“Mother, let’s go. Teng’er is hurt and hasn’t taken his medicine yet.” Qin Xiulian felt guilty, deeply afraid that the damn foolish girl might blurt out something she shouldn’t say again. Fortunately, she had studied her mother-in-law thoroughly and knew exactly what she cared about the most.
Old Madam Ye indeed did not want to leave. They had come twice now, and both times they had returned empty-handed. The mother-in-law and daughter-in-law considered themselves quite shrewd, yet they couldn’t even fool a idiot. Wasn’t that a joke?
However, the moment she thought about her eldest grandson not having taken his medicine yet, her heart ached with distress. She shot a vicious glare at Ye Xiaohua, thinking to herself: The monk can run, but the temple can’t. I don’t believe we really can’t get the better of a foolish girl.
They left, but Old Madam Ye was still very puzzled. Her eldest daughter-in-law’s mind had changed too quickly. On the way back, Old Madam Ye asked, “Xiulian, why did you change your mind so suddenly? If we had just persisted a little longer, maybe the foolish girl would have come with us?”
What Qin Xiulian feared most was precisely the foolish girl coming back with them. Before the girl spoke up, she had been ten thousand times willing to take her back. But this time was different. The foolish girl had personally witnessed her committing adultery with a distant cousin from her mother’s family. At that time, fearing the matter would be exposed, she had her cousin throw the foolish girl into the pond. Unfortunately for her, the foolish girl had a tough life and actually survived.
She hadn’t taken action since then because the foolish girl seemed to have forgotten about the matter. She figured it was better to avoid unnecessary trouble. But she never expected the girl would suddenly bring it up. If the foolish girl had really been allowed to keep speaking just now, the matter would likely have been exposed.
The reason she changed her mind and refused to let the foolish girl go back with them was that she feared the girl’s loose tongue would babble nonsensically in front of Old Madam Ye.
Of course, none of this could be told to Old Madam Ye. Qin Xiulian’s mind turned quickly, and with a shift in thought, she came up with an excuse. “Mother, I wanted to bring her back too. But with so many people watching, if we really pushed too hard, everyone would think we were bullying the two children.”
“But that house…”
“We’ll get the house, of course. But when Madam Li left, she took everything in the house that could be eaten or sold. The two children don’t understand how the world works. Even with Guan the Seventh helping them out, he isn’t some rich man; his own family can barely make ends meet. I heard today that his wife even picked a fight with him. He’s no saint—could he really abandon his own wife and children for two kids who aren’t even related to him by blood?”
Seeing Old Madam Ye nod, Qin Xiulian continued, “Without Guan the Seventh poking his nose into other people’s business, those two children won’t last long. When they are starving to the point of desperation and come knocking on our door themselves, we can step in. Then, no one else will be able to say a word against us.”
Old Madam Ye felt that her eldest daughter-in-law made a lot of sense. If they had truly brought them back today, they would inevitably have been poked in the spine by others’ gossip. Her eldest daughter-in-law was indeed the one who thought things through.
Although she was convinced in her heart, Old Madam Ye still put on the airs of an elder. “Mm, even so, you should have discussed it with me beforehand. After all, I am still the one who calls the shots in this household.”
Walking behind her, Qin Xiulian rolled her eyes, cursing the dead old woman in her heart. She was practically going senile, yet she still thought about calling the shots.
“Yes, who in our village doesn’t know that you are the backbone of the Ye family? It was just a sudden thought of mine. It’s all because of that Guan the Seventh. If he hadn’t intervened, how could a foolish girl have so many ideas? I think he’s the one pulling the strings behind her back.”
Relying on her glib tongue, Qin Xiulian finally managed to pacify Old Madam Ye. However, the moment she thought about how Ye Xiaohua could expose her secret at any time, her heart felt uneasy.
After Old Madam Ye and her daughter-in-law left, most of the onlookers dispersed as well. Before leaving, quite a few people warned Ye Xiaohua not to go to the back mountain anymore.
Whatever others said, Ye Xiaohua merely let it go in one ear and out the other. However, she glanced at Guan Qiu, whose expression wasn’t very good, and noticed that the helplessness on his face had grown even heavier.
Guan Qiu squatted down so he was about the same height as Ye Xiaohua. He patted her shoulder, took another look at the items in her basket, and sighed. “Xiaohua, these things are not edible. Don’t go gathering them anymore. If you’re hungry, just come to your Seventh Uncle’s house.”
Whether dealing with Qin Xiulian or the villagers, Ye Xiaohua had not lied. She had already told them the things in her basket were treasures; it was just that they felt the words of a fool could not be believed.
“Seventh Uncle, these things really are treasures.”
“Treasures… heh,” Guan Qiu smiled bitterly. “Alright, if you say they’re treasures, then they’re treasures. It’s getting late, you two should sleep early. Come to your Seventh Uncle’s house to eat first thing tomorrow morning.”
Ye Xiaohua appreciated Guan Qiu’s kindness, but she wouldn’t be going to his house tomorrow. She had important business to attend to.
She needed to make a trip to the town.
The next day, Ye Xiaohua got up very early. It was more than a dozen miles of mountain roads from Yanghe Village to Qingshan Town; if they didn’t leave early, it would probably be noon by the time they arrived.
Having skipped breakfast, her body felt a bit weak, not to mention she had Little Douzi with his short legs along. Fortunately, although the mantis egg cases looked like a large pile, filling half the basket, they weren’t very heavy. She had weighed them at home; there should be about two or three catties.
The siblings walked and stopped repeatedly, finally arriving at the town with great difficulty. Calling it a town, it was actually not very large, not even as big as a decent village nowadays. It consisted of just two rows of shops, which could be seen from one end to the other at a single glance. She had heard that Shiliang Town, fifty miles away, was very prosperous, but it was a bit too far.
Although it seemed small in Ye Xiaohua’s eyes, it made Little Douzi, who was visiting for the first time, very excited—so excited that he even forgot he hadn’t eaten breakfast yet.
However, forgetting was one thing, but the moment he smelled the freshly steamed meat buns sitting on the bamboo steamers by the roadside, the greedy insects in the little fellow’s belly began to clamor.
The little guy looked longingly at the meat buns, licking his lips, and then looked back at Ye Xiaohua. “Sister, let’s go.”
Let alone him, Ye Xiaohua herself was hungry, but right now she had to go to the medicine shop first to sell the mantis egg cases and exchange them for money.
When she arrived at the medicine shop, she happened to run into Jin Dashan from the same village right at the entrance. Seeing the siblings, he was truly taken aback. He wasn’t a nosy person, but the commotion surrounding the Ye family these past two days had been so massive that it was hard not to know about it.
He had heard that the foolish girl took her younger brother to the back mountain yesterday, and today she had run all the way here. If he hadn’t run into them, it would be one thing, but since he saw them, he couldn’t just ignore it. “Foolish girl, why did you come here? There are so many people; if you end up losing your brother, your grandmother will flay you alive. Don’t wander off, wait right here. I’ll take you two home in a bit. Little Douzi, do you hear me?”
Jin Dashan also meant well. He still had errands to run, and it wasn’t convenient to drag them along, so he figured he would come back later to lead them home. Turning his head, he muttered to himself, “Sigh… Heaven is truly blind. A fool can’t even take care of herself, yet she’s bringing along a little one, tsk tsk…”
Unexpectedly, his words were overheard by Zhou Er, an assistant at the medicine shop who had just returned from delivering medicine. He didn’t think much of it at first, merely casting a glance at Ye Xiaohua standing at the entrance of the shop.
To his surprise, however, this foolish girl actually stepped inside the medicine shop, claiming she wanted to sell something.