Perhaps Shen Hu and his wife had talked things through, as the signing of the new tenancy contract went very smoothly.
Song Xia had initially hesitated about how to break the news to Shen Huaijing about her taking matters into her own hands. To her surprise, Shen Huaijing simply gave her a meaningful look and remarked, “You’re not entirely foolish, are you?” The next day, he and Song Xia brought some pastries again and went together to the village chief’s house to formally sign the new contract.
Song Xia was thrilled to hold the new contract—this land truly belonged to her now!
She could plant whatever she wanted!
In such high spirits, Song Xia found Shen Huaijing—who was currently looking sickly as he lazed in the courtyard soaking up the sun—much more pleasing to the eye. When he finished taking his medicine, she even thoughtfully handed him a piece of candied fruit to sweeten his mouth.
Shen Huaijing, having just finished his medicine, looked rather surprised at the candied fruit offered to his lips and froze for a moment.
Seeing him daze, Song Xia directly popped the candied fruit into his mouth. Shen Huaijing instinctively bit down, and the sweet, fruity aroma instantly washed away the lingering bitterness in his mouth.
Shen Huaijing lowered his gaze. Ever since his parents passed away, no one had ever handed him a piece of candied fruit after he finished his medicine.
Unaware and completely clueless about Shen Huaijing’s inner thoughts, Song Xia was simply in an exceptionally wonderful mood lately.
First, she had asked Brother Shen to fix up their kitchen stove so she could finally cook and boil medicine at home; next, she had inquired about the villagers’ usual mountain-climbing routes and the conditions in the forest, planning to go explore and scout the area in a couple of days; and lastly, she had been carrying a hoe out to the fields every single day. Just looking at that plot of land made her heart swell with joy!
True to form, once an agricultural student, always an agricultural student.
With her entire schedule neatly arranged, Song Xia’s days were packed.
After feeding Shen Huaijing, Song Xia hummed a tune as she headed out to the neighboring yard to find Sister-in-law Xing’er.
A couple of days prior, she had asked Sister-in-law Xing’er to see if she could spare some wheat seeds. Sister-in-law Xing’er had said she needed to go home, sort through her supplies, and check, but she hadn’t come to look for Song Xia over the past few days, so Song Xia decided to go ask her in person.
As soon as Song Xia walked up to the entrance of Sister-in-law Xing’er’s courtyard, Sister-in-law Xing’er spotted her, waved, and greeted her warmly:
“Ah, Xiaxia is here! Come right in!”
“Sister-in-law Xing’er, are you home alone?” Song Xia was already very familiar with the place. She pushed open the courtyard gate, walked in out of habit, pulled up a stool right beside Sister-in-law Xing’er, and started helping her pick wild vegetables.
“Of course! Those little rascals never stay still for a moment, running wild all over the village from morning till night. You can’t rely on them for a single thing!” Sister-in-law Xing’er laughed and scolded.
“Oh well, they’re just kids after all!” Song Xia said with a smile, before bringing up the purpose of her visit today: “Sister-in-law Xing’er, what about those wheat seeds?”
“I was just about to tell you.” Sister-in-law Xing’er wiped her hands on her clothes, stood up, and pulled a small bag out from the house.
“This is all I have left that I can spare.” A look of embarrassment crossed Sister-in-law Xing’er’s face. “When I sorted through everything last night, I realized I really didn’t have many seeds saved this year. But I’ve already sent your Brother Shen over to his brothers’ places to ask if they have any extra they can share.”
Nowadays, there wasn’t a specialized place to buy crop seeds; farming households simply saved seeds from their own harvests every year. Song Xia found this rather troublesome. The wheat seeds she used to work with in her past life were high-end, but that was because they were newly bred commercial varieties not circulated on the open market.
She hadn’t expected that in this lifetime, even ordinary seeds would require begging and borrowing from others.
“Ah, it’s fine. Sister-in-law Xing’er, you can’t be blamed for this. Nobody could have predicted that someone would need to borrow so many seeds all at once,” Song Xia said with a wry smile.
Accepting the small half-bag from Sister-in-law Xing’er, Song Xia felt a headache coming on. How on earth was she going to gather the rest of the wheat seeds?
In the village, the only people she was somewhat familiar with were Sister-in-law Xing’er’s family. As for the rest of the villagers, they were still at the stage of staring at her like she was some exotic creature whenever they crossed paths.
Song Xia stood up, planning to wander around the village again to see if any other family might be willing to sell or lend her some wheat seeds.
Right at that moment, Shen Jiang and the other boys came running back into the courtyard, jumping and shouting all the way: “Dad’s back! Mom! Dad’s back!”
Sister-in-law Xing’er snatched Shen Jiang by the ear. “Have you never seen your father before or something?! What are you yelling for?!”
Rubbing his ear and ducking away, Shen Jiang replied defensively to his mother, “Dad brought back a huge sack! Mom, Dad definitely brought good stuff back!”
The children knew that early this morning, Shen Daniu had gone off to his uncles’ and elder brothers’ homes. While pulling weeds in the fields earlier, they had caught a distant glimpse of Shen Daniu walking back with a massive sack on his back. Immediately excited, Shen Jiang and the others guessed it must contain treats from grandma!
So without even securing the bundles of cut grass properly, the three of them had sprinted all the way home, dropping things along the way, just to deliver the news.
Hearing Shen Jiang’s words, Sister-in-law Xing’er grew a bit excited too, and pulling Shen Jiang back, she asked, “Did you really see your father carrying a huge sack back? How big was it?”
Song Xia was equally excited. Could it be that Brother Shen had actually managed to borrow seeds for her?
Shen Jiang thought about it and declared, “It looked as big as a whole burlap sack!”
“Sister-in-law Xing’er!” Song Xia looked at her with eager eyes.
Although Sister-in-law Xing’er looked somewhat surprised, she was also quite pleased. “I was worried that bunch from his family would be petty and refuse to lend any! It looks like you don’t need to worry about the seeds anymore!”
Before long, Shen Daniu did indeed return carrying a massive burlap sack on his back. Unlike what Shen Jiang and the others had described, Shen Daniu was also holding a small bag in his hand.
Song Xia and Sister-in-law Xing’er hurried forward. Sister-in-law Xing’er took the smaller bag from his hand and asked, “What is this?”
Opening it up, she let out an exclamation of surprise: “Oh! Why is it wheat?!”
Hearing this, Song Xia leaned over to take a look. Sure enough, this small bag was packed full of plump, healthy wheat seeds.
When Shen Jiang and the others heard they were just wheat seeds, they looked disappointed and scurried off along the courtyard wall to play wildly again.
Unlike the children’s disappointment, upon seeing this small bag of wheat seeds, both Song Xia and Sister-in-law Xing’er had grim expressions on their faces. Since this small bag was the seed, then what on earth was inside the huge sack Shen Daniu was carrying?
Noticing the look of disappointment on Song Xia’s face, Sister-in-law Xing’er turned back to press Shen Daniu: “Is this all your brothers gave you?! Between their two households plus your mom and dad’s place, this is all they could scrape together? We lent your mother a whole burlap sack of seeds just last year!”
Shen Daniu’s expression wasn’t looking too good either. He had rushed home early in the morning, running back and forth nearly thirty miles, only to end up with a sack of rotten, stale seeds!
“That’s all there is,” Shen Daniu muttered sullenly.
Sister-in-law Xing’er hurried forward to untie the burlap sack. The moment she caught a clear look at the contents inside, she burst out in fury!
“Shen Daniu, you really do have a fine mother! How on earth do you have the face to call these moldy, ancient grains wheat seeds?! How can you even bear to bring such garbage out?! It’s so shameful and hard on the teeth I wouldn’t even feed it to pigs!”
“I’m telling you, Shen Daniu! That sack of wheat your mother borrowed last year—you are going to get it back for me today! What kind of nonsense is this? It’s one thing for them to play favorites with your eldest brother’s family, but now they’re stripping our own home to subsidize them too?! Don’t think I don’t know that last year’s wheat all went straight to your eldest brother’s household!”
“Bah! What a disgrace!”
Furious to the point of tears, Sister-in-law Xing’er’s eyes were reddening. Shen Daniu could only squat on the ground in silence; he knew his mother played favorites, but seeing her treat his life and livelihood with such utter disregard still deeply broke his heart.
Stepping forward, Song Xia tried to comfort Sister-in-law Xing’er: “Don’t get too upset, Sister-in-law Xing’er. If you make yourself sick from anger, what will happen to the children?”
Never expecting matters to escalate to this point, Song Xia felt temporarily at a loss for what to do.
Wiping the corners of her eyes, Sister-in-law Xing’er told Song Xia, “It’s fine, Xiaxia. At least there’s still this small bag of good seeds. Combined with what your big brother and I pooled together, and if I run over to my maiden family tomorrow to scrape up a little more, you should have just enough to scrape by this year.”
Deeply touched, Song Xia realized that despite being ordinary neighbors, Sister-in-law Xing’er truly looked out for her with all her heart.
Glancing at the wheat inside the large sack, Song Xia said, “Sister-in-law Xing’er, there’s no need for that. This bag of seeds will be enough. I’ll take them back and sort through them carefully; I’m bound to salvage enough usable ones. Besides, this is my first year farming here, so I’m not familiar with everything yet and would be afraid of wasting truly premium seeds anyway.”
Sister-in-law Xing’er still shook her head, planning to rustle up some more for Song Xia—at least get her some fresh wheat.
“Brother Shen, thank you for your hard work. Having these is already plenty.” Seeing Shen Daniu looking so dejected, Song Xia offered a soft word of comfort.
Sitting on his stool and dropping his head, Shen Daniu muttered, “This small bag wasn’t borrowed from my eldest brother’s family either.”
“Whose was it then?” Song Xia asked, puzzled. If it wasn’t borrowed from his eldest brother’s household, where else could it have come from?
“I ran into Shen Hu on the road back, and he gave it to me.”
Song Xia never in a million years would have expected this bag of wheat seeds to have been lent by Shen Hu!
Neither did Sister-in-law Xing’er, who asked skeptically, “Could he be that kindhearted? Xiaxia just took his land away, and he still lent her wheat seeds?”
“I don’t know. But when he heard me mention that you didn’t even have seeds, he just grunted, handed me half a bag, and told me to bring it back,” Shen Daniu answered honestly.
Recalling Shen Hu’s hostile demeanor yesterday, Song Xia had assumed the two households were on the verge of becoming sworn enemies; she never imagined the man would actually be willing to help her out.
With a solemn expression, Song Xia declared, “Regardless of who lent them to me, the people I’m most grateful to are you and Brother Shen. If you hadn’t helped me, I certainly wouldn’t have been able to borrow this many seeds before the planting season!”
“Don’t worry, Sister-in-law Xing’er. Once the wheat harvest comes in next year, I’ll definitely pay you back with interest!”
Although both Sister-in-law Xing’er and Shen Daniu waved their hands insisting that no interest was necessary, Song Xia remained firm. She even went home, wrote out a formal I.O.U. slip for the two of them, and then moved all three bags of wheat seeds back to her own house.
Shen Huaijing had just finished his afternoon nap inside the house when he saw Song Xia squatting on the ground, sorting through wheat grains.
“What are you doing?” Shen Huaijing asked out of curiosity, having never laid eyes on such things before.
“Sorting seeds,” Song Xia replied without even lifting her head.
“Why sort them?”
“Because some of them are bad.”
“Why did you bring bad ones back in the first place? Couldn’t you just take all good ones?”
Song Xia finally stopped what she was doing, raised her head, and stared at the otherworldly, pristine young master standing in front of her.
“Because we didn’t have a single seed to our name, and these were all borrowed! When you’re borrowing things, what more could you possibly expect? Gold?!” Song Xia was speechless.
Stunned by Song Xia’s blunt retort, Shen Huaijing suddenly realized how foolish his question sounded. Spending these past few days lying idly in this rustic courtyard, free from the backstabbing politics of the Shen estate, his mind had relaxed to the point where it had drifted right into the clouds.
Clearing his throat, Shen Huaijing coughed lightly to mask his awkwardness.
Song Xia didn’t mind too much. After all, Shen Huaijing used to be a pampered young master; it was entirely normal for him to have never lifted a finger or learned to tell his grains apart.
So she simply lowered her head again and diligently went back to screening the seeds.
The wheat seeds provided by Sister-in-law Xing’er’s and Shen Hu’s households were plump and full, clearly top-tier seeds kept for their own family’s use. By contrast, the bag of stale wheat from Shen Daniu’s eldest brother’s family was a completely different story.
Though preserved reasonably well, since they weren’t fresh harvests from the previous year, a significant portion of the grains already showed clear signs of shriveling and mold. These bad grains had to be painstakingly picked out one by one; otherwise, once they contaminated the good wheat, Song Xia would literally have nowhere to cry.
Just as Song Xia was meticulously picking through the seeds, the sound of a carriage suddenly rang out from outside the gate.
Lifting her head, Song Xia saw the very same steward from the Shen estate who had originally escorted them here, carefully lifting a chubby little boy down from the carriage.
Ah! This must be Shen Huaijing’s younger brother, Shen Chunming!