Everyone Wants To Harm Me - Chapter 114

After the Double Ninth Festival, Mother prepared to return to Piling. Yu Chongrui tried to persuade her to stay a few more days in Yuanzhou, but she replied, “You have a lovely wife by your side, but your father doesn’t. Don’t I have more reason to return and keep him company?”

It sounded perfectly reasonable…

Brother Zhongshu also said his goodbyes and headed to Suzhou, accompanying Mother. During the journey, he mentioned my fourth uncle’s name, and it turned out they knew each other and had business dealings. When Brother Zhongshu arrived there, he would have someone to look after him, so I felt reassured.

Feng Yuan seemed upset, either because Yu Chongrui had married me or due to her quarrel with Deng Zishe. She wanted to follow Mother back to Jiangnan to make wine with Brother Zhongshu, which made Deng Zishe uneasy. He also had the option to go to Jiangnan to practice medicine with Feng Yuan, but what about me?

Mother comforted her, saying that Yu Chongrui had just settled here, and I wasn’t in the best health, so I needed someone capable nearby. After two years, once I got better, we could settle down. If Feng Yuan didn’t want to stay here, she could return to Jiangnan.

Brother Zhongshu also said he would start the winery first, and if Feng Yuan wanted to join him, he would welcome her at any time.

Feng Yuan rolled her eyes, glanced at Yu Chongrui, then at me, looking so pitiful, as if she were bearing a heavy burden. She finally relented and decided to stay.

She must have been plotting something. Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell what just yet.

Though my recovery was slow, I improved bit by bit. My cheeks became plumper, and the sharpness of my bones softened. After the New Year, I had to change into new winter clothes. The skirt I had made the previous year was too tight.

Yu Chongrui touched my face and said, “It’s better to have more flesh.”

He liked to pinch my chin, saying my face was like a peach, with the chin being the tip of the peach. Peaches should be plump, fleshy, and pink to look round and cute.

I raised my face and leaned in front of him: “Then, do you want to kiss me?”

This tactic sometimes worked, sometimes didn’t, and I still hadn’t figured out why. It definitely didn’t work before bed, and when we were alone together, like sitting in a rocking chair, it sometimes worked, sometimes didn’t. It seemed to be happening less and less recently. On the other hand, when we walked in the garden with no one around, I always succeeded. Could it be that he had a special preference for kissing in broad daylight?

But I didn’t like standing to kiss; it was tiring to look up and tiptoe, and it made my legs weak and unsteady. Lying down was far more convenient and labor-saving.

Since he preferred being outside, I reluctantly agreed. Yao Garden was a large place, and there weren’t many people, so we could find a secluded spot in the shade of the willows and flowers where we wouldn’t be easily seen.

Alas, we were married, but we still acted like we were having an affair in our own home.

The weather warmed up in March, and we had been in Yuanzhou for a whole year. I could walk two full rounds around Yao Garden without getting winded, and I could climb the gentle slope at the foot of the mountain. Yu Chongrui finally agreed to go out with me to explore Yuanzhou City and take a walk by the river in the suburbs.

Although Yuanzhou City wasn’t as prosperous as Luoyang, it was lively when the market was open. The city was hilly and uneven, with houses scattered all over. Shopping felt like climbing mountains, which was a real test of my stamina. Yu Chongrui hired a sedan chair for me. When we went uphill, the people carrying it lowered the front and lifted the back, and vice versa when going downhill. The coordination was perfect, and the chair never deviated.

The city layout wasn’t divided into neighborhoods, with streets as the center. The houses faced the streets, and there were several small shops on each one. Unlike Luoyang, which had concentrated markets in the south and north, here the markets sprawled along the streets. Vendors gathered every five days, setting up stalls where both locals and outsiders would come to shop. Yu Chongrui mentioned that people thought one market every five days was too few, so another one had been added in the northern part of the city, which operated every three or eight days and was also very lively.

I thought this system was better than Luoyang’s. Luoyang, the capital of the previous dynasty, had strict regulations. Doors were not allowed to open freely in neighborhoods, and only the South and North Markets could engage in trade. Those who didn’t live near the markets had to walk a long way to buy things, which was very inconvenient. The previous dynasty had been gone for hundreds of years—how could people still follow the old habits?

As we walked through the bustling crowd, I no longer saw the chaotic purgatory of demons, only the ordinary, noisy vibrancy of life. This was the mortal world I loved, and I still felt a deep fondness for it.

I also spotted Feng Yuan’s favorite Shidongchun at a wine shop in Yuanzhou. It was a rare and fine wine, affordable only by the wealthy. It was even more expensive here than in Luoyang, costing one tael and two coins per jar. I hesitated but eventually bought two jars.

Yu Chongrui said, “We’re not strapped for money right now—you don’t have to be so frugal.”

“Before, we were forced by circumstances. Now that I’m gradually recovering, and the medicine isn’t as expensive, we can’t keep relying on Father and Mother’s support forever.” I remembered something and asked, “Didn’t you say we have farmland in Yuanzhou? When are we going to take a look?”

“It’s quite far. I’m afraid it’ll tire you out.”

“It’s just to take a look, what’s tiring? We can ride horses or carts, and take a boat if there’s a river,” I told him. “I’ll be the mistress of the house soon, and I should manage the household expenses.”

He smiled and nodded beside the sedan chair. “Yes, yes. I’ll follow your instructions.”

The territory under Yuanzhou’s jurisdiction spanned about thirty or forty miles in all directions. I thought the “a bit far” he mentioned couldn’t be more than a dozen miles, but after a boat ride of more than an hour, we were almost at the border of Jingzhou. Steep cliffs and high mountains lined both sides, and we hadn’t stopped yet.

“Where is your land?” I asked.

“We just passed a half-collapsed stone mountain on our left. Remember?” Yu Chongrui answered. “We start from there.”

I was confused. “That’s it? Then why don’t we get off the boat?”

“From there,” he pointed ahead. “The south bank of the river, all the way to the border of Yuanjing.”

“All your land?” I looked back, but the stone mountain was no longer visible. “How many acres… how many hectares are there?”

“Less than a thousand, I haven’t measured it precisely.”

I knew that a first-rank official in the capital was given 12 hectares of official fields. When my grandfather was a duke, the fields he had—official, meritorious, and permanent—added up to only about a hundred hectares, which supported dozens of people in our family. A thousand hectares was really a vast amount of land.

It was so much. The first thing that came to my mind wasn’t the joy of being a landlady with a worry-free livelihood, but the confusion: “How do you have so much land?”

“I took advantage of my position as a prefect and got greedy.”

I glared at him. Only then did he answer seriously, “When I first arrived in Yuanzhou, the place had run a deficit for years. The treasury was completely empty. I gathered the local gentry and asked them to invest in reclaiming land, but no one responded. So I had to lead by example and bought the southernmost area they didn’t want. After some persuasion and pressure, I finally raised the first sum of money.”

That… didn’t sound like a good thing.

The boat continued down the river until we reached the border of Jingzhou. When I saw the boundary marker standing on the cliff, I finally understood why no one wanted to sell the land. The cliffs along the river were steep, and there was no place to disembark. We had to turn the boat around and head back the way we came.

Still unwilling to give up, I asked, “Nearly a thousand qing—surely it’s not all mountains? There must be some cultivable land?”

“There’s a small depression surrounded by mountains,” he replied with a sigh. “The villagers in the mountains farm there. But they’re barely getting by, so I’ve never collected rent.”

I understood now. We were facing the same problem we encountered with Ruiyuan and Yaoyuan—large area, but very poor.

If it was big and rich, great. If it was small but rich, we could live comfortably. If it was small and poor, at least it was easy to develop. But the worst was large and poor—no idea where to start, and any investment just disappeared into a black hole.

When Yu Chongrui first arrived in Yuanzhou, he had to deal with this issue. Seven or eight years later, though Yuanzhou wasn’t as rich as Suzhou or Piling, it was well-stocked compared to the surrounding areas, and the people lived in peace.

My husband really was amazing. He should have been making great plans to benefit the people, not just staying home with me.

As we neared the border of the stone mountain, I saw waves on the low hills in the distance and asked Yu Chongrui, “What is that?”

“Terraces,” he replied. “Yuanzhou is mountainous, and arable land is scarce. Some mountains have thick soil layers on the surface, which can be cultivated into terraces. However, compared to flat land, terraces require more manpower, and water conservancy and irrigation are more difficult. They’re also more affected by climate and natural disasters. After I left, Prefect Liu has been urging and following up.”

“Does he often come to you about these things?” I asked.

“Most of the time, it’s related to this. I have pushed away all other tasks that could be pushed away,” he said, lowering his head and looking at me with a smile. “Why are you looking at me like that? Would I stop you from going?”

I turned to look at the mountains by the river. “The mountains here are lower. If we can cultivate them into terraces, we could get some harvest. By the way, Governor Liu uses you as his staff, so you should get paid. You can’t work for him for free!”

Yu Chongrui laughed. “Of course, my lady is right—I must ask for payment. I have a household to support, after all.”

I no longer needed him to accompany me all day. I could move freely at home. When I went out occasionally, I could also ask Chang San and Feng Yuan to accompany me. They got along well with the locals, and it was more convenient to bring them with me than Yu Chongrui.

In July and August, the weather was unpredictable, and with the farming season approaching, Yu Chongrui became busier. Sometimes he didn’t have time to come home for dinner, so I asked Feng Yuan to pack food in a lunch box and send it to the field for him to eat together.

The fields in Yuanzhou were wild and unique, which I liked more than those in the city. Luoyang was surrounded by flat land, with fields crisscrossed like a chessboard, but Yuanzhou was full of mountains and streams, and the flat land was divided into all kinds of strange shapes. The most beautiful field I had ever seen looked like a blooming lotus: symmetrical on both sides, with a bamboo house in the middle where farmers lived, like the bud of a lotus flower.

In Luoyang, poor families used mud to build walls and thatch for roofs, but people here used bamboo. The bamboo house was built with an overhead line to raise chickens, ducks, and livestock, and also to prevent moisture and rain. If I had the chance, I would build one in Yao Garden. It would definitely be cool to live in during the summer. I had seen it from the outside; it wasn’t complicated, but I had never had the chance to go inside someone’s house to see the structure.

Feng Yuan and I took a car to the riverside with a food box. Before we got out, we saw Yu Chongrui standing on the pier by the river. Next to him… hey, it wasn’t Governor Liu, nor a peasant, but a young woman in white.

Although she wore plain clothes, without hairpins, jewelry, or jade, and I couldn’t see her features clearly from a distance, just by her silhouette, I could tell she was graceful and must be a beauty.

“Oh, it’s her.” Feng Yuan recognized her and scoffed. “Didn’t she marry off to Jingzhou? Why is she back? Wearing white too—mourning her husband?”

She really had a sharp tongue—no one was spared.

Feng Yuan turned to me and defended herself, “It’s not like I’m jinxing her. Her parents are dead, and her relatives are all awful. If she’s wearing white, who else could she be mourning? Look at her, crying—definitely complaining to the young master.”

Just as I was about to ask who this woman was, I saw her lower her handkerchief and step forward—to grab Yu Chongrui’s hand.

I…

Feng Yuan quickly held me back. “Don’t be anxious, don’t be impulsive. It’s not good for your health.”

But that wasn’t what she was really thinking. Even though I no longer had Mojin Gu, I could still read her expression: “Heh, now you’ve got another love rival too.”