Struggling

Meanwhile, a subtle change was quietly taking place in Pearl Village.

Perhaps the Chen family had been buying grain a little too freely lately, or perhaps Chen Yue's increasingly sturdy appearance was completely different from before. The village women had begun dropping by openly, asking about Chen Yue's age and then tentatively bringing up their own daughters. Their words were full of hints about marriage.

The Sea Shark Gang's members held themselves above everyone else and regarded the Pearl Households as cattle and horses. Naturally, they paid no attention to these subtle changes among the people at the bottom.

But the Pearl Households, all struggling in the same mire, were the sharpest observers of one another. Whether a family's days had become a little easier or a young man looked stronger and more robust—none of it escaped the neighbors' eyes.

In Pearl Village, where no one knew whether they would survive from one day to the next, a young man who seemed capable of earning a little more food was undoubtedly a good prospect for a daughter.

Being a little less hungry and having a better chance of staying alive—that was the simplest and most practical consideration for people at the bottom.

Chen's father and Mother Chen had politely turned away everyone who came to propose a match.

In the past, they might truly have given it careful thought. After all, their son was old enough to start a family.

But now, their son held a tremendous secret: he was practicing martial arts, killing people, and would soon take the Martial Examination, where life and death were uncertain... Every step he took was along the edge of a blade, and no one knew whether his future held fortune or disaster.

At a time like this, a marriage would not be a happy union. If the truth came out, wouldn't it ruin that girl's whole life?

That evening, just after Chen Yue's family had finished a simple dinner, a cautious knock came from outside. When they opened the door, they saw Auntie Li, who had borrowed pearls from them before.

The patches on her patched-up clothes seemed to have multiplied. Her face was gaunt, and she held her eight-year-old daughter, Yaya, tightly by the hand. Yaya was pitifully thin, her big eyes full of fear as she clung to her mother.

Mother Chen sighed inwardly, thinking Auntie Li had come to borrow grain or pearls again. Since Li the Third's death, the mother and daughter had been left without a strong laborer. They could barely scrape together the Pearl Tax, and their lives were even harder; they often needed a little help from the neighbors.

"Sister Li, come in and sit..."

Before Mother Chen could finish, Auntie Li stepped inside and dropped to her knees on the earthen floor. She yanked Yaya down with her, making the startled child shudder.

"Brother Chen, Sister-in-law Chen, please, I'm begging you—have mercy!"

Auntie Li's face was wet with tears, her voice hoarse and desperate. "I... I really can't go on living, and I don't have the ability to raise Yaya anymore. Please, take pity on us and take her in! Give her something to eat and let her be your child bride, all right... I'll kowtow to you!"

As she spoke, Auntie Li really did try to bang her head against the ground.

"Oh! You mustn't! Get up! Sister Li, get up!"

Mother Chen was startled and hurried over to help her up with all her strength. But Auntie Li somehow found the strength to stay on her knees, refusing to rise as she wept bitterly.

Mother Chen's eyes reddened too. Choking back sobs, she said, "Sister, if Yaya comes with us, what will happen to you? You're still young, and you have a long life ahead of you!"

Auntie Li lifted her head. Her face was numb and hopeless, like ash. "Me? I... I'll get by for as long as I can. When I can't go on anymore... I'll go into the sea and find her father. There's nothing left to live for in this life anyway. I only want Yaya to survive..."

Though she was young, Yaya understood the resolve in her mother's words. She suddenly burst into tears and clung tightly to her mother's arm. "Mother! I won't go! I want you! Yaya will stay with you! Mother, don't leave Yaya behind..."

The child's cries were heart-wrenching.

Chen's father stood in the doorway, watching the scene with his brows knotted together.

How could he not want to help? But his son's situation weighed heavily on his mind, and the future was a complete blank. How could they possibly take in another child?

He stepped forward, bent down, and helped Auntie Li partway up with some effort. "Sister Li, we understand your difficulties. But... things are hard for our family too right now. We really don't have enough to feed another person. About this... perhaps we can talk about it later."

With that, Chen's father turned and went inside. Before long, he came back with a small coarse-cloth sack weighing perhaps two or three pounds. It contained brown rice mixed with beans. He pressed it into Auntie Li's hands. "Take this grain for now. You and Yaya can make do for a few days. There'll... there'll be some way through it. Take your child home. It's getting dark."

Auntie Li's tears surged forth again, but this time they were not tears of sorrow. They were a deeper, more desolate sob.

She forcefully pushed the sack of brown rice back into Chen's father's hands. Her thin hands trembled as she said, "Brother Chen, Sister-in-law Chen... I, I didn't come to borrow grain or beg for money... I truly have no other way. I'm only asking you to give Yaya a chance to live. Don't let her follow me... and wait to die!"

She raised her tear-blurred face and looked at Chen's father and Mother Chen. In her eyes was a mother's last, humble glimmer of hope. "I know this is sudden, but, but please... think it over a little more, all right? Yaya is very well-behaved and eats very little. She can learn to do any kind of work..."

After speaking, she no longer looked at the grain that could have helped them in their hour of need. She pulled Yaya, who was sobbing so hard she could barely breathe, along with her, then kowtowed once more to Chen's father and Mother Chen. She staggered to her feet and was soon swallowed by the thick dusk.

Chen Yue stood in the shadows inside the doorway, watching Auntie Li's desperate kowtow and hearing Yaya's heart-wrenching cries. His lips moved, but in the end he said nothing. All that escaped him was a sigh caught in his throat.

Did he feel sympathy? He did!

Was he powerless? Even more so!

He was still struggling in the mire himself. What could he promise another mother and daughter who were on the verge of drowning? The path to changing his own family's fate was already narrow and perilous. He truly had neither the strength nor the courage to casually take another person's life onto his shoulders.

As night deepened, Pearl Village fell into utter silence. The hardships of the day seemed swallowed up by the darkness, leaving only weary snores and stifled sighs drifting between the huts.

But this fragile peace did not last long.

"Kill!"

"Hold them back!"

"Bandits!"

Suddenly, from the direction of the village entrance, a deafening uproar of battle cries erupted, along with the shrill clang of metal striking metal. The sound was like thunder splitting the ground, instantly waking everyone in the village, whether asleep or still awake.

"What happened? What's going on?"

"It sounds like there's a fight at the village gate!"

Frightened whispers rose from house after house. Many people crept trembling to their doors and pressed their eyes to the cracks to peer outside.

By the sparse torches at the village gate and the hazy moonlight, they saw some twenty or thirty fierce-looking men armed with sharp blades, roaring as they charged the gate.

Their opponents were the five or six Sea Shark Gang members on duty that night, along with seven or eight county yamen constables who had happened to hear the commotion and rush over.

But the attackers who had appeared out of nowhere were exceptionally ferocious. Their leader, a burly, bearded man wielding a ghost-head saber, swung it in gleaming arcs, every slash carrying a terrifying rush of wind.

Ordinary gang members and constables could scarcely withstand a single blow. Anyone who touched the blade was wounded; anyone who tried to block it was swept aside!