Chapter Summaries

Zhou Wanwan stopped Liu Family Village’s officers from arresting its people and staged an Underworld judgment to frighten them. The constables were forced to confess their wrongdoing as King Yan warned them to leave the village alone.

• Gu Chaoyang warned Liu Xiuyuan that officers planned to blame Liu Family Village for Jiang Family Village’s missing grain, but Liu Xiuyuan sought Zhou Wanwan’s instructions instead of fleeing.
• Zhou Wanwan told Liu Xiuyuan to let the officers come, and more than a dozen officers arrived with Jiang Wu to arrest the villagers and demand silver or control of the village.
• Zhou Wanwan incapacitated the officers with incense, took their silver, and arranged a staged Underworld scene with Liu Family Village residents disguised as ghost bailiffs.
• The chief constable and the other officers were brought before Zhou Wanwan impersonating King Yan, who accused them of abusing their authority and threatened consequences if they harmed Liu Family Village again.
• King Yan ordered the officers to write down and fingerprint confessions detailing their misdeeds.

After frightening the prefecture constables into leaving Liu Family Village alone, Zhou Wanwan organized the villagers to sell charcoal and stock up on grain as prices rose. She bought more than a hundred taels' worth of grain from the county yamen and arranged for it to be delivered discreetly, while warnings about Jiang Family Village’s powerful connections left the threat unresolved.

• The constables woke from their encounter with Lord King Yan, realized it had been real, and fled after vowing not to trouble Liu Family Village again.
• Zhou Wanwan rested, ate Liu Su'e’s meal, then checked the villagers’ charcoal production and told Liu Dalang to sell charcoal and buy grain and cotton before supplies ran out.
• Zhou Wanwan asked Lin Shouyi to help purchase grain and learned the constables had come from the prefecture; Lin Shouyi warned her that Jiang Family Village had powerful connections.
• The prefecture chief constable warned Jiang Wu not to cross Liu Family Village, but refused to explain why, and Jiang Wu remained unconvinced and baffled.
• At the county yamen, Zhou Wanwan bought more than a hundred taels’ worth of coarse grain despite sharply increased prices, arranged for the carts to deliver it to the village, and Lin Shouyi’s second uncle offered to include some unrecorded weapons.

Zhou Wanwan gathered weapons, quilts, and medicinal herbs for Liu Family Village, then organized lessons and intensive combat training. She led villagers deep into the mountains to find iron, where they encountered wild boars and opened fire.

• Zhou Wanwan bought bows, arrows, broadswords, Heaven-Shaking Thunder, crossbows, halberds, and quilts, then traded charcoal for medicinal herbs.
• Zhou Wanwan refused to give food or quilts to starving people blocking the road, and Liu Family Village drove them away with bows and arrows.
• Zhou Wanwan arranged for three teachers to educate Liu Family Village's children and trained the older children and young adults in writing, running, martial arts, and archery.
• Zhou Wanwan asked Lingbao where to find iron, and Lingbao led her and more than twenty villagers deep into the mountains.
• Zhou Wanwan and the villagers shot at a group of wild boars, and Zhou Qingyan and Zhou Wanwan used their crossbows to target two charging boars.

Zhou Wanwan discovered that Jiang Family Village had secretly mined an iron ore deposit and arranged for Liu Family Village to report it in exchange for official posts. The chapter ended with Old Liu and Liu Xiuyuan appointed as village officials, while Zhou Wanwan kept the recovered ore for later use.

• Zhou Wanwan heard plants say that Jiang Family Village had found iron ore beneath black rocks and had been mining it in secret for over a month.
• Jiang Wu said he planned to trade the ore for wealth or an official post and threatened to destroy Liu Family Village once he gained power.
• Zhou Wanwan and Liu Xiuyuan confronted the situation, and Zhou Wanwan had people carry the mined iron ore back to Liu Family Village.
• Zhou Wanwan brought Old Liu, Liu Xiuyuan, and Lin Shouyi to the county yamen and offered Second Uncle Lin the iron mine's location in exchange for posts for her maternal grandfather and the village chief.
• Second Uncle Lin and the county magistrate agreed to the arrangement, and Old Liu and Liu Xiuyuan received official posts and a hundred taels of silver for Liu Family Village.

Zhou Wanwan oversaw the smelting of iron for Liu Family Village and prepared to make crossbows, but bandits from Black Wind Stronghold arrived demanding valuables. After her archers frightened them into surrender, she forced them to pay compensation and let them go.

• Zhou Wanwan followed Lingbao's instructions to smelt iron, and the village blacksmiths successfully produced a block of good-quality iron.
• Liu Xiuyuan told Zhou Wanwan that Liu Family Village's residents had many useful trades and skills.
• Zhou Wanwan went to prepare designs for crossbows, but Zhou Qingyan warned her that armed bandits had come to the village.
• Zhou Wanwan confronted the bandit chief, who revealed that someone had offered five hundred taels for the villagers' heads and then begged for mercy when archers surrounded them.
• Zhou Wanwan demanded fifty sacks of grain, a hundred taels of silver, and the bandits' three horses as compensation, then let them leave.

Zhou Wanwan planned to fortify Liu Family Village and put its villagers to work making bricks, with Lingbao explaining how to fire them. She also began planning paper production, including oiled paper for greenhouses and paper for writing and household use.

• Zhou Wanwan decided to seal the routes into Liu Family Village with a stone wall, but balked when Liu Xiuyuan estimated that large city-wall bricks would cost over a thousand taels.
• Lingbao advised making ordinary bricks from local clay, and Zhou Wanwan had villagers gather clay and follow Lingbao’s instructions for preparing and firing it.
• Liu Xiuyuan assigned the villagers to make charcoal and bricks while the women cleared land for crops, and Zhou Wanwan considered building greenhouses for winter vegetables.
• Lingbao explained how to make oiled paper from paper mulberry bark and tung oil, which Zhou Wanwan planned to use for greenhouses.
• Zhou Wanwan considered making writing paper and toilet paper, recalling methods that used bark, rice straw, wheat straw, and bamboo fibers.

Zhou Wanwan’s village completed its greenhouses and gardens, but Jiang Wu accused them of stealing an iron mine and threatened them. After Jiang Family Village attacked that night, Zhou Wanwan treated two children who had been shot and planned to settle the score.

• Zhou Wanwan and the villagers finished making oil-paper greenhouse covers, planted sweet potatoes and vegetables, and prepared more than fifty plots.
• Jiang Wu arrived with dozens of people and demanded that Liu Family Village return iron ore, but Zhou Wanwan insisted they had reported the state-owned mine to the authorities.
• After Jiang Wu left, Zhou Wanwan ordered thirty villagers to patrol with bows and arrows, but that night attackers from Jiang Family Village shot Liu Goudan and Liu Wang and set houses on fire.
• Zhou Wanwan removed Liu Goudan’s arrow and treated Liu Wang’s chest wound with needles and hemostatic powder; Liu Wang’s fever subsided by morning.
• Zhou Wanwan said she would settle the score with Jiang Family Village that night, then Liu Su’e mistook Little Ginseng soaking in medicinal herbs for a large ginseng root.

Zhou Wanwan learned that armed men planned to crush her group with falling rocks, then discovered that Zhou Fuyu had arranged the attack with masked men from Eagle's Beak Stronghold. The chapter revealed that Old Madam Zhou had previously saved the stronghold’s chief, Zhou Chong, by warning him of an ambush, and had urged him to stockpile grain for a coming drought.

• Little Ginseng offered to ask around for the Songhua stone deposit, and Zhou Wanwan explained that gunpowder could be made from saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal.
• Zhou Wanwan bought large quantities of saltpeter and sulfur with Liu Xiuyuan, while Zhou Qingyan questioned what the materials were for.
• A mock strawberry plant warned Zhou Wanwan that black-clad men planned to drop loose rocks on her group, so she led more than twenty people up the mountain to investigate.
• Zhou Wanwan overheard a masked man and Zhou Fuyu discussing their plan to crush the group and praising Old Madam Zhou’s accurate fortune-telling.
• The story recounted how Old Madam Zhou had warned Zhou Chong of an ambush, saving him and his men, and how he rewarded her with supplies and five hundred taels of silver.
• Old Madam Zhou advised Zhou Chong to prepare plenty of grain because a drought would come later.

Zhou Wanwan and the villagers robbed Zhou Fuyu’s bandits, then successfully made a small gunpowder charge and began searching for the Songhua stone vein. The trees revealed that people traveled to the vein at night along a nearby road, giving Zhou Wanwan a lead to follow.

• Zhou Wanwan’s group used incense to knock out Zhou Fuyu and his men, stole their valuables, and left them bound and hanging from trees above a cliff.
• Liu Xiuyuan reported that the group had collected 165 taels of silver and several pieces of jewelry, while Zhou Wanwan absorbed spiritual energy from Zhou Fuyu’s jade pendant.
• Zhou Wanwan returned home, ate a meal prepared by Liu Su'e, and began experimenting with gunpowder alongside the village craftsmen.
• Zhou Wanwan’s gunpowder mixture exploded like a firecracker, and she told her family to keep their new weapon secret.
• Zhou Wanwan asked nearby plants about the Songhua stone vein, and the trees revealed that people visited it at night via a road nearby.

Zhou Wanwan and Liu Dalang followed the Jiang family’s cautious mining party to a hidden songhua stone vein, then brought villagers from Liu Family Village to collect stone. After Lingbao explained how to make songhua inkstones, Zhou Wanwan asked Liu Shiyan to craft some, and he summoned his son and grandson to do the work.

• Zhou Wanwan and Liu Dalang overheard Jiang family members boast about their songhua inkstone order and threaten to hunt the people of Liu Family Village as prey.
• Zhou Wanwan followed the mining party for more than two hours, using the trees’ gossip to track them to a hidden songhua stone vein.
• After the Jiang family miners left at daybreak, Zhou Wanwan and her companions entered the mine and found a passage filled with songhua stone.
• Zhou Wanwan summoned more than four hundred villagers, who loaded songhua stone into carts and made seven or eight trips.
• Lingbao explained how to select, shape, and polish stone into songhua inkstones, and Zhou Wanwan decided the villagers should try making them.
• Liu Xiuyuan brought Zhou Wanwan to Liu Shiyan, who claimed the craft for his family and called for his son and grandson to help.

Zhou Wanwan arranged new designs for Songhua inkstones while Lingbao raided the Jiang family’s study and medicine room for inkstones, books, silver notes, and herbs. After deciding to sell her village’s inkstones far cheaper than the Jiang family’s, she took them to a bookshop, where an assistant insulted her and she predicted the shop would close.

• Liu Shiyan’s eldest son finished a Songhua inkstone, and Zhou Wanwan drew several designs for him to carve.
• Lingbao and Donkey Friend sneaked into the Jiang family’s study, taking Songhua inkstones and books, then emptied the medicine room of its herbs.
• Jiang Wu discovered the thefts and ordered the village searched, while Lingbao returned home with the haul.
• Zhou Wanwan inspected the stolen inkstones and decided to sell her village’s versions for 30 taels instead of 300.
• Zhou Wanwan brought more than twenty inkstones to a bookshop, where an assistant mocked her appearance and questioned whether she could afford books.
• Zhou Wanwan told the assistant that his bookshop would eventually close.

Zhou Wanwan offered to treat Gu Chaoyang’s son Gu Sinian and began acupuncture, while advising Gu Chaoyang to sell his struggling bookshop before a severe drought. After the village chief and his men threatened to take the shop, Gu Chaoyang decided to sell and asked whether he could move to Zhou Wanwan’s village.

• Zhou Wanwan offered to treat Gu Sinian, and Gu Chaoyang agreed after she explained the cause of his condition and the treatment plan.
• Zhou Wanwan gave Gu Sinian acupuncture, prescribed medicinal decoctions, and told Gu Chaoyang that treatment could restore his senses within three to six months.
• Zhou Wanwan urged Gu Chaoyang to sell the bookshop before a severe drought, but he dismissed her warning and trusted the imperial court to handle the coming locust plague.
• The village chief and his men threatened Gu Chaoyang and announced that they would force him to sell the bookshop for 100 taels.
• Gu Chaoyang said he planned to sell the shop and asked Zhou Wanwan if he could move to her village because he could not get along with his own village.

Zhou Wanwan met the newly appointed county magistrate's wife, Madam Cheng, and learned that her daughter Cheng Yueyao could speak when she felt comfortable. She arranged to sell Songhua inkstones through Madam Cheng and warned her to stockpile grain and water as drought approached.

• Gu Chaoyang agreed to settle outside Zhou Wanwan's village, sell his bookshop, and use 200 taels of the proceeds to buy grain despite Chen Dongmei's protest.
• Zhou Wanwan met Madam Cheng, who offered her 50 taels a month to accompany Cheng Yueyao as a study companion.
• Cheng Yueyao saw Lingbao, called out to her, and giggled, prompting Madam Cheng to realize her daughter had spoken.
• Madam Cheng inspected the Songhua inkstones and agreed to buy them from Zhou Wanwan for 50 taels each to resell.
• Zhou Wanwan warned Madam Cheng that drought was coming and advised her to stockpile grain and water, leaving Madam Cheng eager to know how she had learned this.

Zhou Wanwan warned Madam Cheng that a long drought was likely, prompting her to stockpile grain and buy Zhou Wanwan’s Songhua inkstones. Meanwhile, Gu Chaoyang’s wife divorced him and left with Su Peng, while Gu Chaoyang blamed himself and explained that Gu Sinian had once been clever before villagers injured his head.

• Zhou Wanwan told Madam Cheng that a severe, prolonged drought was likely, and Madam Cheng agreed to buy grain and all twenty of Zhou Wanwan’s Songhua inkstones for a thousand taels of silver.
• Madam Cheng offered to exchange Zhou Wanwan’s silver for grain and invited her to visit Yueyao the next day.
• Gu Chaoyang’s wife demanded a divorce, accusing him of wasting the family’s money and refusing to take Gu Sinian to the countryside.
• Gu Chaoyang agreed to give Meiniang a hundred and fifty taels, and they divorced at the county yamen.
• Su Peng left with Meiniang, while Gu Chaoyang sat dazed and blamed himself; Zhou Wanwan reassured him, and he said villagers had smashed Gu Sinian’s head because they were jealous of his cleverness.

Zhou Wanwan drove Old Madam Zhou and the people from Zhou Family Village away when they came to confront her, then planned to retaliate with a lesson of her own. She made goat-milk tea for her family and checked the greenhouse, where Lingbao offered to help the leafy greens grow.

• Old Madam Zhou accused Zhou Wanwan of stealing silver and harming her son, but Zhou Wanwan faced down the armed visitors with villagers carrying bows and arrows, forcing them to leave.
• Zhou Wanwan told her family that they needed to teach Zhou Family Village a lesson without killing anyone, and explained how their heated greenhouses could grow crops through winter.
• Liu Su'e brought goat's milk, and Zhou Wanwan made milk tea that her family and Lingbao enjoyed.
• Zhou Wanwan said she would treat her father's legs in a few days and reflected that she could not help Wild Field Village families who had spent their money on land instead of grain.
• At the vegetable greenhouse, Zhou Wanwan clasped the imperial green jadeite as Lingbao offered to bathe and help the leafy greens grow.

Zhou Wanwan used jadeite energy to accelerate the growth of medicinal herbs, then went to the Cheng residence to begin accompanying Cheng Yueyao in her studies. Madam Cheng welcomed her as a goddaughter, and Zhou Wanwan entered the schoolroom with Yueyao to meet the other young ladies.

• Zhou Wanwan tested how jadeite energy could help plants grow, and Lingbao offered her the jade pieces he had collected.
• Zhou Wanwan planted medicinal herbs in a heated greenhouse and used a Hetian black jade thumb ring to make them grow.
• Madam Cheng summoned Zhou Wanwan to the residence, welcomed her warmly, gave her a jadeite bangle, and told her she would be Yueyao's study companion.
• The wet nurse criticized Zhou Wanwan's plain appearance and instructed Yueyao on proper conduct, while Zhou Wanwan sensed the wet nurse's hostility.
• Zhou Wanwan took Cheng Yueyao to the schoolroom, where the maids identified the daughters of officials and prominent families studying there.

Zhou Wanwan defended herself against the Cheng Family wet nurse and the young ladies who mocked her, then proved her calligraphy skill in a wager with Lu Lan. She won Lu Lan’s jewelry, while Cheng Yueyao’s unexpected speech left the teacher and students astonished.

• The wet nurse insulted Zhou Wanwan, but Cheng Yueyao spoke up to stop Zhou Wanwan from leaving and warned her that the wet nurse might hit her.
• Wen Zhiyu criticized Cheng Yueyao for not completing her writing, and Lu Lan and the other young ladies mocked Zhou Wanwan for being a country girl and a study companion.
• Lu Lan wagered her jewelry that Zhou Wanwan could not write, while Cheng Yueyao offered her own jewelry if Zhou Wanwan lost; Zhou Wanwan asked the teacher to write an agreement.
• Zhou Wanwan wrote a passage from Mencius in impressive calligraphy, earning the teacher’s praise and winning the wager.
• Lu Lan had her maids remove all her jewelry, and Zhou Wanwan put it into her bag.

Zhou Wanwan discovered that Cheng Yueyao’s wet nurse was drugging and mistreating her, and that the wet nurse planned to marry Cheng Yueyao to her lazy ten-year-old son. She learned from a camellia where the wet nurse’s family lived, while Cheng Yueyao remained asleep in the neighboring courtyard.

• Zhou Wanwan offered Cheng Yueyao half the jewelry, but Cheng Yueyao refused and hinted that it would not truly belong to her.
• After embroidery lessons, Zhou Wanwan visited Cheng Yueyao and discovered that a pastry contained powdered sour jujube seed meant to make her sleepy.
• Cheng Yueyao began to tell Zhou Wanwan that her wet nurse was frightening, but the wet nurse arrived and took her away.
• Zhou Wanwan heard the courtyard plants say that the wet nurse drugged and mistreated Cheng Yueyao, and Lingbao confirmed that Cheng Yueyao had fallen asleep.
• Two maids brought Zhou Wanwan drugged dishes, and she learned from the camellia that the wet nurse wanted Cheng Yueyao to marry her ten-year-old son.
• The camellia told Zhou Wanwan how to find the side courtyard where the wet nurse’s family lived.

Zhou Wanwan was accused by the wet nurse of poisoning her son after he developed diarrhea, and she agreed to have both their rooms searched. Constables found medicinal herbs in Zhou Wanwan’s room and another pile in the wet nurse’s, leaving the accusation unresolved.

• Zhou Wanwan delivered food to the wet nurse’s son, then Lingbao returned with stolen supplies that Zhou Wanwan loaded into a carriage with her family’s help.
• The wet nurse accused Zhou Wanwan of causing her son’s illness, while Madam Cheng defended Zhou Wanwan and disputed the wet nurse’s account of Miss Yueyao’s opinion of her.
• Zhou Wanwan pointed out that the osmanthus cakes contained morning glory seeds and challenged the wet nurse to involve the authorities and search both rooms.
• Madam Cheng summoned constables, who searched the rooms and found packets of unidentified medicinal herbs in Zhou Wanwan’s room.
• A constable reported finding another pile of medicinal herbs in the wet nurse’s room, and the wet nurse questioned the constables’ discovery.

Zhou Wanwan exposed a chest of harmful powders and Yueyao’s stolen jewelry in Feng Caigu’s room, but Lord Cheng defended Feng Caigu and ordered Zhou Wanwan punished. Madam Cheng doubted her husband and cousin’s conduct, and Zhou Wanwan offered to show her something in the side courtyard.

• The physician identified the powders in Feng Caigu’s chest as dangerous substances, while Madam Cheng recognized the jewelry beneath them as Yueyao’s stolen ornaments.
• Feng Caigu denied poisoning or stealing, but Madam Cheng confronted her over the evidence.
• Lord Cheng arrived and sided with Feng Caigu, blamed Zhou Wanwan, and ordered the guards to give her ten strokes with the paddle.
• Madam Cheng objected that Zhou Wanwan was only five and pointed out that the incriminating items had been found in Feng Caigu’s room.
• After Lord Cheng and Feng Caigu left, Zhou Wanwan asked Madam Cheng whether anything seemed odd about the two of them and invited her to the side courtyard.