The Liu Family Tea House was located in the market not far from Xinqiao Bridge. Just past the bridge lay Deji Gate—a bustling hub with constant traffic of vehicles and boats and a steady stream of people. Everyone in the neighborhood knew about it.

Ye Tao, however, had no idea where it was. Since he struggled to communicate with others, Old Man Luo feared that if he tried to ask for directions without fully understanding the situation, he might end up going the wrong way, so he simply led him there himself.

Luo Xiaojia and Luo Xiaoyi were still waiting on the boat. Old Man Luo was worried about them, so this time he quickened his pace considerably. Ye Tao followed behind him, pushing hard with his straw sandals until the soles of his feet began to ache. When he spotted the shop banner for the Liu Family Tea House in the distance, he silently breathed a sigh of relief.

“Tea House”—judging by the name, it looked like a teahouse, but as they drew nearer, he realized it was actually a restaurant.

It consisted of two rooms facing the street, with a bamboo awning set up outside. Under the awning stood two long tables, each with a chopstick holder. Since it wasn’t mealtime, there was only a woman eating stir-fried beans.

She wore a long tunic with a green body and red trim, a gardenia flower pinned in her hair, and was chatting and laughing with the woman next door who sold noodle soup. 

She was a bit surprised to see Old Man Luo. Given the nature of his work, he didn’t usually step inside people’s homes; he stopped just outside the bamboo hut to talk to her about Ye Tao. When he mentioned the coroner’s misjudgment, he lowered his voice.

After listening, Matchmaker Zhang also felt that Ye Tao was incredibly lucky. She recited a Buddhist prayer, asking the Bodhisattva for protection: “Leave him in my care—rest assured, I’ll definitely find him a good place to go.”

“I trust you, of course.” After exchanging a few more pleasantries, Old Man Luo said he had to head back. Matchmaker Zhang tried to persuade him to stay for a meal, but he declined, saying only, “There are only two inexperienced lads on the boat, and I’m in a hurry to get back.”

Matchmaker Zhang knew what line of work he was in, and the two boys really weren’t much help. She grabbed a handful of dry-roasted beans from a plate on the table and handed them to him: “Take these back to snack on with your drink.”

This time, Old Man Luo didn’t refuse. He took the beans, gave Ye Tao a quick wave, and left.

At the noodle soup stall next door, a loitering errand boy had just arrived. The woman took his money, opened the pot, and began pulling noodles. Spotting Ye Tao, she smiled and said, “What a handsome young gentleman! Are you out here looking for work, too?”

Matchmaker Zhang replied with a smile, “That’s right.” She didn’t say much else.

She led Ye Tao into the shop, passing through the street-facing storefront to a small courtyard in the back. On one side of the courtyard was the kitchen, with smoke rising from the chimney; there was also a stove set up in the courtyard, along with two large water jars.

Matchmaker Zhang found a wooden basin, scooped water from the jar with a large gourd ladle, and added a ladleful of hot water to it. “There aren’t any strangers in the courtyard, so you can just wash up here. If the water isn’t hot enough, scoop some from the soup pot. Even though the Dragon Boat Festival has passed, if you’ve been soaking in the water for too long, you still need to drive out the chill. I’ll go make you a bowl of ginger tea.”

Judging by Old Man Luo’s tone, he’d been brought here to resolve his household registration issue, but Ye Tao wasn’t sure how he’d ended up drinking tea and taking a bath. However, having been raised by his grandmother, he felt a natural affinity for older women, so when Matchmaker Zhang told him to do it, he simply obeyed.

He really did need a wash. It had been summer before he time-traveled, and it seemed pretty hot now too. The humidity by the sea was high, and after walking all that way, his tank top was half-dry and clinging to his body, covered with grains of something—whether salt or sand, he wasn’t sure—that were pricking his skin until it turned red.

━━ 🐈‍⬛ ━━

“Why is there so much sand? Where’s your outer shirt? Did you fall into the water?” Lin Niangzi tugged at Chen Chuan’s clothes, a look of concern on her face. 

Chen Chuan took after her; he had fair skin. As a child, he’d been teased for it at the martial arts school, and he’d always been reluctant to take his clothes off in public, yet today he’d returned with his arms bare.

Before Chen Chuan could speak, the lean, sun-tanned youth beside him chimed in with a grin: “With my second brother’s skills, no one would ever fall into the water—it’s not his turn. He pulled someone out of the water today.”

“Pulled someone?” You don’t ‘pull’ living people, Lin Niangzi said, her voice rising. “Did you pull up a floating corpse?”

Chen Siwu realized he’d said the wrong thing and glanced guiltily at his second older brother.

Chen Chuan didn’t think much of it: “He was floating in the water and looked like a person—I couldn’t just stand by and let him die.”

Since a human life was at stake, Lin Niangzi couldn’t bring herself to scold him. She sighed, “We still have some mugwort leaves left over from the Dragon Boat Festival the other day. Take them and fumigate yourself with them, then go to the Public Bathhouse and wash yourself thoroughly.”

Chen Chuan agreed.

Chen Siwu seized the opportunity to say, “Second Brother, Aunt Lin, I’m heading home.”

Lin Niangzi tried to persuade him to stay for dinner, but he chuckled and said, “This morning, Aunt Gu bought half a braised pig’s head. I’ll grab two sheng of wine and head over to her place to eat some pig head meat.”

Lin Niangzi said, “You’re still young; don’t drink too much.”

Chen Siwu had already run off, calling back from a distance, “Got it, Auntie.”

Lin Niangzi shook her head with a smile. “That kid.”

Chen Chuan picked up a cloth to wipe his arm. “Where’s Zhenniang?”

“She’s gone to check on the donkey at the tofu shop.” Lin Niangzi glanced at the sky. “I’ll go call her back and buy a block of tofu.”

Rescuing people at sea is no easy task, and Chen Chuan had worked all day. Since he couldn’t afford meat, he might as well buy a block of tofu to replenish his strength.

“The Zhou family at the end of the alley—the ones who make tofu? Don’t they have a waterwheel?”

“The waterwheel’s broken. They called a carpenter to fix it—they even brought in a cartload of lumber at noon. They said it’ll take three days, so for now they’ve rented a donkey to haul the millstone.” Lin Niangzi laughed as she spoke, then coughed softly twice.

Hearing her cough, Chen Chuan furrowed his brow: “Has your cold not cleared up yet? Have you finished the medicine I got for you last time?”

Lin Niangzi waved her hand. “I’ve been taking the medicine for a month with no improvement, and I’ve spent over one guan on it. I don’t think I need to take it anymore. Once the weather gets warmer in a little while, I’ll get better on my own.”

Chen Chuan wouldn’t let it go. It might have been fine in the past, but after her serious illness last year, Lin Niangzi’s health had deteriorated significantly, and he dared not take it lightly. Unable to persuade him otherwise, Lin Niangzi picked up her young daughter, and the three of them—mother and her two children—headed to the pharmacy together.

Zhenniang had been watching the donkey at the bean mill for half a day. When she saw her mother and older brother, she chattered away nonstop, explaining that the donkey was stubborn. She said that while the owner was present, it would obediently pull the millstone, but as soon as the owner left, it would refuse to move. No matter how Uncle Zhou tried to tempt it with vegetables or whip it, it simply wouldn’t budge.

Uncle Zhou had no choice but to ask the owner to come back and lead it around a couple of times; only then, after covering the donkey’s eyes with a black cloth, would it agree to pull the mill.

Chen Chuan nodded solemnly: “So it’s a stubborn donkey—no wonder it caught your eye.”

Zhenniang felt this didn’t sound like a compliment, though she couldn’t quite pinpoint what was wrong with it. She looked up at her mother, but Lin Niangzi merely smiled without speaking, so Zhenniang decided to let it go and continued talking about the stubborn donkey.

After picking up the medicine, the old doctor gave his usual advice: avoid overexertion, eat warm, soft, easily digestible foods, and eat small meals frequently. Zhenniang swayed her head from side to side as she summarized: “Mother wants to eat tofu.”

She was speaking to Chen Chuan. Most of the household allowance Chen Chuan gave to Lin Niangzi each month went toward buying medicine; he usually paid for everyday purchases, and Zhenniang had gotten used to asking him for money.

Chen Chuan counted out six copper coins for her and handed her the herbs he was holding.

The herbs were all dried and not very heavy, so Zhenniang could carry them. Lin Niangzi asked him, “Where are you going?” 

“To buy two fish to stew with tofu.”

There were quite a few small fish stalls along the riverbank. At this hour, fish and shrimp were cheap. Chen Chuan spent four wen to buy two palm-sized crucian carp. After scaling and cleaning them, he threaded them onto a piece of grass rope and carried them in his hand. He walked a few more steps to the sugar shop to weigh out one jin of sugar, and on the way, he ran into a charcoal seller and bought half a scale of broken charcoal. 

When he got home, Lin Niangzi had already lit the fire. Seeing him return with both charcoal and sugar, she asked, “I didn’t ask you how much you earned today. You only gave me two guan yesterday, and now you’ve bought all these things—do you even have any money left?”

“I do,” Chen Chuan deflected the question. “The charcoal is leftover broken pieces—a little over half a jin, but I paid for half a jin. It was only thirty wen. It’s more convenient to use charcoal for the medicine pot when you’re boiling herbs.”

Lin Niangzi didn’t press the matter further, merely remarking, “It’s not easy for you to earn money—you shouldn’t be spending it like this.”

Chen Chuan: “Back when father was alive, he never let you eat a single bite of brown rice. I’m not well-off—I can’t afford polished rice. The doctor said you need to take it easy right now, so here’s sugar—you and Zhenniang should each have a bowl of it soaked in water every day.” 

Lin Niangzi remained silent for a while before finally saying, “It’s your mother who’s let you down.”

As a stepmother, she was always afraid people would say she mistreated her stepson. She dared not let her biological son get involved in the family business—otherwise, if Chen Chuan had learned the skills of brewing wine and making preserved meats, he wouldn’t have ended up doing hard labor at the docks.

“Come to think of it, you supported my education for several years, yet I didn’t amount to much. I’m just glad you don’t blame me for being a disappointment.”

When the topic of schooling came up, they both laughed. Back then, the family had lived comfortably enough; Old Man Chen ran a tea and wine shop, and Lin Niangzi was a skilled embroiderer. With some extra money to spare, they sent him to school. On his very first day, the teacher taught him to write his own name. After the lesson, Chen Chuan came home and said he wanted to change his name.

When they were both asked to write their names ten times, while the other student, Ding Yuan, had finished, Chen Shuan had only managed two. His family refused to let him change his surname, so he stubbornly changed his given name to Chuan. 

“I know you’re not cut out for studying, and I never expected you to pass the imperial exams, but I was just afraid that with nothing to do all day, you’d go astray,” Lin Niangzi said, followed by another sigh. “If I’d known things would turn out like this, I should have been more frugal back then and saved up some silver.”

Chen Chuan wasn’t the type to dwell on the past; it was merely a matter of money. As long as he was still alive, he could always earn it back.

“Headman Li says the winds have shifted, and there are many large ships returning to port. He wants to take a few trusted men with him to Houzhu Port; a full day’s work pays around three hundred wen, and sometimes as much as four or five hundred.” 

It usually takes working nonstop for a full quarter of an hour to earn these three hundred wen; to make four or five hundred, one has to go out to port at night. Still, it’s definitely more than what you can make near the harbor—where working from dawn until dusk yields no more than one hundred and eighty wen. On a day like today, with a little setback, you’d only make one hundred and thirty wen.

Chen Chuan said, “I’ll get up early, take a boat out, and then hitch a ride back in the evening.” 

That way, even after deducting travel expenses, he’d still earn more in a day than he would working near the harbor.

The outer harbor was more than twenty li away. Lin Niangzi was deeply concerned: “How can your body handle that? You should just rent a room there instead of making the round trip.”

Chen Chuan shook his head. “I don’t know how long this will last. I’ll be taking the boat, not walking, so it won’t be too taxing.” That was one reason; as for the other, he didn’t need to say it—Lin Niangzi already knew.

Back in early February, before the weather had gotten this hot, their home had been robbed.

The thief was extremely cunning, specifically targeting homes when the men were away. Fortunately, Chen Chuan was home that day; he caught the thief and turned him over to the authorities. Otherwise, the two of them—mother and daughter—would have ended up like the families who’d been robbed before them, too afraid to make a fuss even after discovering the thief.

Thinking back on that incident, Lin Niangzi still felt a chill run down her spine, but she said nonetheless, “Those were hard times, but now that the summer harvest is in, things should be a little better.”

Chen Chuan still didn’t reply: “Once I’ve saved up some silver, we’ll move to the city.”

He wouldn’t budge, so Lin Niangzi was at a loss. Zhenniang was a stubborn little donkey, and Chen Chuan was no different. The younger one could still be coaxed, but the older one—now that both she and Zhenniang depended on Chen Chuan for support, he was as headstrong as ever.