Chapter 4: She must be angry.

After dinner, the sky had completely darkened.

Under the eaves, a few scattered stars could be seen in the sky.

Cao Wen paced in the courtyard with his hands behind his back, absentmindedly gazing at the stars.

Nights in the countryside were quiet.

First, because candles were costly to burn, and farmers couldn’t afford to waste them.

Second, there wasn’t much entertainment.

After dinner and some simple tidying up, farming households would just go to bed.

By the time everything settled down, people would already be in dreams.

Hearing the sound of dishes being washed, he craned his neck and peeked toward the kitchen.

When he saw Xuduo Yan bowing her head doing the dishes, he quickly slipped back into the main room.

The Cao family’s small thatched cottage wasn’t big.

The central hall stood in the middle, with one room on each side.

On the right, a kitchen had been built above.

Ever since Cao Wen’s parents had passed, the room on the left had been used for storage.

Currently, it was jam-packed with all sorts of clutter—tables, stools, wooden baskets.

Only the right room was used for sleeping.

Cao Wen peeked into the right-side room and, sure enough, there was only one bed.

Just a few inches wider than the couch outside, probably less than 1.5 meters wide.

With his current frame, it was just right for one person.

But if two people lay there…wouldn’t that mean sleeping hand-to-hand?

Embarrassing.

Thinking of this, Cao Wen’s face flushed red.

Now, married young couples naturally had some nighttime activities.

Cao Wen had already said he wouldn’t engage in anything tonight, but if they ended up lying side by side and something sparked—if she wanted it, how could he reject her again like before?

Hearing the sound of dishes being put away, he darted out of the other room and back into the hall.

He quickly lay on the couch and shut his eyes.

Xuduo Yan finished tidying the kitchen and came back, wondering where she would sleep tonight.

But what reached her ears first was the sound of snoring.

She saw the man curled up on the couch, already asleep, and instinctively softened her steps, wiping her hands on her apron.

This man had taken her usual sleeping spot. Where was she supposed to sleep?

Xuduo Yan paused, stood beside the couch for a while, then turned and blew out the lamp.

After a moment of hesitation, she entered the inner room.

Only after hearing the door close did Cao Wen open his eyes in the darkness and sit up.

Seeing no signs of her coming out again, he let out a sigh of relief.

He stretched out comfortably.

Now he could sleep in peace.

The next day was the Dragon Boat Festival.

The festive air was lively, and this year a wealthy landowner was holding a sacrifice ceremony.

The village was already bustling from early morning.

Cao Wen slept in.

It was the sound of gongs and drums outside that woke him.

He got up from the couch and shook his stiff body, bones cracking loudly.

Opening the hall door, sunlight flooded in.

The house was silent inside and out.

He realized Xuduo Yan wasn’t home.

She hadn’t woken him or said where she was going.

“She must be mad. Definitely mad!”

Cao Wen sighed.

The way he acted yesterday—not only rejecting her hints, but also sleeping outside like that—it was clearly a “separate sleeping arrangement” on their wedding night.

She hadn’t said anything, but surely she was upset.

She must think he was a terrible man—sweet words before marriage, and after, not even sharing a bed.

The girl wasn’t one to throw a tantrum, but she must have felt wronged and could only show her displeasure this way.

Cao Wen had a headache.

A real headache—both mental and physical.

He guessed that Xuduo Yan had either gone to the fields or joined the festival.

Landowners hosting rituals for rain had to be attended by their tenant farmers.

He had just fallen out with the landlord’s household—going now would be inappropriate.

But as a tenant, he couldn’t not go either.

First, beggars can’t be choosers.

Second, praying for rain was essential to farming.

Even ordinary farmers took it seriously, let alone tenants.

To avoid conflict, she likely went instead.

Cao Wen rubbed his empty stomach.

Last night’s porridge didn’t even fill him 60%.

With watery soup, hunger came back fast.

He wandered around the kitchen.

The stove was cold—clearly not used that morning.

Poor farming families only ate twice a day; tenants sometimes even less.

Morning meals weren’t a habit.

Earlier, he’d been too preoccupied with the joy of transmigrating to a new world to consider his current situation.

Though his memories were muddled, it was clear that the Cao family were tenant farmers—dirt poor, barely scraping by.

They had only a thatched hut and a few acres of rented land.

Not only was there no spare money, even the rice jar barely held two bowls’ worth.

In this world, tenant farmers lived harder lives than ordinary folk—on the brink of becoming slaves.

They toiled year-round.

After paying taxes to the court, they still had to give a share to the landlord.

What remained barely kept them from starving.

Landlords were cruel, often inventing new excuses to exploit them.

One day they’d demand repairs at the estate, the next they’d have to gather firewood in the private forest.

Most of the year was spent working for the landlord—practically no better than servants.

Holidays meant more offerings—chicken, ducks, wine.

If you upset the landlord, getting beaten was the least of your worries.

If they stopped renting land to you, the whole family would starve.

Previously, the body’s original owner was alone—no family to feed.

Thanks to his strong build and quick work, he was often summoned by the landlord and at least got full meals now and then.

But now, having angered the landlord and added another mouth to feed, with debts piling up, every day was tighter than the last.

Two meals a day was already a blessing—who could expect breakfast?

Cao Wen looked at the sun.

Being hungry for a day or two was fine, but long-term starvation?

Who could bear that?

These landlords wanted tenants to stay hungry.

No matter how talented you were, with no food and no strength, you were easy to control.

Cao Wen couldn’t tolerate such a life anymore.

After a quick tidy-up, he also stepped out the door.

He passed through patches of farmland, walking past the few acres of land they rented from the landlord.

Technically, it was only one mu of paddy field and one mu of dry land.

(One mu = approx. 666.7 square meters or ~1/6 acre)

A single mu of paddy field yields about 1–2 shi (120–240 jin = 60–120 kg) of rice per year.

But four-tenths of the harvest had to be paid as tax to the court, and another 20–30% went to the landlord.

What remained was only about 20% of the total.

Take last year for instance: it was a decent year, no disasters.

The paddy field yielded 200 jin (100 kg).

80 jin went to the court, 50 jin to the landlord.

Only 70 jin (35 kg) remained.

An average adult needed 250–400g of rice per meal to feel full.

Even eating only one meal per day, those 70 jin would only last about 4–5 months.

Sure, they might stretch a meal into two half-meals—but even with extreme frugality, it wouldn’t last a whole year.

There was still the dry land, where they could plant vegetables and fruits throughout the seasons.

After taxes, they could sell the rest in town for small change, trade for essentials like candles and salt.

What little rice remained would barely get them through the year.

Tenant farmers were poorer than regular farmers precisely because of the grain payments.

In theory, a healthy person could handle 3–4 mu of land, and that would be enough to eat.

But it wasn’t that they were lazy—it was that landlords refused to rent more fertile land to tenants.

If the landlord rented out too much land to tenant farmers, wouldn’t the tenants just focus entirely on working their own fields?

How would they have the time or energy to go work at the landlord’s estate when summoned?

Landowners held vast swaths of land and the best tools.

Their aim was to use as little land as possible to bind as many tenants as they could.

That way, they wouldn’t need to hire long-term laborers or purchase large numbers of slaves—saving considerable costs.

This small patch of land kept tenant farmers tied to it, unable to leave and seek other opportunities.

But it also couldn’t feed them fully, which meant they wouldn’t dare act out of line.

In turn, they became even more dependent on their landlords.

In fact, there were always those who couldn’t bear such exploitation and oppression.

Some, after being beaten by the landlord’s household, would go to the local magistrate to file a complaint.

However, local officials often sided with wealthy families.

Most complaints filed by tenants vanished without a trace.

Even when a case was heard, it often ended in the tenant losing.

Even the laws of the imperial court offered more protection to landowners.

Tenant farmers, weak and without backing, stood no chance against them.

In the long run, even the most hot-blooded men were worn down into timid compliance.

The area around Cao Wen’s home, Caojia’ao, used to be dominated by the Cao family—a prominent surname in the village.

But after the chaos of war, they had declined, and the place had become a settlement for tenants.

Landowners never treated tenants like human beings.

Even ordinary farmers looked down on them and rarely associated with them.

So tenants could only band together, living in their own corner and avoiding conflicts with the rest of the village.

In the distance came the sound of drums—it seemed the Dragon Boat Festival sacrifices were beginning.

Cao Wen looked up.

This year had been a dry one, and crops weren’t growing well.

If it didn’t rain soon, the autumn harvest would be even worse.

He withdrew from his thoughts, deciding to go to the town for a while.

Maybe he could find some odd jobs.

Never mind it was a holiday—if he could bring back a little oil or food, that’d help.

More importantly, he had to think about how to better support the household moving forward—maybe skip a few fewer meals.

He could go hungry, sure.

But as a man, could he really let his wife…no wait—someone else’s wife…

Well, if someone else’s wife went hungry, that was one thing.

But if he was the one feeding her…wasn’t that weird?

Still, considering the circumstances, not supporting her would probably look even worse…

Sigh!

Cao Wen’s mind was in a tangle.

He walked toward the marketplace, trying to reason it all out as he went.