Only then did everyone see clearly that the female ghost was Young Master Wang's first wife. Half a year ago, Lady Li had slipped and fallen into a well, losing both her life and her unborn child's.
Young Master Wang had missed her so terribly that he had fallen ill and never recovered.
It had all been a lie.
Madam Wang stood rooted to the spot. She had thought Lady Li was unwilling to accept her death and had therefore refused to leave her son alone. She had never imagined that Lady Li had come seeking vengeance.
Lady Li floated in the air, tilting her head as she looked at Madam Wang. "You can see me?"
Ah... someone suddenly screamed, and the crowd scattered in every direction. In the blink of an eye, only Madam Wang, Zhang Banxian, and Young Master Wang remained outside the gate.
Taking advantage of the chaos, Lady Li slipped into Young Master Wang's body. Before long, he bled from all seven orifices and died. Madam Wang let out a wail and seized Zhang Banxian by the collar.
"You said you could cure my son! Give him back to me! You liar, give me back my son!" she demanded. Zhang Banxian's clothes were pulled open, and his hair was yanked loose.
He had never expected Jin Shanyao to refuse to help. How could she bear to watch a living man die at her gate? Wasn't she human? How could her heart be so cruel?
Meanwhile, the torch that had been tossed into the courtyard suddenly rose into the air for some unknown reason. It sailed over the adobe wall and stopped right in front of Zhang Banxian.
Zhang Banxian collapsed to the ground in terror. Pressing his palms together, he bowed repeatedly. "Master, I was wrong. Please, spare me."
Jin Shanyao sneered inwardly. If anyone could set a fire at her gate and escape with a few nice words, wouldn't she be a fool for everyone to trample on?
Jin Shanyao turned her fingertip, and the torch instantly thrust against Zhang Banxian's chest.
Whoosh! The oil-fed flames flared as they met the cloth. Scared half to death, Zhang Banxian stripped off his clothes as he fled the village. If he didn't leave now, he feared he would lose his life here.
Inside the house, Meng Anzhi had listened to Lady Li's story and was no longer afraid. "Little Aunt, Lady Li was so pitiful."
Jin Shanyao rubbed her head. "Lady Li was pitiful, but it wasn't as though she had no way out. If she had started looking for a way to seek a mutual divorce the first time she discovered her husband gambling, perhaps she wouldn't have died."
"Getting a mutual divorce is hard." She remembered a divorced woman in the village who had been terribly scolded by the people around her.
"Where there's a will, there's a way."
Meng Anzhi hesitated before saying quietly, "If she got a mutual divorce, the villagers would gossip. They'd say she failed to uphold a wife's virtues and that was why her husband's family divorced her."
Jin Shanyao tucked the two children back under the covers and lay down with them. "If you go through life without a few people gossiping about you, wouldn't that mean you've failed?"
Meng Anci didn't understand. Pressing his body against Jin Shanyao and draping his legs over her stomach, he asked, "How is that failing?"
Jin Shanyao laughed. "If nobody dislikes you, it means you've spent your whole life trying to please others, watching their faces to decide how to act, and living humbly. That's why it's a failure. People are better off pleasing themselves than pleasing others."
As she spoke, she jostled the two little ones and said with mock severity, "Neither of you is allowed to try to please anyone from now on. If I find out you have, I'll tan your bottoms."
Meng Anci clapped his little hands over his bottom and shook his head hastily. "I won't, I won't. I won't try to please anyone."
Meng Anzhi remained silent for a long time, her heart feeling stifled. She had known Zhang Banxian for months and had even eaten candy he gave her. Meng Anzhi could never have imagined that Zhang Banxian would set fire to her home.
Jin Shanyao saw what was on her mind and comforted her. "You can paint a dragon or a tiger, but it's hard to paint their bones. You can know a person's face, but not their heart. People are changeable. Perhaps one moment he treats you well, and the next he sells you out for his own benefit.
"You did nothing wrong. You were just too kind. Blind kindness can bring you a great deal of trouble."
Meng Anzhi listened quietly. She didn't understand what her aunt meant, but she had a good mind and could remember it. Even if she couldn't make sense of it now, one day she would.
The commotion outside the courtyard didn't die down until the chou hour.
The next day, aside from a jumble of footprints, all that remained outside the courtyard was the villagers' whispering.
Jin Shanyao didn't see Zhang Banxian when she set up her stall, but she did see the Wang family's funeral procession. Madam Wang had aged considerably, and the hair at both her temples had turned white.
Paper couldn't contain fire. Word of Young Master Wang's persecution of his late wife soon spread, but, regrettably, with him dead, the case was closed. It became nothing more than a topic of idle conversation.
On the way back from the county town, Meng Anci kept feeling that his sister was snickering behind his back. After several glances over his shoulder, he finally caught her in the act. Narrowing his eyes, he brought his little face close to Meng Anzhi's.
"Speak," he threatened. "Are you hiding something from me?"
Meng Anzhi cupped his face and squeezed hard from both sides, squashing his chubby cheeks out of shape. "Let... go..."
"No. How dare you talk to me like that? Your skin must be itching, and you've forgotten who's in charge." Meng Anzhi pulled hard, dragging him down across her lap, and gave his bottom two smacks.
Meng Anci's face turned bright red. He pointed at Meng Anzhi. "You... you! I'll fight you!" He lunged at her, but Jin Shanyao caught him by the belt, leaving him unable to move.
He looked back aggrievedly. "Fine, fine, fine... You've joined forces to bully me. I'm telling you, there'll be no foot-washing water for you tonight... Pour it yourselves."
"Hmph..." He folded his arms and turned his head away, secretly peeking at the two of them. Not one of them came to coax him. No, something was fishy with these two.
Meng Anci cleared his throat twice. "If you don't want to lose me, tell me the secret." He held up two fingers and pointed them at his eyes, then narrowed them at the two of them.
"These eyes of mine aren't just for breathing through. Go on, did you get my books dirty, or use my toilet paper to wrap medicinal herbs?"
Jin Shanyao laughed. "Just sit properly. What could we possibly be hiding from you?"
Meng Anci was suspicious. "Really nothing?"
Meng Anzhi hurried to answer. "Nothing."
"Hmph... Let me tell you, in this world, the three of us are the closest and dearest to one another. We can't keep secrets from each other, understand?"
Jin Shanyao and Meng Anzhi nodded vigorously. "Right, right, right... Anci is the most important, and everything he says is right."
Meng Anci grinned and fell backward into Jin Shanyao's arms. Holding his sister's hand, he gazed at the sunset clouds on the horizon. The crimson clouds were so beautiful.
When they got home, Jin Shanyao cooked while Meng Anzhi sat in the house reading. Both seemed busy, but their minds were elsewhere, until a delighted scream came from the house.
Then a door opened, and Meng Anci ran into the kitchen with a delicate little bow and a quiver of arrows in his hands.
"Little Aunt, a bow and arrows... When did you buy them?"
Jin Shanyao bent down to add a piece of wood to the stove. "I didn't buy them. Anzhi bought them for you." Meng Anzhi didn't charge people for treating them, but some kindhearted people gave her a few copper coins.
The rest was spending money Jin Shanyao had given her. Both children had suffered enough from poverty that they didn't dare spend their money and had saved it bit by bit. Today, she had heard Jin Shanyao say she wanted to buy Meng Anci a bow and arrows.
So she had suggested paying for them herself. Her brother's birthday was on the nineteenth day of the twelfth lunar month, and she wanted to give him his birthday present early.
Smiling, Meng Anci rushed to the medicine room, put the bow and arrows beside the table, and flung himself into Meng Anzhi's arms with a whoop. "Sis, how are you so good to me?"
Meng Anzhi was nearly knocked off her chair. She hugged Meng Anci and laughed, then pinched his cheek and asked, "When's my birthday?"
Meng Anci answered at once, "The nineteenth day of the sixth lunar month. It's still half a year away."
"At least you have a conscience." She pushed Meng Anci away. "Don't interrupt my reading. Go look in the back courtyard. Little Aunt has a present for you there."
"What, there's more?" Meng Anci pattered off to the back courtyard.
A sturdy straw target stood against the wall in the back courtyard, and a little black foal was tethered beside it. Meng Anci froze.
He rubbed his eyes and looked again. The foal was still there; it wasn't an illusion. His eyes lit up like stars, and he looked back in disbelief.
At some point, Jin Shanyao and Meng Anzhi had come to stand behind him. They were smiling at him, and at that moment, Meng Anci felt as though his heart could fly.
His happiness was beyond words. "Little Aunt... Is that a horse?"
"What else would it be?" Jin Shanyao asked, laughter in her voice. Meng Anzhi handed him the little bow and arrows. "See how good your aim is."
Meng Anci took them, drew a feathered arrow, and nocked it to the string. Aiming at the very center of the straw target, he let it fly with a swish. The arrow landed squarely in the wall.
Meng Anci scratched his head in embarrassment. "I'll try again."
Meng Anzhi couldn't help laughing. "All right. The straw target won't run away, anyway. You can practice for as long as you like." As she spoke, she produced a red bow and arrows from somewhere.
She aimed at the straw target and let an arrow fly with a swish... She did even worse than Meng Anci.
When Meng Anci saw that his sister had missed too, he was just about to laugh when he suddenly realized something was amiss. "Little Aunt, does my sister have a horse too?"
Jin Shanyao smiled. "So clever."
A bolt from the blue... It turned out he wasn't the only one being spoiled!