"See… see what?" Zhou Xianggui asked, his face full of shock and suspicion. He even wondered if his daughter-in-law had lost her wits from the illness.
He opened his mouth hurriedly, wanting to tell his wife to take Jiang Wan outside for some fresh air.
Before Madam Yu could even hear him, Jiang Wan shot to her feet.
Her cheeks flushed red, and a glimmer of hope shone in her eyes. She was desperate to verify whether this "Mall" was real or fake.
"Father, what's valuable on the mountain? Something that can be dug up this season?"
Zhou Xianggui was taken aback. "Why do you ask?"
"I want to go up the mountain and dig some things up."
Jiang Wan stared fixedly at him, her eyes bright enough to be startling.
"You're a woman…" Zhou Xianggui's words caught in his throat halfway.
Meeting Jiang Wan's eyes, so full of drive and determination, the slight resistance in his heart unknowingly dissolved.
He could probably guess why she wanted to do this…
"Self-heal," he said with a sigh, speaking slowly. "It grows on sunny slopes. It has small purple flowers, with spikes in clusters. Look for the ones whose flowers have already withered, and cut them whole—spikes and stems together. Once dried, they can be sold for about ten coppers a catty."
Ten coppers.
Jiang Wan did the math in her head but said nothing.
"Honeysuckle is also in its last bloom of the season. The vines climb over low shrubs. Pick the flowers, not the leaves—leave the vines so they'll still produce next spring. A liang of dried honeysuckle can probably sell for thirty to forty coppers."
Jiang Wan frowned slightly. "Anything else?"
Zhou Xianggui thought for a moment. "If you can find knotweed, that grows by ditches. The stalks look like bamboo, jointed, section by section. Dig up the roots—dried, they can sell for fifty to sixty coppers a catty. But they're not easy to find."
Jiang Wan nodded to show she understood.
She stood up and smoothed the wrinkled corner of Zhou Xianggui's quilt. "Father, rest well. I'm heading up the mountain now!"
After a quick word to Madam Yu, Jiang Wan grabbed a bowl of cooled mixed-grain porridge from the stove and gulped it down to fill her stomach.
Then she picked up the sickle and bamboo basket from the backyard, found a wooden stick to use as a snake-beating rod, and slipped out the back door, plunging straight into the mountains.
It was the height of summer. The sun had just risen, and waves of heat were already rolling in.
She hadn't walked more than a few steps before her coarse cloth clothes were soaked through with sweat, clinging stickily to her body.
Following Zhou Xianggui's directions, she made a point of taking the sunny slopes.
The path was overgrown with weeds, and vines kept snagging at her feet. By the time she finally reached the sun-facing slope, the sun was already high in the sky.
Sweat dripped from her sharp chin, each drop hitting the ground…
Fortunately, self-heal wasn't hard to recognize.
With their small purple flowers, they grew in scattered clumps here and there across the mountainside.
Quite a few families in town were willing to do this kind of work, so finding a patch of self-heal at all was no small feat.
Jiang Wan rolled up her sleeves, crouched down, and swung the sickle.
The plant cut quickly, but it was full of moisture—once dried, it wouldn't weigh much.
After cutting for over half an hour, the basket was finally full.
She pressed down hard until no more self-heal could fit, then had no choice but to carry the heavy basket back home.
There was still about half a basket's worth of self-heal left on the sunny slope. She told Xiao He where to find it, then emptied her basket and went off in search of the harder-to-find honeysuckle.
After crossing several ridges, Jiang Wan finally spotted honeysuckle vines clinging to low trees and shrubs in a corner near a cliff.
The leaves were green, but there were few flowers.
This was probably the last bloom of the season—white and yellow blossoms mixed together, sparse and scattered. Not much at all.
A rough estimate told her the entire patch of vines would yield at most a catty of flowers.
Holding to the simple philosophy of "since I'm already here," Jiang Wan didn't hesitate. She bent down and pushed her way through the dense thicket of thorns.
The exposed skin on her arms was raked with bloody scratches, and in the worst spots, beads of blood seeped out.
Catching the scent of blood, mosquitoes came buzzing over, wings whirring.
Jiang Wan sucked at the blood on her hand, didn't dare linger, and kept working.
She carefully plucked the flowers and placed them in a pouch made from her rolled-up clothes, afraid of bruising them and ruining their appearance.
The sky was growing dim, but Jiang Wan was still searching for knotweed.
By the ditch, rows of lush green stalks stood straight and tall.
They were indeed easy to recognize.
Section by section, like bamboo, snapping crisply when pinched.
Jiang Wan swung her sickle to dig at the roots, but after digging for a long while, she only managed to unearth one plant.
If time weren't so tight, she would have gone home to fetch a hoe.
The knotweed's rhizome was yellow, thick and sturdy, with a strong medicinal, earthy smell.
While the last glow of sunset lingered, she hurriedly dug up two more roots before heading home in the dark.
All day long, Jiang Wan had roamed the mountain.
When hungry, she nibbled on familiar wild greens; when thirsty, she cupped her hands and drank from mountain springs.
By the time the sun had completely vanished beyond the horizon, her basket held a little over half a basket of self-heal, a large handful of honeysuckle, and three knotweed roots.
When she got home, a good amount of fresh herbs was already spread out in the yard.
Most of it had been laid out on bamboo trays by Madam Yu and set on the drying racks.
Seeing Jiang Wan return, Madam Yu hurried over to greet her.
She took the bamboo basket from her with concern. "Your clothes are soaked through with sweat. Go inside and change quickly. The night breeze could give you a chill. There's food still warm on the stove—eat after you change.
Leave this to me, I can still see well enough."
Jiang Wan didn't argue with her. She went inside, changed into dry clothes, and headed toward the kitchen.
She'd been hungry all day and was running purely on willpower now.
If she didn't eat soon, she'd collapse before she ever finished paying off the debt!
And with this world's level of medicine—and this family so poor the coins rattled—if her blood sugar dropped too low, whether she'd even survive was anyone's guess…
At the kitchen doorway, Xiao He was tending to a pot of medicine by the stove.
Seeing Jiang Wan approach, she shuffled aside in small steps and called out timidly, "Sister-in-law…"
She felt her sister-in-law had changed.
When she'd first married into the family, she was gentle and soft-spoken, her voice even softer than her mother's.
But just three days in, she'd suddenly become a completely different person—exuding a crisp, capable energy from head to toe.
Mother said: new brides are always like this at first, she'd get used to it.
But she still felt a little intimidated.
Jiang Wan didn't notice Xiao He's wariness toward her. She was too hungry—hungry enough that her hands and feet were starting to tremble.
The dinner the Zhou family had left for her was a bowl of mixed-grain rice, with a small dish of pickled vegetables and four or five slices of steamed smoked meat.
Perhaps because they'd seen how hard she'd worked all day, those few slices of meat were an extra bit of encouragement.
Mind you, Zhou Xianggui—the invalid of the house—only got one slice of smoked meat a day to chew on.
The pickles had been made last autumn, back when the Zhou family still had money and could afford plenty of salt. Stored until now, they'd lost their crunch, lying limp and soft in the dish, salty to the point of bitterness.
Jiang Wan took one bite, then pushed the pickles aside and picked up a slice of smoked meat with her chopsticks.
The pork, cured over woodsmoke, had a rich flavor of fat and timber.
Paired with its lightly salty taste, it went perfectly with the rice.
"Gulp…"
The little girl at the doorway swallowed.
Jiang Wan paused her chopsticks and glanced at her.
"Xiao He, come have a bite."
She took an empty bowl from the cupboard and set aside one slice of smoked meat for her.
"I don't like meat," Xiao He said quietly.
Even as she said it, her eyes stayed fixed on the smoked meat in the bowl, and the movement in her cheeks as she swallowed didn't stop.
Jiang Wan didn't call her out on it. She just finished the food in her own bowl.
A bowl of dry rice and five slices of smoked meat down, her stomach still felt somewhat empty.
She set the bowl down and glanced at the rice jar under the cupboard.
The jar had only a thin layer left at the bottom.
The Zhou family… had no means to give her extra portions anymore.
Jiang Wan could only drink two bowls of warm water, hoping to soak the food in her stomach and achieve a feeling of fullness.
If she couldn't get more food tomorrow, the whole family would be eating wind for dinner.
"Sister-in-law," Xiao He suddenly spoke up.
"Hm?" Jiang Wan replied distractedly.
"The things we dug up on the mountain today… can I go again tomorrow?"
"You can." Jiang Wan closed the lid of the rice jar. "But don't go too far from home. A little girl like you—I'm worried you might get snatched by traffickers."
A girl of Xiao He's age was exactly the kind traffickers liked best.
They didn't cost much to feed, and could be sold off in a heartbeat.
The reason she'd let Xiao He go up the mountain today was that she'd scouted the area beforehand and confirmed it was safe before calling her along.
Xiao He twisted the hem of her clothes, gathering her courage to ask: "Then… can I go with Su Ermei from next door?"
Jiang Wan looked at her.
She'd only met the Su family next door once in total—on the day she married Zhou Qishan.
She knew too little about them to nod hastily.
But she could see Xiao He's desire to earn money was no less than her own, and an extra pair of hands meant extra strength.
So she turned her head away and replied flatly, "Ask Mother. If she agrees, then you can go."
Xiao He nodded firmly and asked no more questions.
Father's medicine was running low. Maybe she should try a little harder, to help her sister-in-law hold this family together.
After Jiang Wan finished washing the dishes, she passed through the courtyard and, when no one was looking, grabbed a few handfuls of medicinal herbs from the winnowing basket and slipped back into her own room.
She closed the door.
She set all the herbs she'd gathered onto the red-lacquered chest that had come with her dowry.
Prunella vulgaris, honeysuckle, and knotweed root—the three herbs mixed together gave off a fresh, green medicinal scent.
Jiang Wan took a deep breath, then pushed the door open and stepped back out.
The courtyard was pitch black. The moon was temporarily hidden behind clouds, with only a dim yellow light spilling from the kitchen.
Xiao He was cleaning up in the kitchen, the sound of running water splashing steadily.
In the main room, Madam Yu and Zhou Xianggui were talking, with the muffled sound of Zhou Xianggui's suppressed coughs drifting through.
Jiang Wan softened her footsteps and crept quietly to the water vat in the back courtyard.
The vat was dusty gray, waist-high, with a layer of grime settled at the bottom and a crack running down its side, bound together with hemp rope.
She reached out and touched the rim.
A Light Screen instantly appeared before her.
[Pickup Point: Back Courtyard Water Vat (changeable)]
[Local goods detected nearby, available for sale]
Jiang Wan glanced back.
Everything was as it should be—everyone busy with their own tasks, no one paying attention to her.
This vat sat right in the middle of the courtyard. It was far too conspicuous.
Exchanging here would eventually be discovered.
She reached out and lightly touched the words "Can Be Changed."
【Please place the white light point at the new Pickup Point.】
A white light point the size of a fist suddenly appeared.
Without a second thought, Jiang Wan grabbed the light point and rushed back into the room.
"Where to put it, where to put it…"
After spinning in place several times, Jiang Wan's eyes suddenly lit up, and she slapped the light point onto her dowry's red lacquered chest with a "smack."
This was her only dowry.
The chest was large, big enough to fit three or four adults.
After taking out the tattered cotton wadding that was part of her dowry, Jiang Wan grabbed a handful of selfheal and put it inside.
【Local item detected: Selfheal (fresh) approx. 100g】
【Estimating…】
【Selfheal: Freshly harvested, average quality, high moisture content, prone to spoilage during transport. It is recommended to dry before selling to significantly improve quality and price.】
【Current estimate: 3 yuan】
【Estimated after drying: 9 yuan】
【Sell now?】
Three yuan.
Dried, it could triple in value.
Jiang Wan took out the selfheal and tried honeysuckle next.
【Local item detected: Honeysuckle (fresh) approx. 50g】
【Estimating…】
【Honeysuckle: Freshly harvested, average quality, high moisture content, prone to spoilage during transport. It is recommended to dry before selling to significantly improve quality and price.】
【Current estimate: 5 yuan】
【Estimated after drying: 20-30 yuan】
【Sell now?】
Jiang Wan stood before the chest, staring at the numbers on the Light Screen, her mind racing wildly.
The price difference between fresh and dried goods was severalfold.
Selling fresh directly would be a huge loss.
But could she afford to wait?
The rice jar was already empty…
She needed money, and she needed it now!