In her previous life, when Madam had deceived her into being sold to the old woman, Qiqian’er hadn’t known a single character. Yet Madam had claimed she was literate and could do arithmetic.

Never mind reading—back then, if she had a few hundred copper coins to count, she’d have to stack them into piles of a hundred each, and once she’d accumulated ten such piles, she’d need string to tie them into a proper strand.

Not just her—throughout all of Qingfeng, how many men even knew arithmetic? Even someone like Madam Wang, the mistress of the household, had barely studied a few years herself, having only learned the abacus from the household’s accountant in her younger days, able to read half a letter, sometimes needing to ask others what it meant.

In those times, quite unlike the peaceful era that would come later, literate people were a rarity, especially among women.

Pitifully, in her previous life, Qiqian’er had been bought for ten strings of cash plus fifty catties of grain, purely because she was supposedly literate and could do sums.

The old woman had paid the price for a literate girl.

That money hadn’t come easily to the old woman either—the grain had been scraped from her own household’s rations, and the money was compensation silver given after Stinkhead’s father had died.

When the old woman returned home and discovered she’d been cheated, she fell seriously ill from fury. Stingy and petty her whole life, having suffered such a loss, one can well imagine what life was like for Qiqian’er afterward.

However diligently and dutifully she served, she still had to endure it, endure it, endlessly enduring for over a decade until the old woman finally died, and only then did she feel she could truly breathe, could finally sleep soundly through the night.

Though she could sleep then, Qiqian’er never truly learned how to rest properly—her heart remained unsettled, and she had to break her sleep into eight segments each night, never once tasting a truly sweet, restful sleep until the day she died.

Thinking of the past made Qiqian’er’s heart ache, but for the sake of her beloved child, the one she cherished with her whole heart, she was willing to endure this suffering all over again.

Of course, now she wasn’t afraid at all—now that she could read and do arithmetic, if you handed her an abacus, she could review ten account books in a single day.

During her half-lifetime in Quanhou Street, no one had bothered her much given her established status and rank—Stinkhead had left her a fair amount of land for her old age support too.

Back then, lower-ranking officials couldn’t afford to live in Yanjing, so their families were settled in the new Qingfeng city instead. By the time Quanhou Village had become known as Quanhou Street, the neighbors around her had all become households of minor officials, and it was from that point on that she’d begun to broaden her horizons.

In her later years, she’d gone out and socialized, mingling with the wives and matrons of official families. By then she’d learned to conduct herself properly in society, picked up all sorts of odds and ends of knowledge, gained the experience of a respectable hostess—yet still unsatisfied deep down, she had earnestly sought out a tutor and read a good number of books. But what use had it been?

Grown old, grown wise, grown to understand everything—and then it was simply time to die.

Hearing that this girl was literate, the old woman’s interest was thoroughly piqued. She hurried over, looking Qiqian’er up and down. With her worldly experience, no matter how she looked at her, she couldn’t see anything of a scholarly family’s child in Qiqian’er—this girl looked exactly like an ordinary child from a suffering household. And so she asked seriously: “Tell me, this little girl can read?”

Qiqian’er kept her head down and said nothing.

Madam Wang started slightly, her heart trembling though she showed nothing on her face, and nodded firmly: “Of course! Though not extensively, she can certainly read through an ordinary storybook. Now, old madam…” Fearing the old woman might press further, she quickly changed the subject, lowering her voice: “I won’t hide it from you—you must have noticed yourself, given all this turmoil these past years, how many girls this age are even still alive these days? You look and see.”

This remark made the old woman suddenly recall the households behind her in the village, one after another remarrying with children in tow, families cobbling together second unions—indeed, it had been some time since she’d seen a nearly-grown girl.

Disaster and famine were everywhere; when ordinary families fled, the first thing they abandoned was always their daughters.

It wasn’t that there were none at all—there were thin girls like this to be found too—but literate ones who could do sums? Truly none to be found.

The old woman pondered this silently. Now that things were settling down, a grown girl would surely become precious. Once her sons and grandsons returned tomorrow, surely someone needed a wife to warm the bed? But who should get her? This girl… hmm, might as well give her to Stinkhead.

Poor Stinkhead—his uncles and cousins had at least kept a family member or two each, had companions.

But this child had lost both parents and brothers, all alone, without so much as a proper home, cold hearth and stove.

With that thought, the old woman raised her eyes with even greater disdain, and said to Madam Wang with even more contemptuous dismissal: “So what if she can read? Can’t eat it, can’t drink it.”

Madam Wang, having spent half her life dealing with village women and estate stewards, hearing the old woman slander the girl like this, felt her own heart settle at once.

She smiled and said to the old woman: “Well then, if that’s how you feel, never mind it… Ah! It’s just that our old home is so far away, two or three thousand li, and I’m worried this child won’t survive the journey… I’ll miss her too. Forget it, forget it! If she marries so far away, from now on if anything happens at her husband’s family, we, her own family, won’t be able to look after her either…”

As she spoke, she pulled Qiqian’er and turned to walk away. Qiqian’er let herself be dragged along.

They had gone only a few steps when they heard the old woman call out loudly behind them: “Hey! Hey! Wait, wait… Just how much do you want for this girl?”

Madam Wang stopped and turned back, then, with shameless boldness, held out her palm and said: “Old madam, this girl of mine—I’d want a hundred catties of fine grain, and twenty strings of cash. After all, she’s literate, can read.”

At the wounded soldiers’ camp, Physician Cheng was busy managing chaos along with two apprentice attendants, wishing he had extra hands, when Meng Wanquan, missing an arm, came running into the tent.

Meng Wanquan hurried in, his eyes scanning around until he spotted Physician Cheng, then, without regard for whether the man was busy, grabbed his arm and pulled him along.

Physician Cheng, somewhat annoyed, walked a few steps before shaking off the arm and scolding: “You troublemaker, why aren’t you out there minding the old woman and her precious goats? Why’d you come dragging me off? Go on, go on, before someone else snatches that old woman away—how will you explain that to Colonel Chen?”

Meng Wanquan grinned, his rough face taking on a rather sly expression, and said with a chuckle: “Sir, if you please—that old woman’s bought a bride for Dasheng! She wants you to come out and draw up the paperwork.”

Hearing this, Physician Cheng’s expression changed at once. He shook Meng Wanquan off forcefully and reprimanded him: “That old woman doesn’t understand propriety, and you’re being foolish too? Just yesterday it was officially decreed that for the time being, no official or officer is to buy or sell people—and you’re doing this now? Isn’t this going to ruin Colonel Chen’s prospects?”

Meng Wanquan choked at this, slapping his own mouth with his one hand: “My mistake, my mistake! Look at this mouth of mine—it’s not buying a person! I know full well it’s forbidden these days! Physician Cheng, it’s the old woman arranging a betrothal for Colonel Chen—that’s why she’s asking you to come out, to serve as witness and write up the marriage contract.”

Physician Cheng, half-believing this, asked: “Really?”

Meng Wanquan nodded repeatedly: “Really! Really! I wouldn’t dare lie to you about this. They’ve already agreed on the price—oh! The betrothal gifts, I mean. Please come with me quickly, and bring your good sturdy paper and inkstone, we’ll need them shortly.”

Physician Cheng let himself be pulled along again, asking as they walked: “How much did the old woman pay for this betrothal?”

Meng Wanquan answered: “Fifty catties of coarse grain, ten strings of cash.”

Physician Cheng was stunned: “How much?!”

Given how little the wounded soldiers’ camp received per person these days just to survive—each getting only a few taels of coarse grain—fifty catties of grain? That was enough, out in Qingfeng city, to buy five presentable, well-turned-out kitchen maids.

That old woman never let an opportunity slip past her—she’d pick up even a piece of dog dung to bring home if it had any use. And yet she was willing to spend such a large sum?

“That’s the exact amount! Ten strings of cash! Fifty catties of coarse grain.”

“Could she have been cheated?”

“No such thing! How could she be—that old woman’s as shrewd as a monkey. It’s just that the girl, well, they say she’s literate.”

Physician Cheng understood then—that explained it.

Throughout the entire wounded soldiers’ camp, close to a thousand people, plus another four or five hundred camp dependents, only two or three could read and write, and those were all men.

Knowing the girl was literate, Physician Cheng found himself growing inexplicably solemn. As they walked, he said with firm conviction: “If—if she’s truly literate, then that old woman has gotten quite the bargain.”

Meng Wanquan agreed as well, adding enviously: “Isn’t that the truth!”

In times of disaster and chaos, people were treated no better than livestock—sometimes worse.

Buying a single ox required a broker, a livestock market, and clearance through the government office in three separate steps. But nowadays, buying and selling people was as simple as one hand passing over money and the other handing over the person.

Ah, but nowadays even silver and copper coins weren’t worth much—what mattered now was grain. Whoever held grain in hand was considered a first-class household, a person of first-class means.

And that old woman was one who had grain.

The two men walked briskly to the great willow tree outside the wounded soldiers’ camp, where a crowd of family dependents, having heard the news, now stood three layers deep around the area.

Physician Cheng was a hasty sort, straightforward without much guile. The moment he arrived, Madam Wang called over Qiqian’er’s half-brother by blood, Huo Yunrui, to speak with him.

Huo Yunrui had properly passed the child-scholar examination and had seen the sights of the capital, Yanjing—a proper young master. In the past, he would never have thought much of someone like Physician Cheng; though everyone addressed him as “Physician,” as a healer managing the wounded within the army, by old convention, a craftsman-healer ranked as a lower-class occupation.

But now, for the sake of fifty catties of food, he had no choice but to force a smile and humble himself to converse with the man.

Physician Cheng, receiving the respect he desired, readily agreed, and served as matchmaker, even writing out the marriage contract in duplicate. Once all three parties had pressed their fingerprints to it, the matter was considered settled.

Madam Wang, ever the clever one, then had Huo Yunrui fetch a stick of fine ink, wax-paper-wrapped, from the handcart, to present to Physician Cheng as a token of thanks for serving as matchmaker.

This gesture won the family even greater favor in Physician Cheng’s eyes, and he now looked upon the thin, sallow-haired little girl with rather more approval.

Being thin and sallow was nothing serious—staying with this old woman, she’d never go hungry, and a few days of proper feeding would soon give her a presentable appearance.

Once the matter was settled, he even kindly said to the old woman, Chen Wu Shi: “Old madam, you’ve married yourself a fine grandson’s wife here.”

Having fulfilled a long-cherished wish, Chen Wu Shi looked out at the three-layer-deep crowd of dependents around her with an expression of pure smugness and pride, yet her mouth still couldn’t resist a bit of complaining: “Ah, such a young slip of a girl, not even two ounces of meat on those bones—look at those shoulders that can’t carry a thing, hands that can’t lift anything! I’ll have to spend more grain fattening her up. Ah well, only a family like ours would be softhearted enough to take her in—you can go ask Physician Cheng yourself, even I couldn’t bear to pass her by.”

She pointed at Qiqian’er, then at her own family members, saying: “Her old home is three thousand li away—if I hadn’t bought this girl, she’d surely have starved to death along the way.”

This remark left Physician Cheng thoroughly unimpressed, his mouth twisting in a wry expression.

These days, new nobility were as common as cattle hair, and there were plenty willing to pay handsomely, even with their newly acquired official caps, to marry a literate woman from a proper family, just to maintain appearances.

Never mind that in peaceful times such a match would have been hard enough to find—given the current circumstances, this old woman was purely getting a bargain while playing the martyr.

Physician Cheng, having taken a liking to the Huo family, and seeing this thin girl fall into the hands of such an old woman, then feeling the ink stick in his hand once more—a treasure passed down for generations from the Hanqing workshop, worth perhaps thirty strings of cash in earlier years, something a small pharmacy’s attending physician like himself would never have dared dream of owning—he couldn’t very well accept such a gift for nothing. With that thought, he stroked his beard and said: “Elder, marrying a good wife brings prosperity for three generations. Think about it—your family’s fortunes are rising now, and going forward, in your social dealings, if you want to maintain proper standing, you need someone literate in the family, don’t you agree?”

This was exactly what Chen Wu Shi had been thinking all along. These past years, how many lives had her family lost, and precisely at the moments of promotion too, always suffering silent losses. Military orders and commands, they understood none of it; even the intentions of their superiors, they could never quite figure out—truly, a litter of pig cubs stumbling through the world in human skin, every one of them hopelessly foolish.

From now on, things would be different from before—at least now they had someone who could read. The old woman’s heart swelled with pride, and looking again at Qiqian’er’s small, narrow eyes and sparse hair, she now found the girl a hundred times, a thousand times more pleasing.

She pursed her lips in a satisfied smile and said to Physician Cheng: “Thanks to your blessed words, sir. Starting tomorrow, I’ll have my grandson’s wife read the almanac to me every day.”

Having said this, the old woman even wiggled her neck proudly, calling out smugly to the family dependents nearby: “From now on, if anyone needs to check the almanac, just come to my house! No need to stand on ceremony!”

Hearing this, the women all voiced their agreement, and burst into laughter once more.

Madam Wang, seeing her son off tying up the grain sacks, glanced around and, with something on her mind, pulled Qiqian’er aside to a quiet spot.

Once they were safely alone, she pulled out a pair of silver earrings from her sleeve and pressed them into Qiqian’er’s hands, then took out the folded marriage contract and handed that over too.

Qiqian’er held the marriage contract without moving, and Madam Wang’s eyes reddened once more. She reached out, rarely, to stroke Qiqian’er’s head, her voice softening: “Good girl, do you remember the name your brother gave you?”

Qiqian’er nodded. In her previous life, she had received this same treatment—her half-brother, wanting to maintain the appearance of a proper scholarly family, had written her surname into the marriage contract.

Huo Qiqian.

“Good, as long as you remember!” Madam Wang pursed her lips, her heart still uneasy. She took hold of Qiqian’er’s hand and instructed her: “Seventh girl, you’re fortunate, you know—far more fortunate than I am! Look at this family—they’re clearly different, look at that old woman’s attire, newly risen nobility! From now on, just serve her well, and you’ll have good days ahead of you. Do you understand?”

Qiqian’er nodded dully once more.

Madam Wang pursed her lips, still needing to coax her with a smile, pointing at the marriage contract: “You must keep this safe. This is a proper, legitimate document. Tomorrow, if they don’t want you anymore, this contract will still give you standing wherever you go.”

And indeed it was so—even though that foolish girl thought it unimportant, when the old woman later wanted to cast her out as a mere servant, if Physician Cheng hadn’t stepped in with his authority, who knew where she might have ended up.

Qiqian’er turned and tucked the marriage contract into her sleeve.

Seeing her do this, Madam Wang let out a breath of relief and said with a smile: “There, that’s right. These next few days, just pretend to be sick, say you miss us, that you can’t bear to leave us—be clever about it, understand? If you slip up and get caught, I won’t spare you, understand?”

A sharp pain shot through her arm, and Qiqian’er, who had been trying to hold back her temper, finally snapped. Even now, still trying to deceive her?

Having long since grown impatient with being taken advantage of, Qiqian’er twisted her arm free, raised her sallow-haired head, and stared directly at Madam Wang with bright, sharp eyes: “Madam? Even now, who exactly do you think you’re trying to fool?”

Madam Wang startled, momentarily stunned.

Qiqian’er sneered: “Do you even know who that old woman is? Do you know where we are? Standing over there is an officer carrying a blade—and that blade of his has already tasted blood!”