Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Because our wontons and dumplings were delicious, business only got better and better.

Soon, other people started copying us. They put up sheds of their own and sold wontons and dumplings too. But their business wasn’t as good as ours, so they came looking for trouble.

Old Liu’s stall was smashed. He lay amid the wreckage of the shed, his skin scalded raw by hot soup.

Both furious and frantic, I helped Aunt Yang take Old Liu to the clinic.

When I came back, the family at the neighboring stall glared at me with open arrogance. I said nothing and quietly cleaned up our stall.

“If you don’t want another beating, get lost and stay away from here,” the stall owner shouted in the street.

He had four sons, each one broad-shouldered and thick-waisted, so naturally, he didn’t take us seriously at all.

I didn’t sleep that night. Even if we never set up a stall there again, Old Liu couldn’t have suffered for nothing. They had to pay his medical fees.

At daybreak the next morning, I took a jar of tung oil and a torch and went to their stall alone.

Right in front of them, I poured the oil over myself first, then splashed it all over their stall.

They were terrified. Several grown men fled the stall, shouting that they were going to report me to the authorities.

I told them to compensate Old Liu for his medical expenses. Otherwise, I would burn their stall today, and tomorrow, I would burn their house.

“I’ll spend the rest of my life watching you. This grudge-I will settle it, one way or another.”

Reporting it to the authorities was useless. The government wouldn’t care. And even if they did, we couldn’t afford the filing fees they charged.

We could only stand up for ourselves.

In this world, the weak feared the strong, and the strong feared those who didn’t care whether they lived or died.

In the end, they paid five taels of silver. Wearing clothes soaked in tung oil, I went home.

Aunt Yang was standing in the courtyard, her eyes red.

“Have you lost your mind? If we can’t stay there, then we’ll find another place. Why are you so stubborn?”

I hugged Aunt Yang and cried too.

The truth was, I had been terrified. In all my life, I had never even lost my temper with anyone, never said a harsh word.

I had no right to be angry, and no right to lose my temper at anyone.

“I won’t do it again!” I choked out.

After that incident, Old Liu spent two months recovering from his injuries. Even so, he was eager to carry his shoulder pole and go sell wontons again.

I thought it over for several days, then suggested that Old Liu rent a proper shop.

A shop would be more stable, and thugs would be less likely to cause trouble.

Old Liu and Aunt Yang both agreed.

A few days later, we officially opened Liu’s Shop.

Business was still very good. There were even people from out of town who came to learn the craft. But the world was unsettled, and every day, quite a few beggars crouched outside our door.

Old Liu was softhearted and often gave them food. Before long, there were more beggars outside the wonton shop than customers inside. When Aunt Yang found out, she gave him a thorough scolding.

But when she stormed out to chase them away, not a single curse left her mouth.

“There’s an alley out back. I’ll have them go over there instead. If they block our entrance, none of us will be able to make a living.”

It wasn’t easy for us to earn money either. All we could do each day was make a few extra coarse black-flour buns and hand them out for everyone to share.

“Having even one bite to eat is good enough.” The old woman who led them said we were good people, that we were accumulating virtue, and that blessings would come to us in abundance and we would live long lives.

Blessings? I also felt that I was someone blessed by fortune.

The back alley was a dead end. When I went to deliver the buns, I discovered a man lying there.

The man had a full beard. He didn’t look very old, but he had old injuries on his body. Perhaps the wounds had been infected by the cold wind; his whole body burned with fever, and he was delirious.

I called Old Liu over to help drag him back into the shop, then hired a doctor to treat him.

“The wound has been invaded by pathogenic wind. I’ve scraped away the rotten flesh and applied a layer of medicine. Whether he lives now depends on his fate,” the doctor said.

The man woke for a moment while the flesh was being scraped away. His face was deathly pale and he was terribly weak, but his eyes were filled with a vicious edge.

Fortunately, he only glanced at us before slipping back into unconsciousness.

When we went to check on him the next morning, the man had already left. The spot in the shop where he had stayed had been cleaned until it was spotless, and he had left five taels of silver on the table.

I didn’t go looking for him. He had suffered a knife wound, the webbing between his right thumb and forefinger was thick with calluses, and he was tall, strong, and imposing. One look was enough to tell he was no ordinary man.

Our days passed peacefully and busily. By the end of the year, Old Liu had saved up forty taels of silver.

He was overjoyed and even bought two taels of wine that night.

Aunt Yang counted the silver in front of me, then handed me ten taels.

I said I didn’t want it. They had taken me in, given me a place to live and food to eat. I was already more than content.

How could I take their money on top of that?

“If I’m giving it to you, take it. Since when did you get so polite?”

“Thank you, Mother.”

Over the past two years, I had gotten used to calling her Mother when we were outside.

The corners of Aunt Yang’s mouth twitched, but in the end, she said nothing.

After thinking it over for many days, I still secretly made a trip back to Capital City.

Thankfully, though my birth mother looked much more haggard, her health was quite good. I didn’t meet with her. It was better not to let her know I was still alive.

I also quietly asked around about that child in the Marquis’s Mansion.

In truth, back then, I had deliberately left food in that bamboo grove. I had known he was the Old Marquis’s son. It was just that, the moment he was born, a Daoist priest had declared him an ill-omened person. At the age of three, he had been locked in the bamboo grove in the rear courtyard of the Marquis’s Mansion and left to fend for himself.

At the time, I could barely protect myself. The only thing I could do for him was leave him a little food every day.

I asked around in secret, but unfortunately, there was no news of him at all. It was as if no one in this world had ever known he existed.

By the time I returned to Lincheng, the sky had already gone dark. Before I even entered the village, I saw someone standing all alone with an oil lamp, as if waiting for someone.

Only when I came closer did I realize it was Aunt Yang.

“Why are you here?”

Aunt Yang looked me up and down, then said casually, “Couldn’t sleep. Came out for a walk.”

Holding back a smile, I stepped forward and linked my arm through hers.

In the pitch-black night, we slowly made our way back. When we reached the house, Old Liu and Tian’er were also standing in the courtyard, craning their necks as they waited.

The moment Tian’er saw me, she came running over with quick little steps. I caught her and lifted her into my arms.

“Mother, I thought you weren’t coming back. Grandfather and Grandmother were so worried they were about to go to Capital City to look for you.”

Smiling, I pinched her little cheek.

“This is my home. Of course I was coming back.”

“Mm-hmm! We’re a family!” Tian’er said sweetly.

I had never imagined that in this world, aside from my birth mother, I could have family too.

“Standing outside talking so much-aren’t you afraid of the cold? Time to eat!” Aunt Yang called.

“Let’s go. Time to eat.”

Neither Aunt Yang nor Old Liu asked where I had gone or what I had done.

The four of us sat beneath the dim lamplight and ate dumplings. I had mixed the meat filling before leaving that morning, and Aunt Yang had saved some to wrap into dumplings so we could eat them when I came back.

I thought it would be quite nice to spend the rest of my life with them like this.

We were all people the world could take or leave. Our lives were so cheap and weightless that others could crush us with the slightest step.

But even so, we still had to try our best to live.

I suppose the meaning of being alive is simply to keep living.