Chapter 87

Chapter 87: Probing

The women retreated in a huff.

“Her wings have hardened,” one said, voice sharp with spite. “She used to be so pitiful—holes in her clothes and shoes, head down when she walked. Now she dares to talk back.”

“She’s just stupid,” Madam Wang spat. “Do we not know what Li Tao Hua is like? She’s a leech. Once she sticks to you, she won’t let go until she’s sucked you dry. How could a fox like her ever treat stepsons and stepdaughters well?”

Madam Wang’s spit hit the dirt. “If Tang Yi Chen weren’t good at studying, she wouldn’t have kept up the act this long.”

“So Li Tao Hua’s kept up the act because she’s waiting for Tang Yi Chen to earn a degree?” someone asked, eyes bright. “So she can become an official’s wife?”

“Of course,” Madam Wang said, as if it were obvious. “Otherwise, they’re both stepsons, so why does she ignore Song Rui Ze, yet spend money on the Tang family children?”

“Sister-in-law Wang,” another woman said, half laughing, “if you had a stepson like Song Rui Ze, you’d be doing well not to beat him to death. How would you still have the heart to care about him?”

Madam Wang opened her mouth, but the memory of Song Rui Ze’s gloomy stare flashed in her mind, and she swallowed the words.

“What business do you think Tang Da Fu’s family is really doing?” someone asked instead.

“Didn’t we already say? A food business.”

“What kind of food, though? They go into the county seat once every three days, leaving early and coming back late. They haul bucket after bucket when they go, and big and small bundles when they return. It looks like they’re making a lot.”

“Whether they earn more or less, what does it have to do with us?” a woman said, but even she sounded curious. “We’re not close to Li Tao Hua. Why would she tell us?”

“Aren’t you curious?” another shot back. “Who can’t make a few foods at home? If they can earn money from it, we can too. We just need to find out what they’re selling.”

One by one, the women started doing their own little calculations.

Madam Wang had fallen out so badly with Li Tao Hua that she couldn’t even step into Tang Da Fu’s yard. Sending her to probe would be useless.

But the others… they hadn’t torn things open so publicly. They were neighbors. How could they have no excuse to go knocking?

Granny Zhang, for instance, had sold Tang Da Fu an old hen. She could use that as a reason to visit.

—

At home, Tang Yi Xiao swallowed his medicine with his brows knotted, his face twisting at the bitterness.

Qin Hui Yin popped a candy into his mouth before he could complain, then pressed the candy jar into his hands. “From now on, eat one after you take your medicine. It won’t be so bitter.”

He held the jar like it was something precious. “Where did you get it?”

“I bought it,” Qin Hui Yin said lightly. “You take medicine all the time. Your mouth is always bitter. This is to give you something sweet.”

Tang Yi Xiao’s eyes went red at once.

Qin Hui Yin sighed, half amused, half exasperated. “Why do you cry so easily?”

“I’m not crying,” he insisted, staring at her stubbornly.

She laughed under her breath. “Fine. You’re not crying.”

Then she turned back to the kitchen work. “We’re having dry-pot pork intestines at noon. Can you help me clean the intestines?”

Tang Yi Xiao lifted his chin like a man being given an important task. “Yes. Leave it to me.”

He carried the bucket down to the downstream stretch of the river, away from where people usually washed clothes.

These days, someone hauled their water and someone delivered their firewood. They only had to pay a few wen to hand off those heavy chores. The two villagers they worked with regularly were honest and kept their eyes to themselves—they did the job and left.

Granny Zhang arrived in the courtyard not long after, smiling so hard her cheeks creased.

“Oh my,” she said, peering in. “Yin Girl, are you the only one home?”

Qin Hui Yin stepped out to greet her. “Auntie, do you need something?”

“Didn’t your father buy an old hen from me?” Granny Zhang asked, clasping her hands. “It wasn’t very lively before. I worried something might happen right after I sold it to you, and you’d have wasted your money, so I came to take a look.”

Qin Hui Yin pointed toward the old hen strutting through the yard, pecking busily, the little chicks clustered around it. “Don’t worry, Auntie. It’s lively. Nothing’s wrong.”

“It really is,” Granny Zhang said, beaming. “Your place has great soil and water—it raises people, and it raises chickens.”

Then her smile shifted into something sharper, more intent. “By the way… did your family strike it rich doing business? What business are you in?”

Qin Hui Yin’s face brightened with the kind of innocence that made people lower their guard. “We just sell a bit of food. Don’t laugh at us, Auntie. We’re only rushing around so we have something to eat. We really haven’t made much.”

“You’re not being honest,” Granny Zhang scolded, wagging a finger, but her tone was eager. “If you weren’t making money, why would you be this busy every day? Don’t worry. Your auntie keeps her mouth shut. I won’t tell anyone. Just tell me—what exactly do you do, and how much do you make?”

Qin Hui Yin leaned in as if confiding a secret. “We mainly sell meat and flatbreads. You know how expensive meat and white flour are. Our flatbreads are stuffed with a lot of meat, and at most we earn one wen per bread.”

She sighed dramatically. “And the meat—sometimes we can’t sell it all, so we have to bring it home and eat it ourselves. What else can we do, throw it away? Food like that can’t be kept overnight. If it sits, it spoils, and people will get sick.”

Then she began counting off their troubles on her fingers. “On top of that, we rent a stall, pay the entry fee, and we still have to show respect to the local boss…”

Granny Zhang’s eyes widened. “My goodness. The stall fee can’t be cheap, right? I know the entry fee—one wen per person. And the local boss isn’t easy to deal with.” She leaned closer. “So how much do you have left each day?”

“After we subtract costs and those tributes,” Qin Hui Yin said, “earning 50 or 60 wen in a day is already pretty good.”

Granny Zhang’s gaze turned suspicious. “With so many of you running into the county seat and working nonstop, you only earn 50 or 60 wen? Little girl, you’re lying to me, aren’t you?”

“Auntie,” Qin Hui Yin said earnestly, “is 50 or 60 wen really that little? I think it’s a lot. Think about it—if we go ten times in a month, that’s 500 or 600 wen. We don’t have any other income. This money feeds the family, and it can even add a bit to my brother’s paper-and-ink allowance.”

Granny Zhang pursed her lips. “If it’s only that much, you’d be better off going into the county seat to find work. You send so many people out for just a few hundred wen—no matter how you count it, that’s a losing deal.”

Qin Hui Yin spread her hands. “Then who in our family can go find work? Uncle Tang injured his leg—he can’t work anymore. My mother is too pretty to go wandering around for labor. My Elder Brother… Auntie, you think that’s funny, too, right?”

She tilted her head, as if genuinely puzzled. “That leaves Sister Lu Wu, my younger brother, and me—an 11-year-old. Who can go do heavy work?”

Granny Zhang fell silent.

Whether she believed it or not, she at least half believed it. A household that big, and not one person fit to be hired for labor. If they only farmed, they might not even fill their bellies, let alone save for Tang Yi Chen’s schooling.

Qin Hui Yin glanced around, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “Besides, it’s not 50 or 60 every time. Last time we met a very generous customer. That day we earned 100 wen.”

Granny Zhang straightened as if she’d sat on something hot. “That’s still pretty good,” she said quickly. “I have to go home and cook. I won’t keep you. I’m off.”

As soon as she left, Tang Lu Wu returned, her washbasin hugged against her hip. She brushed past Granny Zhang on the path without stopping.

“What did she come for?” Tang Lu Wu asked the moment she stepped into the yard.

Qin Hui Yin snickered and told her everything.

Tang Lu Wu frowned. “Will she believe it?”

“Believe it or not, that’s the version she’ll get from me,” Qin Hui Yin said. “If she doesn’t believe it, she can go ask around herself. It’s easy to talk about going into the county seat, but the gate charges an entry fee. Just to satisfy her curiosity… would she really pay?”