Chapter 001: Seng Head Village
The winter of the North is long and cold, heavy and dense snow cover every inch of the Seng Head Village. As far as your sight can reach, it is white everywhere.
Every year, the blizzard seals the mountain for a couple of months, so no fresh crops can be found. The vegetables in daily meals are limited to what is stored in the cellar; potatoes, carrots, white cabbages, and occasionally for the sake of variety, dried eggplants or dried long beans and the like.
To someone who has been so used to the convenience of fresh vegetables throughout the four seasons like Xia Yue Chu, the biggest problem in transmigrating into an underdeveloped village is that she cannot get a single bite of anything green, consecutively, over half a month long, she is already at her limits, it is beyond what she can bear.
Thankfully, spring came early this year. It is not yet Tomb Sweeping Day*, the accumulated snow on the slopes where sunlight falls upon has begun to melt. The dark earth beneath has been revealed in patches here and there.
Some of the more tenacious wild plants has started to sprout by now.
.
Xia Yue Chu is woken up before dawn today. To sweep the ground, to feed the chickens and to feed the pigs, unending chores and her hands has not paused for a moment.
Even so, her mother-in-law is relentless in her disapproval. There is no kindness in her words or in her looks, there is only ceaseless complains and criticism from Madam Sheng**.
After breakfast, Xia Yue Chu plans to go scouting the area, foraging wild greens to satisfy her cravings, and at the same to take a break from her mother-in-law's scorn.
She carries a bamboo basket, already at the gate, and from behind her, Madam Sheng has started another round of ruckus.
"Only eating, never working. This lazy bitch! Can't see there is so many chores to do? Still winter now, where you going with the basket? Don't know where you running off to fool around…"
Her father-in-law Xue Liang Ping comes out with his pouch of tobacco and squats near the door for a smoke. He cannot tolerate listening anymore. "Aiya, can't you stop talking, your mouth hasn't stop from morning till now, don't you feel thirsty at all?"
"If I got three head and six arms, I would do all the work, but your wife don't have that. A little help will wrong her? She is oh so delicate and frail, and I deserve to work to my death?"
Xue Liang Ping's built is tall and strong. At this moment though, he is cowered into a ball at the door, mocked by Madam Sheng to the point of shame where he cannot lift his head.
His voice is dragged with fatigue and there is weariness in his sigh. "Yue Chu took no break since morning, and she just got better. It's not that frequent she takes a walk, so you don't have to nag so much."
Madam Sheng hurls the tray basket which she was holding onto the ground, scattering the flock of the alarmed chickens into all directions.
"You know how to worry for her, why don't I see you worry about me too?" Madam Sheng choice of words turns unbecoming. "As her Father-in-law, staying by the side of a bogus widow***, who is your daughter-in-law, and treating her so well. What's going on here? You think there's not enough of your scandal going around the village? How can you both be so shameless? I still need to live here, we still have a unmarried daughter in this house, can't you at least contain it a little? Why is my life so hard? To marry to someone like you…"
The excessively crude language shakes Xue Liang Ping to his core, with uncontrolled anger he raises his hand and yells. "Shut your damned mouth, never see anyone accusing their husband with shitty lies like you do!"
Madam Sheng stubbornly hardens her neck and races towards Xue Liang Ping, provoking him. "Come beat me, might as well beat me to death, save me from all this sufferings with you and being wronged like this!"
Xue Liang Ping did not land his hand eventually. He sullenly retracts his arm.
Although the slap did not happen, Madam Sheng has never been treated so unjustly. She is adamant to not let it go like this and starts to wail her heart out. Crying and scolding at the same time, "Xue Liang Ping, you old bastard. I gave birth to your children and raised them up, even the son your previous wife left behind I raised him up, I worry about every little thing in this house and now you want to beat me because of that bogus widow bitch. Why not you two just lived your lives together, I bring my daughter back to my hometown to my parent's house, and make space for you two…"
The words that follow are beyond obscene. Xia Yue Chu tightens her hands basket strap and left in a rush. This again enforces her decision to save money and leave this place as soon as possible.
"Ai—" Xue Liang Ping heaves a sigh, he has no mood left to smoke. He stuffs his tobacco pouch and smoking pipe onto the sash on his waist, and returns to the room.
Xia Yue Chu does not know why she transmigrated to this place and became Madam Xia, the Xue family's eldest son's bogus widow, maybe it is because they both have the same name. Somehow through a strange cosmic power allowing her to continue living with a different identity in a different time.
Although the family lives in poverty, and Mother-in-law is in habitual contempt, Xia Yue Chu is still secretly relieved, being a widow has its pros too. This buys her time to adapt and recuperate.
Her journey from here on needs careful planning, and the most important matter at hand now is to recover her health.
Xia Yue Chu looks down at her current body, the size is alright, she is just too skinny.
Though being over 20 years of age, her front is flat and her back is flat. She cannot find a single pinch of daintiness that a feminine figure should have. Every single bone of her ribs stuck out strikingly and when she sleeps on her brick bed, she would accidentally thwack herself whenever she tosses and turns.
She cannot help sighing, crouching around on the slope where the sun is shining. From time to time, she shovels with a tool at hand through the remaining snow in search of small garlic sprouts.
At this point, snow has yet to fully melt away, the small garlics has difficulty receiving enough light. Thus most of them appears translucent white, which makes it even more difficult to find amidst the accumulated snow. The handful of fresh green garlic sprouts can be found only on the slopes where the sun is shining.
It has been a long time since Xia Yue Chu saw freshly picked greens, and she is already salivating just by looking at them.
She squats to the ground, gathering the small and tender garlic sprouts in her left hand and pushing the shovel into the ground with her right hand, with a flick of her wrist, she gains another bunch of fresh and tender garlic sprouts covered in dew.
These plants usually grow in clusters, after Xia Yue Chu digs up this batch, she continues to work on the area nearby, shovelling away the snow. And true to her experience, she finds more of these garlic sprouts. It did not take her much time to gather half a basket full. She can finally add sometime new to the dinner menu tonight.
Xia Yue Chu rubs her freezing hands together, brings them to her lips and warms them with her breath. But it is too cold outside, the breath she exhales instantly turns cold and is not able to provide much warmth.
The sun has past noon, Xia Yue Chu only had a cornmeal vegetable bun in the morning, she had it with some thin gruel that is a porridge with a pathetic amount of rice. So her stomach has started to rumble.
The thought of getting scolded upon going back home for lunch stops her in her tracks, Xia Yue Chu decides to ignore her rumbling stomach and jumps on her freezing feet. She carries her basket and continues walking, for the time being she will focus on gathering a basket full before heading back.
"Sister-in-law! Sister-in-law!" She can hear a voice coming from the foot of the slope, it is her younger sister-in-law, Madam Sun, shouting for her attention. "Don't dig anymore, hurry home now!"
Madam Sun's voice is filled with excitement. Seeing how slow Xia Yue Chu is moving, she quickens towards her and begins pulling her back home meanwhile saying. "Sister-in law, follow me home quick, a good thing has happened! You have persevered throughout the years, your waiting is ending for good."
Xia Yue Chu is greatly confused my Madam Sun, and she cannot help but asks. "Ni Er's mother, what are you saying, what waiting is coming to an end?"
Madam Sun is smiling secretively and decides to keep the surprise. "Follow me quick, you will know when you get home."
Her steps are wide and her pace is fast, almost as if she is towing Xia Yue Chu, making her jog to match her pace.
From a distance away, she can see the Xue family's house is surrounded by a crowd. When they see that Xia Yue Chu has arrived, their expressions differ in a variety, nonetheless, they make way for her unanimously.
The courtyard of the house is also noisy, when Xia Yue Chu enters, she immediately sees Xue Liang Ping hugging a younger man in the yard, bawling loudly.
Madam Sheng is on the side-lines, forcing a thin smile. Her sharp pointy eyes are dodging left and right, seemingly to be scheming something sinister again.
Madam Sun drags Xia Yue Chu to the yard center, pointing to the young man still in Xue Liang Ping's arms. She squeals in a frenzy. "Sister-in-law, look quick, see who is back!"
Xia Yue Chu in the state of confusion, witnesses how emotionally agitated Xue Liang Ping is, calling out "my son, my son". And suddenly, a dreadful hunch shadows over her.
.
Translator Notes:
*Tomb Sweeping Day (QingMing festival) falls in early April, a day where families gather to commemorate the ancestors and the dead with rituals and cleaning.
**The women who married into the Xue family are all addressed as Mrs Xue, with the identifier of the respective sequence which their husbands take within the family. Madam Sheng married the Father Xue Liang Ping, thus being called old Mrs Xue. Xia Yue Chu married the eldest son, thus be called first Mrs Xue. Madam Sun married the second son, thus being called second Mrs Xue and so forth. In the text, the author uses their own family names before they were married into the Xue family. In the context, we shall know them as Madam regardless of their age and not Miss, because Miss (Surname) would refer to a lady who is unmarried.
***Bogus widow. The Author uses the words "living widow" (direct translation of Huo Gua Fu).
Translated by Yellow. Aug 2022.