The old clan leader’s courtyard was not much better than Jiang Wanning’s thatched hut.
There were three mud brick houses, and although the thatch on the roof was thicker, the courtyard wall was built from scattered pieces of stone. It leaned in several directions, but at least it still resembled a wall.
A Chinese banyan tree stood in the middle of the courtyard. Beneath it was a stone stool polished smooth and shiny from having been sat on for more than a decade.
Jiang Wanning stood at the entrance and glanced inside.
There was no one there.
“Clan Leader Grandma,” Jiang Wanxing called out.
A fit of coughing came from inside the house, even harsher than grandmother’s, with a thick, phlegmy sound.
After a while, an elderly woman with graying hair slowly emerged from the house. Her back was bent, and she narrowed her eyes as she looked toward the courtyard entrance.
“Who is it?”
“Clan Leader Grandma, it’s me, Wanxing.”
Jiang Wanxing pushed open the gate and led Jiang Wanning inside.
“This is my younger sister, Wanning.”
The old clan leader narrowed her eyes and studied Jiang Wanning for a long moment.
“Wanning?” Her voice carried the hoarseness and slowness unique to the elderly. “You’re that…?”
Jiang Wanxing was about to say something, but Jiang Wanning raised a hand to stop her.
“It’s me.” Jiang Wanning looked directly into the old clan leader’s eyes. “But I’m no longer foolish.”
The old clan leader paused, then studied her more carefully before breaking into a smile. She had lost several teeth, and when she smiled, the gaps made her mouth look full of holes.
“Good. It’s good that you’re no longer foolish.”
She turned and walked back inside.
“Come in and sit. We can talk inside.”
The room was much darker than the courtyard.
There was a wooden table with one corner missing, two long benches, and several sacks of grain piled against the wall. Judging from how flat the cloth sacks were, there was not much grain left inside them.
The stove stood in the corner. The pot was cold, and there wasn’t even a trace of warmth left in the firebox.
The old clan leader sat on one of the benches and pointed toward the bench opposite her.
“Sit. What brings you here?”
Jiang Wanning did not sit.
She stood before the old clan leader.
“Clan Leader Grandma, I have something to tell you,” Jiang Wanning said. Her voice was quiet but steady. “Something very important.”
The old clan leader glanced at her, then at Jiang Wanxing.
“Go ahead.”
She leaned back against the wall and folded her hands over her stomach.
“For the first fifteen years of my life, I was foolish and confused, but it wasn’t because I was born that way.”
Jiang Wanning looked directly into the old clan leader’s eyes and spoke one word at a time.
“It was because my soul was summoned away by an immortal to another place. A few days ago, the immortal sent me back.”
The old clan leader’s expression barely changed.
She continued leaning against the wall as though she were listening to a child make up a story.
“An immortal summoned you?” Her tone was neither warm nor cold. “What immortal?”
“I don’t know the immortal’s name,” Jiang Wanning said. “But I stayed in that place for many years. There were towering buildings that reached into the clouds, iron carriages that could travel a thousand li in a day, and iron birds capable of flying into the sky. The people there never had to worry about food or clothing. When they were sick, they had medicine, and when they were cold, they had clothes.”
The old clan leader was silent for a while before she smiled.
It wasn’t a mocking smile. It was more a helpless expression, as though she didn’t know what to say.
“Wanning, my girl.”
She sat up a little straighter, speaking as though humoring a child.
“You used to have trouble thinking clearly. It’s a good thing that you’re better now, but you can’t…”
Before she could finish, Jiang Wanning extended her hand.
With a thought, a bag of white rice appeared out of thin air in her palm.
It had truly appeared from nowhere.
One moment, there had been nothing. The next, it rested steadily in her hand.
The old clan leader’s words caught in her throat.
Her eyes widened, and her mouth fell open. The loose front tooth that looked ready to fall out swayed slightly in the morning light.
She stared at the bag of white rice in Jiang Wanning’s palm for a long time before slowly raising her head to look at her face.
“This…”
“This rice was bestowed by the immortal.”
Jiang Wanning placed the bag on the table with a dull thud.
“Clan Leader Grandma, you can take a look.”
The old clan leader reached out with trembling fingers. She picked up the bag of rice and untied the straw rope around its opening, revealing the gleaming white grains inside.
She pinched several grains between her fingers and examined them in her palm.
They were plump and crystal clear.
She had lived for most of her life, and the finest rice she had ever seen was the highest grade white rice sold in the grain shops in town. Yet compared to the rice before her, that supposedly high grade rice looked as rough as sand.
“Where did this rice come from?” the old clan leader asked, her voice dry.
“I already told you. It was bestowed by the immortal.”
Jiang Wanning took another item from the Realm of Ningyuan.
It was a small bottle of Ambroxol Oral Solution, the same kind she had given grandmother earlier. She placed it on the table, and the blue characters printed on the bottle stood out sharply in the dim room.
“This is medicine for treating coughs. Before I left home, I gave one bottle to my grandmother, and her cough has already improved considerably. Clan Leader Grandma, your cough is serious too, so this bottle is for you.”
The old clan leader did not move.
She simply sat there on the bench. Before her lay a bag of white rice unlike anything she had ever seen, a bottle unlike anything she had ever seen, and a girl whom she had believed would remain foolish for the rest of her life.
After a long while, she finally spoke.
“Is what you said about the earth shaking… true?”
Jiang Wanning’s heart stirred.
The old woman believed her.
She didn’t ask about the immortal or her soul. Instead, she went straight to asking about the coming disaster.
What did that mean?
It meant that she was already considering the lives of the clan members.
“It’s true,” Jiang Wanning said. “The seventh day of the eighth month. There are twenty days left. After the earth shakes, there will be heavenly fire, then floods, followed by a long period of extreme cold.”
The old clan leader’s lips moved slightly.
“Twenty days…” she murmured. “Is that enough time?”
“It is, but we have to move quickly.”
Jiang Wanning continued, “The first thing we need to do is harvest all the crops within the next twenty days. It doesn’t matter whether they’re ripe or not. Everything must be harvested. Once the earth shakes, the ground will split apart, and all the crops will be destroyed.”
The old clan leader nodded.
She understood that much.
“The second thing,” Jiang Wanning continued, “is that the clan members must be told. We may have to flee later, so we need to take as much as we can and save as many people as possible.”
The old clan leader looked up at her.
“You want me to tell the clan?”
“Yes.”
The old clan leader fell silent for a while.
She lowered her gaze to the bag of white rice on the table and reached out to touch its cloth. She had never felt anything like it before. It was as smooth as water yet remarkably sturdy.
“Wanning,” the old clan leader said slowly, “I believe everything you’ve told me. But if you want me to tell the clan, what exactly am I supposed to say? That the foolish girl from the Jiang family was chosen by an immortal, that her soul has returned, that she brought back things bestowed by the immortal, and that the earth will shake in twenty days?”
Jiang Wanning looked at her.
“Tell them exactly that.”
The old clan leader paused.
“You aren’t afraid?”
“What is there to fear?” Jiang Wanning said. “I have the immortal’s protection.”
The old clan leader stared at her for a long moment before suddenly laughing.
This time, it wasn’t a helpless laugh but one tinged with admiration.
“You really are a bold girl.”
Jiang Wanning didn’t respond to that.
Instead, she took something else from the Realm of Ningyuan, a military compressed biscuit wrapped in plastic.
She tore open the wrapper, broke off a small piece, and handed it to the old clan leader.
“Try it.”
The old clan leader accepted the small brownish yellow piece, held it beneath her nose, and sniffed it. Then she looked at Jiang Wanning.
Jiang Wanning nodded.
The old clan leader placed the compressed biscuit in her mouth and chewed twice.
Her expression changed.
First came confusion, then surprise, and finally an indescribably complicated look.
“What is this?” she asked indistinctly as she chewed.
“Dry rations used for marching and fighting where the immortal lives,” Jiang Wanning said. “A small piece is enough to keep you from going hungry for an entire day.”
The old clan leader swallowed the biscuit in her mouth, licked her lips, and looked at the large piece remaining in her hand.
“Things where the immortal lives really are different.”
She carefully placed the rest of the biscuit on the table instead of continuing to eat it.
“I’ll save this for the day when we truly have nothing left to eat.”
Jiang Wanning watched her actions and understood.
This old woman knew how to live.
She knew that good things couldn’t be eaten all at once and that some had to be saved for emergencies.
People like her often survived longer during years of disaster, not because they were particularly lucky, but because they kept a clear head.
“Clan Leader Grandma,” Jiang Wanning said, “let me ask you something. Do you believe me?”
The old clan leader raised her head, her cloudy eyes meeting Jiang Wanning’s.
“I do.”
Only one word.
“Then let me say one more thing.”
Jiang Wanning’s voice became solemn.
“From today onward, I will have the final say in matters concerning the clan.”
The room fell silent.
Behind her, Jiang Wanxing quietly drew in a breath but said nothing.
The old clan leader looked at Jiang Wanning. There was no anger, resistance, or even surprise in her eyes.
It was almost as though she had known this was coming.
“You want to become the clan leader?” she asked.
“I don’t.”
Jiang Wanning shook her head.
“But the clan members must listen to me. You will remain the clan leader and handle the everyday affairs. However, when it comes to anything related to the disasters, I will have the final say.”
The old clan leader didn’t hesitate.
“Alright. We’ll do as you say.”
Jiang Wanning hadn’t expected her to agree so readily.
“You aren’t even going to think about it?”
The old clan leader grinned, revealing the gap where her teeth were missing.
“What is there to think about? I’m an old woman with one foot in the grave. Do you think I can keep the entire clan alive?”
She pointed toward the bag of white rice on the table.
“But you’re different. You have an immortal backing you, and you have all these things. Whatever you say, I’ll listen.”
She paused, then added, “Besides, you’ve been foolish and confused for fifteen years. No one in the clan ever bullied you, did they?”
Jiang Wanning was stunned for a moment.
“No. They even helped me.”
“Exactly.”
The old clan leader rose from the bench. Her back was still bent, but her voice carried much more strength than before.
“Our Jiang family may be poor, but we don’t bully our own. Now that you’ve returned and want to help everyone survive, no one will stand against you.”
Jiang Wanning looked at the elderly woman standing before her and felt the tightly wound string in her heart loosen a little more.
At the very least, the most important person in the clan was now standing on her side.
“Clan Leader Grandma,” Jiang Wanning said, “gather everyone now.”
The old clan leader nodded and turned to walk outside.
Outside the courtyard, she began striking the iron block beneath the Chinese banyan tree.
That iron block was not struck lightly. It was only used when something important had happened.
Jiang Wanning stood at the doorway, watching the morning light fall across the tree as she silently counted the days.
Twenty days.
The seventh day of the eighth month.
The earth would shake.
Before then, she had to bring all one hundred or so members of the clan to her side.