When something longed for is finally grasped, there’s always fear—fear that it’s all just a dream.
And when the dream ends, he’d still be with the Ma family, lying on a damp pile of straw, shivering from the cold.
Now that someone had brought up the question he’d been avoiding, the excitement in his heart faded. His mind went blank, and Aunt Liu’s voice echoed in his ears.
“Men always care about continuing their family line. He treats Guaizai well because he’s kind by nature. But if you want to truly tie him down, you need to give him a child of his own.”
Zhao Ger didn’t know how he made it back home. Guaizai stayed behind to play with Liuliu, leaving the yard empty. By the time he snapped out of his daze, the sky had darkened, and thunder rumbled in the distance.
Rain was coming.
The sky turned gloomy, and the wind at the docks whistled, making the boats sway with the waves.
Summer rain was always heavy and sudden.
The dock foreman sent word for the workers to take shelter inside the boats and resume work once the rain stopped.
Fang Zichen and the other laborers went into the boat. Shortly after sitting down, they heard the foreman yelling at someone.
“What’s the use of you if you can’t even get these calculations right? Look at this, how many mistakes have you made this month alone?”
“Brother Yang, I… I’ve had some family issues lately, so I’ve been distracted—”
“Don’t give me that excuse,” the foreman snapped, even angrier now.
The man in charge of accounts, Lao Wu, had some connection to him.
Back when the foreman had dropped out of school, he left the village to make his way in the world. He’d been cheated, robbed, and struggled before finally meeting a good employer who recognized his efforts and put him in charge of this dock.
Lao Wu had been his classmate for two years. After studying for over a decade without passing the imperial exams, he’d been job-hunting when the foreman brought him in to handle accounts.
Out of respect for the foreman, the employer paid Lao Wu generously. At first, he did well, but lately, his mistakes had been piling up, and even the employer was getting annoyed.
Lao Wu blamed family troubles, but the foreman knew exactly what was going on.
It wasn’t anything major—just that half a year ago, Lao Wu had taken a concubine.
This concubine was trouble, constantly clashing with the first wife. Lao Wu had been distracted by the drama, and though the foreman had let a few earlier mistakes slide, six errors in one month were too much. Even he was fed up.
“The employer just sent this ledger back. He’s giving you two days to fix it. If you can’t, you’re out.”
“Brother Yang, please help me!” Lao Wu panicked. “My whole family depends on this job. I can’t lose it. Please, help me!”
The foreman sighed. “Help? How? The employer has given you chances before. When you messed up earlier, did he say anything? He’s been lenient, but you’ve pushed it. Now that you’re scared, it’s too late.” Still, after working together for years, his tone softened. “If you want to keep this job, fix the ledger now.”
“I…” Lao Wu looked miserable.
The ledger was thick, filled with two months’ worth of messy transactions. There was no way to sort it out in two days. Besides, most scholars excelled in literature and classics, not calculations. Writing essays or reciting texts was one thing, but crunching numbers under a tight deadline? Impossible.
Seeing Lao Wu frozen in place, the foreman understood.
“Pack up and go.”
Two days really wasn’t enough. The employer’s ultimatum was just a polite way of telling Lao Wu to quit.
“I…” Lao Wu’s heart ached. He wiped his face and stayed silent.
He knew what the employer meant, but he couldn’t afford to lose this job.
His earlier plea wasn’t an exaggeration, his entire family relied on his income.
When he was young, his family had scrimped to fund his education, leaving them impoverished. His wife had even suffered two miscarriages from overwork in the fields, leaving her unable to bear children. Half a year ago, his mother had arranged for him to take a concubine.
It wasn’t that he didn’t love his wife—it was just that, in middle age, seeing others surrounded by children made him yearn for one of his own. And his mother, now elderly, had only ever wanted a grandson. How could he refuse her?
Now, with the constant fighting at home, it was hard to focus.
Seeing Lao Wu so dejected, the foreman’s anger faded. After years of working together and their old school ties, he relented.
“How about this, I’ll call my cousin over to help you. Two people working together will be faster.”
The foreman’s cousin was the manager at Zuixiao Restaurant in town. The foreman, busy with work, might not have heard, but Lao Wu passed the restaurant every day on his way home and knew the latest news.
“Your cousin is probably swamped right now. I doubt he’ll have time to help me.”
“Huh?”
Lao Wu explained, “The accountant at Zuixiao Restaurant was arrested by the owner a few days ago.”
“What? When did this happen?”
“You’re always at the docks, how would you know? I only heard about it from the restaurant’s waiter. The accountant embezzled nearly three hundred taels. It’s not something they’d publicize, so it’s no surprise you haven’t heard.”
Now the foreman was stumped. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Fang Zichen sitting outside, joking around with the others. Whether out of desperation or inspiration, he waved him over.
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