Father Lin was nothing but a paper tiger; terrified, he scurried behind Mother Lin for protection.
“I’m just one life,” Li Miaomiao continued, her voice light and mocking. “But compared to you lot, I’m a bargain. Your families rely on your strong men for labor—if they were gone, your households would be picked clean by the vultures. But me? I’m all alone. Trading my ‘rotten life’ for the lives of your household’s breadwinners? I’d be coming out ahead!”
She burst into raucous laughter, a sound that made the onlookers’ skin crawl. One by one, they scattered, scurrying away in groups of three or five.
The village chief, having seen his fair share of trouble in his long life, wasn’t cowed, though he did let out a weary sigh. He had hoped she had matured, but it seemed she remained just as quick-tempered as ever.
“Miaomiao, let’s go.”
At the village chief’s command, Li Miaomiao stopped laughing. The three members of the Lin family, however, were paralyzed with fear.
“Village Chief,” Father Lin stammered, shivering, “could we do this another day? Li Miaomiao seems… a bit unhinged.”
Li Xiaorou feigned shock, but inside, she was overjoyed. Let her go mad! she thought. If she’s a lunatic, she can’t possibly snatch Lin Dalang away from me.
The village chief glared at him, his voice stern. “I only have time today. If you refuse to proceed, every single potato on this plot will belong to Li Miaomiao.”
Once they reached the mountain, the village chief marked the boundary line. Just as the Lin parents were preparing to head back down to fetch fertilizer to tend the crop, a crisp voice rang out behind them.
“Wait a moment.”
Mother Lin’s resentment toward Li Miaomiao deepened. She glared at her and spat, “What is it now?”
Li Miaomiao couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge her, turning instead to bow politely to the village chief. “Grandfather Village Chief, I have just been married and have very little fertilizer at home. They have occupied my land for three years; surely it isn’t too much to ask that they handle the fertilizing until the potatoes are ready for harvest?”
The chief stroked his beard, deep in thought.
Father Lin flew into a rage, the veins in his neck bulging. “We’re returning the land! We’re splitting the potatoes! And that’s not enough? Why don’t you try asking for the moon while you’re at it!”
Li Miaomiao smiled sweetly. “If you won’t do it, that’s fine. I’ll just pull up every single potato seedling in this field right now. It’s my land; I do as I please.”
If she couldn’t have a peaceful life, neither would they. After witnessing her handiwork with the tree earlier, the Lin parents knew she was crazy enough to actually do it. Desperate, they turned to the village chief for help.
“Village Chief, Li Miaomiao is being completely unreasonable! You must settle this!”
“We shall proceed as Li Miaomiao has requested,” the chief decided, stroking his beard. “I will come by to supervise the fertilizing myself.”
With that, he turned, hands clasped behind his back, and began the slow walk down the mountain.
Father Lin hurried to catch up with him. “Village Chief, why do you always take her side?”
The village chief never feared trouble, nor did he care for gossip. As he walked, he chuckled, “Her father and I were friends for decades. What kind of relationship do you and I have?”
The jab was hidden within the smile, leaving Father Lin speechless. Li Old Man and the village chief were roughly the same age, but because he had married late, Li Miaomiao was barely eighteen—only two years older than the chief’s own granddaughter.
Hearing the chief’s words, Li Xiaorou felt a spike of jealousy. Why does she get the protection of the Village Chief?
Watching the old man’s back, Li Miaomiao felt a sudden pang of longing for her own grandfather. Much like the original owner of this body, her own family was long gone; she was truly alone in this world. She bit her lip, then called out to the old man descending the path, “Grandfather Village Chief! I’m going home by the other path—do be careful on your way down!”
Her voice carried well, and half the village heard her, including Xiao Xian.
The village chief waved a hand to show he had heard. Li Xiaorou, who had been waiting for a chance to disgust Miaomiao with taunts about the previous night’s marriage bed, watched in frustration as she headed in the opposite direction. She stamped her feet in pure annoyance.
Li Miaomiao found the path down, hacking through the dense wild grass with her wood-chopping blade. As she neared her home, she paused to fell a cypress tree.
After dragging the cypress log into the courtyard, she gathered some fresh, dried grass and spread it over the bed boards. The dried grass had a warm, earthy scent; once she managed to dry her quilt, she would finally be able to sleep comfortably on her own.
All afternoon, Li Miaomiao busied herself in the yard. Through the thin walls, Xiao Xian listened to the rhythmic sound of her chopping wood. He made no sound, though the way the pebbles in his hand were slowly being crushed into dust betrayed just how much the noise was grating on his nerves.
Using the cypress, Li Miaomiao crafted a pair of underarm crutches, nearly five feet tall. Without a chisel, she used her hatchet to whittle them down bit by bit, using a mortise and tenon joint to resolve the issue of the curves. Finally, she hammered in the horizontal hand-grips. By the time she finished, the sky had already turned dark. If only she had a proper set of carpenter’s tools, she could have finished even faster.
She stood up, shaking the wood shavings from her clothes, and walked toward Xiao Xian’s room. Seeing the crutches in her hands, his eyes flickered. So, that’s what she was so busy with…
Li Miaomiao lit the tung-oil lamp. The gradually brightening light cast a soft, warm glow across her face. She brought the crutches to the bedside and smiled gently at the man. “Let me help you down. Why don’t you try them out and see how they feel?”
Xiao Xian stared at the objects by the bed, his gaze shifting to the woman standing at the head of the frame. This was the second time she had spoken to him in such a tone, one that was almost—disturbingly—doting.
“Are you trying to butter me up because of the dowry mess?”
Li Miaomiao paused. Making the crutches wasn’t about currying favor; she simply found it inconvenient to watch him struggle with two wooden sticks. She happened to have the skill, so she had made them as a matter of course.
“I just want us to get along,” she replied.
At her words, a faint, cold smile curled on the man’s lips, his voice carrying a sharp, thin edge. “Do you even know who I am? Do you know how my legs were broken?”
“Other than the name ‘Xiao Xian,’ you know absolutely nothing about me. If you want to survive, let’s just be a couple that leaves each other alone.”
Li Miaomiao frowned slightly. His tone suggested there were secrets hidden beneath the surface.
“Take your things and get out,” he added coldly. “Don’t come provoking me again.”
His cold, heartless dismissal couldn’t rattle Li Miaomiao. She had died while returning from delivering a coffin to a client—she had seen far greater storms than this.
“I hear you,” she said, unfazed. “But I never take back what I’ve finished making. Whether you choose to use them or not is your business.”
She leaned the crutches against the wall and turned to head to the kitchen to prepare dinner.
“I’m certainly not going to get angry over a little thing like that,” she muttered.
If her aggressive kneading of the dough—which was twice as vigorous as yesterday’s—was anything to go by, she was indeed very much not angry.
Inside the room, Xiao Xian felt a dull ache in his abdomen. He moved his legs off the bed, his toes barely brushing his shoes. Even this tiny movement sent waves of pain through his legs, as if thousands of needles were piercing them, yet he didn’t even frown. The “old man” hadn’t completely crippled his legs; he wanted him to live a life that was neither human nor ghost, a slow, agonizing existence.
Nursing his hatred, he reached out for the two small wooden sticks he had been using, ignoring the professional crutches leaning against the wall.
In the kitchen, Li Miaomiao finished cutting the noodles. While scooping water to wash her hands, she noticed the jar was nearly empty and headed to the well. She saw Xiao Xian struggling out with his wooden sticks. Remembering his words, she pretended not to see him, picked up a full bucket of water, and returned to the kitchen.
She boiled two bowls of plain noodles, seasoned with nothing but lard and scallions. Just like the day before, she brought Xiao Xian’s portion to his room before taking her own bowl outside to eat.
As she ate, she pondered how to make money. The small wooden box held only ten coins—hardly enough to buy anything. She knew the village held a market in the county on the first and fifteenth of every month. She would craft a small trinket to test the waters, then head into town to study the furniture styles in the local woodshops. As long as she could create something more innovative than what they had, a single sale would keep them fed for weeks.
When Li Miaomiao finished washing her feet and stepped into the room, she saw the quilt had been folded vertically down the middle, acting as a clear boundary line.
“Really?” she whispered, arching a brow. “It’s come to this?”