Er Mazi’s mother was currently feeding their pigs. Upon hearing the loud voice outside, she immediately recalled the items Er Mazi had sneakily brought home last night, claiming he had “earned” them fair and square, and that his parents should store them safely and use them without worry. He also mentioned that someone from the village had “earned” something today as well, so there was no need to worry at all.
She heard that some respectable families she usually interacted with were involved, so she hesitantly allowed Er Mazi to bring those things home.
Only now, with Jiang Zhu’s desperate shouting outside, did she remember that Er Mazi had been frequently mentioning topics like “Jiang Zhu’s dad hasn’t come back, he must be dead.” Connecting that to Jiang Zhu’s furious screams outside, as a mother, she easily guessed what her unruly son had done.
“Jiang Zhu, don’t act impulsively!” She stepped outside, trying to soften her expression while using both hands to calm down the seemingly frenzied child. She noticed that the torch in his hand was only two palm lengths away from their thatched roof. It was spring now, with the wind howling, and she realized that if she wasn’t careful, her home might really be burned down completely, beyond saving. Thinking of this, cold sweat began to form on her forehead.
“Jiang Zhu, I don’t know about this matter. Don’t act recklessly. Don’t worry, I’ll definitely give you an explanation today. Keep the torch away from the thatch. Auntie will go get your things back for you, just wait here. I’ll call Er Mazi to find your things.”
At this time, Jiang Zhu still wore a fierce expression and acknowledged Er Mazi’s mother’s words but remained on high alert, watching the inside carefully and ready to light the fire. If he sensed any trickery from them, he would act immediately to perish together with them. After all, he wasn’t afraid of dying now, so why would he be scared of burning down a house?
Er Mazi’s mother finally breathed a sigh of relief in her heart, turned around, and walked into her yard. She violently threw down the gourd ladle she had been using to scoop pig feed, inserted her hands on her hips, and stormed into the house, grabbing Er Mazi by the ear and dragging him out.
“Oh! It hurts, it hurts, it hurts! Mom, what are you doing? It’s early in the morning!” Er Mazi was rudely dragged awake while he was sound asleep, completely unaware of what was happening outside. He looked at his mother with a pained expression, his mind racing to recall which of his reckless actions had been discovered.
“What do you think you’re doing? Why do you have to learn from others and become a bandit? If you want to be a bandit, go rob the rich and the landlords! Why are you robbing a ten-year-old child? Don’t you have any shame? Quickly, take out everything you’ve stolen from him and return it! You little brat! When your father comes back, I’ll make sure he beats you to death!”
Er Mazi was stunned. “How did you know, Mom?”
His mother slapped him on the head and pointed outside. “They’ve come to your doorstep to settle the score! If I hadn’t been home today, you fool, you probably wouldn’t even know if you got burned to death!”
“What?” Upon hearing this, Er Mazi got angry and grabbed a hoe, ready to go out and confront someone. “That little brat actually dared to come looking for me? I’ll go out and beat him up right now! He doesn’t even know how to look at himself!” He paused, “Mom, why are you hitting me again?”
Er Mazi’s mother pushed him and said, “Beat him up? You’d better go out there and kill him! If your house burns down, you’ll go to jail, and I’ll just remarry tomorrow! Oh! We can each live our own lives, wouldn’t that be nice?”
Er Mazi suddenly lost his bravado but still managed a cheeky grin. “Mom, you’re so old… Who would want to remarry?” When he saw the “kind” expression on his mother’s face, he immediately changed his tone and ran back inside to find something. “I was wrong, I’ll go get it back for him right now!”
In this way, Er Mazi’s mother forced him to return not only the two hoes of different sizes but also a piece of ham, a quilt, half a bag of rice, a whole bag of potatoes, and a sack of cornmeal.
All these items were what Jiang Zhu’s father had saved up for him before going into the mountains to hunt, in case something happened to him. However, this was only part of what had been collected, much of it had been divided up by other thugs in the village.
All these items were piled up at Er Mazi’s doorstep. He originally only intended to ask for the two hoes, but he didn’t expect his mother to return everything.
Jiang Zhu clearly heard the entire conversation inside and thought about what his father had once said: ‘although Er Mazi was a useless thug, his mother was a very upright person.’ Unexpectedly, his father’s judgment could be right sometimes…
Er Mazi’s mother looked at Jiang Zhu’s pretending to be fierce and felt that the child was truly pitiable. He sighed softly and walked over. “Child, put out the fire. We’ll help you return these things. This time, it’s our family’s fault towards you. Sigh.”
Jiang Zhu hesitated for a moment, then nodded. He went over and picked up the two hoes but struggled to lift half a bag of rice because he was too small, so he had to give up.
Er Mazi’s mother helped lift the quilt while forcing a reluctant Er Mazi to carry the bag of cornmeal. Just as they were about to head to Jiang Zhu’s house, he immediately said, “Not that way.”
After saying that, he led the way. When they arrived at Qu Qing’s house, both Er Mazi and his mother were quite surprised, but since Jiang Zhu did not respond to their questions, they chose not to ask.
Qu Qing’s house was about a ten-minute walk from Er Mazi’s house. After two trips, they finally moved all of Jiang Zhu’s things to Qu Qing’s house. At last, Jiang Zhu felt relieved and happily looked at the food he was getting back. He opened the gate halfway and sat on the ground, watching over the food while eagerly waiting for Qu Qing’s family to return.
He actually wanted to find Qu Qing right now and give the two hoes, but he was afraid that if he went, these hard-won items would be stolen.
As Er Mazi and his mother walked back, he unhappily asked, “Mom, why did you leave everything behind? His father is dead, and he’s just a child, he can’t protect those things. If he really dares to burn down our house, we can just move into his! After all, his father is dead too, right?”
Er Mazi’s mother poked his forehead hard with her index finger. “You’re such a useless thing! Why do you want to learn to be a robber? It’s my and your father’s fault for being too indulgent with you! You say Jiang Zhu’s father is dead, but have you seen the corpse? Did you go to the funeral and dig the grave?”
“No…”
“Then how can you be 100% sure that his father is really dead? What if his father isn’t dead and comes back to see you driving his son to death? Do you think Jiang Zhu’s father wouldn’t come after you with a knife and chop you?”
Er Mazi felt a bit guilty. “But… he hasn’t come back in a month. If he were alive, why wouldn’t he return?”
She sneered twice. “It’s only been a month! Besides, even if he is really dead, you’re bullying the child to death without a care. Aren’t you worried that he might really come back at night to set fire to your house and burn your whole family? I told you not to be so ruthless! Besides, the old people always say, ‘Don’t bully the young because they are poor.’ And your family doesn’t lack a couple of bags of grain, a couple of hoes, or a quilt. Just live your own life. Even if it’s a bit poor, we don’t steal or rob, nor do we stir up trouble. But you, you want to make an enemy for life! Do you think your father is the current emperor who can protect you from anything?”
Er Mazi smacked his lips, shrinking his neck and falling silent.
While Jiang Zhu was risking his life to get back what belonged to him, Qu Qing was still digging in the field.
Today is Qu Qing’s first day in this world. He had worked hard yesterday, digging for an entire day, and had managed to clear about half an acre of land. He had never thought that something as simple as weeding and loosening the soil would be so difficult.
When he got out of bed this morning, his whole body was sore, and his muscles nearly caused him to fall to the ground.
His hands hurt the most. After forcing himself to work for a while, Hua Zizhou noticed that he looked unwell and eventually took the hoe from him, telling him to go rest properly.
He had no choice but to sit on the side and rest, watching Hua Zizhou working tirelessly, insisting that he was fine and didn’t need a rest, which made Qu Qing frown.
As he finally took a proper rest, Qu Qing had the time to think carefully about the strange atmosphere at home these past few days.
In fact, he wasn’t that angry anymore. After all, who in this world doesn’t have a secret? Even he himself was hiding the fact that he was a time traveler.
There were still many days ahead, and he didn’t want to live in such a stiff atmosphere. However, looking at Qu Xin, who was timid and dared not approach him, and Hua Zizhou, who was equally fearful and always looked at him with guilt, he didn’t know how to bring up the topic for a moment.
So he picked up a broken tree branch and wrote his five-year plan in the loose muddy ground, writing a “1” below the five years.
He muttered to himself, “I definitely need to find a way to solve the food problem first, but fortunately, the resources here are relatively abundant. If I really get pushed to a dead end, I can always rely on fruits, wild vegetables, and tree bark from the mountains. Surviving shouldn’t be a problem. But to live well, we must have meat to eat.”
He carefully considered how to solve the current crisis and came up with three solutions: the first was to work for the landlord and farm, but he didn’t know if that was feasible, the second was to sell off a part of the land, and the third was, after learning to read, to directly persuade
the wealthy Zhao family, who wanted to build a school, to let him teach there, but the thing is he have to figured out the written language of this world first.
There were no bookstores in the village, and going to the town wasn’t practical either, especially since it wasn’t even certain whether there were bookstores in the town. It was said that it took a full day’s journey to get to the town, which was incredibly difficult. In this poor mountain village, where could he find anything related to writing? After all, ordinary common folk didn’t know how to read…
After thinking for a long time, he suddenly had a flash of inspiration and remembered something—Spring Festival couplets!
This has been a tradition from ancient times to the present, whether literate or illiterate, families would stick a couplet on both sides of their main door. As long as he sees a couplet, he can determine whether the written language in this world is something he recognizes. He just didn’t know if they put up Spring Festival couplets in this world.
Thinking of this, he immediately stood up and said to Hua Zizhou and Qu Xin, “Let’s go, it’s time to go home to eat.”
Hua Zizhou was actually a bit tired, but he kept thinking to himself whether he should say something or not. If he spoke up, he would have stopped and gone to look for him.
So, he didn’t stop to rest for even a minute.
During this period of time, he had thought several times about clarifying his situation with Mao’er, but since Jiang Zhu had come, he hadn’t really spent any time alone with Qu Qing. In front of outsiders, he couldn’t bring himself to speak.
Hearing Qu Qing’s words, he came back to his senses, looked at the sun, and realized it was still early, not understanding why they were going home already.
But… now that there are only the three of them, it might be a good opportunity to speak up. He hesitated for a moment, preparing himself.
“I…”
“Let’s take a different route home today. I’m a bit tired of always taking this road. Ah, were you about to say something?”
Hua Zizhou’s hard-won courage was suddenly deflated like a popped balloon: “No… nothing.”