Chapter 16

The Village Chief was completely stunned. Of all the things he could have thought of, he never thought of this—how could this village’s lazy, good-for-nothing rascal possibly afford to buy a house? He was in a daze for quite a while before he finally snapped back to reality.

“How big of a plot do you want to buy?” the Village Chief asked.

“About 300 square meters or so. I’ve got twenty-five silver coins. Whatever size that gets me, that’s what I’ll buy!” the rascal said casually.

“300 square meters? 25 of silver?” The Village Chief was dumbfounded.

In Village Chief’s mind, Zhou Jing could at most buy a place around forty or fifty square meters, and that would already be pushing it.

Yet here he was, right from the start, talking about over 300 square meters for just 25 silver coins.

It was hard to believe.

After all, the Village Chief had been in his position for many years, had three hardworking sons, and even then had only managed to save up enough for a 200 square meter plot of land.

Instinctively, the Village Chief began to worry that Zhou Jing’s money might have come from some shady dealings. Almost pressing him, he asked, “Where did the silver come from?”

Zhou Jing’s expression remained calm and composed as he explained, “Last time, Auntie forced me to climb up the mountain. I found a ginseng plant there. The situation was urgent at the time, as I ran into a wild boar and didn’t have the chance to dig it up. Later, when my health improved, I dared to go back up the mountain and dug it out. I sold it for a bit of money and planned to settle down first. Village Chief, you can rest assured, this money was earned through proper means.”

Only then did the Village Chief understand the situation, he couldn’t help but feel slightly embarrassed.

“Um, wait for me a moment,” the Village Chief said awkwardly. “I’ll go change my clothes, then we’ll measure the land.”

Zhou Jing replied, “I’d appreciate it if the Village Chief could come right after changing. You know my situation. I’m hoping to measure the land quickly while everyone in the village is still asleep, then head to the town office to finalize the deed. If those people over there see me, I’m afraid I won’t be able to buy this house at all…”

The Village Chief knew Zhou Jing’s family situation all too well.

He was especially displeased with Wang Chunhua, who always liked to take advantage of her distant relation to his wife, dragging his name into matters and damaging his reputation.

As for the Village Chief himself, he prided himself on being fair, so he nodded in agreement. “Go back and wait for me. I’ll be there shortly.”

Not long after, the Village Chief arrived. The two of them measured the land—it totaled 305 square meters. They wrote it down on the contract, and with the silver in hand, Zhou Jing was ready to head to the town office.

Zhou Jing said, “I’ve made some porridge. Let’s have a bit, otherwise, who knows how long we’ll be busy once we get to town.”

After Zhou Jing insisted several times, and in the interest of saving time, the Village Chief decided not to go home and cook for himself.

Zhou Jing woke up Shen Mo, and the three of them sat down to drink porridge and eat steamed egg custard.

This meal gave the Village Chief quite a shock. In the village, no one would dare eat like this. Even in his own household, they wouldn’t cook porridge with refined rice, let alone add shredded meat. And here they were, casually eating a large bowl of steamed eggs—such extravagance was truly startling.

The Village Chief thought to himself: ‘These youngsters really don’t know how to manage their lives without adults around. With such wasteful spending, how much money can they possibly have to live on?’

However, since he didn’t have much of a relationship with Zhou Jing, he kept these thoughts to himself. He didn’t dare eat too much, so after taking a few spoonfuls of the large bowl of meat porridge and a few bites of the steamed egg custard that Zhou Jing had served him, he stopped.

Zhou Jing noticed that the Village Chief hadn’t eaten much, so he didn’t feel it was appropriate to eat more either. With that, the two of them set off on their way.

Wang Gui was the one in the village who owns a mule cart. During the busy farming seasons, he used the cart to earn some extra money.

Zhou Jing offered him the full price to rent the cart and asked him to leave early. Wang Gui grabbed two hard flatbreads and headed out.

Before they set off, Wang Gui asked Zhou Jing whether the fare included the trip back. Zhou Jing agreed, so Wang Gui even gave him a small discount, not charging for two extra passengers.

The villagers’ mule carts weren’t like those in town, which traveled everywhere. In the village, they only made trips within the area.

After all, who in the village went to town every day? Even a family that could afford to go once every ten days or half a month was considered well-off.

Zhou Jing intended to keep the matter of buying the land a secret, and the Village Chief was willing to help cover for him.

When Wang Gui asked about their business in town, the two of them casually came up with an excuse to brush off his questions.

Once they arrived in town, Wang Gui parked the mule cart at the inn, while Zhou Jing and the Village Chief headed to the government office to transfer the land deed.

—o—o—o—

Shen Mo left the leftover porridge simmering in the pot, so it would be warm when Shen Lin arrived. Since the Village Chief had been shocked by how well they had eaten, Zhou Jing, as the host, didn’t want to overindulge himself, leaving more than half of the porridge in the pot.

He thought about how happy Shen Lin would be to see so much meat in the porridge; that thought lifted his spirits.

Shen Lin had faced hardships following his older brother, but thankfully, Zhou Jing had the ability to ensure that both he and his younger brother could have meat to eat, even when it wasn’t a festive occasion.

But today, for some unknown reason, perhaps because he had woken up early, Shen Mo waited and waited, yet Shen Lin still did not arrive and had not sent any word through someone else.

When the sun was high in the sky, Shen Lin still had not come, and Shen Mo’s heart suddenly grew anxious, as if it were overrun with weeds.

He immediately realized that something must have happened to Shen Lin; otherwise, he would never be so late without sending any message.

Shen Mo hurriedly left his house and ran towards the Shen family’s house.

Shen Mo ran to the Shenjia Village, which was separated from Wang Family Village by just one village, and arrived with his forehead drenched in sweat.

When he pushed the door open, he saw Wang Chunhua’s second son, Shen Cheng, along with Wang Chunhua herself, forcefully dragging the shouting Shen Lin outside.

“What are you doing?” Shen Mo shouted, shoving Shen Cheng aside and grabbing his brother tightly.

When Shen Lin saw his brother arrive, it was as if he had seen a savior; he immediately poured out his words like beans spilling from a bamboo tube.

“Big Brother, Father wants to sell me to that old widower from our village, the one who has been crippled for over thirty years, just because he gave Wang Chunhua a bit more than a tael of silver! Wang Chunhua wants to use the money from selling me to find a wife for Shen Cheng!”

Tears that Shen Lin had held back for so long finally overflowed when he saw his brother. “I refuse, but they are forcing me to go!”

The old widower who wanted to buy Shen Lin was not originally crippled; he had broken a leg the previous year and could only use one leg now.

He stated that he wanted Shen Lin to come over primarily to help with household chores and to take care of him.

If he could bear children, that would be ideal, but if not, it was still acceptable. After all, at his age and in his condition, the prospect of finding a wife was nearly impossible. Aside from the Shen family, no other families would marry their daughters to him.

The old widower had no children, and given his condition, he could not support himself.

He could only resort to buying a wife, but no family was willing to part with their daughters for him. Eventually, he set his sights on Shen Lin.

He was willing to pay a tael of silver to buy Shen Lin. In this era, a tael of silver was quite a sum for a farming family—it was more than enough to marry a girl from a poor household.

Seeing the old widower’s dire situation, Wang Chunhua insisted that, given his circumstances, he could find no other options besides Shen Lin, and thus insisted on an additional 200 wen.

With that sum of silver, Wang Chunhua was able to persuade Shen Lin’s father to accept this marriage, she chimed that even if her second son was lazy, he could still marry a girl from a poor family.

Shen Lin was Shen’s father’s biological son, and at this time, the idea of parental authority and arranged marriages was paramount. If Shen Lin dared to defy his parents and run away, the consequences could be severe.

He could face punishment at the ancestral hall, and worse, be labeled as someone who did not abide by marital propriety. This would make marrying in the future nearly impossible, and he would live with the shame of being pointed at for the rest of his life.

Even though Shen Mo was Shen Lin’s elder brother, in this era, he felt powerless to intervene.

He could only kneel on the ground, pleading with his father, hoping that, considering Shen Lin was his biological son, his father might show some mercy.

Shen Mo had struck his head so hard that the skin broke, blood smeared across half of his forehead, making him look quite terrifying.

“Father, I have kowtow to you. I beg you, please do not sell Shen Lin. Although he is a ger, he is still your own son!”

“Tsk tsk tsk… Head of the family, do you hear what he’s saying? What do you mean, ‘After all, he is your biological son’? What do you mean by ‘selling’?”

Wang Chunhua interjected from the side, stirring the pot. “What nonsense is Shen Mo talking about? If outsiders heard this, they might think you’ve done something terrible to Shen Lin!”

Shen Cheng replied, “Of course. What do you mean by selling? Are we talking about selling him to a wealthy family as a concubine or selling him in town as a servant? It’s because Father cares for Shen Lin, seeing that at the age of sixteen or seventeen, he still can’t find a match, that he arranges a marriage for him. This is for Shen Lin’s own good. It’s precisely because he is Father’s biological son that Father worries about his marriage. If he weren’t Father’s son, Father wouldn’t care if he never got married—he’d just treat it as a joke!”

“Exactly, exactly! How come what you say twists the truth, making your father seem like a fool, unkind and uncaring? I can see that you simply can’t stand the family being well off, and you’re intentionally creating such a big scene for the neighbors to misunderstand and think your father is mistreating you two brothers, mocking him!”

Wang Chunhua’s words struck a nerve with Father Shen, who cared deeply about his reputation.

Immediately, Father Shen’s expression changed.

Wang Chunhua kept a close watch on Father Shen’s expression. Noticing his darkening mood, she poured fuel on the fire. “The head of the family, perhaps Shen Lin has been pretending to be ill all these years, and this idea was suggested by Shen Mo. Otherwise, how could Shen Lin faint while working for us but then go to Zhou Jing and be able to toil away like a beast, climbing mountains to gather vegetables? I think he’s just rotten to the core, intentionally provoking Shen Lin to embarrass you, so that the villagers can mock you and drive a wedge between father and son!”

When Shen Mo’s mother was alive, she had given birth to two gers, which displeased her mother-in-law. His mother often whispered to Father Shen, stirring trouble by claiming that Shen Mo’s mother was incapable of bearing sons and that she would leave the family without any heirs.

At first, things were fine, but over time, Father Shen was swayed by those words and began to dislike Shen Mo’s mother.

During that period, the entire Shen family lived together and had not yet split up, so all the heavy chores fell on Shen Mo’s mother.

She often faced beatings and scoldings from her mother-in-law, who would provoke Father Shen after punishing her, leading to yet another round of abuse for Shen Mo’s mother.

She never resisted and harbored no resentment toward Father Shen. Instead, she would obsessively question the two innocent children, who understood nothing, asking them why they had been born as gers instead of sons.

Otherwise, she lamented, she wouldn’t have to endure such a life or suffer so!

Later, Shen Mo’s mother’s health deteriorated due to exhaustion and lingering worries, and she soon passed away. Before the mourning period of seven days was over, Father Shen’s mother took it upon herself to bring Wang Chunhua into the family.

The following year, they welcomed a son, and the year after that, another one; they had three children in total, solidifying Wang Chunhua’s place in Father Shen’s heart.

Father Shen became increasingly convinced that his lack of a son before was due to Mother Shen’s inability to bear children.

Coupled with Wang Chunhua’s whispers in his ear, his feelings towards Mother Shen and the two children left by her grew increasingly negative.

Especially during this time, the entire village held a disdainful attitude towards ger, considering them to be of low status. Families that bore ger was thought to have committed sins in their past lives. Father Shen became the subject of much gossip, making it difficult for him to hold his head high in front of the villagers.

Recalling the cold mockery he had faced from the villagers, both to his face and behind his back, Father Shen felt a flush of anger rise to his cheeks. Hatred surged within him as he realized that the source of all the ridicule had been Shen Mo.

In a fit of rage, he picked up a nearby hoe and swung it at Shen Mo without hesitation.

“Eldest Brother!” Shen Lin shouted as he lunged toward Shen Mo, the two brothers embracing tightly to protect one another.

“I’ll kill you, this worthless piece of trash! All you do is humiliate your own father—what good do you think you’ll get from this? I see you’re utterly rotten, a perfect match for that thug Zhou Jing!”

Father Shen had spent his life being honest and meek, never daring to argue back when others mocked him for having two lowly ger. But when it came to his wife and children, he instantly transformed into a towering figure, ready to strike without a second thought.

He swung the hoe while shouting furiously, “If it weren’t for the two of you being ger, I wouldn’t be the target of everyone’s ridicule for a lifetime. The fact that I didn’t kill you both when you were born is my good deed! Who do you think you are? If someone actually wants you, it’d be a blessing! Let me tell you, whether I cripple you or kill you today, Shen Lin, I will still carry you through the door of the Old Li family and become their ghost!”