Gong Ze deliberately furrowed his brow and let out a worried sigh. “Once I leave, I might not have the time to come back often. My stepmother will be the only elderly lady left at home, and there’s too much farmland—she can’t manage it all, and it’s a burden on her nerves. I want her to enjoy her remaining years in peace. Besides, I plan to take her with me in a couple of years, so the land will be useless by then.”
After hearing this, the village chief’s wary heart immediately relaxed, turning instead into surprise.
“Gong Er, I never would have thought—you’ve actually made it big! Doing business up in the capital!”
The village chief had no doubts.
Gong Ze’s aura was just too imposing.
He thought for a moment and said, “This is good news. If you could even land some minor official position in the capital, it would bring honor to our entire Fenshan Village. Your family’s land is all fertile and rich—if you put it up for sale, plenty of people in the village would jump at the chance.”
He added, “As long as you and the old lady work it out, I’ll handle this for you!”
Gong Ze smiled and poured him another glass of wine. “Thank you, Chief. Even after I leave Fenshan Village, I’ll still be one of you. If the village ever needs me in the future, I won’t hesitate to help. Cheers.”
After exchanging these pleasantries, Gong Ze called for Shui Sheng and went to fetch a bottle of foreign liquor he had brought back.
He gave it to the village chief.
The clear glass bottle and the foreign lettering were rare novelties—things that left only one impression in people’s minds: expensive! prestigious!
The village chief was startled and waved his hands, refusing to take it.
“This is too valuable!”
“It’s nothing, Uncle. Just take it. If you keep refusing and we end up knocking it over, it’ll be a waste.”
Gong Ze deliberately joked.
Only then did the village chief take it with a flustered “Aiya, aiya,” his face beaming with joy.
“Then I thank you, Gong Er. You’ve really made something of yourself now. I’ve never even tried something like this before.”
After leaving the table, Gong Ze glanced at the sliced braised beef and the roasted chicken on the table, and thought of Lu Youling.
To maintain his persona, Gong Ze had been afraid that the old lady would make things difficult for Lu Youling during breakfast that morning, so he had Shui Sheng deliver the meal directly to Lu Youling’s western quarters.
But the old lady, full and bored with nothing better to do, couldn’t stand that someone else was eating grain without her feeling entitled to it. She chased after him to the western quarters and stood outside the window, hurling indirect insults.
Lu Youling couldn’t take it anymore. Grateful for Gong Ze’s care, he silently took over the work of Sang family’s matriarch—cooking, boiling water, helping out in the kitchen.
In the kitchen, Lu Youling drew well water in the bitter cold of late autumn, washing vegetables in the icy, half-frozen water, and scrubbing a mountain of dishes all by himself.
He was too embarrassed to eat for free, and driven by pride and stubbornness, he refused to bow his head or ask Gong Ze for help.
But Shui Sheng had already secretly told Gong Ze about it.
Gong Ze imagined Lu Youling—washing dishes with his frostbitten, stiff hands covered in sores, swallowing his saliva as he watched the food in the kitchen but unable to eat any of it, toiling away in silence like a pitiful little cabbage—and narrowed his eyes.
[Oh, the protagonist bottom has it so rough…]
The system couldn’t help but sympathize.
“Honestly, he’s still a bit better off than a girl,” Gong Ze said truthfully.
“That’s just how this era is. Even if he had parents, he’d still have to work. And girls? They have to do tons of farmwork and handle cold water even when they have their periods. At least Lu Youling doesn’t get menstrual cramps.”
The system lowered its voice: [Then those poor girls have it really rough too…]
And in this era, there weren’t even sanitary pads.
Gong Ze didn’t say anything.
He lingered at the feast for a while, then pretended to be drunk and went inside. Shortly after, Shui Sheng ran out with a clean, empty bowl and headed to the kitchen to get some food.
Inside the kitchen.
Even as his hands and feet cramped from the freezing water, Lu Youling gritted his teeth and kept washing in silence.
The aroma of the roasted chicken wafted through the air and crept into his nose, making Lu Youling—who hadn’t eaten any real meat in over a decade—salivate uncontrollably.
But no matter how much he craved it, he didn’t sneak any for himself.
He had already eaten a lot of the Gong family’s food, and Gong Ze had helped him so much out of kindness.
Lu Youling didn’t actually hate the old lady.
He came from the future—an era of abundance, where people were becoming more and more generous.
But this era was too poor. Every grain of food was precious. He hadn’t done a single thing for the Gong family yet was consuming their rations. If she wanted to say a few harsh words, so be it.
When the old lady hurled indirect insults to suggest he should work, he came and worked.
Lu Youling lowered his head in the corner, scrubbing dishes while inhaling the smell of meat. He thought of how, in his past life, every time he came home from university on break, his mother would cook him a huge feast, going to the market days in advance to buy meat and fish.
Tears dripped drop by drop into the washbasin.
Lu Youling raised a hand and wiped his face without looking up.
So what? No one cares about me? I’m already an adult. I can survive without relying on my mother.
Can’t eat meat? So what? In my past life, I gnawed on cucumbers to lose weight. Back then, I couldn’t even get a diet this light!
Lu Youling worked as he stubbornly cheered himself up, until the sharp little servant named Shui Sheng, who worked for Gong Ze, ran in to get food.
“Second Master isn’t feeling well. He drank a lot and went back to his room to lie down for a while, but now he’s hungry again. He sent me to get some food and meat,” Shui Sheng said with a sweet smile.
Another servant from the Gong family, two years older than Shui Sheng, frowned and blocked his way. “Then go get it from the front. The old lady put me in charge of watching the kitchen. If even a mouthful of rice or flour goes missing, do you think I’d get to keep my hide?”
The old lady had counted everything in the kitchen—how many chicken legs, how many chicken wings. She knew exactly how much had been taken and what should remain. No one was going to sneak anything out on her watch.
She had even stationed a young child on a small stool to keep an eye out for anyone stealing alcohol.
Yes.
That’s how it was in the 1910s–1940s—when everyone was so poor their pants couldn’t even hold a fart. Simple and unadorned.
Shui Sheng wasn’t upset. He just smiled. “Our Second Master isn’t just anyone. He’s educated, he dines at restaurants in the city. He’s refined, gentle, and polite. But think about it—those village men, the way they’d fight over meat, coughing and sneezing and wiping their noses all over the place. How could Second Master bring himself to eat that?”
“Besides, you think it’s a loss to give this food to Second Master? Don’t forget who’s really in charge of this household.”
“What are you trying to say?” the other servant asked.
Shui Sheng stared at him. “You’re not saying Second Master has to come serve himself before you’ll give him food, are you?”
The boy in charge of watching the food shrank his neck. “I didn’t say that…”
After a mix of soft coaxing and hard pressure from Shui Sheng, the boy figured that the old lady was only worried about people stealing food—but family members eating didn’t count. He stepped aside and muttered to Shui Sheng, “Fine. Go ahead and take some.”
The stern expression on Shui Sheng’s face instantly broke into a smile. He thanked the boy, walked into the kitchen, and generously grabbed two chicken legs and two chicken wings. He also piled a whole heap of beef onto a bed of rice.
Then, as if suddenly noticing Lu Youling, he said in surprise, “Miss Lu, what are you doing here!”
Lu Youling had been anxiously glancing at Shui Sheng ever since he heard that Gong Ze was drunk, waiting for Shui Sheng to notice him.
But Shui Sheng hadn’t looked his way at all, and Lu Youling—an introvert—was about to turn into an extrovert out of sheer desperation.
Finally, Shui Sheng saw him. Lu Youling was just about to ask how Gong Ze was doing when Shui Sheng—one hand holding the heaping bowl of food, the other pulling Lu Youling by the arm—started dragging him outside.
“Who told you to be in here!” Shui Sheng said urgently. “The village chief and the others have been looking all over for you. They want to ask about demolishing that abandoned house. Hurry, come with me.”
Lu Youling stumbled as he was pulled along, running after him.
The old lady’s servant, who had been assigned to watch Lu Youling work, saw him run off and tried to chase after him. But when she saw how frantic Shui Sheng seemed and heard it was the village chief looking for him, she hesitated—and by the time she opened her mouth to call out, they were already gone.
On the way, Lu Youling heard about the village helping him repair his dilapidated house, but he wasn’t really paying attention. His mind was elsewhere, thinking about that handsome, refined, extraordinary man—wondering how he was doing.
He wanted to ask Shui Sheng.
But the words of concern for that man rose to his lips and died there, unspoken.
Until he realized they were taking the wrong path—Shui Sheng wasn’t leading him to the front hall at all, but toward the eastern quarters.
In an instant, his mind flashed with countless news stories from his past life about human trafficking and terrible things happening to young women. Lu Youling’s hackles rose as he tugged at Shui Sheng’s hand. “Where—where are you taking me?”
Seeing that no one was around, Shui Sheng grinned. “To see Second Master.”
Second Master?
Gong Er!
Gong Er was drunk—why would he want to drag me over? In everyone else’s eyes, I’m a woman, and I almost became his sister-in-law. Could it be that—
A bad suspicion surfaced, but the next second, Lu Youling immediately dismissed it. Gong Ze wasn’t that kind of person.
Lu Youling froze, forgetting to resist, and let Shui Sheng take him to the eastern quarters.
The moment the thick curtain was lifted and he stepped inside, Lu Youling’s eyes met those of a man sitting properly on a round stool, holding an enamel mug in his hands, dressed in a Chinese tunic suit.
“Second Master, we’re back!”
Shui Sheng grinned and placed a large, heaping bowl of meat and rice on the table. “I made sure to get white rice, not sorghum rice.”
“Mm. You did well.”
The man set down his enamel mug and praised him with a smile.
Lu Youling looked at him, pressed his lips together, and spoke in a soft, delicate voice disguised as a woman’s. “You’re not drunk?”
Gong Ze gestured for him to sit and answered, “No.”
Lu Youling sat down, confused. “Then why did you—”
Before he could finish, the large bowl of white rice, piled high with thick slices of braised beef and chicken legs, was pushed toward him as the other man used his fingers to slide it across the table.
Lu Youling was stunned…
“I heard from Shui Sheng what you’ve been through.”
Gong Ze pressed the enamel mug into Lu Youling’s hands as well, warming them for him. “You’ve been working nonstop since morning until noon. You only had that one bite of food in the morning. The old lady isn’t easy to deal with.”
He said, “You’ve had a hard time.”
“…”
“…”
It wasn’t about how much work he’d done.
It wasn’t about the bowl of rice.
It was those words: You’ve had a hard time.
Lu Youling looked at the man handing him chopsticks, snapped out of his daze, and felt his nose instantly sting.
He hurriedly lowered his head so the man wouldn’t see his pitiful state.
Lu Youling stiffly held the large bowl, picked up his chopsticks, and for a long moment, didn’t eat.
Gong Ze looked puzzled. “Why aren’t you eating?”
Then, as if misunderstanding that Lu Youling was afraid of the old lady, his face showed a trace of shame on behalf of his family’s behavior.
Like a true gentleman, he gently reassured him, “It’s okay. I’ll just say I ate it. She won’t do anything to you. After you’re done, rinse your mouth with water, and there won’t be any smell left.”
“Earlier, when I was eating at the front, I wanted to save some good food for you. But even sitting at the kids’ table, I couldn’t get any before it was all gone.”
Gong Ze awkwardly turned his head away, showing a hint of embarrassment and childishness that didn’t quite match his age.
“In the end, I had no choice but to send Shui Sheng to the kitchen to get me a bowl…”
Seeing this, Lu Youling couldn’t help but let out a small laugh.
He couldn’t help but imagine the gentle, refined man falling into a pack of ravenous eaters—like a university student returning from the city to the countryside, unable to grab any food, chopsticks in hand, looking around in bewilderment at everyone devouring their meals.
The image made him want to both laugh and feel touched.
Because while everyone else was fighting over the meat, this man had wanted to fight for some to give to him.
After laughing, Lu Youling held the bowl in silence for a moment. Then he lowered his head and spoke so softly it was barely louder than a mosquito’s hum. “Why… are you so good to me…”
“Because you’re my little sister-in-law,” Gong Ze said with a warm smile.
Lu Youling froze. The moment he caught the look on the man’s face, the ripples stirring in his heart suddenly settled.
Leave a Reply