Shen Sanqiu couldn't even remember the last time he had eaten malt candy.
It seemed like it was one year when he followed Little Father to his uncle's house for New Year's greetings, and his aunt had given him malt candy.
At least Sanqiu had tasted it before, but Siping, Wuxi, Liurui, and Qitian had never eaten it at all.
The five children sat on the bed board, with the tips of their chopsticks dipped in malt candy, eating with relish. The older children were reluctant to lick it, savoring each lick for a long while. Only the one- and two-year-olds, Liurui and Qitian, kept their chopsticks stuffed in their mouths and wouldn't let go, drooling with slurping sounds, their eyes brightened by the sweetness.
Although the old man hadn't given them a large amount, it was enough for the five children to have a good feast. After satisfying their sweet tooth, the children would smack their lips even in their dreams, eating even more malt candy in their dreams.
Everyone in the family had been very busy lately. The elderly couple of the Shen family would head to the fields as soon as they opened their eyes. Zhou Gu, Li Maizi, and Shen Song had to go into the mountains to look for wild greens and dig them up, then deliver them. Even after returning, they didn't rest—they still had to tend to the land in front of and behind the house and take care of the vegetables.
Sanqiu busied himself with meals and cleaning inside and outside the house, and he also had to look after the children.
Fortunately, Siping and Wuxi were three years old and could watch over Liurui and Qitian while he was busy.
For the past couple of days, a stench had filled the air in the house because the fields had been fertilized with manure water.
Shen Song would never forget the day the manure water was carried—he was so disgusted by the smell that he passed out.
By the time he woke up, Second Brother-in-law and Fifth Brother-in-law had already finished splashing the manure water. The smell in the air truly rushed to one's head—Shen Song thought he had fallen into a manure pit.
In fact, the land he had used the Blessed Land Technique on didn't need to be fertilized with manure water at all, but he couldn't very well tell his family that.
In any case, splashing manure water wouldn't cause any harm—it would just stink for a few days—so he didn't really stop them, to avoid having to explain himself.
Before the stench in the courtyard had even dissipated, it was time to spread manure fertilizer on the family's fields. Shen Song had relevant memories: unlike the vegetable garden in the courtyard, this wasn't a matter of carrying manure water to splash—copper coins had to be spent to buy it, specially composted by others.
It was sold in the neighboring Wang Family Village, and if you went too late, you couldn't buy enough and would have to go to other villages.
The Shen family had ordered in advance, so the quantity was sufficient.
Shen Ning had married Li Geng, an outsider in Wang Family Village. Ever since she married into that family, every year Li Geng would borrow a flatbed cart to haul the Shen family's manure fertilizer to the edge of their fields.
In previous years, when it was time to spread manure, the men of the Shen family were all working outside, so those who stayed home did the spreading.
The Li family had few members and didn't rent much land, so once they finished their own work, they would come over to help the Shen family spread manure.
And Shen Bing, who lived in Hutou Mountain, would also come down the mountain with her husband Zhao Lu to help.
Besides this time, during the harvest rush, the two sons-in-law would also come to help.
It was just that this year, the Shen family had more crying than usual.
"Mother, I understand that my sister and brother-in-law are in the mountains and hard to reach. But I live right next door in Wang Family Village, and you still kept it hidden from me!"
Third Sister Shen Ning's eyes were red from crying. If she hadn't come back with her husband to deliver manure fertilizer, she would never have known such a big thing had happened at home.
The Shen family normally had little interaction with the villagers. Even though other households had heard sounds from their home, no one came to inquire, so naturally they didn't know what had happened.
The Li family was also largely ostracized in Wang Family Village—when villagers gathered to gossip, the Li family was never included—so even though it was a neighboring village, news of the Shen family's affairs never reached Shen Ning's ears.
Liu Chunxia felt utterly helpless inside. It wasn't a matter of "a married daughter being like spilled water," but rather that once a daughter married into another family and lived her own life, being alone in someone else's household was already full of hardships—she had to be extremely careful.
If she got entangled in her birth family's troubles, life would only become harder for her.
"It's all resolved now, anyway. You all come help at home around this time every year, so you'd naturally find out then. Why should I have made you worry ahead of time and lose sleep and appetite over it?"
Shen Bing wasn't much of a talker either. Compared to her third sister's outward emotions, she was far more reserved.
After hearing her mother's words, Shen Bing wiped her tears and cried softly, "If I'd known earlier, I could have helped share the burden. Mother, do you not think of us as your daughters anymore?"
Her fourth daughter had always been sensitive and prone to overthinking. Liu Chunxia knew best that her daughter had gotten the wrong idea.
During those busy half-month days, it wasn't that Liu Chunxia had stopped worrying or grieving. She had simply suppressed her emotions, because life still had to go on—crying and sorrow were of no use whatsoever.
Hearing Shen Bing's words, Liu Chunxia burst into tears at once, saying her fourth child was stabbing her heart as a mother with her words. It was precisely because she took it so much to heart that she had wanted to keep it hidden.
In the end, the three women of the family—mother and daughters—hugged each other and cried for a long while. Li Geng, Zhao Lu, and Shen Dashu squatted in the courtyard, their expressions grave as well.
Zhao Lu was a hunter, tall and imposing, with a tiger's back and a bear's waist—though it wasn't fat but lean, solid muscle. His arms and legs were thick, and even with slight effort, muscles rose like small hills on them.
With his full beard and bull-like eyes, standing there he was terrifying. He was also born with a dark face and seldom smiled, looking even more intimidating when expressionless.
When he got tired of squatting and stood up, Shen Dashu and Li Geng thought night had suddenly fallen.
"Father, I still have a few hides over at my place. Selling them could bring in some money. I'll send it over to the family in a couple of days."
Li Geng immediately said, "I can contribute two taels as well."
His voice grew quieter as he spoke—two taels was all his household could scrape together, and no more was possible. "It certainly won't compare to Fourth Brother-in-law. Father, please don't look down on it."
Zhao Lu glanced at Li Geng, a heap of words swirling in his mind. This third brother-in-law of his was decent enough, just that a grown man so prone to overthinking. Everyone knew his household was so poor they could barely keep the pot boiling—two taels of silver was the whole of his family's savings. How could their father-in-law possibly mind? It was Third Brother-in-law himself who always assumed others would mind. Every time he gave less than Zhao Lu, he just had to add that remark.
If this fellow weren't his third brother-in-law, Zhao Lu would have long since left him out in the cold.
Zhao Lu grumbled on and on in his head, but in reality, apart from that one glance, he said not a single word—not even a change of expression.
Shen Dashu was also somewhat wary of this fourth son-in-law of his.
The third son-in-law’s ancestors had been educated; his grandfather had run a private school for a couple of years while he was alive. The Shens’ fifth son, Shen Chong, had studied there for two years. There was no tuition; the old man asked only for rice, flour, vegetables, or meat, and even then, not much.
Back then, the family had also sent their fifth son there because they worried too few children would enroll for the old man to keep the school going. The two families were soon to be joined by marriage, after all, so the Shens let Shen Chong study there for two years. Among the farming households of the village, families who wanted their children educated sent them to the old scholar-candidate's home five li away. Old Master Li had no backing, so not many would go to him.
The Shen family had originally planned to let Shen Chong study for just two years before bringing him home. By then, he would be old enough to go straight to work in the fields.
Who could have known Old Master Li would pass away that year? The Li family's school had few students to begin with—just a scattering—and with no one left to teach, it simply shut down.
Of Old Master Li's children, some were injured and some died along the road of exile, and in the end all that remained of the Li family were the old man's grandson Li Geng and Li Geng's mother.
Li Geng's mother was literate, and she taught Li Geng to speak in a refined, bookish way—people who didn't know him would take him for a scholar.
But unfortunately, his family was too poor to afford schooling, let alone sit for the imperial examinations.
Fortunately, Li Geng was willing to work hard. He had long since given up thoughts of studying and buried himself in farming to make a living.
Shen Dashu knew that his son Shen Chong, having studied for a couple of years, spoke somewhat differently from them. But Li Geng's case was more severe—not only in his speech, but also in the frail, scholarly air about him.
Shen Dashu had always felt that his two sons-in-law were like the south and the north, with temperaments at opposite extremes.
Too much of anything is never good, and Shen Dashu felt both of them had gone a bit too far—it would be nice if the two could balance each other out.
"The family has enough money for now. If we truly reach the point where we can't get by, we'll definitely speak up. You two don't need to worry about us—just take good care of your own little households first."
Shen Dashu certainly would not take their money. His two daughters had children of their own—the third daughter had three children, and the fourth daughter currently had only one.
Raising children costs money too, and besides, Shen Jing's side truly wasn't short of money at the moment.
Once Li Geng and Zhao Lu confirmed that their father-in-law genuinely refused to take their money, they said nothing more.
Inside the house, Liu Chunxia and the others also came out, and everyone went to the fields, spreading manure over all sixty mu of the Shen family's land.
By the time the family's fields had all been fertilized, the wild greens in the ground had more or less grown old and tough.
Even though Shen Song used the Blessed Land Technique, he wasn't a wood-element ability user after all—he could only make the already-matured wild greens grow even older.
Even though they contained energy and spiritual energy, their texture was no longer as good as before.
Half a month later, the wild green business was completely finished.
They had been delivering wild greens to the Xu Family Restaurant for so long—three baskets a day at twenty wen per basket—and had earned a full two thousand wen, a full two taels of silver.
The wild green business had really been easy money, and it was hard to let it go. But the Shen family wasn't too upset, because Shopkeeper Xu had made an arrangement with them: once their vegetable crops matured, they could bring them to the restaurant to see how they looked.
If they were good, the restaurant would buy them.
Wild greens were nowhere near as valuable as cultivated vegetables. If they really could sell vegetables to the restaurant on a steady supply basis, the quantity would be smaller than with wild greens and they'd earn less, but it would still certainly be more than they'd made selling at the market.
Selling at the market only fetched a good price when the produce was freshest; afterward, once it wilted, it had to be dumped at a low price just to get rid of it.
All things considered, it was better to sell everything at once to a restaurant or tavern.
It was just that they'd never had the connections before, and the Xu Family Restaurant hadn't needed them to supply vegetables.
Now, with Shopkeeper Xu's word, Zhou Gu and Li Maizi either went to work in the fields with their in-laws or devoted themselves to tending the family's vegetable garden.
Zhou Gu had a fire burning in his heart—not only did he want to see his elder brother's leg healed, he wanted their life to improve as well.
Shen Song had no fixed routine each day—he was either in the fields or at the vegetable garden, and sometimes he would wander into the mountains.
Only after he promised again and again that nothing would happen did Liu Chunxia agree to let him go into the mountains.
But she set strict rules for him about coming down the mountain: if he went up, he had to be home before dark, or he wouldn't be allowed up the mountain again.
Siping wanted to go along to play, but he was only three years old, and Shen Song wouldn't dare take him.
Shen Song had always wanted to catch some game so he could sell it for a bit of money.
But the prey in this mountain seemed especially clever, as if they could sense his presence, fleeing before he got close.
Some that didn't manage to escape just stood there foolishly, motionless, their round eyes staring at him, their whole bodies trembling nonstop.
Shen Song, who had never seen many animals, couldn't withstand those little deer, little rabbits, and little bears looking at him with their big, round, watery eyes.
That's right—aside from the Five-Step Viper he encountered at the very beginning, all the animals he came across afterward were babies.
Shen Song figured they were so small that they ran too slowly, which was why they hadn't escaped before he spotted them.
Shen Song couldn't bear to take them down the mountain to sell. Not only did he not take them down, he would casually infuse the grass in the area with energy for them to eat.
Even the meat-eating tiger cubs, wolf cubs, and bear cubs all ate grass.
They would even roll around on the ground as they ate, pawing at the grass with their padded paws and stuffing it into their mouths, munching away noisily.
Every time Shen Song watched them eat like this, a smile would involuntarily spread across his face.
One day, after infusing his family's vegetable garden with more energy, Shen Song headed into the mountains.
He didn't always encounter those animal babies every time he went into the mountains, and sometimes they weren't the same ones.
But every time he did come across one, he would instinctively feed it energy-infused grass.
Eating it was very good for the body.
Shen Song walked toward the depths of the mountain. He thought that he couldn't bring himself to catch the little animals—he'd want to keep them and be unable to leave.
So he'd see if he could come across another crop similar to that ginseng from before.
He had to be home before dark, so Shen Song quickened his pace, weaving through the deep forest.
He walked all the way deeper in, yet didn't come across a single animal.
Occasionally he would hear sounds of running, and without guessing he knew animals were fleeing.
Having entered the mountains so many times, Shen Song could tell that for some unknown reason, the animals in this mountain were especially afraid of him.
Perhaps it was because he had mental energy—so Shen Song guessed.
As he was running all over the mountain, Shen Song suddenly heard a cry for help.
It sounded faint and intermittent, so the distance must be considerable.
Without hesitation, he ran toward the sound.
He didn't know how far he ran before Shen Song stopped at the edge of a cliff.
The sound was coming from below, already grown very weak.
He looked down and saw a young man in black clothes, carrying a bamboo basket on his back, gripping with one hand a branch growing out of the cliff face.
Hearing movement above, the person below quickly looked up.
It was still bright out, and Shen Song had good eyesight. He watched the young man's face rapidly shift from despair to bursting hope, then quickly back to despair.
A quick change of face.
Shen Song silently noted to himself.
A lost art from the Interstellar Era.
But looking more closely, this person looked somewhat familiar…