Back at the ruined temple, Huamei stared at the courtyard overgrown with weeds and cobwebs, utterly dumbfounded.
“Miss, we… we’re going to live here?”
“What do you expect?” Su Jinse replied.
Huamei didn’t dare speak further and resigned herself to start cleaning.
Su Jinse walked over to the dry well. The vine she had grown the day before still dangled inside, and she could sense that after a day of drawing, a small pool of water had accumulated at the bottom.
She had Huamei fetch a rope and a bucket—the only tools left on the carriage.
The first bucket pulled up was murky and foul.
But by the second and third buckets, the water gradually became clear.
When the fresh well water was finally drawn, Huamei was so excited she nearly cried. Water and food—they could survive.
Over the next few days, the two of them began a massive transformation of the ruined temple.
Huamei rolled up her sleeves and battled the centuries-old cobwebs dangling from the beams, her face streaked like a calico cat. Every time she knocked one down with a bamboo pole, she would turn around to see Su Jinse calmly standing in the courtyard, faint green light circling her fingertips.
“Miss, you rest. I’ll handle the heavy work!” Huamei quickly said.
Su Jinse ignored her. With a flick of her wrist,
the next moment, a few thin vines on the ground seemed to come alive like green snakes, coiling themselves around the creaking beams and doorposts. The vines tightened, holding the loose wood firmly in place. The once precarious doors and windows were instantly stabilized.
“T-this…” Huamei stammered, pointing at the vines.
“Alive. Fresh,” Su Jinse said simply, then glanced at the holes in the roof.
She walked to the corner of the courtyard, her hand brushing the ground. Several palm-sized leaves rapidly sprouted, growing thick and glossy like handheld fans. She plucked a few and said to Huamei, “Hand these to me.”
Huamei climbed the rickety ladder, trembling, and passed up the leaves. Following Su Jinse’s instructions, she layered the leaves over the holes in the roof.
The leaves were naturally sticky, fitting tightly together, and proved even better than oilcloth.
After clearing the weeds from the courtyard and revealing the clean stone floor beneath, Huamei sat down exhausted. Looking at the renewed courtyard and then at her Miss, her expression had completely changed.
The vegetable patch was even more miraculous.
Each morning, Su Jinse watered it just once with well water, and the greens and radishes grew explosively, like they had been injected with vitality. Within just three to five days, the radishes sprouted plump, white tops, and the greens gleamed vividly.
Huamei casually plucked a small melon, wiped it on her clothes, and bit into it. The sweet juice immediately filled her mouth, tasting far better than the tribute vegetables the marquis’s mansion could produce with gold.
She glanced at her previously swollen ankle. After Su Jinse’s daily “massages,” it had long since subsided, and she could move freely. Any lingering doubts she had were completely replaced with respect and reassurance.
Dinner that night was still just boiled greens.
Huamei’s face puffed with delight as she ate, the sweetness of the plain greens astonishing. She mumbled through the last leaf, “Miss, if only we had some salt, this would taste even better.”
Immediately regretting the words, she hurriedly corrected herself: “No, no, Miss! I was wrong! This is perfect—fresh and sweet, really!”
Su Jinse didn’t reply. Her gaze drifted thoughtfully toward the mountain below.
Yes. Salt.
Rice, flour, oil. Winter was coming; they would also need coal and thick cotton cloth.
She set down her chopsticks, her voice clear in the night: “Huamei, can we sell our vegetables?”
“Eh?”
Huamei’s mind faltered. Sell… sell vegetables?
The Miss was the daughter of a marquis. How could she engage in such lowly trade? If anyone knew…
But then she realized: what “anyone” was there? They were just two orphaned girls scraping by in the mountains. Reputation wouldn’t feed them.
Huamei’s face turned pale and flushed in turns, conflicted. “But Miss, the mountain path is dangerous, and people in town don’t know us…”
“What are you afraid of?” Su Jinse glanced at her. “We have something others don’t.”
Her gaze fell on the vegetable patch.
If they sold these…
Huamei’s eyes lit up.
“We can! We definitely can!” she exclaimed, slapping her thigh. “Miss, if we take these to town, people will fight to buy them! We could get so much money… enough to buy lots of salt!”
She was already imagining piles of salt stacked into little mountains.
“Miss, you rest. I’ll pick all the vegetables, the biggest and best! We’ll go down the mountain first thing tomorrow!”
Watching Huamei rush off, Su Jinse’s lips curved in the faintest, nearly invisible smile.
The wooden box her brother had given her had survived the overturned carriage, held tightly by Huamei, and was not lost.
But Su Jinse had no intention of using the silver notes inside. They were her brother’s goodwill and would serve as her trump card when she returned to the capital.
She would earn her first foothold in this world entirely on her own.
Her gaze shifted to the vast Dragon Ridge Mountains behind the temple.