The Journey Home
The word "Little" echoed relentlessly in Xu Huaixian's mind throughout the oxcart ride. Where exactly was he "Little"?
Age?
In his previous life, he'd been twenty-seven—a twenty-seven-year-old virgin who'd finally found a beautiful spouse, only to be reborn ten years younger. Now his own husband deemed him too immature for intimacy.
As for other...attributes—
How could Chen Liejiu judge without even seeing them?
Xu Huaixian sulked. True, his frame was slender, but he was fully functional! Such remarks wounded masculine pride.
Unaware of his husband's internal monologue, Chen Liejiu urged the oxen homeward at breakneck speed. Autumn night winds carried a biting chill—dangerous for Xu Huaixian's fragile health.
Wang Wanwan and Chen Xiaomei had prepared a welcoming feast. As the oxcart approached, they rushed through the wicker gate.
"Eldest Brother! Second Brother!" Chen Xiaomei bounded forward. "You took forever—I nearly fell asleep waiting!"
Chen Liejiu coughed awkwardly, fabricating an excuse: "The ox stopped to graze on tender grass."
Xu Huaixian side-eyed him. This ox isn't old—fresh and vigorous! And the tender grass was willing to be grazed upon.
"Huh?" Chen Xiaomei scrunched her nose. "Tender grass in autumn?" Most vegetation had yellowed by now.
Sensing Chen Liejiu's poor lie might unravel, Xu Huaixian changed topics: "Is there hot water? I need to wash up."
"Plenty in the kitchen," Wang Wanwan answered. She'd kept the hearth burning since Chen Liejiu departed to fetch Xu Huaixian.
Declining her assistance, Xu Huaixian washed his bloodstained hands himself. That's when he noticed—
Piles of charcoal filled one kitchen corner. Even the cooking stove burned charcoal instead of firewood.
When did we buy charcoal?
Seated at the candlelit table, Xu Huaixian studied Chen Liejiu's poorly concealed smirk. "Did you...start a charcoal business?"
Chen Liejiu grinned, evading confirmation. "Eat first. Explanations later."
Mid-meal, Xu Huaixian noticed Wang Wanwan's subdued expression and recalled an overdue matter: "Has Jinhu returned yet?"
Chen Jinhu—Chen Liejiu's younger brother—had been due back "next month" for five consecutive months since Xu Huaixian's arrival.
"Soon," Chen Liejiu said between rapid bites. "The courier said he took another job without returning home first."
Wang Wanwan's hopeful smile collapsed.
"Slow down," Xu Huaixian chided Chen Liejiu. "No one's stealing your food." Then, regarding Jinhu: "You must reprimand him—no amount of silver justifies neglecting family."
"I warned the courier," Chen Liejiu nodded. "This is his final delivery. Otherwise, he shouldn't bother returning."
His actual threat had been blunter: "If he doesn't come back after this job, I'll marry Wanwan to someone else!"
Ming Dynasty law permitted women and ger to remarry after separation. An absent husband risked returning to find both wife and mother gone.
Noticing Xu Huaixian hadn't inquired about their chick sales, Chen Xiaomei interjected eagerly: "Second Brother! Guess how much we earned?"
Xu Huaixian obliged: "How much?"
"Sixteen taels!" The eight-year-old's arithmetic had improved remarkably. "Six taels in your first month away! Then five each in June and July—too many bad eggs in summer heat!" She dashed to her room, returning with eight taels of broken silver. "Your half!"
Xu Huaixian hesitated. Beyond providing the incubation technique, he'd contributed nothing to this venture—all labor fell to Chen Xiaomei and Wang Wanwan.
"Keep it for sweets," he offered.
"No!" Chen Xiaomei shoved the coins into his palm. "We agreed! Business is business—even between family!"
Struck by her integrity, Xu Huaixian accepted with a smile: "With such principles, you'll achieve great things!"
Her chest puffed with pride—until Xu Huaixian added: "But first, you'll learn characters."
The idea struck while teaching Chen Wu basic literacy during meal deliveries. If an adult like Chen Wu could master hundred-plus characters in two months, surely bright Chen Xiaomei could too.
In modern times, eight-year-olds attended school. But rural Ming Dynasty girls rarely received education—most villages rejected coeducational settings.
Rather than sparking conflicts, Xu Huaixian resolved to teach her himself, drawing on past experience as a substitute teacher during poverty-alleviation campaigns.
"Characters? Me?" Chen Xiaomei gaped. Even her unconventional upbringing hadn't prepared her for this.
"To improve your accounting," Xu Huaixian framed it pragmatically. "Essential for your future enterprises."
Xu Huaixian met Chen Xiaomei's gaze squarely. "You wouldn't want your future enterprises to fail because you can't count eggs or keep ledgers, would you?"
Chen Xiaomei countered pragmatically: "I can hire literate people now that I have money." She'd inquired—town accountants only cost five hundred wen to one tael monthly, easily affordable with her current savings.
Xu Huaixian had anticipated this. "What if they cheat you? Could you detect missing silver?"
Chen Xiaomei fell silent.
"See?" Xu Huaixian guided her gently. "Isn't literacy essential?"
Chen Xiaomei nodded reluctantly.
Having persuaded one, Xu Huaixian turned to Wang Wanwan. "Would you like to learn too?"
Wang Wanwan blinked. "Me...really?"
"Of course!" Teaching one or three made little difference to Xu Huaixian.
A rare smile blossomed on Wang Wanwan's face. "Thank you, Second Brother."
Xu Huaixian returned the smile. "No thanks needed among family." Girls should shine brightly—he'd ensure these sisters-in-law got their chance.
Later, as Xu Huaixian sat on their bed drying his hair, Chen Liejiu asked, "Why teach them literacy?"
"Post-exam leisure," Xu Huaixian shrugged. "Better than idleness."
Regardless of Xiucai results, Qinglian Academy granted lengthy breaks—for successful candidates to adjust to scholar status, and for failures to lick wounds. Xu Huaixian planned to decompress either way. Months of intensive study had left him with literal bloody reactions to classical texts.
"Thank you, A-Qian." Chen Liejiu's gratitude held genuine warmth. He'd intended educating Chen Xiaomei himself, but her constant poultry ventures left no time.
—A-Qian.
The intimate address sent tingles down Xu Huaixian's spine.
"—Wait." Xu Huaixian's fingers stilled on his damp hair. "Just verbal thanks?"
Recognizing his husband's pout, Chen Liejiu took the drying cloth. "Let me help with your hair as thanks."
Xu Huaixian tapped his lips. "No tangible gratitude?"
Chen Liejiu chuckled. "So fond of kisses?"
Before Xu Huaixian could confirm, warm lips pressed against his—brief but electrifying.
"Sufficient?" Chen Liejiu murmured upon parting.
Xu Huaixian touched his tingling mouth. "For now."
Two kisses and a night embracing his husband restored Xu Huaixian's vitality. At home, he thrived; the academy had strained him like an overwound clockwork.
"Up already?" Chen Liejiu called from the courtyard where he fed the oxen at dawn. "More rest?"
Xu Huaixian shook his head—his body clock matched academy routines now.
"After breakfast," Chen Liejiu proposed, eyes gleaming, "visit my Treasure Mountain?"
Treasure Mountain?
Xu Huaixian had guessed the charcoal venture last night.
En route via oxcart, he questioned, "How'd you conceive charcoal production?"
"Your idea, not mine!" Chen Liejiu's grin widened impossibly. His husband's brilliance kept astonishing him.
"Mine?" Xu Huaixian racked his memory. "When?"
Chen Liejiu savored the mystery. "Think harder."
Xu Huaixian combed through recollections—certain he'd never mentioned charcoal. Was Chen Liejiu attributing successes to flatter him?
Facing Xu Huaixian's skeptical gaze, Chen Liejiu finally relented with a chuckle: "Remember what you muttered when the kang-bed craftsmen came?"
Xu Huaixian drew a complete blank.
"You said," Chen Liejiu's eyes sparkled with recollection, "'If they can build heated beds, could they construct kilns too? With kilns for bricks and charcoal, wouldn't these mountains become goldmines?'"
The memory surfaced vaguely—Xu Huaixian recalled dismissing the idea immediately, remembering Ming Dynasty land laws prohibited profiting from state-owned timber.
Yet Chen Liejiu had filed away this casual remark like treasure.
"Not so remarkable," Chen Liejiu admitted at Xu Huaixian's impressed look. "Chen Wu's wild ideas reminded me."
He explained how Chen Wu's fanciful suggestions about ceramic glazes had triggered the memory.
"Still impressive," Xu Huaixian marveled. He couldn't recall conversations from ten days prior, let alone insignificant musings. In my era, this man would've been a Fortune 500 CEO.
Chen Liejiu's grin widened at the praise.
"Then what?" Xu Huaixian leaned forward eagerly. "How'd you secure land and launch operations?"
He adored these rags-to-riches tales, especially starring his brilliant husband.
"I didn't secure it," Chen Liejiu's voice brimmed with triumph. "They gifted it to me!"
Two months prior, returning from visiting Xu Huaixian at the academy, Chen Liejiu had been ambushed by a mob at Xinghua Village's entrance.
Representatives from five major clans—all debtors whose tax evasion he'd exposed—brandished hoes and clubs, demanding justice from Chen Clan elders.
Normally, Chen Liejiu handled such disturbances effortlessly. But today, even his own clansmen hesitated, their elder's faces grim.
Sacrifice one ger to preserve the clan? their expressions suggested.
Chen Liejiu surveyed the scene coldly.
"Chen Liejiu!" roared a Liu clansman. "A mere ger daring such insolence! Kneel and repent!"
Chen Liejiu laughed outright. "Repent? For collecting lawful taxes? Should I apologize for your greed? Your oppression of villagers? Your contempt for imperial law?"
"You think your clan will shield you now?" a Zhao elder sneered. "Forty years since dynasty founding, and you believe a ger outweighs five clans' might?"
Chen Liejiu's lips curled. "Let's wager. Three sentences, and not only will my clan defend me—you'll all be begging me."
Disbelief rippled through the crowd. Even Chen Clan elders exchanged doubtful glances.
Chen Liejiu let the skepticism simmer before delivering his pitch:
"What if I could earn your clans thousands of taels yearly—without spending a single coin? What if every household nets three to five taels annually?"
Silence.
Then—
Impossible!
Even the wealthiest clans weren't truly affluent—why else would they embezzle mere dozens of taels in grain taxes if not for need? But thousands? Chen Liejiu's audacity stunned them.
As a tax collector, had he even earned twenty taels himself? Yet he dared promise thousands!
Most clan elders dismissed this as bluster—a desperate gambit to avoid today's reckoning.
But the Chen Clan leader hesitated.
Chen Liejiu wasn't known for empty boasts. His words carried weight, his reputation unblemished by deceit.
After a tense silence, the elder rasped, "Young Liejiu—swear this is truth. Our full clan protection demands certainty."
"By my blood!" Chen Liejiu drew his dagger, pressing the blade to his palm. "Three stabs, six wounds—let my life forfeit if I lie!"
The "Three Stabs, Six Wounds" oath held grave significance—few survived such self-inflicted punishment.
Gasps rippled as Chen Clan members abruptly turned on the outsiders, driving them from Xinghua Village with hoes and curses. "Harm one hair on Liejiu's head," they roared, "and face war with all Chens!"
Recalling the rival clans' dumbfounded expressions still thrilled Chen Liejiu.
Nothing beats enemies seething impotently!
Yet recounting this to Xu Huaixian, he downplayed dramatically: "They heard of profitable mountain ventures and came begging to collaborate."
Xu Huaixian's admiration shone. "The clan trusted you so completely?"
"Of course!" Chen Liejiu preened under his husband's gaze. "Who led tax collections at seventeen? Your husband!"
Xu Huaixian's esteem climbed higher.
My wife's extraordinary.
At seventeen, he'd been bleary-eyed cramming for college entrance exams. Some fates transcended time and space—academic torment among them.
"How were you so certain of success?" Xu Huaixian probed. "No fear of failure?"
Joint ventures with clansmen were perilous—he'd witnessed modern partnerships dissolve families. Blood ties meant nothing against financial ruin.
Chen Liejiu rubbed his nose sheepishly. "Total confidence!"
The truth? Sheer desperation.
Cornered, he'd resolved to flee with Xu Huaixian if plans collapsed.
Worst case: We'll beg. He'd envisioned Xu Huaixian's sickly pallor attracting sympathy coins while he charmed passersby.
But fortune favored the bold.
Initial attempts proved disastrous.
The kiln—adapted from kang-bed designs—either extinguished wood or incinerated it entirely. At best, they produced low-grade "stove charcoal"—smoky, acrid, unsellable.
Chen Liejiu wanted "ash-blossom charcoal": clean-burning, premium-priced.
"If hearths make charcoal," he reasoned, "why not kilns?"
For weeks, they scarred mountainsides with experimental pits.
Almost asked A-Qian, he admitted inwardly. But his scholar's gaze would've shredded my pride.
Breakthrough came unexpectedly: a ventilation shaft mirroring chimney principles.
So simple! They'd wasted half a month overlooking elementary airflow.
Charcoal sold at three taels per cart—30% to Chen Liejiu, 70% to the clan.
A month and a half of soot-blackened labor culminated in Wang Wanwan boiling endless water to scour him presentable for Xu Huaixian.
Last night's unflinching embrace confirmed his thorough cleansing.
"Chen Liejiu's household has risen indeed," villagers murmured.
"Cartloads daily to county merchants—dozens already preordered!"
Autumn's charcoal demand brought prosperity. Even conservative estimates—ten carts at three taels each—meant thirty taels effortlessly.
With ancestral mountains providing free timber, profits were pure.
"Every Chen clansman envies that ger's golden touch!"
Regret festered among those who'd spurned Chen Liejiu's marriage proposals.
Had we offered a son as live-in husband...
Now exclusion stung:
Kiln workers earned 300 coppers dailyTimber suppliers grew rich passively
Fortified sentries ensured no outsiders glimpsed their techniques.
"Fugui family must rue their cruelty to Xu Huaixian," gossips clucked. "Had they treated him decently, even chicken-hatching profits could've been theirs!"
The targets of these remarks spat silently.
Bullshit!
Ma Cuifen sat beneath the old elm stitching shoe soles, rolling her eyes skyward at the surrounding chatter.
"If we'd treated Xu Huaixian decently," a neighbor speculated, "wouldn't he have willingly become a live-in son-in-law? Then we'd all benefit now."
"Regret? Never!" Ma Cuifen's needle jabbed violently through thick cloth. In her worldview, she'd never wronged others—only suffered injustices herself. "That freeloader ate our food, drank our tea—wasn't arranged marriage his duty to repay us? Any grateful nephew would've volunteered!"
Under Jin Dynasty land laws, men only received state-allocated fields at eighteen—five mulberry acres (hereditable/sellable) and five grain acres (revertible upon death).
Her brother-in-law Xu Ronghua's premature death had reclaimed his grain fields, while his mulberry acres funded funeral expenses. The orphaned Xu Huaixian—sickly and landless—had depended entirely on her family's charity until Chen Liejiu's intervention.
"Why spare resources for someone who mightn't live to claim his own land?" Ma Cuifen sniffed. When Chen Liejiu came collecting old debts during their house construction, she'd seen divine intervention—a chance to offload their burden.
"That brute's abduction wasn't our doing!" she defended. "The sickly fool agreed willingly! After we buried his parents—such unlucky corpses tainting our home—this is his repayment?"
To Ma Cuifen, Xu Huaixian remained an ungrateful viper.
Her unrepentant venom stunned the villagers.
Noticing chicks pecking nearby, Ma Cuifen curled her lip. "Diseased chicks from a cursed man's methods? I'll never touch them!"
Murmurs of disapproval rippled. Many had purchased Xu Huaixian's hatchlings—healthy birds now nearing egg-laying age. Some shipments even reached neighboring counties, selling faster than Chen Xiaomei could incubate them.
"If you despise them," someone challenged, "why watch them daily?"
Ma Cuifen shifted tactics, eyes glinting maliciously. "Why envy Xu Huaixian? Chen Liejiu only took him from desperation! Now rich, do you think he'll keep a useless invalid?"
She knew men's nature—always craving greener pastures. Surely ger were no different?
Xu Huaixian offered neither beauty nor ability. Once Chen Liejiu sampled better options, that sickly scholar would be lucky to remain as a cuckolded hanger-on.
The fantasy warmed Ma Cuifen's spiteful heart.
"Unlikely," a woman countered. "Chen Liejiu funds Xu Huaixian's studies. And didn't he invent the chick-hatching method?"
"Paltry compared to charcoal fortunes!" Ma Cuifen scoffed. "Now that the sister's mastered incubation, what stops Chen Liejiu from discarding him? That pallid scarecrow can't protest."
Just then, Chen Liejiu's oxcart rounded the path—Xu Huaixian seated elegantly in pale academy robes, chatting animatedly with his husband.
Villagers gaped.
This celestial figure—was this truly the wheezing wraith they remembered?
His bone structure retained faint familiarity, but refined features now resembled some cultured urban noble. Even Xu Huaixian's resurrected parents mightn't recognize this transformation.
"Ugly?" Someone elbowed Ma Cuifen. "I'd kill for such 'ugliness'!"
"Those scholar robes suit him divinely," another sighed. "Like some magistrate's pampered son."
"I'd bankrupt my dowry for such a live-in husband! Just to admire him daily!"
Ma Cuifen's credibility crumbled further.
Chen Liejiu, overhearing compliments, couldn't resist amplifying the shockwave:
"Academy break before Huaixian's Xiucai examinations," he announced casually. "We're touring the charcoal mountains—his brilliant invention—to relax pre-tests."
The village square erupted.
"—WHAT?!!"