The end of the year was approaching. The north wind howled, and the world was a vast expanse of white.
Ergouzi wore a tattered padded jacket passed down from his ancestors. Patches lay over patches, yet they still couldn’t stop the weeds and willow catkins stuffed inside from poking out.
His upper body fared somewhat better. He at least had an ancestral garment to ward off the cold, but his trousers only covered half of his legs.
The pants reached just to his knees, with one leg longer than the other. The seat was worn down to the threads, revealing half of his frozen, purple rear.
He had lost one of his worn-out straw sandals, leaving two lines of uneven footprints in the snow.
Ergouzi tied up a small pile of firewood. It weighed over thirty jin; carrying it back should be enough to satisfy his Auntie.
Gathering firewood was no easy task these days. Every household needed to burn wood, and the trees simply could not grow fast enough.
He had walked seven or eight li and spent most of the day just to dig this much wood out of the snow.
After bundling the wood, he plopped down onto the pile. He blew several breaths of hot air onto his hands, then stuffed them under his armpits to keep warm.
He caught his breath, then pulled a lump of chaff cake from his tattered jacket. He bit off a large chunk and chewed vigorously.
The cake was mixed with large amounts of grain chaff and wild vegetables, along with a few acorns and grass seeds. Swallowing it scraped his throat painfully.
They called it a cake, but in truth, he had stolen it from the pig feed.
Even with such chaff cakes, he rarely ate his fill.
After finishing the cake, he licked the residue from his fingers, grabbed a handful of snow from the ground, and stuffed it into his mouth.
He sat for a while longer until he felt his body recover some strength, then stood up, shouldered the firewood, and prepared to head home.
But he had stood up too fast. With several dozen jin of firewood on his back, his foot slipped, and he tumbled down the hillside, dragging the firewood with him.
“Thud! Thud… crack!”
Ergouzi lay sprawled on the ground. His waist throbbed so painfully that he couldn’t straighten up.
During the fall, something incredibly hard had struck his side.
It tore a large hole in his clothes and left a bloody gash on his waist.
Reaching out to grope wildly in the snow, he soon felt a large object buried underneath.
This was a seemingly ordinary Yellow-Skinned Gourd, about one chi tall. Its widest point was at least the size of a human head.
A little bit of blood from his waist stained the lid at the top of the gourd.
Right before his eyes, that tiny bloodstain began to disappear, seemingly seeping straight into the gourd.
He pulled open the lid. Inside was a chaotic murkiness; nothing could be seen clearly.
Ergouzi pondered. This thing would be great for holding water.
He worked outside every day and often went without water.
The only problem was the size—if only it were a little smaller.
The moment this thought arose in his mind, the gourd actually shrank significantly.
Ergouzi couldn’t quite believe his eyes. He rubbed them and confirmed that the gourd was now truly only seven or eight cun tall.
“Smaller!”
This time, Ergouzi stared wide-eyed at the gourd in his hands.
Sure enough, right before his eyes, the gourd shrank another large degree. It was now only five cun tall.
“Smaller!”
“Smaller!”
A wave of dizziness and blurred vision washed over him. The Yellow-Skinned Gourd had now shrunk to about one cun.
But now he felt terribly dizzy. His chest felt tight, nausea churned in his stomach, and his fingers trembled slightly.
This sudden weakness was probably related to the gourd. He didn’t dare try again.
If he fainted in this icy wilderness, he wouldn’t even last until tomorrow morning before becoming a stiff, cold corpse.
He turned the tiny gourd over in his hands for a moment, then stuffed it into the lining of his clothes. Shivering, he shouldered his firewood and headed down the mountain.
On the seven or eight li walk back, he slipped and fell in the snow several more times.
His remaining straw sandal completely fell apart, rendering it unwearable. He had no choice but to trudge barefoot through the snow.
After circling past two small hills, he finally saw Snake Creek Village at the foot of the mountain.
A small creek ran through the center of the village, lined on both sides by earthen-walled thatched huts.
Among them, a few large houses roofed with blue tiles stood out brightly. These naturally belonged to the rare wealthy families of Snake Creek Village.
The sky was growing dark by the time Ergouzi carried his firewood to the gates of one of the tile-roofed houses.
The gate was half open, but he stopped. He hesitated at the doorway, seemingly lacking the courage to step inside.
“Still dawdling at the door! Hurry up and fetch water to feed the pigs!”
Just then, a coarse, raspy woman’s voice rang out from the house.
A fat woman stood at the main entrance. Her hair was greasy, and she wore a stained, oily cotton jacket and pants, glaring furiously at Ergouzi.
“All you know is how to eat! You slack off at the slightest bit of work! An entire day, and you only gathered this little bit of firewood!”
Ergouzi quickly forced a smile onto his frozen face. Lowering his head, he shook off the snow on his clothes, then shouldered the firewood and stepped through the gate.
“Your deadbeat parents died early. If I hadn’t squeezed out food from between my own teeth, you would have starved to death long ago!”
“Always looking so sickly… Anyone who didn’t know better would think I was abusing you!”
“Yes, yes! Thank you for saving my life, Auntie!”
Ergouzi kept a placating smile as he expressed his gratitude. He quickly and deftly placed the firewood into the woodshed.
He grabbed the carrying pole and buckets from behind the door. Without even pausing to find shoes, he headed out barefoot once more.
He carried three loads of water, filling the large water vat to the brim.
Next, he swept the house, heated a basin of water for Auntie to soak her feet, and fed the pig.
While feeding the pig, his hunger became so unbearable that he secretly stole a large handful of the pig feed, leaving himself half-full.
The pig feed contained many wild vegetables and a little bit of mixed grain. Honestly, the pig ate no worse than Ergouzi did.
All these years, rising early and sleeping late, doing so much backbreaking work… if he hadn’t frequently stolen pig feed, he probably wouldn’t have survived until now.
After all, the meat the pig grew from eating this feed would eventually be eaten by people. Eating the pig feed directly was practically the same as eating pork.
As long as he could survive, what did eating a little pig feed and suffering a bit of humiliation matter?
By the time he finished all the chores inside and outside the house, the sky had turned completely black. Auntie’s family had long since burrowed into their warm quilts.
Only then did Ergouzi carry a burning pine knot into the dining hall.
Lighting the lamp wasted too much oil. Unless his cousin was studying at night, Auntie forbade anyone from lighting the oil lamp.
A square Eight Immortals table sat in the center of the room. Several leftover bowls and pairs of chopsticks were scattered across it.
By the dim light of the burning pine knot, he saw some leftover scraps in the bowls. This was his dinner.
He ate two meals a day. He had one meal in the morning before going out to gather firewood, and then he ate his dinner at night, only after finishing all his chores.
Once, driven mad by hunger, he had tried to eat before finishing his work. Auntie had cursed him out relentlessly, beating and scolding him.
The long scar on his arm was left over from that day when Auntie had struck him with fire tongs.
Five coarse ceramic bowls on the table held only a little leftover cold congee. Only one small bowl still had over half a bowl of cold congee remaining.
Ergouzi picked up this bowl. With a few loud gulps, the half-bowl of congee was gone.
Hidden beneath the cold congee were actually a few shreds of pickled vegetables.
The pickled vegetables tasted so delicious that he couldn’t bear to chew them. Instead, he held them in his mouth, slowly savoring the flavor.
Guided by the salty flavor of the pickled vegetables, he licked the remaining cold congee from the rim of the bowl completely clean.
He did the same to the remaining bowls, licking up the meager remnants of cold congee.
After finishing what was in the bowls, he took the rice scoop to scrape out the very last bit stuck to the cooking pot and ate it all.
Though these were mere scraps, they were much tastier than pig feed. The only problem was the meager quantity.
After eating, he washed the pots and bowls, and only then did he crawl into his own room.
His room was incredibly bleak: just a broken bed covered with a thick layer of straw.
Two pairs of newly woven straw sandals hung on the wall.
He had woven them during his free time at night. They should sell for two wen.
Pressed under the foot of the wooden bed were a dozen or so copper coins. This was the sum of his entire secretly hoarded wealth.
Having been busy from morning until now, Ergouzi was exhausted to the bone.
Lying down in the straw pile now… it was truly comfortable!
He took the thumb-sized Yellow-Skinned Gourd out from his clothes.
He didn’t know the exact origins of this gourd, but judging by the miracles it had displayed so far, it was definitely a treasure.
At the very least, it could hold an incredible amount of water. He had held it in the creek for a long time earlier, and it still hadn’t filled to the brim.
Ergouzi opened the lid, tilted his head back, and took a sip of water from the gourd’s mouth.
“Huh!”
He discovered that the water inside was no longer bitter.
The water around Snake Creek Village was all bitter and astringent. Families with the means would add a few tea leaves to mask the taste.
He drank several more mouthfuls in succession to confirm it wasn’t his imagination. The water inside the gourd really wasn’t bitter anymore. In fact, it held a faint trace of sweetness.