As soon as Du Dingxiang saw the village head arrive, she tried to shift the blame by playing the victim:
“Uncle Village Head, you’ve come just in time. You must uphold justice for the two of us! Look at how Xia Xiaonuan beat the two of us until our faces and bodies were covered in blood. There’s no way I can work tomorrow like this; Xiaonuan has to come to my house and work for me until my injuries are healed.”
Frowning, the village head asked, “Why did Xiaonuan beat the two of you? What were you two doing over at her place?”
Even in the darkness, Xia Shitou’s face flushed red, and for a moment Du Dingxiang stammered, unsure of what to say.
“Uncle Village Head, do you see this handcart? Xia Shitou and Du Dingxiang came to steal my firewood! Look, they’ve already loaded it onto the cart. If I had come out even a little later, the two of them would have stolen this bundle of firewood away. And it’s not just tonightthey came and stole from me last night too, taking the cartload of firewood you gave me as well as all the wood I chopped yesterday!”
Xiaonuan spoke with extreme eloquence, her sharp little tongue clearly laying out every single detail for the village head.
“Du Dingxiang, is that what happened? Did you come here to steal firewood?” the village head asked.
“How could we steal her firewood? It’s just that our family ran out of fuel for a moment, so I’m temporarily borrowing a few bundles to use. Once our family chops some wood, I’ll naturally return it,” Du Dingxiang argued sophistically.
“Did you ask Xiaonuan’s permission before taking it back to use? Besides, didn’t your family store up winter firewood when winter began? You just because Xiaonuan left, wanted to sleep on a warm kang, and were too stingy to burn your own stored wood, so you came over to steal from Xiaonuan’s place, didn’t you?”
The village head didn’t spare Du Dingxiang any face, directly exposing her underlying motives.
When Du Dingxiang opened her mouth to deny it further, the village head flew into a rage: “You still won’t admit it? With the stolen goods caught in the act, you’re still denying it? Do you want me to call the whole village over to judge this for you, or would you rather Xiaonuan report this to the authorities?”
“Village head, you decide what to do. We’ll just follow your instructions,” Xia Shitou muttered sullenly, squatting beside the handcart.
“Unload the firewood from the cart, and go back and pack up the wood you stole yesterday and send it back herethen this matter will be considered finished. Since it’s the New Year, try to make big things small and small things disappear. I’ll make the call on Xiaonuan’s behalf and won’t pursue this too harshly against you two.”
“What? Return her firewood? Then what about how she beat us up like this?” Du Dingxiang was unsatisfied.
“Why did she beat you? Did she go to your house to beat you? If you aren’t afraid of losing face, go ahead and make a big fuss about it,” the village head said, his tone growing quite impatient.
“Fine, we’ll do as the village head says.” Xia Shitou stood up and walked over to the handcart, intending to unload the bundle of firewood. He tried lifting it several times but couldn’t budge it. Seeing this, Xu Wenbin hurried over, and together with Xia Shitou, the two men managed with great effort to lift the bundle down and put it back in its original spot.
At this, everyone present felt quite puzzled: if two grown men couldn’t even lift this bundle of firewood, how on earth did Xiaonuan carry it back all by herself? And how was it tied so securely? Even after all that tossing around, the bundle hadn’t come undone at allit was still tied up tight!
Without a word, Xia Shitou pushed the handcart away.
After a short while, Xia Shitou’s eldest son, Xiaolong, pushed a cartload of firewood over, and at Xiaonuan’s direction, he stacked the wood right back in the same spot as yesterday.
After offering a few words of comfort to Xiaonuan, the village head and Xu Wenbin followed Xiaolong over to his house.
Stepping inside, the village head and Xu Wenbin were both startled to see Xia Shitou and Du Dingxiang sitting on the edge of the kang. The faces and hands of both of them were practically covered in scratches, all bloody and ghastly. They had probably wiped them down just moments before, which only smeared the blood across their faces all the more, looking utterly terrifying.
“With so many cuts on your faces and hands, why aren’t you treating them? If you go outside to work and they freeze, they’ll be even harder to heal,” the village head remarked.
“We don’t know how to treat them, we don’t have money for the doctor, and we don’t dare wash them, plus there’s no way to bandage a face. We already wiped them with clean rags, and for now this is all we can dowe just have to wait a few days for the wounds to heal on their own. Village head, tell me, where in the world is there someone who beats their elders? It’s worse than an animal!” Du Dingxiang wailed loudly.
Hearing this, Xu Wenbin said to Xia Shitou’s eldest son: “Xiaolong, bring over the brazier. Du Dingxiang, use the ashes from the brazier to ‘caulk’ the gaps in your wounds, and then do the same for Shitou. Don’t underestimate this firewood ash; applying it to wounds makes them least likely to get infected, and they heal fast.”
Hearing this, Xiaolong hurriedly brought over the brazier his grandmother had been using earlier in the day to warm herself, placing it up on the kang. Xia Shitou and Du Dingxiang each grabbed a handful of the ashes from the brazier and smeared them across their own faces and hands.
After this smearing, their faces looked all streaked and striped, utterly and ridiculously comical. Although the village head and Xu Wenbin also felt it was funny, they managed to barely hold it in. But Xiaoju, upon seeing it, could no longer contain her laughter; she squatted down on the floor and giggled uncontrollably. Even though Old Madam Xia repeatedly barked at her not to laugh, she simply couldn’t control herself, squatting right there laughing until she clutched her stomach and tears streamed down her face, completely unable to stop.
After sitting a while longer and seeing that Xia Shitou and his wife were quite severely beaten, the village head and Xu Wenbin found it inappropriate to heap on any more reproaches. Offering a few words of comfort, they each headed home.
As for Xiaonuan, once everyone had left, she gathered the firewood from the courtyard into her spatial dimension, followed it in herself, and slept soundly inside the space once more.
The next day, Xiaonuan didn’t go chop wood; instead, she decided to make a trip into town.
The city closest to their village was Youzhou City, located a few dozen li away. Xiaonuan decided to go to town to exchange the small gold nugget she had taken from the Southern Heavenly Gate for cash and buy some daily necessities.
Because she had a long journey ahead, she set out very early. When the villagers saw her, they assumed she was heading up the mountain to chop firewood and didn’t ask her any further questions.
Not long after the sun rose, Xiaonuan arrived in the city. Walking slowly along the urban streets, she kept looking up at the shop signboards on both sides of the road. Fortunately, without expending much effort, she spotted a money shop (qianzhang). The shop had just opened, and the clerk was unfastening the wooden boards from the windows to ready for business.
Standing by the roadside, Xiaonuan hesitated for a long time before finally gathering her courage and walking inside.
Seeing that the visitor was a young girlragged in attire yet delicate and pretty-featuredthe clerk’s attitude turned much more polite. He asked her with a pleasant smile what she needed. This friendly attitude made Xiaonuan feel somewhat more at ease. Hesitatingly, she took out her gold nugget and expressed her wish to exchange it for silver.
After weighing it, the clerk found it was over three liang of gold, so he exchanged it for over thirty liang of silver.
Clutching the exchanged silver tightly, Xiaonuan walked out of the money shop with a very excited heart. Seeing her emotional expression, the clerk assumed it was probably her first time seeing so much silver and kindly reminded her to keep it safe and watch out for thieves.
Nodding in gratitude, Xiaonuan walked briskly to a secluded spot and immediately slipped into her spatial dimension. Sitting on the grass within the space, she placed the silver beside her, touching the pieces one by one while her eyes curved into the shape of crescent moons.
Xiaonuan stored twenty-five liang of silver in her space, and with five liang of silver and a few strings of copper coins in hand, she exited the space.
In this large city, Xiaonuan successively bought a washbasin, a bowl, a catty of coarse salt, window-pasting paper, a catty of white flour, and twenty catties of millet. After wandering around quite a few blacksmith shops, she finally bought an iron pot as well.
These items hadn’t even exhausted all the silver she had brought out, so she went back into the space to fetch another five liang of silver, using it to buy herself a set of coarse-cloth cotton winter clothesthe outfit she was wearing simply couldn’t withstand the cold anymore.
Standing on the street in deep thought, she turned back to buy a kang mat and a lock, and only then prepared to head home.
Throwing her purchases into her spatial dimension, she walked back empty-handed. Passing by a steamed bun shop, she looked longingly at the steaming hot buns; though her stomach was rumbling with hunger, she ultimately resisted the urge to buy any. Money vanished far too quickly, and she couldn’t afford to spend it on food, so she continued her journey back with an empty stomach.
When she felt truly famished, she entered her spatial dimension to eat a bunch of fruits, rested under a tree for a bit afterward, and then stepped back out to continue her trek home.