Liu Xiaoyi (older brother) and Liu Xiaohui (younger brother) were running wildly outside when Yang Erni grabbed each of them by the ear and dragged them home.
“Mom, what are you doing? I—”
Before he could finish, Yang Erni slapped both of them on the head.
“Speak Mandarin. I finally managed to teach you proper Mandarin, and now you want to speak Sichuan dialect again? Do you still want to go to the capital in the future or not?”
During the New Year, Liu Xiaoyi and Liu Xiaohui had returned to Sichuan Province. They learned a bit of Sichuan dialect there and came back speaking it every day, occasionally blurting out a few phrases. Every time, Yang Erni made them correct it—but they never really managed to fix it.
Liu Xiaoyi scratched his head and switched to Mandarin.
“Got it, Mom. Why did you call us back?”
Yang Erni pointed at the bags on the ground, tempting them.
“Do you want to make ice?”
“Ice-making?”
The two brothers walked up to the bags together and looked at the strange white substance.
“Mom, what is this? We use this to make ice? How do we do it? If it works, can we make popsicles ourselves?”
Liu Xiaoyi and Liu Xiaohui were four years old this year, and it was the age when they loved asking all kinds of questions. Their personalities followed Liu Jianjun and Yang Erni—straightforward and lively. Most of the children in the compound liked playing with them.
Yang Erni was quite patient with her children.
“Your Aunt Jiang Yao said this is nitrate. If you add it to water, it can turn into ice.”
“The reason I called you back is so you can quickly go and collect the nitrate.” Yang Erni led them to the wall near the bathroom and showed them the white frost layer. “This is nitrate. I’ll give you basins—collect two big basins of it. Once it turns into ice, I’ll make mung bean ice for you.”
“Okay!”
The two children agreed and immediately started working. Each of them held a small basin and began scraping.
After half an hour, Liu Xiaohui got tired and quietly told his brother to take a break.
Liu Xiaoyi was also tired, but he didn’t stop.
“Let’s finish scraping this batch first, then bring it back and drink some water before continuing.”
“Okay.”
After drinking water, the two brothers continued scraping. Even after finishing, it still wasn’t enough to fill two large basins, so Liu Xiaohui suggested going to Dazhuang’s house to ask.
Dazhuang was on summer vacation. While doing his homework at home, he saw the Liu brothers coming over and immediately ran out after putting down his pen.
“Xiaoyi, Xiaohui, why are you here?”
“Brother Dazhuang,” Liu Xiaoyi said, telling him about making ice and wanting to get some material near their bathroom.
Dazhuang didn’t understand at first, until he saw them scraping the white frost.
“You’re using this to make ice?”
Liu Xiaohui explained that it was what Aunt Jiang next door had said.
“Brother Dazhuang, do you want to come to our house and see?”
Dazhuang scratched his head, a little hesitant. He had promised his mother to stay home and do homework—but he had already done part of it, so it still counted as progress.
A few minutes later, Dazhuang also joined the scraping team.
After they returned together, Yang Erni demonstrated in the shaded courtyard.
When the nitrate was added to water, steam began to rise from the surface. The three children and Yang Erni all pulled up stools and sat around watching.
“Who wants to try if the water is cold?”
“I will!” Liu Xiaohui was the fastest. He put his finger in and frowned deeply, saying nothing for a long time.
Liu Xiaoyi quickly asked, anxious.
“Is it cold or not? Say something!”
Liu Xiaohui: “Cold.”
Everyone else: If it’s cold, why didn’t you say so earlier!
“That’s good enough.” Yang Erni took out two lunch boxes and placed them beside them. “In about an hour, it should turn into ice. Once it freezes, put the lunch boxes on top of it. Got it?”
“Got it.” ×3
Around four in the afternoon, when the sun wasn’t as strong, several children came to play with the Liu brothers. But they found all of them—including Dazhuang from the Wen family—sitting around a large basin.
It felt especially cool near the basin.
“Brother Yi, there’s ice in here! It’s so cool!”
The speaker was Zhang Li, the three-year-old son of Deputy Battalion Commander Zhang Wei from the dormitory building. He always liked playing with the brothers. The other children who came were also kids of deputy battalion commanders or battalion commanders, about the same age.
“Brother Yi, where did you get this from?”
At this time, no household had refrigerators or fans. The only family in the entire military compound with a refrigerator was Commander Lin’s house. Everyone else had to endure the hot, dry summer every year.
“It was made by my mom.”
When making the ice, Yang Erni had already told the three children not to tell others how it was made, because it was Aunt Jiang Yao’s idea—so they kept it a secret.
Liu Xiaoyi said, “There’s mung bean ice in the lunch box that my mom made. I’ll ask her if she can share a small piece with you later.”
“Okay!”
The children all sat down nearby with small sticks, unwilling to go out and play since it was cooler here.
When Yang Erni came out with a cold dish, she saw all the children and smiled helplessly.
“Mom, can we share the mung bean ice with them?”
“Yes.”
Yang Erni opened a lunch box. The mung beans embedded in the crystal-clear ice looked especially tempting.
She counted the children in the yard, then went inside and cut the ice into equal portions.
“Go wash your hands in the house and come get it yourselves. One piece each.”
“Okay!”
Although the mung bean ice wasn’t as refined as later generations, with sugar and mung beans in it, it was already a rare treat for these children.