Chapter 3: Causing Trouble

It was already half-past noon, and the early autumn sun was still scorching.

Feng Buchi leaned into Feng Chuchen’s arms.

The little one was painfully thin; his face was no bigger than a palm, and his slender arms looked as if they could be snapped with a single twist.

Feng Chuchen only then noticed another bruised bump on the back of his head. "Who hit you?"

Banxia gritted her teeth and said, "The day before yesterday morning, the young master was playing by the gate when a small stone suddenly flew out of the woods. It must have been some wicked wretch from the old Feng clan. Now that they don't dare to strike openly, and don't dare to kill him outright, they just do these disgusting things to torment him.

"Auntie Wang couldn't stand it; she ran to Village Chief Zhao’s house and cried for a long time, and the Village Chief went to give those clansmen a stern warning."

Feng Chuchen instructed, "Don't leave the courtyard, little brother, unless someone is with you."

"Mm."

Two bowls of noodles arrived first. The aroma of the egg, the noodles, and the greens made Feng Chuchen, who hadn't had a proper meal in days, take a deep breath and hungrily pick up her chopsticks to eat.

Suddenly, she saw a child of two or three years old leaning against a window on the third floor of the restaurant across the street. The child was looking around happily, and the next moment, he fell headfirst from the window.

Feng Chuchen’s first instinct was to run to catch the child, but in an instant, someone else sprinted over and caught him.

Feng Chuchen slammed on the "brakes," but her momentum carried her forward two more steps before she stopped.

The man had been running too fast and hadn't expected a woman to suddenly dash in front of him. When he tried to dodge her, he lost his footing, stepped on a small stone, and his leg buckled, forcing him to kneel right in front of Feng Chuchen.

Startled, Feng Chuchen choked. As she coughed, the egg, noodles, and vegetable leaves in her mouth sprayed out, landing right on the man’s nose and lips.

Feng Chuchen hurriedly pulled out a handkerchief to help him wipe his face. "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."

The man was drunk, reeking of alcohol, his face flushed red. It took him a moment to realize that not only had he knelt before this wretched girl, but she had also spat a mouthful of filth onto his face.

He jumped up in a rage, cursing, "You damn..."

Just as he opened his mouth, something from his lips fell into it, and he was so disgusted that he doubled over and began to retch violently.

The child in his arms cried out, "Mother, Mother, I'm scared..."

A woman ran out of the restaurant like a madwoman. "My son! Thank you, benefactor, wuwuwu..."

Feng Chuchen greased the soles of her feet, turned around, picked up the still-stunned Feng Buchi, and ran.

Banxia pulled a handful of coins from her pocket, threw them on the table without counting, and followed her.

The two ran wildly until they reached the end of the street, only stopping when they saw no one was chasing them.

Banxia panted heavily, puzzled. "Miss, why are we running?"

The original owner’s body had an excellent foundation; even after running so fast, her breathing remained steady.

"I made that man kneel and sprayed a face full of noodles on him. Should I wait to be scolded? I might even get beaten."

Banxia worried, "Will that man remember your face? What if we run into him again?"

Feng Chuchen said, "There are millions of people in the world; it’s not that easy to run into him again. Besides, he was dead drunk and clearly not in his right mind; he might not even remember me. Just stay out of the capital for a while, and after some time, he’ll forget."

She, however, remembered him: a slender figure, sharp features, a pair of beautiful phoenix eyes, wearing a gold hair crown, and possessing martial arts skills.

That man must have come from a wealthy family. The fleeting sharpness in his eyes was chilling, suggesting he had a bad temper...

Those wealthy young masters would look for trouble even when unprovoked, let alone after such a humiliating incident.

Feng Chuchen felt extremely frustrated; she hadn't managed to do a good deed and had instead invited hatred.

They bought a few cabbage buns, finished them, and hired a donkey cart to go home.

Feng Buchi was hot and sleepy, and he fell soundly asleep leaning against his sister.

Feng Chuchen was lost in thought.

After the death of the midwife, Granny Feng, all the Feng clansmen—except for Feng Changfu’s family—had come to the house to demand control of the orphans' property. They wished Feng Buchi would die of illness immediately so they could drive Feng Chuchen away.

The Feng family had migrated from elsewhere; there weren't many clansmen—only a dozen or so households between Baima Village and Hekou Village—and they had no clan leader.

Grandpa Feng was already over sixty, the oldest and most senior member of the clan, so he had the final say in clan affairs.

He and his grandson, Feng Qi, were the ones who caused the most trouble at Feng Chuchen’s house.

The original owner had refused to hand over the property on the grounds that there was still an heir, Feng Buchi, saying that her younger brother could manage it. The clansmen would come to make trouble every few days, repeatedly pushing and hitting Feng Buchi in secret...

They wanted to provoke Feng Buchi so he would "die of illness" sooner.

Some even tried to arrange a marriage for the original owner, wanting to force her into it.

On the fifteenth of the seventh month, one month after Granny Feng passed away—which was also her forty-third birthday in the afterlife—Auntie Wang and Banxia stayed home to fend off the clansmen who came knocking, allowing the original owner and Feng Buchi to slip away to the mountain to burn paper for their great-aunt.

Feng Buchi was in poor health, so the original owner carried him up and down the mountain.

After burning the paper, they reached the mountainside and ran into their clan uncle, Feng Qi.

Feng Qi walked up and smiled, "You came to visit Great-Aunt’s grave? I happened to come to visit her too."

The siblings hated him the most.

Feng Chuchen ignored him and carried her brother down the mountain. The moment she turned around, Feng Qi pushed them, and the siblings tumbled down the cliff.

The original owner instinctively shielded her brother in her arms, hooking one foot onto a large rock to slow their speed and impact. After rolling a distance, they were stopped by a large tree, but her head hit a rock, and she lost consciousness.

Feng Buchi was well-protected and only suffered minor scrapes, but he cried out in terror, "Sister, Sister, help..."

Some passersby happened to see them and rescued them.

When she woke up again, Feng Chuchen had become Shui Chuchen.

Everyone thought Feng Chuchen was fine, but only she knew that the real Feng Chuchen was already dead...

Shui Chuchen lay on the bed like a corpse for three days.

The first two days were not just for healing, but for failing to accept the fact of her transmigration. She hadn't just gone back to the pre-liberation era; she had gone back several hundred years.

She wondered how her grandfather in her past life would grieve.

On the third day, Shui Chuchen accepted reality. One must look forward; since she was already here, she couldn't keep hiding forever.

From then on, she was Feng Chuchen of Baima Village, outside the capital of the Great Yan Dynasty, not Shui Chuchen, the doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine from the twenty-first century.

She began to think about how to live her life and how to live it better.

After thinking for a whole day, she went to the county office the next day to beat the drum and file a grievance. She accused Feng Qi of murder for money, pushing the Feng siblings off the cliff. She accused Grandpa Feng of inciting his grandson to commit violence, attempting to kill the orphans to seize their property.

There were witnesses who saw Feng Qi at the scene, and many villagers testified that Grandpa Feng had led the clansmen to make trouble at Granny Feng’s house multiple times.

Feng Chuchen’s accusation was proven true.

Magistrate Li sentenced Feng Qi to twenty lashes with a cane and one year in prison. Grandpa Feng was also sentenced to twenty lashes, but because of his age, his grandson Feng Qi took the punishment for him.

However, because Grandpa Feng was the siblings' great-uncle and they had not died, Feng Chuchen was sentenced to one month in prison.

Under ancient law, whenever a wife accused her husband, a junior accused an elder, or a servant accused their master, even if they were in the right, they still had to go to jail, provided it wasn't a major crime like treason.

This was for the sake of filial piety and the way of husbands.

If Feng Chuchen had only accused Feng Qi, she would not have been punished, as they were beyond the third degree of kinship.

But she risked imprisonment to drag her great-uncle into it and make a scene, not only to seek justice for the deceased original owner and to deter the clansmen from ever touching Feng Buchi again, but for other reasons as well.

As you can see from the synopsis, this story is about Traditional Chinese Medicine and includes a bit of fantasy. Not much fantasy, just a little...

(End of chapter)