With no other choice, they would probably have to go to the local squire of Zhouzhuang, Mr. Carter, to borrow some money at interest, and pay it back next year. But the squire’s money came with compounding interest—easy to borrow, hard to repay.

Mr. Brooks just kept silent, puffing even harder on his cold pipe.

“Dear, why don’t we send Tommy to work as a servant in a wealthy household in the county town? Tommy is twelve now, sensible, and can handle some heavy chores. If we find a kind-hearted family, at least he’ll have a way to survive.”

Mrs. Brooks had mulled it over for a long time before she finally spoke, her face full of sorrow.

The wealthy families in Gusu county town often took in poor boys and girls around the age of ten or so during the twelfth lunar month, raising them from a young age as household servants or maids. They would pay a settlement fee of ten taels of silver, but required the signing of a lifelong indenture.

Once the indenture was signed, they would no longer be commoners but of servile status, belonging entirely to the master’s family.

If the master was unkind and the servant was beaten to death, it was not even a crime—at most, some silver would be paid as compensation.

So, as long as there was any hope at all, poor families would never send their children to become servants in wealthy households, putting their lives in someone else’s hands.

But this winter, the family truly couldn’t make it through. If they didn’t send Tommy to a wealthy household as a servant, what hope was there for him at home?

Even though it meant being a servant, the servants in the county town’s wealthy families dressed decently and ate better rice and flour than fishing families—better than starving or dying of illness.

If there were any other way, Mrs. Brooks would never want her child to become someone else’s servant.

But life was so hard that Mrs. Brooks had long understood the simplest truth: finding a way to survive is what really matters. This was their fate, and also Ethan Brooks’s fate.

“Shut up! How can you sell our child?”

Mr. Brooks was furious, trembling all over, pointing at Mrs. Brooks as if enraged that she could even say such a thing.

To him, selling Tommy was like cutting the flesh from his own heart, digging out his own lifeblood.

“Dear, Tommy is the flesh that fell from my own body. If there were any other way, I wouldn’t want this either! Don’t forget, his illness is life-threatening! If he falls ill again this year, how will he survive?”

Mrs. Brooks wept, tears streaming down her wrinkled face as she spoke.

When Tommy was born, Mrs. Brooks didn’t have enough milk. Tommy, starving and crying, shed blue tears that dripped onto the bed and turned into two blue stones.

In just a short while, Tommy’s face turned pale and his lips purple—it looked like he wouldn’t make it.

They had never heard of such a strange illness as “tears turning to stone.”

That very night, they took Tommy to the county town to find a doctor, searching dozens of pharmacies. The doctors were all shocked, saying they had never seen or even read about such a rare disease in any medical texts.

Some doctors even said it was a fatal illness, and even if he survived this time, he wouldn’t live past two or three years—better to give up.

But Mr. Brooks and Mrs. Brooks didn’t abandon Tommy. Hearing that the Daoist master William Reed at Hanshan Temple was said to have great powers, they knelt outside the temple at the west gate of the county for three days and nights, begging Mr. Turner for help.

At last, Mr. Turner agreed to see Tommy. After examining the dying child, he said Tommy’s illness was strange—likely the legendary “Heaven’s Resentment Disease,” cursed by the heavens and not allowed to live.

The strange stones from his tears were “Heaven’s Resentment Stones,” and his vital energy was leaking away. Using ginseng medicine to replenish his energy might prolong his life for a while, but it couldn’t cure the root of the illness.

The method was simple, but ginseng was expensive.

In a hurry, they spent nearly half a year’s savings to buy a ten-year-old wild ginseng root from the pharmacy, and sure enough, it saved Tommy’s life, allowing him to grow up to twelve.

Over the years, the The Brooks Family would set aside one or two taels of silver each year, just to buy ginseng for Tommy. Whenever Tommy cried blue stone tears, they would immediately use ginseng medicine to replenish his energy and save his life.

“This year’s fishing harvest was poor. Now we don’t even have enough to pay the county yamen’s boat tax or the Giant Whale Gang’s weighing fee—we’re short a full two taels of silver. If he cries blue stone tears and we have no money for ginseng to save him, he definitely won’t survive this winter!”

“But with our family’s situation, where would we get extra money for ginseng?”

“If we send Tommy to a wealthy household in the county as a servant, at least he’ll have food and clothing, and maybe even save up enough to marry one day. But if he stays home and falls ill, where would we get the money to save his life?”

Mrs. Brooks rambled on, recounting the hardships of these years.

Mr. Brooks fell silent, puffing on his cold pipe, his head bowed even lower. How could he not know all that Mrs. Brooks had said?

The name Ethan for Tommy was given offhand by William Reed, who said that only dust is humble enough in this world not to be resented by the heavens, and thus more likely to survive.

Tommy had been sensible since childhood, rarely crying—sometimes not even once a year.

But over the past decade, Ethan Brooks had still cried a dozen times or so, and they had spent quite a bit of silver on ginseng medicine.

All these years, Mr. Brooks had saved every copper coin for ginseng, so how could he not understand?

The annual five taels of boat tax from the county yamen and the monthly one tael weighing fee from the Giant Whale Gang were a heavy burden on the family, pressing them so hard they could barely breathe.