The sickly son died young? After the marriage exchange, I will bring prosperity to his entire clan f

"Oh dear, that won't do. I'm taking my child to stay in the county. What would that look like? It's already very kind of you to come and visit."

"Alright, everyone, let's go back now. We should hurry home too."

Du Mingxian could hear the excitement in the woman's voice; her mouth hadn't stopped moving, and the woman said one last thing.

“How could my sister’s own daughter be disrespectful to her aunt? Instead of worrying about this, you should go back and see which of your daughters can marry into a better family.”

As they arrived at the woman's house, a number of villagers still gathered around. When Du Mingxian and Ling Silang got out of the car, they shocked the villagers.

The man and woman were both handsome and beautiful; they were a sight to behold. You might not even find people like them in their county.

There was also a skeptical woman who said, "Da Liang's mother, you're not lying to us, are you? Look at you, and then look at this lady. She doesn't look like you at all."

“What do you know? I was abducted when I was a child, and so many years have passed. People say that you become like the person you eat at. I’ve been in the Dong family for many years, and my sister is married. Her children will definitely resemble her husband’s family. You really have a shallow understanding.”

"Alright, stop crowding around, disperse, disperse, I need to go cook." The woman waved her hand, trying to shoo the villagers away as if they were flies.

The villagers, some of whom were quite resourceful, said, "Da Liang's mother, you don't have anything good at home, do you? We have some flour at home, let me bring it over for you to cook."

"No, no, no, that flour of yours has been sitting for who knows how long. If it makes my niece sick, we've already put lunch in the carriage. Don't worry about it, go back now."

The woman immediately refused, but she couldn't borrow other people's things. She had no intention of cooking a good meal for these three people. They were clearly trying to extort money from her, so why should she treat them to good food and drink?

Others tried to give the woman gifts, but she refused. Perhaps because she was known for her shrewishness in the village, people were used to her driving people away and simply left.

To prevent peeping, the woman instructed the coachman to drive the carriage into the courtyard.

The driver was reluctant to rush them, saying, "Just leave them outside. Your door is small; if you rush them in, they'll get stuck and cause trouble."

The woman was very impatient. "What do you mean 'small'? I need to rush inside so I can cover up taking things. Are you just leaving it outside like this so that everyone in the village will know that there's nothing in the carriage?"

The coachman glanced at Du Mingxian speechlessly. Du Mingxian nodded slightly, and only then did the coachman drive the carriage inside.

Du Mingxian took a special look and saw that the village was really poor, with thatched houses everywhere. The houses were low and oppressive. However, the whole village had one thing in common: they all had courtyard walls, and the walls all went around the village.

The woman's house was on slightly higher ground, which Du Mingxian had noticed when she got off the carriage.

Generally, some families with thatched huts don't even have courtyard walls; others just make a simple fence out of branches for basic shelter. But the people in this village...

She turned her head and glanced at the mountains behind her, and then she understood something.

Do prey from these mountains come out often?

The woman showed little interest in answering and replied perfunctorily, "Of course, when there's no food in winter or when there's not enough food in spring, we naturally have to come down the mountain to find food."

Du Mingxian stopped talking.

The carriage entered the courtyard, and the woman closed the gate to block the prying eyes from outside. She first said to her grandson, "You play by yourself for a while, Grandma will go cook."

The child didn't say anything, and just turned away.

The woman then said to Du Mingxian, “Please find a wooden stool to sit on. We don’t have much furniture. It’s really inappropriate for a widow like me to invite you into the house. I’ll go and bring out a small table, and we can eat there in a little while.”

This is because they didn't want to invite the person in; they just brought out a table and sent them away.

Du Mingxian had no interest in prying into other people's privacy. "Sister-in-law, let me help you."

The woman glanced back at Du Mingxian with some disdain, "You clearly have no experience with chores, what help can you be? Stop making trouble, I'll go in and get it myself."

"Let me help you lift it, I'm strong."

Du Mingxian followed the woman into the house. The kang (heated brick bed) inside was quite large, and the child was already playing on the floor.

Inside the room was a tall table, a small low table, a cabinet, a few chairs, two trunks, and nothing else.

Seeing Du Mingxian follow her in, the woman didn't stand on ceremony and walked to the low table, saying, "Carry it."

Du Mingxian and the woman each lifted it up on one side. It looked like a small table, but it was made of high-quality materials and had a considerable weight to it.

After the table was placed in the yard, the woman went in, took out a rag, wiped it, and pointed directly to the open woodshed, saying, "Go there and find some wooden stools to sit on. I'll go cook."

Du Mingxian was a little worried about the woman, fearing that she might spit inside. One should always be wary of others. "Sister-in-law, let me go with you."

The woman seemed to see right through her. "Alright, alright, I won't tamper with the food. Don't worry, keep an eye on me."

"I just wanted to talk to you. I see that there are very few people and little land in your village. How do you make a living on a daily basis?"

The woman didn't chase her away. "Don't you see we're surrounded by mountains? Of course we'll go into the mountains to get some wild game to trade for things. We'll just harvest as much grain as we can from the fields."

"Having little land has its advantages; it means you don't have to pay too much tax."

Du Mingxian agreed with this statement, but for a woman with a child in a village where people make a living by hunting, life is probably not very good.

"If you all go into the mountains to hunt, then... whether you can make money depends on fate."

"Well, it's dangerous for a widow like me to go into the mountains, so naturally I'll go with the man from the village."

Du Mingxian always felt there was something else behind those words, "The people in your village are quite nice."

"What good people are there in this world?" The woman finished speaking and gave Du Mingxian an angry look. "You obviously don't need my meal, yet you still insisted on coming along, didn't you?"

“I’m a widow. I went into the mountains with those filthy men. They had no interest in hunting. All they were thinking about was how to seduce me.”

Du Mingxian: "..." Everyone says that widows have a lot of troubles around them, but there's no need to be so blunt.

“I don’t think the women in the village dislike you. You’re definitely not that kind of person, sister-in-law.”

The woman shook her head. "What do you know? When I was first widowed, I didn't have any way to survive. I still had to sleep with men. My four children were waiting to be fed. If I didn't sleep with them, we would all starve to death."

Du Mingxian: "..." This is too straightforward. Is this gossip that you can hear without spending money?

“In the past few years, the men have been the sole breadwinners. But as the children grew up, people started pointing fingers at them, so I started hunting in the mountains myself. Some things are difficult at first, but they get better over time.”