The moon shone brightly in the sparse stars, dogs barked at the gate, and Shenjia Village was wrapped in the hazy smoke of evening cooking.
After a long day of work, people could finally stop and return home for dinner.
“Ruo’er, why are you out again? If you don’t rest properly during your confinement, what if you get sick later! Put down that broom immediately!” Li Shantao had just stepped out of the low kitchen when she saw her Shen Ruo holding a broom, sweeping the ground.
Earlier, she had been chopping firewood here, and the wood shavings were scattered everywhere, still uncleaned. Now Shen Ruo had swept them into a neat pile.
“Mother, I’m fine. I feel strong all over now,” Shen Ruo said with a smile. If he really felt weak, he definitely wouldn’t be forcing himself. Moreover, for some unknown reason, his body seemed to be recovering faster, and his strength had increased.
Even considering his recently pregnant belly, most people’s abdominal muscles take at least half a month to recover. But now, running his hands over his stomach, it was smooth with not a single stretch mark, fully restored to how it had been before the pregnancy.
Li Shantao refused to let him continue and tugged him back inside. “Even so, don’t do it. Listen to your mom. I’ll bring your dinner over shortly.”
“No need!” Shen Ruo said, half laughing, half exasperated. “Mother, feel my stomach, you’ll see I’ve fully recovered.”
Shen Ruo had never been one to sit still. The thought of staying inside for a whole month during confinement made him feel suffocated.
The two of them went inside, and Xiao Yuntun was still asleep. Li Shantao, half in disbelief, reached out to feel Shen Ruo’s stomach. As a midwife, she was very sensitive to such things and was a little surprised. Her tightly furrowed brows relaxed.
She exclaimed, “It really is! Feels like you never even gave birth. I’ve delivered babies before where the mother recovered quickly, but even then it took three or four days!”
“My Ruo’er is incredible!” Li Shantao’s expression was full of delight, as if she had just discovered some wonderful surprise.
Shen Ruo felt a bit embarrassed. In his memories, many women after giving birth didn’t actually complete the full confinement period, most would rest for only a few days before going back to work.
So his recovery being a little faster than others wasn’t anything particularly extraordinary.
Shen Ruo followed Li Shantao into the middle room.
His house had only three rooms in total. The largest was Shen Dashan and Li Shantao’s bedroom, which also served as a reception and dining area. Another slightly larger room belonged to Shen Feng, Liu Shan, and Ergou. Although slightly bigger, it was only just larger than Shen Ruo’s room; standing in it, two more people could barely turn around.
The kitchen was a small thatched shed attached to Shen Feng’s room. The yellow clay walls there were already blackened from smoke, blending seamlessly with the dark night outside.
“Grandma, I’m hungry,” Ergou said, biting his fingers as he watched Li Shantao and Shen Ruo enter.
Shen Dashan only picked up his chopsticks once everyone was seated. Once he moved, the others dared to start eating.
Shen Ruo sat down on the bench and called out, “Father.”
Shen Dashan paused briefly with the chopsticks in his hand but didn’t respond, continuing to eat the dark, charred pancakes.
In his memory, his father valued family reputation greatly. Shen Ruo’s past recklessness, obsessively chasing the male lead, even getting pregnant out of wedlock, had left Shen Dashan extremely disappointed.
Li Shantao and Liu Shan quickly tried to smooth things over: “Ruo’er, eat quickly, or it’ll get cold and hard to chew.”
One of them handed him a pancake, while the other poured him some soup.
On the table was a small wicker basket lined with about ten pancakes, each about half the size of a palm. Most of them were black, with only one yellow pancake.
Li Shantao picked out the yellow one and handed it to Shen Ruo.
He took a bite, it was made of cornmeal and smelled fragrant.
This was probably a meal for the sick; the others were all eating the black pancakes.
Shen Ruo reached for one of the black pancakes and took a bite.
The dark pancake was made from unhulled millet and had an oddly bitter taste. Its texture was dry and hard, and swallowing it made his throat feel scratchy.
Adults could manage it, but Ergou was only four years old, and yet he was eating food that even grown-ups found hard to swallow.
Li Shantao saw that he was actually willing to eat, and tears immediately welled up in her eyes. She remembered how Shen Ruo had once refused to eat entirely, looking lifeless and hopeless.
Back then, only when she made corn pancakes would he take a few bites.
“Ruo’er, don’t force yourself to eat what you don’t like. Just drink more of this wild vegetable soup for now. Tomorrow I’ll buy a chicken and make some nourishing soup to help you recover.”
“Yeah, he does need to be nourished; he’s getting skin and bones,” Shen Feng added, finishing a bowl of wild vegetable soup in one gulp.
Liu Shan nodded in agreement.
Only Shen Dashan kept his head down, eating the pancakes in silence.
Suddenly, loud commotion came from outside, mixed with a few barks from the guard dog.
Liu Shan frowned and stood up. “I’ll go see what’s happening.”
“I don’t know who’s making such a ruckus at someone else’s house during dinner. I’ll go check too,” Li Shantao said, following him.
The noise was loud enough that neighbors came out to see what was going on, and what they saw was outrageous.
Shen Hong’s eldest son arrived with a few ruffians from the village, striding in aggressively while shouting curses.
They finally stopped in front of Shen Dashan’s house.
By now, seven or eight villagers had gathered around.
“Everyone, tell me if this is fair! Shen Ruo shamelessly got pregnant before marriage and now dares to bully my sister Ying! You all saw her this evening, her face covered in bruises, crying as she ran home. Tell me, if her face gets scarred, how will she ever marry? That bastard can’t keep anyone, so he wants to ruin my sister!” Shen Fugui fumed, holding up a stick as if to pound on the door.
Liu Shan, about to open the door, heard Shen Fugui’s words. She swung the door open with full force, slamming it into Shen Fugui’s round belly.
“Aiyo! You’re crazy! You rotten woman, you want to die?!” Shen Fugui shouted, clutching his stomach.
The other ruffians grabbed their sticks and closed in.
Shen Feng quickly stood up and stepped forward, placing his wife behind him. “What’s all this noise! You bastards still dare to come here?”
“Why can’t I come? Where’s Shen Ruo! Come out here!” Shen Fugui, along with the ruffians he brought, kept shouting, trying to force Shen Ruo to appear.
“That little frame of Ruo Ge’er’s can handle Sister Ying? I don’t buy it,” one of the women watching the commotion said.
“Maybe he’s just trying to extort money. With relatives like that, who benefits? If Shen Hong really wanted, wouldn’t he have taken Shen Dashan to town to work long ago?” another woman commented.
“Who knows? This afternoon, Ruo Ge’er came out wielding a kitchen knife, threatening people! Fortunately I dodged in time, otherwise… who knows what would’ve happened!”
“Really? Ruo could do something like that? But didn’t he just have a kid…”
“He’s gone mad! Stay away from him, or one day he might just pick up a knife and hack at you!”
Shen Feng’s face turned red with rage. “You don’t know a damn thing! Our Shen Ruo is fine! You’re the crazy ones!”
Hearing the gossip, Shen Fugui’s lips curled into a malicious smile, and he continued shouting, “Exactly! Shen Ruo is insane! He beat my sister like that, if I don’t get revenge, I’m not Shen Fugui!”
“Then why not just change your name… call yourself ‘Shen Mad Dog’?” Shen Ruo said, calming down Li Shantao, who was too upset to speak, as he stepped outside and stood in front of him.
The gossiping crowd instantly went silent, staring at Shen Ruo. People hadn’t seen his face in a long time; before, with his pregnant belly, he always kept his head down.
Seeing him like this left them momentarily dumbfounded.
Even though they were all rural folks, Shen Ruo’s skin was noticeably fair. Even after working outside in the fields throughout his entire pregnancy, it hadn’t darkened much.
Without the heavy white powder he used to wear, his bare face made his red lips and white teeth stand out. His dark, deep phoenix eyes seemed to see right through people. With the baby bump gone, his frame looked long and lean; a simple cloth belt highlighted his narrow waist, making him appear as if he had stepped straight out of a painting.
Shen Fugui was momentarily stunned.
But as he came to his senses, his face turned red with anger, veins throbbing.
Shen Ruo added fuel to the fire: “Sigh, dogs are so cute, don’t insult them. You might as well change your name to Shen Beast.”
“You! How dare you insult me!” Shen Fugui fumed like a pufferfish. He hadn’t seen Ruo in a while; how had he become so sharp-tongued?
“I’m actually praising you,” Shen Ruo said with a sly smile. “After all, you used to be worse than pigs and dogs. Now… you’re just like them?”
Shen Fugui hated being compared to a pig, and normally he would have swung his stick immediately.
“Careful!” Shen Feng rushed forward.
Shen Ruo caught the stick barehanded, using skill to deflect the force.
Shen Feng grabbed him, steadying his brother by the shoulders.
Shen Ruo leaned against Shen Feng’s shoulder, letting out a few crocodile tears: “Today I almost died lying in the field. Only heaven saved me. I should be resting indoors after just giving birth, but he insisted on having me, just out of childbirth, come outside. Don’t you think he’s trying to harm me?”
“Today in the field I saw it—I bled so much and couldn’t stop it. Giving birth really is like walking through the gates of hell,” he added.
“Exactly,” the surrounding women who had given birth nodded in empathy.
“If you don’t rest properly during confinement, you’ll suffer later. I didn’t sit the month right, and now when it gets cold, my bones ache!”
Shen Ruo wiped his eyes and turned to Shen Fugui: “Do you dare tell everyone the truth? Why did I have to come out with a kitchen knife to scare people? It’s because Shen Ziying provoked me!”
The crowd’s eyes fell on Shen Fugui. He stiffened his neck and sneered: “You admit it! You’re the one who hit my sister!”
“You’ve got a problem with your head and your ears,” Shen Ruo shot back, glancing around at everyone. “He says I hit his sister, but the village matchmaker Qiu can vouch for me! I didn’t touch her at all, her injuries came from fainting and falling on her own.”
Shen Ruo said, “Today, right after I gave birth, Shen Ziying came over with several of the aunts, crying and cursing me and my child to death! They even said a coffin had been prepared and tried to comfort my mother. If the aunts don’t believe me, they can go to Shen Hong’s house now and see, there really is a coffin in his yard!”
“I passed by today, and indeed there was one. I even wondered about it myself, but I haven’t heard anyone going recently,” one of the aunts replied.
“Even so, you still can’t come out waving a kitchen knife trying to hurt people!” another aunt scolded.
Shen Ruo lowered his eyes, pressed his lips, and put on a helpless look: “I’m a little ge’er with no strength at all. If I didn’t have a kitchen knife, anyone could bully me—I had no other choice.”
“And they were cursing me to death! I wasn’t allowed to be angry? If Shen Ziying had actually bought you a coffin, could you still stay this calm?” Shen Ruo retorted.
The surrounding aunts fell silent. Indeed, the Shen family’s Ziying had brought this trouble on herself, and Shen Ruo hadn’t really harmed anyone.
Shen Fugui, seeing the crowd swayed by Shen Ruo’s words, immediately snapped: “My sister came home crying with her face and body covered in injuries, saying you beat her! Would she lie about that?!”
Shen Ruo couldn’t help but feel exasperated at the shamelessness of the female lead: “I didn’t hit her. But if you insist on blaming me, I wouldn’t mind actually giving her a beating.”
Shen Fugui picked up his stick, looking stubborn and unreasonable.
“I don’t care, if you don’t pay my sister two taels of silver for her injuries today, this matter isn’t over!”