Don’t worry¹.

Chapter 26

Sha Niu’s Mother suspected that the Village Chief also knew Ming Wen was a deity.

It started when she went to deliver a meal to Ming Wen and ran into the Village Chief’s eldest daughter-in-law doing the same.

It was currently August, the best time of the year. The tender corn was ready to eat, and everything in the fields – peppers, cucumbers, eggplants – was ripe.

Ever since Sha Niu’s Mother learned that Ming Wen was the Immortal Lady, she had developed boundless emotions toward her.

She had been sold here as a young girl. After arriving, she never had a normal environment to grow up in. For all these years, fear had followed her like a shadow.

Most of the time, she played the role of a mother in front of her daughter, imitating the mother she remembered from her childhood.

That was because there was no one left to protect her, and she had nowhere to voice her grievances or seek justice.

But now, the Immortal Lady was right in front of her. Her fear, her injustices, and her bitterness suddenly had a divine being to take charge of her fate.

Hope sprouted in her heart, and the things belonging to her old home began to come alive within her.

She made a jar herself and started pickling peppers and cucumbers. This was a food her hometown had every August.

Sha Niu’s Mother returned home before eleven o’clock that morning. She steamed potato rice and took out the cucumbers and peppers that had been pickling in the jar for just two days.

Two days of pickling made them taste the best – sour, spicy, and crunchy.

She packed three portions: one for Ming Wen, one for Li Qingqing, and one for Sha Niu.

Her heart was full of anticipation, hoping the Immortal Lady would taste the pickles from her hometown.

Before she even reached the clinic, Sha Niu’s loud voice drifted over.

“This is delicious!”

“This is delicious too!”

Sha Niu’s Mother thought they were eating wild berries. There were plenty of wild berries in the mountains during this season.

She was about to ask where they had found them, but the words caught in her throat as another voice came from inside, causing her to swallow her words.

“Eat more. This is all fresh pork. My father-in-law went to town specifically to buy it.”

The speaker was the Village Chief’s eldest daughter-in-law. Everyone called her Xingzi.

“I just don’t know if Ming Wen can get used to the taste?” Inside the room, Xingzi’s tone was respectful and flattering. She was speaking Mandarin.

Sha Niu’s Mother was startled. It turned out the Village Chief’s daughter-in-law could also speak Mandarin. She remembered the woman had finished primary school in town, so knowing Mandarin wasn’t impossible.

It was just that the two of them had never spoken in the past.

It wasn’t that Xingzi was a bad person, but she and Sha Niu’s Mother belonged to different worlds and rarely crossed paths.

Sha Niu’s Mother didn’t open the door. The things her daughter was saying inside made it clear, even without looking, how good the lunch sent by the Village Chief’s family was.

“White rice is so good!”

Sha Niu’s Mother looked down at the potato rice she had brought. There were more potatoes than rice in it.

“I’m glad you like it. I’ll bring you dinner later as well.”

Sha Niu’s Mother hesitated, looking at her pickles and potato rice, and decided not to go in.

She returned home, her heart feeling as if it were being fried in a pan. She was so uneasy she couldn’t stay idle for a second.

Potato rice… it certainly couldn’t compare to the fresh pork and white rice others were sending.

That was pork the Village Chief had gone to town specifically to buy. And the tone the Village Chief’s daughter-in-law used didn’t sound at all like she was speaking to a trafficked bride.

The more Sha Niu’s Mother thought about it, the more she felt it was true. Did the Village Chief know? Did he know Ming Wen was the Immortal Lady, so now he was trying every possible way to suck up to her?

Sha Niu’s Mother was frightened by this. If the Village Chief came to curry favor with the Immortal Lady, his family had so many good things. How could she ever compete?

That evening, as soon as Sha Niu returned, she pulled her mother into a corner.

“Mom, are you happy?”

She pulled the money out of her pocket, her eyes fixed on her mother.

Sha Niu’s Mother was startled, thinking her daughter had stolen it. She looked around and asked, “Where did this come from?”

Sha Niu said, “The Immortal Lady gave it to us. I have some, and Li Qingqing has some too.”

“Don’t you get wages every month?”

“That money is different. This is the money the Village Chief took before. He gave it back now, and the Immortal Lady split it between me and Li Qingqing.”

Sha Niu’s Mother breathed a sigh of relief. Her girl might be simple, but she didn’t lie.

She looked at the money, and her daughter asked again, “Mom, I’m giving all this money to you. Are you happy?”

Tears suddenly fell from her eyes. “Happy, Mom is happy.”

Sha Niu had more to tell that would make her mother even happier. She whispered, “Today Li Qingqing told the Immortal Lady that the Village Chief wanted her to go work in the city. Li Qingqing said she didn’t want to go, but the Immortal Lady told Qingqing that if she has the chance in the future, she must go to the city.”

Sha Niu’s Mother listened to her daughter while counting the money.

“When the time comes, we’ll go together. We can open a restaurant with Li Qingqing.”

That night, with her daughter’s share of the money under her pillow, Sha Niu’s Mother’s heart was full of hope.

Early the next morning, Sha Niu’s Mother made large tangyuan, carefully filling them with brown sugar. She had asked someone to buy the brown sugar in town.

Her hometown was in the southwestern mountains, a region famous for its brown sugar. She always felt the brown sugar here didn’t taste quite right.

Sha Niu was incredibly greedy for them. “Mom! Is it a holiday today?”

Xinghua Village didn’t have a tradition of eating large tangyuan. These were something Sha Niu’s Mother made herself. Every year during the Lunar New Year, when the people back in her hometown would start making them, she would rely on the scenes in her memory and imitate her mother. She would soak glutinous rice and regular rice for two nights, then grind them with a stone mill.

The soaked rice was ground into a watery flour and left to settle overnight. The next day, after pouring off all the water from the top, the tangyuan dough was ready.

The first time her family heard she was making the large tangyuan from her hometown, they were interested. But after eating them once, they didn’t like them anymore, finding the brown sugar too cloying.

But Sha Niu loved them. So, every year, it was just the mother and daughter who ate them.

Every year, when the New Year from her memories arrived, and when the people in her hometown – located in some unknown direction – began making large tangyuan, she made them too.

She would dry the leftover dough and save it. When she wanted to eat them at other times, she would just add water and knead it.

Sha Niu was exactly like her mother had been as a child, craving this specific treat above all else, especially with as much brown sugar as possible.

Now, as her mother worked, Sha Niu hovered around the edge of the stove, her mouth practically watering.

“This is for the Immortal Lady.”

The moment Sha Niu’s Mother said the food was for the Immortal Lady, Sha Niu instantly became well-behaved.

“The Immortal Lady will definitely love it too.”

After Sha Niu’s Mother finished cooking, she still set aside two for Sha Niu before bringing the remaining five large brown sugar dumplings to the young deity.

She had no meat to offer, but she still wanted to do her absolute best to give the finest things she had to the Immortal Lady.

The young deity looked at the bowl of large dumplings, a hint of pleasant surprise in her eyes.

She poked one open, and the brown sugar flowed out.

As Sha Niu’s Mother watched her, her heart gradually settled. The restlessness and unease faded away. She always felt that a certain light radiated from the girl, a light that brought peace to anyone who drew near.

“That… the Village Chief’s eldest daughter-in-law… she…” Sha Niu’s Mother stumbled over her words, not knowing how to express her suspicion that they knew the truth as well.

“The Village Chief knows my identity.”

The young deity was a woman of few words, but she saw everything clearly.

Sha Niu’s Mother realized that when the Village Chief had suddenly proposed to stop interfering with the clinic’s finances, he must have already guessed Ming Wen’s identity. That was why he had appeared outside the clinic time and time again afterward.

“Ah? Then what should we do?” Sha Niu’s Mother panicked slightly. In her eyes, this village was a place of sin, and everyone in it should have some self-awareness. As a trafficked bride who had suffered endless hardships, she naturally felt that a man like the Village Chief should recognize his own wickedness. He should understand that if the Immortal Lady truly descended to the mortal realm, and if she chose to become a trafficked bride herself, then the evildoers in this village were all destined for a miserable end.

Given that, the Village Chief and his people would surely try to target the Immortal Lady.

“We’ll take it one step at a time. There’s no need to worry.” She ate another large dumpling. She truly had no resistance against such sweets.

Sha Niu’s Mother breathed a small sigh of relief, but she was still worried the young deity might be deceived by the Village Chief. She spoke up again, “I don’t have much contact with that eldest daughter-in-law, so I don’t know what she’s like, but the Village Chief is definitely not a good man.”

Sha Niu’s Mother felt very close to her deity now. If the deity had been nothing more than a statue of the Immortal Lady in a temple, she might not have dared to speak this way. But the young deity before her was a god on her side, so she spoke her mind freely.

“The Village Chief acts like a kind old man on the surface, doing everything for the sake of the village. He seems like he doesn’t want to offend us trafficked brides, either. But one year, a trafficked bride thought he was a good person and went to beg him for help. He turned right around and told the family everything.”

“Furthermore, when the government provided funds to set up the clinic, many people in the village wanted the job. He gave it to his youngest son without a second thought.”

“His son treated someone to death, and in the end, they just blamed it on the medicine.”

This man was only good on the surface; in reality, he was entirely selfish.

The young deity nodded understandingly. She looked at Sha Niu’s Mother and said softly, “Don’t worry.”

Those two words said everything.

The restlessness, unease, dread, and fear that had gripped Sha Niu’s Mother were all extinguished in that moment.

It was true; Sha Niu’s Mother had been afraid. She was afraid that once the Village Chief discovered Ming Wen was the Immortal Lady, he would try to curry favor with her.

He was the Village Chief, after all. His house was full of meat and wine, and he had offered so many sacrifices to the Immortal Lady every year. The Immortal Lady had watched him grow up; would she feel more affection for him?

She was just a trafficked bride who had never been able to offer sacrifices before.

She was truly terrified deep down.

But now, looking into the young deity’s eyes, she heard her say: Don’t worry.

When Sha Niu’s Mother headed back, she was in an exceptionally good mood.

Even when she saw the eldest daughter-in-law carrying things, including another piece of meat, Sha Niu’s Mother felt no panic. She remembered what Sha Niu had said on the first day the Immortal Lady arrived.

“No one else in the village recognized her, only I did. The Immortal Lady will always like us best.”

Her silly girl really hadn’t been wrong.

In the entire village, the Immortal Lady liked the two of them best.

Sha Niu’s Mother ate a large dumpling herself. It felt as if she had returned to her old home.

The brown sugar here now tasted like the brown sugar from her hometown.

She thought that perhaps the Immortal Lady had performed a miracle, changing the taste of the sugar to match her memories.

Translator’s Notes