With the manor in town gone, it actually turned out just as Old Master Lian said, "When wealth departs, people live in happiness." Lian Shouyi, Lian Shouli, Erlang, and Sanlang still went up the mountain to work, and perhaps truly having learned his lesson, Lian Shouyi put in more effort than before, earning more money, which he no longer kept to himself but brought back ho without skimming even a bit. In front of Old Master Lian and Lady Zhou, Lian Shouyi showed even greater filial piety.
Lady Gu’s days as the least favored daughter-in-law in Lady Zhou’s eyes were over, replaced by Lady He. On the day at the town, He Laoliu had not returned ho and it was unclear where he had gone. When Lian Shouyi and Lady He went to the He Family to collect debts, they only saw He Laoliu’s wife with several children. They couldn’t produce any money and were not only struggling for food and drink but also pleaded with Lian Shouyi and Lady He to show rcy on relatives and help them out, rather than watching them starve to death.
Lian Shouyi didn’t bother being polite with them and moved whatever movable items he could find in the He Family’s ho to the Lian Family’s, but even combined these things were not worth much silver.
Unable to recover the money, Lady He felt guilty. Lady Zhou chased her away, but of course, she wouldn’t leave. Lady Zhou harangued her daily—three als plus snacks and supper—leaving Lady He with no choice but to keep her head down and listen, all the rough chores of feeding pigs, feeding chickens, and lighting fires naturally fell onto Lady He’s shoulders. At altis, Lady Zhou’s tolerance for Lady He’s gluttony had vanished, reducing even the amount of food allocated to her. Thus, Lady He was left starving every day, craving everything she saw, and acting like a mouse avoiding a cat whenever she encountered Lady Zhou.
Zhao Xiue went to the county town to claim her dowry but returned empty-handed. When she fell sick upon arriving in town, and Erlang went to bring her back to the village, the Zhao Family cursed him and turned him away.
Beyond these incidents, the family’s life was surprisingly even more peaceful and harmonious than before.
The March breeze still held a hint of chill, but everyone knew it was the last vestige of winter. Once this period was over, it would be a ti of spring warmth and bright scenery. The branches of poplar trees sprouted tender buds resembling caterpillars, and the children of tenant farrs loved to snap off these branches and playfully tease each other with them.
The Lian Family children were no exception, and after Xiao Qi used such a branch to scare Lian Manman, Lian Manman did the sa, breaking off a branch to frighten Xiao Qi back. After playing around for a while and realizing they couldn’t scare each other anymore, they decided to team up and frighten soone else.
Lian Zhizhi and Lian Yeye were both harassed by them. These two were fine since, as children of tenant farrs, they were quite familiar with such things. However, Lian Duoduo ended up crying from fright; although she was technically a child of a tenant farr, she mostly lived in town and was more like a "sheltered lady," unfamiliar with the countryside and its trappings, never having labored in the fields or played wildly with other village children.
Xiao Qi didn’t attempt to scare Lian Yaya, feeling that Lian Yaya, who was a bit slow and often bullied by Si Lang and Liulang, deserved so pity.
The spring in the Thirty Mile Camp was very windy. Pinwheels were the children’s favorite toys, and the town’s market sold beautiful, colorful ones for a few copper coins each. Tenant farrs would never dream of spending money on such frivolities for their children, but the innate desire to play is not sothing that could ever be completely extinguished, even in the most destitute places.
The children of Thirty Mile Camp knew how to make their own pinwheels.
Lian Manman and the others had their own pocket money, but being frugal by habit, none of them were willing to spend money on pinwheels.
"Big sister, let’s make pinwheels," Xiao Qi suggested one day after school, upon completing howork, approaching Lian Manman with hopeful eyes beaming.
"Sure," Lian Manman agreed imdiately.
Giggling, the siblings took out a box from the cupboard, opened it, and inside were colorful papers: old New Year’s paintings torn from walls, red paper with flower prints from pastry boxes, and various other decorative papers used by shopkeepers to wrap goods. So of these were their own, others were collected.
Paper for making pinwheels needed to be a bit stiffer.
In the end, Lian Manman and Xiao Qi chose an old New Year painting. Not willing to use up the entire painting, Lian Manman cut off just a small portion, enough to make two squares of equal size.
To create the pinwheel, she folded the square piece of stiff paper diagonally from corner to corner, then made simple cuts along the fold lines from the corners toward the center. It was crucial not to cut all the way through—a margin about the width of two fingers was left around the center—then a nail or bamboo stick was used to affix the cut corners along the borders to the center, before finally anchoring it onto a wooden stick or straw. And with that, a pinwheel was complete.
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