Chapter 4

That night, after washing, Zhao Deqian came into the room red-faced and handed me a wooden hairpin.

“I saw someone selling it in town today, so I bought it.”

“A hairpin? How much? Why waste money?”

“Six cash. Spending it on you isn’t wasting it.”

By candlelight I felt the simple peach blossom carved at its head, and liked it more with every touch.

What woman did not love jewels and ornaments? At the Qian household, I had secretly saved for years to buy a silver bracelet, yet I never dared wear it every day for fear of bringing trouble on myself.

Now a man was giving me a hairpin. It was worth little, but it made my heart blossom and washed the day’s weariness from me.

Grinning, I tucked it into my hair. There was no mirror at home, so I went to the water jar and happily examined my reflection from side to side.

“It looks good.”

Zhao Deqian held the candle nearby, turning his face away shyly. He tried to sound calm, but delight leaked through his words.

I pretended to glare at him. “You didn’t even look. How do you know it looks good?”

“It really does. Didn’t Elder Great-Aunt give you floral cloth? Make yourself a dress when you have time. You’ll look even better.”

I shook my head. “I mean to make Mother a pillowcase from it. Her pillow is all patches. It looks terrible.”

“Make yourself new clothes instead. Don’t worry. I’ll make and sell more tofu. I won’t let you be pinched for money again.”

Zhao Deqian kept his word. From then on he rose early and slept late, selling five or six boxes of tofu a day.

If he could not sell it all in town, he carried his pole through nearby villages and called out his wares. After costs, by the end of August we were earning nearly a hundred cash a day.

It was simply too hard on him. Summer had not yet ended, and he seemed to have grown a whole ring thinner.

I worried for him, so I put still more care into our meals and gave him every scrap of rich food in the house, afraid he would work himself ill.

Yet he always moved the cured pork and river catch from his bowl into mine.

“You’re weak. Eat more to build yourself up. I’m a grown man; I’m fine.”

Deguan surprised me as well.

I had asked him to make a wooden hunting spear, but he produced a whole set of things at once. “This is a horn fork. This is a three-pronged fork. This is a meteor hammer. This is a slingshot.”

Even Zhao Deqian, ordinarily stern with his little brother, stared. “How did you think these up?”

Deguan thrust out his chest. “I saw them while wandering around, so I made them. Second Brother, shall we try them on the mountain?”

Why not?

Zhao Deqian was decisive too. Without another word, he took Deguan into the hills. Two hours later the brothers returned carrying a sack of game.

When I opened it, I found four wild rabbits, six pheasants, and seven or eight fat birds whose names I did not know. It was quite a harvest.

Rabbits had little fat, so I planned to cure them into air-dried meat. Pheasants were fatty enough to render into chicken fat. As for the birds, the brothers could settle them however they liked—burned or roasted. I doubted they would even fill Deguan’s teeth.

When Dewan came home during his monthly academy break, the changes in the house brought a world of surprise to his scholarly face.

“We owe all this to your second sister-in-law!” Mother said proudly, stroking the floral pillow I had made for her.

“Second Sister-in-law has worked hard.”

Dewan had every good quality, except that his habit of saluting people at every turn made me uncomfortable. It felt too formal.

I waved awkwardly. “We’re one family; no need to speak as two. We have already saved next month’s tuition. From now on, study with peace of mind and stop copying books for others at the cost of your work.”

Dewan froze, looking to Mother. Mother was too busy admiring her pillow. He looked to his second brother, who was too busy making tofu. At last, helpless, he questioned his youngest brother with his eyes.

Deguan laughed and punched his shoulder.

“It’s true! Second Sister-in-law is sending me to town to learn a craft from Carpenter Li. I’ll live in town like you!”

“Can we afford the fee for learning a craft?”

“Carpenter Li gives food and lodging. But when I finish, I have to work for him free for three years.”

Dewan was deeply moved. His pale face flushed with excitement. He took a silver ingot from his robe and solemnly offered it to me. “Second Sister-in-law need not worry about my tuition any longer. A few days ago I came first in the ten-day academy examination. The academy waived one year of my fees and gave me five taels as a study allowance. Keep this silver at home and buy what the family needs.”

“What?”

Everyone in the room was stunned.

Five taels as a study allowance?

That academy was extraordinarily generous.

“The academy has had this allowance only in recent years. I hear a wealthy family in the capital funds it. Second Elder Uncle Chen’s adopted son was the academy’s first student to receive it.”

“Oh, I know him—Du Zhian!” Deguan broke in. “When I spoke badly of him as a child, his crazy little sister beat me with a stick. Didn’t he pass the juren examination and return to the capital?”

Dewan nodded. “He did. He was Guzhu Academy’s finest student.”

“Second Brother, you aren’t bad either. How many xiucai as young as you are there in these ten villages?”

Mother clapped her thigh, overjoyed. “Being fat first doesn’t count; being fat later crushes the kang. Third, when your father was alive, he always said you had a quick mind and sound ideas. Don’t worry. You’ll make it.”

Laughing, I tucked the silver into Mother’s arms. “Mother, it has to be you. You’re the pillar of this family. Keep it safe.”

“Hmph. Whoever has time to be a passing god of wealth can take it. Whoever manages the home must worry about it. I’m too lazy to worry from now on.”

Though she was pleased, Mother deliberately pushed the silver back to me with a scolding look.

I hesitated. I had been married in only a little over two months. If I became mistress of the household so quickly, would village tongues make trouble?

But the warm, expectant looks of the whole family erased that hesitation in an instant.

Behind our closed door, we lived our own lives. Who could tell us otherwise?

The Zhaos were clever people. Zhao Deqian knew few characters, but he was steady, diligent, and made to carry the weight of a household. He could handle the tofu business well by himself now.

So I began considering buying more hillside land to plant apricot trees.

The moment I suggested buying land, Zhao Deqian said, “We already have two mu of hillside apricot grove. Apricots don’t fill the stomach and spoil easily. There’s no heart in planting them.”

“Turn them into dried apricots or preserves and they will keep. The kernels can make almond soup too; a bowl sells for several cash in town. Besides, the apricots of Taoshui Village taste sweeter than the ordinary ones I’ve tried.”

At that, Mother grew proud.

“Taoshui used to have several lime kilns. They say the soil on the slopes has lime in it, which gives our apricots their special sweetness. The mountain road is hard, though, and the fruit won’t keep, so every year we can only eat it fresh.”

The more she spoke, the more eager I became. “Mother, I want to buy two more mu and try.”

Mother’s face turned uncertain. “I don’t oppose buying land, but perhaps you should buy crop fields instead.”

“Trust me, Mother. Buy hillside land.”

Mother gritted her teeth. “Stop asking me. You have the ability; you decide.”

Hillside apricot land around Taoshui was indeed cheaper than crop land below the mountain. Two mu cost only three taels. Since Mother had said that, I gathered my courage and insisted on buying it.

The very day the land became ours, Zhao Deqian brought good news from town.

“Uncle Liu, who sells meat in town, took me to several inns and restaurants he knows. Our tofu is fragrant, tender, and smooth like no other. Three places have ordered from us now. We can earn sixty or seventy more cash a day.”

“Which Uncle Liu?”

“Speaking of him, our families are related by a winding path. His daughter married Elder Great-Aunt Chen’s grandson.”

Hearing that, I could not stop my joy. “Farmers really do have human feeling. Two good things have come today; we must celebrate.”

Watching me dance with excitement, Zhao Deqian’s lips curved slightly. From his pole he lifted a set of pig offal and waved it before me. “Extra dishes tonight.”

Me: “…”

Perhaps my eyes deceived me; perhaps I was imagining things. But had I just seen something almost tender on that rough man’s face?

That night I bustled in the kitchen and made a meal richer than a New Year feast.

There were cucumbers with pig ears, vinegar-stirred pig liver, intestines fried with scallions, braised pig heart, plain-fried mushrooms, loofah slices with dried shrimp, and egg-drop soup. Mother happily sent Deguan to the next village to buy two jars of cloudy wine from the brewing household.

Dewan had returned to the academy, and Deguan would leave in two days to apprentice under Carpenter Li. The meal was a farewell feast for Deguan.

The room was stifling, so I set the kang table beside the cucumber trellis in the courtyard. When the dishes were full and the wine warmed, the family sat around it, ready for a fine supper.

But before anyone lifted chopsticks, a carriage stopped outside the gate.

Soon a thin old man in a crimson outer robe swung down from it and craned his neck, peering furtively all over our yard.

Zhao Deqian stood and asked in a low voice, “Who are you?”

In the half-orange, half-gray dusk, the old man’s sharp eyes caught sight of me at once.

At that one look, he opened his mouth and burst into howling tears, startling us all.

He came rushing toward me, tears and snot all over his face. “Is that Xi’er? Xi’er? Father’s good daughter—”

Father?

Just as the thin old man was about to grab me, Zhao Deqian swiftly pulled me behind him and seized the old man by the collar with his other hand.

The old man grew furious, kicking his short legs at Zhao Deqian. “What are you grabbing this old man for, youngster? I came to claim my daughter!”

“I don’t know you. Who are you?”

From behind Zhao Deqian, I studied the thin old man who called himself my father, and sincerely thought he was an impostor.

I had willow-leaf brows; he had broom brows. I had phoenix eyes; he had dead-fish eyes. I had a cherry mouth; he had a blood-basin mouth. Until the sky collapsed, he could not be my father.

Seeing me look as though I had met a ghost, the thin old man was so angry his hair seemed to stand up. “Me! Pan Fugui! Pan Xi’er’s father! Don’t you remember a thing?”

I shook my head like a rattle-drum. I had been sold at five; eleven years had passed. Even if he truly was my father, I had no memory of him.

Besides, he was dressed like an utter mess and looked more like a child kidnapper.

But—my father’s name really was Pan Fugui.

Still seeing my doubt, the old man pulled a crumpled strip of cloth from his robe. “This is the written contract I made with the Qian family back then. That can’t be false, can it?”

Apart from Zhao Deqian, who knew a few characters, everyone in the yard was illiterate.

Zhao Deqian released the old man’s collar, took the cloth suspiciously, and read it carefully. Soon he turned and nodded at me.

My mind went blank.

Could this truly be the father who traded me for eight hundred cash?

“Oh, our in-law has come! Second, why are you standing there? Invite your father-in-law to sit,” Mother cried.

That was why Mother was the Zhao family’s pillar. While Zhao Deqian and I were still dazed, she had already put on a warmly welcoming smile.

Zhao Deqian woke from his stupor at once. “Father-in-law, please take the seat of honor.”

The old man snorted and rolled his dead-fish eyes at him. “Who are you calling father-in-law? Hey, don’t pull me. What wine? I won’t drink—oh, it smells good. Fine. I’ll give you face.”

Deguan was quick as a ghost. He knew his serious second brother could not manage empty social niceties, so he grinned, clung to the old man’s sleeve, and firmly sat him down at the kang table.

The old man was plainly a drunkard. At the smell of wine his feet stopped moving, and after some token resistance he stayed.

Zhao Deqian did not know much polite talk, but he could drink. After several great bowls of cloudy wine, the old man’s tongue knotted and his story spilled out.

“Ah, who sells a daughter if he can live? But that drought year—this bachelor whose wife had died couldn’t raise a child. Sell her, and she could at least get a mouthful of food, right?”

“What? How did I make my fortune? Heh, heh, heh—shameful story. One year I slept with a widow. Her brothers caught me at the kang and beat me half to death, broke several bones. They beat me; they couldn’t beat me for nothing, could they? I extorted—not extorted—they paid me ten taels. I leased a barren hill with that silver. Who would have guessed the barren hill had a mine?”

“Xi’er had no mother from childhood. She served as a maid for more than ten years and that old Qian bastard nearly ruined her. Hard life! Xi’er, don’t worry. Now that Father is here, I’ll see you eat fine food and drink good wine, and find you a good family.”

I sat across from Pan Fugui, listening to him wipe tears, grin foolishly, and spout nonsense. I was so ashamed I wanted to crawl into a rat hole.

“Father, what nonsense are you saying? I’m already married.”

“Oh, right, right.” Pan Fugui slapped his forehead, turned, and clapped Zhao Deqian hard on the shoulder. “My daughter married you, did she? Fine! You can hold your liquor; you’re not bad! From now on, you and I are good brothers.”

The three Zhaos: “…”

Me: “…”

Heavens, spare me. What kind of father was this?