Ran Yan nodded her head in a relaxed mood, allowing Wan Lu to support her as she slowly walked down the path. Occasionally, they encountered one or two village women who recognized Wan Lu. Seeing her supporting a woman, they knew it was Ran Shiqi's wife and courteously stepped aside to squat and salute.
Ran Yan also politely requested them not to bow, leaving them all with a very amiable impression.
To take the shortcut, Wan Lu and Ran Yan passed through the center of the village where they gradually encountered more people.
In the Tang Dynasty, it was not customary to kowtow casually, even though these villagers were hired farmers on the Ran family estate. When they saw Ran Yan, or even the Ran family's master, a simple salute and greeting were sufficient.
As they reached the edge of the village, they suddenly heard a commotion of noisy clamor. Within moments, they saw more than ten children being chased by an old man with a cane, like a flock of flapping birds, screaming and desperately running.
The girls each had twin buns; the older ones wore skirts while the younger ones wore trousers and cross-collared clothes. The boys were more varied, some with twin buns like the girls, some with a single bun, and there was also a chubby toddler about five or six years old, his hair completely shaved except for a tuft at the front of his head, pouting and on the verge of crying.
Ran Yan, seeing their mud-covered appearances and noticing bloodstains on two of their faces, guessed that it was a group of children who had fought while the adults were not looking.
Indeed, just as she was thinking this, she heard Wan Lu teasing the last little chubby boy, "Pang Xiao Lang, caught fighting again! Better run; if the clan leader catches you, your mother will surely punish you!"
The little chubby boy burst into tears, crying woefully, yet his feet did not stop. His little legs churned furiously, terrified of being caught. Truly, he was adorably pitiful.
Ran Yan, with a face full of mirth, said, "Wan Lu, you are really naughty!"
Seeing Ran Yan more cheerful than before, Wan Lu was delighted and playfully bantered, "Wife, you enjoy the spectacle so cheerfully, yet you accuse your slave!"
Ran Yan, who had always been like this, felt a bit embarrassed when her true sentiments were pointed out and coughed awkwardly twice. Before she could reply, her body was suddenly jostled aside. Wan Lu cried out in surprise and quickly reached out to grab her. They staggered a few steps but finally steadied themselves, narrowly avoiding falling into the roadside ditch.
After steadying herself, Ran Yan looked up at the person who had bumped into her, a village woman dressed in a light brown hemp skirt, who had already run far away. Although she could not see her face, she noted the woman's hurried and disoriented steps, indicative of her fraught state.
"How utterly rude!" Wan Lu immediately got angry, "Wife, let me take you back to the manor first, and then I will settle accounts with that village woman!"
Ran Yan looked away and said indifferently, "Let it be, seeing her hurried steps, she must have encountered some urgent matter."
"What urgent matter could it be? Has the sky fallen that she doesn't know to apologize after bumping into someone?" Wan Lu said angrily.
Seeing Wan Lu's indignant expression, Ran Yan couldn't help but smile helplessly.
Ran Yan realized that she had relaxed over the past few days, although completely idle, she felt livelier than before. Previously, when facing corpses, out of respect for the deceased, she had to treat them with utmost seriousness, without any negligence. A workaholic, she had over time developed an intimidating "death face" that people respectfully but fearfully avoided.
Perhaps this change was a good thing after all!
Wan Lu, assisting Ran Yan, reached the edge of the village, where just past an arch bridge lay the Ran family estate. They had just stepped onto the staircase when a heart-wrenching cry suddenly pierced the evening calm, startling the birds at the water's edge into a fluttering escape. It was exactly as Wan Lu had said earlier—the sky had indeed fallen.
"Sanlang! Sanlang!"
The woman's wails were nearby, followed quickly by the comforting words of men and women, old and young, words like "grieve not too deeply".
The pain of losing a son pierces deeply, especially as Zhou Sanlang was Liu's only son, and Liu, a widow who had already lost two sons to illness, and her husband three years prior, depended solely on her only son. The anguish was unbearable.
In a panic, Liu proclaimed, "No, my Sanlang cannot be dead, I must go to Divine Doctor Wu! He will surely save my Sanlang!"
"Exactly, Mrs. Liu, just wait a moment, let's take Sanlang and go to Divine Doctor Wu," a man agreed.
While it seemed that Zhou Sanlang was indeed dead, the people appeared to have an irrational belief in Wu Xiuhe, the Divine Doctor, genuinely thinking he could bring Zhou Sanlang back to life.