Chapter 3The table was laden with five dishes: chicken soup with vermicelli, braised pork with dried green beans, pan-fried whitebait, spicy pickled lotus root, and soy-marinated radish. Even Yingniang couldn't help but swallow at the sight of such a feast. She mused to herself why, in her previous life, she had grown up in Shandong yet never much cared for noodles—so it turned out she was a southerner after all.Feng Li watched his daughter in her green blouse and white skirt, her little hand reaching out to pick up food as plump and white as a lotus root segment, her cheeks puffed full as she ate. His heart swelled with affection, and he said to Mrs. Jiang, "Our Ying-jie is truly lovely, just like you."Mrs. Jiang blushed and said, "What nonsense are you talking?"Midway through the meal, Mrs. Jiang remembered the matter of the second uncle's family and couldn't help asking, "I heard Mother say earlier that Second Uncle's family is coming back to hold a wedding, but also that they're afraid Second Uncle will gossip. What does that mean?"Feng Li picked a bite of food for Mrs. Jiang before explaining to his wife, "My second uncle went to Jingzhou Prefecture long ago to join my father in some small business, and life was passable. He has two sons—the elder is Feng Cang, and the younger is Feng Yu. Cousin Cang is only a year younger than me. He passed the prefectural exam three years after I did, but he also failed the graduate school entrance exam. Yet Second Uncle forced him to study another three years, and he finally became a xiucai.""After becoming a xiucai, he wanted to marry a wealthy young lady from Hanyang Prefecture city. Like me, he needed to purchase a large residence. City houses are naturally not cheap, and with the carriage and betrothal gifts on top, it cost several hundred taels. Having spent so much money, Second Uncle was naturally worried sick. To make matters worse, his business wasn't doing well either, and he fell for some nonsense about finding a galena mine somewhere, claiming that silver could be extracted from it and sold to overseas merchants."Mrs. Jiang covered her lips. "Is that true?""Galena can indeed yield silver, but do you think such a mine would fall into the hands of ordinary people? Impossible. Those people were actually tricked into working in the mine, and like ghostly servants, they'd send word for their families to come ransom them. Second Aunt knows this full well, yet she still wants us to go. Not only would our money be confiscated, but we'd be trapped in that black-hearted mine ourselves." Feng Li had no intention of ruining himself for others.Mrs. Jiang listened and said thankfully, "Good thing you didn't go, husband."Feng Li took a bite of chicken, spat out the bone, and continued, "Actually, Second Aunt has money of her own, but she's unwilling to spend it. She keeps saying my father, as a brother, is heartless for not helping. Many relatives have blamed us over this matter. But I've held firm—no money, no going. They can't do anything about it. Some relatives who live nearby see me building a house and opening a shop, and they're green with envy. They think I'm stingy and deliberately keep their distance. If ordinary relatives are like this, imagine what a full uncle is like.""So that's how it is. No wonder your family has so few relatives—I thought it was just because the family was small." Mrs. Jiang's own family had many relatives, and after marrying into the Feng household, she'd always felt it was rather cold and quiet. So this was the reason.Yingniang thought that although her father sounded a bit hard-hearted, he was indeed a man who could tell right from wrong and could protect his own little family.After the meal, Mrs. Jiang washed the dishes in the kitchen while Feng Li took Yingniang back to the room. Yingniang had only recently been weaned and usually slept with her parents. She didn't know if it was because she was too small, but the moment she got into bed, she fell asleep.Early the next morning, Feng Li and Old Man Feng didn't open the shop. Instead, they went to buy the fields from Wealthy Man Tong. Mrs. Jiang carried a basket and took Yingniang to town for breakfast.It turned out that people in Yunshui Town rarely cooked breakfast at home—most ate out. The town had a dock, and just as dawn was breaking, the streets were already bustling with noise and crowded with people.Mrs. Jiang walked to a shop with a sign bearing a ring-shaped banner with tassels and said expertly, "Proprietor, I'll have one bowl of eel-shred noodles at two liang, and one bowl of three-delicacy noodles at one liang.""Oh, it's Mrs. Feng! Want some chili?" the shopkeeper asked with a smile.Mrs. Jiang waved her hand. "No chili, please."Yingniang felt a little disappointed. She had grown up in the north and loved spicy chili oil. But Yunshui Town was indeed different from the north in customs. Here, eating breakfast was called "guo zao." A normal bowl of noodles was two liang in portion; for a small child like her, one liang was enough, and those with bigger appetites would order three liang.Mrs. Jiang also bought a fried dough stick. Yingniang, being careful, lifted the lid of the seasoning jar on the table in front of her and dipped her chopsticks into a tiny bit of chili. It was so spicy her eyes nearly watered.How could the chili from Huguang be this spicy? It was practically chili essence."Mother, I need water." Yingniang fanned her tongue with her hand.Mrs. Jiang laughed and said, "Did you sneak a bite of chili?" She quickly poured some plain water from the big teapot and fed her daughter. "Drink quickly, don't choke."Yingniang drank a full cup before calming down. Just then, the noodles arrived. They were actually quite delicious—for only two wen, they came with bamboo shoots, fish balls, and quail eggs. Mrs. Jiang also broke off half a fried dough stick and put it in her daughter's bowl to soak.The breakfast crowd around them was lively. Some people ordered small hot pots and were even drinking wine at this hour. Drinking wine first thing in the morning—truly hard to imagine.However, the fish balls made from freshwater fish were fresh, sweet, and delicious, and even the greens in the soup were sweet. This was truly the great plain—it was different.After finishing the noodles, Mrs. Jiang took Yingniang to buy groceries. Today they bought more than usual, including chopped pork ribs and braised pig head meat, and she hummed a tune as they walked home.Yingniang adored this mother of hers. She was still very young, only twenty years old, but she had a wonderful temperament—always bouncing around cheerfully, unlike others who complained about everything.Old Woman Feng was already waiting in the kitchen. Mrs. Jiang remarked, "Back in our countryside, these vegetables would go uneaten, but now even vegetable prices aren't cheap."Mrs. Jiang came from a family of minor wealth, owning sixty or seventy mu of fields and a large garden planted with several hundred bamboo stalks and fruit trees. Though not extravagantly rich, they had never gone hungry, for people in the Jianghan Plain rarely starved. There were lotus roots and water chestnuts in the lakes, fish in the rivers—as long as there was no flooding, the people here almost never went without food.Old Woman Feng was not one to keep things to herself. Seeing her daughter-in-law still talking about vegetable prices, she couldn't help but worry: "I wonder if they're having any luck?""It should go smoothly, right?" Mrs. Jiang murmured.The two women fretted as they worked, while Yingniang played in the courtyard. In the front yard grew a pomegranate tree and a jujube tree, with a stone table and stone stools beneath them. Beside the stone table sat five or six pots of flowers—all arranged by her father, she'd heard, and it was clear he'd put great care into it.Before noon, Old Man Feng returned with the cart, and the excitement on both father and son's faces was impossible to hide.Seeing her husband, Mrs. Jiang hurried forward to hand him a cup of water: "Husband, did it work?"Feng Li first drained the water in one gulp before saying, "Master Tong even specially invited the head clerk of the land registry office, and they transferred the deed to us on the spot. This afternoon, he'll introduce me to the tenant farmers who rent the fields, and I'll sign new contracts.""Be careful—if any of them have bad reputations or like to renege on debts, that would be trouble." Old Woman Feng feared her son would be taken advantage of.Feng Li said, "After all, I'm a scholar with a xiucai title. They rarely deal with the authorities and wouldn't dare truly offend me. Besides, I have eighty mu of tax-exempt land under my name—who wouldn't want to farm that?"As they spoke, Old Woman Feng and Mrs. Jiang set out the meal. Feng Li was genuinely hungry and wolfed down a bowl of rice. Mrs. Jiang asked for details: "Are all three hundred mu of rice paddies?""No—they include fish ponds, lotus ponds, cotton fields, and land for millet and grain. Most of our fields are mid-grade, yielding one dan per season, two dan a year with two seasons. With a wheat or soybean crop interplanted in between, one mu can produce about three dan. For high-grade fields, it's four dan or more per mu. After mid-October, we'll sell the grain to merchants. Our Huguang rice goes for about eight qian to one liang two qian per dan, so within a few years we'll have paid off most of the debt." Feng Li also calculated that after giving half to the tenants, at the lowest price of eight qian per dan, they'd earn roughly three hundred taels a year.In two or three years, the usury loan could be mostly repaid. Then they'd send their daughter to school, hire a doctor to treat his wife, and expand the back of the house to add a granary and a sewing pavilion for their daughter.Lost in thought, he could no longer eat. He hurried to the study to draft the contract, writing uniformly: "So-and-so of such-and-such village, having no fields to cultivate, hereby rents so-and-so mu from this household, agreeing to pay an annual rent of so-and-so dan of grain, with sixty percent due in autumn and forty percent in winter, measured and weighed according to this household's standards, and daring not to fall short. Should there be any shortfall, another tenant shall be summoned, and this tenant shall not presume to occupy the land. Lest there be no proof, this tenancy agreement is hereby issued as evidence."In the following days, Feng Li was busy with land matters—renewing some contracts, overseeing sowing, arranging oxen loans, and buying ducklings and goslings for the ponds.As for his eighty mu of tax-exempt land, half would be planted as cotton fields. One mu of cotton could yield twenty to thirty jin, selling at about eight qian per jin—equivalent to a dan of grain.All of this required planning. In the meantime, some tried to take advantage, some caused trouble, and some stirred up disputes, but Feng Li suppressed them one by one. At night, he still had to study, and his hair was thinning from all the stress.Mrs. Jiang said with concern, "Husband, you're working yourself too hard.""Once this busy stretch is over, things will settle down. These past two years have been hard on you and our daughter, but once our land starts turning a profit, we'll buy cloth and make new clothes." Feng Li said.Mrs. Jiang smiled. "I have enough clothes. Don't worry about me. As for our Ying-jie's clothes, I still have a piece of water-red fabric—I'll make her a padded jacket with it."Yingniang listened, deeply moved. This pair of parents of hers truly put their hearts into living their lives.Feng Li was a man of extraordinary patience, keeping good news tightly under wraps and never revealing it until the last possible moment. But Old Man Feng and Old Woman Feng could not contain themselves—whenever anyone brought up the fields, the two of them would let it slip with half-concealed words, laced with pride. That very night, the newly purchased fish fry at the Feng household were all poisoned to death by someone. Not only that, someone even came to their door openly, claiming that those few acres of prime farmland belonged to his family, and that Wealthy Man Tong had mistakenly sold Feng Li the wrong fields.

Yingniang