Chapter 32

Chapter 32: Building the Dam
A man called after the Village Head as people began to disperse. “Village Head, why isn’t that brat from the Song family here? He goes hunting in the mountains all the time. He probably hasn’t heard yet.”

The Village Head’s expression didn’t soften. “Go to his house and tell him. He has the skills, and he brings back prey often enough. He should be able to come up with the silver.”

With that, the ring of villagers broke apart, scattering into small knots that moved down the lane like ripples.

The moment Li Tao Hua stepped out from the ancestral hall yard, the village women swarmed her as if they’d been waiting.

“Hui Yin’s mother,” one of them said, voice syrupy with false concern, “your 50 taels still aren’t settled, and now you need another two taels. What are you going to do? If you ask me, you might as well agree to Boss Chen.”

Li Tao Hua stopped so abruptly the women behind her nearly bumped into her back. She turned, eyes icy.

The speaker’s smile faltered.

“I was just trying to help,” the woman said, shifting uneasily.

“Help?” Li Tao Hua’s laugh was sharp. “Your black heart is full of holes. Who do you think is stupid enough to believe you mean well?”

The woman opened her mouth, but Li Tao Hua didn’t give her space to breathe.

“Listen carefully,” Li Tao Hua said, each word clipped. “If you dare set your sights on my daughter again, I’ll make sure this village doesn’t have a single peaceful day. If you have time to meddle in my business, you’d better watch your own man. I heard he dropped his pants again. You screamed and cursed for half the day. Don’t tell me you really think the underwear he’s wearing can just vanish.”

The woman’s face flushed a furious red. “What do you mean?”

“You can’t understand what I mean?” Li Tao Hua leaned in, smiling without warmth.

“You bitch—did you do something to my husband?” the woman shrieked.

Li Tao Hua looked her up and down with blatant contempt. “This lady has been leaving early and coming home late, working every day. My conscience is clear. Ask around and you’ll know where I’ve been. Besides…”

Her mouth twisted as if she tasted something rotten. “Your man is short and stubby. Even if you gave him to me to gnaw on, I’d find that little bit of meat filthy. Ugh.”

She made a dramatic gagging face.

A woman nearby cracked sunflower seeds, eyes bright with amusement, as if the scene were free entertainment. But Li Tao Hua was too fierce. The other woman shook with rage, so furious she looked close to fainting.

Qin Hui Yin walked past the commotion with Tang Lu Wu, her hand resting lightly at Tang Lu Wu’s elbow, and tried hard not to sigh.

In her mind, she scrambled through the original plot like someone pawing through a messy drawer, searching for something she knew she’d seen before.

In the story she remembered, Tang Lu Wu and Tang Yi Xiao were already dead by this point. Only Tang Da Fu, Li Tao Hua, Qin Hui Yin—the original owner of this body—and Tang Yi Chen remained under the roof. Chen Zhong Yi never came to the Tang household to press for payment, and those 50 taels simply… vanished. No one brought them up again.

Then the Government Office demanded labor for the dam works. Li Tao Hua reacted the same way she had today—refused to pay, insisted Tang Yi Chen go. In the end, Tang Yi Chen produced two taels and settled it himself.

But now Chen Zhong Yi had appeared, pressing and circling like a vulture. How could a man like that, the sort who got what he wanted by any means, simply disappear in the original story?

Unless…

Qin Hui Yin’s steps slowed.

If Chen Zhong Yi had targeted Li Tao Hua from the start, had Li Tao Hua let him succeed back then?

It made a grim kind of sense. In the original, the male lead came to resent his birth father, his stepmother, his stepsister. He barely went home. Tang Da Fu eventually got back on his feet, but the leg injury left him with lasting problems; he could only farm and no longer went into the city for work.

And yet Li Tao Hua’s life stayed strangely comfortable. She still wore decent clothes, still had jewelry at her throat and wrists. She was still the most gossiped-about woman in the village, dressing up as if gossip were a feast she enjoyed. She raised her daughter to be selfish and lavish, just like herself.

Back then Qin Hui Yin had read it all as ink on paper. The novel revolved around Tang Yi Chen; everyone else appeared only in brief shadows. It was already a miracle she remembered this much.

“Yin Yin.” Tang Lu Wu glanced at her, worry soft in her eyes. “Are you worried about Elder Brother?”

Qin Hui Yin blinked back into the present and shook her head. “No. The Village Head kept Brother Chen behind because he was afraid our family would force him to go to the dam works. If he hears we’re paying silver instead, he’ll probably relax.”

Tang Lu Wu nodded, still fidgeting at the edge of her sleeve.

They were passing the Song family’s fence gate when the latch banged hard enough to make both girls flinch.

Song Rui Ze shoved a man out into the lane.

“You little brat!” the man bellowed as he stumbled. “I’m your uncle! You dare disrespect your elder like this—”

Song Rui Ze looked like he’d been dragged through the underbrush. His hair was disheveled. His clothes were darkened with old stains, and the sharp stench of blood clung to him like a second skin.

As Qin Hui Yin and Tang Lu Wu hurried past, Song Rui Ze’s head snapped toward them.

His eyes—shot slightly red—caught Qin Hui Yin with a vicious, chilling glare, the kind that made a person’s spine turn to water.

Tang Lu Wu let out a small gasp and grabbed Qin Hui Yin’s arm, pulling her along faster.

Behind them, Song Rui Ze’s hand flashed to his waist. Metal glinted.

A dagger.

His uncle, all bluster a breath ago, turned pale and fled down the lane, still cursing but no longer brave enough to stay close.

Song Rui Ze swayed.

Then he dropped like a stone.

Thud.

Qin Hui Yin stopped so abruptly Tang Lu Wu almost ran into her back.

“What is it?” Tang Lu Wu asked, voice trembling.

Qin Hui Yin stared at the fallen figure by the gate. “I… just remembered I left something at the ancestral hall.”

Tang Lu Wu turned at once. “I’ll go with you.”

“No.” Qin Hui Yin tightened her grip on Tang Lu Wu’s hand and forced her tone to stay casual. “There’s still a lot to do at home. Go back and start. I’ll fetch it and be right behind you.”

Tang Lu Wu didn’t suspect a thing. She nodded and hurried off, still shaken.

Only after she disappeared did Qin Hui Yin circle back.

Standing outside the Song family’s gate, she looked up and down the lane. No one seemed to be watching. She eased the gate open and slipped inside.

She didn’t like sneaking, but the relationship this body had with the Song family was a mess of old grudges. Strictly speaking, Song Rui Ze was even her stepbrother—once upon a time. If she waltzed in openly now, the village would invent ten different versions of why.

Song Rui Ze lay sprawled on the ground, face flushed, breathing ragged and fast.

Fever.

And whatever he’d been bleeding from, he hadn’t stopped.

Qin Hui Yin knelt and hooked his arm over her shoulder. He was heavier than he looked. She gritted her teeth and hauled him up, half carrying, half dragging him into the house.

The moment she crossed the threshold, the smell hit like a fist.

Blood.

Clothes lay scattered across the floor, stiff with dried red. Ragged strips of cloth—torn bandages—were piled in a corner, soaked through and tossed aside like they didn’t matter.

He wasn’t just injured.

He’d been injured for a while.

Song Rui Ze hunted deep in the mountains, always chasing dangerous prey. Sometimes he came back with something slung over his shoulder, and the villagers would marvel. Most days, he probably came back empty-handed—and no one asked what he paid for those rare successes.

Qin Hui Yin got him onto the bed. Even that small movement made him hiss through his teeth, though he never fully woke. Within moments, fresh blood seeped into his clothes again.

She swallowed hard. “Elder Brother,” she said under her breath, as if the words might reach him through the fever. “I’m trying to save you, not take advantage of you. When you wake up, don’t hold it against me.”

Then she drew a steadying breath and pulled at his clothes.

“Heavens…”

Her hands froze.

The wound in his abdomen was ugly—deep enough to make her stomach twist. The edges were swollen and red. In places the flesh looked wrong, as if it had already begun to rot.

It wasn’t from yesterday. It wasn’t from two days ago.

“Are you an idiot?” she muttered, anger flaring fast because fear had nowhere else to go. “You’re hurt like this and you didn’t see a physician? Don’t tell me you had no money. That doesn’t make sense.”

She didn’t expect an answer from an unconscious man. She was arguing with the air, with fate, with the cruel way the world seemed determined to grind certain people down.

Qin Hui Yin forced herself to move again.

“Hold on,” she told him, voice steadier than she felt. “I’ll boil water and clean this first. Then I’ll go up the mountain and find something to stop the bleeding and bring the swelling down.”

She hesitated only long enough to swallow the lump in her throat. “Good thing I used to dabble in survival stuff,” she mumbled, more to herself than to him. “If I didn’t at least know how to recognize some wild medicinal herbs, we’d both be in trouble.”

Then she turned toward the kitchen, already moving as if speed could outrun the smell of blood.