“This baby is hungry.”
Little Fuyuan wiggled her body and looked expectantly at Madam Zhen, pouting her small mouth. This was her standard signal for hunger, and Madam Zhen caught it instantly!
“Oh, my little darling, I’ll get you fed right away.” Madam Zhen gathered Little Fuyuan into her arms, her heart practically melting.
Seeing her sister-in-law hungry, Xie Chuntao felt equally distressed. She stood up, fetched the goat milk warming on the stove, expertly poured it into a leather flask, tightened the “teat,” and handed it to Madam Zhen.
One had to admire the ingenuity of the laboring folk. To make it easier for Little Fuyuan to drink without choking, Bai Muban had bought a water skin and used boiled, softened sheepskin to fashion it into the shape of a nipple. The combination of the two made a perfect makeshift baby bottle.
Madam Zhen took the flask-style bottle and skillfully placed the nipple to Little Fuyuan’s lips. The baby latched on and sucked greedily. The family now had two nursing goats: one traded for the big fish, and the other gifted by Xia Qinghe. By alternating the milking between the two, Little Fuyuan was being raised plump and healthy.
The entire family gathered around to watch the baby drink, their faces filled with delight. Bai Muban compared his young daughter to his “stinky sons” when they were infants. A daughter was definitely better—even the way she drank milk was beautiful, looking just like a delicately carved doll from a New Year painting.
Once finished, Little Fuyuan released the nipple, her large, round eyes darting from one person to another.
“Yi-yi, ya-ya…” Perhaps because she was full, the little “pink dumpling” began babbling happily in a baby language no one could understand.
“…I didn’t have time to buy anything for Sister, so take this one tael of silver and have some clothes made for her.” Bai Erzhuang (also known as Bai Qili) pulled out his scholar’s stipend for the month and handed it to Grandmother Bai.
Originally, his stipend was two taels of silver, but he had spent one tael buying charcoal and firewood for the house.
“Let your mother keep it for your sister,” Grandmother Bai said, not taking the money but gesturing toward Madam Zhen instead. Madam Zhen accepted the silver.
Sitting nearby, Yu Jingui’s face immediately darkened. She didn’t even have new clothes to wear; why wasn’t anyone thinking of her? Instead of worrying about the daughter in their own wife’s womb, they were falling over themselves to curry favor with someone else’s daughter.
It seemed her mother was right: she had to find an opportunity to split the household. With her husband earning two taels of silver a month, they could rent a decent courtyard in town. Once they shook off these “dead weight” members of the Bai family and lived behind closed doors, life would be wonderful.
Bai Erzhuang saw Yu Jingui’s sour expression, and his eyes dimmed slightly.
“Father, Mother, my wages went toward buying medicine for Erlang. I’ll bring a gift for Sister the next time I come home,” Bai Sanzhuang said, scratching his head sheepishly. What he didn’t mention was that he had only just finished his apprenticeship; the money for the medicine had actually been an advance on his pay.
“You’ve only just finished your apprenticeship; where would you get extra pocket money? It’s the thought that counts. Erlang’s health is the top priority for this family; it doesn’t matter if you don’t buy a gift for your sister.” Madam Zhen looked at her third son with a heart full of pride and sympathy.
Bai Sanzhuang had been clever since he was a child, with a memory even better than his second brother’s. Back then, the family had gritted their teeth to send him to school. After a few years, he stopped going, claiming he “wasn’t the studious type” and went to become an apprentice at a lacquerware shop instead. Madam Zhen felt a pang of guilt whenever she remembered the blood blisters on his hands from his early days of labor. Her son was sensible; it wasn’t that he couldn’t study, but rather that he couldn’t bear to see the family so poor.
Hearing that the third son’s first thought after getting paid was for their child, Bai Dazhuang and Xie Chuntao were deeply moved.
“Third Brother, thank you for thinking of Erlang,” Bai Dazhuang said, patting Bai Sanzhuang on the shoulder.
His third brother was still a young man, yet he had endured so much hardship working at the shop through wind and rain. As the eldest brother, Dazhuang felt an immense sense of guilt; it was his lack of ability to support the whole family that forced his younger brother to start making a living at such a young age.
“Why are you two brothers saying ‘thank you’? It’s embarrassing! You busy yourself inside and out all day, never missing a chore in the fields, hauling wood from the mountains and water from the village. By your logic, should I, a useless old woman who can’t lift a finger, thank you as well?” Grandmother Bai intended to comfort her eldest grandson, but it came out in her typical sharp-tongued manner.
This was just how she was. People could think what they wanted, but she couldn’t stand a family constantly being overly polite with one another. When the second and third sons were in school, hadn’t it been the eldest who dug up medicinal herbs in the mountains to pay for them?
“Your grandmother is right. Brothers helping each other is only natural; saying ‘thank you’ makes you sound like strangers,” Bai Muban added.
Bai Dazhuang nodded honestly.
Xie Chuntao’s heart swelled with emotion. She knew Grandmother Bai and her father-in-law spoke this way because they didn’t want the couple to feel burdened. Erlang’s illness had indeed been a drain on the family for years. Previously, more than half of the second son’s monthly silver went to Erlang’s medicine, which often led to Yu Jingui’s secret complaints. Now, even the third son was putting almost all his earnings toward Erlang’s health.
Xie Chuntao was profoundly grateful to her in-laws. Before she married, her childhood friends had said she was marrying poorly into a family with nothing. But Xie Chuntao didn’t see it that way. The Bais might be poor, but they had a righteous family spirit. They didn’t mistreat their daughters-in-law, and they showered love even on a child who was bedridden and paralyzed. In many other families, a disabled child would be abandoned or, at best, given just enough food to keep them alive. Few families would spend their entire savings on medicine for a child like Erlang.
“Third Brother travels a lot. I’ll make a pair of quilted cotton shoes for you with extra thick soles so you won’t slip in the snow,” Xie Chuntao said with a smile.
“Great! I love wearing the shoes you make, Sister-in-law,” Bai Sanzhuang replied without being overly formal. Ever since she joined the family, his shoes had been handmade by her.
Yu Jingui felt bitter once again. The third son only thought of the eldest’s son, completely ignoring her son, Sanlang. Seeing the eldest couple and the third son getting along so well was an eyesore to her.
“Oh, speaking of gifts, I just remembered I have a wonderful item for Sister…” Bai Sanzhuang suddenly recalled something. He reached into the lining of his clothes and pulled out a green jade pendant.
The pendant was lustrous and translucent, beautifully carved with a Kylin pattern. The whole family gasped. No matter how poor they were or how little they had seen of the world, they could tell this jade was incredibly valuable.
“Where did you get that?” Madam Zhen glanced at it, her eyes flickering with a mix of surprise and sudden seriousness.
“Sanzhuang, did you agree to Manager Xu’s proposal?” Grandmother Bai’s voice rose several notches.
Manager Xu wanted her grandson to be a live-in son-in-law, and there was no way she would allow it. The Bai family were not the type to sell their children for glory. If her third grandson really had agreed, she would have Bai Muban announce it to the ancestors and kick him out of the family.
“Mother, Grandma, listen to me! It’s not what you think…” Bai Sanzhuang hurried to explain.
A while back, Bai Sanzhuang had been driving a horse carriage to deliver a batch of lacquerware to a wealthy family in Huai City. On the way back, there was a heavy snowstorm. Passing through a forest, he saw a carriage that had overturned in the snow. An old man, covered in blood, was pinned under the carriage, with snow buried up to his neck. When Sanzhuang checked, the man was still breathing.
Since he was alive, he had to save him.
Bai Sanzhuang had used every ounce of his strength to move the carriage and pull the old man out. To his surprise, the old man was tightly shielding a three- or four-year-old boy in his arms. The boy, dressed in thick brocade cotton clothes, was incredibly cute. He stared wide-eyed in the snow, neither crying nor making a fuss.
When asked for his name or where he was from, the boy remained silent. Sanzhuang assumed the child was simply in shock. He couldn’t just leave them there in the middle of nowhere; if he didn’t help, the old man and the boy would surely freeze to death.
Bai Sanzhuang decided to see his act of kindness through to the end. He tore strips of his own clothing to wrap the old man’s wounds and stop the bleeding, then carried him onto his delivery carriage. He picked up the little boy and drove them both to town.
Once in town, he faced a problem. He lived in the shop and had no place to house them, nor did he have the money to put them in an inn. Fortunately, the daughter of the butcher next door, Tian Maimiao, was a kind-hearted girl. He shamelessly asked her to let them stay in the butcher shop and called a doctor to treat the old man’s injuries.
The two stayed at the butcher shop for seven days. During that time, Bai Sanzhuang went to the clinic for medicine and bought food and little toys for the boy. All the money he spent was borrowed from Tian Maimiao, and he was still in debt to her.
When the old man finally woke up, he thanked Sanzhuang and said such a life-saving debt deserved a great reward. However, since he had no silver on him, he offered to write a receipt so he could send the money back once he reached his hometown. Bai Sanzhuang naturally refused; he hadn’t helped them for money.
The little boy, who had been silent, unfastened the jade pendant from his neck and handed it to Bai Sanzhuang. When Sanzhuang refused, the old man got angry, asking if he thought the jade was too cheap or worthless. Thus, Sanzhuang had no choice but to accept it.
Seven days later, the old man and the boy left without saying goodbye. Bai Sanzhuang realized then that other than knowing the boy’s name was A Zhen, he knew nothing about them. He had even forgotten to ask where they were from, though their accents didn’t sound like they were from the Huai City area.