After breakfast that day, just as Li Qiushuang was about to descend into the cellar, Aunt Wu arrived carrying a small bundle of dried bracken.
“Chuan Ge’er’s mother, my family dried quite a lot of bracken. I’m sharing some with you so the children can have an extra dish.”
Li Qiushuang was surprised, as food supplies were scarce in every household. Unless absolutely necessary for maintaining relationships, no one would part with their provisions. Aunt Wu’s gesture felt somehow off.
After a moment’s thought, she pushed the dried vegetables back and asked, “Auntie, do you need my help with something? We’re from the same clan and live close by. Lending a hand is only natural—please speak frankly.”
Aunt Wu looked embarrassed, opening her mouth several times but failing to speak.
Just then, Tang Hai came running home covered in dirt from outside.
With the weather growing colder each day, Li Qiushuang had dressed the children in freshly washed and mended padded jackets and trousers, fearing they might catch cold. Yet her clean son had returned looking like a mud ball.
Enraged, she grabbed her foolish son and smacked him twice.
Tang Tian, who had gone down to the cellar early to secretly mix Space Water, heard the commotion and climbed up. She immediately shielded her second brother. “Mother, don’t hit Second Brother! From now on, I’ll go with him whenever he goes out to play.”
With that, she secretly slipped a piece of candy into her brother’s hand.
Normally, Tang Hai would have beamed with joy, but today he burst into tears instead.
Seeing this, Li Qiushuang’s heart softened, and she pressed anxiously, “What’s wrong, Hai Ge’er? Were you bullied?”
Tang Hai cried even harder, occasionally pointing outside.
Finally, Aunt Wu couldn’t stand it any longer and whispered, “Well… Qiushuang, your Hai Ge’er probably overheard some gossip and came back upset. Don’t be angry when I tell you this!”
“What gossip? What upset?” Li Qiushuang was utterly confused, and Tang Tian was equally puzzled.
Steeling herself, Aunt Wu lowered her voice further. “I overheard someone mention it last night. It seems people are saying you bought a lot of things in town—mostly sieves, basins, and bowls that aren’t very useful. At first, everyone called you wasteful, but Zhang Shitou’s wife has a sharp tongue. She spread the story around, and it gradually twisted into something else. They’re saying… they’re saying you have improper ties with the owner of the general store in town, that you’re giving away the family’s silver for useless things just to please him…”
“Nonsense!”
No matter how good-tempered Li Qiushuang usually was, having her virtue slandered sent her into a rage.
Tang Tian’s face also darkened. She had anticipated that life as a widow with children would be difficult, which was why she had been extremely cautious even with the divine Space at her disposal, hoping to avoid trouble.
Unexpectedly, it wasn’t the path to immense wealth that caused trouble, but her mother being slandered over a few sieves.
“Mother, we must seek justice!” Tang Tian went over and held her mother’s arm, offering silent support and strength.
Tang Chuan emerged from the house, pulling his foolish younger brother along, his expression cold. “Mother, listen to Sister! You’re not without sons—we won’t swallow such an insult!”
Furious and anxious, Li Qiushuang’s eyes reddened.
After a moment’s hesitation, she turned and strode outside.
“Auntie, please help me find Third Grandma and Second Grandpa Li. I need them to uphold justice for me.”
Aunt Wu had originally come to deliver the message out of indignation. With plenty of sons and grandsons in her own family, she wasn’t afraid of offending anyone, so she responded and followed them out.
Tangjia Fort, as the name implied, was predominantly inhabited by the Tang clan. However, after years of settlement, a few families with different surnames had also joined the community.
With more people, there were naturally those like Second Grandpa Li, who commanded high respect and possessed great ability, as well as those who were lazy, gluttonous, and had lofty ambitions but little skill!
The Zhang Shitou family was exactly like that. Zhang Shitou was the most notorious idler in the village. Last spring and summer, he refused to go into the mountains to forage for food, and two of his children starved to death during the winter. His wife shared the same temperament—she’d rather use her energy spreading gossip than clean the house, which was as filthy as a pigsty.
By the time Li Qiushuang and her three children arrived, Zhang Shitou’s wife was already in full swing, sleeves rolled up and leaning against the sunny wall, spitting as she spoke excitedly.
“Oh, you should’ve seen it—a whole cartload of sieves! Who needs more than one sieve to get by? Yet she bought dozens. Who’s to say she isn’t helping some lover solve his troubles?”
Perhaps growing more excited as she spoke, she raised her voice and added, “I said it before—without a man, she wouldn’t be able to stay chaste. You didn’t believe me, but look now, haha! I was right, wasn’t I?”
A young woman standing across from her couldn’t bear to listen any longer and tried to intervene. “Keep your voice down! These are baseless rumors. How could Sister Qiushuang, who went to the county town with her three children, possibly…”
Feeling her pride wounded, Zhang Shitou’s wife rolled her eyes and snorted coldly.
“Who’s to say for sure? Those three kids—one sick, one simple-minded, and one too young—probably wouldn’t even notice if their mother flirted with a lover right in front of them…”
Before she could finish her sentence, she felt a searing pain in her scalp.
Li Qiushuang had arrived, grabbed her hair fiercely, and thrown her to the ground.
Thanks to the improved diet at home recently, Li Qiushuang was no longer the frail woman who could be toppled by a gust of wind. She pinned Zhang Shitou’s wife beneath her and began slapping her relentlessly from both sides.
“I’ll teach you to slander others! You’re the one with a lover—your whole family are lovers! Starving year after year, yet you never die—heaven must be blind! Spreading lies, tarnishing reputations—take that!”
With each word, a slap landed, and in the blink of an eye, Zhang Shitou’s wife’s face swelled up like a pig’s head.
The other young women were terrified. When they finally snapped out of it and tried to step in to stop the fight, Tang Tian rushed over, clung to one of them, and pretended to cry.
“Waa, Auntie, I’m scared! They say my mother is cheating. Waa, will my mother hang herself?”
The young woman she clung to grew even more uneasy. After all, she had joined in the gossip earlier. Now, thinking about it, if Li Qiushuang were to take drastic measures, she would have committed a terrible sin!
The other young women shared the same thought. Hesitating, they held back from intervening.
Without any outside help, Zhang Shitou’s wife was in for a world of pain!
The furious Li Qiushuang pinned her firmly to the ground, beating her within an inch of her life.
“Ah, help! Someone pull her off me! Waa, help!”
Unfortunately, no one dared to step forward, no matter how loudly she screamed.
It wasn’t until Second Grandpa Li and Third Grandma Tang arrived with others and saw the commotion from afar that Second Grandpa Li shouted, “Stop it, stop it right now!”
Tang Tian hurried forward to help her exhausted mother up, then handed her over to her eldest and second brothers. She rushed straight toward Third Grandma Tang, dropped to her knees with a thud, and clung to the old woman’s legs, wailing loudly.
But even as she sobbed, she didn’t neglect to make her case. She recounted the whole incident clearly and coherently, ending with a “desperate” plea.
“Waaah, Third Grandma, we’ve already lost our father! Now they’re trying to force my mother to her death—how are the three of us supposed to survive? Do they just want our courtyard, hoping to move in after they’ve driven us to our graves? Then we won’t stay—we’ll move out right now! Waaah, please, can’t you spare my mother? I’m begging you!”