Chapter 2Now, in Hanyang Prefecture of Huguang, there was a town called Yunshui. When the Han River changed its course, Hankou was able to separate from Hanyang and, thanks to its unique geographical position, was formally established as a town, becoming a major commercial hub of Chu and indeed the entire country. Although Yunshui Town belonged to Hanyang Prefecture, it was connected to Hankou by waterways, and it too prospered by taking advantage of boat transport.Yunshui Town also had a pawnshop, run by the wealthy Wu family of the town. Although the Jing Dynasty had laws stipulating that private money-lending could not charge more than three percent interest per month, there were tricks to it—when you went to repay the money, they would claim your silver was not pure enough, and they would also charge a storage fee. In the end, the monthly interest came to five or seven percent.Yet Feng Dalang, also known as Feng Li, who had always been known for his prudence, borrowed a huge sum of six hundred taels in one go. He carefully tucked the silver away and walked swiftly along the road. Only when he finally arrived before a large compound at the west end of town did he visibly relax. He opened the door and went inside.The Feng family's residence had taken two years to build. It had five bays facing the street and two stories at the back, all with grey tiles and white walls, like an ink-wash landscape painting.The compound was divided into two sections. One section was used to run an inn for travelers, entertaining merchants and officials from all directions. The two front halls held five or six tables, and the six or seven rooms in the back were for lodging. The other section housed the Feng family themselves. The three front halls were used to receive guests, the eastern wing housed Feng Dalang's parents and connected to the inn next door, and the western wing housed Feng Dalang's younger brother, Feng He, the second son of the family.The rear courtyard was where Feng Dalang, his wife Mrs. Jiang, and their two-year-old daughter lived.Mrs. Jiang was doing needlework, holding her daughter Ying-jie in her arms. She was a very handsome woman, wearing a greenish-blue woolen jacket with a slanted placket and a goose-yellow silk skirt, which made her complexion appear even fairer. When she saw Feng Dalang return, she immediately put down her embroidery frame, picked up her daughter, and hurried over to him in two or three quick steps, looking up at him and asking, "How did it go?"Feng Dalang smiled and said, "I got the loan—six hundred taels in total, at three percent interest. Tomorrow, I'll go and buy those three hundred mu of farmland. We can use the money the inn earns to pay it off. Miss this chance, and there won't be another."Mrs. Jiang worshipped her husband endlessly and nodded like a pecking chick.As the saying goes, "When Huguang ripens, the whole world is fed." The rice from Huguang was shipped along the Han River to all parts of the country. The locals only grew enough for their own families and never sold it outside. The Feng family had only been here for two or three generations and had no land to farm. Now that a good opportunity had finally come, he seized it in one go.Seeing how adorable his wife was, Feng Dalang stole a kiss on her cheek. Then, noticing his daughter looking at him, he used his big, fan-like hand to gently tap her nose.Yingniang was tapped and wrinkled her little nose. She hadn't expected to be reborn—and reborn into the body of a little girl at that. She even thought she might be under some kind of spell, because in the harem, when one person gained favor, another lost it, and there was no telling what a fallen favorite might do.But she discovered that her birthmark was still there, and although the face in the bronze mirror was young and its features not yet fully defined, she was certain—this was what she looked like as a child. Yesterday she had flipped through the almanac and looked at the woman who was said to be her mother, and only then did she realize that she hadn't been reborn into someone else's body—she had returned to her own childhood.Which meant it was before she had been abducted!Judging by where they lived and how they dressed, the Feng family, while not wealthy or noble, was a modestly comfortable household. Yesterday, when her mother's relatives came by and told many old stories, she learned a great deal about the Feng family's history.The Feng family's great-grandfather had been a refugee who settled in Xue Family Village, a settlement below Yunshui Town. He rented a few thin acres of land from a local landlord, barely enough to scrape by. By her grandfather's generation, the old man, being strong and sturdy, was selected to serve as a soldier in the Prince of Jing's household. It was because her grandfather went to Jingzhou Prefecture to serve as a soldier that many relatives flocked there to do small business.Her father, Feng Dalang, had studied at the community school for a few years. Later, thinking the school wasn't good enough, several families pooled money to hire a private tutor. At twenty-one, he passed the county examination and the prefectural examination, but failed the academy examination (the third-level examination). When he was preparing to try again, the Feng grandfather retired from military service, and his younger brother Feng He was a crying infant in need of care—the family's finances became difficult.Feng Li had kept accounts at a large cloth shop in Hanyang Prefecture city and later worked as a clerk at a money shop. He was a thoughtful man with a strong will, and in his spare time from work, he studied. Finally, at twenty-seven, with guidance from the chief examiner, he passed the institutional examination and became a stipendiary student of the county school.He had remained single all through those years, and only after becoming a xiucai—earning scholarly status and gaining options—did he marry Mrs. Jiang. She was ten years younger than him, the daughter of a small landlord in Yunshui Town. She had two years of schooling, was beautiful, quite capable, especially skilled in needlework, and had a lively, lovely disposition.After Mrs. Jiang married into the family, the old Feng household became cramped. Feng Li had worked in both a money shop and a cloth shop, so he knew the ins and outs of the cloth trade. Being a scholar, he could travel without a permit. Taking the silver he had saved over six years, he transported his father-in-law's rice and beans to Wuzhong to sell, then brought fine cloth back from Wuzhong to sell in Hanyang Prefecture.After three years of this back-and-forth, he had saved over four hundred taels. He built this two-winged residence and still had over a hundred taels left over.Even with money in hand, Feng Li never thought of going into business full-time like his uncle's family. Even the tavern he opened was merely to give his parents, Old Man Feng and Old Woman Feng, a livelihood, and to support his younger brother Feng He in his studies.It had taken three generations for his family to shed their refugee origins, and he was determined to become a family of farmers and scholars—hence the purchase of farmland.Yingniang thought her observation couldn't be wrong. Her father was a man of great foresight, and he still read every day, planning to sit for the provincial examination in the future. Whether managing the family estate or pursuing his studies, he had perseverance and constancy. Her mother, apart from raising her, just stayed home doing needlework—she rarely went out.So how had she been abducted?Unless one of two things had happened: her father's usurious loans had collapsed, ruining the family, or she had wandered off by accident.Just as she was thinking, she heard Mrs. Jiang say, "Husband, go rest for a while. I'll go to the kitchen and start cooking."It was already noon, and smoke was rising from chimneys nearby. The family of three sometimes ate at the shop, and sometimes cooked at home in the kitchen. Yesterday, Mrs. Jiang's natal family had come by, bringing plenty of dried vegetables, eggs, and an old hen, so she wanted to cook something good with them.Afraid of disturbing Feng Li, she carried her daughter to the kitchen as well and set her down on a small stool.The kitchen was beside the eastern wing, not very large, and simply furnished—two big stoves, a five-dou cabinet holding rice, and a cupboard with bowls, chopsticks, and some provisions.Mrs. Jiang prepared the food with practiced efficiency. She first sliced the soaked dried beans, then cut up the pork belly, stir-fried it in a small pot, and ladled it into a black earthenware jar to set in the stove's firebox. In one pot she scooped out the rice and steamed it with rice water; in the other, she stewed chicken with vermicelli noodles.With everything simmering in the pots, Mrs. Jiang ladled some rice water into a small bowl, added two scoops of brown sugar, and handed it to her daughter.Yingniang hadn't realized she'd been so doted on before being abducted. She'd heard her grandmother say that her mother had nearly died in childbirth and might have difficulty conceiving again, and Mrs. Jiang would say sweetly that her husband had told her if she couldn't have more children, this one daughter was enough.Brown sugar rice water was a folk tonic. Yingniang ate it with her little spoon—warm and sweet—and before she knew it, the bowl was empty.Just as she finished, a middle-aged woman came bustling in. She wore a blue cloth headscarf and a dark brown apron, and carried two dishes of fine food: "Daughter-in-law, I've brought food over. Has the eldest son returned?"This woman was Yingniang's grandmother, a sharp-tongued and spirited woman who loved to right wrongs. Those who liked her called her Old Lady Feng; those who didn't called her Old Woman Feng, and eventually everyone just called her Old Woman Feng.When Mrs. Jiang heard her mother-in-law ask, she said softly, "Husband has returned, but he borrowed too much from the usury shop—I'm worried about it too.""Don't say that—even an old woman like me gets frightened just hearing about it. It's just that we two old folks are useless and have been a burden on the eldest son." Old Woman Feng wasn't lying. Her son had paid for his own marriage and house with his own money, and they still had to support the younger son's studies—where would they find money to help the eldest? Even this fine tavern was set up by the son, with the profits going to them.Mrs. Jiang in turn comforted her mother-in-law. Yingniang thought that Old Woman Feng and Mrs. Jiang got along well as in-laws, unlike other families—another sign of a thriving household.Then Old Woman Feng took Mrs. Jiang's hand and said, "Before, the eldest son never married, and relatives talked about him behind his back. But now he's married with a child and has built up such a large estate—my heart is just full of joy.""Mother, don't say that. We'll only do better and better from here," Mrs. Jiang reassured her.Old Woman Feng smiled. "If it weren't for the eldest son giving me advice, the household would be a mess. Don't be fooled by your father-in-law's honest looks—in the early years, after a few sips of rice wine, if I scolded him, he'd raise his hand, and it was always the eldest son who stopped him."Seeing that Old Woman Feng was going on without end, Mrs. Jiang collected Yingniang's bowl and spoon and gestured toward the adjoining wall: "Mother, shouldn't you be going to help at this hour? There might be customers at noon."Only then did Old Woman Feng get up, but she added a warning to Mrs. Jiang: "Your uncle's youngest son is said to be coming back to get married. They've been doing business in the prefectural city and haven't been back for years—they don't know your husband bought land, built a house, and opened a tavern. If they find out, there'll be no end of gossip."Mrs. Jiang was puzzled: "Everyone's divided their households now—what business is it of theirs?""Your uncle got into legal trouble with his business a few years back and was detained in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi, unable to return. His wife and son came back to borrow money from us, and they wanted Dalang and your father-in-law to go to Jiangxi to ransom him out. Dalang had his own private savings, and not only did he refuse to lend, he also told us not to lend either. Later, even for something as major as building the house, he wouldn't let us say a word. Those people would try to take advantage of you three parts even on ordinary days, and if we don't help when there's trouble, there'll be plenty of fuss to deal with later." Old Woman Feng said.In a corner no one noticed, Yingniang secretly thought that her father, Feng Dalang, was truly no ordinary man. After all, severing ties with relatives is the hardest thing—how many people, constrained by face, dare not break with their kin?A father this good, and a mother this good—if they learned their daughter had been abducted, how heartbroken and grieved would they be? She swore that in this life, she would protect herself well and also safeguard this family.

Yingniang