Zhao Xiaoyuan hung her head, trembling like a leaf in the wind. She couldn't even remember having beaten him that severely; she had assumed the injuries were long healed.
"You vicious woman! You abused Qian Sijin and then dared to bring a false accusation against him? Guards, take her away and give her thirty lashes!"
The members of the Fu family looked at one another. What was happening? Were they not going to be punished?
"Wait!"
Zou Guangquan looked over. "You... no... is there something else you need?" He wondered if the young master didn't want his identity exposed, and he certainly didn't want the young master to think his verdict was driven solely by his presence.
Zou Guangquan pondered internally: Had he done something wrong? That shouldn't be.
Fu Dajin and his brothers signaled to Tang Qi with their eyes—the magistrate had already passed judgment, so he should stay quiet.
"Tang Qi, stop talking," Fu Baiwan whispered, tugging at his sleeve.
Tang Xian smiled at the Fu family, then turned back to the magistrate. "Your Honor, the case of Zhao Xiaoyuan accusing Qian Sijin is closed, but will you not hear the case of Qian Sijin accusing his uncle, Qian Jinlai, and aunt, Zhao Xiaoyuan, of seizing the land and shops left behind by his foster parents?"
"Yes, yes, exactly!" Fu Baiwan nodded repeatedly; with Tang Qi not mentioning it, he had been so terrified he’d forgotten all about that.
"Your Honor, it wasn't a seizure... it was..."
"Silence! You bold and vicious woman! I did not give you leave to speak. How dare you make a scene in this court?"
Seeing the stern look of the bailiffs, Zhao Xiaoyuan immediately wilted, and Qian Jinlai didn't dare utter another word.
"Qian Sijin, I ask you, is this true?"
Qian Sijin glanced at Tang Xian, then at the Fu family members who were silently cheering him on, and finally at the little toddler standing by his side. Before this, he had felt completely alone and helpless, fearing that he could never fight his uncle and aunt. But now... things were different.
He had heard people say that justice was only for those with money, but looking at Magistrate Zou, he saw a fair, upright, and discerning official.
With that, he recounted everything: the events of the years since his foster parents' passing and the situation with the house and shops.
Zou Guangquan summoned the clan elders. In court, even if the elders had wanted to favor Qian Jinlai and his wife, they wouldn't have dared. They were simple commoners, and they lacked the courage to lie in court. Besides, they had already heard about the couple receiving lashes for abusing Qian Sijin. Had they known the couple was so vicious, they never would have agreed to let them manage the property.
With the clan elders as witnesses and the written agreement left by his foster parents produced, the case was clear. In the end, the punishment for Qian Jinlai and Zhao Xiaoyuan was increased to fifty lashes each, and they were ordered to vacate the Qian Family Grain Shop immediately.
Back in town, Qian Sijin looked at the Fu family, his voice strained as he said, "Thank you all."
"Silly boy, we’re all family. Why thank us?" Tian Guihua patted his shoulder.
Qian Sijin’s lips curled, though his smile remained a bit unnatural. "I..."
"Alright, that’s enough. It’s getting late, and we need to head back. If anything happens in the future, just send word to the house."
"Exactly, Sijin. We’re family. If anyone dares to bully you, we’ll take them on together," Fu Dajin said with an honest laugh. He wasn't good with words, but his sincerity was evident.
Mrs. Zhou hurried over. "Sijin, your Eldest Brother is right. If you have trouble, don't keep it to yourself." She felt she had to say something to make things right back home, regretting the things she had said earlier now that she knew there would be no punishment.
Tian Guihua shot her a glare and let out a cold laugh. The other brothers also offered similar words of encouragement.
They took a carriage back. Thinking it was worth the ten-copper fee, Fu Baiwan felt that avoiding a catastrophe was a happy occasion, and spending a little money was well worth it.
Mother Fan had skipped lunch waiting to see the Fu family’s downfall. By the time the family returned, dinner time had already passed. To her surprise, not only were they unharmed, but they were riding in a covered carriage.
"Nothing... nothing happened? Baiwan?"
Fu Baiwan knew she was waiting for a show. "Nothing at all. Everything is fine."
"Then why did the official call you in?"
Tian Guihua smiled. "Nothing much, just some matters regarding Sijin's shop."
With unmarried sons still at home, they kept the explanation vague to protect their reputation. The carriage moved quickly, and the conversation ended there.
Mother Fan stood there, stunned. A woman nearby couldn't stop laughing. "Mother Fan, when are you going to send that rooster over to me?"
"What rooster? I was joking, and you took it seriously? You’re really keeping an eye on my rooster? How can you be so cold-hearted?"
Mother Fan was always like this—flaky and unreliable. The woman, however, wasn't about to let her off the hook. "Mother Fan, if you're going to say that, I’ll just go catch it myself."
*Catch it, my foot.* She decided she would slaughter it as soon as she got home and eat it herself rather than give it to anyone else.
Ever since Mrs. Zhou realized she had been in the wrong, she had been extra diligent at home—cooking, feeding the chickens—all under the watchful eye of Tian Guihua. After dinner, she scurried back to her room, terrified of being lectured by her parents-in-law. Tian Guihua couldn't be bothered; she knew a leopard couldn't change its spots, and there was no use talking to her.
...
During the spring planting, the rain stopped again. Everyone feared this year would be a failure. Early one morning, the Fu brothers prepared to head up the mountain; since they couldn't plant, they figured they might as well hunt, hoping to find more ginseng or ganoderma.
Fu Qiujiu rose from the ground. "No... no..."
"No what?" Fu Erjin held the little sister on his lap, while Lady Wu played with her nearby.
Tian Guihua looked into her little daughter's bright eyes and was the first to understand. "Qiujiu, are you saying we shouldn't go up the mountain?"
"What else are we supposed to do if we don't go up? We can't plant anyway."
Fu Qiujiu suddenly nodded. "Field... field." Then she clapped her hands.
Fu Dajin laughed. "Qiujiu, are you telling us to plant? Eldest Brother tells you, that won't work. If it doesn't rain, the peanut seeds won't sprout; they'll rot, or the mice will eat them."
Fu Baiwan took a deep breath and took his little daughter—he couldn't bear to let anyone else hold her for too long. "If Qiujiu says to plant, then we'll plant."
The benefit of having many sons was that he didn't need to do the heavy labor himself. Fu Baiwan took Fu Qiujiu under the big willow tree to show her off. At ten months old, Fu Qiujiu could say many words, though she mostly spoke in single syllables, and her speech wasn't always clear.
"It was cloudy yesterday, and I thought it was going to rain, but today the sun is out again. Who knows when we'll be able to plant crops?"
Mother Fan chimed in, "Liang-dage, you can plant now. Early this morning, I saw Baiwan’s sons carrying iron plows out to the fields. You should follow his lead and bury them."
Liang Dacheng’s eyes flashed. "Baiwan, do you know something?" His crops had grown the best last year, and everyone felt that couldn't be a coincidence.
Fu Baiwan smiled. "What would I know? If we don't plant now, will we have a harvest this year?"
"If there's no rain now, it won't yield a harvest even if we plant."
"Whether it yields or not, we might as well try."
Liang Dacheng squinted, his gaze falling on the baby in Fu Baiwan's arms. "Qiujiu, when will it rain?"
Fu Qiujiu remembered that Uncle Liang was a kind man; her parents said he had even brought them sweet potatoes when they were struggling. "Tomorrow."
Seeing this, Mother Fan laughed. "Tomorrow? With this sun? I don't see it raining for another eight or ten days." She turned. "Hey, Liang-dage, where are you going?"
"To plant."
Mother Fan curled her lip. "Baiwan, you're quite something, duping another person. I bet you'll lose even your seed supply this year."
...
The Fu family didn't have much land, but they had plenty of labor. Once they decided to plant, they split into two teams and finished planting the eight mu of land in a single day.
As it turned out, rain started the very next day. It wasn't heavy, but a constant, drizzling rain that made it impossible to work the fields. By the time they could get back out, it had been over ten days.
When the sun finally came out, the seedlings in the Fu family’s field had already sprouted. Mother Fan only then regretted not following the Fu family's lead; ten days was a long time for crops to miss out on.
With everyone else now planting, Fu Baiwan went back to showing off his little daughter—his daughter’s little mouth was like a charmed vessel. This time, it wasn't just him; Liang Dacheng had also caught the right timing.
"Baiwan, it’s a good thing I planted with your family, otherwise I would have missed this spring rain. I was delayed by over ten days." Liang Dacheng looked at the little baby’s sparkling eyes, his own eyes gleaming. "Your little girl is really something. Whenever she says it will rain, it rains. Could she be a dragon princess reincarnated?"
"Hahaha..."
Dragon princess? Fu Qiujiu had just seen ants moving their nest that day and simply asked if the ants meant it was going to rain.
The rain prediction was spot on, and Liang Dacheng remembered something else with a sigh. "Baiwan, I have a feeling your family’s peanuts are going to have a bumper harvest this year. I regret not planting peanuts with you instead of grain."
Fu Baiwan agreed; he felt it was all the luck brought by his little daughter—the rain came when needed, and the sun shone when it was time. With plenty of rain, what crop wouldn't grow well?
Back home, Fu Baiwan discovered a big event: the two pots of "little grass" he’d been raising had borne fruit—a whole bunch of them. To be precise, it was his daughter who had been raising them.
Fu Qiujiu had already grown plenty of strawberries in her spatial dimension and had eaten several herself. If she hadn't wanted to avoid suspicion, she would have brought them out for her family to eat long ago. With the good sunlight, the strawberries ripened quickly, and Fu Qiujiu would put them in her spatial dimension every day for a while to accelerate the ripening.
Early that morning, Fu Baiwan and Tian Guihua discovered the fruit had turned red. Fu Baiwan thought they looked quite nice and smelled fragrant, and he couldn't help but reach out to pick one, but Tian Guihua slapped his hand away.
"You old fool, have you lived enough? A fruit this red must be poisonous. Think about the mushrooms Liujin and Bajin brought back last time..." They had almost been wiped out.
Fu Baiwan swallowed his saliva. "What a pity. These fruits look and smell so good, and we can't eat them?" He had just counted fourteen of them—just enough for everyone in the family.
After the toxic mushroom incident, the Fu family was wary of wild fruits they didn't recognize. Even the gluttonous Fu Bajin and Fu Tianfu didn't dare touch the strawberries.
Fu Qiujiu woke up slowly and saw her parents hovering over the strawberries. She walked over steadily and plucked one, stuffing it into her mouth.
The couple had been so distracted they hadn't noticed, and when they finally did, they saw red juice at the corners of her mouth. Their faces turned deathly pale.
"Qiujiu, you can't eat that! Spit it out, spit it out!" Tian Guihua frantically tried to reach into her mouth with her fingers. Fu Baiwan was about to mention that her hands weren't washed, but then thought: what did that matter when her life was at stake?
Fu Qiujiu swallowed quickly and, before her mother’s finger could reach her, opened her mouth wide. "None... none..."
"Oh, my sweet girl, why did you swallow it?"
Fu Baiwan sat down on the *kang* with a thud. "It's over, it's over. We're done for. Dajin, Erjin, Liujin, one of you go get the physician! Your little sister ate the red fruit."
Everyone heard the commotion and rushed into the room to check. Seeing their worried faces, Fu Qiujiu quickly told them they weren't poisonous and tasted delicious.
"Sweet... Mother eat, Father eat..." Fu Qiujiu grabbed two more and handed one to each of her parents.
Fu Bajin swallowed hard. "Qiujiu, can Eighth Brother eat one?"
"Eat? I'll have your hide!" Fu Baiwan slapped his head, then turned back to his little daughter with a worried expression.
"Father eat..." Fu Qiujiu fed the strawberry into his mouth.
"Father, Little Aunt already ate one. Is this fruit really not poisonous?" Mrs. Zhou was eager to try; she had been eyeing them for days, just waiting for someone else to be the guinea pig. She certainly wasn't going to be the first to eat it.
Tian Guihua glared at her. "Eldest Daughter-in-law, you eat it then?"
Mrs. Zhou laughed. "I... I... let Little Aunt have it if she likes it." Since she had just eaten one, if it were poisonous, it wouldn't take effect immediately, so she would wait and see.
"You're no help, just causing trouble." Tian Guihua rolled her eyes and got off the bed. Fu Baiwan followed closely, holding Fu Qiujiu. "Be good, Qiujiu. Father will take you to the physician first."
Fu Qiujiu couldn't convince them otherwise, so she was carried off to town to see the physician.
...
By midday, the Fu family had no appetite. The two younger ones had already gone to the village entrance, and the older ones were waiting at the door for news.
"Won't Little Aunt be alright? Why has it been so long?"
Lady Wu was usually kind to the family, but this time, perhaps because she was anxious and didn't want to hear anything unpleasant, she said, "Eldest Sister-in-law, you wouldn't be hoping something happened to Little Aunt, would you?"
"Of course not! Hehe!" Mrs. Zhou rolled her eyes.
Lady Wu said sternly, "Little Aunt has her own celestial protection." Tang Tian nodded along with the others.
The little baby was just too gluttonous; she had no sense of danger at all.
"Father, Mother, Grandfather and Grandmother are back, and Little Aunt is back too!"
"Little Aunt is fine! The red fruit is edible! It’s edible!" Fu Tianfu shouted the good news as he ran toward them.
Everyone’s hanging hearts finally dropped. Taking advantage of everyone’s focus on the little toddler, Mrs. Zhou snuck into the room and came back out shortly after.
"Father, Mother, it’s a relief that the little sister is fine. Why are you back so late?"
Fu Baiwan recalled the physician looking at the strawberry over and over, shaking his head. He had been terrified, thinking the physician meant there was no hope. But later, he learned the physician just hadn't seen such a fruit before and didn't know if it was toxic. The physician had checked the baby's pulse and found nothing wrong, but to be safe, he had kept them there all afternoon to be sure.
Fu Qiujiu was exhausted, but she had finally made them understand that strawberries were safe to eat.
"Eat fruit."
Tian Guihua gently poked her little daughter’s nose. "My sweet baby, you really are a little glutton. You scared me to death, do you know that? Still wanting to eat."
"Father eat, Mother eat..."
"Alright, we'll try some too."
When the family gathered in the room to distribute the red fruits, they discovered that after the one Fu Qiujiu ate and the one given to the physician, there were only eleven left.
*One was missing?*
"I didn't eat it."
"I didn't eat it either."
The two most gluttonous ones hadn't eaten any.
"Then how could there be one missing? Could I have miscounted? Who stole it?"
There were exactly enough for everyone to have one, but now there was one missing...
Fu Dajin glanced at his wife; he remembered she had gone into the room just a moment ago, but Mrs. Zhou glared at him. Fu Dajin didn't say anything, but he knew exactly what had happened. It had to be his wife.
"Father, maybe it got dropped and lost when we were in a hurry this morning." Mrs. Zhou looked down and started searching, pretending to look.
Gone was gone; it didn't matter who had eaten it, it wouldn't come back.
Tian Guihua knew the truth. "Don't bother looking. We still have these, don't we? The rest of you, take one each. Your father and I will eat the one we picked this morning."
"It might not even taste good," Tian Guihua said, though she knew that because her little daughter had eaten it, her mouth smelled sweet and fragrant—it had to be delicious.
"Father, our family of three will just eat two; you and Mother take one each," Lady Wu said with a smile.
"Your father and I are getting old; even eating an apricot makes our teeth ache. One is enough, just to taste it," Tian Guihua said.
Mrs. Zhou curled her lip, thinking Lady Wu was hypocritical and only knew how to butter up the parents-in-law. She could do that too. "Mother, I won't eat mine; you have it."
Tian Guihua smiled. Mrs. Zhou had let her true colors show with those words. "It’s rare for you to have such a heart. The eldest daughter-in-law is like a mother; why don't you set an example and show your filial piety on their behalf?"
Mrs. Zhou had just said it casually, but her mother-in-law had taken her seriously. "Hehe... Mother... it's only right."
The words were out; she couldn't take them back.
Everyone took one, Tang Tian included; he was already part of the family. Fu Tianfu popped his into his mouth the moment he got it. The sweet juice exploded in his mouth—a taste he had never experienced before. The little seeds popped when he bit into them; it was both delicious and fun.
"Good, really good!"
Hearing him say that, Fu Liujin and Fu Bajin followed suit, their faces full of surprise. Everything was as Tian Guihua and Fu Baiwan had hoped: it was a delicacy.
Fu Tianfu finished his and saw others eating theirs, feeling a bit envious. Lady Wu was just about to give him hers, but Fu Erjin stopped her. "Wife, we shouldn't spoil the child. One each; eat yours."
Though Fu Tianfu was drooling, he didn't throw a tantrum. Fu Baiwan nodded as well. "Erjin’s wife, Erjin is right. We shouldn't spoil the kids." Lady Wu smiled, thinking that they spoiled their little daughter just the same, but she didn't mean anything by it. Since everyone said so, it wouldn't do for her not to eat it.
Everyone was eating, except for Mrs. Zhou. She watched longingly, so Fu Dajin shared half of his with her.
"I don't want it! You eat yours!" Mrs. Zhou said, pouting, and found an excuse to walk out. Once inside their room, she began to cry.
Fu Dajin was at a loss. "Wife, what’s wrong? Why are you crying?"
"Don't you see? Your parents are biased! When the second daughter-in-law offered to give hers up, they refused, but when I offered, they took it! There was one for everyone, so why was there none for me? I wanted some! That fruit is sweet and sour; who wouldn't want to eat it?"
She didn't even realize she had let it slip.
"Wife, how did you know the fruit was sweet and sour?"
"I... I knew because I saw them eating it!" Mrs. Zhou slapped Fu Dajin’s shoulder. "What is wrong with you? Your mother is so biased, and you’re still bickering with me over this?"