First meeting

Three years ago, Zhangjiacun, Ancheng, Jiangnan.

“Spring, when you’re carrying the spring breeze up the mountain, be careful and walk slowly so you don’t hurt your sister.” Li, dressed in a blue floral dress, gently instructed Zhang Chuntian, who was standing in front of her.

Zhang Chuntian was nine feet tall, with broad shoulders and long legs, looking like a strong tiger. At first glance, his face bore no resemblance to the fair-skinned Zhang Chunfeng, but upon closer inspection, although his skin was tanned dark by the sun, his nose was high and straight, remarkably similar to Zhang Chunfeng's.

Zhang Chuntian was only wearing coarse cloth trousers and cloth shoes, his upper body bare. His broad back was dark and tanned. Anyone who saw him would surely praise him, saying that such a man was truly strong and powerful.

Zhang Chuntian grinned and said, "Mother, don't worry, I'm the older brother. I will always protect my little sister!"

When he speaks, his mouth widens, and his dark eyes resemble those of a child.

“Your sister injured her leg while riding a horse. When you get to the destination, keep a close eye on her and make sure she doesn’t get hurt by the spring breeze.”

"Also, last time the village chief scolded you for peeing at the village entrance again. How many times have I told you that even if you can't hold it in, you should find a place where no one is around?"

Li sighed and reached out to touch a bruise on Zhang Chuntian's cheek.

"If you do this again, I'll give you a good beating."

Zhang Chuntian, however, acted as if nothing had happened, just grinning.

"Are you done yet? Are you getting out of bed or not?" Zhang Chunfeng, who was only sixteen years old, shouted from outside the door.

Zhang Chuntian hurriedly came out of the house carrying a bamboo basket.

"Little sister, this is food that Mother gave us." Zhang Chuntian waved the things in her hand.

Zhang Chunfeng didn't even glance at the bamboo basket, and beckoned Zhang Chuntian to squat down. Zhang Chuntian quickly squatted down, put the bamboo chair behind his back, and Li helped Zhang Chunfeng sit on the bamboo chair.

"Spring Breeze, Mother is worried about the bad road up the mountain..."

"That's enough." Zhang Chunfeng frowned. A month ago, she accidentally fell off her horse at school and injured her ankle. She had been recuperating at home for more than two months, and she was getting bored to death sitting in these three brick rooms every day.

Today, I had the idea of ​​going to the mountains and fields with Zhang Chuntian to relax, but I was nagged by Li Shi like this.

Seeing her daughter's displeased expression, Li quickly fell silent.

Her voice was soft and light: "You have already passed the imperial examination and are about to go to the capital for the metropolitan examination. I am really afraid that you will hurt your leg again."

“Mother, I know what I’m doing.” Zhang Chunfeng patted the bamboo chair. “Let’s go.”

The last two words were spoken to Zhang Chuntian. Upon receiving the order, Zhang Chuntian carried Zhang Chunfeng on his back, held a bamboo basket for food in his left hand, and carried a shovel and hoe in his other hand, and set off towards the mountains.

Zhangjia Village was not wealthy, but in those days, there was neither war nor bandits. The farmers tended their few acres of land, clearing the weeds at dawn and returning home with their hoes under the moon, leading a simple and fulfilling life.

In Shangwu Dynasty, land was allocated according to the number of male members in the family, with each male member receiving ten mu. Zhang Chunfeng's family received twenty mu, but Zhang Chunfeng's father had died early, and she had no memory of him. Her mother, Li, was not in good health, and Zhang Chunfeng was the sole cultivator of the family's land.

Zhang Chunfeng had worked in the fields many years ago. The fields were twenty acres wide, with the sun blazing and mosquitoes biting everywhere. Just imagining the scene made Zhang Chunfeng think that this work was inhuman. Yet, Zhang Chunfeng enjoyed it and worked in the fields every day.

Zhang Chuntian was especially happy today.

He walked steadily along the village road, grinning foolishly at passersby as he went, pointing behind him and shouting to each person he saw, "I'm taking my sister with me."

"This is my sister."

"My sister."

As soon as they reached the village entrance, the brothers Wang Dazhu and Wang Xiaozhu, who often joked around with Zhang Chuntian, shouted "Big Fool..." upon seeing them.

Before he could even utter the last word, "spring," he met Zhang Chunfeng's piercing gaze.

Wang Dazhu quickly changed his tune, "Brother Dachun, shall we take our sister to the fields together?"

Zhang Chuntian nodded repeatedly, "Yes, my sister is with me."

Wang Dazhu chuckled dryly, wanting to speak, but Zhang Chunfeng's cold glare silenced him.

After the two men had walked away, Wang Dazhu spat angrily on the ground.

"Sha Dachun is really lucky. He's a fool who doesn't even know how to wipe his own butt after taking a dump, but he has a sister who can pass the imperial examination!"

Under the bright gazes of the two brothers, Zhang Chunfeng arrived at his own field.

Actually, the road on the hillside isn't bad, but compared to the wide dirt roads in the village, the hillside is all narrow, winding paths with lots of pebbles. And since it rained yesterday, the ground on the road is dry, but the soil in the fields on the mountain is soft and covered with vegetation, so some places are still quite muddy.

Zhang Chuntian walked carefully, and after steadily setting Zhang Chunfeng down at the destination, he grinned foolishly, "Little sister, I'm going..."

Before he could finish speaking, Zhang Chunfeng's brows furrowed with impatience. "Go."

Zhang Chuntian couldn't sense his younger sister's impatience and was genuinely happy. His sister, who usually didn't smile at him and would even hit him when he made a mistake, was actually coming to the fields with him today.

He carried a hoe and went down to the field to start weeding.

The farmland stretches across the entire hillside, and tall trees line the paths between two farmhouses facing each other. People working in the fields would often rest for a while under the trees, eating a steamed bun.

Zhang Chunfeng was sitting under the tree, dressed in a light-colored outfit. This was a rural area, and everyone's clothing was typically coarse cloth and light colors. Zhang Chunfeng, however, had just passed the imperial examination and was being hired as a private tutor by the county magistrate's son. Li Shi naturally assumed that since Zhang Chunfeng was going to the county magistrate's house, her attire couldn't be anything less than elegant.

So they sewed her several new outfits made of a silk-like material. She wore light-colored blouses paired with white skirts. In the summer heat, Zhang Chunfeng's long hair was tied up with light blue woolen cords, hanging loosely down her back. She wore a shoe on only her left foot; her right leg, from her calf to her ankle and then to halfway up her foot, was completely wrapped in white cloth strips.

A broken bone takes a hundred days to heal, and at Zhang Chunfeng's age, her bones heal quickly. But she dared not rush things. In a few months, she would be going to the capital for the imperial examinations, where success depended on "appearance, speech, writing, and judgment"—the significance of "appearance" being self-evident. If her leg healed crookedly by then, causing her to walk with a limp, it would truly affect her career.

Therefore, although Zhang Chunfeng found the surrounding area lush and green, and the scenery pleasant, he did not move around, but only took out a book from the bamboo basket to read.

As she was still chewing on the phrase "The dignified King Wen, with reverence and respect," she suddenly felt a flash of white at the corner of her eye.

At some point, a man from the family whose field was opposite his own started working in the field, carrying a hoe and like a silent ox.

Zhang Chunfeng squinted at the man.

From a distance, she couldn't see his face clearly, and the man's straw hat made it even harder to discern his features. The only things she could tell were that he was truly poor; the patches on his clothes were astonishing. Also, he was remarkably pale.

Unlike the other men working in the fields, who were shirtless, he was fully clothed, with only his sleeves rolled up to reveal his arms, which gleamed white in the sun. Because the ground was muddy, everyone working in the fields had taken off their shoes, and he was no exception.

He rolled up his trousers to his knees and walked barefoot in the fields.

Half a calf, like the stem of a lotus flower. Straight and upright, without any tendrils or branches. Zhang Chunfeng was stunned for a moment, searching his mind through everyone in the village, but he couldn't think of anyone in the village with such fair skin.

She put down her book and simply stared straight at the person.

He worked just as hard as Zhang Chuntian, constantly swinging his hoe and squatting down to pull weeds. This action of raising the hoe, which Zhang Chunfeng would normally consider utterly crude, somehow possessed a certain beauty in him.

Zhang Chunfeng couldn't quite put his finger on it. Perhaps it was because the man had a good build, at least eight feet tall, like a newly sprouted tree, making people want to lean on him when they were tired.

Around noon, Zhang Chuntian ran to the tree, covered in sweat.

He reached out to grab the bamboo basket containing the food, but then remembered his mother's words, "Whenever you're with Chunfeng, you must ask your sister first before doing anything." Zhang Chuntian immediately stopped touching the basket. "Sister, I'm hungry."

"Go to the river and wash your hands and face, then I'll give you something to eat."

Upon receiving the order, Zhang Chuntian ran to the riverbank again.

When he returned, Zhang Chunfeng had already taken out the food. Zhang Chuntian picked up the bowl and noticed that there was an extra chicken leg today compared to yesterday!

"Big chicken leg!" Zhang Chuntian shouted.

"Shut up! Don't talk while you're eating." Zhang Chunfeng gave him a look, and Zhang Chuntian immediately shut up and squatted down to eat.

He smiled at Zhang Chunfeng as he ate, assuming that Zhang Chunfeng had given him the chicken leg. Little did he know that Madam Li had only added the chicken leg for Zhang Chunfeng because she was worried that she wasn't eating enough. However, Zhang Chunfeng hadn't touched it all day and had little appetite, so the chicken leg was given to Zhang Chuntian.

"Who is that person?" Zhang Chunfeng asked, pointing to the spot he had been looking at for a while.

Zhang Chuntian shook his head, "He's a good person!"

“I don’t know him, yet you say he’s a good person.” Zhang Chunfeng shook his head, realizing he must have been incredibly bored to ask his foolish brother such a question.

Zhang Chuntian shook his head again, "We went down the mountain together, he's a good person."

Zhang Chunfeng didn't argue with him anymore, silently recalling Zhang Chuntian's words. Actually, Zhang Chuntian wasn't completely stupid; a truly stupid person couldn't possibly carry a hoe and work in the fields, let alone understand human speech. Zhang Chuntian had an accident ten years ago, which caused his mind to become confused, leaving him with the cognitive abilities of a ten-year-old.

When Zhang Chuntian was ten years old, Zhang Chunfeng was less than a year old and naturally didn't know what had happened. For the first ten years, she didn't think her brother was stupid; after all, it wasn't stupid for someone to be able to work in the fields and support the family. It wasn't until she started school that she realized her brother's mind was completely stuck at the age of ten.

A ten-year-old child can urinate in the street if he can't hold it in, which is fine. But for twenty-six-year-old Zhang Chuntian to urinate in the street would make everyone on the street laugh to death.

The older Zhang Chunfeng got, the more annoyed he became with Zhang Chuntian, who only knew how to laugh foolishly, eat, fart, and even defecate in his pants when in a hurry.

Despite his annoyance, Zhang Chuntian was still his own brother, and he had worked tirelessly to support the family. However, Madam Li showed all her favoritism towards Zhang Chunfeng, and thinking of this, Zhang Chunfeng sometimes softened his heart.

For example, right now, after Zhang Chuntian finished eating and tidied up his things, he insisted on lying down and sleeping at Zhang Chunfeng's feet.

The thought of this person drooling in his sleep disgusted Zhang Chunfeng to no end, and he absolutely could not agree to it. But today, seeing his face flushed red from the sun, Zhang Chunfeng nodded and let Zhang Chuntian lie down next to him.

Just like a docile big dog lying at its owner's feet, this absurd thought flashed through Zhang Chunfeng's mind as he lay down.

Then the thought flashed through her mind, and she noticed that the person she had been watching all morning was still hoeing the ground, without taking a break at noon.

In the afternoon, Zhang Chuntian came again.

"Sister, I need to poop."

Zhang Chunfeng frowned. In her younger days, she would correct people for using the word "poop" as it was too vulgar. Now, she took out a few sheets of toilet paper from her bamboo basket.

"Run away, so no one sees you."

Zhang Chuntian covered his buttocks and ran to the other side of the hillside.

He had barely left when the previously clear sky suddenly darkened. Large patches of dark clouds gathered overhead.

The weather in Gangnam District is notoriously unpredictable; one second it's sunny and clear, the next it's pouring rain. It's common for your clothes to get wet and then dry while walking on the street.

People didn't pay much attention at first, glancing up at the overcast sky before continuing to work with their heads down.

Zhang Chunfeng squinted at the dark clouds, and after three seconds she felt something was wrong.

"Zhang Chuntian!" Before the voice could spread, a thunderclap struck the ground.

Splash—

A clap of thunder struck, and in an instant, a torrential downpour began. The raindrops came so fast and hard that they stung when they hit one's face.

The farmers, who had been hesitant about leaving, suddenly ran down the ridge in twos and threes, covering their heads.

Wang Dazhu, whom Zhang Chunfeng had just met this morning, ran up to him and asked, "Where's Dachun?"

Zhang Chunfeng raised his chin, and from the hillside, which was almost two acres away, a huge figure was running frantically toward them.

Seeing that Zhang Chuntian was on his way back, Wang Dazhu ran off first.

Zhang Chunfeng sat under the tree, his clothes not yet soaked.

She glanced worriedly at her right foot; it was best to keep the ointment dry. It would take about an incense stick's time to get home, and with the current rain, her right foot would likely be completely soaked. Zhang Chunfeng regretted not bringing an umbrella today.

The rain, however, continued to pour down.

Thunderclaps followed one after another.

Zhang Chunfeng glanced at the massive tree canopy hanging above her head and immediately felt that sitting under the tree was unsafe given the thunder's roar. She slowly tried to stand up, but the rain-soaked ground was so muddy and slippery. Holding onto the bamboo chair, she stood up using only her left foot. But as soon as she took a step, she tripped over the bamboo basket beside her, slipped, and fell to the ground with a thud.

Her white silk dress was now speckled with mud. She was naturally clean, and from childhood, she had excelled in both academics and physical abilities—skills in swordsmanship, horseback riding, and archery. Never before had she been so disheveled.

The soil in the field was soft and yielding; the harder she tried with her left foot, the harder it became to pull it out.

Raindrops pelted her face like knives, soaking her clothes. Zhang Chunfeng pressed her hands against the dirty ground, trying to stand up again, but her injured right foot suddenly throbbed with pain.

What a terrible thing! She cursed inwardly, swaying as she was about to fall again before she could regain her balance.

A strong arm caught her.

When Zhang Chunfeng looked up, he couldn't help but wonder if this person was some kind of fox spirit reincarnated from a mountain.