Chapter 8

Once I was pregnant, Mother would not let me work anymore.

She would not even let me enter the kitchen to cook.

“The family ate before you came and nobody starved. My eyes are much better now. Wait here; Mother will make you mutton soup.”

In the middle of the twelfth month, Zhao Deqian carried half a sheep home from town. After preparing dishes for guests, plenty of mutton remained.

So Mother often made mutton soup for me.

On New Year’s Eve, the Zhao family’s reunion meal was especially lavish. Fish and meat covered the table, all brought back from Father’s eatery.

“In-law, how can we accept this?” Mother said, staring hungrily at the full table while still remembering to exchange courtesies with Father.

Father grinned, took a deed from his clothes, and waved it mysteriously before the Zhao family.

“That is nothing. The truly good thing is here!”

Zhao Deqian read it and was shocked. “Twenty mu of apricot grove behind the mountain?”

“A gift for my eldest grandchild.”

“Why buy it? To make dried apricots and preserves?”

Father’s mouth quirked. “Nothing is certain yet, so I’ll leave you guessing. Next spring, tend the grove well. It may bring enormous good.”

The deed bore my name. My eyes grew hot. “Father—”

Father silently took a sip of wine. At that word Father, he became sad in a way I had never seen.

“Father is old. Yesterday two teeth fell out. The older I get, the more I know I wronged you. What father can bear to sell his daughter? Even if he eats husks and swallows vegetables, he should keep her by his side. If you sell a child to another household, who will love her? Xi’er, Father was a bastard. He made you suffer so many years for nothing. When I go underground one day, your mother will not forgive me.”

“Father, don’t say it.”

“Whether I say it or not, I know it in my heart. For the rest of my life, Father will live for you.”

At that reunion dinner, Father drank until he was blind drunk, crying one moment and laughing the next. The Zhao family cried with him.

They were tears after bitterness had finally ended.

When spring came, Mother began staying up late by lamplight sewing again, and no one could persuade her to stop.

She embroidered tiger-head hats, tiger-head shoes, and children’s bibs. She asked neighbors for scraps of cloth and made a “hundred-family coat.”

People said a child who wore such a coat received the blessing of a hundred households and would live free from illness and disaster.

One idle day I asked her, smiling, “Mother, would you rather have a grandson or a granddaughter?”

Mother pressed her lips together shyly. “Don’t be angry, but I hope this one is a girl.”

I was surprised. “Don’t farmers all want sons?”

“Ha! I raised four bald little troublemakers. I want a change. If it’s a girl, Mother can tie little topknots, make dresses and skirts, and dress her like a tiny fairy. But a boy? Tsk. He’ll only roll in mud all day.”

Thinking of the village boys rolling bare-bottomed in mud pits made a cold sweat rise on me.

By that reasoning, a girl was certainly better.

Dewan found a book on farming somewhere. Following it, Zhao Deqian pruned, divided, fertilized, and hand-pollinated the apricot trees. In April, when the blossoms fell, many little green apricots appeared on the branches.

He said the fruit set was much better than previous years.

I loved the apricot blossoms’ scent. I gathered a whole basket to cook into porridge. The fragrance was rich, and after I drank it, my whole body felt comforted.

But looking at more than twenty mu of grove kept me awake with worry.

How many baskets of dried apricots and preserves would that make?

Then, in June, truly tremendous news came to Taoshui Village.

An important person had happened to taste Taoshui’s mountain apricots and found them soft, sweet, and lingering on the lips. He recommended them to people in the palace.

The Emperor tasted them and liked them greatly. An oral decree named Taoshui’s mountain apricots tribute apricots for imperial use.

And whose household had the most mountain apricots in Taoshui?

Without question, ours.

When Father brought the government buyer to the Zhao house, Mother was so excited she could barely speak. “Our—our apricots are really going to the palace?”

Father was smug. “Could it be false?”

Once she knew it was true beyond doubt, Mother’s eyes went dreamy and she collapsed onto the kang.

She was an ordinary farming woman. Even if she dreamed to the end of the sky, she had never imagined doing business with the imperial household.

While the buyer directed carts to pick and haul apricots, I pulled Father quietly aside.

“Father, what is going on?”

He lowered his voice. “Didn’t I tell you that fat old man in your village had a background? Once I drank with Constable Xing. When he got drunk, he let slip that the old man had some connection to the imperial family. I paid attention after that. When your more than twenty mu of apricots ripened, I picked a basket and brought it to him to taste. See? We hit the right thing by accident.”

I stared. “Someone from the imperial family? How could that be?”

“Why not? Taoshui is not far from the capital, and its honest customs, clear mountains, and clean water make it a perfect place to retire. Haven’t you heard? Every high summer, dignitaries from the capital come to escape the heat in Taoshui. They stay at the Chen house in the west of the village.”

Remembering the Chen family’s three-courtyard residence, I half believed and half did not. “It sounds like a dream.”

Father poked my forehead and laughed. “They gave you shining silver. Does that look like a dream?”

I had worried those more than twenty mu of apricots would rot. Instead, overnight they became several heavy silver ingots in my hands.

Thirty-five taels in all.

The Zhao tofu and mung-bean ge already earned six or seven taels each month. With the thirty-five taels, our income for the year passed a hundred taels.

In a country village, that made us a true wealthy household.

It was exhausting, though.

Zhao Deqian had grown thinner over the year, while I had grown fuller by two whole rounds at the waist.

Even so, Mother and Zhao Deqian saved every rich bite for me.

I wheedled, “Mother, leave the mutton soup for Second Brother from now on. He works hardest in our house.”

Mother snorted. “He’s a rough man. What does he need mutton soup for? You’re carrying two bodies and need serious nourishment. Don’t fear getting fat. Once the baby is born, you’ll naturally grow thin again.”

“And if I don’t?”

Just then Zhao Deqian, soaked in sweat from making tofu, entered the room.

He leaned to my ear with a wicked smile. “Wouldn’t a little fullness be better?”

I gave him a hard glare.

What nonsense was he thinking? Working had not hurt him enough.

In August, after I screamed through a whole night, I gave birth to a pale, rosy little girl. Mother was delighted beyond measure.

Whenever she had time, she plunged into a crowd, and never went three sentences without mentioning her granddaughter, little A-Pan.

Neighbors casually asked, “Have you eaten?”

Mother happily patted her stomach. “I have. I ate goat-milk cakes. A-Pan’s maternal grandfather sent the goat milk. You don’t know—our A-Pan eats and sleeps so well. She is a joy.”

A young wife next door came to buy tofu. “Auntie, choose three pieces for me.”

Mother calmly went to the tofu shed. “Tofu strengthens the body. Why not take two more? Eat more tofu, and your face will be as tender and white as my little granddaughter’s. People will want to kiss it every day.”

When a passerby came to ask for water, “You are kind, old madam,” Mother said, her smile hiding her eyes. “Ah, it’s hard for people away from home. I have a little granddaughter, beautiful as a jade doll. I only hope she meets good people all her life.”

Holding little A-Pan on the kang, I laughed until I could not straighten.

“Mother, stop talking about A-Pan every day. Aren’t you worried about Dewan? He went to the capital for the provincial examination recently. We don’t know how it went.”

“Ah, Third is young. If he fails this time, there is another. A young boy can’t compare to A-Pan, who is her grandmother’s flower right before her eyes.”

Then she took chubby A-Pan and made faces at her like an old child.

Though Mother said she did not care, I knew she was anxious. Otherwise she would not have slipped thirty li away to burn incense and pray at a temple.

Dewan was the Zhao family’s most promising child. For years the family had pinched every cash into eight pieces and tightened their belts to support his studies, all so he might be a farmer’s son in the morning and enter the Emperor’s hall by evening.

I thought Dewan could succeed. He had the Zhao family’s traits: diligence, willingness to work, and quickness.

Most of all, they all had heart.

Because he had to take the autumn examination in the capital, Dewan left Taoyuan at the end of July.

Before leaving, he gave me a little silver lock.

“This is a gift for my little nephew. Second Sister-in-law, please do not dislike it.”

A-Pan was still in my belly then, yet he had prepared the gift already.

He was a poor xiucai. Heaven knew how hard he had worked to save for a silver lock.

Dewan was a good one, and Deguan was a good boy too.

By then Deguan had learned seven or eight parts of Carpenter Li’s craft. He had made a cradle, a hanging bed, and other things for his little niece long in advance. Every piece was delicate and thoughtful, beyond what any wealthy household could buy.

Yet Zhao Deqian was not satisfied. He sent word to Deguan to hurry and make a little wooden horse too.

Me, sitting my month after childbirth: “…A wooden horse? A-Pan isn’t even one month old. Does she need it?”

As he changed A-Pan’s diaper, Zhao Deqian smiled proudly. “Sooner is better than later. I’ll prepare it for my daughter first.”

Since gaining his precious daughter, Zhao Deqian had changed entirely.

He seemed even more energetic.

He even declared that from that day he would save a dowry for her and, when she married, send her off with ten li of red bridal splendor.

Me: “…”

What a lovely dream. He should not dream it next time.

Could farmers afford ten li of red bridal splendor?

Of course, Zhao Deqian sometimes pitied himself.

One night little A-Pan slept on his left, I slept on his right. He looked at his daughter, then at me, and sighed softly.

“Wife, I’m only a farmer. Do you feel you lost out by marrying me?”

I burst out laughing. “Who do you think I should have married?”

“A great rich man, an important man, a refined young gentleman. With your looks, you could marry even a prince.”

“Ha!” I laughed under the quilt and pinched him hard. “A prince? Why not say the Jade Emperor himself? What an imagination. Truthfully, I once dreamed such dreams too. I thought how lovely it would be if I were a princess fallen on hard times. Every girl has her dreams in her maiden chamber, but they are only dreams. What matters is cherishing the person before you. Besides, you have so many strengths. Marrying you was no loss.”

Zhao Deqian turned and drew me into his arms, warm breath curling by my ear. “What strengths do I have?”

I half pushed him away, half yielded. “You’re strong. Ow, get down. Not yet. Wait two more days. No touching either—”

On A-Pan’s one-month celebration, Father drove up rosy-faced. The moment he entered, he bowed repeatedly to Mother.

“In-law, congratulations!”

“Ha, A-Pan’s grandfather, congratulations to you too. Look how lovely our A-Pan is.”

“Ah! I don’t mean A-Pan—though she is lovelier than other children. I’ve wandered off. I mean, congratulations: your Dewan has passed the juren examination!”

Mother did not hear at first. “Passed what?”

“Mother, Third Brother has become a juren!” Zhao Deqian understood immediately and shouted excitedly into her ear.

“Really? Old man, can you hear down below? Our Zhao family will finally have an official!”

Mother cried with joy. Her body swayed with excitement, and had she not remembered A-Pan in her arms, she would have dropped to the floor weeping.

For a worthy child to rise from a cold, poor family—how could outsiders understand the hardship?

So many wished to leap the dragon gate like carp. Yet many became fish upon the chopping board before they even found the broadest river, men the knives and they the flesh, dying with eyes unclosed.

How many could truly leap the dragon gate?

Father said Dewan’s success had reached the county. Dignitaries immediately wished to know him, and he was now drinking tea and discussing the classics with the county magistrate.

“Good, good. We must hold a banquet to thank his teachers and the honored people who come and go.”

At the word honored people, Father’s eyes lit up. “Hold it at my eatery! I’ll pay for it.”

“How could we accept that?”

Father smiled with great cunning. “This is the glory of my old age!”

On the twenty-sixth day of the ninth month, Noble Guests Bring Joy in Taoyuan held a teacher-thanking banquet that stirred the whole town.

Academy teachers and students, county officials, and village neighbors all came. Dewan stood before them with high spirits, courteous and elegant, offering wine like a young man without equal.

Before the feast even began, people were quietly asking whether he was betrothed.

Zhao Deqian and I sat holding A-Pan, watching the younger brother who had brought honor to the Zhao family. Our eyes could not help growing wet.

Thinking back over more than a year of hard work, I cried with joy as well.

In life, better to stand on your own feet than beg the Jade Emperor; better to believe in yourself than chase fantasies; better to walk the bright road than take crooked paths.

Good fortune does not fall from heaven. A good life must be made by one’s own hands.

Only kindness and diligence are the upright human road that neither gods nor ghosts can deceive.