Chapter 10: Into the Mountains Together

Xie Guanniang smiled warmly and nodded. "I know quite a lot. Once we've spent more time together, you'll see."

Caught off guard, Jiang Yuan once again heard the rapid, intense beating of his own heart. At the same time, the phrase "once we've spent more time together" echoed repeatedly in his mind.

Lowering his gaze, Jiang Yuan softly responded with a hum.

Seeing that he did not refute her words, Xie Guanniang took this as tacit approval that she could stay at his house long-term. Her smile brightened even more.

After Jiang Yuan locked both the door and the courtyard gate with a copper lock, Xie Guanniang slung the small basket she had borrowed from him over her back. She carried the smallest sickle and pickaxe that Jiang Yuan had found at her request, and followed him toward the nearest low hill from his home.

Jiang Yuan’s home was at the edge of the village. To the east lived the second son and his wife of the village head, while to the west stretched a patch of wasteland.

It was the busy season for farmers—pulling weeds, thinning seedlings, watering, and fertilizing—so aside from early morning, noon, and evening, most villagers spent their days working in the fields.

Jiang Yuan didn’t need to do this because he owned no farmland himself. The fields were registered under his maternal uncle, whom he called "Uncle Hao," but the uncle had long leased them to other village families.

No one in Mingfu Village, including Wang Xiao-zhi and her parents, knew of the kinship between Jiang Yuan and his uncle. They only knew that Hao Yu had always favored Jiang Yuan.

When Jiang Yuan was young, since he was not the biological son of Wang Xiao-zhi’s parents, the Wang family treated him with disdain. Not only did peers like Wang Sanhu bully him, but the elders often beat or scolded him.

Fortunately, by then the Wang family had split, and Xiao-zhi’s parents lived far at the village’s edge. Even if the family wanted to target Jiang Yuan, he could usually avoid them.

On the rare occasions he couldn’t, Wang Xiao-zhi and her parents, along with Hao Yu—who “happened” to witness Jiang Yuan being bullied—would protect the small boy.

Taking advantage of this, Hao Yu smoothly fostered a close relationship with the neighboring family and naturally offered to teach Jiang Yuan how to hunt.

With such a successful hunter as a role model, Jiang Yuan’s foster parents eagerly embraced this unexpected opportunity.

From then on, Hao Yu’s home became the place Jiang Yuan visited most often, and Hao Yu himself became the person Jiang Yuan’s foster parents were most grateful to.

After Jiang Yuan’s foster parents passed away, the Wang family sought to seize their money, house, and land. They stormed the village edge, claiming Jiang Yuan was not a blood relative and, backed by numbers, tried to force him out.

Jiang Yuan left the foster home empty-handed as they wished, but the Wang family failed to gain any advantage.

In truth, Jiang Yuan had already convinced his foster father during his illness to sell the house and land to the Chen family.

The proceeds, after paying for his foster father’s medical bills and funeral, were secretly handed to his sister, Wang Xiao-zhi.

Valuable goods such as grain, farming tools, kitchen knives, and iron pots that couldn’t be easily transferred were moved under cover of night to Hao Yu’s home next door.

In the end, the Wang family only ended up with a few old clothes, some basins, bowls, and two worn wooden chests.

Meanwhile, Jiang Yuan, whom they had desperately wanted to drive away, was taken in by the ever-kind Hao Yu and began living a better life than he ever had as a foster child with the Wang family.

The Wang family, furious and envious, tried to provoke Jiang Yuan whenever possible but only ended up suffering losses due to their incompetence.

They soon regretted forcing him out on the grounds that he was not a true Wang bloodline.

Not because their consciences had awakened, but because Jiang Yuan, foreseeing their actions, publicly severed ties with them in front of the village head and many villagers, presenting a formal letter of disownment, making it impossible for them to claim any right over him.

They had coveted the foster parents’ estate for years, only to end up with a handful of worthless junk—a tremendous loss.

If that had been all, it might have been bearable. But Jiang Yuan seemed to purposely anger them by no longer pretending to be a freeloader after moving to Hao Yu’s house.

Every time he ventured alone into the mountains and returned laden with wild game, the Wang family wished they could snatch all his catch.

Those things—those wild game—should have belonged to them!

Consumed by greed and frustration, the Wang family was convinced that Jiang Yuan was deliberately provoking them, unaware that he had never taken them seriously.

He had once devoted himself to studious diligence and filial piety, then to living a steady, peaceful life. Now, he awaited Hao Yu’s early return, hoping to repay the venerable elder who had protected him for nearly fifteen years.

Unaware of these matters, Xie Guanniang was contentedly breathing in the fresh air of the wilderness.

Although curious why Jiang Yuan’s sister was named Wang Xiao-zhi, Xie Guanniang had only just met him and felt it improper to pry into his family affairs.

Following closely behind Jiang Yuan across the wasteland, climbing the gently sloping unnamed hill, Xie Guanniang stood midway up, looking down curiously at the village.

Noticing her pause, Jiang Yuan stopped and turned to ask, “Tired?”

Xie Guanniang shook her head. “I just want to see the village from up high.”

Jiang Yuan nodded and waited quietly.

Xie Guanniang glanced around swiftly, gauging the village’s approximate size in her mind, then turned to ask, “Which town is closest to the village?”

“Baihe Town,” Jiang Yuan replied.

Surprised, Xie Guanniang raised her eyebrows. Though she had exerted all her strength fleeing for her life, she hadn’t expected to drift all the way from Xie Family Village near Qingxu Mountain to Mingfu Village near Baihe Town.

That must be around forty or fifty li—she was truly impressive!

Musing aloud, “Desperate times really do bring out untapped potential,” she smiled and moved closer to Jiang Yuan. “I’m ready. Let’s keep going.”

Jiang Yuan nodded and led her on further. It wasn’t until they spotted a few apricot trees within sight that he stopped and pointed toward them.

“You wait here. I’m going hunting.”

Xie Guanniang nodded. “Okay.”

From the foot of the hill to this point, they had walked on narrow mountain paths clear of weeds, indicating frequent passage between the apricot trees and the base of the hill by the villagers.

Beyond the apricot tree area, however, there were no such paths, only wild, overgrown grass.

To hunt, Jiang Yuan would have to trudge through this untamed terrain.