"Not just rice, but meat too," Guan Xiaorou said, gently ruffling the little girl's hair.
"Sister, I want to eat rice too!" the girl wiped her drool. "I don't need to eat until I'm full. Just one bite would be enough."
"Sister brought rice. We'll steam it for lunch, and you can eat as much as you want, soaked in meat broth," Guan Xiaorou said, taking the cloth bag from Jin Feng. "Come on, let's go to the inner room. I'll give you something delicious."
Afraid she might forget, she had tucked the candied hawthorns into the bag the night before, burying them at the bottom.
"What delicious thing?" The little girl's drool was practically overflowing.
"You'll see when we get there," Guan Xiaorou said with a smile.
The two sisters chattered as they headed into the inner room.
Jin Feng had often seen illustrations of spinning wheels in textbooks, but this was his first time seeing one in person. Just as he was about to examine it more closely, a group of people stormed into the courtyard, cursing loudly.
At the front were Guan Xiaorou's older brother, Guan Zhuzi, and his wife, Tian Sanya.
Guan Xiaorou, who had just opened the cloth bag in the inner room, hurried out when she heard her brother and sister-in-law's voices.
"Worthless girl, why are you back?" Tian Sanya's face darkened the moment she saw Guan Xiaorou.
"Sister-in-law, I came back to see Mother..." Guan Xiaorou explained.
"What's there to see about that old woman?" Tian Sanya snapped. "I bet you're here to mooch off us!"
The Guan family only ate one meal a day, usually around eleven in the morning, and then had to wait until the next day at the same time for their next meal. Tian Sanya had been working in the fields when she heard Guan Xiaorou had returned. Her first thought was that the "worthless girl" had come back to freeload. This was unacceptable. Without a second thought, she dragged her husband back as fast as she could.
"Sanya, Xiaorou and her husband really came to visit us. They even brought gifts," Guan Liu-shi said, carrying a teapot into the main room.
"Who in the village doesn't know that the worthless girl married the most useless bookworm in Xihewan? What kind of gifts could they possibly bring? At most, a handful of wild vegetables!" Tian Sanya's tone grew increasingly venomous. "Scholars are the craftiest. They probably brought some wild vegetables to trick us into giving them grain in return!"
"Sister-in-law, you can hit me or scold me, but you can't speak about my husband like that!" Guan Xiaorou, who had been bullied by her sister-in-law for two years and had developed a psychological shadow, mustered the courage to defend Jin Feng.
"What's wrong with what I said? If you don't like it, get out!" Tian Saya shot back, finally noticing Jin Feng. "You must be that bookworm, huh? Since you chose this worthless girl, don't regret it. And don't think about taking advantage of our family. Be smart and take her back to Xihewan. Don't wait for my brothers to come and throw you out. That would be embarrassing for everyone!"
"Sanya, shut your mouth!" Guan Liu-shi, seeing Jin Feng frown, quickly gave her son a meaningful look. "Zhuzi, control your wife!"
Unfortunately, her son shared Tian Sanya's sentiments and completely ignored his mother's warning.
"You old fool, this worthless girl isn't part of the Guan family anymore, and you're still protecting her!" Tian Sanya, hands on her hips, began to rant. "I must have been cursed in a past life to marry into your family. Not a single decent person among you—either a jinx or a short-lived ghost... Short-lived ghost, what are you looking at? I'm talking about you!"
The shrew's tirade knew no bounds. Even though Guan Xiao'e had already shrunk into a corner, she couldn't escape Tian Sanya's wrath. The little girl, trembling with fear, began to shake uncontrollably, her limbs twitching.
"Xiao'e!" Guan Xiaorou rushed to hold her sister, panicking but unsure what to do.
"See? You're a jinx! You've barely stepped through the door, and you've already made the short-lived ghost sick!" Tian Sanya's rant only grew more vicious.
Neighbors who had come to watch the commotion began pointing and whispering about Guan Xiaorou.
"Husband!" Guan Xiaorou, ignoring the onlookers, looked up at Jin Feng with pleading eyes.
Jin Feng stepped forward and examined the little girl. Her eyes were closed, her face pale, and her body convulsing. Her teeth weren't clenched, and there was no frothing at the mouth—it wasn't epilepsy. Considering Xiao'e's long-term malnutrition, Jin Feng quickly deduced it was hypoglycemia.
He rushed into the inner room, grabbed a handful of sugar from the cloth bag, dissolved it in water, and carefully fed it to the little girl.
No one understood what Jin Feng was doing, and even Tian Sanya stopped her tirade, watching curiously.
Before long, the little girl slowly opened her eyes.
"Look, she's awake!"
"I thought Guan Xiaorou married a bookworm. How did he become a doctor?"
"How should I know?"
The neighbors whispered among themselves.
"My son-in-law isn't just a doctor—he's a tiger-slaying hero!" Guan Liu-shi declared proudly, her head held high. "That tiger that scared the pants off all of you on the back mountain? My son-in-law killed it!"
"Third Sister-in-law, don't exaggerate. That tiger was over ten feet long. Thirty strong young men from our village couldn't stop it. How could your son-in-law, with his build, kill it? The tiger would've swatted him like a fly!" a neighbor who had seen the tiger retorted.
"Third Sister-in-law isn't exaggerating," the village chief of Guanjiawan pushed through the crowd. "This morning, I went to check the crops by the Xi River and ran into Liu Qingyuan from Xihewan. He told me the whole story. The tiger was killed single-handedly by Xiaorou's husband."
"Village Chief, with his build, how could he have killed the tiger alone?" The neighbors were still skeptical.
"Liu Qingyuan said Xiaorou's husband is a master archer. He killed the tiger with just three arrows. More than half of Xihewan witnessed it!" the village chief explained. "You should all be thanking him. If he hadn't killed that tiger, who among you would dare to go to the back mountain to dig for wild vegetables? Who knows how many would've starved to death this year!"
With that, the village chief bowed deeply to Jin Feng. "Thank you, hero."
"Thank you, hero!" Following the village chief's lead, the villagers also bowed.
This was their way of showing respect to the tiger-slaying hero.
"Enough of that. Just don't chase me and Xiaorou away," Jin Feng said coldly, still angry about the earlier incident. He rummaged through the cloth bag, looking for the candied hawthorns for Xiao'e, not even bothering to look up.
"Wow, so Xiaorou really was carrying gifts!"
"The Guan family has hit the jackpot! They've got a tiger-slaying hero as a son-in-law!"
"Sanya really messed up. She was trying to chase away such a good son-in-law!"
"The Tian family only knows how to look down on people. Now they've made fools of themselves!"
The neighbors, seeing the array of gifts being pulled from the bag, quickly changed their tune.
Even Tian Sanya, who had been ranting and raving moments ago, stood frozen in shock.
Jin Feng finally found the candied hawthorns and handed the entire package to the little girl. "Xiao'e, your condition will improve if you eat more sugar. Your sister said you love candied hawthorns. Here, try some."
"Thank you, brother-in-law!" Xiao'e clutched the candied hawthorns tightly to her chest.
"Zhuzi, make your wife apologize to the son-in-law!" Guan Liu-shi, still concerned for her son, quietly tugged at his sleeve.