After a chaotic scramble, the unconscious Lin Qingyue was finally settled onto a heated earthen bed covered with an old cotton quilt.
Her mother-in-law, Madam Wang, quickly brought out some clean coarse-cloth clothes that she had patched and mended countless times and helped her daughter change out of her soaking-wet, tattered cotton jacket.
Perhaps sensing the long-lost warmth of the heated bed, the frown between Lin Qingyue’s brows gradually relaxed, and she slowly regained consciousness.
“Husband…” The first thing she did after opening her eyes was instinctively touch her belly.
When she felt the little life inside give her a small kick as if protesting, Lin Qingyue finally let out a long sigh of relief.
Standing beside the heated bed, Lu Yuan’s heart, which had been hanging in his throat, finally settled.
Looking at his wife, whose face was pale but whose breathing was relatively steady, he could not help but marvel inwardly.
The physical constitution of peasant women in ancient times was truly astonishing.
If a pampered pregnant woman from a modern city had endured such a beating, freezing cold, and a long journey, she probably would have miscarried and suffered massive bleeding long ago.
The reason Lin Qingyue could endure so much was because she had been treated like an ox or a horse in the Lu household for years, gradually developing an incredibly tough and hardworking constitution.
Just then, an enticing aroma of rice drifted in from the outer room.
“Gurgle—”
Lu Yuan’s stomach embarrassingly growled.
The curtain was lifted, and his mother-in-law, Madam Wang, walked in carrying two chipped wooden bowls.
Inside was steaming hot multigrain porridge.
Calling it porridge was actually generous. It was really just a thick gruel made from sorghum flour, crushed corn kernels, and a few pieces of dried, shriveled sweet potato. There was not even a single grain of glistening white rice to be seen.
Yet this crude multigrain gruel had been made by scraping the very last bit of food from the bottom of the family’s rice jar.
“Good child, hurry and eat while it’s hot. Warm your stomach,” Madam Wang said, wiping away her tears as she placed the thicker bowl into Lin Qingyue’s hands and handed the other bowl to Lu Yuan.
Lu Yuan accepted the steaming bowl with both hands, and his nose suddenly felt a little sore.
He raised his head and finally took in the condition of the room.
Six people were crowded inside the cramped earthen house.
Besides his father-in-law, Lin Dashan, and mother-in-law, Madam Wang, there were Lin Qingyue’s three brothers: eldest brother Lin Daniu, second brother Lin Erniu, and the youngest brother, fifteen-year-old Lin Sanniu.
There was also the second sister-in-law, Madam Li, who stood behind Erniu in a coarse-cloth skirt, keeping her head lowered and remaining silent.
All six were gaunt and pale, their cotton-padded clothes covered with patch after patch. It was obvious that they were living an extremely difficult life.
At that moment, all of them were staring longingly at the bowls of porridge in Lu Yuan and Lin Qingyue’s hands.
The throats of the men bobbed as they unconsciously swallowed their saliva, yet none of them said a word asking for even a bite.
Lu Yuan took a deep breath and suppressed the bitterness in his heart.
He lifted the bowl and, without any of the fussy manners expected of a scholar, gulped down the coarse, scratchy gruel in large mouthfuls.
The warm food reached his stomach, and this body that had been on the verge of death finally regained a little vitality.
After setting down the bowl, Lu Yuan stood up and gave Lin Dashan and Madam Wang a deep formal bow.
“Your son-in-law is ashamed. Having encountered such a disaster, I have nothing to offer and could only shamelessly bring Qingyue here to seek refuge with your family.”
He deliberately slowed his speech, adopting some of the scholarly awkwardness and embarrassment that the original owner would have displayed. He then recounted everything that had happened in the Lu household, including how he had forced his father to sign the severance document.
The moment he finished speaking, the previously silent Lin family exploded!
“Those bastards! This is simply too much!”
His usually taciturn father-in-law, Lin Dashan, immediately turned red-eyed and slammed his palm onto the broken table beside him, shaking loose bits of dirt from its legs.
“My perfectly good daughter married into their family without even asking for a bride price, and this is how they repay her—by throwing her out! Do they really think no one in the Lin family will stand up for her?!”
The short-tempered eldest brother, Lin Daniu, immediately turned around and rushed into the courtyard, grabbing a thick carrying pole.
“Second brother, third brother! Grab your weapons! We’re going to Lu Family Village! Today, we’re going to smash that poisonous woman’s house to pieces!”
Second brother Lin Erniu and youngest brother Lin Sanniu were trembling with rage. Without saying a word, they grabbed a hoe and a woodcutting knife from the corner and prepared to rush out.
“Father-in-law! Big Brother! You can’t!”
Lu Yuan had anticipated this reaction. Despite his weakness, he forced himself up and grabbed Lin Daniu by the arm.
His eyes were clear, radiating an undeniable calmness.
“It would certainly feel satisfying for Big Brother to smash up the Lu family, but that’s Lu Family Village. Their clan has dozens of able-bodied men. If you go there, you’ll definitely be at a disadvantage!”
“Besides, smashing, looting, and fighting are against the law. If you get into legal trouble and drag the Lin family into it, how could Qingyue and I face you afterward?”
Lu Yuan patted Lin Daniu’s tense arm reassuringly.
“I, Lu Yuan, will remember this debt. One day, I will make them pay it back—with interest!”
His words were logical and convincing. Lin Dashan sighed and waved his hand, signaling his sons to put down their weapons.
But fifteen-year-old Lin Sanniu was a straightforward boy who could not hold back his words.
With red eyes, he glared at Lu Yuan and spoke bluntly like a machine gun.
“Brother-in-law, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re just too weak and timid!”
“You’re always talking about how filial piety comes first, letting that vicious stepmother torment my sister.”
“And now look at you! You don’t even have a place to stay anymore. You’ve severed ties with your family and become completely homeless! You’re a scholar who can’t even lift a chicken. Are you going to make my sister live on nothing but the northwest wind from now on?”
His words were extremely blunt, striking directly at the pride of a scholar.
Lin Qingyue anxiously tried to sit up to defend her husband.
“Third Brother, don’t say that about your brother-in-law. He was protecting me today…”
“Qingyue, Third Brother is right.”
Lu Yuan not only did not get angry but stopped his wife.
He turned toward Lin Sanniu, who was still full of indignation, and gave him a bitter but sincere smile.
“I was blinded by my obsession with studying before. I let rigid notions of filial piety cloud my judgment and allowed Qingyue to suffer so much because of me.”
“But today, after surviving death, I’ve finally understood what truly matters.”
Lu Yuan looked directly into the eyes of everyone in the Lin family and spoke firmly, word by word.
“As long as I, Lu Yuan, still have one breath left in me, from this day forward, I will never let Qingyue suffer again. I, Lu Yuan, will repay the kindness your family has shown us today many times over.”
His sincere admission and solemn promise left everyone in the Lin family stunned.
Was this really the same man who normally could barely utter a word even after being beaten three times?
As night deepened, the cold wind howled outside.
The Lin family’s house was extremely cramped, consisting of only three dilapidated thatched earthen rooms.
Lin Dashan made the decision to give his and Madam Wang’s room, which had the warmest heated bed, to the heavily pregnant Qingyue and the sick Lu Yuan.
The room where the eldest and third sons had been sleeping was given to the elderly couple.
The second son’s wife was pregnant as well and could not conveniently move, so the couple continued staying in their original room.
The eldest and youngest brothers made do by laying wooden boards beside the stove in the kitchen.
No one objected.
Late that night.
Because Lu Yuan had drunk hot porridge, his stomach had begun moving. He got up, threw on a piece of clothing, and quietly went to the outhouse in the backyard.
As he passed the kitchen, the faint glow of the fire illuminated the window paper, accompanied by the sound of suppressed sobbing.
Lu Yuan stopped.
It was the voice of his second sister-in-law, Madam Li.
“Husband… It’s not that I’m heartless, and it’s not that I don’t feel sorry for your little sister.”
Inside the kitchen, Madam Li leaned against Erniu’s shoulder, her rough hand carefully caressing her belly, which was not yet showing.
She had been married into the Lin family for two full years without becoming pregnant. She had finally conceived recently and treasured the baby as if it were the most precious thing in the world.
Wiping away her tears, Madam Li sobbed as she complained.
“My little sister came home heavily pregnant, and I feel sorry for her too. But our grain jar is already empty. Today, Mother used the last half-sack of coarse rice to make porridge.”
“I finally have a Lin family baby growing inside me… We can’t possibly starve our entire family to death just to save my brother-in-law’s family, can we?”
“Tomorrow, we won’t even have a single grain of rice left. How are we supposed to survive…?”
Lin Erniu sighed and awkwardly patted his wife’s back with his rough hand.
He deliberately lowered his voice, his tone filled with the helplessness and bitterness of a farmer.
“Don’t cry. Be careful not to hurt yourself. She’s still my own sister. How could I just watch her freeze to death in the snow?”
“At worst… at worst, once the snow stops tomorrow, I’ll go to the dock in town and haul cargo! I’ll eat less. Somehow, I’ll earn enough to bring back something for you and the baby to eat.”
Standing outside the kitchen in the cold wind, Lu Yuan felt as though something had struck him heavily in the chest after hearing those words.
He was not angry in the slightest. Instead, he felt a deep sense of respect.
This was the reality of ordinary people at the bottom of ancient society.
His second sister-in-law, Madam Li, was not some stereotypical vicious villain. She had not gone into the main room to cause trouble or demand that the newcomers leave. She had merely expressed her fear about surviving the uncertain future to her husband in the dead of night.
She was simply an ordinary mother who desperately lacked a sense of security and was doing everything she could to protect her unborn child.
Human affection was incredibly fragile in the face of hunger.
Lu Yuan knew very well that his wife’s family giving him the last bit of food they had to save his life was already an enormous kindness.
If he wanted to establish himself in this family and allow Qingyue to hold her head high, he could not become a parasite.
He had to immediately demonstrate his value!
He had to solve their life-or-death problem of food and survival!
That night, as Lu Yuan held the sleeping Lin Qingyue in his arms, he mentally went through all the physics and chemistry knowledge he had mastered in his previous life.
Finally, he came up with a plan.
The next morning.
After several days of continuous snowfall, the snow finally stopped. The long-awaited winter sunlight spilled into the courtyard, reflecting an almost blinding white light.
On the heated bed, Lu Yuan suddenly opened his eyes.
He was surprised to clench his fist and feel the faint strength returning to his limbs.
That bowl of hot porridge and the warmth of the heated bed had actually brought his fever down!
Lu Yuan could not help but marvel once again at the resilience of the people of ancient times. As long as this body was given enough food, its ability to recover was astonishing.
It also proved just how badly the original owner had been mistreated in the Lu household. He had been deprived of food and nourishment to such an extent that a simple cold had been enough to take his life.
Without waking Lin Qingyue, who was still sleeping soundly, Lu Yuan quietly got out of bed.
Beside the firewood pile in the courtyard, he found an old rain cape with countless holes in it and hastily draped it over himself.
“Brother-in-law, your illness hasn’t fully recovered yet. What are you doing out so early?”
Lin Sanniu, who was sweeping snow in the courtyard, looked suspiciously at Lu Yuan’s appearance.
The commotion also woke Lin Qingyue inside. Wearing only a loose garment, she anxiously leaned against the window frame.
“Husband, the road outside is slippery. You’re still weak, so don’t wander around!”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be back soon.”
Lu Yuan turned around and gave his wife a reassuring smile.
He did not explain much.
Instead, he walked straight to the corner, picked up a rusty woodcutting knife with a completely rolled-over edge, and casually grabbed a broken bamboo basket with a hole in the bottom.
Under the astonished and worried gazes of the Lin family, this sickly scholar who had once been unable to lift even a chicken, let alone carry a bucket of water, walked into the biting winter wind.
He strode toward the frozen river behind the village, where the water had frozen solid.
Why was he going to the frozen river in the middle of winter?
What exactly was he planning to do?!