With a splash, the crucian carp went into the pot, and steam rose from it.

“Has Zhenniang come back from buying tofu yet?”

Lin Niangzi said, “She’s definitely gone to look at the donkey again.”

Just as she said this, Zhenniang returned carrying the basket. Sure enough, her first words were about the donkey—she said Uncle Zhou really couldn’t manage it anymore and was planning to return it. There would only be three baskets of tofu tomorrow, so they’d have to go buy it early.

“Mom, are we still having tofu tomorrow?” Lin Niangzi smiled. “Does Zhenniang still want some?” Zhenniang said the tofu was delicious.

Chen Chuan took the bowl of tofu from her hand. The tofu was a bit crumbly, but there was clearly more than one piece—they must have given her extra. Ye Tao reached out to take the tofu: “Let me cut it.”

Chen Chuan dodged his hand: “No need to cut it.”

He simply dumped the tofu into the pot, then used a wooden spatula to break it into several large chunks. After covering the pot to trap the steam, he said to Zhenniang, “You like donkeys so much, why don’t I go tell them, and you can just go live with their donkey?”

Although Zhenniang liked donkeys, she liked sleeping with her mother even more, so she ignored him.

Chen Chuan tugged on her little braid: “It’s hot now, and it stays light late. But come the twelfth lunar month, it’ll get dark early. If you’re out there all by yourself, aren’t you afraid some kidnapper might snatch you away?”

Zhenniang was a little scared, so she burrowed into Lin Niangzi’s arms and tattled, not in a whisper at all, “Second Brother is mean.”

Chen Chuan chuckled, “Who’s going to make you that crucian carp and tofu for you?”

After the brother and sister had their little tiff, by dinnertime, Zhenniang had already forgotten her earlier annoyance. As she dug into her meal, she looked curiously at Ye Tao. Seeing him sitting next to Chen Chuan, she asked, “Is this my sister-in-law?” 

The little girl’s face showed obvious confusion; perhaps she was wondering why her sister-in-law was different from everyone else.

There were only two long benches and one bamboo chair in the house. The chair was quite high, so Zhenniang sat on it, while Lin Niangzi and Chen Chuan each took a long bench. Ye Tao, naturally, was seated next to Chen Chuan, and upon hearing the question, he nearly choked on his food.

Chen Chuan and Lin Niangzi, however, were used to such situations. Lin Niangzi said, “This is Brother Ye Tao. He’ll be staying with us from now on.” 

Zhenniang simply went, “Oh,” and continued shoveling rice. After a couple of mouthfuls, she asked Ye Tao, “Will Brother Ye Tao buy me tofu balls, too?” Ye Tao didn’t know what tofu balls were, but he figured tofu couldn’t be too expensive: “I’ll buy some later.”

The brown rice had a distinctive texture, as if there were an extra layer of husk on the outside. It wasn’t exactly coarse, but it did require a bit more chewing—especially since it was mixed with quite a few beans—so Ye Tao ate slowly.

He hadn’t even finished his first bowl yet, and Chen Chuan was already on his second.

Chen Chuan had given Zhenniang an extra two wen earlier, and she’d already eaten a few tofu balls at the tofu shop, so she wasn’t very hungry now and was eating more and more slowly. Ye Tao felt immense pressure watching her, terrified she might call him “sister-in-law” again, so he steeled himself and asked, “Why are you calling me ‘sister-in-law’?”

Zhenniang didn’t understand what he was saying, so he repeated it twice more. Zhenniang replied, “Xiao’e has a new sister-in-law.”

Lin Niangzi explained that Xiao’e was Zhenniang’s good friend. Ye Tao tried to understand the young girl’s reasoning: perhaps because there was an extra person—her sister-in-law—in her friend’s family, she assumed that the extra person in his own family must also be a sister-in-law. 

By the time they finished eating, it was completely dark, so Chen Chuan went to fetch water to refill the water jar.

Only then did Ye Tao realize that the pond by the gate wasn’t the water source—the well was. The pond was a collection point for wastewater. Chen Chuan said that used water could be poured into the pond, but the toilet couldn’t be flushed there.

There wasn’t a toilet in Chen Chuan’s house either, so the two of them walked out of the alley to an outhouse near a vegetable patch to relieve themselves. This outhouse—likely built by the owner of the vegetable patch to collect fertilizer for the crops—consisted of a makeshift pit covered with wooden planks, with two wooden buckets placed beside it.

After nervously finishing his business, Ye Tao came out feeling as though something had stuck to his shoes. It was pitch dark, and since they weren’t carrying a lantern, he couldn’t see clearly.

Seeing him like this, Chen Chuan surprisingly didn’t mock him: “If you find it too dirty, go to the Foreign Quarter first thing in the morning when the city gates open.”

Ye Tao still felt he could smell the odor. He covered his mouth and nose and took a few more steps before asking, “Is it clean over there?” His accent was already peculiar, and with his nose covered, his voice came out muffled and guttural—it was a wonder Chen Chuan could even understand him.

“It’s clean. One wen per visit.”

Ye Tao：“……”

But he didn’t have a single coin to his name.

A wave of despair washed over Ye Tao as he pondered how he could ask Chen Chuan for some money to use the restroom along the way.

It wasn’t easy to bring up—after all, the four of them had shared only two dishes that evening, one of which was pickled vegetables, meant purely to go with rice. With meals like that, how could he even think of spending money to use the restroom?

Lin Niangzi came out carrying a wooden basin to pour out the water. Ye Tao instinctively reached out to take it, but Chen Chuan grabbed it first. Lin Niangzi then pulled Ye Tao into their room.

This room was a bit nicer than Chen Chuan’s. There was a bamboo screen in the middle; the bed was likely at the back. In front, by the window, stood a medicinal cauldron and a small table.

Lin Niangzi took a needle and thread from the bamboo basket on the small table and handed them to Ye Tao: “Your clothes are worn out, and the hems are coming undone. My eyes aren’t what they used to be, but since you know how to sew, why don’t you take these and mend them yourself?”

Mending the hem wasn’t difficult. His grandmother used to specialize in making cheongsams, and some high-end custom cheongsams required seamless hemming—something a sewing machine couldn’t do, so it had to be done by hand. Ye Tao had learned how to do it when he was eleven or twelve.

Only one corner was frayed—not even a palm’s width—so even at his slowest pace, it wouldn’t take Ye Tao long. Sitting on the long bench by the oil lamp, he finished mending it in no time. The oil lamp didn’t provide much light. Ye Tao set the garment down and rubbed his aching eyes. Chen Chuan had already finished washing up by the pond, and the wooden basin was sitting on the stove.

Many of the men living nearby did the same—they’d draw water from the well and wash up by the pond in the dark.

One moment they’d lower their voices; the next, they’d burst into loud laughter. Even though Ye Tao couldn’t understand what they were saying, he could roughly guess the subject matter, and he laughed so hard like this—it was nothing more than the usual stuff.

Ye Tao liked men, but he didn’t like men like that, so he carried the basin outside without a care in the world. 

Chen Chuan moved two benches over to the side of the bamboo cot, then rummaged through the firewood pile and pulled out a long plank. He placed the plank across the benches, and it became a bed.

When Ye Tao came back and saw this, he fell silent.

He vaguely remembered that when he was little, his grandmother had taken him to a funeral in the village, where the deceased woman had been laid out on a door panel—oh, this was a boat plank. 

Chen Chuan’s bamboo cot was only three feet wide—about the same size as the bed in Ye Tao’s dorm room. Neither of them was short, so they certainly wouldn’t fit on it. But Ye Tao didn’t want to sleep on it either.

“Can I sleep on that?” He pointed to the bamboo cot.

Chen Chuan nodded casually; back when he used to sail, he’d often slept on deck, so it was much the same. Ye Tao walked over to the bamboo cot, but as soon as he sat down, he jumped up, clutching his butt: “This bed bites!” 

Chen Chuan had been stacking firewood with his back to Ye Tao. Hearing the commotion, he turned around and, seeing Ye Tao clutching his buttocks, finally understood what was going on. He started laughing, but as he laughed, his expression turned strange: “Is that how you’re going to sleep?”

Yesterday at the inn, Ye Tao had been alone and had washed both his outer pants and his underwear. Since he wasn’t sleeping alone tonight, he’d only washed his outer pants and was making do with his underwear for now, so at the moment he was wearing nothing but a pair of briefs.

Under the dim, flickering light of the oil lamp, his legs looked pale and straight, disappearing into the slightly long hem of his shirt.

Chen Chuan had seen bare buttocks before, but never like this.

Ye Tao looked down at himself and realized it was indeed a bit risky—he could easily get his flesh pinched.

“I washed my pants. Do you have a spare pair?”

Chen Chuan fished a clean pair of outer pants out of the bamboo basket. He didn’t know how the guy had been wearing them, but one of the waistbands had snapped. Pants these days didn’t have elastic waistbands; they were held up entirely by two waistbands, so if one broke, they were hard to put on.

Ye Tao suddenly thought of a way to make some money.

“How about I mend your pants for you?” He looked at Chen Chuan and held up two fingers. “Just two wen.”

Chen Chuan took the pants back without hesitation: “No, thanks.” 

“Hey, hey, hey—” Ye Tao grabbed the pants and wouldn’t let go. “We can haggle, right? One wen—even one wen is fine.”

Ye Tao didn’t have much confidence—it’s just tying a belt, after all. It’s really easy; Aunt Lin would definitely know how to do it, and Chen Chuan might even know how himself. There’s nothing special about this skill, but he really wanted to use a clean restroom.

Chen Chuan was still about to take it back, but Ye Tao kept haggling: “If your clothes ever tear again, I’ll mend them for you one more time. One coin for two mends—that’s fair, right?”

Chen Chuan let go and immediately handed him another shirt with a snagged cuff. Ye Tao examined it, threaded the needle, and in a few swift stitches mended his pants belt himself, then finished mending the shirt, adding warily, “You can’t back out on this, you know.”

Chen Chuan turned around, took out his money pouch, and counted out 13 copper coins. Ye Tao was flattered and surprised: “That much?” Chen Chuan divided the 13 copper coins into two piles—one with 12 and one with 1.

“Go buy some vegetables tomorrow—there’s a morning market at the city gate.” 

“Oh.” Ye Tao tucked away the money, along with his gratitude.

He didn’t mind this at all; when he arrived, Matchmaker Zhang had mentioned that Aunt Lin wasn’t in good health, so he’d have to help out with odd jobs—and buying groceries certainly counted as one of them. It would also give him a chance to get a feel for prices and roughly estimate how much he should contribute toward meals.

Ye Tao set the money for groceries aside and lay down, clutching the one wen that belonged to him. Without a pillow, it wasn’t very comfortable, but he still fell asleep quickly. The next day, before dawn, he was awakened by the sound of Chen Chuan getting up.

Chen Chuan pulled his pants in from the edge of the stove outside and tossed them onto the bed: “Did you leave your pants out there on purpose?”

Ye Tao sat up, still half-asleep: “What’s going on? Is it raining?”

Chen Chuan paused for a moment: “If we leave it outside, it’ll get stolen.” 

Ye Tao rubbed his eyes and nodded: “I get it.”

In the space of a few sentences, he yawned twice. Chen Chuan’s tone wasn’t as cold and harsh as before: “Mom doesn’t know how to cook. Get up a little later—I’ll make a pot of congee.”

Ye Tao was about to ask how late “later” meant when Lin Niangzi from next door, who had also gotten up, asked in a low voice from outside the door, “A-Chuan, are you still going to the outer harbor today?”

Chen Chuan answered and opened the door.

Lin Niangzi stepped past him and saw the bed made of planks inside the room. She chuckled, “I thought you were coming back early today to take Xiao Tao to buy a bamboo cot.”

“We’ll make do for now. We’ll go when we have a day off.”