Chapter 69: Chapter 68 In the Plan
At last, they succeeded. Tang Shunyan caught a small butterfly with his little net, smiling with his eyes nearly closed, a cute and radiant look in his eyes. His cheerful and optimistic nature shone through, so unlike his usual attempts at acting mature, making him look as cute as could be.
Meng Zhaojun also caught a butterfly and showed off the little one inside her net to Tang Shunyan, her laughter blooming like flowers. As she gazed at the adorable little Tang Shunyan, the more she looked, the more she felt he could be nurtured.
The two kids played happily while the Madams seated in the pavilion, Madam Tang and Mrs. Meng, watching their joyful expressions, laughed along.
Meng Zhaojun’s visit this time fulfilled her wish to play with Tang Shunyan.
In the days that followed, she came every now and then, always asking her mother to bring her to see Tang Shunyan.
Mrs. Meng also had the same intention, bringing her daughter to Tang Mansion every few days.
...
With various excuses, since Madam Tang couldn’t conveniently visit their mansion, and Young Mrs. Tang was pregnant and couldn’t come, she visited under the pretext of inquiring after their health.
As time passed, Meng Zhaojun grew wiser. Whenever she visited, she would compete with Tang Shunyan in the study, to see who had the better handwriting.
Like two childhood sweethearts, her goal was just that, to not let Tang Shunyan grow to dislike her.
At first, Tang Shunyan was impatient with Meng Zhaojun, but later, when she came just to study writing with him in the study, he stopped seeing her as a girl and started to treat her like a brother.
A little buddy to learn and progress with, a little pal.
What Meng Zhaojun never expected was that Tang Shunyan would only see her as a bro. If she found out, would she consider her long-cultivated plan a failure?
Some things often go, human plans can’t compete with fate. The most unexpected things tend to take root and sprout when you least know it.
******
Ye Shiqi, in the night, sensed that her father had fallen asleep again. She entered “space” and switched some small pieces of wood. This time, she didn’t just draw Bodhisattva statues but also images of tigers, pandas, or monkeys, diversifying the wooden figures.
She knew that right now, the most important thing was the Bodhisattva images, having heard many villagers say they would come to see her father’s carving the next day.
At the moment, the first thing people thought of was the Bodhisattva statue. The villagers wouldn’t think of buying toys for their children, and her plan was to have her father sell these toys in the city.
As for how to sell these toys in the city, Ye Shiqi thought of her mother. Maybe the next time her mother returned, she could put this plan into action.
But… could her mother come back next time? Wouldn’t the master’s family withhold her leave again?
She wouldn’t allow that, she couldn’t let the master’s family bully her mother. If the day came when her mother couldn’t return, she would have her father take the toys and go find her mother with her.
Speaking of her mother, Mrs. Li, of course she didn’t have such ability. So the only choice was to tempt Tang Shunyan to help her get things done.
Ye Shiqi exited “space” before dawn, placing a small wooden tiger, a small monkey, and five wooden Bodhisattva figures on the table in front of the bed.
After drinking a little from the Spiritual Spring and eating some honeycomb in “space,” she finally replenished her energy and fell into a deep sleep upon leaving “space.”
“Bang bang bang bang bang,” there was knocking at the door, followed by Mrs. Lai’s shouting, “Time to get up! The sun’s shining on your butt!”
Even before the day had broken, after the rooster crowed, Mrs. Lai’s biological clock roused her. She awoke her son and the children, urging them to get up for work, before returning to her room to sleep.
Hongji heard the sound of his mother knocking on the door and, although he was very tired from the day, the fact that the children no longer required him to get up at night meant that a few hours’ sleep had him feeling quite refreshed. He yawned, stretched, and got out of bed.
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He saw the three older children also sitting up drowsily in bed beside him.
Glancing out the window, Hongji saw it was still somewhat pitch-dark, a shade that only appears before dawn, and the room was so dark they needed to light an oil lamp. When lighting the lamp, he noticed the completed wood carvings on the table.
There were more than the previous day; another Bodhisattva statue had been added, along with two smaller wood carvings of animals.
Involuntarily, Hongji’s gaze shifted back to the bed, where the three bigger children were starting to dress. Only Siwa turned over to continue sleeping.
Wuwa made not a single sound, seemingly unaffected by the loud knocking that had just arisen. She seemed to be asleep, deeply ensconced in the heaviness of fatigue.
Hongji donned a long-sleeved shirt and wrapped the carved woods in another garment before stepping out the door.
Daya blinked her bleary eyes, watching her father’s actions under the light of the oil lamp. Like Er Ya and Sanya, she did not understand why there were suddenly more carved woods on the table.
It seemed as if their father was lying down asleep last night. Could it be that Father had gotten up in the middle of the night to carve the woods?
The children couldn’t figure it out, yet they believed in the superior abilities of adults, just as it was the day before when their father had also completed carvings displayed online.
In the minds of these young children, their father was omnipotent.
Hongji placed the garment-wrapped woods beside his toolbox and then went to the kitchen to pick up two water buckets, which he used to fetch water from the outside well into the kitchen.
Daya, with her two younger sisters in tow, went to the kitchen, where they washed dishes and prepared breakfast. Daya washed the dishes while Er Ya and Sanya cooked breakfast; then she took a basin of clothes belonging to her father and sisters to wash by the river.
While washing clothes by the river, Daya encountered much gossip from the villagers, especially after yesterday’s drama.
The women questioned Daya about the wood carvings and gossiped about the altercation between the two families from the previous day.
No matter how they inquired, she shook her head, silently washing her clothes without uttering a word.
The women and girls, some of whom were around Daya’s age, when finding out nothing from Daya, began to discuss amongst themselves.
“It must be boasting,” one said. “Just go to their house and see for yourself. If he could carve Bodhisattva statues, wouldn’t he have made many and sold them by now? Would he really just think of this money-making scheme now?”
“That’s right. I heard he carved several carvings yesterday, but I also heard from their neighbor that they had another argument last night about missing wood carvings. They thought a thief had entered. I think it’s a case of a thief crying ‘stop thief.’ He surely doesn’t have the skill and is just fooling us.”
“Really? Haha, then we’re in for a good show. Let’s finish washing quickly and go watch the drama unfold.”
Daya, hearing their words filled with schadenfreude, clenched her teeth and remained silent, knowing that if she spoke a word, they would return tenfold.
She couldn’t argue with so many of them, and she had no time to waste on these people.
Let them speculate. Once they witnessed her father’s abilities, their noisy clamor, gleeful commentary, and sarcastic remarks would lead to their own embarrassment.