Chapter 11

Chapter 11: The Market

Once they stepped into town, Tang Lu Wu kept stealing glances at Li Tao Hua.

She clearly thought she was being subtle. Every time Li Tao Hua’s eyes flicked over, Tang Lu Wu would jerk her gaze away like a startled deer.

Li Tao Hua sighed. “What is that look?”

Even rolling her eyes, she was still beautiful—too bright for a dusty town street.

“It’s an admiring look,” Qin Hui Yin said, smiling. “Mom, you’re so smart. We saved another two wen.”

“How is that smart?” Li Tao Hua’s mood lifted at once. “We’re just poor, so we save where we can. If I weren’t short on money, I wouldn’t be pinching pennies over two wen.”

She tapped Qin Hui Yin’s forehead with a finger, gentler than her words. “Remember this. Women shouldn’t spend all day thinking about love. Without money, everything is empty. Without money, even the prettiest young lady becomes a worn-out, sallow-faced wife.”

Her gaze drifted, as if she were looking at something far beyond the street in front of them. “Women are flowers. They need to be pampered. If you nurture them well, even wildflowers can bloom like royalty. If you don’t… even a peony will wither into dry ground.”

Qin Hui Yin nodded solemnly. “Mom is right. I want to learn from you.”

“Don’t.” The light in Li Tao Hua’s eyes dimmed, like a lamp turned down. “You have to live better than I did.”

She took the two girls into the pawnshop.

The clerk lifted a silver hairpin, turned it under the light, and clicked his tongue. “Old workmanship. Not worth much. One tael of silver.”

“One tael?” Li Tao Hua’s brows shot up. “Fine. Then that Wang Old Five across the street—half a month ago he swore up and down when he sold it to me that it was solid silver, three full taels. I knew he cheated me. Come on. We’re going to settle accounts with him.”

Wang Old Five ran the jewelry shop across the street—and the pawnshop owner happened to be his uncle. One sold jewelry, one ran a pawnshop. If you said there wasn’t some crooked arrangement between them, no one would believe you.

The clerk’s face tightened. “Wait, wait.” He snatched the hairpin back as if it might run away. “Let me check. Maybe the scale is off.”

“Then weigh it,” Li Tao Hua snapped. “If it’s not right, I’m going to Wang Old Five. And you—young man—you’d better come be my witness. Let everyone hear how dishonest he is.”

Most customers who came to the pawnshop were desperate. They brought in family belongings, bowed their heads, took whatever number they were given. Even when they bargained, they did it politely, afraid of being turned away.

No one behaved like Li Tao Hua—loud enough to draw people on the street to look in.

The clerk’s fingers tightened around the hairpin. He checked again, slower this time, then said through clenched teeth, “It is… indeed three taels of silver.”

In truth, it wasn’t quite three. But since it had come from Wang Old Five, if the clerk dared call it less, Li Tao Hua would sprint across the street and raise a storm that would ruin the jewelry shop’s business. The owner would skin him.

Li Tao Hua patted her chest as if relieved. “Good. At least I wasn’t cheated.”

She smiled like sunshine. “Several young ladies in the village are getting married soon. When they need jewelry, I’ll introduce them to Wang Old Five.”

At that, the clerk’s expression improved like a sky clearing.

Li Tao Hua clapped her hands as if remembering something. “Oh, right. These clothes are out of fashion. I’m tired of wearing them. I’ll pawn them outright too.”

She shoved a bundle onto the counter.

The clerk unfolded it. Six outfits. The fabric was ordinary but intact, no patches, no tears. New sets in town went for only about a hundred wen each, and these weren’t new.

He almost offered twenty on instinct. Then he looked up—caught Li Tao Hua’s bright, sharp eyes—and the number changed in his throat.

“Forty,” he said quickly.

“All right.” Li Tao Hua didn’t blink. “Pawn them outright.”

A silver hairpin brought three taels. Six outfits brought 240 wen.

They walked out with three taels of silver and 240 wen in their purse.

Outside, Qin Hui Yin lowered her voice. “Mom… was that hairpin really bought across the street?”

Li Tao Hua answered without the slightest guilt. “No.”

Qin Hui Yin stopped short. “Then—”

“I lied on purpose.” Li Tao Hua’s mouth curved. “Lucky for us, that brat was minding the shop today. If the owner had been there, it wouldn’t have been so easy.”

She leaned in, speaking close to Qin Hui Yin’s ear. “Once, when I was out shopping, I saw the pawnshop owner secretly handing their pawned goods to Wang Old Five. They take old things, polish them up, and sell them as new. Uncle and nephew—both swindlers.”

Her eyes sharpened. “If we ever get a chance to take advantage of them, we don’t miss it.”

Tang Lu Wu trailed behind them, clutching her back basket. Her admiration was plain now, as if she’d forgotten to hide it.

In the village, the rumor people repeated most was that Li Tao Hua was unruly and flirted with different men, like a fox spirit reincarnated. They said a respectable woman didn’t act seductive all day. They said Hunter Song Yi and Tang Da Fu must have been bewitched—drained of their essence—otherwise how could accident after accident have struck?

Tang Lu Wu had never liked Li Tao Hua. The rumors mattered, yes—but more than that, her father had spent most of what he earned on Li Tao Hua. After his accident, Tang Lu Wu had cursed him every day and hadn’t felt sorry at all.

Li Tao Hua didn’t get along with her stepson and stepdaughter. She’d never tried to fit into the family. Other stepmothers in the village knew how to act: smile sweetly, pretend kind for half a year, wait until they had a child of their own, then reveal their true face.

Li Tao Hua hadn’t even bothered with the first half. The moment she married in, the Tang Family became hers to command, and everyone—young or old—had to watch her mood.

No matter how you looked at it, she wasn’t a good woman. Certainly not a good wife, and even less a good stepmother.

And yet.

Tang Lu Wu couldn’t look away.

Li Tao Hua had a strange charm. Like she carried her own light. Tang Lu Wu had never had that.

“Sister Lu Wu.” Qin Hui Yin turned, waving a hand in front of her face. “What are you daydreaming about? I called you so many times.”

Tang Lu Wu blinked hard. “What is it?”

“We’re going to the apothecary,” Qin Hui Yin said. “Did you bring the prescription?”

“I did.”

They came out of the apothecary with one tael missing from the purse and 20 packets of herbs added to the basket.

Tang Lu Wu had braced herself for Li Tao Hua to complain at the cost. But from start to finish, Li Tao Hua didn’t say a single extra word. She paid when she had to pay and took the medicine when she had to take it.

“Don’t stare at me like that,” Li Tao Hua said, catching Tang Lu Wu’s anxious eyes. “I promised Hui Yin I’d buy medicine for your brother, so I’ll keep my word. And you don’t need to thank me. Thank Hui Yin.”

Tang Lu Wu swallowed. “Thank you, Auntie. Thank you, Yin Yin.”

Qin Hui Yin reached for Tang Lu Wu’s hand.

Tang Lu Wu jerked back without meaning to.

Her hands were rough and callused. Qin Hui Yin’s were soft, fine, tender as tofu.

Qin Hui Yin didn’t take offense. “We’ll be family from now on. Family looks after each other. Come on—we still have to buy rice and flour.”

Their main purpose in town was grain.

First, there was no food at home. If they didn’t save themselves, they’d all starve. Qin Hui Yin didn’t know about the others, but she was already on the edge of becoming a wild-greens ghost—she even dreamed of chewing wild greens, and when she woke, her mouth tasted like them.

Second, she couldn’t sit and wait for death. Not her. She needed money. She needed a way out.

At the grain shop, coarse flour was five wen per jin, fine flour eight. Qin Hui Yin chose coarse without hesitation.

Rice came in grades.

The cheapest was broken rice mixed with small stones, faintly yellowed as if it had been soaked and dried badly. Four wen per jin.

The second was also broken rice, but clean—no stones, no yellowing. Six wen per jin.

The third was polished white rice, plump grains shining pale and pretty. Eight wen per jin.

Li Tao Hua stood there, hesitating between the second and third.