“Mom, the weather’s good today. I want to go out and walk around a bit. It isn’t good to keep lying here like this,” Yan Xi said when she had finished the brown sugar eggs.
“Sweetheart, you’d better rest more. Your body’s only just a little better and Mom isn’t easy about it. If you need anything, just have your two sisters-in-law do it, there’s no need for you to go,” said Yan Xi’s mother, her face full of kindness.
“Mom, I know you mean well for me. Haven’t I been in a daze for fifteen years? Now that I’ve finally come to, I want to go out and have a look. Besides, if you’re worried, letting Xiaofeng and Xiaoqing come with me works just as well.”
Yan Xi’s mother thought it over and said, “All right, but don’t go far, just walk around nearby. Don’t go to the river, it isn’t safe there. If anything comes up have them help you. And you mustn’t tire yourself out.”
“I know.”
“Xiaofeng, Xiaoqing, come keep your auntie company on a walk. Her body isn’t well yet, and if she gets tired remember to help her back. And while you’re at it pull a couple of handfuls of pig grass and pick up some firewood. Day after day all you two know is shirking.” Scolding as she went, Yan Xi’s mother helped Yan Xi up, got her clothes ready for her, and then went out. The whole family was getting ready to go down to the fields, Yan Xi’s mother would come back later to cook.
Two boys of four or five ran into Yan Xi’s room and crowded around the bed calling Auntie. Yan Xi looked at the two children, thin as hemp stalks, big heads and small bodies, one look and you knew they were undernourished. The clothes on them were patch upon patch, it was pitiful to see. They were twins, the second and third children of her eldest brother Yan Lin. The eldest, Yan Yu, was a girl, ten this year, and not at home now, probably gone to wash the whole family’s clothes.
Her second brother Yan Shan had only the one son for now, called Yan Wen, nine now, and who knew where he had gone running wild with his playmates.
Yan Xi also had a third brother, not at home now. Some time back he had gone out with a group of villagers to do day labor. She heard it was unloading cargo for people at the docks on the Songjiang, thirty wen a day.
Thinking of this, Yan Xi remembered that the last time her third brother came back he had brought her a packet of mung bean cakes from Guixiang Zhai. Half of it was left, and Yan Xi’s mother had put it under her chest. She quickly dug it out and gave the two nephews one piece each. Neither of them dared put out his hand, and they kept saying Auntie should eat it, because normally Grandma said all the good food was Auntie’s and they couldn’t have any.
Yan Xi put on a stern face. “Eat it now. Eat it and come out with me to have a look. If you don’t eat, watch me tell your grandma you didn’t listen to me.”
Hearing this the two brothers each hurried to take a piece and eat it in small bites, saying as they ate that it really was good, more fragrant than the flatbread Wu Yong ate the other time. Next time they could say they had eaten pastry too.
Yan Xi waited for the two of them to finish, then locked the door and got ready to go out. The two little ones even put their back baskets on, saying they would gather some pig grass and pick some wild greens along the way, which would save a little grain. The autumn harvest wasn’t in yet, and the stored grain all had to be eaten sparingly. Normally they ate two meals, and both of them thin, they had barely got it down and walked as far as the fields before their stomachs started growling again.
Yan Xi looked around as she walked. The houses all around were mud houses, and some were even thatched huts. Only the village head’s family had put up a red-brick house, and it looked a bit old too, but say what you like, they lived better than most of the village.
On the way they met quite a few people, and every one of them looked at Yan Xi as if looking at a monkey and then muttered. Some called out straight away, “Yan family idiot, are you really better!”
“Do you know who I am? I’m your Auntie Zhou. Where are you off to?” Zhou Ping asked.
“Hello, Auntie Zhou, hello to all of you uncles and aunts. I really am better. The day before yesterday I fell in the river, and somehow my head suddenly cleared. I’ve been fine these two days,” Yan Xi answered.
The people around were amazed beyond words and said all sorts of things, but most of them meant well. They all said now that Yan Xi was better good days had come for the Yan family, and at last they wouldn’t have to keep spending silver on treating Yan Xi, it really was merit accumulated by their ancestors. Yan Xi just smiled.
But there were also a few hard cases who said things like Yan Xi ought to thank the Wu family’s boy, if the Wu boy hadn’t pushed her into the river she couldn’t have come to. To that sort of talk Yan Xi just said that her still being alive and well was her own good fortune, and what did it have to do with Wu Yong, who had done her harm? These two days she’d been ill and hadn’t had time to go to his door and have it out with him, and he was already claiming to be her benefactor.
The people around said nothing more. “Uncles and aunties, I still have to go and find wild greens, so I won’t chat any longer. You go on talking.” Having said this Yan Xi took her nephews and left, paying no attention to how the people behind her talked.