“Is she still standing there in the middle of the road watching us?” Shi Fengxia asked, pretending to speak casually.
Ye Qing nodded. “Yes, she hasn’t left yet.”
Shi Fengxia pursed her lips and began to explain. “I knew it. From now on, whenever you see her, stay far away. Her name is Tian Qiuju. She’s not a relative of ours, but she’s well-known throughout the village.”
“What do you mean by that?” Ye Qing asked, growing curious.
“This woman has no other hobbies. Every day, she carries her rice bowl and goes around asking about everyone else’s business. She has to stick her nose into every household’s affairs. What she loves most is finding out who’s fighting, which mother-in-law and daughter-in-law are bickering, and which couple is having marital problems. But here’s the strange thing about Aunt Qiuju: every time she steps in to mediate a quarrel in the village…”
“…they all make up?” Ye Qing finished the sentence for her.
Before the apocalypse, she had also met people with that uncanny ability. No matter how serious the conflict, once they stepped in to mediate, both sides would surely shake hands and reconcile. Eventually, one such person even became a local community police officer.
Shi Fengxia shook her head. “No—they end up fighting even worse. If it was just a minor argument between a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, they start pulling each other’s hair and tearing at clothes. If it was a couple having a disagreement, the wife decides she’s had enough and goes straight back to her parents’ home. You’d think she’s adding fuel to the fire, but she’s not. She really is just trying to help and talk things through.”
Ye Qing fell silent for a moment. “…I see.”
“Still, she’s not a bad person at heart. Just greet her politely when you see her and keep your distance. If she starts prying into our family’s business, don’t answer her.”
Thinking back to the conversation she had just had with Tian Qiuju, Ye Qing’s mind drifted back to the day she first woke up in this body.
She teased, “Speaking of which, sister-in-law, I’ll be eating more of the family’s grain today. I haven’t even paid back what I ate last time. Do you think that one wild chicken is enough to settle the debt? If so, can we call it even now?”
Shi Fengxia froze for a few seconds, then her face flushed bright red like a ripe apple. Feeling thoroughly embarrassed, she suddenly reached out and pinched Ye Qing’s arm.
“I only said that when I was angry! How can you still take it seriously? Go on, walk faster—stop being so cheeky!”
Ye Qing dodged to the side. “You haven’t answered me yet. Are we square now?”
“Fine, fine, we’re square! From now on, we’ll get along just fine!”
Bantering and laughing, the two women soon arrived at the village square where the large stone mill was kept.
Before they even got close, Ye Qing saw that a crowd of villagers had already gathered around it. Many held their rice bowls in their hands, slowly eating their meals.
When Ye Qing asked, Shi Fengxia explained that villagers living nearby usually came here to eat together.
In those days, there was little in the way of entertainment; even a radio was considered a rare luxury. Just sitting together and chatting made their simple meals taste much better.
As they drew nearer, Ye Qing glanced instinctively at the bowls in everyone’s hands.
It was a lean season, between harvests, so every household ate plain and simple food. Even so, most still had sorghum and millet to alternate with, which was far better than the Xiao family, who survived almost entirely on coarse cornmeal every single day.
As soon as Ye Qing and Shi Fengxia reached the mill, most people looked up, staring at them with curiosity—especially at Ye Qing.
There were two reasons for this. First, Ye Qing was the new bride who had just married into the family. Her own family had demanded such a large bride price that it had left the Xiao family nearly penniless. Everyone was eager to know how she was being treated now that she was part of the household.
Second, there was the incident from the night before.
When Ye Qing had gone up the mountain alone, Chen Xiuzhi had dragged her two sons all over the village searching for her, turning the whole place upside down. Now that everyone saw Ye Qing safe and sound, they were bursting with questions.
“Isn’t that the two daughters-in-law of the Xiao family? Have you both come here to eat too? Come over quickly, I’ll make room for you—sit right here!” someone called out, waving her over.
Shi Fengxia glanced at the mill and nodded at Ye Qing. “Someone’s using it right now, so we’ll have to wait a bit. We can sit and chat while we do.”
Ye Qing walked over first. One woman shifted over on her bench and patted the empty space beside her.
“Come sit here—my bench is wide and sturdy enough for two.”
Ye Qing had barely settled down when the woman began probing gently, her questions hinting at her real interest: How was Ye Qing getting along? Were there frequent quarrels in the family?
Ye Qing caught on immediately. She smiled and replied openly, “My life at the Xiao home is very good. My mother-in-law is kind-hearted, and everyone in the family treats me well. What reason would we have to fight?”
“So you’ve decided to settle down and live here properly, then? That’s good, very good,” another woman sitting nearby said, nodding repeatedly. Her eyes darted around before she asked again, “I heard your mother-in-law saying you went up the mountain alone yesterday and didn’t return until after dark, then walked back all by yourself. Is that really true?”
Before Ye Qing could answer, she turned to Shi Fengxia and added, “It must be a rumor, right? How could a young bride like you run off into the mountains alone? Does she not value her own life?”
Ye Qing remained silent, a faint smile in her eyes as she turned her gaze toward Shi Fengxia.
Even though Shi Fengxia had been joking and speaking bluntly just a moment ago on the road, now that everyone was watching, she straightened her back and spoke with a hint of pride. “Who’s spreading nonsense? My sister-in-law did go up the mountain alone yesterday, and she came back safe and sound. She’s far more capable than I am—she knows how to take care of herself up there.”
“Fengxia, don’t tell tall tales now. We’ve all been up those mountains before,” someone scoffed.
The women around them assumed Shi Fengxia was just boasting to save face for her new sister-in-law, and they laughed good-naturedly as they teased her.
Since Ye Qing didn’t know them well and had no desire to join in, she let her gaze drift into the distance, listening quietly to Shi Fengxia chat and joke with the others.
After staring off for a while, a familiar figure suddenly came into view.
She called out tentatively, “Little Swallow? Is that you, Little Swallow?”
A small girl carrying a stick and hopping along playfully stopped in her tracks. She looked around in confusion, and when she spotted Ye Qing, she broke into a grin and waved. “Auntie! It’s me!”
Ye Qing remembered the promise she had made to the child and waved her over. “Come here a moment—I have something for you.”
Little Swallow hopped right over.
“Where are you off to?” Ye Qing asked gently, brushing bits of grass and twigs out of the girl’s hair.
Little Swallow puffed out her chest proudly. “I’m going with my older brother and sister to our family plot to catch insects. We feed them to the chickens, so they’ll lay more eggs. If we have more eggs, my brother and sister will have money to go to school.”
She babbled on excitedly. “Mama says a chicken’s bottom is our family’s money box!”
Ye Qing laughed at her innocent words. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out the wild raspberries she had picked the day before.
She had kept them stored safely in her personal space overnight, so they hadn’t been crushed or jostled at all and still looked perfectly fresh.
Ye Qing had actually been planning to ask someone in the family to take her to find Little Swallow later, but she was glad to have run into her here.
“Look what I have,” she said, holding them out. “I picked these on the mountain. Before I went up yesterday, I promised you I’d share any wild fruit I found. Go ahead and try them.”
Little Swallow’s eyes lit up instantly. She could barely keep from drooling. “They’re wild raspberries! They’re so sweet! My dad picked some once when he went up the mountain.”
Seeing Ye Qing smiling warmly at her, Little Swallow lost all shyness. She grabbed the berries, then called over her brother and sister. The three of them shared and ate them together.
Though it was only a small handful of fruit, the three children enjoyed it immensely, calling Ye Qing “the kindest auntie in the whole village” between bites.
Ye Qing watched them happily and told them to go back to catching insects.
As soon as the children left, the people nearby noticed the berries Ye Qing had just handed out. One woman asked in surprise, “Ye Qing, where did you find those? We’ve searched every inch of the foothills, and all the wild fruit there has long been picked clean.”
Ye Qing nodded toward the direction of the deeper mountains. “Like my sister-in-law said earlier—I went deep into the forest yesterday. That’s where I found them. The raspberries there are even sweeter; they grow higher up and get plenty of sunlight, much better than the ones near the bottom.”
As soon as she said this, the chatter and laughter died away instantly. Everyone stared at her in complete shock.
After a long pause, someone finally found her voice again. “So your sister-in-law wasn’t exaggerating after all—you really did go all the way in there alone?”
Another woman spoke with obvious admiration. “You’re really something! To dare go deep into the mountains by yourself—aren’t you afraid of running into a bear? The rest of us would never go in there without at least seven or eight people together!”
Shi Fengxia sat beside them, her chest swelling with pride. “I told you, but you wouldn’t believe me! My sister-in-law really does know her way around those mountains. She’s a capable woman. And you know what else? She even brought back a wild chicken yesterday—those are incredibly hard to catch!”
Once Shi Fengxia started bragging, she couldn’t stop and spilled the whole story about the chicken.
Ye Qing had originally wanted to stop her, but after a moment’s thought, she decided against it. She knew she would be going back into the mountains often, and she would surely bring back more useful things in the future. If she tried to hide everything every time, people would only grow suspicious and wonder what secret wealth she was finding up there. That would only make life harder for the Xiao family later. It was better to let Shi Fengxia spread the word now—less trouble to explain later.
So Ye Qing said nothing and simply looked toward the stone mill. Seeing that the people using it had just finished and left, she picked up her cloth sack, said a quick word to Shi Fengxia, and walked over to grind her corn.
Shi Fengxia, still in high spirits, waved her hand and turned back to the others, describing in great detail how plump the chicken was, how glossy and beautiful its feathers, and how it had fluttered all over the house when it was untied. She went on and on about how rare and difficult it was to catch wild game.
Her storytelling was so vivid it was as if she had been right there on the mountain herself. Everyone listened, wide-eyed, glancing back and forth between Shi Fengxia and Ye Qing.
Now, their view of Ye Qing shifted completely. Some mothers who still had unmarried sons, and some young women with brothers still looking for wives, were all thinking the exact same thing: Regret.
They regretted it so much they wanted to slap their own foreheads.
Why hadn’t they realized sooner what a capable woman Ye Qing was? To go up the mountain alone and bring back wild game—even if she only went three times a month, that was three big chickens! They could trade them for grain or eat them to nourish their families. What better fortune could there be?
Now, this talented woman belonged to the Xiao family, and Chen Xiuzhi had gotten lucky beyond belief.
As the women of the village praised her, Ye Qing accepted every compliment without false modesty. She smiled and nodded, while continuing to work steadily at the mill.
She had brought a sack of dried corn kernels, which she divided into two portions. One batch would be ground into coarse grits for porridge; the other would be turned into fine corn flour.
While she sorted the corn, a familiar auntie named Auntie Dahua stepped closer, bowl in hand, with a broad smile plastered on her face. “Ye Qing, when do you plan to go up the mountain next? Take me along, won’t you? We can go together. Two pairs of eyes are better than one—we can watch out for danger for each other.”
A sharp voice cut in immediately. “Now that’s just being shameless! If she can go deep into the mountains alone and come back with a wild chicken, does she really need you to stand guard? Everyone knows how lazy you are even when you’re working in the fields—who knows what trouble you’d cause slowing her down up there!”
“I’m not lazy!” Auntie Dahua retorted. “I just want to go up there and try my luck, that’s all!”
“Save that story for someone who doesn’t know you! If you see a chicken and she won’t let you have it, you’ll throw a fit before you even get home. We’ve been neighbors for years—I know exactly what you’re like! If you’re going to ask, then so am I. Ye Qing, you’d be better off taking me instead.”
A second woman pushed Auntie Dahua aside and took Ye Qing’s arm. “If you really want company, pick me. I walk around the foothills every day gathering pigweed and forage, so I know the terrain well. I promise I won’t get in your way. And if we catch any game, I won’t ask for a share—just let me come along and earn a little something extra.”
Ye Qing had been listening quietly as the two women began competing over who would get to go with her.
She gently freed her arm, turned back to the mill, and spoke in a calm, steady tone. “No need to argue. I won’t be taking anyone with me.”