Chapter 96: People in the Shed, Hundred-Year-Old Ginseng
His eyes were filled with an unyielding stubbornness. He kept his lips pressed tight in a hard line, looking like a little wolf cub ready to lung and bite at any moment.
“Stone him! His grandfather is an enemy of the people!”
The boys egged each other on, circling closer as they pelted the boy in the center. Sheng Wanyan’s brow furrowed tightly. She marched straight toward them and called out, “Hey! Stop right there! Assaulting people is against the law! You can all be locked up at the police station for this!”
Hearing her voice, the children froze mid-throw. They turned to look at Sheng Wanyan, an instant flush of guilt washing over their faces. Being caught red-handed doing something wrong by an adult naturally made them nervous.
Wanyan closed the distance, her piercing gaze sweeping over each of them. One of the bolder boys shifted uncomfortably and stammered an explanation. “But sister… he’s the brat from the cowshed. He’s a bad guy.”
“That’s right! His grandfather is a villain. Sister, you shouldn’t help him!” another chimed in quickly.
Wanyan glanced past them at the child standing in the snow. He was shivering violently from the bitter cold, his face completely pale, yet his posture remained rigidly defensive. A quiet sigh escaped her lips. The cruel, sweeping torrents of this era had twisted and ruined far too many innocent lives. The people currently vilified and banished to the fields were often top-tier intellectuals or brilliant pioneers within their respective industries.
“It doesn’t matter what you think,” Wanyan said, her voice dropping into a stern, unwavering register. “Hitting people is inherently wrong. Worse, you are pooling your numbers to bully someone who is completely outnumbered. Are you truly proud of that?”
The boys lowered their heads, their eyes dropping straight to their boots. They knew they were acting like a pack of cowards, and being explicitly called out on it left them utterly speechless.
“Sister, he really isn’t a good person,” one of the boys mumbled. “You should stay away from him.” A couple of the kids recognized her by now; the city branch of the Sheng family had been the absolute center of village gossip for the past two days. After all, securing an urban factory post and transitioning into a bona fide city dweller wasn’t something just anyone could achieve.
“Has he personally done anything harmful to any of you?” Wanyan asked.
The children exchanged glances, thinking it over, before slowly shaking their heads. “No…”
“Then if he has never done a single bad deed, how can you brand him a villain?”
The boys kept their chins pressed against their chests, not daring to utter another syllable. Wanyan sighed inwardly. This was the deeply entrenched structure of the world right now, and she lacked the power to magically reshape everyone’s consciousness.
“Go on, run home to your families,” she commanded gently. “And don’t you dare let me catch you doing this again.”
The clique scattered instantly, their footsteps vanishing down the snowy ridge. Within moments, the clearing fell silent, leaving only Sheng Wanyan and the young boy alone on the slope.
The little wolf cub stared at her. The fierce, rigid stubbornness remained locked in his gaze, though it was now layered with a heavy armor of defensiveness. “Thank you…” he muttered rawly.
Hearing his quiet gratitude, Wanyan offered a soft, reassuring look but said nothing. She reached into her canvas backpack, retrieved two large, pristine red apples from her spatial inventory, and pressed them firmly into his small palms. “Head back inside.”
The boy stared at the vibrant fruit, his chest tightening. “Sister… I can’t accept these.”
He had been dragged down to this remote commune with his grandfather just before the winter freeze. Since their arrival, the old man had been assigned the most grueling, physically punishing labor in the fields every single day. He was no longer the pampered young master who occupied a position of absolute privilege, with an entire household revolving around his whims.
He had once possessed a beautifully secure, blissful family, but the foundation of his world had violently shattered the previous year. His parents had been placed under state investigation and subsequently exiled to a labor camp down south. He hadn’t seen their faces in over six months and had no inkling of where they were trapped. Left with absolutely nothing but the clothes on his back, his grandfather had been his singular lifeline.
Back in the capital, he had dined on the finest delicacies and experienced a life of absolute luxury. But now… he didn’t even have a clean surface to rest his daily rations. The staggering chasm between his past and present, combined with the sudden, freezing indifference of the world, had stripped away every shred of his hope.
“Take them,” Wanyan insisted, her voice full of quiet strength. “Life must march forward. You have to endure if you want to greet a new beginning.”
Leaving him with those words, she turned and walked back toward the village. The young boy stood frozen in the snow, his small hands clutching the two apples as he watched her silhouette grow smaller in the distance.
A new… beginning? he thought, his mind racing. But when will that day ever dawn for us?
He looked down at the bright red fruit in his palms. Slowly, the fractured light in his eyes coalesced into something fierce and unyielding. The sister was entirely right. Life had to continue. He was still so young, and the ledger of the future remained unwritten.
Once Wanyan neared the perimeter of her old family home, she stepped into a blind spot, pulled the century-old ginseng root out of her spatial warehouse, and tucked it securely into her pack. Slipping through the courtyard gate, she adopted a perfectly staged look of high-stakes anxiety and slammed the wooden door shut behind her.
Grandma Sheng jumped at the sudden noise, assuming a crisis had unfolded on the ridge. “What on earth is the matter with you? Is a ghost hot on your heels?”
“And what took you so long out there?” the old woman added, her voice laced with genuine concern.
Wanyan didn’t answer right away, instead grabbing her grandmother’s arm and pulling her swiftly into the main room. “Grandfather, Grandma, come quickly. Look at what I stumbled upon up on the slopes.”
She unzipped her bag and carefully extracted the massive, complex ginseng root. Grandma Sheng had been employed at a state-run winery during her youth and possessed an immediate, sharp eye for traditional botanicals. The moment her eyes locked onto the specimen, her breath hitched.
“Where on earth did you unearth this?” Grandma Sheng whispered, her voice trembling so violently she could barely articulate the words.
“I was foraging near the outer tree line and noticed the growth, so I used my sickle to dig it up,” Wanyan explained smoothly.
Grandma Sheng’s survival instincts instantly kicked into overdrive. She scrambled across the room, located a strand of bright red thread, and meticulously tied it around the ginseng’s dried stems and fibrous root system. An old woodsman’s legend dictated that wild ginseng roots possessed a spiritual consciousness and would actively burrow deep into the earth to escape if they weren’t bound with a red string during harvest. Although her intervention was technically a bit late, executing the ritual brought her an immense wave of psychological comfort.
“Looking at the density and the pattern of these root scars, this specimen has easily survived for a hundred years,” Grandma Sheng marveled, her chest heaving. “You are truly a child blessed with miraculous luck.”
The old woman honestly couldn’t comprehend the fortune; her granddaughter had merely gone out for a casual afternoon walk and returned balancing a legendary medical treasure.
“Grandma, here is my plan,” Wanyan directed. “We’ll allocate half of this root to steep into a premium medicinal wine for Grandfather’s health, and use the remaining portion to brew nourishing broths for the rest of the household. We should also slice a section to mail to my brother; if he ever sustains an injury during his deployments, it will accelerate his recovery.”
Grandma Sheng nodded fervently, her mind already organizing the logistics. She was highly experienced in handling rare botanicals. She would split the root cleanly down the center, submerging one half into a high-grade liquor jar, while slicing the remainder into delicate coins to be sun-dried for long-term kitchen preservation. Dehydrating the cuts ensured the material wouldn’t spoil or lose its potency during transit to the military base.
“Are you truly entirely willing to surrender a full half of this treasure to anchor my wine jar?” Grandpa Sheng asked, his eyes wide with absolute envy. He had spent his entire life enjoying standard local liquors, but he had never even dreamed of tasting genuine, century-old ginseng wine.
“Perhaps it would be more prudent to preserve the root intact?” Grandma Sheng countered tentatively, a trace of traditional caution creeping into her tone. “We could store it securely as a defensive asset in case our household faces a catastrophic medical emergency down the line.” In her mind, a hundred-year-old ginseng root was an item of staggering, almost mythical value; back in the old days, even the wealthiest merchant clans or aristocratic dynasties might go a lifetime without laying eyes on one.
“Grandma, it’s best to utilize it immediately,” Wanyan reasoned gently. “An old saying states that holding onto a massive treasure acquired entirely by a stroke of luck can invite unseen complications if it’s hoarded out of greed.”
Listening to her granddaughter’s insight, Grandma Sheng turned the philosophy over in her mind and found herself completely convinced. Wanyan’s logic was flawless; this resource had been granted to them by pure providence. Grandma Sheng held a deeply rooted, traditional conviction that accidental fortunes or unexpected windfalls needed to be converted into practical, communal utility as quickly as possible; keeping such a powerful item hidden away indefinitely made her feel intensely superstitious and uneasy.
“Very well. We will proceed exactly according to your design,” Grandma Sheng agreed, her features relaxing. “Pack the root out of sight for now. Once we return to our apartment in Chengdu, we’ll procure the jars and initiate the wine steeping.”
She handed the bundle back, deciding it was infinitely better for Wanyan to maintain custody of the treasure. The item had chosen to reveal itself to her granddaughter, meaning its destiny was explicitly intertwined with the girl’s path. Furthermore, Wanyan had instantly offered to dismantle the prize solely to fortify the health of her four elders, proving her exceptional filial devotion. The distribution should remain strictly in her hands.
Grandpa Sheng was practically vibrating with excitement, already visualizing the moment he would finally raise a cup of the legendary ginseng liquor to his lips. He had lived in this agricultural district for decades, yet he had never once heard of a single laborer successfully tracking down a mature ginseng root on these slopes. Even if someone had, they would have taken the secret to their grave, but a century-old specimen was an absolute miracle.
His granddaughter had quite literally secured an artifact worthy of becoming an ancestral heirloom!
Grandma Sheng meticulously wrapped the red-threaded root back into a clean piece of fabric and ushered Wanyan toward her quarters. Wanyan retreated to the bedroom, smoothly zipping the bundle into the deepest compartment of her luggage bag.
