The winter of the twenty-eighth year of Saint Wu in Great Jin Nation.
Thick flurries of snow, accompanied by the howling northern wind, continuously fell for several days, covering the remote Mu Family Village in a blanket of white.
Being the tail end of December, the bitter cold was unbearable. As was tradition in the Mu Family Village, the villagers huddled at home to weather the winter. Families gathered around the fire kang, chatting about everything and having a grand old time.
The village was located in Bianzhou Prefecture in the northeast of the Great Jin Nation, a small sub-village of Yushu County. There were roughly a hundred households, with most villagers bearing the surname Mu. They were all related, except for three or five families who had moved in from elsewhere.
Not far from the Mu's ancestral hall, located in the western part of the village, was a tiny, dilapidated thatched cottage built of mud bricks and thatch, quite like the homes of most impoverished families in the village, albeit slightly smaller.
The master of this household was Mu Zhongqing. He was the most educated in the village, an actual scholar and a recipient of the imperial grain for his studies. Unfortunately, despite his academic prowess, he made a foolish mistake: many years ago, he toured the capital and brought back a woman of dubious origin, leading to his parents' disgust and eviction from their home.
The woman Scholar Mu brought back had the surname Du and the given name Mei. As her name implied, she was incredibly beautiful!
According to Scholar Mu, he saved a Scholar Du by chance in the capital. Out of gratitude, Scholar Du married his daughter to him. He found this daughter to be gentle and virtuous, so he brought her home.
Logically, without costing the Mu family's elderly couple a single copper coin, they should have been delighted about this match. However, the couple went so far as to take their son to the government office to cancel the marriage.
Elder Mu Liankui believed that since their son had passed the scholarly examination and was a recipient of the imperial grain with monthly rations, he was honourable and should have married the daughter of a local official or the daughter of Officer Huang from the neighbouring village. While Lady Du was beautiful, she did not have a single copper coin as a dowry and was utterly useless, making her an unfit match for their scholar son.
Lady Mu Bai also thought Lady Du wasn't suitable for her son, especially when she observed Lady Du's frail and delicate appearance, she was furious because, in their farming community, if one couldn't work in the fields, no matter how beautiful she was, she was useless!
The elderly couple was determined to make their son divorce his wife and preferably sell Lady Du. Given her rare beauty, they could fetch a good price.
However, while Mu Zhongqing was usually obedient, he was steadfast in his decision this time. No matter what, he refused to follow his parents' orders. After several failed suicide threats from his parents, they finally gave up and expelled Mu Zhongqing from their home without giving him any family property.
After being disowned, Mu Zhongqing sought the help of several village acquaintances to build a three-room cottage near the ancestral hall in the west of the village. He and his wife, Lady Du, settled down there, and they lived there for more than ten years.
Lady Du was not only beautiful but also had a tranquil nature. During normal days, she was always gentle and weak, soft-spoken, and people in the village had never heard her raise her voice. However, at this moment, Lady Du was thumping her chest and stamping her feet, crying out loud.
"Wei'er! Mother has failed you! Please, open your eyes and look at your mother...
"Sob... Sob... Big sister, big sister, we have food at home now, please wake up..."
On the kang, under a torn blanket that showed its cotton lining, lay a deathly pale young girl. Her eyes were tightly shut, her lips grey, her sunken cheeks and rigid body indicated that she was certainly dead.
As Lady Du touched her daughter's cold body, she felt a heartache as if a knife was cutting into her.
Times were hard at home. In an attempt to earn more money to support the family, her husband had resigned from his teaching post in town during June and had gone south with a local mountain goods trader from their village. He was supposed to be back in six months, but now eight or nine months have passed, and there was still no sign of him.