Sorry, my hand slipped

The director was so furious her vision went black. She turned and strode away with the laminated card, her high heels thudding along the field ridge.

A production assistant jogged after her. "Director, what do we do if the points system doesn't work on him?"

"How should I know?" The director slapped the card against the assistant's chest.

"I've done eleven seasons of this show, and I've never seen a troublemaker like him! Even the worst ones before him at least missed home. But him? Mention those people at home, and it's like you're talking about his enemies!"

She abruptly stopped midway through speaking and glanced back at the boy sunning himself on the ridge with one leg crossed over the other.

Jiang Xun had his eyes closed. Sunlight fell across his exceptionally beautiful face, his lashes casting a small patch of shadow over his cheekbones.

He looked outrageously relaxed, as though he had come on vacation rather than been drugged by his stepmother and dumped in some impoverished mountain backwater to be reformed.

Jiang Xun hadn't been lying on the ridge long when he heard a hoe being planted on the ground.

He opened one eye. At some point, Shen Wangjing had come up from the field and was now standing beside him.

Backlit, his expression was impossible to make out. All Jiang Xun could see were beads of sweat running down his jaw and falling onto the parched yellow earth, soaking into it in little dark circles.

"Let's go back," Shen Wangjing said evenly.

Jiang Xun stayed where he was, looking him up and down from below.

After a morning's work, Shen Wangjing's black T-shirt was soaked through with sweat and clung to his body, the contours of his waist and abdomen rising and falling slightly with his breathing.

"You're done?" Jiang Xun glanced at the cornfield behind him. A third of the soil still hadn't been turned.

"I'm taking you back." Shen Wangjing switched the hoe to his other hand. "The midday sun's fierce. You won't be able to take it."

Jiang Xun sat up in one swift motion. "I'm not that delicate."

Shen Wangjing glanced at him without saying anything.

But the meaning of that look was clear: he'd sat on the ridge for nearly two hours without pulling a single weed, and he'd practically worn a dent into the ground beneath his backside. How was that not delicate?

For once, that look made Jiang Xun feel a little guilty, but on second thought, he felt perfectly justified again. "Not working doesn't mean I'm delicate. Those are two different things."

His words were defiant, but he still stood and brushed the dirt off his backside.

He really was thirsty, and if he stayed out in this sun any longer, his face really would start peeling.

The mountain path wound ahead, and Jiang Xun followed close behind Shen Wangjing.

Shen Wangjing's back was broad, blocking the sunlight over most of the path, and Jiang Xun fit neatly into that patch of shade.

They had just entered the courtyard, and Jiang Xun had picked up an enamel mug and taken a gulp of water. Before he could swallow, a shrill voice tore straight through the gap in the courtyard gate.

"Shen Wangjing! Get your ass out here!"

The shout startled Jiang Xun into inhaling his water. He braced himself against the low table and coughed several times before recovering.

He wiped his mouth and turned to look-

A scowling middle-aged woman stormed into the courtyard, followed by two burly, thickset men.

The three of them planted themselves in the courtyard like three ferocious door gods.

The middle-aged woman in front wore a short-sleeved floral top, its cuffs digging into the flesh of her arms. Her hair had been permed into the tight curls popular in the village. Sweat had flattened half of them, while the other half stuck up stubbornly.

From a distance, it looked as though someone had upended a bowl of rain-soaked instant noodles onto her head.

Li Guizhi, the village chief's wife, was the last person in Shiban Village anyone wanted to cross.

Her mouth could infuriate the dead back to life and the living to death. No one in the village could beat her in a shouting match, and even her own husband had to keep out of her way.

Only Shen Wangjing refused to put up with her antics.

But that didn't stop Li Guizhi from coming over to make a scene every few days.

Grandpa Shen had been dozing in his wheelchair. Startled awake by the commotion, his clouded eyes darted about in panic, and his withered hands clamped onto the armrests. "A-again..."

Li Guizhi paid no heed whatsoever to the city people carrying equipment around the courtyard.

She stood in the middle of the courtyard with her hands on her hips, her gaze passing over everyone and landing straight on Shen Wangjing, who had just emerged from the kitchen.

Shen Wangjing was still holding the coarse porcelain bowl he had just brought out of the kitchen, filled with boiled water he had left to cool for his grandfather.

"It's only right to pay what you owe!" Li Guizhi advanced a step, flecks of spit glittering in the sunlight.

"When are you going to repay the money that damned father of yours owed? It's been three years! Is your family planning to dodge this debt all the way to the grave?"

Shen Wangjing set the bowl on the low stool beside his grandfather's hand. His face was expressionless, his voice level. "Shen Dayong borrowed the money. Go ask Shen Dayong for it."

"Bullshit!" Li Guizhi spat. "You're his son! It's only right for a son to pay his father's debts! If you don't pay, who will?"

"Where's the IOU?" Shen Wangjing's voice grew cold.

Li Guizhi choked for half a second, then raised her voice even higher. "Your father asked my husband for the loan himself! How could that be fake?"

"We've never needed some lousy scrap of paper to do business in Shiban Village. Don't give me any of that nonsense. Hurry up and pay!"

The more she spoke, the more worked up she became, pointing toward the wheelchair. "There's not a single decent person in your entire family! Your dad was a gambling addict who jumped into the river after racking up a mountain of debt, and that younger brother of yours is an ungrateful little bastard too. Ran off to the city without a word, didn't he?"

"And this grandfather of yours, paralyzed all these years and still not dead, dragging his grandson down to suffer with him. Your whole family is just-"

Smack!

A half-eaten green jujube struck Li Guizhi squarely in the back of the head.

The flesh of the fruit, mixed with saliva, splattered over her freshly permed curls and dripped from the ends.

Li Guizhi's voice cut off abruptly.

She turned her head stiffly. An unfamiliar boy was squatting on the threshold of the main room, hefting another green jujube in his hand and smiling at her.

The boy was exceptionally beautiful, his eyes curved in a smile. When the corners of his mouth lifted, two shallow dimples appeared in his cheeks, making him look utterly well-behaved.

But the words out of his mouth had nothing in common with his appearance.

"Sorry, ma'am. My hand slipped." Jiang Xun tossed the green jujube into the air and caught it steadily.

"But your hair's pretty stiff. Did you use lard or gutter oil? It really holds its shape."