: Ice Chunks

The snow on the mountain was a foot deep, and the first thing Huo Ling did upon arriving was to work hard at shoveling it away.

Yan Qi went inside to boil water and heat up food, while the three dogs ran wild around the front and back yards twice before starting to roll around vigorously in the snow.

Heidou was small; his legs were a good inch shorter than those of Dager and Huangyae. As the two bigger dogs ran ahead, he chased after them. His four legs couldn’t dig through the snow very well, so he ended up more like shuffling forward, leaving a trail of snow behind him wherever he went.

After piling the snow to the sides and corners of the yard, he set down the broom, looked up at the roof, and went inside to fetch a ladder.

Clearing the snow from the ground made it easier for people to come and go, while clearing the snow from the roof prevented the heavy weight from collapsing it. This was also why, once families beyond the Great Wall had saved up enough money, the first thing they did was replace their thatched roofs with tiled ones.

“I’m going up to poke at the snow. Don’t go out for a while—you’ll get covered in it.” He said to Yan Qi before climbing up. The latter replied, “I’ll go hold the ladder for you.”

“No need.”

Huo Ling said, “I’ve been climbing ladders for years and have never fallen.”

That remark earned him a slight glare from the ger. “Just you wait. I’m going to get dressed.”

Huo Ling waited obediently. While waiting, he raised a wooden stick and knocked a few icicles off the eaves to prevent them from melting and hurting someone.

Some shattered upon hitting the steps, while others rolled intact into the snow. The dogs, seeing this new plaything, scrambled over to bite at the ice.

Yan Qi came out fully dressed and saw Heidou barking wildly at a piece of icicle. Dager and Huangya were each holding one end of another icicle in their mouths. Before they could settle the contest, the icicle snapped in half with a loud “crack.”

“They lick the ice—doesn’t it stick to their tongues?”

Yan Qi watched for a moment, his smile growing wider.

“It does stick, but their tongues are warmer, so the ice melts quickly in their mouths.”

There were still intact icicles hanging from the eaves. He asked Yan Qi, “Do you want to play? I’ll knock one down for you.”

Yan Qi instinctively wanted to say “No,” but changed his mind just as the words left his lips. He looked up at the eaves and said, “It freezes in my hometown in the winter too, but the ice isn’t this solid.”

That meant he wanted one. Huo Ling was energized by this, carefully selecting the largest, thickest, and sturdiest icicle, then handed it to Yan Qi to hold through his gloves.

Yan Qi held it up to the light. As the faint light danced across it, the winter sun—not particularly bright—refracted into a pattern of flowers.

“It’s truly beautiful.”

He squinted slightly and said, “If I were still a kid, I definitely wouldn’t be able to resist licking it.”

Huo Ling laughed. “Every kid from beyond the Great Wall has done that when they were little. They only start crying once their tongues get stuck.” “Did you and Big Brother do it too?”

“I don’t remember, but my older brother says I did.”

Yan Qi’s lips curled into a smile.

After playing for a while, he gave the big popsicles in his hand to the dogs and followed Huo Ling to set up the ladder. Huo Ling quickly climbed onto the roof, crouched low, and began clearing away the snow layer by layer.

When he was done, Yan Qi hurried inside to check on the pot. Fortunately, since he’d wanted thin porridge, he’d added plenty of water, so it was far from boiling dry. The two took off their heavy coats and began to eat.

The fire had been burning for a while, and the room was gradually warming up. To go with the rice, Huo Ling went to fetch a chunk of pickled vegetables and sliced it into strips.

The pickles from the mountains were slow to eat and had been pickled for a long time, so they were actually a bit too salty. The two picked them up and bit into them from the tip; eating even a little more felt overwhelmingly salty, but a single piece was enough to go with half a bowl of rice.

The warm millet porridge went down a treat, though it made them drowsy afterward. Huo Ling took over the task of washing the pot and dishes, telling Yan Qi to lie down on the kang for a while.

The people had finished eating, but the dogs hadn’t.

The three mischievous dogs had finished wreaking havoc on the icicles and piles of snow before they even thought to come inside.

Huo Ling boiled a pot of corn for them. As he set it aside to cool, he lectured them: “After you finish this, get out into the mountains and forage for food. You’ve put on a winter layer of fat—time to get moving.”

Dager barked twice at the door, as if he couldn’t wait.

Although they loved meat, they devoured the corn just as thoroughly, leaving not a single kernel behind.

Once they’d devoured it all in a flash, Huo Ling stuffed all the corn cobs into the stove to start a fire.

The flames danced, sending warmth through the chimney into the heated bed in the inner room. After tidying up the stove room, Huo Ling tiptoed inside. The ger, wrapped in a quilt, was already fast asleep with his back to the door.

He thought it over: since he wasn’t going out into the mountains, there wasn’t much to do at home anyway, so he might as well join him on the heated bed, lying down beside Yan Qi for a light nap.

With a whistling sound, a pebble sliced through the air. Huo Ling stepped forward to pick up the hazel grouse lying on the ground, tied its legs together in a few quick motions, and tossed it into his pocket. Today, he’d left Huangyae at home to keep Yan Qi company; the only ones he’d brought along were Dager and his son.

This was the first time Dager had gone into the mountains with Heidou. Without Huangyae to share the burden, he was annoyed by his own son’s clinginess. He turned back several times, baring his teeth and growling, but to no avail.

Heidou must have been a naturally thick-skinned dog; after being growled at, he’d only stay quiet for a moment. After running a few steps, he’d seem to forget the warning and continue pouncing on Dager or chasing after him to nip at his tail.

In any animal pack, the young are always given preferential treatment. Heidou was solely focused on playing with the big dog; in his eyes, he didn’t yet perceive the other as a dog, let alone realize that it was his own father.

Consequently, the big dog would give the little one some leeway; no matter how annoyed he was, he wouldn’t actually attack. Faced with the two dogs, big and small, Huo Ling admitted he was still a bit more partial to Dager.

After walking for over half an hour and bagging two hazel grouse, when they encountered the first wild hare, he deliberately aimed slightly off-target. The stone grazed the hare’s leg as it flew past; the hare managed to keep running, though its pace had slowed.

“Heidou, chase it!”

He gave the command to Heidou and signaled to Dager to stay put.

Heidou leaped up to chase the hare, but Dager didn’t let his guard down. He kept a close eye on Heidou’s movements, looking as though he was ready to charge out at any moment.

Before long, Heidou scored his first victory, trotting back with the half-dead hare clamped in his mouth. When he reached Huo Ling, he released his grip and dropped the hare, then sat down beside him, wagging his tail in anticipation of a reward.

This routine was something he had taught it; at first, they’d used twigs, sticks, and even stones, but later switched to dead game.

Huo Ling reached into his pocket, fumbled around, and broke off a piece of his own jerky to feed it. He then picked up the wild rabbit to examine it, noticing that Heidou had bitten into the rabbit’s belly, causing blood to flow rapidly; it would likely die before they even reached home.

Still, it was starting to look like a proper hunting dog. After walking through the wind and snow for so long, his eyes stung and his throat was parched.

Huo Ling took a swig of strong liquor, letting it wash down the chill, then pressed on. Along the way, he cut three pieces of yellow pine resin and two pieces of pine torchwood about the length of his index finger.

The resinous scent of the pine torches was distinct enough to be detected even by a nose numb from the cold. Though small, these items were always in demand at the market stalls.

He tucked them into his coat, keeping them close to his body.

A little over two hours later, Huo Ling finished his work and headed back. The mountain goods he brought back spilled all over the ground; among the game were some he’d shot with a slingshot, and others that Dager had caught on the way back with Heidou.

Yan Qi looked at them and asked, “Still haven’t found the black oil mushroom?”

Huo Ling sighed softly. “It’s not easy to find, but I’ll find one eventually.”

In the vast mountains, black oil mushrooms aren’t exactly plentiful, but they aren’t scarce either.

He wondered which mountain peaks he hadn’t visited yet this year, planning to take the dog for a walk there tomorrow. That evening, he made soup with hazel grouse and hand-rolled noodles, and roasted a wild rabbit for dinner.

The soup was delicious, but it would be a shame to roast the rabbit. The one they caught today was quite large, though the meat wasn’t as tender—it was actually better suited for roasting until charred and then gnawing on slowly. By the end of the meal, both men were still holding a rabbit leg each.

Huangyae hadn’t gone out, but he’d still gotten to enjoy the meat and soup, and was now licking his lips in front of his bowl.

Dager is the most particular; after finishing his meat, he has to find a place to wipe his mouth. Right now, he’s facing an old straw mat laid out in the corner—their sleeping spot—and is rubbing his snout back and forth against it with all his might.

Once the meat was gone from the rabbit legs, the bones were piled together for the dogs to gnaw on. Yan Qi stacked the empty bowls and, upon seeing Dager’s actions, said, “I was packing my trunks today and found two old bedsheets. You won’t need them once you move up to the mountain to live on your own, so why not take them down and see if you can sew something out of them?”

“Can’t they be made into clothes?”

Yan Qi shook his head. “They’ve been washed so thin they’re practically threadbare. They feel soft to the touch, but they wouldn’t hold up as clothes, and making a quilt out of them would be a bit of a waste.”

Huo Ling paused for a moment before suggesting, “Or… maybe we could cut them up into diapers? I remember the diapers Yingzi used when she was little were made from old tablecloths at home. Since we didn’t have enough, my sister-in-law even went to her parents’ house to collect more. She said the older they were, the better—as long as they were clean. Of course, they weren’t dirty; we always scalded them with boiling water before using them.”

“Why didn’t I think of that?”

Yan Qi sat up straight. “We’d better stock up. Since we won’t need them right away, it’s fine for my sister-in-law to use them first.” He was a bit disappointed in himself and repeated, “How come I didn’t think of that?”

“It’s not your fault. I knew about this because I saw how my older brother and sister-in-law raised Yingzi. Things were chaotic back then, and I helped wash plenty of diapers myself. We had a line stretched from one end of the house to the other—it’s impossible to forget, so it just popped into my head.”

But this incident became a trigger, causing Yan Qi to get stuck in a rut.

That night, he lay awake for a long time, endlessly mulling over what it would take to raise a child, constantly worried he wouldn’t be a good enough father.

“How do the other young men in the village feed their babies? Is there anyone selling goat’s milk?”

Lying on his pillow, he asked Huo Ling, “If I remember correctly, no one in the village raises sheep, right?”

“No, there aren’t, but there are in the neighboring villages. Whenever a young man in the village has a child, he goes out of the village every day to buy goat’s milk. Some wealthier families even buy a female goat to keep at home and milk it; once the child is weaned, they can slaughter the goat for meat.”

He comforted the ger, placing his hand on the belly of the person in his arms. “You don’t need to worry about any of this. I’ll take care of everything. You just need to stay healthy and safe.”

Those words pierced Yan Qi’s heart, and he suddenly felt a wave of fear wash over him. They say childbirth is a journey through the gates of hell—some make it through, others do not. Even if more people survive, there’s no telling who might be the unlucky one.

As he thought about it, a stinging sensation rose in his nose.

His emotions surged violently, completely beyond his control; before he could even react, tears were already streaming down his face.

Huo Ling panicked. He scrambled off the bed to find a handkerchief to wipe the ger’s tears, all the while frantically trying to recall which of his recent remarks had gone wrong.

As the handkerchief touched his eyes, Yan Qi lowered his head. When asked why he was crying, he feared Huo Ling might start overthinking things too, so he didn’t tell the truth. Instead, he said, “…I just suddenly thought of my mother.”

“Crying isn’t a bad thing; bottling it up is.”

Huo Ling didn’t know how to comfort him, so the two simply held each other in silence until Yan Qi’s breathing gradually steadied. Looking down, he noticed the ger had fallen asleep with tear streaks on his face.