It was as if Aman could fight anyone who dared rush at her.
“It’s her!”
The woman pointing was none other than Li Guaitie’s wife. She aimed straight at Aman. “She saw Li Guaitie cheating with her own eyes. I’m not lying! It was him!”
“I worked so hard running the household, giving him children, and yet he goes behind my back with the widow! Today, I’ll have my justice!”
Her emotions ran high—hair messy, face showing the marks of slaps. Aman guessed it was her husband who had struck her.
Aman also thought about how women in this era could not openly show jealousy.
Even asking too many questions could get a wife expelled, branded as jealous and made a xiatang fu—a discarded woman.
“Tell me… did you actually see Li Guaitie cheating?!”
The woman’s voice thundered at Aman in the courtyard.
Only now did Aman realize—they had brought the matter to the village chief, perhaps to find proof or some other purpose. They wanted Aman to confirm it.
“You’ve made enough trouble, woman!”
Li Guaitie slapped his wife hard. She had likely taken many more slaps; her face was red and swollen.
The village chief of Waguancun was a plump man in his mid-forties, his hair thinning and shiny on top.
“You aren’t ashamed? I’m the one embarrassed!”
“She’s jealous. By our village rules, a jealous woman is not allowed!”
The woman’s eyes widened, almost bulging out.
“You want to divorce me?”
The air fell silent. Spectators and women who had seen Li cheating today all quieted down.
“She saw it! This girl saw it!”
“Why don’t you all speak up?”
“He did cheat, why is it my fault that I might be divorced?” The women around avoided her gaze.
Aman pursed her lips. “I saw it.”
“He was cheating,” she said, pointing toward Li Guaitie.
“You little girl, nonsense! Who cares if he cheated, shame on you, a young lady!”
“Oh, I see!” Li Guaitie sneered when he saw Zhao Ye behind Aman. “Village chief, look, this girl’s keeping a man in her house too.”
“This girl, who knows where she was exiled from, comes into our village with no shame, living with a man—how improper.”
The village chief examined Aman, his scrutinizing gaze making her uncomfortable.
“Enough. Bringing your family quarrels to outsiders—isn’t that shameful?”
“Village chief, village chief!” The woman clung to the chief’s hand, pointing at Aman. “She admits it! She saw it!”
“She really saw it!”
The chief ignored her. Li Guaitie roughly grabbed his wife from the ground; the imbalance in strength was clear.
“Handle your family matters behind closed doors. Don’t let outsiders laugh at you,” the chief said. Li Guaitie smiled, pretending to agree.
“Yes, yes, village chief. I’ll take her back. My wife has a small mind; how did I marry this thing in the first place…”
The crowd left as noisily as they had come.
“Sigh… her life will be hard from now on.”
“Yes. Li Guaitie has cheated more than once. Men… it’s normal. Women should turn a blind eye, but she had to make a fuss.”
“Will life even go on after this?”
“See? You’d better behave. A woman must obey her husband—this is the way of ethics…”
Obeying her husband… ethics…
The courtyard grew quiet again. Crickets chirped through the night; moonlight slipped through the broken walls, illuminating the cold yard.
Aman felt a weight in her chest, and even the meat in her bowl seemed less appetizing.
“Men… can discard women at will, needing only a claim of jealousy.”
Failing to bear a son? That too was enough reason.
Zhao Ye quietly watched Aman sink into thought, noticing she no longer touched her food.
“Aman, not all men in this world are like that,” he said.
“There are millions of lives, and not all are mediocre.”
“I know,” Aman replied. “Good men are one in a million.”
“Women aren’t allowed to attend school, nor roam freely like men. Marriage is the only path, and then the rest of life is confined to the household—raising children, obeying in-laws.”
Aman continued, “My eldest sister, after marrying, bore three daughters and a son—then she avoided being divorced.”
“My father once said: if she were cast out by her husband, it’d be better to die outside than bring shame back to her family.”
“Why is it that men can flirt freely outside, but women must remain obedient?”
Zhao Ye had never thought about this; his mind had not dwelt on such matters.
Now, living as a commoner with Aman, he began noticing the struggles of ordinary people.
Aman sighed long and deep, as if women had always been disciplined and constrained, yet even in modern society, many still were.
The good news? Women had begun to stand up for themselves.
“I was just speaking casually,” Aman shrugged. Asking a feudal man about this issue was pointless.
Zhao Ye was born into this era, with all his knowledge shaped by it—how could he answer such a question?
The candle flickered in the small kitchen. Aman fanned the fire under the Waguancun pot. Steam hissed from the lid, as if impatient to escape.
She boiled each batch of medicinal residue again, wrapping it to apply hot to Zhao Ye’s joints.
Aman sighed. “Li Guaitie can’t be asked again. Tomorrow I’ll check the market for a cheaper carpenter—this door must be installed.”
Worried, she looked at the empty courtyard. With the damaged door, Aman used the boards for firewood—better than wasting them.
She also discovered a cellar, hoping to find some food—potatoes, sweet potatoes—even a little would be good. But it was empty, except for many dead rats.
“Zhao Ye, are you too hot?”
Aman lay beside him. Zhao Ye’s body was wrapped in her homemade herbal packs, the warm scent of herbs filling the air, making Aman sweat.
The old doctor had said that for Zhao Ye, constant heat therapy was crucial. Otherwise, his body would continue to atrophy, with little hope of full recovery.