Chapter 4

The day passed without any major mishaps.

As dusk approached, even the sparrows avoided nesting under the eaves of this poor household, chirping as they flew to the neighboring homes instead. The small clay stove Gu Yiren had brought over was perfect for Su Liuhe. She yawned with exhaustion, telling herself she wasn't lazy, just depleted in body and spirit—after all, she had been starving for three days.

Gu Yiren had scrubbed the small iron pot until it was spotless. She boiled some water, used a ladle to pour it out, and dampened a towel to wipe her face and body. With the remaining water, she splashed her feet. "I really must buy a basin tomorrow," she muttered, lying down in the same spot as the night before. It felt freezing; without the kang being heated all day, the room was permeated with a bone-chilling cold.

Resigned to her fate, she got off the kang to try and light a fire, but it simply wouldn't catch. The branches she threw in only produced thick, white smoke that made her cough violently; anyone passing by would have thought the house was on fire. Not far away, across a row of single-story houses in the front yard, she could still hear the noisy, bustling sounds of the engagement banquet at the Su residence. Su Huidi must be the center of attention right now, surely feeling very happy.

Respect the twists of fate!

Thanks to the small clay stove and a thin cotton jacket, she managed to survive the night without falling ill. Even so, when she woke up, her voice was stuffy, and she felt a low-grade fever. Su Liuhe was penniless, with only two handfuls of chestnuts given to her by Gu Yiren to stave off hunger. Concerned for her own well-being, she decided she would have to bow to the reality of survival. As soon as she finished the chestnuts, she would head to the brigade headquarters to find work.

She set the clay stove to boil water and went into the kitchen to pick up the pickle jar. To her surprise, it felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. "Ah!" The jar hit the ground, but instead of shattering, it began to spill out an endless stream of chestnuts. Su Liuhe stood there dumbfounded, rubbing her eyes as she watched the jar keep "spitting" them out. "Could there really be ghosts and goblins here?"

Then it occurred to her that since she had already transmigrated into this period drama, any strange occurrence was within the realm of possibility. While she was deep in thought, the jar finally stopped. She squatted down to gather the chestnuts and realized there were twice as many as she had put in yesterday!

Good news: one jar of chestnuts had become two.
Bad news: why couldn't it have been gold?

Her stomach let out a loud growl. Resolutely, she grabbed a few handfuls and threw them into the pot. Whatever happened, she couldn't let herself starve. Within ten minutes, the room was filled with the sweet, nutty aroma of roasted chestnuts. She used chopsticks to pick one out and bit down—the shell didn't crack. She bit harder—still nothing. Finally, using all her strength, she bit down, and—wow, a burst of fragrance filled her mouth. The waxy, tender texture surprised her, and after chewing, it left a sweet aftertaste.

She ate five in a row, stopping only because her teeth couldn't handle any more. Those five chestnuts left her feeling remarkably full. After some thought, she put half of the remaining chestnuts into a wicker basket and left the other half in the pickle jar, hoping to see if it would "spit" more out again. She kept the jar on her lap for an hour, but it remained motionless. With no other choice, she decided to head to the brigade headquarters.

When she arrived, an official named Wang Xue was just stepping out of the broadcasting room. Seeing Su Liuhe, she frowned and asked, "What are you here for?"

"I'm looking for some odd jobs," Su Liuhe replied.

Wang Xue looked her up and down. "You? You want to work?" Her tone was laced with skepticism. Su Liuhe tried to recall the plot of the book to see where the original owner had offended Wang Xue. After some reflection, it dawned on her. Wang Xue—or "Little Snow"—had been her elementary school classmate. She had pursued three different boys, all of whom rejected her, and without exception, they all had crushes on the little school beauty, Su Liuhe.

Su Liuhe was an innocent scapegoat; in truth, Wang Xue’s older brother was a brute who often beat up boys to keep them away from his sister. He was partly responsible for the fact that they all liked Su Liuhe, and he had even wanted Su Liuhe to become his sister-in-law. Su Liuhe didn't dare mention that, or Wang Xue might have eaten her alive.

Wang Xue didn't expect Su Liuhe to "remember" their primary school days. She led Su Liuhe to the south side of the headquarters and pointed at a vast field of cabbage. "There are hundreds of thousands of pounds of cabbage right in front of you, and you're asking me for work? How blind are you to the work right in front of your eyes?"

Great, she was being belittled again.

"I see, thank you, Official Wang Xue," Su Liuhe smiled. "I'll go get to work right away."

If it had been the former Su Liuhe, she surely would have argued back. Hearing her polite thanks, and detecting no sarcasm, Wang Xue even looked up at the sun to make sure it was still rising in the east.

As Su Liuhe walked away, Wang Xue called out, "Wait." She grabbed a fertilizer bag and tossed it at her feet. "How are you going to work without a bag? You'll just be a laughingstock again. When you get there, find Xiangcai's mother and tell her I arranged for you to work in her group."

Xiangcai's mother was a widow, a bold and forthright woman who, at the very least, didn't stab people in the back. Any complaints she had were always out in the open. This time, Su Liuhe said "thank you" again, and she truly meant it.

At the cabbage field, upon hearing that Su Liuhe wanted to work, Xiangcai's mother laughed and called over the rest of the production team. "I told you all to stop slacking off! Now that this pampered young lady is here, whoever can't outwork her can just pack up and go home!"

Su Liuhe’s pretty lips twitched. She gathered her strength and began hacking at the cabbage, leaves flying everywhere in her frustration. When she finally looked up, she realized everyone else was already two hundred meters ahead.

"Did I scare them off with my ferocity?"

"Hurry up! You’ve been dawdling on one row for ages. At this rate, you won't even earn two dimes a day!"

Su Liuhe looked up to see the others were far ahead.

"My goodness, you're actually peeling off such good leaves?!"
"What are you afraid of? What kind of country folk is afraid of a few cabbage worms?!"

After working through the morning, Su Liuhe refused to go back in the afternoon. Feeling physically wretched, she sat on the edge of the field, clutching a large cabbage and staring at the blisters on her palms, which stung with a piercing pain. Xiangcai's mother, despite her sharp tongue and kind heart, gave her five work points, which could be exchanged for five dimes.

"Take these two heads of cabbage back to eat," Xiangcai's mother sighed. "You really are useless at manual labor."

"I'm just weak."
"You're lazy!"

"..." Su Liuhe, feeling awkward after receiving help, awkwardly picked up one five-or-six-pound cabbage and prepared to leave.

"What about the other one?" Xiangcai's mother called out.
"I can't carry two," Su Liuhe replied in a small, thin voice.

The women working nearby slapped their thighs and roared with laughter. After laughing, Xiangcai's mother stepped forward, picked up the cabbage, and said, "I'll walk you back; it's on my way." She didn't hear a reply, and when she looked at the young girl, her face was burning with fever.

"Good heavens! You're so delicate, how did you get sick just from a little work?"

Xiangcai's mother grabbed the other cabbage from Su Liuhe, carrying both in one hand, and used her other arm to support the dizzy girl all the way back to the wooden shack. Su Liuhe didn't know what medicine she had been given, but after sleeping on the heated kang and sweating it out, she woke up feeling refreshed.

As she got up, her hair disheveled, she noticed that the strands falling by her ears were darker and more lustrous. Her arms, which had been fair before, now looked like they were carved from ivory. Could this be the effect of those magical chestnuts? Su Liuhe touched her face; a small, inconspicuous pimple that had been growing for days had vanished. Looking in the mirror, there wasn't a huge change, but her features seemed more delicate and captivating.

*Sigh*, she really was a beauty.

After this realization, she tied her hair into a low ponytail and stepped off the kang, intending to find Xiangcai's mother and ask where Gu Yiren's uncle lived. She hadn't realized until yesterday that Gu Yiren was the blind, lame man who had buried the original owner! To think he was so handsome when he was young, yet abused by his uncle from such a tender age. Ultimately, he had been the one to accompany her on her final journey, so in all fairness, she couldn't just watch him live out a miserable life.

"I must use the law to protect him," Su Liuhe resolved, filled with ambition.

***

"You mad dog! You're nothing but a mad dog!"

Liu Fendou, Gu Yiren's uncle, pointed at Gu Yiren, who was standing against the wall, while clutching his own bleeding head. "The two of you, as his older brothers, how can you not beat him down? Beat him to death!"

Liu Fendou and his two sons were cut from the same cloth: broad-shouldered, thick-waisted, and square-jawed. They were bullies in the village who had never suffered a loss. Liu the Eldest signaled to Liu the Second, who was preparing for a sneak attack. Just as Gu Yiren bowed his head to clutch a wound on his arm, the second brother lunged forward, smashing a beer bottle against the back of his head.

Gu Yiren crouched on the ground, reaching up to touch the back of his head as hot blood began to flow steadily. His "brothers" rained kicks and punches upon him, the blows landing with dull thuds. Liu Fendou, burning with rage, picked up a whip and lashed out at him!

Gu Yiren gasped for air, covering his head, remaining motionless for a long time. The three Liu men thought they had subdued him as usual, cursing and swearing: "You dog-born bastard, who knows what kind of trash your mother was to give birth to you in a dog kennel! You're nothing but an animal! How dare you fight back!"

In Gu Yiren's mind, the events of his past life flashed by like a revolving lantern. He touched his intact left eye and, amidst the abuse and beatings, clutched his right leg—which had once been shattered in a car accident—as if he couldn't feel the pain... He had returned. He had actually returned!

Memories flooded back, and he stood up abruptly, howling in agony as he clutched his head. What a miserable, regretful life it had been! Heaven had eyes, allowing him to start over. He glared at the three men.

Back then, he had wholeheartedly viewed Liu Fendou as his own father and the two others as his brothers. No matter how they beat or oppressed him, he believed he could endure it, thinking they had given him a home. A home—what a warm word that should have been.

But when he was framed, his leg and eye could have been saved while he was in the hospital. Liu Fendou, who had always claimed to be saving money for him, kept the funds for himself instead of paying for the surgery. He lay in the hospital bed for three days, missing the optimal window for the operation and missing the train to join the army.

After being discharged, he was abandoned by the Liu family. He lived in an abandoned shack in the mountains, blind and lame, a broken man. He later overheard others talking—Liu Fendou had received a large sum of money as a reward from the people who had framed him.

Looking back on his painful life, only two people had ever offered him a hand. Once, when he was three, he had been pushed into a pond by the Liu brothers and nearly drowned; a little girl had pulled him back to the bank using a small tree trunk and had even given him her own tattered cotton jacket. The second time was when he was eighteen; an army officer had praised his keen eyesight and sharp mind, saying it was a pity he lacked education, but still recruited him as a marine sniper. Later, he was framed, becoming a blind and lame cripple, wasting the chance to change the trajectory of his life.

Liu Fendou was terrified; he saw the murderous glint in Gu Yiren's eyes as he stood up. He shouted to his eldest son, "Quick, pick up the sickle! Don't let him get it!"

Gu Yiren howled wildly, like a wolf or a tiger. His eyes were bloodshot. Ignoring his brothers' attempts to stop him, he grabbed the sickle—
Kill them—
"Kill them."
Revenge—
"Revenge!!"

A voice in his head was screaming. With untamed wildness, he raised the sickle—

*Knock, knock, knock!*
*Knock, knock, knock!*

"Is anyone there? I'm Gu Yiren's aunt. I'm here to see him, could you please open the door?"

At that critical moment, Gu Yiren seemed to see that light breaking through the ice on the frozen pond once again. A thin, small hand had given him the strength to live. And now, it appeared outside the door again.

Should he open it, or not? Gu Yiren hesitated.

"Open the door!" Su Liuhe, thinking they were still beating him, said urgently, "I'm going to report you to the police!"

Gu Yiren let out a long breath, not even looking at the three men cowering together. He opened the door. The delicate little aunt stood before him, waving her household registration page as if showing off, and said impatiently, "Gu Yiren, are you alright? I have good news! You're not on their household registration anymore!"

Gu Yiren pressed his hand against the sickle hidden behind his back, his wrist trembling uncontrollably. "What do you want?"

"The registration lists you as an orphan," Su Liuhe said with a shy smile, her dimples appearing. "I'm your aunt, so I have legal guardianship over you!"

Gu Yiren lowered his hand, his voice raspy. "How will you be my guardian?"

Su Liuhe replied crisply, "You're on my registration now. From this day on, we're family!"

Gu Yiren: "You... you want to be family with me?"

Su Liuhe nodded vigorously. "That's right! We're a family!"