Chapter Bonanza (8/10)

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On the 10th day of the eighth month, the Huo family celebrated the full-month ceremony for Huo Yuanshan, the eldest ger of Huo Ling and Yan Qi.

Just like his cousin Huo Lin, the little ger wore a red cord with a silver bead around his ankle and a longevity lock—a gift from his paternal uncle—hanging from his neck.

All the guests at the banquet praised Huo Ling and Yan Qi for their good fortune—they’d been married for barely a year and already had a child, and such a delicate and handsome ger at that.

After the full-moon banquet, Huo Ling selected two fine specimens of red mushrooms and paid a visit to Old Lady Li’s home.

He held Xiaoqi’s and Xiao Mingming’s birth charts in his hands, intending to ask the fortune-teller to determine whether Xiaoqi was suitable to be Xiao Mingming’s godson.

This was Xiao Mingming’s suggestion; although he and Yan Qi had already made an agreement, they still needed to check whether their birth charts were compatible.

Old Lady Li accepted the mushrooms and, after performing the divination, said, “They’re compatible. Your child should find a godparent born in the Year of the Pig or the Year of the Rat—the boy from the Xiao family is just right.”

She then went on to explain how their birth charts were compatible and the benefits of establishing a godparent relationship. Huo Ling listened carefully and took notes so he could relay the information to Yan Qi later.

“In your opinion, then, at what age should we present the gifts?”

“Wait until after he turns two. Since he isn’t frail or sickly—it’s purely a matter of fostering ties between your two families—there’s no rush.”

Many children are taken on as godchildren, and the reasons vary widely. Some do it to ward off misfortune or avert disasters for the child; in such cases, the godparent isn’t even a person, but a large tree, a rock, a bridge, and so on—there’s no end to the variety.

Others, like the arrangement between Yan Qi and Xiao Mingming, are purely based on close ties, with the intention of strengthening the bond between the two families.

Huo Ling brought back this good news, and with that, a weight was lifted from his mind.

After celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival at home, he set off into the mountains with Huo Feng, the Zhao brothers, and Lin Changshui to search for ginseng.

They planned to enter the mountains together but descend in two groups. Since the sorghum, corn, and millet in the fields were nearing harvest, Huo Feng and Lin Changshui would come down first to prepare for the final autumn harvest.

Xiao Mingming didn’t go with them this time. With two fewer hands at the Huo household, he chose to stay and help Ye Suping and Yan Qi take care of the children.

Before seeing Huo Ling off to the mountains, Yan Qi packed his things for him, his face full of worry.

“Last year, after the Mid-Autumn Festival, Boss Liao and his group had already set off for the Pass. It’s been this far into the year, and we still haven’t heard a word from them. I suppose they must have been held up by something and won’t be coming after all.”

Huo Ling couldn’t help but sigh. For the past two months, he’d been keeping a close eye on merchants entering the city. He’d even specifically asked Sun Dazhi to inquire at the inn in town and had spoken to Hou Li—after all, they’d shared a drink together last year and had built a rapport. Given the smooth-talking nature of businesspeople, they would surely have paid a visit if they’d returned.

He feared that Liao Dehai or Ge Yi might have come by, but he had missed them because he’d been staying at home a lot lately and hadn’t been going into town much.

However, the results of his inquiries on several occasions were the same: neither of these two men had stayed at the town’s inn, and Hou Li hadn’t seen them either.

This matter didn’t stand up to close scrutiny; the more he thought about it, the more uneasy he felt.

Merchants travel back and forth between the regions inside and outside the Pass, often covering thousands of li as they cross mountains and rivers—there’s no guarantee that some mishap won’t occur.

Crossing the border to procure goods was the very lifeblood of their trade; unless absolutely necessary, they would never give it up lightly.

For now, he could only reassure himself that something must have come up back home to delay them; as long as nothing untoward had befallen them, there was still plenty of time ahead.

“Mr. Liao isn’t the sort to break his word easily. Even if he has no time to cross the border this year, when he returns next year, I’m sure he won’t forget the favor we asked of him.”

Yan Qi had been waiting for Liao Dehai for a year, hoping he would bring back some soil from their hometown to place in his parents’ symbolic tomb.

As things stood, that hope might come to nothing. Without soil from his hometown, the symbolic tomb felt incomplete, which was why it had yet to be erected.

With things as they are, he had no choice but to keep waiting.

He consoled himself, saying, “With Xiaoqi joining our family this year, it’s not really the right time to build a new grave anyway.”

Huo Ling knew his husband was feeling down, so he agreed with him: “You’re right. Once Xiaoqi turns one, no matter what, we’ll invite a feng shui master to choose an auspicious spot and get this done.”

With only a wife and two ger boys to look after the children at home, Huo Feng and Huo Ling were worried. Early the next morning, they left Heidou to keep Mantou company at home. After meeting up with the remaining three villagers one by one, the five men and two dogs set off for the mountains together.

The arrival of a new addition to the family this year had disrupted their mountain-hunting plans. In previous years, by this time, Huo Ling would have already ventured into the mountains at least once to gather pine cones, collect enough pine nuts, and forage for hazelnut mushrooms in preparation for catching forest frogs.

Now, all of that had been postponed.

However, during the autumn harvest a month ago, the village chief consulted the old almanac and noted that this year’s Winter Solstice falls in the latter half of the twelfth lunar month, whereas last year it was on the second day of the twelfth lunar month. According to old sayings, the first snow will come late this year, signaling a warm winter.

In the warmer regions to the south, this isn’t considered a good thing. As the saying goes, “A blessed snow heralds a bountiful year.” Once a warm winter sets in, many places see no snow at all, so the insects in the soil aren’t frozen to death and will break through the earth come spring, damaging the crops.

Beyond the Great Wall, however, this was not a concern. The “warm” in “warm winter” was only relative; even at its warmest, it was still cold enough to freeze a person to death, with heavy snow covering the ground and a bleak, desolate atmosphere.

As for the mountain travelers, the delay in the snowfall brought them many benefits; for every day the snow held off, they gained an extra day to venture into the mountains.

Upon returning to the mountains, both the courtyard and the house were clean.

The Zhao brothers had been in the mountains for more than ten days before the Mid-Autumn Festival, and it wasn’t until after the holiday that they came down carrying a burlap sack of mushrooms and a few jin of mushrooms to sell.

Although the two slept only in the west room, they would casually sweep and tidy up the rest of the house—except for the east room, which they avoided entering.

The five of them reassigned their sleeping arrangements: the Huo brothers, Huo Feng and Huo Ling, slept together, while Lin Changshui went to sleep with the Zhao brothers.

“We’re short on time, so let’s not rest too long. We’ll have a meal in a bit, and head into the mountains after noon.”

After putting away their personal belongings, Huo Ling explained the arrangements to the others, and no one objected.

As long as Huo Ling was there, he was the undisputed “leader.”

That afternoon, after putting on their hiking boots, Huo Ling was finally able to stretch his legs for the first time in over a month.

Gazing at the towering pine tree before him, he was the first to scale the trunk; on the other side, Huo Feng and Lin Changshui followed suit.

Zhao Yinsheng and Zhao Chensheng remained at the base of the tree, observing the others’ movements and studying them carefully, just as Huo Feng had instructed.

Tree climbing was a skill that mountain porters had to master. Unlike the trees that country children would climb haphazardly for fun, the old trees in the mountains were taller and had thicker trunks. These massive trees—so large that a single person couldn’t encircle them—were the most difficult to climb, and a fall from them would result in the most severe injuries.

By the time the three had climbed to the top one after another and their figures were hidden among the pine branches, the two men below were still watching intently.

Dager had also been looking up, but upon hearing a sound from above, he took two steps forward and nudged Zhao Yinsheng and Zhao Chensheng aside with his head.

The brothers didn’t know what was going on, but they obediently stepped back. Just as they took two steps back, several pinecones began falling one after another.

Zhao Chensheng immediately broke out in a cold sweat. “Bro, we were standing too close just now. If Dager hadn’t warned us, those pinecones would’ve split our heads open.”

It’s hard for someone in a tree to judge the distance when dropping pinecones, so before climbing up, Huo Ling had gestured to indicate a safe zone and told them not to stand within it.

Little did they know that they’d become so engrossed in the spectacle that they kept moving closer and closer.

Still shaken by the close call, the two brothers decided to stand a little farther away and use branches to knock the pinecones outward. Dager and Huangyae also picked up the pinecones farther away with their mouths, bringing them back to place at the brothers’ feet, where they then picked them up one by one and put them into their back baskets.

Zhao Chensheng mused once more, “Bro, do you think we’ll ever have our own hunting dogs?”

In the mountains, having hunting dogs was practically like having an extra pair of eyes and an extra pair of arms. Anyone who had experienced the intelligence and loyalty of Dager and the others up close would feel it was only right to save some meat from their own meals to feed them.

“Didn’t you hear what Master said? A decent hunting dog costs at least ten taels; even the cheapest ones go for seven or eight taels. Anything cheaper isn’t fit to be a hunting dog—at best, it’s just a guard dog.”

He said in a low voice, “Let’s save up first. When the time comes, we’ll pool our money together and use our first earnings to buy a dog.”

Zhao Yinsheng also understood the importance of having a dog by his side. To make a long-term living in this line of work, one couldn’t just keep one’s eyes on the silver already in hand; one had to be willing to spend it now in order to earn even more in the future.

The three of them, working among three trees, gathered 122 pinecones—at least 20 percent more than last year.

After gathering them all, they moved on to a few more trees, looked up to assess the situation, and continued climbing.

When Huo Feng climbed down from the fourth tree, Huo Ling noticed him grimacing as he held his palm up. He walked over and saw a rather long gash on it.

Huo Feng asked for Huo Ling’s small flask, which he used to briefly rinse the wound with strong liquor. “I guess I’m just out of practice,” he said.

Huo Ling said decisively, “Don’t climb any more trees today. The cut is long but not deep. Keep it dry overnight, and it should heal by tomorrow. We’ll see how it goes then.”

Huo Feng knew why Huo Ling was being so cautious. Logically speaking, a wound like this was nothing. Back when they used to harvest wheat in the fields, if a sickle slipped and blood gushed out, they’d simply smear it with wood ash and herbs to stop the bleeding, wrap it in a scrap of cloth, and get back to work.

But it’s different in the mountains—climbing trees requires complete concentration and leaves no room for even the slightest distraction.

The slightest slip of the hands or feet could result in a broken arm, a broken leg, or even a broken neck.

He readily agreed, “Okay.”

This little incident served as a lesson for Zhao Yinsheng and Zhao Chensheng, and from then on, they were even more cautious about climbing trees while wearing foot bindings.

By the end of the day, the three of them had climbed a total of fifteen trees. Huo Ling climbed the most—six trees—and knocked down no fewer than six hundred pinecones.

“The mountains are just that fair—sometimes a year more, sometimes a year less.”

Huo Feng still remembered their trip into the mountains last year, when sometimes a single tree would yield a pitiful dozen or so pinecones—enough to make anyone want to curse.

But this year was completely different. After the pine trees had a chance to rest and recover, even a random tree bore forty or fifty pinecones, which fell with a clatter.

The group spent their days climbing the mountain to gather pine cones and their nights in the courtyard cracking them open to extract the pine nuts.

Since the Zhao brothers couldn’t help with climbing the trees just yet, they worked tirelessly at night, wielding wooden sticks to smash the pinecones until fragments flew everywhere.

After extracting all the pine nuts from the first day’s harvest, Huo Ling carried them to the scale and found they weighed over forty jin.

“Let’s aim to collect three hundred jin in seven days. Big Brother and Changshui, when the time comes, you two can head down the mountain and carry half of it down first.”

“No problem.”

“Alright.”

The two replied in unison, then couldn’t help but smile.

“This year’s harvest is better—much better—than last year’s.”

Lin Changshui’s speech was now much smoother than before.

As long as he spoke slowly, he rarely repeated a word multiple times or got stuck.

Over the past few months, he’d mustered the courage to hawk his wares on the street during the day—listening to customers haggle and calculating their bills—and at night, when he returned home, he’d pull his husband aside to teach him how to speak.

He’d repeat simple sentences over and over—more than a dozen times—and often found himself talking to himself in front of the family’s chickens.

At first, Mother Lin didn’t know what he was up to, and Lin Changshui was too embarrassed to explain, afraid that bringing it up would remind her of past sorrows and end up making a fool of himself. As a result, his mother thought he was possessed and nearly went to ask the shaman Li to come to their home and examine him.

The few people present were those who dealt with him regularly; having witnessed his changes bit by bit, they were no longer surprised by this.

Huo Ling nodded and said, “Before the big market in September, we should be able to scrape together at least five hundred jin.”

The price of a jin of raw pine nuts ranges from thirteen to fifteen wen. Last year, he sold 150 jin of pine nuts to Liao Dehai and Ge Yi at thirteen wen per jin.

This year, even if we conservatively estimate the lowest price of thirteen wen per jin, the first batch of pine nuts is still worth six taels and a half.

In addition to that, they could also gather a batch of pine mushrooms, hazelnut mushrooms, and schisandra berries—and, most importantly, wild ginseng.