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“What happened? Did a girl go missing?” Sister Pang and her husband, Feng Kaicai, rushed over.
“It’s my Jin’er. Do you think she ran into some troublemakers…” Yan Fang was on the verge of tears, her voice quivering.
Ye Huan’er, in a state of shock, was panicking as well—her sister was missing!
“Hurry, let’s all go look for her,” Sister Pang said.
Ye Caiping snapped out of it and quickly said, “Sister Pang, please take them to search the town. I need to go to the village.”
“The village?” Yan Fang was confused.
“Mother, there’s a good chance Jin’er sneaked off to the village. I’ll explain later. I need to go find her. You and Sister Pang can keep looking around the town.”
Without waiting for more questions, Ye Caiping dashed out the door.
“Caiping…” Yan Fang called out, but her words were left unfinished as Ye Caiping was already gone.
Ye Caiping ran all the way to the place where the ox cart had been parked.
Ye Bajin’s cart had already left, evidently on its way to deliver villagers to the village.
Just in time, she spotted another cart nearby. An elderly man was driving it, and he appeared to be from the village across the river.
Ye Caiping took out a string of coins. “Grandpa, here’s 20 wen. Take me to my home.”
“Ah?” The old man was confused. “That’s too much, 2 wen is enough…”
“No, I only need to go to directly to my place,” Ye Caiping insisted.
The villagers who had already boarded the cart were about to complain, but Ye Caiping quickly handed a string of coins to one of them.
“Big Brother and Big Sister, please help me out, I’m in a hurry!”
The woman who received the money was delighted. “Sure, you go ahead.”
The others, seeing the money, eagerly jumped off the cart.
“Grandpa, quickly! I’m from Qinghe Village, take me straight to Niutou Mountain.”
The old man accepted the money and, pleased with the deal, cracked the whip to get the ox moving.
With only two passengers, the cart moved quickly, though Ye Caiping was bounced up and down, nearly losing her balance.
She looked pale with worry, sitting upright on the cart as it sped toward Niutou Mountain. Her mind was in turmoil.
She had originally intended to avoid this, but now she was heading straight toward it.
Could it be that they truly could not escape their fate?
Or maybe the so-called “awakening of the plot” was also part of the story?
Ye Caiping’s face darkened as the ox cart neared Qinghe Village. She hadn’t even realized how close they had gotten until the cart stopped in front of her family’s house.
From a distance, she saw Ye Daquan, her brother , carrying a hoe and preparing to enter the house.
“Big Brother!” Ye Caiping called out.
Ye Daquan froze for a moment. “Eh? Caiping… Why are you alone?”
“We’ll talk later. Hurry up, get on the cart. We’re going to the mountain,” Ye Caiping urged.
Ye Daquan still didn’t understand but obediently climbed onto the cart.
The old man whipped the ox and quickly made his way toward Niutou Mountain.
“What’s going on?” Ye Daquan asked, still puzzled.
“Jin’er is on the mountain, and she might be in danger. You’ll need to protect us,” Ye Caiping said.
“What? Danger? Don’t worry, with me here, no one can harm you,” Ye Daquan reassured her.
Ye Caiping nodded, somewhat touched.
According to the book, only Jiaojiao’s siblings and their mother were on the mountain at that time, and Ye Daquan wasn’t supposed to be there.
When the cart finally stopped at the foot of Niutou Mountain, Ye Caiping breathed a sigh of relief.
It seemed that her awakening wasn’t part of the plot after all.
Father and daughter got off the cart and rushed up the mountain.
When they reached the area where she had found the ginseng before, Ye Caiping saw three people standing on the steep slope in the distance.
It was Jin’er, along with a young man and woman.
Jin’er said, “I found this ginseng first! I discovered it a few days ago.”
Jiaojiao, with her eyebrows raised, mocked, “How funny. If you found it, why didn’t you dig it up?”
Ye Caiping’s face darkened, and she hurried over. “Jin’er!”
Jin’er was startled. She hadn’t expected her mother to find her and even chase her here…
“Come with me, we’re going home,” Ye Caiping said, coming to her side.
“I won’t!” Ye Jin’er gritted her teeth, feeling wronged. “I found this ginseng first, but now it’s been stolen from me!”
She was unwilling to accept it.
Before Ye Caiping could respond, Jiaojiao, the woman on the opposite side, sized up Ye Caiping. “So you’re the one. You’re the woman who caused all that trouble with Old Granny, and was finally abandoned by Uncle.”
Ye Caiping raised an eyebrow and sized Jiaojiao up in return.
So, this was the so-called heroine, the one who lived beautifully and proudly by stealing other people’s luck and picking up scraps?
The name Jiaojiao sounded like a heroine’s, and her appearance matched as well. She was beautiful, delicate, and had a slender figure with a haughty, entitled posture.
Ye Caiping said, “It seems you’ve been paying a lot of attention to me.”
Jiaojiao was momentarily caught off guard.
Her mother was the true woman in Uncle’s heart—the one he would give his life to marry, his true love.
As for the woman in front of her, she was wicked and cruel—Uncle had divorced her.
Now, with Ye Caiping’s words, it made it seem like they were the ones at a disadvantage.
Ye Caiping didn’t want to stir up more trouble and pulled Ye Jin’er. “Let’s go.”
“Mother…” Ye Jin’er was unwilling.
Ye Caiping glared at her. “If you don’t leave now, don’t call me ‘Mother’ anymore. Go wherever you want.”
Ye Jin’er shrank back from her glare and nodded.
Behind them, Ye Daquan hurriedly pulled the two women away, afraid they might fall off the steep slope. “Let’s go, let’s go home first.”
Although he didn’t understand the situation, his younger sister had warned him there was danger on the mountain. So, all he cared about was getting his sister and niece safely down the mountain.
The three of them slowly descended the steep slope.
When they were far enough away, Ye Caiping finally sighed in relief and glanced back at Jiaojiao and her siblings.
It seemed that this time, things could really be changed.
She exhaled the heavy weight in her heart and finally felt at ease, her mood lightening.
As they walked down the mountain, Ye Jin’er was still visibly upset. “When I arrived, she had already dug up the ginseng and claimed it was 50 years old.”
“Ginseng? 50 years old?” Ye Daquan stopped in his tracks, shocked. “That must be worth a hundred or more taels!”
“Even if…”
“No ‘even if’,” Ye Caiping replied as she looked back. “What Jiaojiao said was right. Even if we found it earlier, if we didn’t get to dig it up, it’s not ours. She dug it first, so it belongs to her.”
Ye Daquan, though rough around the edges, understood and agreed with her. “First come, first served—that’s the rule in the mountains.”
Ye Jin’er looked downcast, feeling guilty. “Mother, I’m sorry. I just… couldn’t wait any longer. I thought maybe you weren’t that interested in the ginseng, so I ran off to get it. And now… someone else took it.”
As she spoke, a surge of unwillingness filled her heart.
She cautiously glanced at Ye Caiping. “Mother, if we hadn’t gone to sell the spicy soup this morning…”
Ye Caiping sighed softly. “It’s not that I wasn’t paying attention, but I was just too worried. A few days ago, I had a dream where we found the ginseng on the mountain, and during the scramble for it, we fell off the slope and died.”
Ye Jin’er froze.
“You see, today we were just competing for the ginseng, weren’t we? But compared to ginseng, our lives are far more important.”
Upon hearing this, Ye Jin’er understood. “Mother, I get it now.”
Although the ginseng was valuable, it was nothing compared to her mother’s care and love.
Ye Caiping smiled. “Alright, it’s just ginseng. There’s no shortage of it if we want it.”
As long as she had the space, she could get as much as she wanted.
Ye Jin’er and Ye Daquan were both stunned, not quite understanding how Ye Caiping could make ginseng sound so insignificant, like weeds on the ground.
“By the way, that girl Jiaojiao, she’s… is she the daughter of the woman Uncle Zhiyuan married?” Ye Jin’er asked.
“Yes.”
Ye Jin’er’s face darkened even further. Not only had Jiaojiao taken the ginseng, which had already made her feel humiliated, but she was also Uncle Zhiyuan’s stepdaughter!
Her heart grew heavier.
“What? She’s Uncle Zi Yuan’s stepdaughter? Sister, if I had known that, I would have beaten them up right there! I’m going back now to do it!” Ye Daquan said, turning to go.
Ye Caiping scowled and grabbed his ear.
“Ah…! Ouch, ouch! No, no, I won’t do it anymore!” Ye Daquan yelped.
Meanwhile, Jiaojiao, holding the ginseng, was walking down the mountain with Zimo.
“Jiaojiao, you’re really lucky. You found the ginseng as soon as you got to the mountain,” Zimo said happily. “And it’s even better that it was the woman’s discovery first, and we took it from her. So satisfying!”
Jiaojiao smiled, but her brows were furrowed tightly.
For some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to feel happy. She was restless and kept feeling like there was something more she should find, besides the ginseng.
Note:
Characters
Other Characters:
Heigou – Ate poisonous roots
Heigou’s mother
Doctor Zhao
Zhao Facai – Neighbor
Village Head Ye- Sometimes Ye Lizheng (Lizheng is a title that refers to Village Head/Chief)
Ye Bajin – Village Head’s Son
Fubao – Village Head’s Grandson
Tie Niu and Zhuzi – two women who helped Caiping
Ye Bajin – Son of Ye Lijeng
Liu Decai
Places:
Qinghe Village: FL’s Village
Li Family Village
Great Zhou Dynasty