Chapter 95: The Mountain
Sheng Wanyan completely lost her appetite after taking just a few bites. This meal felt so much like a classic, treacherous “Hongmen Banquet” that she figured it was safer to eat as little as possible.
In the end, Uncle Sheng and his family didn’t dare bring up the matter of the job placements again. When the time came to leave, they even escorted the city branch out the door with strained smiles plastered across their faces.
Despite the tension, Grandma Sheng didn’t let adult grievances affect the holiday spirit for the younger generation; before leaving, she handed out red envelopes to the children. Each envelope held exactly five cents, and the little ones were absolutely thrilled to receive them.
The literal second Grandpa Sheng stepped away from his brother’s threshold, his face turned thunderous.
Back inside Uncle Sheng’s house, the atmosphere was just as dark.
“Your younger brother is truly cold-blooded. To think his own biological brother’s family asks for a tiny bit of leverage, and he completely refuses to lend a hand,” Aunt Sheng grumbled, pacing the floor.
Hearing her continuous complaints, Uncle Sheng’s expression grew even more ominous. “Shut your mouth! If you keep spewing this utter nonsense, you can pack your bags and march straight back to your parents’ village.”
Aunt Sheng froze, staring at him in disbelief. “What did you just say? At our age, you actually have the nerve to threaten to send me back to my maiden home?!” She was well over sixty years old and had never expected to receive such a humiliating rebuke from her husband in her twilight years.
“If you completely alienate my brother’s household, who on earth are we supposed to turn to if a genuine crisis hits our clan in the future?” Uncle Sheng barked.
Aunt Sheng was notoriously petty and frequently offended the other families in the village. If a true disaster ever struck their compound, the local neighbors would likely stay as far away from them as possible.
“But no matter what… we are still blood brothers…” she stammered, her voice losing its edge.
Uncle Sheng merely shook his head, realizing she was entirely beyond saving. Just moments ago at the dinner table, she had literally cursed his brother’s only grandson to suffer a fatal military accident. If Grandpa Sheng hadn’t been bound to him by blood, anyone else hearing those words would have turned violent on the spot.
Sensing the absolute fury radiating from her husband’s face, Aunt Sheng finally clamped her mouth shut.
The moment they crossed the threshold of their own temporary home, Grandma Sheng exploded into a fit of angry scolding.
“To that woman, her own grandsons are precious treasures, but my Ozawa is just a common weed to be bartered away! Ozawa has endured seven grueling years in the military; heaven only knows how much blood and tears he had to shed behind the scenes to achieve his current rank. And yet, his own great-uncle’s household has the audacity to daydream about him magically appointing their boy to a high-ranking post in the regiment! They truly excel at plotting for their own gain at our expense.”
Grandma Sheng paced the room, her voice trembling with rage. In truth, every member of the household was furious. Uncle Sheng’s branch simply viewed them as a golden ticket, expecting the city family to seamlessly engineer futures for the country cousins without an ounce of shame.
“We are not returning next year.”
Grandpa Sheng issued the final decree, his voice clipped and heavy with grief. He was profoundly disappointed in his older brother. It was glaringly obvious that in Uncle Sheng’s heart, their sibling bond was merely a tool to be leveraged for his own descendants’ upward mobility.
Over the decades, Grandpa Sheng had swallowed countless slights for the sake of peace. They were the only two biological brothers left of their generation, and he had always felt a deep, instinctive reluctance to cut the cord. But now that they had reached their twilight years, his constant tolerance had only succeeded in making his older brother’s branch increasingly ruthless and predatory in their schemes.
Mother Sheng let out a quiet sigh. She had personally cut ties with those relatives in her heart long ago. If it hadn’t been for the old couple’s deep nostalgia for their birthplace, she wouldn’t have agreed to set foot in this village again.
Gurgle, gurgle…
Grandpa Sheng’s stomach suddenly let out a loud, protesting rumble. Since no one had managed to eat their fill during the disastrous dinner party, Mother Sheng quickly adjusted her apron and headed out to the kitchen to whip up a midnight snack.
The family quietly downed the hot food, wiped themselves down with basins of warm water, and retired to their respective rooms to rest.
Tomorrow marked the second day of the New Year, which meant Father and Mother Sheng would be making the mandatory holiday trek to her maternal family’s home in the adjacent village. Everyone knew another dramatic spectacular was waiting for them there.
Wanyan, however, found herself thoroughly enjoying the sheer theater of the holidays. The countryside lacked modern entertainment, but it certainly didn’t lack human drama. Furthermore, she had to admit that her grandmother’s confrontational instincts were spectacular; back in Chengdu, Grandma Sheng carried herself like a gentle, mild-mannered urban matriarch, but the moment she touched rural soil, she transformed into a fierce hedgehog bristling with lethal thorns. It was entirely likely that having endured far too much systemic injustice during her youth as a country bride, she had simply run completely out of patience for submissive tolerance.
Wanyan lay flat on the kang platform, tracking the faint shadows on the ceiling. The moment the breathing throughout the house turned deep and even, she quietly slipped into her spatial dimension.
She treated herself to a luxurious hot shower and executed her modern skincare routine. Suddenly craving something sharp and comforting, she manifested a package of instant hot-and-sour glass noodles from her warehouse stash, brewing them perfectly according to instructions.
Satiated and deeply relaxed, Wanyan strolled through her fields to harvest fresh fruit and inspect her rows of cultivation. She carefully excavated a premium, mature ginseng root. Her plan was to steep it into a high-grade medicinal liquor for Grandpa Sheng to drink back in the city. Enhanced with a few concentrated drops of her spiritual spring water, it would work wonders for the old man’s physical recovery.
She had systematically purchased seeds for every variety of traditional herb imaginable, transforming a massive plot of her spatial soil into a dense medicinal sanctuary. Having mastered medical sciences in her previous life, she understood precisely how invaluable these wild roots were—particularly ancient ginseng and Ganoderma lucidum, which could quite literally serve as life-saving tonics in a medical crisis.
Since they were currently embedded in a mountainous rural region, she could easily use the wilderness as a perfect cover story. She would stage a brief excursion up the slopes, “discover” the premium ginseng root, and bring it back without triggering a single shred of suspicion from her family.
Nodding to herself, Wanyan exited the space and drifted off to sleep, waiting for the perfect window to debut her find over the coming days.
On the morning of the second day of the festival, Father and Mother Sheng finalized their preparations to commute to her maternal village. Standard custom dictated that Wanyan accompany them, but Father Sheng felt intensely anxious about leaving the elderly grandparents entirely unattended in the old house.
Consequently, Wanyan was explicitly ordered to stay behind to guard the two elders. She hiddenly delighted at the arrangement; it provided the absolute perfect alibi to stage her mountain stroll later in the afternoon.
Her maternal grandmother’s compound was situated in the neighboring valley. To reach it, her parents would have to trek across a steep mountain pass, a grueling journey that took well over an hour on foot. Before they set out, Grandma Sheng ensured Mother Sheng packed a handsome offering: exactly two pounds of fresh pork, a pound of sweet pastries, and a pound of hard candies. The entire village watched the comings and goings of the residents, and they couldn’t afford to give the local gossips a single reason to brand Mother Sheng as an unfilial daughter.
The moment her parents vanished down the snowy lane balancing their bundles, Wanyan moved into action.
“Grandma, Grandfather, I’m going to head up to the lower slopes for a brief stroll to look around,” she announced, slinging her canvas bag over her shoulder.
The grandparents didn’t think twice about stopping her. Wanyan was a sensible adult who understood the boundaries of moderation perfectly.
“Just make sure you don’t venture into the deep forest, child,” Grandpa Sheng instructed, looking up from his seat. “Stick strictly to the outer perimeter. The winter snow drives the wildlife down the ridges; you don’t want to cross paths with a desperate wild boar or a pack of wolves.”
“I know, Grandfather. I’ll stay right on the edge of the tree line.”
Securing their permission, Wanyan grabbed a small sickle from the tool shed and stepped out into the winter air. The persistent snowfall kept the majority of the adults indoors, leaving the lanes quiet save for a few clusters of village children playing in the snowdrifts.
Wanyan marched straight toward the rising slopes. The mountain range loomed massive and intimidating against the horizon, its dense treeline stretching deep into the mist.
Her excursion was entirely a facade; she knew all too well that the deep woods harbored dangerous predators, and as an individual holding an infinite modern warehouse of supplies, she had absolutely zero desire to risk her life for a thrill. She merely needed to clock enough time on the ridges to legitimize her ginseng find.
She strolled leisurely along the lower perimeter, but the snow was knee-deep, completely burying the local flora under a uniform white blanket. Realizing she couldn’t even see the frozen earth, she simply brushed the frost off a massive boulder, sat down, and quietly observed a group of children playing a rowdy game further down the ridge.
“Look! Look over there! It’s the brat from the cowshed down in the valley! He actually lives in the dirt shed!”
“Get him! Pelting him with stones!”
“My grandma told me that the people locked in the cowshed are all rotten, evil criminals! We have to drive them out!”
A cluster of aggressive boys, roughly seven or eight years old, began scooping up jagged pebbles from the exposed patches of gravel, hurling them ruthlessly across the snow.
Sheng Wanyan’s brow furrowed at the sudden malice in their voices, and she turned her head to track the projectiles. A young boy, appearing no older than eight or nine, stood completely cornered against a frozen embankment. A barrage of sharp stones rained down upon his fragile frame, bruising his skin through his thin, tattered clothes.
Yet, despite the painful onslaught, the little boy didn’t utter a single cry, nor did he attempt to strike back. He simply stood his ground, his small fists clenched so tightly his knuckles turned white, his jaw locked in absolute silence as he endured the violence alone.
