The woman held the little girl and stood up, her eyes blurred with tears as she wanted to pull the little girl to kneel before Lin Wanwan: "Big Ya, thanks to this young lady saving you, quickly kowtow to your benefactor."
"No, no, no! Don't!" Lin Wanwan, frightened, quickly reached out to help, as the modern concept of equality rooted in her soul couldn't accept others kneeling before her.
But the woman and the little girl, who had just stopped crying, still indeed knelt and bowed heavily to Lin Wanwan before standing up.
After experiencing such an event, the woman had lost the heart to sell fish. But when she packed up her stall, she found that of the remaining two fish, one had been trampled to death, and her heart twisted in pain at the loss of four coins!
Lin Wanwan watched as the woman, looking heartbroken, picked up the dead fish and put it into the bamboo basket beside her, feeling a surge of emotion. The people here seemed to have very tough conditions to live in, as there were no brightly colored clothes in sight, many even patched and mended.
Lin Wanwan sighed, withdrew her gaze from scanning her surroundings, nodded lightly at the woman, and was about to leave.
The woman hurriedly spoke up: "May I know where the benefactor lives? I would like, when I have a chance, to send some seafood to repay your kindness. We fishermen have nothing much else of value, hope you won't mind."
Lin Wanwan smiled: "It was just a small effort, nothing worth mentioning."
At this moment, Lin Mengli's voice suddenly rang out: "Mengbo's family? Big Ya, what happened to you?"
Lin Mengli, having heard the commotion, had come over to see what was going on. He hadn't seen Lin Wanwan rescue anyone, but when he saw the disheveled woman and the big Ya crying her heart out, he knew something must have happened.
The woman, known as Mengbo's family, looked at Lin Mengli in surprise, then recounted the incident to him, repeatedly emphasizing: "Thanks to this esteemed lady, otherwise, our Big Ya, our Big Ya... it was really too dangerous just now. If something had happened to Big Ya right under my eyes, I wouldn't want to live either."
Lin Mengli quickly turned back to bow to Lin Wanwan: "We owe it all to Wan Niang."
He then said to Mengbo's family: "This Wan Niang is also from our Houtao Lin family, what a coincidence, it seems destined by heaven."
After introducing both parties to each other, Lin Wanwan learned that the woman's name was Lin Qin.
The Big Ya, who had stopped crying, looked at the little Qingyu holding a sugar figure, suddenly said: "Stinky Girl?"
Little Qingyu's body shook when she heard this name, and she couldn't help but bury her head into Lin Wanwan's skirt, like an ostrich hiding in the sand.
Lin Wanwan felt a little strange, but didn't push the little one away, instead, she said to Lin Qin: "You busy yourself, I'm leaving now, see you at the clan gathering at the end of the month."
After pulling the little one to a quiet place, Lin Wanwan softly asked: "Does Little Yuer know that big Ya just now?"
Little Qingyu kept her head down, silent.
Lin Wanwan then rubbed her little head: "It's okay if Little Yuer doesn't want to talk, we won't talk. If you feel like it in the future, you can tell mommy."
Hearing this, Little Qingyu raised her head and nervously said: "I-I seem to have seen her, she lives in front of Auntie's house. Auntie and the others call me stinky girl. I... I'm not stinky, I'm not a stinky girl, I'm Little Yuer."
Lin Wanwan affirmed: "Of course, you're not a stinky girl, you are mommy's Little Yuer!"
How coincidental it was that the child she picked up in the Great Tang turned out to be from the Lin family, truly a wonderfully inexplicable fate.
In the following days, Lin Wanwan often took Qingyu to the streets to observe the different aspects of life in a small town of the Great Tang. Soon, people in the town learned there was a reclusive guest from the mountains who had come to join the world, quite generously, perhaps with immense wealth from a family fortune.
Lin Wanwan even hired a carriage to visit the small creek town where the county government was located just to gain some historical insight. At the Cow and Horse Market in the creek town, Lin Wanwan picked two horses and personally designed and ordered a custom improved carriage and a light carriage.
Afterward, for the convenience of transporting things back and forth, Lin Wanwan, through Lin Mengli's introduction, found a broker and rented a courtyard house in Wanghai Town as a cover.
During this time, the modernized version of ancient costumes Lin Wanwan bought also arrived, including a large box of children's silk ancient costumes for Little Qingyu. The modernized version of ancient costumes looks traditional on the outside but are very convenient and modern to wear. Most importantly, they are cool, very suitable for Lin Wanwan, who has the soul of a modern person, to wear in the summer of the Tang Dynasty.
The local people of the Tang Dynasty, surprisingly, did not wear underwear, men just wore a simple loincloth when bathing in the river. She accidentally saw this scene while dining at the inn one evening, which really startled Lin Wanwan. Her Little Qingyu couldn't be without underwear; children's all-cotton underwear must be arranged.
Dressing up and feeding Little Qingyu became an essential part of Lin Wanwan's life in the Great Tang.
Besides clothing and food, Lin Wanwan also bought many good quality seeds from modern times.
The common people of the Great Tang were really too pitiable. According to her observation, although this was the Zhen Guan Period, reportedly a prosperous era, food prices were not high, yet hunger still lurked in the corners.
To say nothing else, just the fact that people in the small town only ate two meals a day was astounding. Is it because they aren't hungry? Of course not, it's simply because there isn't enough food. No wonder in the Great Tang, being fat was seen as beautiful; to be able to eat oneself fat also indirectly proved one had good conditions and wealth, and who doesn't like that? Such has been the case throughout history.
When Lin Wanwan was in modern times, she specifically visited the city library to check information about the Zhen Guan third year of the Great Tang, which mentioned not only droughts and the accompanying locust plagues, but also floods that came in autumn, it was absolutely a time of many disasters.
For Li Shimin to eliminate the Turkic and create a prosperous era amidst such a disaster-prone environment, his skills must have been superb. Lin Wanwan felt rather satisfied being a citizen under his rule. If her Space-Time Jade Bracelet had sent her to the chaotic river diverting era of the Great Qing Dynasty, she would have been utterly depressed.
Since fate had allowed her to travel through time to the center of the universe, the Great Tang, she must certainly bring something, so as not to let this magical journey go in vain.
Apart from the large purchases, the transfer procedures for the small villa were also completed, and the villa belonged solely to Lin Wanwan, with her name the only one on the property deed, ensuring no one could take it away ever again.
Lin Zhantian and Xie Yuanying were always curious about how Lin Wanwan paid off the entire house payment and taxes in one go; they hinted several times, and even restored the phone numbers that were previously blocked, attempting to play the role of the affectionate uncle and filial niece with Lin Wanwan.
However, Lin Wanwan, now having the soft, endearing little Qingyu, didn't care at all about any hypocritical sentiments.
The great writer Dostoevsky said: "Being with children can save your soul."
Lin Wanwan felt this sentence spoke to her heart; being with Little Qingyu she indeed found her soul redeemed. Sometimes, she even felt it wasn't Little Qingyu who couldn't do without her, but rather it was she who couldn't do without Little Qingyu.
Though they had only been living together for just over half a month, she already felt that Little Qingyu had become an indispensable part of her life.
Even though the Tang Dynasty had no air conditioning or comfortable bedding, Lin Wanwan still preferred the slow-paced life of the Great Tang compared to modern times, because here she had Little Qingyu—who solely depended on her with all her heart and would never betray her.