Never once had Ye Shiqi considered becoming a Heroine who robs the rich to help the poor, since in any era, there are laws to follow.
She only wished for peace and safety, refraining from any illegal acts, for even Heroic deeds like robbing the rich and aiding the poor are against the law.
If wealthy individuals are willing to give away their wealth and it, then it represents their own desire to accumulate virtue and do good deeds.
Ye Shiqi thought this way perhaps because she felt a certain insecurity in this era of the book.
She always felt as if there was something she was lacking, that she might be bullied when she grew up.
While Ye Shiqi played the flute outside, the people inside the ancestral hall who were beating drums and gongs had seen her, but they did not stop the children from having fun, instead playing even more enthusiastically.
Inside the ancestral hall, some practiced while the sounds of drums and gongs signaled to the adults working outside that the lion dance team was in training.
These teams were organized by the village community, they possessed a team spirit, and later, the money earned from the lion dance was divided among them.
Every village had its sense of honor, and they would compete during significant festivals each year.
Of course, some wealthy individuals and shops opening new venues, or those laying foundations for new buildings, would also invite these teams to celebrate the occasion.
In each village, skilled masters would select promising youngsters to be their successors.
Although this Water Town had an abundance of water sources, it did not share the custom of dragon boat racing, which was prevalent in some farther regions of the neighboring city.
During her observations over the past couple of years, Ye Shiqi had indeed not seen the villagers participating in dragon boat races on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month.
Although it was said that some men could swim, there were even more who were landlubbers, preferring to train exclusively in Martial Arts.
They were not like the Jinjiang folk who had small and large boats at their disposal.
The largest river in the village was shallow enough for the children to swim in, and the water was only up to an adult’s waist.
Bushen Village had a larger reservoir where adults would swim and fish, but it was off-limits to children.
The village also had some smaller artificial reservoirs, solely intended for storing water used to irrigate the fields.
After playing several pieces, Ye Shiqi grew tired and paused to rest, which was when her elder sisters found her.
These four elder sisters had always doted on their younger sister, and to help their mother make clothing, they had left her alone in the room. When they discovered that the two maids were instead helping in their grandmother’s room, they realized something was amiss.
Normally, quiet little Shiqi seemed to be out of the house. After asking other workers, they all said the Lady had gone out to play with some girls.
As elder sisters, they were naturally worried that Shiqi might have wandered into dangerous areas. But upon leaving the house and hearing the sound of the flute, a familiar sound, they felt certain that their younger sister was out playing.
When Ye Shiqi saw her elder sisters arrive, she invited them to join in, and her elder sisters were also drawn in by the fun and games.
After all, the eldest was just over ten years old and not yet bound to stay indoors.
Moreover, in a farming community, there were no customs like those of the Misses from rich families who stayed indoors all day, confined to their boudoirs.
There were children of rich men in the village who wouldn’t play with the farmer’s poor children; their superior attitudes were off-putting, and the farmer’s children didn’t want to play with them either.
The rich could only play among themselves, carrying themselves like young masters and Misses with their noses in the air, which didn’t endear them to the children of poorer families.
If it had been two years earlier, the others would have sought out the company of these rich children, but in the past two years, everyone had work, households had become wealthier, and there was less oppression of the long-term workers by the rich families.
Farmers who felt mistreated by a rich man’s family now had options to earn money elsewhere; the rich families had to pay more to attract workers.
In these two years, the Ye family entered the ranks of the rich family but remained approachable, unlike other rich families. The village people also liked working for them because they offered better benefits.
The village children enjoyed interacting with the Ye family’s daughters, as they could learn different skills from them.
The Ye sisters’ popularity among the village boys and girls, however, was a source of disdain for other wealthy children.
Right then, the five sisters were outside the ancestral hall, having a merry time with a group of girls.
Children from several other rich families in the village simultaneously heard of this through their servants reporting back to them.
Not sharing the same family name, they only banded together for the sake of friendship.
Upon hearing that the recently risen Ye family’s daughters were playing with girls from poor families,
they all considered them to be good-for-nothings, questioning how such wild behavior suited ladies, and how they could only be wild birds, incapable of being the phoenixes that they themselves