Chapter 8 – “Isn’t Your Bootlicking Pretty Sharp?”

After leaving the village school, Shen Mo’er carried a bamboo basket containing two volumes of high school textbooks and headed toward her private plot of land.

Since starting today, apart from strong laborers, anyone who wanted could volunteer for work. Plus, everyone had just received their grain ration yesterday, so no household was currently worried about food. As a result, even the elderly women in the village were mostly staying at home to rest.

Sure enough, when Shen Mo’er passed by Aunt Chen’s house, she saw a group of grannies sitting in the shade under a big tree by the roadside, each fanning themselves with large palm-leaf fans and chatting idly.

Seeing Shen Mo’er, Aunt Chen fanned herself and asked with concern, “Mo’er, are you feeling any better today? You should at least have had a full meal after bringing home your grain yesterday, right?”

“Yes, I’m full now.”

Shen Mo’er smiled sheepishly. “Thanks to all of you—Aunt Chen, Aunt Cai, Aunt Lu, Aunt Wang, Aunt Yang, Aunt Zhang—if it weren’t for your help, I probably wouldn’t have gotten our grain back so easily. Really, thank you so much!”

Even if they had just been part of the crowd, being thanked so earnestly and by name made the grannies feel like they had truly done a good deed. Their chins lifted with pride, and they couldn’t help but pull Shen Mo’er aside for more small talk.

When Shen Mo’er mentioned she was heading to her private plot, the grannies eagerly volunteered to come along and take a look.

The fact that this father and daughter nearly starved to death even in a good season—even if their food had been stolen—was almost unbelievable. Any other household would’ve managed to scrounge something up, whether from the mountains, rivers, or their own land. They wouldn’t have ended up in such dire straits.

Sure enough, the moment the group arrived at the Shen family’s plot, they were shocked by the sight. It was almost unrecognizable. A few bunches of water spinach had been cut down to their roots. The yard-long beans had sparse leaves and even sparser pods. As for the sweet potatoes, the ones buried in the ground were invisible, while the vines above had been stripped nearly bare.

The grannies all sighed in pity. This father and daughter really had eaten everything in the plot.

And they were too honest.

If it had been someone else, even if their own plot had been stripped bare, they’d at least sneak a few things from the neighbor’s field. But as they walked over, they’d seen that everyone else’s plots were neatly cultivated. Even Old Zhou’s family had a pumpkin growing into the Shen family’s land, now overripe, and still untouched.

“This Old Seventh Shen—when his real mother was alive, he hardly worked the fields. After she died, no one taught him, and the man clearly has no skill at farming.”

With that, the grannies rolled up their sleeves and got to work. They borrowed farming tools from Aunt Yang’s nearby house, then began loosening the soil, watering the field, and even pulled seedlings of amaranth, pumpkin, and carrots from their own private plots to replant in the Shen family’s field.

They were all experienced hands, and their movements were quick and skillful. Before Shen Mo’er could carry over two buckets of water, the field had already undergone a complete transformation.

Shen Mo’er hadn’t expected the grannies to be so warm-hearted. Back when she was a commandery princess, if her servants did their work diligently, she would definitely reward them.

But now, in this unfamiliar world, not only was she penniless, these women weren’t servants of a royal residence. They’d helped her entirely out of what people here called proletarian solidarity… Shen Mo’er found it novel and touching. For now, she could only remember their kindness and plan to repay it later.

To be honest, these rural grannies could be very annoying when they gossiped or meddled, but when they decided to be kind, they really were kind. Without her saying anything, they helped tidy up the private plot and then dragged her along, en masse, to the village head’s house.

The brigade leader had gone off to work, but his elderly mother and wife were at home. The grannies raised their voices all at once, protesting the injustice done to Shen Mo’er and her father, pointing at the skin-and-bones girl and scolding the other branches of the Shen family for being heartless.

So when Zhou Mancang returned home from work, his mother and wife immediately began urging him to stand up for Shen Lao Qi (Old Seventh Shen) and his daughter and help them get their house back.

His wife, Xu Hongmei, had attended school and had a basic elementary education. When she spoke, she sounded righteous and firm: “The people’s production brigade is for the people. The proletariat should unite, not oppress each other. Shen Lao Da and the others are only bullying Shen Lao Qi because he’s honest and has no support. If the brigade doesn’t do something, who will?”

Zhou Mancang was speechless. “How come I didn’t hear you saying all this before?”

Xu Hongmei replied, “Well, that’s because the father and daughter never said anything before. We couldn’t just jump in and interfere, could we?”

His mother chimed in too: “That’s right. I’ve always pitied that poor Mo’er girl, but Shen Lao Qi never said a word. We had no reason to butt in. Now it’s different. I heard that if you don’t stand up for them, they’re going to hang themselves at the brigade office. Just to prevent a death, you have to get involved!”

Zhou Mancang had heard that Shen Lao Qi had changed overnight, apparently preparing to stand up and fight for his only daughter. He had been half-skeptical. That’s why, at the grain-drying field yesterday, he told the brothers to discuss it among themselves, hoping the matter would quietly resolve itself over time.

Maybe in a few days, Shen Lao Qi’s anger would subside, and he’d go back to being the same quiet man as before.

But now, this fire wasn’t just coming at him—it had reached his own family. And Zhou Mancang knew very well: even if it was just his mother and wife talking, behind them was an entire troop of grannies.

Of course, the old lady was also right. If someone really died, the responsibility on him as brigade leader would be enormous.

He had originally thought: better to avoid trouble if he could. But now Zhou Mancang sat down on a low stool, took a drag from his cigarette, and said, “Fine. I’ll mediate the matter this afternoon.”

Shen Mo’er came home after making her rounds, and not only did she return with a revitalized private field, but also a bounty of vegetables generously gifted by the grannies—yard-long beans, water spinach, tender pumpkins, and even a golden melon.

There wasn’t a drop of oil in the house, and the only seasoning was salt. Shen Mo’er washed a small handful of water spinach, started a fire, and made a simple vegetable soup. That was all they had for lunch, along with some leftover pastries.

The pastries had been made by the most skilled dessert chef in the royal residence, and of course, they were delicious—but this was the last of them.

Fortunately, the stolen grain had been recovered. With the portion the brigade distributed, they weren’t short on food for now.

Of course, both father and daughter had once been used to luxurious, finely prepared meals. Suddenly switching to this kind of life wasn’t easy. But whether it was or not, they had no choice but to slowly adapt. After all, this was their world now.

In the evening, before it got completely dark, every household finished their dinner.

After eating, Shen Mo’er dragged a broken chair to sit by the doorway, enjoying the cool evening breeze. She nimbly opened up a tattered padded jacket and began pulling out the rain-soaked, hardened cotton inside. She teased it loose and fluffy, then tossed it into the bamboo basket at her feet.

At this point, the father and daughter had nothing but each other and a few bits of scrap. Even this clumped cotton, with proper drying and fluffing, could still be reused.

Shen Shaoyuan, worn out from a day’s labor, leaned against the wall, watching his precious daughter with a long, heavy sigh.

His little Mo’er had once been more pampered than a princess in Da Liang. She had studied needlework under the best embroidery master—not to sew her wedding clothes like other noble girls, but just to make a pouch for her beloved father. Now that skill was being used just to patch rags and old clothes.

Shen Shaoyuan couldn’t help but feel sorrow.

So when Zhou Mancang came over, this was the scene he saw: a bone-thin girl clutching a patched and repatched jacket, pulling out the cotton stuffing, while the equally emaciated Shen Lao Qi looked at her, eyes nearly brimming with tears.

Zhou Mancang could understand how Shen Shaoyuan felt. If it were him, and his one and only daughter had suffered like this—raised so well, nearly starved—he’d be crying too.

Previously, when Zhou Mancang got involved in this, he felt like he was being pushed onto the stage. But now, he truly wanted to help this pitiful father and daughter.

When the Shen family gathered in the brigade office later, Zhou Mancang couldn’t help but speak up on their behalf.

“Before the old man passed away, the property had already been divided. Each brother got two rooms. The village officials and clan elders were there as witnesses. You can’t deny that. As for how you all swapped rooms later, as long as it was voluntary, the brigade didn’t interfere.”

Zhou Mancang continued, “Now Lao Qi wants to take his rooms back. I just asked—you didn’t sign any agreement when you swapped, nor was any money involved. You said it was just borrowing. So now that Lao Qi wants it back, that’s fair and reasonable.”

Shen Lao Da, whose name was Shen Shengli, had a dark, wrinkled face and deep furrows between his brows. Frowning, he said, “Brigade Leader, this is a private matter between brothers. There’s no need for the brigade to interfere. We’ll sort it out ourselves.”

His household was the largest, and they had taken over one and a half of Shen Lao Qi’s two rooms. If they had to give them back, the second and third brothers’ families would end up sleeping in the street.

Shen Shengli now deeply regretted it. If he had known this would happen, he would never have taken his whole family to that wedding on the back mountain.

If he had stayed in the village yesterday, when the fight over the grain broke out, he would’ve forced the third brother’s family to apologize properly—at least kept things from escalating to a dispute over the house.

He turned to Shen Lao Qi and said, “Lao Qi, come on. We may not have the same mother, but we’re still real brothers. Your mom died early, and our dad was old. As your older brother, haven’t I helped you a lot growing up? What the third brother’s family did was wrong. I’ll talk to them and have them apologize to you and your niece, okay?”

He thought he knew his youngest half-brother well. With the same meek temperament as his stepmother, always softhearted and naive.

He’d always been like this—say a few kind words, and he’d hand over the good stuff willingly. He’d been fooled countless times by the nephews close to his age.

Those two rooms had been taken from him the same way.

He figured this time was no different—Lao Qi had just been pushed too far. Delay it a little, let the anger cool down, and the matter would fade.

But before he finished speaking, Shen Shaoyuan raised a hand and interrupted, “The issue with the grain was settled yesterday—no need to bring it up again. Today, we’re talking about the house. Big Brother, stop dragging other people into this. I’m afraid if we go back and forth, you’ll end up fooling me again.”

Ignoring Shen Shengli’s reaction, he turned to Zhou Mancang and said, “I’m not smart, but I’ve figured this much out: the people’s production brigade is for the people. When something happens, go to the organization. Brigade Leader, this is the issue. I trust the organization, and I trust you. My daughter and I are counting on you to get us justice.”

Shen Shengli: “……”

You say you’re not smart? That bootlicking you just did was sharp as a knife!