The autumn frost had just passed, and the poplar leaves in the Hongqi Production Brigade had mostly fallen, their bare branches resembling dry brushstrokes in a traditional Chinese ink painting, slanting across the leaden-gray sky. However, Lin Wanqiu's courtyard was bustling with activity—Aunt Li, Granny Wang, and several others were gathered around a bluestone mill, grinding swollen, soaked soybeans into a milky-white paste that gurgled down the millstone into a ceramic basin. The mixture, mingling with the aroma of firewood wafting from the stove, warmed the chill of late autumn.

Lin Wanqiu was squatting under the eaves, sorting through the fine sand she had just washed from the riverbank. This was something Master Zhang, the bricklayer, had specifically instructed her to use, saying that mixing it into the mud would make the brick joints stick together better. She wore a newly made maroon padded jacket, made from corduroy ration coupons left over from selling fermented bean curd. The stitches were fine and dense, and the collar was embroidered with a circle of small orchids—she had embroidered it while Nian'an was asleep at night, pricking her fingertips several times with the needle. She could still recall the pain when she touched the corner of her eye, but her heart was filled with sweetness. The fine sand in the bamboo sieve shimmered with a faint watery light, each grain clean and shining. She imagined how beautiful it would be when the sunlight shone on the red bricks as they were being built in the spring, and a smile involuntarily crept onto her lips.

"Wanqiu, you've sifted this sand finer than if it were sieved! Master Zhang will definitely praise you when he sees it!" Aunt Wang joked, panting as she pushed the millstone. She wore a pair of newly made blue cloth gloves, given to her by Lin Wanqiu a few days ago, saying that the millstone was rough on her hands and these gloves would protect her. Since she started helping out half a month ago, Lin Wanqiu not only paid her two cents a day, but also provided a hot meal at noon, with plenty of steamed sweet potatoes and cornbread, and occasionally even a bowl of soybean milk—such treatment was unparalleled in the village.

Lin Wanqiu smiled and looked up, about to speak, when she saw two figures swaying one after the other on the dirt road outside the courtyard gate. The one in front, Old Mrs. Shen, was wearing a faded black cotton-padded jacket, with a tattered hemp rope tied around her waist, and she was leaning on a jujube wood cane, the tip of which was worn smooth and shiny. The one following behind, Sister-in-law Zhang Lan, was wearing a dusty gray headscarf, her hands tucked into her sleeves, but her eyes were fixed on the courtyard, her gaze as sharp and piercing as a rat stealing oil under the eaves.

Lin Wanqiu's heart skipped a beat, and the bamboo sieve in her hand paused. Fine sand slipped through her fingers and accumulated in a small pile on the ground. She had long expected that Old Madam Shen would not let this go so easily—a few days ago, Old Madam Shen had sent someone to deliver a message saying that "the Shen family's property should be inherited by the Shen family's descendants," which she had coldly rejected. Now it seemed that she was going to come to make trouble in person.

"Lin Wanqiu! You come out here!" Before Old Mrs. Shen even reached the door, her shrill voice rang out like a broken gong, startling the sparrows in the locust tree in the corner of the yard into a flurry of flight. She strode to the gate, slammed her cane into the ground, making the fallen leaves tremble. "What are you pretending to be deaf for, hiding in the yard? I'm asking you, have you thought it through about building the house?"

Lin Wanqiu put down the bamboo sieve, patted the sand off her hands, and slowly walked to the door. She didn't let Old Madam Shen in, but stood on the threshold, looking down at the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. The threshold had been repaired by Shen Tingzhou a few days ago, raised by two inches, firstly to keep out the rain, and secondly, standing here now, it was as if an invisible boundary had been drawn, keeping all those unpleasant people and things outside.

"Mother, just say what you have to say, there's no need to shout." Lin Wanqiu's voice was flat, revealing no emotion, but her hand gripping the doorframe tightened subtly—a bit of sand was still embedded in her fingernails, pricking her palm painfully. This pain kept her awake, reminding her of how, when she first transmigrated in her previous life, Old Madam Shen had treated her dowry cloth as her own, giving it to Zhang Lan; how she had forced her to harvest wheat in the fields while she had a fever; and how she had watched helplessly as she was pushed into the river without uttering a sound. The bitterness of those days was like a thorn stuck in her heart, still aching when she thought about it. She would never let herself and Nian'an suffer even the slightest grievance again.

Old Mrs. Shen was taken aback by her attitude, and her face darkened further. She narrowed her triangular eyes, scrutinizing Lin Wanqiu's new padded jacket from head to toe, then glanced at the neatly stacked earthenware jars in the yard—those jars were filled with fermented bean curd, each selling for eighty cents. She had already found out that Lin Wanqiu's earnings in the past few months were enough to buy the entire Shen family! Thinking of this, her greed grew like wildfire. She tapped her cane on the ground again, spitting as she spoke: "Just say it! I'm asking you, shouldn't your house-building quota have been given to Da Bao?"

“Dabao is your eldest grandson, the eldest grandson of the Shen family, who will carry on the Shen family line! You, an outsider with a child in tow, what’s the point of building such a nice house? Who’s going to live in it?” Old Mrs. Shen became more and more agitated, her voice growing louder and louder. “Besides, who did you rely on to establish yourself in this village and earn so much money? Wasn’t it the Shen family’s reputation? Now that you’ve grown up, you think you can just throw the Shen family out the window? Let me tell you, no way!”

Zhang Lan chimed in, her voice sharp and sarcastic: "That's right, sister-in-law! Don't forget, when your husband 'passed away,' it was the Shen family who dressed you in mourning clothes, and it was Mother who fed you and Nian'an every day, which is why you're still alive! Now that you've made money, you want to keep it all for yourself? This house must go to Da Bao, otherwise you'll be ungrateful and the villagers will talk behind your back!" As she spoke, she deliberately glanced around—it was just as the villagers were returning from the fields, and several people were already standing in the distance, peering around.

Listening to their back-and-forth, Lin Wanqiu felt both annoyed and amused. She turned to look at the villagers in the distance, cleared her throat, and spoke in a soft but clear voice: "Uncles and aunts, everyone, please be the judge. When Tingzhou 'sacrificed' himself, I was raising Nian'an alone. How did my mother treat me? In winter, she made me sleep in a drafty woodshed. When Nian'an cried from hunger, she called her a 'debt collector.' She even secretly gave the two bolts of fine cloth that my family had given me as dowry to Zhang Lan to make her wedding dress—didn't everyone see all of this?"

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