Chapter 13

Zhao Wanwan didn't give it up. Selling on the black market was the kind of thing a heroine did, wasn't it?

Early the next morning.

She finished her breakfast and was still hungry. One bun that scraped going down and a bowl of cornmeal gruel did nothing at all. She waited until Wang Fen had gone out to gossip, then slipped into the kitchen to see whether she could get the lock open.

Zhao Qingqing had just finished feeding the chickens and came in with the basin. "Big sister, are you hungry?"

Zhao Wanwan jumped out of her skin and put a hand to her chest.

"Can't you make a sound when you walk?" Since she arrived she had disliked both of these little girls. They always made her think of her father and the children he had with the other woman.

Zhao Qingqing's mouth turned down and she said nothing. She put the basin aside, went to the corner of the kitchen, pulled back the firewood piled over her hiding place and brought out a sweet potato she had squirrelled away.

"If you're hungry, big sister, take it outside and eat it."

Zhao Wanwan looked at it and swallowed, and in the end she took it. Something was better than nothing.

"Don't you tell on me." She didn't forget the warning.

Zhao Qingqing nodded hard. Of course she wouldn't tell. Her big sister was the best big sister there was.

Zhao Wanwan took the sweet potato and went out. The straw mushrooms she was going up the hill for were the ones the heroine found a year from now, and the author had never written down where. If she found them first and sold them, the heroine's luck would come over to her on its own.

She started up from the foot of the slope by a little path nobody used.

"Now, what's that girl after? She's up here looking for something." The earth god tugged at his small beard. He was playing chess with the ginseng spirit and watching what went on outside at the same time.

The ginseng spirit smoothed his hair. "She isn't from here. She came in from another world. There's been a tear in the works somewhere, I expect. Someone's in for trouble." There was a certain relish in how he said it.

"She wants the straw mushrooms. Are you going to give them to her?" He put his piece down and looked at the earth god with half a smile.

The earth god snorted. "Of course I'll give them to her. I'm a god. I answer what's asked of me. The rest of the road is hers to walk."

It was hard going for Zhao Wanwan. She didn't dare push any deeper in. She had eaten some of the sweet potato and she was nearly finished. Then she kept on a little longer and there was a mushroom on the ground, exactly as the book described it. So she did have the luck for this after all. She put it away carefully and went back down.

Wang Fen was at home swearing the roof down. She had given Zhao Qingqing a beating too, and got nothing out of her.

Yu Lili sat to one side with both hands on her belly. Her mind was nowhere near any of it. She was praying it was a boy.

By the time Zhao Wanwan got home, dinner was over and Wang Fen had gone out for work points. There was more to do now the year had turned.

Zhao Qingqing's face split into a grin when she saw her. Her back still hurt, but she was glad all the same.

"Big sister, you're back. Granny was furious at dinner. Where did you go?"

Zhao Wanwan went straight to the main room, poured a bowl of water and drank it before she felt herself again. She touched the wrapped mushroom in her pocket and felt much steadier. Her turn was coming.

"Is there anything to eat?" She didn't answer the question, just went looking for food.

Zhao Qingqing's eyes shone and she nodded at once. She had known her sister would be hungry. Granny hadn't let them cook anything for her at midday, so she had quietly poured some of her own porridge aside, and she ran to the kitchen and brought it out.

Zhao Wanwan looked into the bowl. Nothing to enjoy, but she drank it down in one go.

Zhao Qingqing watched her enjoy it. She hadn't had enough herself, but seeing her sister this happy made it worth it.

Wang Fen was in a poor mood at work that afternoon, thinking about that wretched girl at home and where she had got to.

Old Mrs. Chen was out in the fields as well. She and Wang Fen were about the same age and they were given much the same stretch to work.

Neither could stand the sight of the other. Too many years of grievance piled up.

"Sister, I hear Yougong's got another job, a big one in the county. He'll make a good bit out of that." An older woman beside her talked and envied as she worked.

Old Mrs. Chen liked to keep face. "That's right. Though at the end of it he's working for the state, so we have to be careful a hundred times over."

The woman nodded. "That's true. There's no shortage of carpenters, and it still came to your third son. He's got a head on him, or how would he be working in the county?"

Old Mrs. Chen was about to say something suitably modest when a sly voice came across.

"Well, I don't know what there is to be so pleased about in marrying a stinking intellectual's daughter. Aren't you afraid of thinking the wrong thoughts? And people like that getting state work." Wang Fen couldn't bear the pleased look on old Mrs. Chen's face.

Old Mrs. Chen's face dropped at once, but she was in fighting order. She had strength enough for a row with Wang Fen. "Quite right, nothing like your daughter-in-law. An educated youth, highly aware. Such a pity about that baby before New Year, the birth going wrong and the child never living. If she'd been born into your house with an educated youth to raise her, I'm sure she'd never have put a foot wrong."

The people around them stood with their mouths open, then looked at the seedlings and got wary. The two of them must not be allowed to come to blows.

"That's enough, both of you. It's my fault, blame me. Won't you do it for my sake?" The peacemaker was the woman who had been talking with old Mrs. Chen.

By now Wang Fen had worked out what old Mrs. Chen meant, and that she had guessed something. "Wu Lingxiu, shut that crow's mouth of yours. Talking filth. What business of yours is anything in my house?"

Old Mrs. Chen was setting her hands on her hips to give it back when a bird dropping came down out of the sky and landed on Wang Fen's face.

Wang Fen blinked and scrubbed at it with her hand.

Old Mrs. Chen laughed out loud, and the others couldn't hold it in either, though they couldn't very well laugh in the woman's face, so they turned their backs to do it.

Wang Fen had lost face inside and out. All she could do was turn and go, quickly.

By the time work finished that afternoon the story was all over the village. Her family's name had never been good there. Everyone was poor, but nobody else had sunk to that, treating the children in the house so badly.

Old Mrs. Chen thought about it while she worked and found it a great joke. She had strength in her for anything. She got a full half mu more of seedlings in than anyone else, and went home at the end of it with her head high.