Chapter 34: The Second Path to Wealth

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After firmly refusing the property Hao Yu had offered her, Jiang Yuan began making money at a furious pace, just as Xie Guanniang did.

Unless the weather was truly foul, the two of them would take Xiaoyang into the mountains. One would hunt while the other gathered medicinal herbs with the child. Though they were busy and exhausted, they seemed every day to be filled with boundless energy and never slackened for even a moment.

By comparison, Hao Yu, who had originally been just as diligent, now appeared rather like someone who fished for three days and dried his nets for two, simply because she had other matters to attend to.

Whenever the weather made travel inconvenient, Xie Guanniang would stay home, sewing with nimble fingers. Jiang Yuan could not do that, but he could tend the vegetable garden and help her dry medicinal herbs over the heated brick bed.

Amid their ceaseless toil, time passed into August. On the fifth day of the month, Xie Guanniang left the village for the first time and went with Jiang Yuan to White River Town.

The small embroidered items she had made whenever she found the time had all been taken by Jiang Yuan to the town’s cloth shop and sold.

There was only one cloth shop in town, the Qin Family Shop. Though it was called a cloth shop, it also dealt in embroidery, ready-made clothes, shoes, socks, and all manner of other goods related to fabric.

Unlike specialized embroidery workshops and tailoring shops, this cloth shop had no embroiderers or tailors of its own. The embroidered goods, ready-made clothing, shoes, and socks it sold were all collected piece by piece by the proprietress, Madam Qin, from independent makers like Xie Guanniang.

Xie Guanniang’s embroidery was excellent. The first time Jiang Yuan came to deliver her work, Madam Qin took an immediate liking to her skill.

After nearly two months of observation, Madam Qin discovered that Xie Guanniang was not only quick with her needlework but remarkably consistent in quality. Whether she embroidered sachets, handkerchiefs, pillowcases, quilt covers, or clothing, her work never fell below its usual standard. Madam Qin therefore began considering asking her to embroider a decorative screen for a heated brick bed.

That was why Xie Guanniang had accompanied Jiang Yuan to town this time: to discuss their future collaboration.

Of course, while she was there, she also wanted to inquire about the latest news concerning the Xie family and her own disappearance.

During the nearly three months since she had fallen into the water, Jiang Yuan had continued going to town as often as before to sell his game.

Because Xie Guanniang had escaped by jumping into the river, he paid particular attention each time he came to town, watching for anyone asking about her.

And, as it happened, about a month earlier, two groups of people had indeed come to White River Town looking for Xie Guanniang.

One group searched with little sincerity. They made a few perfunctory inquiries and soon left. The other group searched much more earnestly, but since Xie Guanniang had never appeared in White River Town, they failed to learn anything useful.

Jiang Yuan witnessed the whole affair with his own eyes. Afraid that these people might next encounter someone from Mingfu Village—or simply go there themselves to search for her—he mingled with the idle onlookers and followed them unobtrusively for nearly two hours.

Yet in the course of their conversation, the group revealed an important piece of information: that day was their final search. If they still failed to find the person they were seeking in White River Town, they would abandon the effort the following day.

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That was what they said, and that was what they did.

The group conducting its search perfunctorily had lunch in town, rested for a while, and then departed White River Town in groups, some on horseback and others by carriage.

The more earnest group, meanwhile, continued searching in White River Town until the sun sank westward.

Before sunset, they left White River Town by carriage.

Both groups headed in the same direction, but Jiang Yuan guessed that their destinations were different.

The more serious group was almost certainly headed for Xie Family Village. The group that had searched so halfheartedly, on the other hand, was most likely bound for Qingxu Mountain.

Xie Guanniang bore the surname Xie. If she had escaped by jumping into the river near Xie Family Village, the ancestral home of the Xie clan, then she had indeed drifted a very long way downstream, just as she herself had claimed.

As for Qingxu Mountain, it was a renowned sacred site of Taoism. It was perfectly reasonable that certain wealthy and powerful nobles, men of rank and influence who had no children to carry on their family line, might travel a great distance there to pray for offspring.

Xie Guanniang had never given Jiang Yuan a long, detailed account of her origins. Yet from the occasional fragments she let slip, it was not difficult for him to piece together the truth.

Her maternal uncle, who was also her adoptive father, lived for long periods in a Taoist temple but would appear at crucial moments to interfere in the major affairs of her life.

Her biological mother, who was nominally her aunt, had been as good as dead for more than a decade, only to suddenly reappear.

And her biological father, who insisted that she reclaim her ancestral identity and bring a husband into the family, had...

Combining what he knew, Jiang Yuan guessed that the two groups searching for her had been sent by her adoptive father and her biological father.

As for the person who wanted her dead, it was most likely the wife her biological father had married later—the woman whose own interests had been threatened.

Jiang Yuan’s guess was confirmed by Xie Guanniang. After he told her what he had seen in town, she gave him a brief account of her complicated family history.

“The Xie family was once extraordinarily powerful. We were not a house of dukes or marquises, but for three generations in succession, members of the family entered the Grand Secretariat and served as chief ministers.”

“When the previous dynasty fell, my great-grandfather and grandfather, both of whom were serving as officials in the capital, died for their country alongside the last emperor.”

“My great-granduncle had it even worse. He died in office at the very beginning of the upheaval.”

“The other minor members of the Xie family who held office at court soon either passed away or resigned and returned to their homeland.”

“The Xie family fell into complete decline after that. Then my mother’s engagement was broken.”

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“She became separated from her mother and elder brother while fleeing the turmoil of war. For the sake of traveling together, she married her fiancé at the time without the presence of any elders to witness the ceremony.”

“Later, her former mother-in-law seized upon the fact that they had married without the permission of their elders and demanded that her former husband break off the marriage and take another wife. He agreed, and even suggested that she become his concubine.”

“She refused, obtained a divorce, and entered a Taoist convent, becoming a nun.”

“I was born there. Later, my adoptive father came looking for her, so she registered me under his name.”

“Under ordinary circumstances, that would not have mattered. But my biological father was incapable of having children. He had wives and concubines in abundance, yet never produced an heir.”

“They came to Qingxu Mountain to pray for a child, and I happened to be there.”

“I look like my mother. The moment they saw me, they grew suspicious. And my mother was foolish enough to agree to let me reclaim my ancestral identity.”

Reclaim her ancestry? As if!

That wretched man had broken off his engagement, abandoned his wife and daughter, and then remarried. Wasn’t dying without descendants precisely the blessing he and his mother had earned through years of accumulated wickedness?

She could not understand her mother’s way of thinking. When her mother failed to persuade her, she simply brushed her objections aside with the excuse, “I’m doing this for your own good.”

Ignoring her wishes entirely, they quickly reached an agreement among themselves. Then she was forced to leap into the river by two men who had appeared from nowhere.

To avoid attracting attention, they had brought no long weapons. Each carried only a short dagger that could be concealed in a sleeve or beneath the hem of a garment.

Otherwise, an ordinary woman from another world who had merely taught herself a few techniques of self-defense would never have had the chance to escape by jumping into the river while being deliberately surrounded and hunted down.

She was not boasting. She had simply reacted quickly and run quickly. If she had hesitated for even an instant, or if fear had weakened her legs, they would have left at least two bloody holes in her body.