Chapter 18

After breakfast, the group set out for the Zhu family’s fields.

Xuan and Lian gathered the bowls the laborers had used for breakfast, stacking them neatly before carrying them to a large basin. They sat on small stools at the edge, ready to wash dishes, only to find the water jar already empty.

So the sisters worked together to draw a bucket of water from the well, just as Shen Yun spotted them.

Shen Yun was startled. “What are you doing?”

“There’s no water left in the jar, so it’s hard to wash the dishes,” Xuan replied, as if it were only natural.

“If there’s no water, call an adult to help. What strength do you two have? What if you lost your grip and fell in with the well rope?”

Xuan wanted to argue, but Lian quickly admitted fault, saying, “Mother, it was my idea, and I dragged my sister along.”

Grandmother Sun, standing nearby, couldn’t help but chime in with her usual contrary opinion: “Just fetching a bucket of water, what’s the harm? When I was a child, we all fetched water ourselves—never heard of anyone falling in. It’s those kids that don’t want to do any chores, always running about, who end up tumbling into the river each summer.”

“Mother-in-law, children nowadays aren’t like before…”

“Oh, I know, I know. Children are precious now, even girls are raised like precious seedlings, not like in my day, when they were raised like weeds. If you ask me, coddling them too much only makes each generation weaker. The first household I served in as a child bride, they lost their child from doting too much…”

She muttered on, sharing her experience as she scrubbed pots and sharpened knives, her hands never idle, working as if the chores were part of her body. She began to discuss the midday meal with Shen Yun: “Yun, let’s make a pot of braised pork with wildflowers for lunch, and two fish. With so many people, two fish might not be enough… Don’t bother with loofah soup, make wonton and egg soup instead. That way, the meat dishes will look more generous, and we can just whip up a few vegetable sides. As long as there’s enough rice, that’s hospitality enough.”

She was consulting Shen Yun on what to cook for the field laborers. While Shen Yun was agreeable about everything, she didn’t have as much experience as Grandmother Sun with large family meals.

In the meantime, Xuan, who was washing dishes nearby, had been eager to hear Grandmother Sun’s story about her “first household.”

Everyone knew Grandmother Sun had been a child bride before marrying Grandfather, but she’d never recounted the details from beginning to end, only mentioning bits and pieces now and then. Xuan was quite curious. Now that Grandmother Sun had finally started, she’d stopped again.

Xuan felt it was a pity. Her curiosity was hard to suppress; after hesitating between risking a scolding and satisfying her interest, she chose the latter and boldly asked, “And then?”

Grandmother Sun frowned. “And then what? You haven’t even finished washing the dishes and you still want to show off?”

“You were just talking about how the child died in your first household. You didn’t say how. How did it happen?” Xuan, unafraid of Grandmother Sun, pressed on.

Lian looked at her with admiration. She was curious, too, but didn’t have Xuan’s courage.

“I see you’re full and looking for trouble, asking about such ill-fated things. Do you want to be a child bride yourself?” Grandmother Sun grumbled at Xuan’s persistence, but continued her story as she worked.

“What do you think a child bride is? Two children raised together until they’re old enough to marry? When I was little, my mother had many children. I wasn’t the eldest, but as soon as I could work, I was considered the eldest. Some before me didn’t survive, some were sold off as soon as they could stand…”

Grandmother Sun measured out rice as she spoke, her face clouded by memory. She sighed. “I wonder if the brothers and sisters who were sold before me are still alive.”

“Sold?” Xuan was shocked. Though the Zhu family was poor and there were many struggling families in Reed Village, since she was born, under King Yue’s rule, parents selling their own children was nearly unheard of.

King Yue strictly forbade parents from selling their sons and daughters into slavery; if children went missing, it was only due to kidnappers—never the parents themselves acting as sellers.

“They were sold, straight to traffickers. The trafficker would come, inspect teeth and appearance, and if satisfied, bargain a price. After a handprint, the child would be taken away—we never knew where. The trafficker told my parents girls were sold to wealthy families as maids—those families had better lives, they said. Boys were supposed to be sent to childless, well-off homes to continue the line. My parents believed it, convinced themselves it was for the children’s own good.”

As she finished measuring, Grandmother Sun rinsed the rice, a mocking smile flickering on her face.

“Maybe it was true?” Xuan was listening, so absorbed that she washed the same bowl twice.

“I used to believe it when I was young, but thinking about it now, how could it be? As if selling a child could ever be for the child’s good. How many wealthy families truly treated maids well? How many childless homes wanted an heir that way? Even if some did, so many poor families were selling children—what about those not chosen? Where did the traffickers take the rest?”

Xuan nodded; Grandmother Sun’s words made sense.

“In the trafficker’s hands, the luckier ones might go somewhere decent. The unlucky ones were sold to brothels, made eunuchs, or met even worse fates. I won’t go into detail—you’re too young for nightmares.”

Xuan was curious about those fates, but didn’t push further.

“I should have been sold at five or six, but I was quick with chores, so it wasn’t worth selling me early. They kept me until I was Lian’s age. They were waiting for a trafficker to come when a minor landlord’s family came to ask for me as a child bride. So I went. Only after arriving did I find out my future husband hadn’t even been born yet—he was still in my mother-in-law’s belly. My job was to serve her, cleaning chamber pots, helping her wash. After a few months, she gave birth to a girl…”

Grandmother Sun was already cooking by the time she noticed Xuan had stopped washing and was listening intently, bowls still undone. She glared at her.

Xuan quickly returned to her task, and only when she’d finished did Grandmother Sun continue. “Not long after, my mother-in-law was pregnant again. I took care of her, and helped with her eldest daughter. That time, she had a boy. By then, I was ten.”

Lian, listening eagerly, asked, “Was that boy Grandfather?”

Grandmother Sun shot her a surprised glance, then snapped, “Open your eyes and look—do you think there’s a ten-year age gap between me and your grandfather?”

Lian realized she was mistaken. So Grandmother Sun had never become a child bride after all.

“The landlord’s son was their only child, spoiled rotten. Even as a boy, he’d hit me for fun. His mother would say, ‘Good job, my boy, you’re strong.’ Spoiled like that, by four or five he’d throw tantrums, hitting and kicking whenever he was unhappy. One day, he fell into the well and drowned. My mother-in-law grieved for a while, got pregnant again, but before the child was born, the landlord died in a fall from his horse. The family line ended. Relatives swooped in to divide the estate before the new child was born; the house was left destitute.”

“I helped my mistress through the birth—a stillborn. She gave me my deed of indenture and sent me away. If I’d gone home, I’d have been sold again. But I didn’t know where to go. Your grandfather’s mother, who used to wash clothes for a living, had collected laundry from the landlord’s house and remembered me. She took me in and arranged my marriage to your grandfather.”

As Grandmother Sun recounted her past by the stove, firelight flickered across her wrinkled face.

Xuan, hearing it all, thought Grandmother Sun was an indomitable woman, surviving whatever fate threw at her.

The women in the house fell silent again. After a while, Xuan slipped away to check on her younger siblings, who were playing together.

She wandered around the house until Shen Yun called for her. Shen Yun patted her head, said lunch was ready, and sent her to the fields to call the others in.

Xuan dashed off to the fields to fetch Grandfather and the rest for the midday meal. Standing atop a field ridge, she cupped her hands and shouted, “Grandfather—Father—Brother—lunch is ready, come eat—”

The workers in the fields looked up, wiped their brows, put down their tools, and started toward the Zhu family’s courtyard.

After shouting herself hoarse, Xuan cleared her throat and, seeing that everyone had heard, turned to head home. Just then, she noticed a pair of dark eyes peering at her from behind a haystack.

Xuan jumped, then realized it was Min. Min’s hair was still brittle and yellow from malnutrition, tied into two thin braids, but her eyes shone with startling brightness. Before, Min had always kept her head down; Xuan had never really seen her face.

Now she saw that Min’s eyes were large and bright. There was a spark in her gaze as she looked at Xuan, as if she wanted to say something.

The group of laborers approached. Min’s mother, from the Liu family, came behind, her head wrapped in a kerchief, her face tanned and red. Min glimpsed her mother and quickly ducked away.

“Xuan, what are you standing here daydreaming for?” Ming, following behind, tapped her on the head.

Startled, Xuan quickly replied, “I wasn’t daydreaming, I was waiting for you all.”

Tang, grinning, pinched her cheek. “You’d wait for us?”

“Tang, stay away! You stink of sweat!” Xuan protested, but Tang kept teasing until his father swatted him away. The group laughed and chatted as they headed home.

After they left, Min peeked out from behind the haystack, watching Xuan’s retreating figure with envy. She gripped something in her hand, hesitated, then turned for home—her family was waiting for her help.

After lunch at the Zhu house, the workers sprawled out on benches, slumped over the table, or lay straight on the floor for a nap. The midday sun was fierce, so they’d rest for half an hour before returning to the fields.

A few female laborers, unable to nap in the same room as the men, claimed the sisters’ bedroom for a short rest.

After washing dishes, Xuan wanted a nap herself, but found others already dozing on her bed. Ying was there too. There was space left, but Xuan wasn’t used to napping with strangers.

Shen Yun felt the back of her neck, found it slick with sweat, and said, “If you’re tired, go lie down in my room for a bit.”

Xuan shook her head. “I’m not tired. I’ll go play outside.”

The house was filled with sleeping bodies sprawled over every available surface, so she couldn’t read. Instead, she headed to the riverbank, found shade among the reeds, and began skipping stones across the water as she mulled things over.

The stones hopped across the water like checkers, bouncing a dozen times before sinking and sending ripples out across the surface. Xuan picked up another and tried again.

No matter how many times she tried, she couldn’t get past a dozen skips.

She was about to try again when suddenly another stone flew past and landed on the water beside her.

It skimmed the surface gracefully, hopping once, twice, three times… Xuan’s eyes widened at the sight. The stone danced across the water with remarkable skill, skipping all the way to thirty-two before finally sinking.

“Thirty-two!” Xuan exclaimed in amazement, turning to see who had thrown it. It was Min, who had quietly come to stand beside her.

Xuan stood up and said, “You just skipped a stone thirty-two times!”

Min nodded. Xuan handed her another stone. “Show me again.”

Min took the stone and sent it skipping—this time it was twenty-seven, still impressive.

Xuan wanted to ask how she did it—her own throws never managed more than a dozen—but Min suddenly pulled something from her pocket and pressed it into Xuan’s hand. Xuan looked down to find a pair of newly woven straw sandals, a bit rough, not as sturdy as her grandfather’s, but heartfelt.

“These are for you,” Min said crisply. After a pause, she added, “The ones you gave me got muddy and couldn’t be cleaned. I spent more than ten days making these.”

With a sigh of relief, Min dashed off, her retreat as light and free as the stone she’d just sent skimming across the water.