it’s always better to do business with someone you know than with a stranger. But now, he found himself hesitating.

This shopkeeper was far too petty and stingy. Even though he was only a little late—and it hadn’t even delayed their lunch service—he still nitpicked at him relentlessly. It was truly infuriating.

And that wasn’t all. That clerk had dropped hints a while back—they were likely trying to drive down the price. From now on, they’d only pay eighty-one coins per pigeon. At first, he hadn’t believed it, but now he did. Wasn’t the shopkeeper just trying to drive down the price today by making things difficult on purpose?

Raising pigeons wasn’t a risk-free venture for him. Not only did he have to feed and care for them well, but maintaining the coops was a hassle too. If they were paying twenty wen less per bird than the market rate, did they really think he was a sucker?!

Wan Dongyang wasn’t the type to take a loss. He immediately told the man that there were plenty of buyers for his pigeons. The shopkeeper was a smart man and caught on right away, so he finally threw in an extra fifty wen.

“Pfft, just fifty wen. That won’t buy me off.”

Wan Dongyang had already done the math in his head. Though their town was technically just a “town,” and not a county, it was actually quite large—with streets and alleys crisscrossing everywhere, shops lining the streets, and a large population. The town was even divided into East and West parts; a single city likely had several thousand households. These families needed to buy food every day, and since there weren’t many pigeon-raisers in town, he had no trouble selling his pigeons.

He’d have to find a day to pay a visit to the Huiwei Lou. One must always have a backup plan; he couldn’t let others hold him over a barrel. If the shopkeeper continued to make things difficult, cutting off the partnership would be no problem.

Wan Dongyang was born at Wanjia Dam, not far from the town. By the time he was ten or so, he was already foraging for mountain produce on his own to sell in town. He knew every street and alley in the town like the back of his hand. Taking a shortcut through a few quiet alleys, he made it from the West District to the East City gate in no time and slipped into a general store.

Wan Dongyang took out exactly one hundred wen of cash from the money he’d collected. By the time he stepped out of the shop, the hundred wen of cash were gone, and in his hands were a packet of soft candies and two catties of fruit wine.

His family had homemade corn and sesame candy from the New Year, but the little girl at home was a picky eater. She turned her nose up at the sesame candy that the village children craved, and spent her days thinking about the candy sold in the town shops.

Today, with the extra fifty wen, he decided to buy the little girl a packet of the soft candies she’d been talking about for ages. Since the ger was there too, he could have a few as well.

When Wan Dongyang carried the groceries home, it wasn’t even the hour of Si yet. His older brother hadn’t returned from work, so naturally, dinner hadn’t been served yet.

As soon as he stepped through the courtyard gate, he called out. Though the family knew he was back, none of them acknowledged him. Only Liu Qishuang, who was sitting on the steps working, glanced at him and thought to himself, “His voice and his build really do match—both are quite large.”

As Wan Dongyang neared the front door, Liu Qishuang, who had been pounding corn kernels, happened to shift his right shoulder—a movement that caught Wan Dongyang’s eye as he approached.

He had been in a good mood just moments ago, but now his expression darkened. With a grim face, he shouted again.

“Mother!”