Chapter 6

Business at Noble Guests Bring Joy grew stronger by the day.

My father was ugly as sin, but he had a fine mouth. Officials and farmers, young wives and old grandmothers—anyone who crossed the eatery’s threshold praised Shopkeeper Pan’s warmth.

The funniest part was that even Master Qian became a regular customer.

Father would see him, flash his big grin, clap him on the shoulder, and call him brother with counterfeit concern. “Old Qian, has your new house been rebuilt? Why hasn’t that burn on your leg healed after all this time? Why are you still limping?”

Master Qian’s face went green, then white. “The doctor says it is nearly better.”

“Excellent! We have fresh spicy river fish today. Have a plate.”

“The doctor told me strictly to avoid certain foods—”

“Ah, a man dies with his cock pointing at the sky, or lives ten thousand years! Eat and drink what you should. Some doctors lack skill and blame the patient for not avoiding food. I’ll introduce you to a miracle physician another day.”

“Fine. Bring one plate, and a jar of good wine.”

Father’s eyes sparkled. “Secret Bamboo Leaf Green from the capital—the only jar in all Taoyuan Town. It is a little expensive, ten taels a jar, but you’ve come at the right time today. Drink until you drop!”

Father had no secret Bamboo Leaf Green from the capital. He had mixed cloudy wine, well water, and certain unspeakable spices and crushed herbs into a medicinal liquor especially for Master Qian.

It smelled excellent, but prolonged drinking damaged a man’s vital yang.

I thought Father’s method too low, yet he did not care. He said darkly, “Let’s see whether that old lecher can bully little girls afterward!”

“Aren’t you afraid he will trouble you?”

Father snorted. “If that old turtle wants to become the laughingstock of the whole town, let him come. Besides, how would he know it was me? We are heartfelt drinking friends now.”

Me: “…”

Truthfully, I hated Master Qian so deeply that my teeth itched.

At the Qian house I had two close sisters. After he violated one, she jumped into a well. The other refused him to the death, and he sold her to an ugly, short old widower in town.

Maidservants were people too—living people, with blood and flesh, fathers and mothers. Master Qian had not treated us as people.

When Father sold me, he had signed the contract with the Qian household’s head steward. Since Master Qian did not know Father’s true face, so be it. Let evil people grind each other down.

After the eatery opened, Zhao Deqian no longer needed to carry tofu into town himself.

Father hired someone to drive a cart to Taoshui Village every day and collect more than ten boxes. Three or four went to the eatery; the rest were sent to the kitchens of inns, restaurants, and wealthy homes.

Our kitchen was too small, so Zhao Deqian built a shed in the courtyard specifically for tofu making.

At first he managed alone. By the end of October he could not keep up, so he invited the neighboring aunties to help.

“Why hire people? I can help.”

October countryside weather was cold. The foot of the kang was chilly too, so I moved Zhao Deqian’s bedding toward my end, close enough for me to touch him if I reached out.

Covered by the new quilt I had made, Zhao Deqian looked at me with satisfaction and something more than satisfaction. “Rest more. Build up your health.”

Ever since he learned that I had been beaten half to death at the Qian household, he would not let me do heavy work. Months had passed; I felt completely well.

But he refused to believe it. “Women’s bodies are precious. It’s cold now. Don’t be careless.”

What can I say? I discovered another one of Zhao Deqian’s strengths: he had a crow’s mouth.

Only a few days later, I truly caught a chill.

I lay on the scorching kang beneath two thick quilts, yet cold seemed to seep from my bones. Zhao Deqian panicked and turned to fetch the village doctor, but Mother seized him.

“How did this pretty girl get a fever? Could she have bumped into a spirit?”

She felt her way to the kitchen and brought a bowl of water and three chopsticks.

She laid one chopstick across the bowl, held the other two above my head and drew circles, muttering, “Twos, fives, eights bring spirits home; threes, sixes, nines send spirits away; those dead wrongfully, those dead of illness, come with the chopsticks—”

Then she tried to stand the two chopsticks upright in the water. Once, twice, three times—and they really stood.

“Ah, so it’s your great-grandmother visiting. Your great-grandmother was always sickly and unlucky. It’s fine. I’ve sent her away. Sleep and you’ll be well.”

Zhao Deqian felt my burning forehead and was unconvinced. “Mother, we should still have Uncle Tian look at her.”

Mother laughed broadly. “When you boys were ill as children, Mother always poked the visiting spirit away!”

She sounded so certain that I felt half reassured. But at midnight I shivered all over, clenched my teeth, and burned even hotter.

This time Zhao Deqian was truly terrified. He dressed and disappeared into the dark.

Old Tian in the village was known for medicine; during the plague years, he had saved many lives.

He was an old bachelor without children, but later he took Qiumei, Elder Great-Aunt Chen’s second granddaughter, as his apprentice. When the Chens built their new house, they set aside a room for him in old age.

Mother felt my heat and grew frightened too. “Why isn’t it better? I sent it away! Ah, Old Tian is old. Who knows if he will come at this hour?”

Old Tian did not come. His apprentice, Chen Qiumei, did.

Qiumei was about my age, a tall, capable-looking girl. In candlelight she frowned as she took my pulse and prescribed medicine, then laid out a bag of silver needles on the kang table.

They glinted coldly. Every needle was longer than a finger, and I was scared out of my wits.

“Didn’t you say several bowls of medicine would be enough?” I asked trembling.

Qiumei nodded mildly. “Yes. I simply want you to know that if you do not care for your body from now on, these needles will not be sitting on the table. They will be in you.”

Qiumei had needled Zhao Deqian before. At the sight of the row, he sucked in a breath and broke out in gooseflesh.

“Qiumei, put them away. They’re frightening.”

She curled her lip. “Frightening? Your wife gets sick and instead of seeking a doctor quickly, you poke at a visiting spirit. Is there anything more frightening? If trickery worked, why would doctors be needed?”

Mother muttered, unconvinced, “Farmers have lived this way generation after generation.”

“Then it changes in this generation. Auntie, sit down. I’ll look at your eyes.”

“What? They can be treated?”

“We’ll try.”

At the thought of a cure, Mother’s lips trembled with excitement.

Qiumei bent close, opened Mother’s eyelids, and examined them carefully. Then she pulled out several needles and swiftly inserted them in Mother’s hairline and near her eyes.

Mother jolted on the kang. “Ow!”

I jolted too. “Heavens, I’ll certainly take care of myself!”

Unable to bear seeing Mother bristling like a hedgehog, Zhao Deqian turned and gripped my hand tightly. “You’ll listen now, won’t you?”

Qiumei said Mother’s sight could not return fully; damage was damage. But six or seven parts out of ten might come back.

Her brother-in-law owned a medicine shop in the capital. She had studied there for years and learned from several miracle doctors. Though only a country girl, she had gained the name of a miracle physician in the capital.

Yet the woman doctor carried an icy, proud force that made people afraid at first sight.

That was not bad. When people were afraid, they obeyed.

Look at Mother. Usually she was formidable; before Qiumei’s needles, she was meek as a kitten flattened on the kang.

When Father heard I was sick, he hurried over in his carriage the next day.

“Silly Xi’er, the Zhao tofu shed earns several taels every month now. You must take care of yourself. If you work yourself to death and they marry another wife, that will be one woman planting the tree and the next enjoying its shade. The Pan family will not swallow that insult!”

I coughed in anger. “Father, what are you saying?”

“What? Good words! Only true parents tell their children good words from the bottom of their hearts!”

“It’s nothing. I only caught a chill. I’ve taken medicine and am almost well.”

Father sat on the edge of the kang and looked at me suspiciously. “Then why is your face still so pale?”

As he looked, his eyes reddened for no reason. Then his face changed and he cursed, “That damned Qian household!”

Father could not sit still. Whenever he came to Taoshui he wandered through the village. He liked bustle, conversation, and mischievous children.

He always carried a packet of sweets. He teased every child he saw and gave them candy, so the greedy village children followed behind him laughing.

At first, his strange conduct had nearly made the headman beat him as a child kidnapper. Now he had become close brothers with the headman and the village old men.

Even the women who gossiped at the village entrance greeted him warmly. “Oh, the Zhao family’s in-law father is here again.”

This time he had brought gifts for his old brothers too.

“Rice cakes for Old Tian, round-cake tea for the headman, Bamboo Leaf Green for Fat Uncle.”

I stared. “Bamboo Leaf Green?”

Father stamped his foot. “Not the Bamboo Leaf Green for that Qian bastard. Real Bamboo Leaf Green.”

“It must be expensive.”

“Expensive? Worth it.” He winked mysteriously. “Taoshui hides dragons and crouching tigers. That fat old man who always plays chess with the headman is no ordinary person. You may meet a person like that only once in a lifetime. When you do, you must make friends carefully. He sees clearly, but no one strikes a smiling face. Father means to be sincere.”

I laughed. “You really know how to serve different dishes to different people.”

Father laughed too. “Silly girl, a person gets one life, but many things can cost it. We must make more good connections and leave ourselves a road back.”

A road back?

That night I turned Father’s words over and could not sleep.

The Zhao family was beginning to live well on tofu, but several other sellers also sold tofu in Taoyuan. I needed to think of more ways to make money.

After needling Mother for more than half a month, Qiumei returned to the capital.

Before leaving, she told Mother, “Wash your eyes often with chrysanthemum water, and eat more mung beans.”

Mother could already see people’s outlines clearly. She clutched Qiumei’s hand, near tears. “Girl, how can Auntie thank you?”

Qiumei threw back her head and laughed.

“My mother had no milk when I was born and I nearly starved. You were nursing Dewan then. When you heard, you came to my house at once and fed me my first mouthful. Tell me—how should I thank you?”

“What? That was eight hundred lifetimes ago. Just a few mouthfuls of milk. I’d forgotten.”

“You forgot. I did not.”

Wild chrysanthemums grew everywhere in Taoshui’s mountains, and in autumn I picked many.

After Qiumei left, I dried them and steeped them daily for Mother’s eye wash. I also made several foods from mung beans.

One was mung-bean ge. The whole family praised it.

“Second Wife, how did you make this? Tender, smooth, springy, full of mung-bean fragrance. Delicious.”

“Mother, I’ll tell you in a few days.”

I deliberately kept them guessing, then spent the next days making more than ten different dishes from mung-bean ge: vinegar-stirred ge, ge rolls with meat, ge fried with greens, ge stewed with tofu, ge soup, sweet-and-sour ge, fried ge, braised ge—

Mother was convinced. Again and again she raised her thumb. “Xi’er, it is the Zhao family’s blessing to have married you.”

Mother rarely praised me, so I twisted shyly. “I only like tinkering with food. I made this by improving the tofu method: soak mung beans, remove the skins, grind them to juice, filter the pulp, settle out the starch, then mix the starch with water and spread it into thin cakes. These ge cakes are springy and smooth. You can fry, pan-sear, stir-fry, or stew them. There are countless ways to eat them.”

Zhao Deqian saw through my little plan at once.

“You want to sell it at Father’s eatery?”

I proudly lifted my chest. “Mung-bean ge found nowhere else. Do you think diners will love it?”

Zhao Deqian looked at my full chest and swallowed lightly. “They certainly will.”