Each pig slaughtered would earn four or five dozen copper coins. Even if split with others, there should still be two or three dozen left. Plus, there must be other earnings. It didn’t make sense for the money to not be enough.
Yu Li counted on her fingers and said, “Sometimes I have to go to the clinic to get medicine. Both Xiao Ge’er and I need to take medicine to nourish our health. Then I buy candied fruits for a sweet tooth. When we run out of grain at home, I have to buy more grain. Then there’s food, daily necessities… There are just too many things to buy. The money is really not enough.”
“…”
Aunt Guihua fell silent.
Is that how it works? Does the Fu family really need so many things?
She looked at Yu Li, whose face was sincere. It was clear she was an honest girl who wouldn’t lie, which left Aunt Guihua feeling stifled.
The Yu family’s mother and daughters were truly something. The mother was like a closed-mouthed gourd, the eldest daughter was honest but said a bunch of useless things, and the second daughter was shrewd and strong-willed, entirely unlike the honest and dull couple of Old Yu’s second branch.
Realizing she couldn’t get any useful information from them, Aunt Guihua felt utterly frustrated.
She finally decided to ignore the three of them and turned to gossip with someone else instead.
Yu Jin’s lips curled into a faint smile, and she discreetly gave her elder sister a thumbs-up.
How much money they earned was something they should keep to themselves—no need to share it. After all, in this world, plenty of people would sympathize with your hardships, but few would be happy about your success.
An hour later, the mule cart arrived in Qingshi Village.
After everyone paid their fare, they got off and went their separate ways.
Yu Li returned to the Fu family and handed over the goods she had purchased to Zhou Shi.
Zhou Shi was stunned by the amount of things she brought back, especially the half-basket of mooncakes, which left her speechless.
“Li Niang, why did you buy so many mooncakes?”
Yu Li replied, “They all looked delicious, so I bought them to try.” Sitting down to eat, she added, “Mother, you all should try them too. They’re really tasty.”
Zhou Shi smiled and took a mooncake filled with red bean paste, broke it apart, and shared it with the two children to taste.
After taking a bite, she commented, “It’s too sweet.”
The two children, however, loved it. They were young and had a sweet tooth, so the sweeter it was, the more they liked it.
After the meal, Yu Li returned to her room to catch up on sleep.
In the afternoon, when she woke up, she took out the mooncakes she had bought earlier, placed them on the table, and curled up to eat them.
Sitting nearby, Fu Wenxiao: “…”
Watching her eat one after another, her hands and mouth constantly moving, Fu Wenxiao couldn’t help but say, “Li Niang, don’t eat too much. You’ll get indigestion.”
“Indigestion?” Yu Li glanced at him. “No way, I can finish it.”
Getting indigestion was impossible for her. The only problem she ever had was not eating enough.
Fu Wenxiao fell silent for a moment before adding, “Don’t eat too many sweets. It’s bad for your teeth.”
The mooncakes she had bought included both sweet and savory flavors. The sweet ones were mostly peanut, sesame, and red bean paste fillings, which looked excessively sweet.
Yu Li gave a casual “Oh,” clearly not taking it to heart. She simply said, “I’ll brush my teeth later.”
With her abilities, cavities were a non-issue for her. Still, she understood the importance of keeping her teeth clean.
Seeing that she wasn’t listening, Fu Wenxiao didn’t say anything more.
In the end, he watched in silence as Yu Li devoured more than half of the mooncakes she had bought. Even he felt a bit queasy just watching her eat so many.
When she looked at the remaining mooncakes, Yu Li hesitated for a moment before deciding not to eat them all. She would save some for the festival tomorrow.
“If you want to eat more, just go ahead. You can buy more tomorrow,” Fu Wenxiao said. Seeing her hesitation, he wanted to indulge her.
If it had been before, he would never have said something like that.
It seemed that a person’s principles and limits could indeed be broken, but only by someone special enough to make them want to.
As if she had been waiting for his permission, Yu Li happily agreed and reached for another mooncake.
Zhou Shi, worried that she might get overwhelmed by the sweetness, thoughtfully brewed a pot of tea and brought it over.
“Li Niang, have some tea with the mooncakes to balance out the sweetness. Eat as much as you like,” she said kindly. “I learned how to make mooncakes before. If you like, I can try making some for you to taste tomorrow.”
Yu Li’s eyes lit up. “Thank you, Mother! I’ll go buy some ingredients for making mooncakes tomorrow.”
Her mother-in-law was truly amazing. She hadn’t expected her to know how to make mooncakes too. Was there anything Zhou Shi couldn’t do?
At that moment, in Yu Li’s mind, Zhou Shi was the most impressive person in the entire world.
Fu Wenxiao paused in the middle of pouring tea, glanced at the two of them, and couldn’t help but chuckle.
Her expressions were always so easy to read, though sometimes he wished they weren’t. Like the time he woke up from a coma and saw her looking at him with a “he’s come back from the dead” expression—it was hard to put into words.
Though, he had to admit, it was kind of cute.
—
After finishing work at the yamen, Officer Zhu hurried toward the city gate.
When he arrived, he saw that the other two hadn’t shown up yet, so he went to a nearby bun shop and ordered a few buns to fill his stomach.
As yamen officers, they usually had a relatively easy time. Apart from clocking in at the yamen every day and showing their faces in front of their superiors, they spent the rest of their time patrolling the streets or rushing to handle fights and disturbances, maintaining order in the city.
Most of the time, they just wandered aimlessly around the streets.
However, as the Mid-Autumn Festival approached, villagers from nearby areas flocked to the city to shop, causing the population in the county town to surge. This kept the yamen officers busier than usual.
Originally, Officer Zhu had planned to head to Qingshi Village earlier today, but he had been held up until now.
Having worked from the afternoon until now, Zhu was starving. He just wanted to hurry to Qingshi Village, take care of the matter, and return to the county town to meet Wen Niang. Wen Niang had promised to prepare a meal and drink with them tonight.
After waiting for about half an hour, Officers Ge and Peng finally arrived.
“Brother Ge, Brother Peng, you’re finally here. What took you so long?” Zhu greeted them, asking if they were hungry and offering a few cold buns.
The two of them were indeed starving, and despite the buns being cold, they devoured them.
They had been busy all day as well. With the Mid-Autumn Festival tomorrow, several merchant ships had arrived at the dock, even causing some commotion that required their attention. They had to stay until things settled down and had only just finished.
Hearing this, Zhu couldn’t help showing a look of envy.
Despite their busy day, these two likely pocketed quite a bit of “perks.” If only he were willing to put in the same effort, he thought.
After finishing the buns, the three set off, boarding a boat to Qingshi Village.
The sun had already dipped behind the mountains, and twilight gradually spread. The plants along the riverbanks exuded a muted, autumnal hue unique to the season.
In Shanping County, autumn wasn’t particularly distinct. Aside from the slightly cooler weather, the greenery remained lush, making it hard to sense the desolation typically associated with autumn.
The boatman, upon seeing the three yamen officers, trembled inwardly.
Gathering his courage, he asked, “Sirs, where are you heading?”
“Qingshi Village,” Officer Zhu replied.
“Are you going there on official business?”
“Of course not!” Officer Peng laughed. “We’re just going to find someone.”
They were well aware of how fearful common folk were of the authorities. If it wasn’t official business, it was best not to say so explicitly to avoid alarming the villagers and having the village head or elders get involved. That kind of fanfare would be inconvenient for their mission.
This time, the three were heading to Qingshi Village to scare a young woman into kneeling and apologizing to someone. Such matters, of course, couldn’t be openly discussed.
If the common people caught wind of their methods and learned how they operated, they might start resisting the yamen officers’ authority. That would be a loss for them in the long run.
Such matters were often left unspoken—everyone involved understood the situation without needing to say it outright.
The boatman secretly breathed a sigh of relief, his demeanor relaxing somewhat.
He didn’t ask any more questions, though he still harbored a certain fear of the yamen officers.
By the time the boat reached Qingshi Village, twilight had deepened.
Most of the villagers had already gone home for dinner, leaving only a few people outside.
The three yamen officers stood at the river dock at the village entrance. The dim light of dusk obscured the uniforms they were wearing, so they didn’t draw much attention.
Since none of them had been to Qingshi Village before, they didn’t know where the Fu family’s house was. They stopped a passing villager to ask for directions.
The person they stopped was an honest farmer. As he got closer, he finally saw their uniforms clearly, realizing they were county yamen officers. He was so frightened that he started trembling and nearly dropped to his knees.
The three yamen officers: “…”
“Enough, don’t kneel,” Officer Zhu said impatiently. “Where is the Fu family’s house?”
The villager was stunned by the question and hesitated before cautiously asking, “Sirs, what business do you have with the Fu family…?”
“Stop babbling!” Officer Peng scolded sharply. “Just tell us. Don’t poke your nose into matters that don’t concern you—it won’t do you any good.”
The villager, timid by nature and having never dealt with the authorities before, was terrified. He rarely even saw yamen officers in the area, so encountering three of them on his way home from the fields was enough to scare him out of his wits. Being reprimanded like that, he didn’t dare ask any further questions.
With trembling hands, he pointed in a direction and stammered, “…Go that way. There’s a house made of blue bricks and tiles—that’s the Fu family’s home.”
After getting the directions, the three yamen officers left without paying any more attention to the villager.
The villager sat down in a daze for a moment, waiting for his legs to stop shaking before scrambling back home as fast as he could, afraid of running into those fierce-looking yamen officers again.
When his family saw his panicked state, they asked curiously, “What happened to you?”
The villager, still shaken, replied, “I just ran into three yamen officers. They asked me where the Fu family lives, and I, I…”
“What? Yamen officers are looking for the Fu family? Did the Fu family do something wrong?”
Immediately, the whole family gathered around, anxiously pressing for more details.
The villager shook his head, saying he didn’t know and that he hadn’t dared to ask further. Those three officials looked like trouble and weren’t to be trifled with.
The family members were puzzled but also worried for the Fu family.
The Fu family consisted of the old, the weak, and the sick. Only Yu Li could work, but she was just a young girl—what could she possibly do if trouble came knocking?
They could only hope that nothing bad would happen to the Fu family.
—
The three yamen officers easily found the Fu family’s house since it was the only one in the area made of blue bricks and tiles—every other house was made of mud.
“Looks like the Fu family is quite well-off,” Officer Zhu remarked.
He thought to himself that the woman who had hit someone was married into the Fu family. Since they could afford a blue brick house, their financial situation was clearly decent. No wonder she had the guts to hit someone—it must be because she had this backing.
Thinking this, he felt more confident. This trip was bound to go smoothly.
Officer Zhu stepped forward and knocked on the door loudly, the sound of his knocking echoing through the quiet night.
Ge and Peng stood behind him, their postures relaxed. They also felt that this trip would be uneventful. Once they had scared the family, they could leave without further trouble.
These country folks, just like that villager earlier, were timid and ignorant—easy to intimidate.
As they were thinking this, the door creaked open from the inside.
Ge and Peng turned to look, only to be met with a face so fair it seemed to glow even in the dim twilight. And that face… looked strangely familiar.