Li Suian put the matter out of her mind. Since he wasn’t willing to eat at her place, she wouldn’t force it. She could pick some vegetables from her garden later and bring them to him—that would settle the debt well enough.
After all the fuss this morning, her stomach was growling. She rummaged through the fridge and found a chunk of ham she’d cut off a few days ago and hadn’t finished. She’d stir-fry some ham for breakfast.
The ham was mostly lean with a bit of fat. She sliced it into pieces of moderate thickness with her cleaver. It was ham she’d cured herself—a rich, glossy red color, and she could already smell its fragrance before it even hit the pan.
She took a stroll through her garden. The garlic chives she’d planted were just sending up their flower stalks these days. She picked some of the garlic scapes to stir-fry—they had a tender sweetness beneath the garlic aroma. This was the best time of year for garlic scapes.
She snapped the scapes into small sections, sliced some ginger, and prepped a few dried chili segments to stir-fry with the ham.
Smoke curled lazily from the chimney. Once the rice in the pot was steamed through, Li Suian dried up the water, then scooped out a piece of snowy white lard with her spatula and dropped it into the pan.
As the lard melted, she tossed in the dried chilies and ginger first to release their fragrance, then added the ham to stir-fry. The fatty bits rendered out their oil, and the aroma of the ham gradually drifted outward, filling the entire kitchen.
Over at Wen Qi’s place by the road, Wen Qi sat in his yard soaking up the sun. On the table before him sat a bucket of instant noodles he’d just poured hot water over.
A savory aroma gradually drifted into the yard, growing stronger and stronger. Wen Qi’s long-dormant appetite seemed to stir awake, giving him a desire to eat.
He picked up the instant noodles from the table. White, bland noodles with a few scattered specks of dehydrated vegetables floating in them. He hadn’t added the meat sauce packet—hadn’t even added the seasoning packet.
Flavorless, watery instant noodles had been his food for the past month.
He took a bite, the smell of cooking from someone else’s house wafting into his nose. His stomach was clearly hungry now, but the noodles in his mouth made him want to gag.
Without getting a single bite down, he set the noodles aside and slumped back into his reclining chair, staring up at the cloudless blue sky.
For him, eating was just a way to stay alive. He didn’t care about taste—he just wanted to stuff something into his stomach to keep this body, like an aging machine, running.
But why was he feeling a bit of regret now? Regret that he hadn’t agreed to eat at his overly energetic new neighbor’s place earlier.
Her cooking must be pretty good, right? In the month he’d been here, he’d often caught the smell of food drifting up from her house. Sometimes it was honestly quite annoying.
Today, she hadn’t even needed to introduce herself—he already knew who she was. She’d often drive her three-wheeler past his gate, craning her neck to peek into the yard as if no one would notice. When he looked up, she’d speed off on her three-wheeler in a fluster.
She was chatty and loud. He often heard her grumbling and scolding at home—sometimes at the cow, sometimes at the pigs, and sometimes she’d even get into arguments with the chickens and ducks.
He thought this girl was a bit strange. But it seemed she was the only one in her household, usually with a big wolfdog by her side.
He wondered where her family had gone. How could they leave a young girl alone at home like this?
Wen Qi’s thoughts drifted far away. When he suddenly snapped back to reality, he looked at the sky, a hint of despondency and mockery curling at the corners of his mouth. What was the point of thinking so much? What did her situation have to do with him, a man on the verge of death?
The aroma of food wafting into his nose made him restless. He simply stood up, went into his room, shut the door, and lay down on the bed, pulling the blanket over his head to wrap himself tightly.
At that moment, he couldn’t help but complain about his neighbor. Why did she have to make such fragrant food? He couldn’t even eat it. How annoying!
Li Suian had no idea that the aroma of her cooking was causing her neighbor distress. After stir-frying garlic chives with ham, she put a pot of pea and pickled vegetable soup on the stove.
The peas at this time of year were still tender, sweet and soft after cooking. She added a handful of her own pickled and sun-dried sour vegetables to the soup, and the tangy, fragrant pea and pickled vegetable soup was ready.
She filled a large bowl with rice, one dish and one soup—this was the minimum for every meal. She had a lot of work to do, and she needed to eat her fill to have the strength.
Just as she was about to eat, her good partner returned—a large, sturdy, and imposing wolfdog named Da Hu.
Da Hu never came back empty-mouthed from his daily outings. Sometimes he’d carry back a radish, sometimes a leafy green, and when there was nothing else to grab, he’d even bring back a piece of dry firewood.
Today’s catch surprised Li Suian. Da Hu had actually brought back a fish, and it was a decent size—about three jin.
Da Hu was covered in water and mud. He dropped the fish at Li Suian’s feet, whimpering, his tail wagging furiously, his head held high.
Li Suian knew he was asking for praise. She never skimped on complimenting Da Hu, especially since he’d accomplished something great today.
“Da Hu is such a good boy! Come here, I’ve got a big bone for you!”
This was the bone left over from the broth she’d made yesterday. There was still some meat on it, which she hadn’t eaten, saving it specially for Da Hu.
The dog’s large stainless steel bowl was filled with fried rice, which Li Suian had made using the leftover oil from her stir-frying.
Da Hu had a hearty appetite. In a few bites, he’d cleaned the bowl completely, licking the stainless steel until it shone brighter than if it had been washed. Then he picked up his big bone and trotted off to a sunny corner of the yard to enjoy it at his leisure.
While Da Hu ate, Li Suian picked up the fish from the ground. It was fresh—not dead or diseased—still alive, its mouth weakly opening and closing.
Da Hu had experience carrying these things. He held them in his mouth without biting down, so the fish was still edible.
After eating, she washed the dishes and wiped down the stove. Normally, Li Suian would head out to work at this time. Spring planting was coming soon, and she needed to hurry and prepare the fields.
But her tricycle was broken, and she had no means of transportation. Today she could only stay home, waiting for the repairman to come in the afternoon to fix it.
Even at home, though, she had no time to rest. She kept dozens of chickens, ducks, and geese, plus cattle and pigs. There were three big cows and three calves, and even more pigs—eight large ones weighing around two hundred jin each, one old sow, and a litter of piglets just over a month old.
With so many mouths to feed every day, she had plenty to keep her busy. First, she gave Da Hu a bath—he was covered in water and mud, filthy beyond recognition.
After washing the dog clean and blow-drying it until half dry, Da Hu obediently went to the yard to bask in the sun on her own.
Once the dog was taken care of, she went to shovel the pig manure out of the pigpen, then rinsed the pen clean with a hose.
Unlike most rural households, she kept her pigpen spotless—clearing the manure promptly and regularly washing and disinfecting the enclosure.
As a result, her pigpen never reeked of manure, and the pigs themselves stayed free of filth, each one a clean, pinkish-white, with a comfortable and tidy bed to sleep in every day.
After finishing with the pigs, she moved on to clean the cattle shed, leading the cows out to the yard to sunbathe and graze, then carried the manure from the shed load by load to the manure yard to spread out and compost.