Miss and farmhand

On her birthday, Huang Chu was in better spirits than usual from the moment she woke up in the morning.

They were overjoyed, even a little excited, as if they had finally found a way out of this airtight cage.

It's not necessarily true that they'll actually crash into the pillar. They might not even die from the impact.

The safest option is still hanging. During the day, when the man is away and the maid dares not come up, find a sturdy strap, hang it from the ceiling above the bed, put it around your neck, kick it off, and it's over in the time it takes to drink a cup of tea.

Huang Chu thought about it and it made more and more sense. After her last birthday, she would be twenty-one, and she had lived enough.

She doesn't necessarily want to be reincarnated; she just misses her father and mother so much, and longs for her family to be reunited.

Because of this anticipation, her face finally showed some of the joy that should be present on a birthday.

A light rain fell as night fell. The man returned home and got soaked. He took his clothes and changed in the outer room upstairs. Outside the screen, the maids busied themselves serving the dishes and starting the meal.

Madam Li and the young maid exchanged a glance. Every time the shopkeeper came upstairs, it was like an audience; he wouldn't dare go in without being properly dressed, and he never complained. The shopkeeper had never been seen having the young lady help him change his clothes and shoes.

It's unclear whether the patrons' subservient behavior towards prostitutes is a kind of charm that respectable women might not understand.

At the banquet, the man's expression was not good at first, and his tone was harsh. He said that there had been some trouble with the luminous pearl, and it had been delayed at sea. He handed Huang Chu another brocade box, telling her to make do with it for now, and that he would make up for it later, so that he wouldn't break his promise.

Huang Chu had long forgotten about the luminous pearl, so she didn't care about the delay.

She is now fully focused on plotting her own suicide by hanging, and is in a very good mood.

The man's expression softened when he saw that she wasn't angry anymore.

There were two jars of Nu'er Hong wine on the table, brought back by the man. They were earthenware jars sealed with yellow clay, rough and with a rustic smell.

Huang Chu had only glanced at it briefly, but suddenly stopped and remembered that she once had two jars of wine.

When her mother was still alive, she described to her how happily her father learned to brew wine from the workers. The year she was born, he personally buried two jars for her, saying that when she got married, they would dig them up; she could take one jar with her, and he would keep the other. When he missed his daughter, the old couple would share a drink together, and their daughter could have a cup if she missed home. But he forbade her son-in-law from drinking any. Your father was stingy and resolutely refused to let that annoying boy enjoy his skills.

Her heart skipped a beat, and she felt that the appearance of the wine was a sign, a hint from her parents that they were waiting for her down below.

And so the drinking began in high spirits.

Both jars of Daughter's Red wine were consumed by Huang Chu. She wasn't bad at drinking, but she got drunk first, and the wine was just an afterthought.

She felt hot all over, so she rolled up her sleeves and propped them up on the table to support her head. Her fleshy cheeks puffed out, curving into an arc that drew the man's gaze. Her own eyes were unfocused; she just chuckled as she stared ahead.

"Are you happy today?" the man asked in her ear after they got into bed.

He was still heavy on her, making it hard for her to breathe, but Huang Chu no longer felt it.

"I'll tell you a secret," she laughed heartily. "I was so silly, I couldn't understand such a simple thing. Now I see."

"Hmm? What have you figured out?"

The man coaxed her to talk more. Huang Chu was a complete mute in bed; even a single word was too much for her. It was a good thing she was willing to talk, especially since she said she had figured things out.

He felt his heart pounding faster than ever before, just waiting for her to say a word.

What did she figure out?

Huang Chu held the man's shoulders. Her body was used to their lovemaking, and her soul seemed to float out of her body, heading towards her return journey ahead of her.

"I can go home now," she told the man. "As long as I die, my parents will be waiting for me down there, and then I can go home."

The scalding blood seemed to sink into an ice cellar in an instant.

Huang Chu didn't wake up until noon the next day. He was dizzy and couldn't quite remember what happened after drinking the night before.

When she opened her eyes, she was startled to see the man sitting on the side with his arms crossed.

The man didn't look at her, didn't look at anything, and did nothing but sit next to her.

This went on for several days in a row, as if she were being monitored. It was very strange and a little creepy.

Huang Chu didn't know what was going on at first. She was just distressed that her husband wasn't going out to do business anymore, and she couldn't find an opportunity to hang herself.

--ah.

She was startled.

Looking closer at the man's expression, his brows were furrowed into a tight knot, and he was radiating anger. His already fierce appearance became even more terrifying. What was most frightening was that he deliberately turned his head away, refusing to look at her.

She then understood.

Drinking can lead to trouble.

But a man can't stay home forever. One evening, there was a loud knocking on the door downstairs, someone looking for Manager Huang, saying it was urgent business at sea. The man finally took pity on her and gave Huang Chu a sharp look. Huang Chu shrank back guiltily.

"Stay put," he warned her.

Then he left in a hurry.

Huang Chu breathed a sigh of relief.

Having gained a brief period of freedom, or perhaps by chance, she should have immediately seized the opportunity to carry out her plan to hang herself.

For some reason, it seemed that the man's surveillance over the past few days had intimidated her, and she didn't dare to act for a while. Instead, she was anxious, afraid that when the man came back, he would find that she hadn't been "honest," even if she was already a corpse by then.

She waited and waited until midnight when she couldn't stay awake any longer and fell asleep. When she woke up the next day, she waited all day, but the man still hadn't returned.

The night watchman told Li Mama downstairs that Japanese pirates were invading the sea, and the county government had organized people to block the road. A curfew was imposed starting immediately, and no one was allowed to go out. It seemed the city was about to be locked down.

Japanese pirates?

Huang Chu felt his breath catch for a moment.

Did the man die at the hands of the Japanese pirates? She immediately made that connection.

He said he would go to sea to help her find the luminous pearl, but then something went wrong, probably because of those Japanese pirates. Later, he was hurriedly called away again, probably because his companions couldn't solve a problem and came to him for help. He went, but it was all in vain. The Japanese pirates don't understand human language, so what reason could they give him? They could kill him with just one wrong word.

The most terrifying associations are often the most plausible.

Huang Chu quickly shook his head, forcing himself not to think about it anymore.

Her hands groped around on the bed, flustered and unsure of what to touch. Suddenly she stopped, straining her ears to hear hurried footsteps downstairs.

When she came downstairs, the maids and their mothers were busy packing bundles, stuffing anything valuable and even food into them. Only Li's mother tried to stop them, but to no avail.

The Japanese pirates are coming, and the city is going to be sealed off. Whoever has the grain is the boss. The master's stuff? Did they write names on the grain? Everyone looks out for themselves, and besides, the one upstairs isn't a proper master. Meixiang and her sworn sisters are all servants; they're cleaner.

Huang Chu kicked the flower stand next to the stairs, and a pot of peonies fell down, drawing everyone's attention.

"Put the food down," she said softly. "I don't care about anything else."

The women downstairs looked down on Huang Chu and weren't afraid of her; they still clutched their bundles tightly. When Li Mama scolded her for not putting the bundle back after her mistress had spoken, no one paid her any attention.

Huang Chu sighed, then took out her left hand, which had been behind her back, and held up a glass lamp from her bedside. The lamp was full of oil, and the flame was still burning. She casually tossed the lamp away, spilling oil onto the bundles and the women's clothes. Flames suddenly shot up, and the others were stunned for a moment before they remembered to scream.

In the end, it was Li's mother who saved people and put out the fire. While the others were sitting on the ground crying and shouting, Li's mother quietly carried the food back to the kitchen, then chased the others out of the house and locked the door.

Huang Chu stood upstairs watching. She wasn't usually such a heartless person, but somehow, like a rising fire, a fire was quietly burning in her heart.

Huang Chu asked Li Mama, "Aren't you leaving? The Japanese pirates are coming and they'll seal off the city. I won't have anything left here."

Li's mother said, "They had relatives and friends to rely on, but I didn't. I just starved to death here with the young lady. At least I didn't have to go out and become a wandering ghost."

Huang Chu nodded.

"Miss, do you think the shopkeeper will ever come back?"

She asked hesitantly. Huang Chu didn't want to listen; she felt her anger rising again, and fearing she wouldn't be able to control herself and would completely lose control, she turned and went back upstairs.

The city was under lockdown for a month, but the Japanese pirates still hadn't left. The city descended into complete chaos. Everyone was starving, and some of the bolder ones started smashing doors and looting.

Jinlou was also being targeted. In the middle of the night, there was a sudden banging on the door. Li's mother and Huang Chu together pushed eight large porcelain jars down from the second floor, then pretended the male head of the household was still inside, shouting and cursing in a rough voice. Finally, an oil lamp was thrown through the door, seemingly setting someone's hair on fire. Fire again.

Both Li's mother and Huang Chu were covered in cold sweat and collapsed on the steps, unable to move.

Huang Chu suddenly said, "That was his favorite lamp. It was a black-glazed lotus-shaped lamp from the Jizhou kiln. He didn't recognize it and always thought it was a sesame cake, saying that the lamp oil would smell better if it were lit inside."

Of course, Li's mother didn't dare to respond.

A month has passed; even a god couldn't survive that long. But who could bear to tell Huang Chu?

At this point, Huang Chu had completely forgotten about the hanging. Every day, she sat by the window, waiting for the night watchman's daily message, which said that the enemy had reached the city gates, many people had died, and seven or eight letters pleading for help had been sent out, but no one had come to their aid.

Later, the night watchman stopped coming. There were already few houses near the Golden Tower, and now that there wasn't a single person in sight, it felt even more like the entire city was deserted.

Mother Li felt this wouldn't do. She wasn't afraid of becoming a wandering ghost when she was about to die. She wanted to escape. As long as she could find a way out of the city and escape into the mountains, it would be better than being trapped and dying.

That night, she advised Huang Chu, "If the Japanese pirates invade, they're capable of anything. We can't stay here any longer; we can't hold this place by ourselves, Miss."

No sooner had she finished speaking than there was a loud banging on the door downstairs, which startled Li's mother.