When old acquaintances meet, there’s truly much to discuss.

From wedding banquets to the disappearance of Tian-ger from Shuangjing Village—news that brought both joy and sorrow.

In the end, Yan Qi deliberately avoided these topics, unwilling to let others’ troubles dampen his own spirits.

He moved his sewing basket and changed the subject, asking Xiao Mingming for advice.

“The other day, I casually stitched a pouch. Plain fabric, nothing fancy, and the stitching isn’t even particularly neat, yet he insisted on taking it.”

“It’s hardly proper for him to use it long-term. I don’t have anything else worthy to give him, so I might as well make him a new one. But I can’t think of what pattern to embroider.”

Since Huo Ling was so dashing and heroic, ordinary embroidery designs just didn’t seem to fit. Flowers might be too flamboyant, and bamboo wouldn’t complement him either.

Xiao Mingming propped his chin on his hand, simultaneously trying to scrape dried sweet potato off his teeth with his tongue. He frowned, deep in thought.

Then it hit him. He gestured, “How about… embroidering a red bean with leaves?”

Red beans symbolize longing—a design that’s both elegant and meaningful. A young man giving this to a man would be perfectly respectable.

Yan Qi considered it, sketching a few lines on the fabric. With a smile, he decided, “That’s the one.”

Amid the steady patter of rain, Bailong Mountain welcomed its first downpour of spring.

The gloomy sky caused Huo Ling to oversleep. He tossed off the quilt, climbed down from the kang, and pushed open the door. Standing inside, he stretched his limbs toward the courtyard.

Dager also sauntered out from the west room. He raised his hind paw to scratch his ear, then sat beside Huo Ling to watch the rain with him.

Every so often, he twitched his nose, sniffing the fresh scent carried by the mountain breeze and rain.

This year’s weather was drier than last, and the first rains had come late. Huo Ling couldn’t help but feel fortunate that he’d found five pairs of lion’s mane mushrooms during the day—enough to fill ten dried yellow bags. Otherwise, this downpour would have left them all rotting on the trees.

The only annoyance was that tomorrow, the fourteenth, was precisely when they were to descend the mountain. It seemed certain they’d be stepping through wet mud.

But the thought that this descent was for his wedding, that he’d finally see his husband, made even the mud feel sweet.

He shared a pot of steamed corn buns with Dager, scraping the last bits of eggplant sauce from the bottom of the jar. When the rain eased, he pulled a straw hat over his head, slipped on his straw sandals, and stepped outside.

With a whistle, Dager dashed straight for the nearest snare, Huo Ling close behind.

The trees along this path held little interest—anything worth gathering had long been picked clean—so Huo Ling skipped them entirely.

Near the traps, two of the five snares had caught game: a hare and a hazel grouse.

The grouse was small, weighing less than a pound on the scale. It barely made a pot of soup, but its meat was fresh and delicious. In the inns beyond the frontier, it was called “flying dragon,” implying that eating hazel grouse was comparable to eating dragon meat.

Trapping them was slow work; hunters often used slingshots instead. But that method meant they had to be sold the same day they came down the mountain. Otherwise, the birds would lose their freshness overnight.

Over the past few days near the traps, Huo Ling had caught five live ones. He kept them in the half-emptied storage room he’d cleared out, planning to take them tomorrow along with the rabbits in cages.

Unfortunately, besides a few rabbits and chickens, and the two mountain sand ducks he impulsively caught in the river the day before, neither the snares he set nor the pits he dug yielded any large game this time.

But then again, big game isn’t that easy to come by. Just like how mountain hunters can’t dig up ginseng every single day.

After tying up the ropes and removing the snares, Huo Ling first delivered the live game home. He placed the rabbits in their cage and the hazel grouse in their nest, stuffing a handful of vegetable leaves on the left and tossing a few birch branches sprouting tender buds on the right, leaving them to feed.

Then he plunged back into the mountains. He and Dager traversed the hills, aiming to gather a few more pairs of antlers to bring down.

Afternoon, the light rain gradually stopped. The kidney grass rooted in the trees, wilted all winter, soaked up the moisture, and turned a vibrant, glossy green.

Huo Ling looped the hemp rope around the trunk, climbing step by step using his footrests. He pulled a bundle of fresh green grass free with his bare hands.

His waist pouch already held plenty of the same grass. After harvesting several nearby trees, he casually peeled strips of bark to bundle the grass.

After finishing, he noticed that Big Guy had gone quiet. Glancing around, he saw the dog trying to wedge its head into a low tree hollow.

Hearing Huo Ling’s approaching footsteps, Dager glanced at him before pawing at the hollow twice.

“Something in there?”

Huo Ling crouched down, nudged the dog aside, and leaned over the hole to peer inside. Expecting to find a squirrel trapped by Dager, he was instead met with a cavity brimming with black oil mushrooms.

The so-called “black oil mushroom” was the finest variety of birch polypore, often found in hollowed-out birch tree cavities, its entire body jet-black and glossy.

For this reason, mountain hunters always inspected birch tree cavities. Only here, Huo Ling hadn’t gotten around to checking yet, and Dager had beaten him to the discovery.

“Good boy! I’ll buy you a big bone when we get down the mountain!”

Huo Ling gave the dog’s head a vigorous rub, tried a couple of positions, and finally settled on crawling on the ground to thoroughly clean out the black oil mushroom from the hollow.

When birch trees bear too many birch polypores, they slowly rot and die. Mushroom hunters never spare them—after all, preserving the trees ensures long-term harvests.

The black oil mushroom was not only deep in color but also heavy in the hand, likely weighing over three jin. Even with a few broken pieces, none showed the yellowish core inside.

A rough estimate suggested this haul alone could fetch a tael of silver.

After spending over three hours in the mountains, Huo Ling shouldered and carried his full load back to the small courtyard.

As night fell, he sat cross-legged on the kang, counting the silver in his money box.

Huo Ling had made the mountains his home since turning eighteen, nearly five years now. Each year, he earned at least twenty taels.

If he dug up wild ginseng, he could add another ten taels or more to his income.

Yet earnings came with inevitable expenditures.

First were the family debts he and his elder brother had repaid years prior, plus silver paid to offset corvée labor. Then came the annual contribution to his brother and sister-in-law for household expenses—covering not only his food and lodging when descending the mountain, but also seasonal clothing and footwear.

Add to that the costs of social obligations, daily food and necessities, or purchasing and replacing tools for the mountain hunts—these expenses were too numerous to count in a moment.

The leather boots were sturdy as iron, expensive, yet prone to wear from constant use, necessitating a new pair every season. The blacksmith shop sold them for eight wen each—a fixed price that hadn’t risen over the years, nor had it ever been discounted.

The dagger at his waist was razor-sharp. He’d once had a favorite blade, but it had accidentally fallen into a mountain ravine. He’d had to spend two taels to forge a new one, which had pained him deeply.

Then there was Dager, the dog. That beast ate like a horse. By year’s end, the food expenses subsidized into his mouth added up to several taels.

So by year’s end, he’d have six or seven taels left at best, or maybe even fewer taels. Right now, the box held copper coins and silver scraps, together about fifty taels.

To say it was little would be an exaggeration. Fifty taels could buy several acres of prime farmland in the village, or two sturdy draft animals, or even build a proper village homestead—enough to cover the entire roof with blue tiles.

Yet it wasn’t truly substantial either. Huo Ling possessed none of the aforementioned assets. To fulfill the village chief’s earlier advice step by step—while also setting aside a nest egg—he knew he’d need to earn far more.

Before marriage, he’d never worried about such matters. While it was true that one man’s full stomach meant the whole family wasn’t hungry, he’d never intended to remain a lifelong bachelor. Now, with new responsibilities on his shoulders, he didn’t feel weighed down—only a sense of purpose.

Adhering to the principle that more was better than less, Huo Ling took fifteen taels from his box. After counting them carefully, he placed several silver ingots into the bamboo-green pouch Yan Qi had sewn. He drew the drawstring tight, then set it by his bedside before sleeping, so he wouldn’t forget to take it tomorrow.

━━ 🐈‍⬛ ━━

With the joyous occasion approaching, Huo Feng and Ye Suping wore smiles wherever they went lately.

Neighbors and visitors inevitably inquired about the news, so Yan Qi had spent many days accompanying Ye Suping, getting to know quite a few villagers.

Everyone appeared friendly in person, but once they left, Ye Suping would tell him who was easy to get along with, who was genuinely trustworthy, and who couldn’t be trusted.

Yan Qi took careful note of each observation. While the details were secondary, the crucial point was to avoid misidentifying people upon future encounters.

He didn’t seek deep friendships; having a brother-in-law to confide in, along with his sister-in-law at home, was more than enough.

Once he and Huo Ling moved into the mountains, their time down below would be scarce, and this would spare them much social hassle.

He had just sent off a young wife from the eastern neighbors. She’d brought ten chicken eggs, wanting to trade them for five duck eggs to feed her child.

Few households in the village raised ducks, but the Huos’ flock thrived under Ye Suping’s care, often drawing such exchanges.

“This basket of duck eggs is full again. I’ll take them to market on the fifteenth. I’ll keep the chicken eggs for now—they’ll come in handy for banquets in a few days.”

Ye Suping called Yan Qi to help count the eggs. The basket held forty duck eggs. With only five female ducks at home, and the cold days before summer meaning the nests weren’t laid daily, it had taken half a month to gather this many.

Yan Qi knew that usually, when the family sold eggs, they would have Huo Ling take them along with other mountain produce to the market. This time, he should be able to go too, so he said to Ye Suping, “I’ll help you sell the eggs then.”

“That would be wonderful.”

Ye Suping smiled with relief. “The town market is bustling. You should go before heading into the mountains.”

She couldn’t go herself. Huo Feng was always in the fields during farming season, and even in the off-season, he often worked in town. As his sister-in-law, it wouldn’t be appropriate for her to drag her daughter along with her to hawk goods.

Truthfully, when Huo Ling carried heavy loads of mountain goods, he often neglected the eggs. These fragile things were easy to break, and each cracked egg meant a tangible loss of hard-earned copper coins.

Now, with Yan Qi lending a hand, selling eggs would be much easier.

Yan Qi ran his fingers over the smooth, round eggs in the basket and asked Ye Suping if chickens and ducks could be raised in the mountains.

In the countryside, besides fields yielding grain and silver, chickens and ducks were a family’s most valuable assets. Raised, they laid eggs; aged, they provided meat. Their manure fertilized fields, and they survived on wheat bran, corn, and vegetable scraps—things every household had.

Wives and husbands couldn’t work in the city like men, so most relied on selling eggs to save a little pocket money.

Unfortunately, Ye Suping poured cold water on his idea.

“That’s really not possible. The mountains aren’t like the lowlands. Eagles and owls fly everywhere, snatching them right out of the sky! I came into this family early and heard from our mother-in-law that she tried raising them on the mountain when she was young, but couldn’t keep them alive. When she really craved eggs, she’d go gather a few wild duck or pheasant eggs for a treat.“

She smiled as she said this.

”My husband and the second son grew up in the mountains and did this all the time when they were kids.”

Yan Qi felt a pang of disappointment upon hearing they couldn’t raise chickens or ducks, losing a source of income. Yet, as Ye Suping shifted to talk about Huo Ling, that slight unease faded.

The thought of Huo Ling returning today warmed his heart.