“Mother, a child who steals needles will grow up to steal gold. He must not be let out today.”
“Daquan, if Ya Ya goes hungry for a few days with Jinxiang, so be it. But Tiedan is your son—what if he starves?”
Pei Daquan snorted coldly. “He must be punished severely to learn his lesson. It’s a shame Ruan Jinxiang is even literate, yet she can’t teach a child properly. Tiedan has been a thief since he was little! And Ya Ya, so young yet already domineering and unreasonable. He left when the children were just over a year old. Now that he’s back, he must straighten out their bad habits.” Pei Daquan thought to himself, “A son is just a son. If he can’t be taught properly, it’s better not to have one at all. If I want a son, Lian’er can surely bear me many.”
Pei’s mother pitied her grandson, but seeing her son’s cold, angry face, she didn’t dare oppose him. Her son was now a yamen officer—she couldn’t beat or scold him as she used to.
Watching Pei’s mother being pulled back by Pei Daquan, Lian’er stood there gently. She softly stroked her belly, her head bowed meekly, a cold smile playing at the corner of her lips.
Little Tiedan, locked in the woodshed, cried and pounded on the wooden door, believing his grandmother would save him. Hearing his father call him a thief, his little mouth suddenly quivered. Stubbornly, he pressed his lips together, fighting back tears. In the end, he couldn’t hold it in and began to sob quietly, stifling his cries.
Under the eaves of the main house, Lian’er bent down to gather firewood. As soon as she picked it up, she let out a soft “Aiyo~” and dropped the wood all over the ground. Clutching her lower abdomen in pain, she couldn’t stand and gently collapsed to the ground.
Panicked, Pei Daquan quickly released his mother and scolded, “Lian’er, why are you working when you’re unwell?” He called into the house, “Erquan, go fetch Doctor Hu!” Then he shouted, “Sanhua, get up now and start the fire to cook!” With that, he scooped up the delicate, pained Lian’er and carried her into their room.
Pei Sanhua pouted, covered her ears, and turned over in bed. “Lian’er is just my sister-in-law—why should she be served by the whole family? Why does Big Brother make me get up? It’s all Big Brother’s fault for driving Sister-in-law away. Usually, Sister-in-law cooks and warms the house before Mother and I get up. Hmph~ It’s freezing in winter—I won’t get up!”
By the time Pei Erquan brought the doctor, who prescribed a few pills, Pei Daquan realized the stove was still cold and unused. His face darkened as he growled outside Pei Sanhua’s door, “Sanhua, if you don’t get up now, you can forget about new clothes and the silver earrings!”
Hearing this, Pei Sanhua immediately panicked. The day Pei Daquan brought Lian’er back, Pei Sanhua had envied Lian’er’s light grass-green padded dress and the earrings she wore. After much pleading, she had finally convinced her brother to buy her a brand-new cotton-padded dress. She had originally wanted gold earrings—gold, after all, would make a fine dowry and give her face in her future husband’s home. But her brother had only agreed to silver earrings. When she brought their mother into it, he threatened to buy her nothing at all. Reluctantly, she had agreed.
Not daring to disobey her brother, Pei Sanhua grumbled as she got up and dressed. She thought to herself, “I must get Big Brother to bring Sister-in-law back soon. I don’t want to do this work!” Stomping out, she kicked over the wooden basin from last night’s foot-soaking, which still held water, soaking a large part of her pant leg.
Hearing the clattering and splashing from inside the room, Pei Daquan’s face grew even darker.
Facing his own sister, he could no longer hold back his temper. “Pei Sanhua, you’re already a sixteen-year-old young lady. Look at how spoiled Mom has made you! Are you asking for a beating?”
Pei Sanhua had already gotten up to work feeling wronged, the damp, cold cotton pant legs clinging to her calves, making her extremely uncomfortable. Now being yelled at by her eldest brother, her little temper flared up instantly. She raised her voice, “Aahh~ Mom, big brother wants to beat me! He’s forgotten about his mother now that he has a wife!”
“Daquan, why are you bothering your sister?”
“Husband, don’t be harsh on little sister. I’ll be fine in a moment and can get up to cook.”
“Don’t pretend to be nice, wuwuwu~”
The Pei household was in a state of chaos.
This commotion reached little Tiedan’s ears in the woodshed.
His small body leaning against the door, the little hand wiping away tears slowly stopped moving.
The little one’s big eyes were moist, blinking repeatedly.
He scurried around in the woodshed.
Finally, he picked up the firewood knife and laboriously wedged it into the loose gap of the door.
Summoning all his strength, with a sharp “crack,” he managed to lift the outer latch.
Carefully pushing the door open, he peeked his head out and glanced toward the main room. The voices of his father, grandmother, and aunt all seemed to be coming from that wicked woman’s room.
Tiptoeing, he closed the woodshed door and placed the latch back in its original position.
His small body shot forward like a cannonball, charging straight into the kitchen.
Following the same method as before, he retrieved the basket, grabbed a steamed bun in each hand, and then carefully placed the basket back exactly as it had been.
He dashed out of the courtyard.
As he ran, he even turned back to make faces and stick out his tongue at the main room.
Hmph!
The things in his house, he would take them.
Not only would he take them, but he would take two.
One for his mother and one for Ya Ya, so they wouldn’t go hungry.
This wasn’t stealing at all!
That awful father of his—just wait until he grew up. Hmph!
Meanwhile, at the thatched cottage at the end of the village.
Ruan Jinxiang had already left early, leaving only Ya Ya waiting for Tiedan to come find her so they could go play with the other village children together.
Before dawn, Ruan Jinxiang had risen to boil a pot of water.
She crumbled the half-steamed bun saved from the day before and soaked it in the hot water.
Turning it into a porridge-like paste, she gave it to Ya Ya to drink.
It would fill their stomachs and warm their bodies.
Waking Ya Ya and urging her to eat, she instructed, “Your brother will come find you soon. Play well together and wait for Mother to return.”
“Okay, Mother~”
The day before, Ruan Jinxiang had secretly dug a pit behind the thatched cottage and buried all the strange, unfamiliar items they had found there.
Today, it was unlikely that her mother-in-law or the Pei family would come, but she still carefully hid the quilt and cloth.
The empty cottage offered almost nowhere to hide.
Over the past two days, she had gathered plenty of firewood from the mountain, along with thicker branches, and piled them all in the northern corner of the room.
She placed the large bundle in the corner, covered it with a layer of thatch, and then stacked the firewood on top.
From the outside, it was nearly impossible to tell anything was hidden there. Only then did she feel at ease and leave.
After walking a distance outside the village and seeing no one around, she silently thought: I want to go over.
Once again, she arrived at the place where she had found the bundle.
As soon as she appeared, she was startled.
The sky was just beginning to brighten.
It wasn’t because her sudden appearance had caused a panic or been witnessed by anyone.
The day before, she had repeatedly tested coming and going several times.
Once, just as she arrived, she happened to run into a person and was initially terrified.
But that person didn’t seem to notice her sudden appearance.
It was as if they hadn’t paid attention to her before and only just realized she was there.
What startled her this time was two elderly people fighting over something.
“These two cardboard boxes are what I dug out of the trash bin,” said an old woman in dark red clothing, clutching two square boxes tightly.
“You say you found them, so they’re yours? Who saw you? I clearly picked them up from the ground,” retorted an old man in gray clothing, yanking them away with a forceful tug.
The old woman took a few large strides, picked up a bag from the ground, and walked away. “Two worthless cardboard boxes—take them!”
The old man shouted urgently, “Hey, hey~ Put that down! That’s my bag, filled with bottles I collected.”
The two of them wrestled over the bag, scattering its contents everywhere.
As they fought, they continued to argue.
Ruan Jinxiang was stunned.
From their conversation, she realized they were fighting over cardboard boxes and plastic bottles.
In this place, these two items were essentially trash—things others had thrown away.
That half-person-tall large bin was a trash can, specifically for discarding garbage.
The two were fighting fiercely, and Ruan Jinxiang was too scared to step in and break it up.
She stood by, pricking up her ears to listen to the quarrel while constantly marveling at how this was indeed a divine realm—no wonder it was so clean, even disposing of trash was done with such care.
There were even special buckets that were thick and tall.
But in the blink of an eye, she grew puzzled again: why would such wealthy masters and mistresses bother picking up trash?
Ruan Jinxiang’s eyes lit up. Since even the fabulously rich masters and mistresses were doing it, it must surely be of great use!