Chapter 54: Torrential Rain and Guardianship

The weather in the afternoon was as unpredictable as a temper. Just a moment ago, the sun was blindingly fierce, but now, dark clouds in the west looked as though they had been dipped in ink, pressing down toward the village along with the wind.

In the medicine factory, Su Yao was simmering radix isatidis over a small fire on the clay stove. The scent of medicinal herbs mingled with the smell of firewood smoke, filling the entire room with a warmth that tugged at the heartstrings. As she stirred the brown medicinal broth in the pot with a wooden spoon, she suddenly heard the old locust tree outside the courtyard rustling violently, as if someone were shaking its branches with all their might.

"Mom, look at the sky!" Lu Xingchen rushed inside, holding a soggy experimental logbook. The handwriting on the pages had bled blue from the raindrops. "It was completely fine just now, why did it change its face all of a sudden?"

Su Yao glanced out the window. Pea-sized raindrops battered the window paper, splashing dark yellow blotches everywhere. The wind whipped the fine threads of rain inward at an angle, sending a chilly shudder through her arms.

Her heart skipped a beat. Dropping the wooden spoon, she sprinted toward the greenhouse. The distance from the medicine factory to the greenhouse was barely a hundred meters, yet the raindrops had already grown as dense as a bead curtain. Before she had run many steps, her hair and clothes were soaked through. In the distance, she could see the greenhouse's canvas being lifted high by the fierce gale, while the stones at the corners rolled back and forth with dull thuds, sounding as though the entire structure could be flipped over at any second.

"Su Yao!" Lu Zhanye’s voice pierced through the curtain of rain. He had just returned from the military unit, his military-green raincoat ballooning in the wind, a rope clutched in his hand. "Quick, help hold down the canvas!" He had already rushed to the side of the greenhouse, bracing his shoulders against the bamboo poles that were warped and deformed by the wind, his face flushed red with exertion.

Su Yao lunged forward and grabbed a corner of the canvas. Icy rainwater poured down the back of her neck and into her clothes, making her shiver with cold. The canvas was tugged taut by the wind, feeling as though it might rip a person's arms right out of their sockets.

"Xingchen! Go fetch stones! Weigh down the corners!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, though her voice was mostly swallowed by the howling wind and rain.

Xingchen acknowledged her order and turned to run toward the corner of the wall. The muddy ground beneath his feet had been softened into a slush by the rain, and every step he took sank in half a foot deep. He picked up a fist-sized stone and ran back. Just as he reached the edge of the canvas, a gust of violent wind staggered him, sending the stone crashing onto the ground with a thud while the splashing muddy water smeared his entire face.

"Never mind the small stones! Go carry those bluestone piers over there!" Lu Zhanye roared. His military cap had long since been blown away, his wet hair plastered against his forehead, and the "August First" insignia on his uniform darkened by the soaking rain. Those bluestone piers had been specially found and brought over to weigh down the corners when the greenhouse was built; each weighed dozens of catties, and normally it took two people just to lift one.

Su Yao clung desperately to the canvas, her knuckles turning white from the immense force, her palms aching from the friction. The wind, like an invisible giant, lunged over and over again to tear at the canvas. She felt as though her arms were about to snap, but at the thought of the vulnerable seedlings recovering inside, she clenched her teeth and held on. Rainwater cascaded down her cheeks and into her mouth, tasting bitter and astringent.

Just then, a blurred figure slowly emerged from the rain, holding something dark in her arms and stumbling forward step by step. As the figure drew closer, Su Yao saw that it was Su Wan. She wore no raincoat, her coarse cotton tunic drenched and plastered against her figure, while she cradled a millstone-sized rock in her arms, her whole body smeared with mud from the stone.

"Mom, I've come to help!" Her voice was chopped to pieces by the wind, but Su Yao gradually made out the words. Su Wan ran to the corner of the canvas and dropped the rock onto the ground with a heavy thud that shook the earth beneath them. Then, she wedged her shoulder against the canvas. "The wind is too strong! We need to find a few more stones to weigh it down!"

Her hair was a tangled mess plastered to her face, making it impossible to tell rainwater from tears, yet her eyes blazed with intense determination.

Su Yao was momentarily stunned and shouted, "Zhanye, go with Wan to carry the stones! Xingchen and I will hold on for now!"

Lu Zhanye gave a confirmation and followed Su Wan toward the village's stone roller at the head of the path. Their figures were quickly swallowed by the curtain of rain.

Another section of the canvas was whipped up by the gale, exposing the small seedling bed within.

Seeing that the leaves of several recovering seedlings had curled up from the pounding rain, Su Yao felt a pang of heartache as if pricked by needles. She hurriedly freed one hand to pull at the canvas, but the wind was simply too strong. Before she could maintain her grip, the canvas ripped upward in a large sweep with a loud flap, and the freezing rainwater instantly poured over the tender plants.

"Mom, don't worry, let me do it!" Xingchen lunged forward to press down on the canvas, his small body almost lifted off the ground by the wind. Su Yao hastily used a rope to bind the canvas to a bamboo pole, tying it into a double knot, but the rope was too slick and loosened the moment she finished. In her anxious panic, she spotted Xingchen's fallen experimental logbook on the ground. She snatched it up, tore the pages into strips, and twisted them into the rope—the paper strips rapidly absorbed the water and actually held much firmer than the smooth rope alone.

Lu Zhanye and Su Wan returned, carrying half a broken stone roller between them. Both of their faces were flushed crimson, their steps staggering.

"Quick! Press it over there! Hurry up!" Lu Zhanye shouted loudly, working together with Su Wan to maneuver the heavy stone roller toward the corner of the canvas.

The stone roller was so heavy that the moment it hit the ground, it sank deep into the mud, splashing them both with mud spatters. At last, the bulging section of the canvas was securely pinned down.

"Over there too! Hurry, hurry!" Su Wan pointed at another spot billowing outward from the wind and turned to fetch more stones.

Su Yao grabbed her arm. "Don't go back out, it's too dangerous!"

Instead, Su Wan shook her head, pulled her arm free, and dashed back into the rain. "The seedlings can't be ruined." Her voice wasn't loud, but it resonated with stubborn grit.

The four of them stood like four iron nails, firmly anchoring the four corners of the greenhouse. Rainwater streamed down each of their faces, and their soaked clothes clung to their bodies, freezing like ice, yet not a single person spoke of seeking shelter. Gusts of wind swept past, making the canvas snap loudly as if crying for help, but under the joint efforts of the four people, no further large openings were torn.

After an unknown length of time, the force of the wind gradually subsided, and the raindrops grew sparser. Su Yao let go of her grip on the canvas, only to find her fingers too stiff to bend and her arms too sore to raise.

She turned and looked inside the greenhouse. Although the seedling beds were somewhat damp, most of the plants had not been directly pelted, and their new leaves were still unfurled nicely. The heavy stone hanging in her chest finally dropped into place.

"Come inside and rest for a bit." Su Yao moved further into the greenhouse. The scent of damp earth mixed with the fragrance of fresh grass washed over them, feeling much warmer than the outside world. Lu Zhanye found a few dry clods of earth to serve as makeshift stools for everyone to sit on. Xingchen pulled out a corn cake softened by the rain and shared it around. "Mom baked this this morning. It's still good to eat."

Su Wan didn't take any. She quietly squatted down beside the seedling bed, gently brushing the mud and water off the leaves of the recovering seedlings. Her movements were extremely delicate, as if she were afraid of breaking some precious treasure. When her fingertips brushed against a leaf, she suddenly pulled back as if scalded—these very seedlings had almost been destroyed by her own selfish motives, yet here they stood, intact and thriving, filling her heart with a bittersweet ache.

"Wan, thank you." Su Yao handed over a coarse cloth towel that she had washed that morning, still carrying a faint scent of soap pods. "If you hadn't brought that stone roller over, this canvas would never have held."

Su Wan took the towel and rubbed her face haphazardly; the towel was soaked through in an instant. Lowering her head, her voice was no louder than the buzz of a mosquito. "It was only right."

Lu Zhanye passed over his military canteen. "Drink some hot water to warm up."

The water in the canteen was still lukewarm. Su Wan took a sip, and the hot water slid down her throat, warming her halfway through, yet the guilt in her heart only grew heavier. Watching Su Yao and Xingchen inspect the condition of the seedlings from behind, she suddenly felt as though the ten space seeds hidden beneath her bed were like glowing red branding irons, burning her with agonizing unease.

The rain finally stopped completely, and a patch of light appeared at the edge of the sky.

Lu Zhanye went out and found a flatbed cart, offering to take Su Wan home, but Su Wan shook her head. "I can walk myself. I can check along the way to see if any crops were blown down by the wind." Her gaze lingered on the patch of recovering seedlings, her expression complex.

Watching her figure disappear at the end of the farm path, Su Yao suddenly said to Lu Zhanye, "Wan seems to have changed. She's become so much more considerate and gentle."

Lu Zhanye nodded. "She has changed. And she's become stronger, too."

The two of them didn't say much more and set about tidying up the mess in the greenhouse. Xingchen's experimental logbook was completely soaked; Su Yao carefully peeled apart the pages one by one, hoping to dry them out for reuse. Lu Zhanye checked the bamboo poles to see if any had been snapped by the wind so he could repair them in time.

Outside the greenhouse, Su Wan squatted on the edge of the path, looking at the seedling fields washed gleaming clean by the rain, when tears suddenly welled up and fell. She recalled the warm smile on Su Yao's face when she handed her the towel, and the sight of Xingchen shielding the seedlings with his frozen hands. Her heart felt entirely blocked by something heavy.

She turned and ran toward home, this time without taking a detour, cutting straight through the medicine factory with muddy water splashing high from beneath her feet.

Back home, she dug out the paulownia wood box from beneath the bed. Opening it, the ten space seeds lay quietly inside. Su Wan poured the seeds into her palm, and their chilly touch made her shiver. Suddenly, she scooped up the seeds and ran back toward the greenhouse. Along the way, she met a few villagers carrying hoes to check on their crops who asked her where she was heading, to which she only replied, "Delivering something."

Inside the greenhouse, Su Yao and Xingchen were counting the seedlings warped out of shape by the wind. Su Wan stood at the entrance, her palms slick with sweat. She held out the seeds toward them. "Aunty Su... these... are back to you." Her voice trembled violently, tears spinning in her eyes. "The day of the sowing, I was the one who swapped the seeds. I'm sorry."

Su Yao looked at the seeds in her palm, then up at her reddened eyes. After a moment of silence, she took the seeds and placed them into a porcelain bowl. "As long as you know you were wrong, that's enough."

Her voice was calm, devoid of any reprimand, yet Su Wan's tears finally broke like a shattered dam, and she wept bitterly, mourning with a heavy, sorrowful heart.