WSMTATMC C3

Chapter 3

When Chen Biao, seated brazenly on the ground, got a clear look at the newcomer, he didn’t take him seriously in the least — just a rustic ge’er brought in for “chongxi”¹; no doubt such a person could stir up no real trouble.

“This is a matter of our Chen family — hardly something for an outsider like you to meddle in.”

“Oh? And how exactly is Second Uncle defining ‘outsider’? Are you planning to have Chen Qingyan set me aside and divorce me, then?”

That gave Chen Biao pause. He hadn’t expected this ge’er to have such a sharp tongue, and for a moment, words failed him. So he simply stayed slumped in place, playing dead.

“What’s wrong, Second Uncle? Not speaking? Is it because you find Mother’s dowry too meagre? Why not take my dowry for yourself as well?”

Contempt twisted Chen Biao’s expression. “A poor brat from the countryside like you — where would you even get a dowry?”

Wang Ying bared his teeth in a grin. “Second Uncle is right — Mother should have let her son marry a wealthy young lady instead, so she could provide for your whole family. That way you wouldn’t need to fret about going hungry despite having four working limbs.”

The bystanders, who had gathered to watch, burst into laughter at this, their murmurs swelling.

Chen Biao’s skin was thick, but even he couldn’t entirely stand being jeered at in public. In a rough voice he barked, “Sister-in-law, so this is that precious husband you’ve chosen for your son? Talking to an elder like this, with no sense of propriety or shame — aren’t you afraid people will laugh at you when they hear of it?”

Lady Li faltered, tongue-tied, turning instead to glance at the young husband beside her.

Wang Ying’s smile vanished. “Now that is where Second Uncle is wrong. By rights, once Father has passed away, an uncle ought to watch over the widowed sister-in-law and her orphans — so why are you here instead demanding money? To come throwing a tantrum when refused — I’d say that is what lacks propriety and shame.”

“You—”

“You what, you? Even the stray dogs on the mountain know to guard and care for their own pups. Yet you’re worse than a beast — trying to force your sister-in-law to hand over her dowry to support you. How thick is your skin?”

“I—”

“If I were you, I’d just smash my own head in — better that, than be unable to face Elder Brother in the afterlife.”

Chen Biao was so furious he almost fell backward, clutching at his chest without being able to get a word out.

Wang Ying dropped to his knees with a thud, pressing a handkerchief to his face and making a show of weeping. “You already know your nephew’s health is poor, yet you come to make trouble on his wedding day — are you trying to drive us to our graves? This is no way to live~~”

Seeing the man’s complexion go pale with rage, Wang Ying was inwardly smug. In his previous life, his grandmother had contended with many grasping relatives, and he had learned every trick at her side. Today, it seemed, was the perfect occasion to put them to use.

“Intolerable! Intolerable!” Spitting out the words, Chen Biao realized he would gain nothing here today, flung his sleeves in a huff, and beat a retreat.

By now the feast was nearly over, and the guests were departing in ones and twos. Only then did Wang Ying pat the dust from his knees and stand.

Turning, he found the young brother and sister staring at him in barely-contained excitement — they were a hair’s breadth from bursting into applause and shouting “Sister-in-law is amazing!”

“That was so satisfying! He really needed a proper scolding like that — maybe now he’ll stop coming to leech off us every month!” Chen Qingyun exclaimed, seizing his arm. Heaven knew how long she had wanted to let her second uncle have it; if not for the constraints of her position, she’d have broken with them long ago.

“Mind your tongue,” Lady Li said anxiously. She looked at her son-in-law with worry. “There were so many guests here today — this business will surely be spread about, and it may damage your good name.”

Wang Ying waved her concern aside. “And what’s a good name worth, anyway?” Besides, deep down, he wasn’t really a ge’er, and idle gossip didn’t trouble him in the least.

Lady Li had been born to a scholarly family, raised from childhood to be proper and refined, never quarrelling openly — but inwardly, could she not be angered? Now that someone had finally given voice to her grievances, the release was a rare exhilaration.

Where before she had resented Wang Ying’s humble origins, now she found there was more and more to like about him.

“You haven’t eaten yet, have you? I had them save you a table from the feast. Qingyun, Qingsong — take your sister-in-law to eat.”

“Yes, Ma.”

Wang Ying hadn’t expected that stepping in to defend them would earn him such a surge of goodwill from the Chen family — especially these two children, whose affection for him now seemed boundless.

Twelve-year-old Chen Qingyun was a quick-witted, lively girl, speaking like a string of beans rattling from a bamboo tube, and she pulled him along while spilling out the family’s affairs.

It turned out that in recent years, Second Uncle had extracted fifty or sixty strings of guan² from them. In name it was all “borrowed” — but without a written IOU, there was no chance it would be repaid.

Chen Qingyan’s illness had already cost the household much in doctors and medicine. Though the Chen family still possessed a hundred mu³ of good farmland, the harvests rose and fell with the whims of the weather; and with Lady Li inexperienced in managing estates, the household coffers were nearly bare.

In other words — even the landlord’s family was running out of grain.

“Today, we’d have lost Mother’s dowry if not for you, Sister-in-law,” Qingyun said earnestly.

“Mm-hm!” Twelve-year-old Qingsong, nicknamed Sanlang, nodded vigorously beside her.

Wang Ying, full from the meal, gave a satisfied burp. “Don’t worry — if he dares to come again, I’ll beat him out with a broom.”

The two children laughed aloud. Who said a country-bred ge’er couldn’t conduct himself well? This ge’er was wonderful!

By the time they finished eating, it was getting late. In the ancient world, without entertainment or nightlife, folk rose with the sun and retired with it — landlords’ families included.

Wang Ying strolled back to the rear courtyard, hesitating for a moment at the bedchamber door before pushing it open.

Inside, Chen Qingyan was reading under the glow of an oil-lamp. In the lamplight, his pallor seemed slightly improved, yet his cheeks were still sunken; his thin lips pressed into a line, making for a faintly severe expression.

When he looked up and saw Wang Ying, he spoke not a word — merely adjusted the lamp wick to make the flame a little brighter.

Earlier, Chen Bo had come to relate all that had transpired that afternoon.

He had long been aware of his second uncle’s constant requests for money, but with a mother too soft of heart to refuse and younger siblings still children, there was little he could do in his own weakened state. This rustic youth might be crude in manner — but not wholly without merit.

After a day of bustle, Wang Ying felt the aches in his neck and shoulders. “Where am I sleeping tonight?”

By rights, as a married couple, they ought to share a bed — yet neither harboured any such desire.

“Tomorrow I’ll have them ready the west wing for you,” Chen Qingyan said.

“And tonight?” Wang Ying went up to the bed and made a loose measuring gesture — the frame was broad enough to hold two.

“What are you doing!” Chen Qingyan blurted, startled.

Seeing the others’ alarm always made Wang Ying want to tease them. “Sleeping,” he said simply, and began to peel off his outer robe and shoes to climb aboard.

“Get down! Have you no shame?”

“Eh? I’m already married to you — what’s there to be shy about? Sharing a bed is perfectly proper and lawful.”

“You— you— shameless!” Chen Qingyan’s ears burned. Outrageous! Never in his life had he seen such light behaviour — what ge’er ever climbed into a man’s bed of his own accord?

Laughing so hard that he nearly keeled over, Wang Ying feared he might truly provoke the boy to collapse. He quickly gathered up the bedding and got down. “All right, all right, young master — calm yourself. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

Chen Qingyan took a long, slow breath, suspecting this man was being deliberate, and blew out the lamp in fury, rolling himself up tightly in the quilt.

With the room in darkness but for the chirring of crickets, Wang Ying turned over and let the smile fade from his face.

Through the thin line of the window, moonlight fell in silver across the courtyard. He sighed inwardly.

To be transported through time — to say he felt no fear would be a lie. The only solace was that in his previous life, he had no lingering attachments; no family would be left uncared-for.

After his parents’ divorce and remarriages, six-year-old Wang Ying had been left in the keeping of his maternal grandparents — unlettered farmers, yet they had raised him well, even sending him through university. One after the other, they had passed away, leaving him to live alone.

From his grandfather, he had inherited a love of the soil; this had led him to enrol in an agricultural college. Now, he wondered what would become of his test field after his death — and whether this year’s yield would improve.

Just as his thoughts wandered, a voice suddenly spoke in his mind: “Experimental field binding successful.”

“Who— who’s there?!” Wang Ying shot upright in alarm.

The movement startled Chen Qingyan on the bed. In an icy tone, he muttered, “Gone mad?”

Tch. The brat had a sweet tongue when it came to insults.

“Just a dream,” Wang Ying said, lying back down. But the moment his eyes closed, a white light flashed — and the dark bedchamber dissolved into the bright, familiar sight of his experimental fields.

In disbelief, Wang Ying rubbed his eyes — no change, it was truly his field!

He ran forward in excitement, staring at the lush green wheat as though at a beloved child — his eyes prickled with tears.

Had he returned to his own world?

No — his clothes were still ancient garb, his hands smaller than before. What was going on?

Questions swirled, but there was no one to answer them. Pushing them aside, he hurried to examine his wheat: this current research focused on drought-resistant winter wheat.

Traditional wheat was heavily reliant on climate; a snowy winter promised good growth in spring. But in recent years, severe drought had caused reduced yields or outright crop failure in many regions, even with human intervention — hence his choice of study.

He had bred this winter wheat as Changfeng No. 3: high-yield, large-headed, strong tillering⁴, resistant to dry, hot winds, requiring only a single watering in its entire growth period, capable of steady yields of over one thousand catties⁵ per mu.

Its only flaw was inferior taste; this year, he had planned to cross it with other varieties for improved flavour — but had ended up plunging into a well instead.

“Well now, already heading⁶! This strain’s good, it can be seed.” Like an old father doting on his offspring, Wang Ying walked the field, fondly stroking the stalks with a smile.

When tired, he sat on the field’s edge, listening to the sigh-and-shiver of wheat in the wind — the sweetest music he knew.

He remembered being a child, working in the fields with his grandfather, sitting just so as the wind rippled the golden wheat like shaking rattles, composing an ancient, weighty melody passed down through centuries.

Suddenly the light went black — the field vanished. Wang Ying sat up in fright, only to find himself back in the Chen family bedchamber. Chen Qingyan was asleep; moonlight cut a pale pattern across the floor through the papered window.

What was happening? He tried recalling the field in his mind, but nothing happened. The whole thing might have been a dream of warm millet⁷.

Drowsiness overcame him, and he sank into sleep amid puzzlement and unease.

At dawn, a fierce need to relieve himself dragged him awake. Blinking up at the unfamiliar rafters, it took him a long moment to recall that yesterday, he had… married.

“Fuck!” Swearing in a foreign tongue, he threw on his clothes and hurried to the back outhouse.

But as he was loosening his trousers, a slender green-and-yellow grass blade slipped from his waistband.

Wang Ying’s eyes widened. Was… was this not his treasured Changfeng No. 3? Could it be that last night had not been a dream after all?

notes:

1. Chongxi (冲喜) – A traditional practice in which a sick person is married, in hopes that the joy of the wedding will drive away ill fortune and improve their health.

2. Guan (贯) – A unit referring to strings of copper cash, commonly used as currency in ancient China; one string was typically 1,000 coins.

3. Mu (亩) – A traditional Chinese unit of land area; 1 mu ≈ 666.7 square meters (approx. 1/6 acre).

4. Tillering – The production of side shoots in cereal plants, important as these can form grain-bearing heads.

5. Catty (斤) – A traditional Chinese weight unit, about 500 grams; one thousand catties ≈ 500 kg.

6. Heading – The stage in cereal growth when heads emerge from the stem.

7. Dream of warm millet (黄粱一梦) – A Chinese idiom meaning a pleasant but illusory dream, drawn from a story in which a man dreamed of a lifetime’s fortune while millet cooked, only to wake with nothing changed.