Old Man Niu was changing the water for his basket of bean sprouts when he heard the mother and son talking and came over to see what was going on. “I guess he’s a distant relative from his mother’s side. Zhizhang is reliable, and if he’s letting this cousin stay at home before the wedding, there must be a reason. As for the Zhuang family… they haven’t outright refused the marriage, just that the date isn’t set yet. Don’t worry, it’s fine.”
Although Old Man Niu was comforting his wife, he was also feeling uneasy. At the beginning of the month, Meng Zhizhang invited the clan members to the Zhuang family to discuss the wedding date, and he went along. Brother Yu’s father was fine, but the stepmother didn’t seem easy to deal with. She smiled at everyone, appearing warm, but was cold underneath. The marriage had been arranged long ago, so she couldn’t say much, but she was evasive and noncommittal, especially when it came to setting a specific date. This marriage was bound to happen sooner or later, but the repeated delays were puzzling.
“Is this called a gluten ball?” Old Man Niu wiped his hands on the cloth at his waist and picked one up, holding it up to the reddening sunlight outside the door.
Niu Dayou was tending the fire under the stove for his mother. “Yes, gluten balls. Zhizhang’s cousin said they’re made from flour and deep-fried.”
Old Man Niu put the gluten ball back on the lotus leaf. “I can smell it’s fried in sesame oil, but it’s so light and hard. Can it really be eaten?”
“Sigh!” As soon as she heard it was made with white flour and oil, Aunt Niu sighed again, leaning over to stick the dough in her hand onto the pan. “You really don’t know the cost of firewood and rice until you run a household. As soon as Zhizhang left home, his cousin started wasting food. That’s white flour, you know. Usually, when making pancakes, we mix in some coarse grain flour or wild vegetable powder. And oil, the price of oil has risen to 31 wen per jin, and he’s using it to make these hard things. Zhizhang has it tough, with both parents gone, leaving him alone. He has to study, farm, and handle the marriage arrangements himself. Now, some cousin has come out of nowhere to freeload. Poor Zhizhang, why is his life so hard!”
As people get older, they tend to talk more, and Aunt Niu was no exception, going on and on.
Old Man Niu understood. “He’s trying to start a small business to help Zhizhang. The bean sprouts are ready, so let’s stir-fry them for dinner and try it together.”
He took the money pouch his son handed over and counted it. Today’s charcoal sold for 8 wen more than usual, enough to buy an extra jin of rice. Old Man Niu nodded at his son, which was the highest praise from a father who wasn’t good with words.
Niu Dayou was happy inside, and the fire under the stove made his strong, determined face glow red.
When Aunt Niu heard they were going to stir-fry the bean sprouts with gluten, she flipped the pancakes in the pan faster and more urgently. “You used a full two jin of beans for this basket of sprouts. If it doesn’t taste good, won’t it be a waste of beans?”
The sun was setting. They needed to finish dinner and tidy up the house before dark.
Old Man Niu and his younger son, Niu Eryou, secured the firewood and charcoal they would sell in the morning. The family’s old donkey, over ten years old, was happily chewing on fodder by the trough. They added a few handfuls of wheat bran today, and its tail wagged joyfully.
Like most villagers in Meng Family Village, the Niu family strictly adhered to the ancestral teaching of “work at sunrise, rest at sunset.” Of course, this was mainly for frugality. They didn’t even use oil for cooking pancakes, let alone waste oil for lighting lamps.
Dinner was more abundant than usual, with a large plate of stir-fried bean sprouts with gluten, a stack of pancakes, and a pot of cabbage soup.
The dining table was set under the jujube tree in the courtyard, an old table full of scratches and missing a corner. Niu Dayou’s grandmother said his father had mischievously chiseled it when he was a child. For that corner, his father had received a beating.
Pancakes made from mixed grain flour weren’t as good as pure flour pancakes, being dark and hard. Old Man Niu took a bite and sipped some soup. He looked at the plate of stir-fried bean sprouts with gluten in front of him, examining it.
The hard oil balls from earlier had shrunk to half their size after being stir-fried, becoming soft and limp, as if they had lost their structure.
Could this be tasty?
Old Man Niu was unsure.
If it weren’t for Meng Zhizhang’s father, the Niu family wouldn’t have been able to settle in Meng Family Village back then. Old Man Niu would remember this favor for a lifetime. He had watched Meng Zhizhang grow up. At fourteen, he had topped the county exam, earning respect, and people said he would soon become a scholar, a promising child. Zhizhang’s mother planned to arrange the marriage once he became a scholar, adding joy to joy. Zhizhang’s father passed away early, and just as the hard days seemed to be ending for the orphan and widow, Zhizhang’s mother fell ill and passed away too.
Old Man Niu paused with his chopsticks.
Now that Zhizhang’s mourning period was over, he hadn’t married yet, and a cousin had moved in. Eating and living for free, using such good rice and flour… Old Man Niu wished a thousand times for Meng Zhizhang to do well. But if these gluten balls weren’t edible, wasting food was a small matter, but wouldn’t this cousin truly become a “troublemaker,” making Zhizhang’s life difficult?
Under the watchful eyes of the family, Old Man Niu finally picked up his chopsticks. His emotions were complex, even a bit nervous.
The gluten entered his mouth.
Old Man Niu’s weathered eyes suddenly widened.
He looked at the gluten on the plate, then at Aunt Niu, chewing the gluten with his mouth, wanting to say something but unable to, only pointing at the dish with his chopsticks.
Aunt Niu was also stunned. Old Man Niu, like his surname, was tough and easy to feed, never picky, even eating two bowls of porridge if it was burnt. Could this gluten be worse than burnt porridge?
“What’s wrong? If it’s not good, we won’t eat it. It’s just some beans, no big deal. I’ll stir-fry another plate…”
Old Man Niu waved his hand repeatedly, eagerly pointing at the dish, finally swallowing the food in his mouth with difficulty. “The gluten… is delicious! Old woman, try it.”
“Delicious?” Aunt Niu was puzzled. “Don’t try to fool me.”
“It’s really delicious!” Old Man Niu picked up a piece of gluten and put it in his wife’s bowl, looking at her expectantly.
“Soft and limp, can it be good?” Unable to resist her husband’s urging, Aunt Niu cautiously put the gluten in her mouth, as if it might wake up and bite her.
…
“This… this,” Aunt Niu, usually as talkative as pouring beans, was suddenly at a loss for words. “This gluten is better than… than…”
Having lived this long, though she hadn’t enjoyed much luxury, Aunt Niu considered herself to have tasted some good food. Like the plate of fatty pork and cabbage dumplings from last year’s New Year, or the rabbit her younger son caught from the back mountain last autumn… But compared to this gluten, they seemed lacking.
“…better than the pork knuckle at the knuckle feast back then!” Aunt Niu’s eyes lit up. She thought for a long time and finally found a comparable reference, giving her highest praise for food.
The knuckle feast at the clan leader’s wedding back then was the best meal Aunt Niu had ever had. Not just Aunt Niu, the entire Meng Family Village still remembered that knuckle feast fondly.
A typical feast with three meat dishes was already considered excellent. These three meat dishes weren’t all meat, as they still needed to be mixed with seasonal vegetables. But at the clan leader’s wedding banquet, not only were there three such “small meat” dishes, but each table also had a pork knuckle, round and tender, melting in the mouth, with the aroma lingering for days.
Even after more than a decade, that knuckle feast remained an unsurpassed benchmark for village banquets. If a banquet was praised as “almost as good as the knuckle feast,” it was a great honor for the host family.
In Aunt Niu’s view, the taste of this oil gluten was on par with that pork knuckle from back then. She gave each of her two sons a piece of gluten. Now, she no longer mentioned wasting food or oil.
“Is it really just flour deep-fried to make this… oil gluten?”
Niu Dayou nodded. He had good teeth and was munching on two pancakes, one in each hand.
“This is really clever. I only used a small half of the lotus leaf to stir-fry this big plate of food. The gluten is delicious, and even the taste of the bean sprouts has changed. It’s good, fragrant!”
Old Man Niu nodded along, finally saying, “This cousin of his has some skills. He might really be able to help Zhizhang. What’s his name again?”
“Amber,” Niu Dayou remembered the mention of one or two jin of shrimp and told his brother Eryou to go into the mountains with him early tomorrow, promising to buy him a bun when they returned from selling charcoal in the evening.
The satisfaction from food wasn’t just in the taste. The usually quiet dinner table was filled with laughter. Above the laughter, jujube-sized dates peeked through the leaves. The slanting light brought warmth and simple hope.
Before going to bed at night, Aunt Niu carefully put away the leftover gluten to prevent it from being eaten by mice or stray cats.
But when she closed her eyes, she still saw the gluten. She nudged Old Man Niu with her elbow. “Old man, if Zhizhang’s cousin starts a business with this gluten, I think it could work. I just don’t know how much a pack would cost. Although it’s light, a pack can make three dishes. Hmm… a pack should cost at least ten wen. Don’t you think so, old man?”
Old Man Niu was almost asleep, mumbling in agreement.
But the more Aunt Niu thought about it, the more awake she became, losing all sleepiness. “Our family’s situation isn’t as good as others, but we should support Zhizhang’s business. Once we save enough for Zhizhang’s wedding, we can buy a pack every now and then.”
“Alright, whatever you say.” Old Man Niu turned over. “But how exactly does Zhizhang’s cousin make this gluten?”
The night covered the jujube tree in the Niu family’s courtyard and the gradually extinguishing lights of Meng Family Village.
Zhuang Yubai blew out the lamp and comfortably lay on Meng Zhizhang’s bed.
He listened to the sound of grass insects outside the window, the distant cries of a newborn, and the occasional rustle of birds startled in their nests… trying to recall what kind of past Zhuang Yubai had in this time and space.
Thinking back, he could only remember the murky river water, the noisy suona, and the suffocating feeling of drowning. Lying in the safe bed, the past unease couldn’t affect him. But the name “Meng Zhizhang” made him restless.
This name must have appeared before, but when exactly?
*
In the fifteenth year of Yuan Zhen, at Jiao River, the water flowed gently, and the wheat fields on both banks rolled with the hope of early summer.
Zhuang Yubai knew today was his wedding day.
What he didn’t know was that today would also be his death anniversary.