After the commotion died down, Bai Qianqian tugged Zhao Anyao back into their house, her mood buoyant. After all, a pair of cotton shoes was no cheap prize.
Back at the Zhao family home, the atmosphere was stiff and strained.
“Mother,” Madam Lin said, her voice tight. “I sewed those shoes for Anyang. Now that they’ve been given to Zhao Anyao, what will he wear this winter?”
She knew if she didn’t speak up now, she’d be the one swallowing her resentment.
“It’s just a pair of shoes,” Zhao Chengshuang snapped.
She was already fuming from the earlier confrontation, and seeing Madam Lin still dwelling on it only fueled her irritation. “Are you really that petty, Sister-in-law? Do you expect Mother to pay you back?”
“Those are my shoes!” Zhao Anyang cried, his voice trembling.
Though young, he knew his aunt had caused the mess. He wailed, demanding Zhao Chengshuang pay him back.
“Old woman,” Old Master Zhao said, his voice weary. “Go inside and get one hundred wen for my eldest daughter-in-law to buy Anyang new shoes. We can’t let the neighbors laugh at us.”
He doted on his eldest grandson and feared the growing rift between Madam Lin and Zhao Chengshuang. His only solution was to have Old Madam Zhao pay to soothe Madam Lin’s anger.
“Can’t you all just behave for once?” Old Madam Zhao glared at Madam Lin, her face twisted in a scowl. “All you do is cause trouble. The government officials just came by yesterday to collect the grain tax, and we barely have enough to eat. Where are we supposed to find so much silver to waste?”
She grumbled, refusing to give the full hundred wen. Instead, she counted out fifty and shoved them into Madam Lin’s hand.
Madam Lin finally stopped complaining, but the rift between her and Zhao Chengshuang had already formed.
As the morning chill deepened, Bai Qianqian shifted her focus. After selling her brown sugar jujube cake for a while, she began stocking up for winter.
She had earned about four taels of silver over the past half-month. When she checked the price of ready-made cotton-padded jackets, she decided they were too expensive. Instead, she bought raw cotton and fabric, hoping to find someone in the village to sew two outfits for her.
At first, no one would agree to help. Her reputation was so foul that everyone feared she would just cause trouble for them in the end. Fortunately, a mute woman in the village agreed to take the job. Bai Qianqian paid her one hundred fifty wen as a tailoring fee.
It wasn’t too expensive; even with the labor cost, it was still two hundred wen cheaper than buying ready-made clothes.
With the weather turning colder, it was too risky to take Zhao Anyao to town to sell cakes. Bai Qianqian needed to find someone to patch the roof and repair the drafty mud walls. Otherwise, she feared the first snow would collapse their house.
“Ten wen a day,” she told a village woman. “Just help me patch and reinforce the roof.”
“No way!” the woman retorted immediately. “Who’d trust a word you say?”
Bai Qianqian approached several other houses, but the result was always the same: no one would help her. With her current physique, repairing the roof herself was out of the question. She seethed with resentment toward the original owner of her body.
The woman had single-handedly turned the entire village against her, treating her like a venomous snake. Now, the karma had fallen on Bai Qianqian’s head, and she couldn’t even find a simple laborer.
“Twenty wen a day. Half the pay upfront, and the rest once the job is done,” Auntie Liu said when Bai Qianqian returned.
“You know as well as I do that hardly anyone in this village will lift a finger for you. That’s what you get for always trying to cheat people.” This time, seeing Bai Qianqian’s desperation, she didn’t drive her away immediately.
“Twenty wen it is,” Bai Qianqian agreed through gritted teeth. “Can you finish in three days?”
The weather was turning colder by the day. If the mud walls and roof weren’t patched soon, they would freeze through the winter.
“Deal! I’ll have my husband find two more men. They can have the roof and walls fixed within three days,” Auntie Liu declared. “But let me warn you—if you try to shortchange us, don’t be surprised when I bring a mob to your door!” She hadn’t forgotten this woman’s penchant for taking petty advantage of others.
“Don’t worry. Once the roof is fixed, I’ll pay every last wen I owe you!” Bai Qianqian thumped her chest in a promise not to cheat them.
Seeing Auntie Liu’s skepticism, she pressed the sixty wen into the older woman’s palm as a deposit.
Auntie Liu stared at the copper coins in a daze. She never expected to pry money from the stingiest woman in the village.
Maybe she’s changed, she thought.
That same day, Auntie Liu had her husband and two other men head over to Bai Qianqian’s house.
Bai Qianqian watched them work with a sense of relief. Their movements were swift and thorough. For the first time, the twenty wen a day didn’t feel like a waste.
In just three days, the repairs were complete. Not only had they patched the roof, but they’d also reinforced it according to her instructions. All the drafts in the walls were sealed.
The thought of a warm, secure sleep through the winter made her pay the remaining balance without hesitation.
To Bai Qianqian, this was a simple, fair transaction. To the rest of the village, it was an impossibility.
“Did Madam Bai really pay the full amount?” one woman asked. “You aren’t lying, are you?”
“If I’d known she’d actually pay, I would have sent my husband!” another lamented.
“Wait, do you think she actually paid the seamstress back then…?”
“Impossible,” the first woman scoffed. “Madam Bai is never that generous!”
The women murmured among themselves, their envy clear.
Auntie Liu ignored them. Her family hadn’t been cheated, and with the cold weather coming and work scarce, the sixty wen were enough to buy some meat and add flavor to their meals.
*
With the roof repaired and the cotton-padded jackets still being sewn, Bai Qianqian felt a growing sense of insecurity. She had spent a lot of silver and now had no steady income.
She decided to sell more brown sugar jujube cake before the first snowfall, hoping to stock up on grain.
“Don’t go,” she told Zhao Anyao. “Stay inside and play. Don’t let anyone bully you again, understood?”
She worried the morning chill would make him sick.
Zhao Anyao had grown accustomed to selling cakes with her. He’d become livelier, chatting with the town children and helping her hawk the pastries. Forbidden from going, he wilted.
Fortunately, he was still a good boy and didn’t throw a tantrum.
Bai Qianqian headed to her usual spot in the morning market, only to find the Vegetable Seller Granny’s side already taken. She had to settle for a more secluded spot.
“Lady Bai! Where have you been these past few days?” a woman greeted her warmly, a regular customer. “I was hoping to buy more cakes to bring to my relatives!”
“The weather’s turned cold,” Bai Qianqian explained softly, wrapping the jujube cakes for her customer. “I’ve been busy fixing the roof these past few days. I’ll sell them for a few more days, but once the snow falls, I won’t be coming out again.”
“That makes sense,” the woman agreed, taking the two wrapped cakes. “The cold came early this year, and it’s getting dark so much sooner. You should head back early after you sell out.”
Perhaps because Bai Qianqian hadn’t been around lately, her absence had built up demand. Despite her secluded spot, customers flocked to her, and she sold through a large basket of cakes in less than half a day.
Just as she thought she might finish early and head home, she heard the Vegetable Seller Granny snort.
“What’s so special about those cakes?” the old woman scoffed. “They’re too expensive. You’re better off saving your coins for meat—at least you won’t get a stomachache.”
Another woman, who had been eyeing Bai Qianqian’s basket with envy, immediately stopped. “What are you saying? Didn’t you buy some for your grandson last time? Did they give him a stomachache?”
“Precisely!” the granny shot back, catching the scent of an audience. “Who knows if her hands are even clean when she makes them?”