Divorced with a Child, She Goes Farming, While Her Ex-Husband’s Family Begs Her to Return

[Historical | farming | adorable kids | medicine | violent aesthetics | taking everything | no saintly heroine] Gu Lingqiu wakes up in a dark room, covered in wounds. In the room next door, her mother-in-law, Madam Wang, is whispering with her brother-in-law: “Those two little money-losers are going to Shopkeeper Zhou’s tomorrow. We’ll get a few taels of silver for them to use toward marrying a new wife!” They want to trade her own twins, a boy and a girl, for betrothal money? Gu Lingqiu sneers and feels around until she finds the horsewhip in the corner. Her father was a direct descendant of the Gu family, medicine merchants in Shu, and her mother was a wandering healer skilled in treating injuries and setting bones. Gu Lingqiu grew up wielding a medicine hoe and cracking a whip. Since when could this rotten-hearted bunch bully her? Under a moonless sky, her whip cuts through the wind. She beats the wicked souls across the courtyard until they howl and grovel in the dirt. Then, without a hint of panic, she takes everything: five crates of huanghuali furniture, hauled away; the lumber for the new heated room her second brother-in-law built, dismantled; the money jar buried under the floor tiles, dug up; the 200-jin fat pig in the pigsty, led away! Taking her twins with her, she clears land deep in the mountains and plants medicinal herbs. She treats patients far and wide, and her knack for identifying herbs and reading pulses draws wealthy visitors from every direction to line up for appointments. Her son, An Nian, has a photographic memory. After reciting the Medicinal Properties Rhapsody, he can name the combinations of three hundred medicinal herbs off the top of his head. Her daughter, Nian Jin, was born strong enough to carry a medicine basket half her height, and whenever words fail, she helps her mother clear the place out by force. Meanwhile, Gu Lingqiu’s ex-husband from the Shen family, whose home has been stripped until not a single whole roof beam remains, makes his way to Shu in rags, weeping and wailing: “Lingqiu, we were wrong. Please, take pity on us and give us a hand...” Gu Lingqiu takes a sip of tea and lifts her chin. The four big yellow dogs guarding the gate rise in unison, their eyes glowing green. “They haven’t had a bone to chew on in days. Whether you leave or not is out of my hands.”