It was already the second quarter of the noon hour, yet the early autumn sun remained blazing hot.
Feng Buji leaned into Feng Chuchen’s embrace.
The little boy was so heartbreakingly frail—his tiny face no bigger than a palm, his thin arms seeming as though they could be snapped with a single twist.
Only then did Feng Chuchen notice another bruised bump on the back of his head. “Who hit you?”
Banxia spoke through gritted teeth. “The day before yesterday morning, the young master was playing at the doorway when a stone suddenly flew out from the woods. It must have been some wicked good-for-nothing from the old Feng family. Now they don’t dare beat him openly, nor do they dare beat him to death, so they just disgust us like this.
“Auntie Wang couldn’t stand it and ran to Village Head Zhao’s house to cry for ages, and then Village Head Zhao went to warn those clan members.”
Feng Chuchen instructed, “If no one is with you, little brother must not leave the courtyard.”
“Mhm.”
Two bowls of noodles arrived first. The aroma of egg, noodles, and greens made Feng Chuchen—who hadn’t eaten a proper meal in days—take a deep breath. She eagerly grabbed her chopsticks and began to eat.
Suddenly, she saw a child of two or three years old leaning out of a window on the third floor of the restaurant across the street. The child was looking around happily. In the next instant, he fell headfirst from the window.
Feng Chuchen’s first instinct was to run and catch him, but in a flash another person came sprinting over and caught the child.
Feng Chuchen hit the brakes, yet momentum still carried her two steps forward before she stopped.
That man had been running too fast and hadn’t expected a woman to suddenly rush out in front of him. Dodging her, he failed to steady himself, stepped on a small pebble, and his leg buckled, forcing him to kneel hard before Feng Chuchen.
Startled and choking, she coughed, and the egg, noodles, and vegetable leaves in her mouth sprayed out, landing right on the tip of the man’s nose and his lips.
Feng Chuchen hurriedly pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his face. “Oh, sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
The man was drunk, reeking of alcohol, his face thoroughly flushed. Only after having his face wiped a couple of times did he react—he had not only knelt before this wretched girl but had been sprayed with filth all over his face.
Furious, he jumped up and cursed, “You—”
As soon as he opened his mouth, something on his lips fell inside, disgusting him so much that he bent over and vomited wildly.
The child in his arms cried out loudly, “Mother, Mother, scared…”
A woman ran out of the restaurant frantically. “My son! Thank you, benefactor, wuwuwu…”
Feng Chuchen beat a hasty retreat. She turned around, scooped up the still-dazed Feng Buji, and ran.
Banxia pulled out a handful of copper coins from her chest, threw them on the table without counting, and ran after them.
The two of them sprinted all the way out of the street intersection, only stopping when they saw no one was chasing them.
Banxia panted heavily, puzzled. “Miss, why are we running?”
The original owner’s physical foundation was excellent; despite running so urgently, her breathing remained steady.
“I made that man kneel and sprayed him full of noodles. Am I going to wait around to be scolded? Getting beaten isn’t even out of the question.”
Banxia worried, “Will that man remember what you look like? What if we run into him again?”
Feng Chuchen said, “There are thousands upon thousands of people. How could it be so easy to run into him? Besides, he was terribly drunk and clearly not sober—he might not remember me. We’ll just avoid entering the capital for a while. After enough time passes, even if he remembered, he’d forget.”
She certainly remembered him, though—tall and slender, with well-defined features, a pair of beautiful phoenix eyes, wearing a golden hair crown, and possessing martial arts skills.
That man likely came from a wealthy and noble family. The sudden sharpness in his eyes had been chilling, indicating he had a bad temper…
Those wealthy young masters would look for trouble even without being provoked, let alone after such an embarrassing incident.
Feng Chuchen was extremely dejected. She hadn’t accomplished a good deed and had invited hatred instead.
They bought a few cabbage buns, ate them, and hired a donkey cart to go home.
Feng Buji was both hot and sleepy, leaning against his sister’s embrace and sleeping soundly.
Feng Chuchen was lost in thought.
After Granny Feng the healer died, apart from Feng Changfu’s family, all the Feng clan members came knocking, demanding to take over the orphans’ property. They wished nothing more than for Feng Buji to die of illness immediately and for Feng Chuchen to be driven away.
The Feng family had migrated from elsewhere. There weren’t many clan members—in Baima Village and Hekou Village combined there were only about a dozen households—and there was no clan head.
Old Master Feng was already in his sixties, the oldest and most senior in the clan. When it came to clan affairs, what he said went.
The ones who made the biggest ruckus at Feng Chuchen’s home were him and his grandson Feng Qi.
The original owner had refused to hand over the property on the grounds that the family had an heir in Feng Buji, saying her younger brother could manage it. Those clan members then went to the house to make trouble every few days, secretly pushing and hitting Feng Buji multiple times…
They wanted to agitate Feng Buji, to make him “die of illness” sooner.
Some people had even tried to arrange a marriage for the original owner, wanting to force her into marriage.
On the fifteenth of the seventh month, one month after Granny Feng the healer’s death, it was also her forty-third death anniversary.
Auntie Wang and Banxia stayed home to fend off the clan members who came knocking, allowing the original owner and Feng Buji to slip away and go up the mountain to burn paper offerings for their aunt.
Feng Buji’s health was poor; going up and down the mountain, the original owner carried him on her back.
After burning the paper, halfway down the mountain, they ran into their clan uncle Feng Qi.
Feng Qi came up smiling. “You came to visit big sister’s grave? I just happened to come to pay my respects too.”
He was the one the siblings hated most.
Feng Chuchen ignored him and carried her brother down the mountain. She had just turned around when Feng Qi pushed her, and the siblings tumbled down the cliff.
The original owner instinctively shielded her brother in her arms, one foot quickly hooking onto a large rock to slow their speed and impact. After rolling some distance, they were stopped by a large tree, but her head still struck a rock, and she fainted.
Feng Buji had been well protected and only suffered superficial wounds, but he was terrified and cried loudly, “Sister, Sister, save me…”
Some passersby happened to see them and rescued them.
When she woke again, Feng Chuchen had become Shui Chuchen.
Everyone thought Feng Chuchen was fine, but only she knew that the real Feng Chuchen was already dead…
Shui Chuchen lay like a corpse in bed for three days.
The first two days weren’t just for recovering from her injuries—she couldn’t accept the fact that she had transmigrated. It wasn’t merely returning to the pre-liberation era overnight; she had been thrown back several hundred years.
She didn’t know how heartbroken her grandfather from her previous life would be.
On the third day, Shui Chuchen accepted reality. People had to look forward. Since she had come, she couldn’t keep escaping.
From now on, she was Feng Chuchen of Baima Village in the suburbs of the capital of the Great Yan Dynasty, not Shui Chuchen, a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine from the twenty-first century.
She began to think about how to live her days, and how to live them better.
After thinking for a whole day, the next morning she went to the county yamen to beat the drum and voice her grievance. She accused Feng Qi of plotting to kill for wealth, pushing the Feng Chuchen siblings off the cliff. She accused Old Master Feng of allowing his grandson to commit violence, attempting to murder orphans and seize their family property.
There were witnesses who saw Feng Qi at the scene of the crime, and many villagers testified that Old Master Feng had led clan members to Granny Feng the healer’s home multiple times to make trouble.
Feng Chuchen’s accusations were substantiated.
Magistrate Li sentenced Feng Qi to twenty strokes of the jingtiao cane and one year in prison. Old Master Feng was sentenced to twenty strokes of the jingtiao cane, but because of his advanced age, his grandson Feng Qi received the punishment on his behalf.
But because Old Master Feng was the grand-uncle of the Feng Chuchen siblings, and since the siblings had not died, Feng Chuchen was additionally sentenced to one month in prison.
According to ancient law, when a wife accused her husband, a junior accused a senior, or a servant accused their master, as long as it was not a major crime like treason, even if they were in the right, they had to go to prison.
This was for filial piety and the way of the husband.
If Feng Chuchen had accused only Feng Qi, she would not have been punished, as they were already beyond the three degrees of mourning.
But she risked going to prison to drag her own fifth grand-uncle into it and make a big fuss, not only to seek justice for the dead original owner and to maximize the deterrent effect so that the clan members would not dare touch Feng Buji again, but also for another reason.
Dear readers will know from the synopsis that this novel is about traditional Chinese medicine, with a bit of fantasy added. Not much fantasy, just a little…