The autumn vegetables grew in a jumble in the garden. Though there were no furrows between them, every one was plump and fresh. Jin Shanyao gripped the base of a cabbage with both hands and was just about to twist it off.
Suddenly, the cabbage burst out, "Ancestress, Ancestress, please show mercy! I'm still young. I can grow for a while longer."
Off you go... Jin Shanyao bent the squawking cabbage sideways and twisted it off. At first, she had felt some pity, but as time went on, she had become a heartless butcher who couldn't care less.
Her actions frightened the vegetables all over the garden into shrieking. As they grew, they had enjoyed the Ancestress's protection, with Spiritual Qi pouring into their bodies like water.
So they had flourished. The autumn vegetables next door had all kicked the bucket, yet their turn still hadn't come. They had thought they'd escaped disaster, only for what had to come to come at last.
One radish clung desperately to the earth, refusing to be pulled out as it wailed, "Ancestress, Ancestress, I'll have more moisture buried in the ground! I'll taste better than if you pull me out!"
Jin Shanyao swung her hand back and slapped the radish's leaves. "Nonsense. If I don't pull you out now, you'll turn pithy... Radish soup is your destiny. Accept your fate."
With that, a plump, fresh green radish came out of the ground. The potatoes beside it trembled with fear, clinging tightly to one another in the soil in an attempt to resist their fate.
"Ancestress, please let us go! You have children and grandchildren too. Can you really bear to see them become a dish?"
As it happened, she was a tree that had been single for a thousand years, with no children or grandchildren. Out you come...
Jin Shanyao seized the potato vines and gave them a gentle tug... They snapped????
She threw the vines aside and began digging with her bare hands, unearthing the big potatoes one by one as they desperately burrowed deeper. Her mad actions frightened the vegetables all over the garden into looking away. It was too cruel.
Like an executioner entering a slaughterhouse, Jin Shanyao tore through the garden's autumn vegetables. A short while later, not one vegetable remained alive in the patch.
Sitting amid a pile of radishes, cabbages, and potatoes, she thought she had to buy someone, she absolutely had to. Work this unconscionable and inhumane had to be left to a human.
She would be better off being a proper tree and staying quietly in her hole, so her own kind wouldn't resent her. After resting for a while, Jin Shanyao picked up the cabbages, carried them into the kitchen, and covered them with a layer of Spiritual Power to keep them fresh.
The two little cubs came out with wet hair, and Jin Shanyao took a cloth in each hand and dried their heads.
"Anci, you'll be taking the imperial examinations in the future. You must never shoot an arrow at someone in public again, as you did today.
"Think carefully. If that servant had died, how could you still take the examinations? A general at war does not chase a cunning rabbit. We can't ruin your great ambitions over a moment's anger."
Meng Anci swayed this way and that as Jin Shanyao dried his hair. In a daze, he asked, "Then what should I do?"
Jin Shanyao thought for a moment. "Tell me, and I'll put a sack over his head and beat him up at night. No one will be any the wiser."
It was an ordinary remark, but Meng Anzhi took it to heart. Her younger brother had to take the imperial examinations and become an official; he couldn't have a stain on his name. She was a girl, so she couldn't take the examinations or become an official.
Then she would do those things. From now on, whenever it was inconvenient for Anci to act, she would take care of it.
That year, Meng Anzhi was six years old, yet she made the biggest decision of her life.
After buying a shop, Jin Shanyao wanted to buy some people. One day, she and Meng Anzhi came to a slave market.
The broker was shrewd and quick-witted. At a glance, she recognized Jin Shanyao as the master who found people through divination, and her face immediately broke into a broad smile. "Miss Jin, what sort are you looking to buy? Let me introduce you to a few."
Jin Shanyao waved her hand and looked down the line, starting with the first person. Anyone too old wouldn't do; they couldn't work. Anyone too young wouldn't do either; they couldn't work.
Then a mass of red fortune caught her eye. Jin Shanyao was surprised. This fortune was even denser than Magistrate Yang's; presumably, its owner's identity was extraordinary.
Jin Shanyao followed the fortune with her gaze and saw an iron cage. Inside was a youth of about eighteen or nineteen, his wounds crisscrossing beneath his tattered clothes.
He was sturdy and strong, with thick calluses on the webs between his thumbs and forefingers. At a glance, he was clearly a martial artist.
Perhaps Jin Shanyao had lingered too long, for the young man suddenly raised his head, his sharp, handsome phoenix eyes meeting hers directly.
Their eyes met, and mockery and danger appeared in his gaze. Over the past few months, he had frightened away many buyers with that expression.
Unfortunately for him, Jin Shanyao wasn't human. She could tell at a glance that his status was either wealthy or noble. As a person of great fortune, he was bound to know the six arts of a gentleman. She would buy him and have him teach the little tots.
"How much for him?"
Seeing someone ask the price of this hot potato, the broker bared her teeth in a smile. "Oh, Miss Jin, you have a good eye. Don't mind all his wounds. He's pretty and strong. You won't lose out buying him."
She kicked the cage. "If you want him, give me seventy taels."
"Seventy taels? He can't even sit up straight. He doesn't have some illness, does he?"
The broker glanced sidelong at her, tucked her hands into her sleeves, and sniffled. "I don't know how many hands he's passed through. Since he came to me, he's tried to run several times. I subdued him with two packets of knockout powder."
As she spoke, she pulled out a handkerchief and wiped her nose. "We live in the same county town; we're bound to run into each other. I can't cheat you. I bought him for sixty-five taels, and I won't make a profit. Just cover the cost of the knockout powder I've used these past few days."
Jin Shanyao reached out and gripped Lu Chi's jaw. Under his astonished gaze, she pried his mouth open and inspected his teeth and tongue with an air of expertise.
Lu Chi was filled with shame and anger. If his body hadn't been limp, how could a weak woman have handled him as she pleased?
Outrageous! She actually dares rummage through my hair? Am I an ox or a horse? Does she have to inspect my coat too?!
Lu Chi struggled hard, but Jin Shanyao suddenly let go. Thud... His head struck the iron cage, and tears sprang to his eyes from the pain.
A dragon in shallow water is mocked by shrimp; a tiger fallen on the plains is bullied by dogs.
Just as he was thinking of what he would do someday... Jin Shanyao drawled, "I'll take him."
Lu Chi looked up in astonishment. He... had been bought?
For seventy taels.
This is outrageous! If word of my price reached the capital, wouldn't people laugh their teeth out?
Jin Shanyao left him there and led Meng Anzhi on another couple of circuits around the market. She picked out two girls of fifteen or sixteen, who were paternal cousins.
Their family had run out of ways to survive because of the famine and had sold them.
After Jin Shanyao paid, the two girls held hands and followed her without a word.
Jin Shanyao came to the cage and kicked its door. "Can you walk?"
Lu Chi glanced sidelong at her. She was utterly vulgar, not even as good as a maid in his household.
Jin Shanyao signaled for the broker to open the door. The broker pulled a bunch of keys from her waist and opened the cage with a clatter.
"Miss Jin, we'll go by the yamen and have the contract drawn up. If he runs away or dies, you can't come looking for me."
Jin Shanyao didn't answer. She reached out, grabbed Lu Chi by the collar, and hauled him out.
Then she lifted him lightly and slung him over her shoulder. Lu Chi clung limply to Jin Shanyao like a noodle, swaying back and forth as she walked.
His face flushed bright red, and his tongue was too limp to form a complete word. After a long while, he finally managed to mumble, "Just you wait. One day, I'll have you put to death."
Jin Shanyao didn't know what he was mumbling about and couldn't be bothered to listen. Holding Meng Anzhi's hand and bringing the two maids along, she went straight to the shop.
The shop was empty, without even a place to sit. Jin Shanyao threw him onto the floor, took out the contracts, and looked them over.
"Gouya, Qing Zhaodi, Qing Pandi." Jin Shanyao frowned. Those names sounded awful. She glanced at Gouya, who was baring his teeth at her from the floor, and decided not to change his name.
She looked up at the two cousins. "You'll be Qing He, and you'll be Qing Yang."
The two girls nodded woodenly. They had never been servants and didn't know how to pay their respects, so they merely copied the maids in town and awkwardly called her "Mistress."
Jin Shanyao still had to buy furniture, so she told them, "This will be your home from now on. Get familiar with the place first. I'm going to find a carpenter."
With that, she took Meng Anzhi by the hand and headed out. Qing He mustered her courage and said, "Mistress, you can leave the young miss with us."
Jin Shanyao waved her hand. If Meng Anci didn't have to attend school, she would have wanted nothing more than to hang both children around her neck.