Liu Shan, carrying the sewing basket, busied herself with her work, while Shen Ruo closed his eyes and rested lightly, sorting through the memories of the original owner in his mind.
This dynasty was called Dayu. Twenty years ago, when the country was founded, many people had died in wars and subsequent droughts. The previous emperor had reduced land taxes for ten years to allow the people to recover. After those ten years, only a symbolic double-layer tax was collected, and this system continued until now.
Because this region was in the south, rice was the main staple, but the fields were not very fertile. Yields were low, with just one crop per year producing only about two shi per mu.
Shen Ruo’s grandmother had been a history teacher, and having grown up under her influence, he quickly drew conclusions about this era.
It seemed similar to the Song dynasty. One shi was forty-nine kilograms, so one mu would yield ninety-eight kilograms, and with careful tending, a field could produce up to two hundred jin of grain.
This was nothing compared to modern yields of thousands of jin per mu, but what surprised Shen Ruo was that sweet potatoes already existed here, the same food the original owner often ate.
He remembered that as a child, his grandmother would sun-dry sweet potatoes for him as snacks. Whenever she saw sweet potatoes, she would smile and tell young Shen Ruo that they had been introduced to China in the twenty-first year of the Wanli reign of the Ming dynasty by a scholar from Fujian named Chen Zhenlong, an event that directly changed the dietary structure of the Chinese people.
Shen Ruo thought the original author of this book clearly hadn’t done proper research. Still, with sweet potatoes available, his mind started turning with ideas for many dishes made from them.
Sweet potatoes were versatile, they could be ground into flour, sun-dried, or cut and cooked into porridge.
Moreover, the stems and leaves of sweet potatoes were also edible. Shen Ruo remembered that when he was little, his grandmother would often take him to the edges of the fields to tear off sweet potato vines to eat.
As a mischievous child, he would squat beside her, peeling the bright green skin off the vines, and even breaking the sections of vine so they were almost snapped, making a green necklace to hang around his neck, and he made one for his grandmother too.
At times like this, his grandmother would give a helpless smile and tap his forehead with her finger, scolding him: “You little rascal, you’re so naughty! Food isn’t for playing with, you know?”
Shen Ruo would cheekily stick out his tongue in response.
It wasn’t until he grew older that he truly understood her words. Having lived through times of famine, his grandmother valued edible food more than anything.
Thinking of his grandmother now, Shen Ruo felt tears prick at the corners of his eyes. Since she had passed away when he was fourteen, he had lived alone. Yet in the modern era, he had fulfilled her wishes and become a civil servant. Now, even though he had been transported to this world, at least he was still alive.
His grandmother would surely be proud of him.
Shen Ruo lowered his gaze to the small child sleeping beside him. Although still wrinkled from birth, a closer look revealed hints of cute and delicate features.
It was he who had brought this child into the world, and an overwhelming sense of responsibility welled up in his heart.
Sleep was contagious, and watching the little one made Shen Ruo drowsy; his eyelids grew heavy, and he drifted back into dreams.
He woke again to the sound of commotion outside.
A crowd had gathered at the Shen family’s gate. Many women were carrying sewing baskets and washbasins, coming to see the excitement.
“…Wuwuwu, I know that Elder Uncle’s family isn’t wealthy, but I’ve already sent my brother to the town to order a thin coffin. Aunt, please don’t be too upset!” A clear, bright female voice pretended to cry.
“Ying girl, what are you saying!”
Li Shantao’s voice was almost breaking with fury. “Did you come to my house just to curse Ruo’er?”
“Elder Aunt, please don’t be angry! I know you can’t accept that Ruo Ge’er passed away so suddenly, but the dead cannot come back to life. You must restrain your grief!” Shen Ziying dabbed at the corners of her eyes with a handkerchief, putting on an act of extreme sorrow.
The other women around murmured among themselves.
“No way! Just this morning I saw Ruo Ge’er out in the fields, how could…”
“I saw it! Around noon he collapsed in the field. Blood was everywhere, and it was only because our brother Lang had mercy and carried him back. What, didn’t survive childbirth?”
“If you ask me, that cursed thing in the womb shouldn’t have been kept. It would’ve been better to abort back then. Now see! One corpse, two lives lost!”
“You all! What nonsense are you spouting! My Ruo’er is perfectly fine!” Li Shantao’s eyes were red with anger. Ruo’er was her child, and she had always protected him as if he were her own eye.
These people actually cursed Shen Ruo and Xiao Yuntun right in front of her. Furious, she grabbed a stool from the main room and charged forward to strike.
“Ah! Ah! The Shens have gone mad!” Everyone immediately stepped back, dodging Li Shantao’s swinging stool.
“Elder Aunt! What are you doing?!” Shen Ziying frowned, outraged.
She had originally come to show off her composure to the villagers, flaunting her wealth while subtly showing off about Elder Uncle’s son. But instead, she had driven the usually mild-tempered Li Shantao into a frenzy.
Liu Shan had gone out to fetch Ergou and wasn’t home, so Li Shantao was left alone, struggling against the crowd. Anger boiled over.
“What am I doing?! I’m smashing that girl’s mouth! My Ruo’er isn’t just fine, he even gave birth to a handsome little child!”
Shen Ziying’s brows knitted tightly as she snapped, “Impossible!”
Shen Ziying was so shocked that she forgot to dodge, and Li Shantao hit her hard twice on the back with the stool.
After rebirth, she had been earning money, and her family had always pampered her. Even her father, who had been biased toward sons, treated her extremely well, nothing like the beatings and scoldings of her past life.
And yet now, she was actually being beaten by the very Elder Uncle’s family she had always despised!
Her eyes flashed with fury as she shoved Li Shantao away, nearly toppling to the ground. But a hand shot out from behind and caught her steadily before she could fall.
“Mother, what’s going on? Why do I hear a bunch of dogs barking?” Shen Ruo’s voice was neither loud nor soft, but clear enough for everyone nearby to hear.
“You… you’re not dead?!” Shen Ziying reacted as if she had seen a ghost, pointing at Shen Ruo, while the surrounding women shrank back, their eyes shifting nervously.
“I’m not dead. Surprised?” Shen Ruo’s deep, dark phoenix eyes fixed steadily on her, sending shivers down her spine.
“Ruo’er, you’re supposed to be resting during your confinement! How could you come out? You mustn’t catch wind!” Li Shantao panicked and hurriedly grabbed Shen Ruo’s hand, trying to pull him back inside.
“It’s fine, Mother. I can handle myself.” Shen Ruo felt that after sleeping twice since arriving here, his body had been recovering faster, and he was now filled with strength.
“Who’s barking like a dog?! You little ge’er sure have a sharp tongue!” one of the women spat and stepped forward to stand beside Shen Ziying.
“Whoever I say it is.” Shen Ruo replied without hesitation. Having lost both parents and raised by his grandmother, he was used to gossip and side-eyes in the village, but he wasn’t someone who could be pushed around.
Back then, a group of kids in the village had bullied him for being parentless. They often fought; at first he couldn’t win, but as he grew, he fought back recklessly, chasing down even the older ge’ers several years his senior. After that, no one dared to mock him as the parentless wild child ever again.
Every time, Shen Ruo would carefully hide his injuries so his grandmother wouldn’t notice.
But little Shen Ruo had no idea that once he fell asleep, his grandmother would take boiled eggs and roll them over his bruises to help heal them.
He had been fighting since he was small. Once he started school, he not only excelled academically but could also hold his own in fights, eventually becoming the leader among the local kids.
Villagers were gossipy and straightforward, force was often the easiest solution. Reasoning didn’t work; in these harsh, remote lands, the locals were tough. Showing them he wasn’t someone to be trifled with, even at the cost of losing popularity, was better than being bullied by everyone.
“You shameless wretch! You messed around with men and gave birth to a little wild child, how dare you still have the face to live!” a woman scolded, pointing at Shen Ruo arrogantly.
Li Shantao’s pale face flushed red with anger, and she raised her stool to confront the woman.
Shen Ruo sneered, and almost instinctively, he slipped into the kitchen and came back holding two kitchen knives.
“Who are you calling a wild child?” he glared, pressing one knife against the woman’s neck.
Shen Ziying screamed as the other knife swung toward her forehead; her eyes rolled back, and she collapsed to the ground.
None of the surrounding women dared to step forward to help.
The woman caught in his grip widened her eyes, trembling all over. “You… you dare… dare to kill me?”
“Why shouldn’t I dare? This is a remote, harsh mountain land. If I kill you, and then all the witnesses, and bury you on the back hill, no one will ever find you,” Shen Ruo said, a twisted smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Besides, I’m known as such an easy-going, good-tempered person, who would believe I’d actually kill someone?”
His gaze swept over everyone around him, freezing them in place so they didn’t dare move an inch.
That’s right, ever since Shen Ruo became pregnant, there had been a lot of gossip in the village, but he had always been calm and easy to deal with. Even if someone insulted him excessively, he would just ignore it and continue with his farm work.
Everyone thought he shouldn’t even be alive. An unmarried “ge’er” carrying a child was a scandal affecting the reputation of all the young men and women in the village. Many women held deep grudges against his family.
Not even offending Li Shantao, the village’s only midwife, gave them pause.
Li Shantao herself was startled by her son, but instead of fear, she felt vindicated. These women were all hoping her son would die, how could she let them speak recklessly? What if the gods in heaven heard them!
Li Shantao glared and, for the first time in her life, threatened the other women: “If any of you dare spread what happened today, I swear, one by one, my son will deal with you!”
The seven women nodded nervously and quickly replied, “We won’t say a word!”
One slightly bolder woman said, “Ru-Ruo Ge’er… please let Aunt Qiu go. She… she’s the matchmaker of our village. I-I mean… in the future, if you want to get married, you’ll still need her help…”
The woman grew anxious, marriages were already difficult in the village, and offending the matchmaker could make things even harder.
Shen Ruo didn’t care whether she was a matchmaker or anything else. Looking at the trembling Aunt Qiu, he repeated coldly, “Who did you just call a bastard?”
The thing he hated most was the word “bastard.” He had been called that all his life as a child and would never let Xiao Yuntun experience the same humiliation!
He had already acknowledged that Yuntun was his child, and Shen Ruo would not allow anyone to insult his child with that word.
Aunt Qiu’s legs shook, her voice trembling: “I…I am—”
“What are you? Speak louder!” Shen Ruo pressed the knife harder, cutting through a thin layer of skin, and bright red blood ran down her neck.
Her eyes rolled back, about to faint, but Shen Ruo pinched her philtrum to wake her.
Tears and snot streaming down her face, Aunt Qiu shouted, “It’s me! I am the bastard!”
Shen Ruo snorted coldly and let go.
Aunt Qiu collapsed onto the ground, too frightened to say anything more harsh, and staggered away immediately.
Shen Ruo glared at the other seven women, warning, “If I ever hear anyone call my child a bastard again, there will be no mercy!”
“I do what I say!” Shen Ruo threw the kitchen knife with force. The tip sank deep into the mud, just an inch away from the nearest woman’s toes.
The seven women didn’t dare disobey. Each of them clutched their hearts, tears streaming from sheer fright.
“We won’t say it! We won’t say it!” The women grabbed their things and bolted, as if Shen Ruo would chase them.
Meanwhile, the fainted Shen Ziying lay forgotten in the mud at the Shen family gate.
Li Shantao regained her composure, grabbed Shen Ruo’s hand, and checked carefully. Seeing he was unharmed, she finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Her eyes red, Li Shantao held onto Shen Ruo’s arm.
Over these past ten months, her Shen Ruo had suffered many injustices, and seeing him finally snap today left her truly impressed.
“Ruo’er, what should we do with this girl?” Li Shantao asked.
Shen Ruo didn’t give his nominal cousin an inch of face.
He said coldly, “Throw her out.”