After hearing about his daughter’s encounter that day, Yu Qingshan let out a long sigh before speaking. “Next time you want to go into the grove, remember to be careful, don’t let Liu Meimei find out, she’s young, but she holds grudges.”
Fuling had told her parents everything that happened the moment she got home, not wanting them to hear some exaggerated version from someone else’s mouth later. Although her mother hadn’t blamed her a moment ago, her father’s attitude still surprised her. “Father, you’re not angry at me for taking Lehuan into the forbidden grove?”
Yu Qingshan glanced toward the kitchen, then lowered his voice. “Actually, your father has secretly gone in too, I just wasn’t as lucky as you, finding so much matsutake.”
Yu Fuling’s eyes lit up at once. “You’ve been in there too?”
“It’s because I owe Village Head Liu a favor, so during spring planting and autumn harvest, I always go help out at his house for a few days. Several times I heard his hired hands talking about the grove, so I paid a little attention, and that’s how I found out Village Head Liu often uses the excuse of patrolling to send his hired hands into the grove to dig up mushrooms, hunt, and so on. I heard there are wild boars in there too, but they’re vicious and big, hard to catch.”
“So that’s how it is.” Yu Fuling didn’t expect that a conversation between father and daughter could clear things up in just a few sentences, unlike the Marquis, who never once asked her reasons for anything, always blaming her first without sorting out right from wrong.
“The matter between me and Village Head Liu isn’t something that can be explained in a few words. As long as they don’t come provoking us on their own, we’ll just pretend we don’t know anything and live our own lives well.” Yu Qingshan’s eyes, looking at his daughter, still carried a trace of guilt. “If your mother and I had gone to burn incense together that year, the mix-up with the babies would never have happened.”
“Father, you don’t need to feel guilty. Life at the Marquis’ estate was strict, but I learned quite a bit there that I can put to use at home. I believe it won’t be long before our family’s life keeps getting better and better.” Yu Fuling wasn’t just comforting her father, she truly felt how much her parents cared about her.
“Good.”
Yu Qingshan smiled, then suddenly thought of Xie Leyi. “I wonder how Leyi is doing at the Marquis’ estate.”
A troubled look crossed Yu Fuling’s face, not out of sadness that her father was thinking of Xie Leyi, but because she felt that the rules of the Marquis’ household, for someone who had never once been restrained by such things, would truly be very hard to start from scratch.
At the Changxing Marquis’ estate.
Having met the whole family the day before, Xie Leyi had spent the whole day resting in her room today because she wasn’t feeling well.
But resting didn’t mean lying in bed sleeping, she was sitting at her desk reading.
Yet she barely recognized a handful of characters, and the book looked like gibberish to her. She hadn’t gotten through more than a few pages before she couldn’t help yawning.
Crack!
A discipline ruler struck the table hard, startling Xie Leyi awake at once. She looked up to meet the gaze of Nanny Zhen, whom Madam had sent to attend her, and froze in place, wanting to cry but not daring to.
“Fourth Miss, it’s no matter if you can’t read yet. Keep leafing through and looking, and little by little it’ll come to you. Madam went out in person today to hire a tutor for you. Once your health improves, you can begin learning your letters and studying.”
“Learning letters and studying?”
Xie Leyi looked at Nanny Zhen’s stern expression in astonishment. “A woman without talent is virtuous, I, how could I possibly learn all this?”
“You are the legitimate, proper young lady of a Marquis household. Your ancestors produced an empress, five consorts, and countless mistresses of noble houses, how could that possibly be compared to the daughters of mere merchant families?” Nanny Zhen’s tone carried not a shred of warmth, her cold gaze falling on Xie Leyi’s small face. “Learning to read is only the first step. In the future you’ll also need to learn from Madam how to manage all the affairs of the inner household, big and small. Just reading account books alone requires the skill of literacy.”
Xie Leyi’s hand, holding the book, tightened suddenly. She lowered her head, and after a long moment came back to herself, then somehow found herself asking, “Did… did Yu Fuling learn all this too?”
“Naturally.”
Nanny Zhen was a shrewd woman who knew exactly what her masters wanted to hear. “But you are among the finest of your kind, you are the true blood of the Marquis and Madam, she couldn’t compare to even a single finger of yours.”
“But I… I’ve been sick all this time, these characters, they know me, but I don’t know them.” Having been sickly for all these years, it would be impossible for Xie Leyi not to have some pride, but she had yet to realize what she would have to face in the future.
“Then…”
Nanny Zhen bent down and spread the book open. “Learn slowly! The Marquis and Madam will surely give everything they have to teach you. Rest assured, this old servant will stay by your side the whole time too.”
A light flickered in Xie Leyi’s dim eyes, Nanny Zhen might be strict, but she must be a good person after all.
“Yes! I’ll work hard.”
“Not work hard, you will certainly succeed.”
Xie Leyi’s pupils widened little by little at Nanny Zhen’s words.
Even though she’d been well cared for in that poor household, she’d always felt she was a burden to the family.
Until her eldest sister-in-law sold her, and she was relieved to feel that she had some use after all. Now, Nanny Zhen’s resolute gaze and certain tone lit a fighting spirit in her.
She would surely become a daughter her parents could be proud of!
With no work in the fields, Yu Qingshan, worried about complications if he waited, went into town in the afternoon to sell the matsutake, and also to buy some things needed for his eldest daughter-in-law’s upcoming birth.
“Fuling, if you’re sleepy, go back to your room and take a nap.”
The weather was hot and mushrooms didn’t keep well, so Zhang Qiaofeng planned to chop up all the remaining mushrooms, mix them with salt and chili, and seal them up, adding a bit when stir-frying would make the dish smell wonderful.
“Mother, you said before I have two more brothers, but it’s been a whole night now, why haven’t they come back yet?” Yu Fuling sat on the little stool by the kitchen door, chewing on peanuts her sister had shelled for her. Moments this calm and warm were rare at the Marquis’ estate.
“Don’t even mention them, it just gets me angry.”
Zhang Qiaofeng, a hardworking farmwoman, chopped mushrooms while answering her daughter. “Your second brother is even less reliable than your eldest brother. Before, your father and I wanted to arrange a match for him, we showed him ten different girls, and he didn’t like a single one. He doesn’t even look at himself, does he want a heavenly fairy or something?”
“Maybe it’s because the house is too small, and he’s worried there won’t be room if he gets married?” Yu Fuling didn’t know the real reason, she was just going along with her mother’s words to keep the conversation moving.
“It’s got nothing to do with the house being small, he just thinks…” Zhang Qiaofeng’s hand paused, and she let out a sigh. “Let’s not talk about your second brother, let’s talk about your third brother instead. He… spends all day running wild outside with a bunch of good-for-nothing friends. Last year he even broke his leg and was bedridden for three months, and the moment he could walk again, he was right back out there.”
Yu Fuling could tell, just from how her mother talked about her second and third brothers, that she was visibly angry.
“So they don’t help out around the house?”
Yu Fuling felt puzzled, her parents weren’t unreasonable people, so how had they raised sons who were each more difficult than the last?
Could it be that two negatives had made a positive, in reverse?
“Second Brother is always saying Father and Mother play favorites, and he’s told me he’ll leave this family sooner or later, that even begging for food out there would be more freeing than staying at home.” Yu Lehuan said, chewing on peanuts, pouting. “Third Brother’s actually pretty good to me, but he’s always acting jumpy and strange.”
Her sister’s words left Yu Fuling looking forward to meeting her two brothers.