Chapter 9: Teased While Buying Threads

Xiuwei sniffled and suddenly reached out to cup her mother’s face. Her small palm, warm like the lingering embers in the hearth, pressed against her: “Mother, your face feels so cold.” She stood on tiptoe and planted a kiss on the center of Shen Guilan’s brow. “I’ll warm you up.”

Shen Guilan’s throat tightened as she pulled her daughter close. In that moment, she heard the shattering of ice deep within her heart—not the collapse of despair, but the birth of hope renewed.

As the crowd dispersed, Zhang stood stiffly at the kitchen door like an ancient tree stump weathered by countless storms. Before leaving, the village chief cast her a glance—not harsh, yet more terrifying than thunder.

Shen Guilan carried Xiuwei into the west room and gently closed the creaking wooden door, as if shutting away the shadows of the past.

As night deepened, mother and daughter curled up on the earthen kang bed in the west room.

A slit of moonlight slipped through the torn window paper, casting a silver glow along the edge of the bed.

Xiuwei rested her small head on her mother’s chest, fingers twisting at the fabric of her garment. “Mother, will we never have to fear grandmother again?”

Shen Guilan stroked her daughter’s reddened, cold ears.

Though the charcoal brazier beneath the bed had long extinguished, the little body in her arms radiated warmth like a flickering flame.

She recalled the day in her previous life when Xiuwei was sold—just like this, curled in her embrace, asking, “Mother, did I do something wrong?”

“Never again,” Shen Guilan whispered, kissing the top of her daughter’s head. “I won’t let anyone bully you ever again.”

Xiuwei yawned softly, eyes fluttering closed. “Then… tomorrow, can you teach me how to embroider?”

“Of course,” Shen Guilan replied, listening to her steady breath as she gently withdrew her hand.

Bathed in moonlight, she reached beneath the mat and pulled out a cloth bundle—coins she had secretly saved over the past six months, wrapped thrice in an old handkerchief.

In her former life, she had handed all her money to Zhang and, when finally cast out, lacked even enough to buy a warm bun.

Outside, moonlight climbed the window frame and illuminated a clay jar in the corner.

Inside the jar lay wild onion seeds she had dug up from the back mountain last month, along with vegetable seeds traded from a traveling merchant.

From the east room came the rasping snore of Zhang, like a broken bellows.

Shen Guilan lifted the jar’s lid in the dark, her fingertips brushing the dry seeds as a spark kindled within her.

She recalled the cured meat Aunt Liu had brought, the crackling fire in the hearth, and the hands that had held her face.

“Starting tomorrow,” she whispered to the moonlight, “it’s time I become part of this home.”

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Late into the night, the wind suddenly picked up, rattling the window paper.

Shen Guilan wrapped herself tighter in the quilt, watching the shadows of the trees sway outside, her heartbeat louder than the gusts.

At dawn the next morning, while the world was still dim, Shen Guilan rose quietly. Bundling Xiuwei in a thick, worn cotton jacket, she took her daughter’s small hand and stepped outside.

The mountain path wound before them, frost biting at their faces, as mother and child walked for two hours before reaching the town.

The market was already bustling—white steam rising from a fried dough stall, the clanging of the blacksmith’s hammer, colorful bolts of cloth fluttering in the morning breeze.

Shen Guilan headed straight to the embroidery thread shop on the west side of town. From her bosom, she pulled out the bundle of coins and quietly said to the shopkeeper, “Please, I need a pack of lake-blue silk thread, a spool of gold thread, and some peach pink and moon white as well.”

The shopkeeper nodded and was about to wrap the threads when the doorway suddenly darkened. Several burly men blocked the entrance. The leader was Zhao San, the lackey of steward Zhang, holding a dark ebony club and sneering crookedly:

“Well, well, if it isn’t the widow of the Shen family! Shouldn’t you be running off to find a man to warm your bed rather than wasting time buying silk thread here? Ha ha ha ha ha!”