BDSMST -Chapter 25 The Dandies’ First Time Working the Fields

Jiang Suisui set down her bowl, wiped the corner of her mouth with a napkin, and looked up at Wei Ziqian. In the morning light, the half-grown youth’s face was filled with unwillingness, humiliation—and a trace of compromise he himself hadn’t even noticed.

“The hoes and sickles are in the corner. What you need to do is clear all the weeds from that land and then turn the soil once. Like this.”

As she spoke, she stood up, walked to the corner, and picked up a hoe that looked slightly heavy for her. She stepped to the edge of the wasteland and chose a spot where the weeds were relatively sparse.

She didn’t waste words. Rolling up her sleeves, she planted her feet firmly apart. Power flowed from her waist into her arms as she lifted the hoe high—then brought it down hard.

With a dull thud, the iron blade bit deep into the solid earth. She twisted her wrist, and a whole clump of soil tangled with grass roots flipped cleanly over.

Her movements weren’t especially practiced—if anything, they looked somewhat strenuous. But every step was clear, precise, and full of strength.

After the demonstration, she planted the hoe into the ground and looked at the stunned young masters.

“Understand?”

Their expressions were complicated. Never in their lives had they imagined a woman swinging a hoe so naturally before them—let alone a woman who was, nominally, their “elder,” the stepmother of the Yongning Marquis’ household.

The scene was absurd—and yet so undeniably real.

“Understood,” Wei Ziqian forced out between clenched teeth. He took the lead in walking to the corner and picked up a hoe.

The others followed suit, each grabbing a tool. The cold, rough iron felt heavier in their hands than any writing brush.

“Hmph. It’s just digging dirt. What’s the big deal?” muttered a chubby boy named Li Rui, trying to bolster his courage.

He imitated Jiang Suisui, swinging the hoe in a full arc and smashing it down with all his might.

Clang!

A sharp metallic sound rang out. The hoe had struck a hidden stone beneath the grass, the impact numbing his palms so badly that he nearly flung the tool out of his hands.

“Ow!” he yelped, clutching his hands and hopping in pain.

The others saw his ridiculous display and struggled not to laugh, their faces turning red from holding it in.

Wei Ziqian frowned. He considered himself smarter than Li Rui. Avoiding the stonier spots, he found a patch of softer soil and brought the hoe down forcefully.

The dirt turned—but he had used too much force. His footing slipped, and the momentum nearly sent him face-first into the ground. He barely managed to steady himself, already looking disheveled.

Qian Duoduo was even more of a spectacle. Wielding a sickle against waist-high weeds, he swung wildly. He barely cut any grass, but managed to slice a long tear into his luxurious silk sleeve instead. He winced in distress.

For a time, the wasteland rang with clanging tools and cries of “Ow!” The young tyrants who once strutted through the capital, cockfighting and bullying at will, were utterly humbled before a few simple farming implements. Like scholars accidentally thrust onto a battlefield, they were clumsy, helpless, and full of blunders.

Gu Xuan stood nearby with his arms crossed, like a foreman inspecting laborers, watching his former “companions” embarrass themselves.

He didn’t laugh; his face was nearly expressionless. But the slight upward curve of his eyes betrayed his mood.

This felt good.

He remembered the awkwardness of cleaning the chicken coop for the first time, the nausea of mixing mud for the first time. Seeing others struggle even more miserably than he once had—was unexpectedly satisfying.

It was a strange sense of superiority he had never experienced before. At the marquis’ residence, he was the heir—noble in status—but constantly under his grandfather’s stern gaze and his father’s indifference. Outside, he was the leader of children, yet Wei Ziqian and the others never truly submitted to him, always challenging him.

But here, on this land, he was unquestionably the “senior.”

“Hey, Wei Ziqian!” he finally called out, pointing at Wei Ziqian’s flawed posture without mercy. “Are you digging soil or scratching a pit? Keep your back straight! Use your waist, not just your arms! Look at you—you’re like a clumsy goose!”

Wei Ziqian’s face instantly flushed the color of liver. He wanted to retort, but when he glanced at the shallow pit he’d made—and remembered the solid clump Jiang Suisui had flipped earlier—he found himself speechless.

Gu Xuan then walked over to Li Rui and kicked at the stone by his foot.

“Before you hoe, look at the ground. Use your foot to test it. If it feels hard underneath, there’s a stone or a root—go around it. You think this is your family’s garden, digging wherever you please?”

Then he strode over to Qian Duoduo and snatched the sickle from his hand.

“To cut grass, you start at the root. Keep your hand low and the blade close to the ground. Swinging wildly like that—are you trying to slice your own leg?”

As he spoke, Gu Xuan demonstrated personally. Gripping the sickle, he lowered his body and moved his arm steadily and swiftly. With a few clean swishes, a large patch of weeds fell neatly to the ground.

When he worked, his expression was focused, his movements smooth. Sunlight fell across his tanned profile, giving him an air of unexpected competence and reliability.

The group of young dandies stared in disbelief.

They watched this boy—several years younger than themselves—skillfully handling farming tools they had never even seen before, explaining bits of “field wisdom” they had never heard in their lives.

Was this really the Gu Xuan they knew?

Wei Ziqian gazed blankly at Gu Xuan’s back, his heart tangled with complicated feelings. For the first time, toward the rival he had always viewed as an opponent, he felt something difficult to name—was it admiration, or jealousy?

Under the guidance of this “little teacher” and with everyone’s reluctant effort, the morning passed. At last, a small patch of the wasteland had been cleared to bare earth.

As for the young masters—they were exhausted beyond measure, collapsed on the ground, panting heavily. Their fair hands were covered in shiny blisters. Their once-elegant clothes were smeared with dirt and bits of grass, dulled to a dusty gray.

Lunch was still thin porridge and coarse buns.

But this time, no one complained. They were starving and worn out. Holding their bowls of wild vegetable porridge, they drank as if it were the finest delicacy.

In the afternoon, the labor continued.

With the morning’s experience, their movements were no longer quite as clumsy. But reclaiming wasteland was far harder than they had imagined. The sun blazed mercilessly overhead. Sweat streamed down their faces and dripped into the soil.

Their backs felt as though they might snap in two. Their arms ached so badly they could barely lift them. Several times, they nearly threw down their tools in defeat.

Yet whenever that thought arose, they remembered the taste of last night’s meal. They remembered Gu Xuan’s smug expression. They remembered Jiang Suisui’s calm, unwavering gaze.

A stubborn unwillingness to admit defeat pushed them to grit their teeth and persist.

At last, the sun dipped westward.

When Jiang Suisui announced the end of work, it sounded to them like heavenly music.

They practically crawled back into the courtyard, slumping against the wall in a disordered heap, too tired to lift even a finger.

Then—

A familiar basin of steaming braised pork and a golden, glistening beggar’s chicken were brought to the table once more.

Every pair of eyes lit up.

They didn’t bother washing their hands. They didn’t care about manners. Like a storm sweeping through, they lunged at the table and devoured everything.

Only now did they truly understand the meaning of Jiang Suisui’s words:

“He who does not work, neither shall he eat.”

Food earned with one’s own sweat tasted indescribably wonderful.

After the meal, Jiang Suisui took out a small medicine bottle. Inside was an herbal ointment she had made herself from herbs grown in her special space—meant specifically for bruises and blisters.

“Apply it yourselves,” she said, tossing the bottle to Wei Ziqian.

The young masters looked at the swollen blisters on their hands, wincing in pain. Awkwardly, they helped one another smear the cool ointment over reddened skin.

Wei Ziqian glanced at Gu Xuan’s hands—rough, but without a single blister—and asked in a low voice, “When you first started… was it like this for you too?”

Gu Xuan was rubbing ointment into his sore shoulder. At the question, he paused.

After a moment, he answered casually, “Yeah. Worse than you. The next day my hands were swollen like steamed buns. I couldn’t even hold chopsticks steady.”

As Wei Ziqian listened, the resentment and grievance he’d been nursing seemed to fade.

So he had gone through this too.

He looked at Gu Xuan. Then at the patch of land they had cleared. Then at his own wounded hands.

And slowly, quietly, a strange new feeling began to take root in his heart.