Chapter 51: The Three Treasures

On the way back, Shao Erdan walked in complete silence, a quietness so profound that it made one forget he was once a little neighborhood bully who used to run amok with Old Man Shao.

They reached the village by late afternoon. Wei Ting and Old Man Shao were out working in the fields, while the three children had gone off to play in the village, accompanied by Meizi and Niudan.

Because of the matter regarding the recipe sale, Shao Erdan hadn't touched a single bite of the snacks Shao Point had packed for him.

The moment they arrived, he bolted straight into his room.

After a moment of thought, Shao Point decided to make him his absolute favorite: braised pork belly with preserved mustard greens.

Pork belly and fermented black beans were readily available. She braised the meat first, then soaked the dried mustard greens until soft, arranged them in a dish over the pork, and placed the whole thing in the steamer. It was ready in no time.

Shao Point brushed off her hands after snipping some scallions, initially intending to call Shao Erdan out to eat. Changing her mind, she carried the steaming dish of pork directly to his room.

Shao Erdan was sitting alone on his bed, looking thoroughly miserable.

Ever since her transmigrated days began, this silly younger brother had always been carefree. This was the first time Shao Point had ever seen him look so heartbroken.

Shao Point tapped lightly on the wooden door frame. "Erdan, time to eat."

Shao Erdan turned his body further toward the wall and lifted his sleeve to swipe fiercely across his face.

Shao Point walked up to him and stared with a puzzled expression at the back of his head. "Are you... crying?"

"I am not," Shao Erdan said, his voice choked with sobs.

He was definitely crying.

He hadn't cried when taking beatings for her, nor when he was pinned to the ground and humiliated, nor even when he had to bathe in freezing water and felt dizzy from hunger. Yet, simply because a few recipes had been sold, this boy was in tears.

Shao Point did business for survival; therefore, whether she sold pastries or the recipes themselves made little difference to her.

Shao Erdan was different. He genuinely loved selling those cakes.

When the recipe was taken away from him, it felt as though a piece of his very heart had been carved out.

He stubbornly turned his face away and tilted his chin up, refusing to let his older sister see him sniffling.

Shao Point sat down beside him and gently tugged at his finger. "Are you blaming me for selling the recipes?"

Shao Erdan's tears spilled down uncontrollably. "No! It's just that I'm useless! If I hadn't let them catch me, you wouldn't have had to hand over the formulas!"

Shao Point sighed. "How should I explain this to you? Whether they caught you or not, I would have sold the recipes anyway. Not wanting you to suffer even the slightest bit of harm is one thing, but secondly, I had my own plans."

Shao Erdan sobbed, "You're lying! You obviously didn't want to sell them!"

Shao Point said softly, "I'm really not lying to you. I didn't give in right away because I was waiting for the right moment to raise the price. If I had sold them too easily, the people at Jin Ji would have thought they got the short end of the stick, and if they ever wanted to collaborate with me again in the future, they would drive the price down to the bone. However, if I let them go while 'driven to a desperate corner,' no matter what price I demanded, it would look like my absolute bottom line. People being people, everyone loves to take advantage. You can just look at this as a marketing and negotiation tactic."

"I just didn't expect them to move so fast... Does it still hurt?" Shao Point raised her hand to gently touch Shao Erdan's cheek.

Shao Erdan wiped his tears. "My heart hurts."

Shao Point: "..."

She continued, "Did you understand what I just said?"

"I understood... the recipes are gone—waaah!" Shao Erdan burst into loud wails.

Shao Point thought: *Well, you certainly understood nothing at all...*

"We won't have any more cakes to sell—sob, waaah—"

Shao Erdan was utterly devastated, feeling as though his life had lost all purpose.

Shao Point patiently reasoned, "We can still sell them. Jin Ji sells theirs, and we sell ours; they don't conflict. Besides, even with the recipes, they won't make them taste better than ours, and if anything, they might just bring more fame to these pastries. Furthermore, the market is so vast that it can never be cornered. Don't forget, we still have the academy business."

"But they'll be eaten up so fast—our family is going to be poor again—"

Shao Erdan cried as if his heart were breaking.

"No, we won't." Shao Point hurriedly tried to distract him. "Don't you love braised pork with preserved mustard greens? I made a huge plate of it, and it's all yours."

"I don't want—" Shao Erdan sniffled, looking up at his older sister with tear-filled eyes. "Sis, what did you say you made?"

Shao Point smiled, handing a large plate of braised pork and a pair of chopsticks straight into his hands. "Eat it while it's hot. Once it cools down, it'll be too greasy."

"Sis, you eat too."

"I'm not eating, you go ahead." She had to lose weight.

"Oh."

Shao Erdan wiped away his tears and began to eat, his shoulders still hitching with occasional sobs.

***

In the short span of time it took to coax her younger brother, Shao Point had broken out in a sweat.

"Coaxing people is truly heavy physical labor," she mused.

Come to think of it, who was the actual child here? He was even harder to pacify than the three little toddlers.

Shao Point planned to go back to her room to change her clothes. When she turned around, she saw the three little ones peering around the doorway at some point, three round little heads poking out as they stared intently inside.

*Very well, Erdan, your dignity is completely gone. From now on, you are the crybaby uncle.*

Having cried for so long, Shao Erdan had burned through a tremendous amount of energy, and at that moment, he was burying his face in the meat, completely unaware of the three tiny eavesdroppers.

Shao Point led the three toddlers out to the main hall. Meizi hadn't gone far, lingering near the entrance to watch them, but upon seeing Shao Point, she retreated shyly.

The three little ones must have been playing hard somewhere, as they were drenched in sweat.

Shao Point fetched a dry towel and wiped each of them down one by one.

"Are you hungry?" she asked.

In the past, the three of them would have nodded in unison.

This time, however, they remained silent, gazing at her unblinkingly.

"What is it?" she asked, puzzled.

Without a word, the three of them scurried back toward Shao Erdan's room on pattering feet.

Assuming they had simply gone to find Shao Erdan, Shao Point didn't think much of it and returned to her room to change into a fresh, cool outfit.

Just as she pulled open her door to head toward the kitchen, she saw the three little toddlers standing in a neat row by the doorway, each clutching their small cloth bundles.

"For Mom," Dahuhu said.

"Erhu too, for Mom," Erhu said.

"And Xiaohu's." Xiaohu shoved his tiny bundle into Shao Point's hands as well.

Shao Point looked bewildered. "Do you guys want to keep your luggage in my room?"

When she first met the three little ones, each of them had been clutching a tiny bundle just like these against their chests.

They had been assigned to stay in Shao Erdan's room, so their bundles naturally stayed over there too.

The three of them pulled Shao Point into the room, signaling for her to open the bundles.

Shao Point placed the three small bundles on the table. "Do you want to change your clothes?" she asked while casually opening the first bundle.

It belonged to Xiaohu.

Xiaohu stood on tiptoe, rummaged blindly through the bundle for a moment, and fished out a small padded cotton vest.

Thinking he wanted to wear this particular piece and reaching to take it so she could help him change, she watched as his little hand began digging and scratching furiously inside the lining of the vest.

Out tumbled several tiny silver flakes.

He dropped the padded vest without a second thought, grabbed a pair of small padded trousers, and began digging again.

—And out came a few more tiny silver flakes.

Xiaohu dug out a dozen or so tiny silver flakes in total, making Shao Point's eyes pop wide in astonishment.

"Mom, Mom!" Erhu wanted to open his small bundle next.

Dazed, Shao Point helped him untie it.

Unlike Xiaohu, Erhu didn't dig around in the seams of his clothes.

Instead, he directly unfastened his little undershirt and fished out two thin leaves of solid gold.

Shao Point: "???"

Dahuhu's stash was even more outrageous.

His tiger-head cap had a double layer. After removing the inner lining, he shook out five crisp, white banknotes!

Following that, he slipped off his tiny cloth shoes and, with majestic authority, extracted a black-gleaming token from beneath the insoles!

Shao Point: "...?!"

Her jaw dropped so wide she couldn't close it for a long, long time.

Case solved. Mystery unraveled.

Old Man Shao hadn't managed to find a single copper coin on Wei Ting—it turned out they had all been in the possession of these little ones the whole time?

No, wait. These scattered bits of loose change and banknotes of varying denominations didn't look like something Wei Ting would give them; they looked much more like something the children had accumulated... by hoarding themselves.

Why she used the word "hoarded," Shao Point couldn't quite explain either; it was just an instinctive feeling.

A sense of vigilance surpassing that of ordinary people sometimes made one feel that they weren't simply carefree children growing up.

While a carefree nature was exceptionally evident in Niudan next door, Meizi, who had spent her days constantly reading adults' expressions, appeared far more sensible by comparison.

To verify her guess, she asked, "Is this money your dad's?"

The three of them shook their heads.

"Does your dad know about this?"

The three of them shook their heads again.

It seemed they had indeed hoarded it themselves.

*Are you three little squirrels? The kind that exclusively hoards money?*

It sounded funny, but it made Shao Point's heart ache.

What kind of experiences had these three little fellows been through to develop such acute vigilance and the habit of hoarding little stashes of money?

Could it be that they had overheard Shao Erdan's words just moments ago, thought the family had run out of money, worried that she would go hungry, and therefore brought out every single bit of the money they had worked so hard to save just to give it to her?

Shao Point's heart felt as though it had been fiercely squeezed by a large, burning hand.

Looking at the three little ones who were prepared to hand over their entire worldly wealth to her, she suddenly didn't know what to say.

Of course she couldn't take their little stash of money.

Even if she had funds to spare for now, she certainly couldn't be greedy enough to take money from children.

Gently pushing the small pile of money back across the table, she patted the three little heads and said softly, "Dahuhu, Erhu, Xiaohu, take your little money back."

"For Mom," Dahuhu insisted.

Xiaohu waved his hands earnestly. "Mom, no going hungry."

Erhu patted his own small belly. "Erhu eat less."

They would eat just a little bit less so that their mother wouldn't go hungry.