"It won’t fall through, Grandma. Trust me."

Speaking of the unlucky merchant who passed through the county before the new year, Chen Wanyue had, in the last few days, recalled the exact date he would be passing through.

"It’s the night of the twenty-sixth day of the twelfth lunar month, in the Cai Family Village, about ten li from the county seat. There’s a large grove of acacia trees there. The story goes that the two villagers from the Cai Family Village who saved the merchant initially heard a noise and thought it was a ghost, so they were too scared to get close. But since it was the only way for them to get home, they worked up the courage to approach and ended up rescuing him."

The old lady’s face lit up when she received this definitive information. "Good, good! Then on the night of the twenty-sixth, we’ll take your father with us. After we save the merchant, we won’t ask him to take us to the Prefecture. We’ll just have him buy us a large mansion and a big shop in the county seat. And give us one thousand—no, ten thousand taels of silver. With that, we won’t have to worry about our livelihood anymore."

The grandmother and granddaughter chattered on, completely unaware that someone was squatting outside the kitchen’s back window, overhearing the entire latter half of their conversation.

Next to the Chen family’s old house, there used to be a deep pit. After the Chen family settled here, they filled it in, tidied it up, and turned it into a private plot of land.

As the village grew more crowded, large private plots along the street were no longer allowed. By then, Chen Lian was already born, and the old lady had declared that this land was a homestead she was saving for her grandson.

Regardless of the reason, the plot of land remained.

In the dead of winter, nothing was growing in the field. It was just used to store a lot of straw for burning and fodder for the old ox to get through the winter.

Mrs. Li had used the excuse of getting fodder for the old ox to sneak over to this spot, where she overheard the grandmother and granddaughter’s conversation.

But what truly astonished Mrs. Li about the conversation wasn’t learning the exact time of the merchant’s misfortune. It was the realization that the one who was truly favored by the immortals wasn’t that troublesome old lady, but her own daughter, Wanyue.

Realizing this, Mrs. Li straightened up and spat fiercely on the ground.

’And to think I was so obsessed with the old lady’s status as someone favored by the heavens! I thought I’d be at a huge loss if I left this family, so I came back to make do with Chen Lin.’

’If I had known earlier that my daughter was the special one, I would have taken her and divorced him long ago.’

’With my daughter’s ability, the two of us wouldn’t have to worry about getting rich. We wouldn’t have to worry about finding good husbands for ourselves in the future either.’

The question, however, remained: if her daughter possessed this ability, why was she so insistent on marrying Li Cun?

Was it because Li Cun’s future wasn’t limited to just being a scholar, that he had even greater prospects ahead? Or was it because her daughter was shortsighted, and that was as far as she could see?

With too many questions swirling in her mind, Mrs. Li couldn’t sort them out right away. Frowning, she could only head back to her room to lie down.

She needed to think this through carefully and figure out how to manipulate the situation for her own maximum benefit.

Leaving aside the events at the Chen family’s old house, Zhao Jing drove the ox-cart with everyone to the county seat, expertly navigating his way to find a familiar old doctor.

As soon as the old doctor saw Mrs. Zhao, he immediately put down his book and gestured for her to come and sit in front of him.

After an examination, the old doctor’s brow furrowed deeper and deeper.

When he finished, he looked at Zhao Jing with a frown. "Your mother’s body can’t handle exhaustion, and even more so, she cannot be agitated. She’s been extremely upset these last two days, and her vital essence and blood are severely depleted."

Although the old doctor hadn’t said a single accusatory word, every sentence felt like a reprimand. Hearing this, Mrs. Zhao quickly spoke up for her son. "Jing got married yesterday, so of course, as his mother, I had to help manage a few things. I didn’t do much work, I was just a little tired from having so much on my mind... As for being upset, it was because I heard some gossip, not because my son angered me."

Hearing this, the old doctor’s expression softened slightly.

But he couldn’t help but urge Mrs. Zhao to take good care of herself from now on and not to worry about trivial matters. If she wanted to live long enough to see her grandchildren, she had best listen to less gossip and get upset less often.

The last point was the most important: getting overly agitated would be very detrimental to her longevity.

The old doctor quickly wrote a prescription and repeatedly instructed Zhao Jing that Mrs. Zhao’s body was severely weakened. Because she was agitated, her qi was deficient and she couldn’t absorb tonics properly. He told them to stop the old prescription for now and start this new one. She was to take it for a month straight, and then they would re-evaluate her condition.

Leaving the apothecary, Zhao Jing was holding a large packet of medicinal herbs.

Mrs. Zhao’s face twisted into a bitter expression as she smelled the herbs.

She had to take the medicine, but taking so much of it felt like it would eventually break her body.

It was still early, so the family ended up wandering around the county seat for a while and bought many things to take home.

By the time they had finished their shopping, it was late afternoon. The sun was beginning to set in the west, and the air was getting colder. Zhao Jing quickly got the ox-cart moving and headed for home with everyone.