After eating their fill, the five of them took advantage of the remaining daylight to pack up the things they needed to take down the mountain.

They had been in the mountains for about ten days. The first batch of mushrooms they had gathered had already been sun-dried to a crisp. Later, they had picked a few fresh ones here and there, though not in large quantities. The three families discussed it and decided not to sell them. Instead, they would each take them home—some to eat fresh, others to dry for winter provisions. Though they hadn’t made any money, they had saved money; the principle was the same.

The only thing is, these two must be kept separate; the dried mushrooms must not be allowed to absorb moisture from the fresh ones.

Among the mountain produce, schisandra berries take up the least space. The berries, which aren’t large to begin with, shrink to tiny grains after drying—a handful slips right through your fingers. Yet their color becomes even more beautiful, turning into a gem-like, translucent, deep red.

These past few days, whenever they’ve been at home, no one has been drinking plain water—they’ve been brewing either schisandra berries or birch polypore. To put it simply, we’ve had plenty of energy for our daily chores, and we’ve slept soundly at night.

These mountain herbs and medicinal plants fetch good prices at the market down the mountain—they must be genuinely effective, otherwise the people buying them wouldn’t be fools.

“Second Brother, this sack is leaking at the bottom. Should we patch it up or get another one? Do we have any new ones left?”

Huo Feng and Lin Changshui were moving three large sacks of pine nuts they’d packed earlier in the courtyard. Unexpectedly, the bottom of one of them tore as soon as they lifted it, and the pine nuts spilled out all over the ground.

The two quickly let go and set the sack back down, then crouched down to scoop the nuts back into it.

Huo Ling came over upon hearing the commotion. He glanced at the bottom of the sack and said, “We have more, but none of them are as sturdy as this one. I specifically picked out these three thick sacks to hold the pine nuts.”

He thought for a moment and said, “Maybe we should cut a piece of burlap to patch it up.”

“That works.”

Ready-made burlap sacks were sold in town, but to save money, villagers usually bought coarse burlap and sewed it themselves.

The needles and thread used for sewing burlap sacks were different from those used for sewing clothes; for instance, Huo Ling and his group used bone needles threaded with hemp rope, and now they needed to use the same method to patch the sack.

The two brothers went to the storage shed and pulled out a worn-out burlap sack. Old, tattered things often came in handy, so even if they were torn, people kept them instead of throwing them away.

They cut the usable parts of the old sack into several square patches and sewed them onto the original sack, just as one would patch a garment.

To make it sturdy enough, they sewed two layers this time.

“Let’s use this one one last time. Later, I’ll go to town to haul back a bolt of coarse burlap and make some new sacks.”

After the repair was finished, the three men took turns lifting the sack to test it. They gave it a couple of shakes up and down—it still didn’t leak—so they knew it was good to go.

The miscellaneous mountain produce—such as a few strings of gastrodia tuber, handfuls of various reishi mushrooms, as well as dried wood ear mushrooms, lion’s mane mushrooms, and kidney grass—was sorted and packed by the two gers. Some items were wrapped in tree bark or moss; others were placed in separate cloth pouches or tied up with thin strips of bark.

Since there was plenty of mountain produce, Huo Ling didn’t bother much with hunting game this time. Not to mention, there was still that “club” left—this trip into the mountains had certainly not been in vain.

That evening, after the lamps were extinguished, Yan Qi and Xiao Mingming lay with their heads close together, whispering to each other.

The thought that they wouldn’t be able to sleep this close together tomorrow night made them feel a bit reluctant to part.

As for the amusing stories from the mountains, and the gossip Xiao Mingming had heard from his mother-in-law and neighbors back in the village, they’d been talking about them for so long and still hadn’t finished.

Take tonight, for instance—as they chatted, the conversation naturally drifted to something new.

“You mean that second daughter of Old Lady Zheng—she’s not her biological child?”

Yan Qi rolled over, incredulous. “Then where did she come from?”

Old Lady Zheng was one of the first people Yan Qi and Xiao Mingming had taken note of after marrying into Xiashan Village.

Back then, in front of the matchmaker and the villagers, the old woman had pointed fingers at the two of them, calling them barren and sickly money-losers, finding fault with every little thing.

In the end, while the men from the Huo and Lin families had long since married and settled into their lives, her own youngest son still hadn’t found a suitable match.

It infuriated her so much that she’d kick any passing dog if she could. She spent her days sitting at her doorstep with a basin, shelling green beans, spitting on the ground after every few beans, and cursing heaven and earth.

With such a reputation, who would dare marry into her family? Especially since her youngest son had been spoiled rotten—lazy and gluttonous, unable to even do farm work properly.

Xiao Mingming nudged Yan Qi and whispered, “Where else could she have come from? She was adopted, of course. Her name is Laidi. They say they had a fortune-teller consult the stars back then—that they had to bring home a child with a compatible birth chart before they could conceive a son.”

There was, after all, a reason why Old Lady Zheng spoiled her youngest son so much.

Her husband’s family name was Miao. His first wife had passed away, leaving behind an older son who’d been married off long ago; Old Lady Zheng was his second wife.

After she married into the family, she couldn’t conceive, and naturally feared she wouldn’t be able to secure her place in the Yang household. She also wanted a biological child of her own to rely on, so she begged and pleaded until she came up with this plan. Whether by coincidence or not, she later gave birth to a son named Shougen, who had once gotten completely drunk at Huo Ling and Yan Qi’s wedding banquet.

As for the eldest son left behind by his late wife and the adopted second daughter, they were both married off early, around the age of fourteen or fifteen.

“That eldest son hasn’t returned to Xiashan Village in years; they say no one even knows if he’s alive or dead. The second daughter, having married nearby, still comes to visit from time to time.”

However, Mother Lin had mentioned that after her younger brother was born, the second daughter, Miao Laidi, hadn’t had an easy life. Those who knew she was an adopted daughter understood; those who didn’t might have thought the family had bought a maid to serve them.

The fact that she still visits now is simply because she has a conscience and remembers the kindness shown to her as an orphaned girl who was taken in—at the very least, she wasn’t left to starve.

Xiao Mingming curled his lip. “She treasures her son so much, yet she couldn’t even bring herself to spend money on a dowry. Back then, she was so picky about us—thank goodness she didn’t pick us.”

A village is full of all sorts of people, and in the few months since they’d moved in, they’d heard their fair share of gossip.

Yet the two shared an unspoken understanding: no matter how the conversation meandered, they always steered it toward events after they’d arrived in Xiashan Village, never mentioning a single word about what came before.

The only time they’d mentioned the past recently was a few days ago, during the Mid-Autumn Festival. They’d set up a brazier in the courtyard, and several of them burned joss paper for their deceased relatives and paid their respects.

Come to think of it, among all the people in this courtyard, not a single one had both parents alive.

“Stuff like that happens everywhere. Didn’t we have it in our village before? That old man from the Sun family, desperate for a grandson, even forced his daughter-in-law to drink some charmed water. It made her throw up and have diarrhea, her face turned as yellow as wax, and she was bedridden for half a month before she could walk again. Later, when they reported it to the authorities and tracked down the guy who sold the charmed water, they found out he was a fake Taoist priest—he’d long since vanished without a trace.”

Xiao Mingming sighed with relief. “Thank goodness the families we’ve encountered have all been reasonable.”

Who can decide what will come out of a woman’s womb? If we could, we might as well just pray for an emperor.

Yan Qi laughed out loud, then noticed it was getting late. Snoring had already begun in the men’s quarters, so he tugged at the quilt and said they should get some sleep.

━━ 🐈‍⬛ ━━

“I was just wondering if you’d be going to the big market to sell buns this time. Since you’ll likely be selling them, I figured I’d take advantage of the sunshine today to give your pots and pans a quick rinse. They haven’t been used in a while, so they’ve inevitably gathered some dust.”

After coming down from the mountain, they bid farewell to Lin Changshui and Xiao Mingming, and Huo Ling returned home with her husband and older brother.

The house was bustling with activity for quite a while. Only after the mountain produce had been put away did they have a chance to sit down and talk.

He noticed that the iron pot used for making buns and the large basin for kneading dough in the kitchen had just been washed and were upside down to drain. He asked about them, and that’s when Ye Suping’s earlier reply came up.

“Just wait for Xiaoqi and me to come back and do it. Why don’t you rest a bit more, Sister-in-law?”

Ye Suping laughed, “It’s not like I need a rest yet. I can’t sit still if I’m idle.”

She gestured to the others inside the house and said, “While you were all out, I took the time to strip and wash all the bedding at home, and I even aired out the quilt fillings.”

Huo Ying raised her hand high at that moment, “I helped too!”

“My daughter is so wonderful!”

Huo Feng hadn’t seen his wife and daughter in quite some time; he was so overjoyed he could hardly contain himself. He reached out, grabbed Huo Ying under the arms, and lifted the little girl high into the air.

Huo Ying let out a few “Ah!” cries, her cheeks flushing red with laughter.

Once he set her down, he shuffled over to Ye Suping. No one knew what he said, but he was soon grinning as he took a playful punch.

For their first meal back home, they ate the mole crab tofu that Ye Suping had been longing for all year. This dish was prepared by Huo Ling; he was the only one in the family who could make it taste just right.

Sometimes in the mountains, even when he was alone, he would slowly cook himself a bowl of mole crab tofu to pass the time. Having made it so many times, he had naturally perfected the technique.

To make crayfish tofu, you must first remove the heads and tails of the crayfish; only the body is used. However, when removing the heads, there is roe inside—that must not be discarded. It is set aside to simmer into a broth for the base.

Peeling the shells was meticulous work, so the whole family gathered around the table to pitch in. Huo Ying chattered away about how she and her village friends had gone to the nearby mountain stream to catch crayfish. Though there weren’t as many as in the mountains, they’d managed to gather over twenty, and the two of them had a meal of them boiled in plain water.

“Yingzi is becoming more and more capable.”

Huo Ling offered a compliment, and Huo Ying puffed out her chest. “I’m all grown up now. I can take care of Mother, so Father can go out and work to earn money without worrying!”

Those words warmed the hearts of Huo Feng and Ye Suping, her parents, to the core. Out of the little girl’s sight, they both turned their heads away to wipe away a tear from the corner of their eyes.

Once the shells were peeled, Huo Ling carried them into the kitchen. Yan Qi had never eaten or cooked them before and was very curious, so he followed him in to watch how he prepared them.

The first step was to bring out the family’s stone mortar and throw all the mole crickets inside, pounding them vigorously until they were crushed. By the end, the mortar was filled with a murky, dark-yellowish liquid—a sight that was certainly not appealing.

Next, Huo Ling took out a clean steaming cloth—the kind used to line the steamer baskets when making buns and mantou—to strain the mantis shrimp juice.

“Squeeze it like this, and all the mantis shrimp meat will end up in the liquid below, leaving only the shells in the cloth. You can mix those up and feed them to the chickens and ducks.”

Huo Ling squeezed a few times, and once Yan Qi understood the process, he let him give it a try.

The squeezed-out liquid was a color close to that of the crayfish roe. Huo Ling had a strong grip, so it didn’t take long to finish. After discarding the shells to one side, it was time to add the ingredients to the water to blanch the “tofu.”

Yan Qi witnessed an astonishing sight: the juice squeezed from the mole crickets fell into the broth simmered with shrimp roe. After the ladle swirled gently in the soup a few times, the previously mixed liquid suddenly solidified into something resembling tofu pudding, gradually taking shape.

Huo Ling deftly sprinkled a pinch of salt and a handful of chopped Chinese chives into the pot, then ladled the dish out.