The barefoot doctor had not yet arrived when the sun climbed above the yard wall.
Both families had been arguing since dawn and no one had eaten. Luo Youtian told the Zhao family to put out the fire under the wedding cauldron lest someone tamper with the food in the confusion. He also asked the women to share out steamed buns to the elderly and children.
Ma Guifen refused. “This feast was paid for by our family!”
“Your home is nearly torn apart and you still worry about a few trays of buns?” Luo Youtian glared at her. “Who owes what will be settled in the accounts later.”
The mention of accounts stung Ma Guifen but she dared not object further.
Aunt Sun handed Shen Qinghe a bun. She took it and did not eat at once. She broke it open and smelled it first.
It was only plain white flour steamed slightly sour.
Some who saw this laughed. “Once bitten by a snake and you fear even steamed buns now?”
Shen Qinghe said nothing and took a bite.
She did not distrust the bun. She had simply returned to this time and needed to learn from scratch what her body could bear. Rebirth was no iron shield. Pain still hurt and poison still worked.
As she swallowed she felt someone watching her.
In the shade of the elm tree at the gate Xiao Man leaned against Zhou Yanchuan’s leg. She had also been given a bun but held it with both hands and had not taken a bite.
Zhou Yanchuan crouched beside her. “Does your stomach hurt?”
Xiao Man shook her head.
“Are you thirsty?”
She shook her head again.
Her gaze drifted from the adults to the canvas bag. When Zhou Yanchuan turned to speak to the guide she broke off half the bun and slipped it into her sleeve catching every crumb in her palm.
The movement was so practiced it made Shen Qinghe’s throat tighten.
Her own daughter in the past life had done the same when they first arrived at the Zhao home. Half a corn cake tucked under the pillow a handful of roasted soybeans pushed into her shoe. When asked why the child had only said Grandmother says there is not enough food and a girl who costs money may not eat tomorrow.
Shen Qinghe had been busy working for the family then. She had taken the cake away and told the child it was spoiled. She had never asked who made a four year old fear going hungry.
Later that pillow had been burned and those shoes thrown away. She had earned enough to fill warehouses with grain enough for thousands of people yet there was no longer anyone tucking half a cake beneath a pillow.
“What are you looking at?” Zhou Yanchuan had turned back.
Shen Qinghe looked away. “Nothing.”
Xiao Man froze pressing her left hand hard against the sleeve. She thought she was being reported.
Zhou Yanchuan noticed the bulge. He reached out and Xiao Man shrank back pressing against the tree trunk her face draining of colour.
He did not insist. “Do you want to keep it?”
She neither nodded nor shook her head.
“You may keep it,” he said. “But it will spoil by evening in this heat. Let me wrap it in paper and put it in the bag.”
He waited. The child still would not let go.
He stood up gently. “Keep it then.”
His voice was steady yet for a moment he looked unsure.
He could stand between people and guard evidence but he did not know how to reach a silent frightened child.
Shen Qinghe placed her own half eaten bun in a clean coarse bowl and poured half a bowl of cool water beside it. She set the bowl near the tree roots not pushing it toward the girl.
“Eat this one today,” she said as if speaking to the air. “The one in your sleeve can wait for tomorrow.”
Xiao Man looked up.
“There will be food tomorrow?”
Her voice was barely audible.
This was the first time Shen Qinghe had heard her speak.
Zhou Yanchuan paused too then answered. “Yes.”
Xiao Man did not seem convinced and kept her eyes on Shen Qinghe.
Shen Qinghe did not promise forever. She knew telling someone who feared hunger that all will be well was as empty as drawing a cake on paper.
“There will be food tomorrow morning at least,” she said. “And if there is not you may come ask me.”
Xiao Man squatted slowly picked up the bowl and took only a tiny bite. She held the rest clasped in her arms.
Zhou Yanchuan watched from the side. “You know how to speak to children.”
“I have said the wrong things many times before.”
It was too heavy a sentence for a girl of twenty three.
He did not press further. “She has gone hungry before. She will not say why.”
“Silence does not mean it did not happen.”
“I know.”
“Knowing it is true and her knowing you believe her are not the same.”
He was quiet a moment. “Are you teaching me?”
There was no anger in his tone.
“You may choose not to listen,” she said.
“I heard you.”
No polite words passed between them nor did they grow close because of one small kindness. They were like two stones each with sharp edges meeting for the first time each aware the other would not break easily.
Zhao Xing’er’s cries suddenly broke from the front yard.
She had tried climbing over the back wall while everyone was distracted and been caught by the Cao family. Ma Guifen scolded her daughter for being useless yet blocked the Caos from coming near her. In the scuffle a bowl of steamed dishes was overturned and shattered.
At the sound Xiao Man flinched so hard her teeth chattered against the bowl rim and water spilled down her tunic.
Zhou Yanchuan crouched at once shielding her view of the yard. “Look at me.”
She would not.
He reached out then drew back.
Shen Qinghe picked up a small stone from the ground and tapped it twice against the earth.
Tap. Tap.
Xiao Man’s eyes turned toward the sound.
She tapped twice more and set the stone within reach. “It is too loud out there. You may tap back. One tap for water two taps to look away three taps to leave.”
Xiao Man stared at the stone for a long time then touched it with one finger.
Tap. Tap.
Two taps.
Zhou Yanchuan lifted her and walked toward the quiet outside the gate. She stayed stiff but did not struggle. As they passed Shen Qinghe she pulled the half bun from her sleeve hesitated and placed it in Shen Qinghe’s bowl.
She had not abandoned it. She had only left it in safe keeping.
Shen Qinghe looked at the bowl and felt a warm ache in her chest. She thought of an unopened wooden crate in a warehouse and her fingers brushed the brass token at her neck then stopped.
Xiao Man was not the daughter she had lost.
She could not make amends through her nor rewrite the past in her place.
She was only a little girl afraid and needing someone to hold half a bun for her now.
Shen Qinghe set the bowl in the shade and covered it with a clean cloth.
Zhou Yanchuan returned and saw it. He did not say thank you.
He laid a sheet of oiled paper beside the bowl. “Wrap fresh food for her tomorrow.”
Shen Qinghe nodded.
Just then the barefoot doctor stepped into the yard bag slung over his shoulder.
All eyes turned back to the glass jar.
Xiao Man’s half bun rested quietly beneath the cloth the only thing in all the noise kept safe without calculation.