Yang Baihui reached the courtyard gate and couldn’t resist turning back to glance at the Zhou siblings, then she trotted off, a bit comically due to the sharp pain in her knee from the earlier fall which made her running posture quite funny.
Yang Ruxin just sneered coldly, but a sense of vigilance had already risen in her heart. She had initially thought not to rush things, intending to wait for the weather to cool before setting up a separate household for herself—since cooler weather meant a lower risk of wound infection, and even if she had to be bedridden after being beaten, it wouldn’t be as uncomfortable. However, she now realized that she had to move up her timeline.
At the moment, Sanni had already fetched a cold towel to soothe Zhou Xiao’s face, while Erni had cleaned Zhou Ying’s.
"Do you hurt?" Yang Ruxin asked, looking at Zhou Xiao.
Shaking his head, Zhou Xiao said, "Compared to the beatings and scoldings from the traffickers before, this is nothing."
"You’re great for protecting your sister," Yang Ruxin smiled and then, like performing a magic trick, pulled out a jar of ointment. She scooped out a dollop of the white paste and rubbed it on the other’s face. "You’ll be fine by tomorrow."
"Thank you, Sister Ruxin," the little guy said, somewhat embarrassed as Yang Ruxin applied the ointment to him.
"Sister Ruxin..." At that moment, Zhou Ying came over and leaned against Yang Ruxin’s leg, "We have a father..."
"I know." Yang Ruxin stroked the little girl’s head, "Don’t pay attention to irrelevant people, okay?"
The little girl nodded.
"Big sister, what should we do if she talks about marriage arrangements?" Erni asked with worry, "What if..."
But Sanni’s eyes whirled, thinking if she should tell Brother Gu about it. She wasn’t fooled; Brother Gu was very good to their older sister, certainly, he wouldn’t allow the third aunt to randomly propose a match for her.
"Don’t worry, she can’t control me," Yang Ruxin waved her hand dismissively, "Everyone, just go on with what you were doing."
Seeing Yang Ruxin’s nonchalant demeanor, everyone relaxed, because in their hearts, they knew their big sister would do as she said.
However, Yang Baihui threw a big fit after she returned to the old mansion. She had always bullied the An Family, but now she had suffered a loss at their hands, and she had to regain her dignity somehow.
Yang Anshi felt guilty towards her eldest daughter to begin with, and also secretly hoped her eldest could look out for her younger sister before she married off, so in the end, Yang Baihui left the old mansion with a chicken in hand.
That was something Yang Anshi had prepared to nourish her daughter’s body.
Upon hearing the news, Yang Ruxin just smiled indifferently. It was normal for the old mansion’s people to act this way, but although she appeared calm, she also did not dare to let her guard down. Therefore, she planned to accelerate the pace of shrimp paste production in the coming days. She hadn’t made much before, and after sending away twenty pounds tomorrow, there wouldn’t be much left, so she had to grind quite a bit more.
Making shrimp paste wasn’t difficult; it didn’t require much skill, but in this era, without electric grinders, grinding was a labor-intensive task. Luckily her family’s stone mill was small, and by taking turns, the siblings managed to keep it reasonably easy.
Because that Lu Gao was quite reliable, after their previous agreement, he would deliver shrimp almost every other day—sometimes seven or eight pounds, sometimes more than ten. Consequently, they now had nearly thirty pounds of shrimp paste at home. However, that was still far from sufficient. She had to take advantage of the hot weather to make and store as much as possible, so she would have the confidence to negotiate the establishment of her own household registration at the Governor’s Office.