Five wen per bun; on their first day setting up the stall, he sold forty. He could have sold another dozen or so, but he ran out of both dough and filling.

The food business at the big market was indeed booming, as many people only came into town once in a while—not to buy anything in particular, but simply to stroll around the market and treat themselves to some delicacies they couldn’t make at home.

Take these five-wen vegetarian pastries, for example: they were delicious and very filling. Though labeled “vegetarian,” they actually contained eggs, making them a better deal than buying other items.

Some thrifty families, with three people, would buy just one. The adults would take a single bite to sample it, and the rest would go to the children.

As for the fresh lingzhi mushrooms and sun-dried gastrodia tubers, they were all sold out early. There were five bundles of gastrodia in total; two were sold to the town’s herbal shop, and three were given to Mr. Liao, who had come to buy lingzhi last time.

During a casual chat, he mentioned that he had already collected several large sacks of mountain produce.

“Once this month is over, I’ll head back. I still have some silver left, so I’ll wait a bit longer to gather some hazelnut mushrooms and pine mushrooms.”

Mushrooms actually start appearing sporadically in the mountains after spring begins, but it’s not until autumn that they sprout in large numbers. This is especially true for the two varieties of wild mushrooms for which Bailong Mountain is most famous—the hazelnut mushroom and the pine mushroom—which are sure to appear only in July or August.

As for the other wild mushrooms in the mountains, they can be found elsewhere; once one crosses the pass, they are, by comparison, neither as rare nor as valuable.

Huo Ling wrapped two stuffed buns for him. The man thanked him, and after exchanging a few more casual words and introducing themselves, it turned out his name was Liao Dehai.

Upon learning where Yan Qi’s hometown was, he thought for a moment and said, “I didn’t pass through there on my way here, but I will be going that way on my return. If you have any relatives there who need letters or packages delivered, I might be able to help you figure something out.”

The fact that he could say such a thing showed that he was a man of great integrity.

Liao Dehai repeatedly emphasized that he wasn’t just being polite.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve helped someone with something like this. It’s just my nature. So many people spend their whole lives in their hometowns—it’s not easy for them to travel far. But since I’ve been all over the place, I’ll help out whenever I can. When you’re out in the world, it’s better to make friends than enemies.”

But Yan Qi shook his head. “There’s no one left at home. Everyone’s left, and I don’t even know where the survivors have scattered to.”

“What a pity,” Liao Dehai sighed in sympathy.

Still, Yan Qi couldn’t help but think of his hometown. After hesitating for a long while, just as everyone was about to leave, he mustered his courage and said, “Brother Liao, if you come back through the pass next year to stock up here and pass by my hometown, could you bring me a handful of soil? It doesn’t matter where it’s from—any soil will do.”

“That’s no trouble at all—it’s just a small favor. But what do you need the soil for?”

Liao Dehai couldn’t help but ask.

When asking someone to do a favor, it’s best not to be vague. Yan Qi glanced at Huo Ling; seeing the man’s nod of approval, he pursed his lips and said, “I hope you won’t laugh at me, Brother Liao, but I want to build a grave for my parents beyond the Great Wall. That way, on special occasions, I’ll have a place to kowtow and burn paper offerings. When I left home all those years ago, they still held out hope that we might return someday. Burying some soil from our hometown there will serve as a memento.”

Huo Ling was aware of Yan Qi’s plan to build a grave for his parents. They had even spent ten wen at the market to consult a priest, asking if it was possible to build a grave without any grave goods. The priest said it was, and while he was at it, he calculated an auspicious date for them, adding that they should seek him out when the time came to select the site and lay the foundation.

To be honest, the dead are gone, and an empty grave is nothing more than a source of comfort for the living. Yan Qi had once wondered whether doing this was appropriate, but Huo Ling simply said, “If you want to do it, just do it.”

“You’re their child. Didn’t the Taoist priest at the City God Temple say that wherever you offer prayers, they’ll be effective? Besides, it’s not as if you have nothing at all—you still have that set of clothes your mother sewed from fabric salvaged from your father’s old garments. Why not bury that set instead?”

Fast forward to today: upon meeting Liao Dehai, he couldn’t help but speak his mind once more.

Liao Dehai, moved by his filial devotion, promised, “Rest assured, I travel beyond the Pass every year. I’ll be sure to bring it back for you when the time comes.”

Huo Ling tried to give him some silver as a token of gratitude, but Liao Dehai waved him off.

“I’ve told you, I’m doing this to sow good karma. Talking about money would be too mundane.”

When invited to a meal, he also declined.

“I just ate that pastry; it’s still sitting heavy in my stomach, but it really was delicious. When I’m on my way back, I’ll come buy some more. By then, it’ll be cold, and they’ll last two or three days without going bad.”

Yan Qi immediately said, “Brother, I’ll take care of your provisions for the return journey. I don’t have many skills, but I can certainly whip up some decent dry rations.”

It must be said that this truly moved Liao Dehai. When traveling, the greatest worry is always food and drink. Many of the tea stalls along the main road charge exorbitant prices—they dare to ask five wen for a coarse steamed bun, and the rough tea is full of broken tea stems, so weak it barely tastes like tea. They’ll demand three wen for a pot, banking on the fact that if you don’t buy it, you’ll have to keep riding a hundred li on an empty stomach.

Huo Ling also spoke up for Yan Qi: “Brother Liao, your magnanimity is admirable, yet you refuse to accept any payment. How can we possibly feel at ease? We must at least be allowed to show our gratitude.”

At this, Liao Dehai finally nodded.

“Then I shall take you up on your offer.”

Who would have thought that today, through a stroke of luck, a major worry had been lifted? Setting aside the money from selling the mushroomand gastrodia for now, the pastries alone were worth a solid two wen.

Yan Qi, his eyes crinkling in a smile, sat behind the stall and counted out the money with Huo Ling, muttering to himself.

“Each pastry sells for five wen; we make a profit of one wen. Once winter sets in, if we set up the stall every day, we could sell forty or fifty a day. Over the course of a month, that’s a net profit of over one tael.”

He mused, “Even if we don’t count the net profit and just look at the wen coming in, it’s even more. By then, we might be able to use the money from selling pastries to buy livestock.”

A full-grown ox can fetch over twenty taels these days, but if you buy a calf and raise it from scratch, fifteen or sixteen taels would suffice.

However, winters beyond the Pass are too long, and calves are prone to illness during the cold months. If one dies, those fifteen or sixteen taels would be down the drain. That’s why most first-time buyers prefer to spend a little extra on a full-grown ox—one they can bring home and put to work pulling carts or plowing fields right away.

Huo Ling, however, wanted to buy his livestock between the autumn harvest and the onset of winter. “Prices for oxen drop slightly after the harvest. After all, feeding them hay in winter is such a hassle. Those livestock dealers aren’t fools—they just want to sell as much as possible to save on hay for the calves.”

Before the autumn harvest—that is, in the past month—the price of oxen was undoubtedly at its highest. Unless someone needed them urgently, no one would rush to buy oxen at that time.

“If we wait until next year, we’ll have to avoid the spring plowing and autumn harvest seasons to get a good price, which wouldn’t be cost-effective.”

He said to Yan Qi, “Besides, once we buy an ox, it won’t just be for plowing—we’ll be able to use it all the time. Then we can use it to pull a cart to sell our pastries.”

Yan Qi was convinced by Huo Ling. After all, their family wasn’t without savings, and since they had some, they should definitely buy when prices were low.

“In that case, let’s keep the money from selling the pastries set aside. I’ll keep the two portions separate. From now on, when we buy flour and charcoal for making pastries, or when we go to other households in the village to buy chives and eggs, we’ll pay for it all from this fund.”

This way, it’ll be easier to keep track of the accounts. Otherwise, if we earn money here and there, by the end of the year, everything will be a muddle.

Selling mountain produce requires no capital, but making pastries does. If they don’t keep clear accounts, they might end up continuing to work away like fools even when they’re clearly losing money—that would truly be a laughingstock.

━━ 🐈‍⬛ ━━

The pastry business got off to a successful start, but for now it was just a “side hustle.” So after selling for only one day, Huo Ling and Yan Qi didn’t go back the next day; instead, they stayed home to help with the wheat harvest.

The autumn harvest is the most important task of the year. Sometimes, if a rain shower falls just a day or two late, a whole year’s work goes to waste.

The wheat beyond the Pass had reached maturity, but the corn and sorghum still needed another month. This year, Ye Suping couldn’t work in the fields and stayed home to cook; only the two Huo brothers and Yan Qi were out in the fields.

Fortunately, Yan Qi was also an experienced farmhand; he picked up the sickle and cut the wheat with great skill.

Of the five mu of land, only two mu were planted with wheat. With two able-bodied men among the three of them, the harvest was completed in just one day. At noon, Ye Suping came to bring lunch—fried sauce noodles—and the group polished off a whole bucket of noodles between them.

After eating, drowsiness set in. They pulled their straw hats over their faces and dozed off in the shade of the trees.

In the past, Yan Qi’s memories of the autumn harvest were always of sweltering heat, but it was different at the foot of Bailong Mountain. Once autumn set in, the wind had lost its heat, and even at noon, lying in the shade felt refreshingly cool.

Huo Ling and Huo Feng took turns pushing the bundles of wheat to the threshing floor by cart to separate the grains, then transported the wheat home to spread it out to dry in front of and behind the house.

The wheat grains were golden yellow and felt prickly to the touch, every single farmer could not help but feel happy at the sight of the harvest.

But thinking of the new addition to the family on the way, those five mu of land seemed increasingly insufficient.

The two brothers discussed it and agreed that this matter could no longer be put off.

Huo Ling said, “Why don’t we first let Uncle Zhou know? Ask him to keep an eye out and let us know in advance if any family in the village wants to sell their land.”

Every family’s fields in the village were registered in the village chief’s ledger, and any land transactions had to go through him. Therefore, to buy land, they had to inform Village Chief Zhou Chengzu first.

Since the two families were on good terms, this wasn’t difficult. Huo Ling had even prepared the gastrodia tubers he planned to give Zhou Chengzu early on.

Since the village chief’s wife, Chen-shi, suffered from dizziness and took gastrodia year-round, Huo Ling had been delivering it to her every autumn.

After all, during the years when he and his brother Huo Feng were orphaned, the Zhou family had gone out of their way to look after them.

Huo Feng was initially hesitant, as they didn’t have enough money on hand. Upon hearing this, Huo Ling said, “Even if we don’t have the money now, we’ll have enough by next autumn. Who knows—maybe this year will bring us brothers some good fortune, and we’ll strike it rich.”

He added, “If there really is a suitable plot of land, missing out now means who knows how many years we’ll have to wait for the next opportunity. Even if I have to cover the cost for you up front, we’re determined to buy it.”

Huo Feng understood this logic. Xiashan Village was small to begin with, and the amount of cultivated good farmland was fixed. Unless you were willing to bite the bullet and clear virgin land, you had no choice but to wait.

He remained silent for a moment before saying, “Even if we buy it, it won’t be until after the harvest. No one sells land during harvest season. As you said, this fall I’ll go into the mountains with you and work hard to see if I can earn enough silver for two mu of land.”

Huo Ling knew his older brother wouldn’t readily accept his money, so he didn’t press the matter. After all, if it came down to it, he’d find a way to get his brother to agree.

“Since my sister-in-law isn’t going up the mountain this year, that leaves just the three of us: you, me, and Xiao Qi.”

According to the rule of one person for every two pine cones gathered, the number of people was just right.

Of course, finding ginseng was a pleasant surprise; even without it, they could gather over a hundred pounds of pine nuts.

Having recovered from the autumn harvest and before the tax collectors arrived, Huo Feng began packing his belongings, intending to follow his younger brother and his brother-in-law into Bailong Mountain.

However, the day before they were set to head into the mountains, Lin Changshui and Xiao Mingming showed up at the door carrying their belongings.