In the end, with the village head as witness, Wu Hehua apologized meekly, and Yan Xi’s mother even insisted on getting two eggs out of Xu Guihua’s hands, saying it was compensation for the slander against Yan Xi.
The family looked as if they had won a battle. They had come in a fury and went back in high spirits, having dealt with someone and got two eggs for nothing besides, a sure profit and no loss.
The onlookers had something new to talk about, and went off in threes and fives.
At the Wu house, though, all was gloom and misery, and lately they had kept a much lower profile in the village.
“Little Xi, go and rest first. The dumplings are all wrapped, we can eat in a little while.”
The moment the two sisters-in-law got home they put the dumplings in the pot, and when the dumplings floated up they ladled them into a big dish.
Then they lifted the lid off the other big pot, and a smell of stewed rabbit drifted out. The little ones drooled and all crowded to the kitchen door, and the two women looked at them and afterwards each gave them a piece and drove them off to one side.
Yan Xi’s mother found a basket and had Yan Yu take a bowl of rabbit and dumplings to the old house too.
Yan Yu took the basket and chose a little-used path to the old house, handed the things to her great-aunt, and with the whole family calling for her to stay and eat she picked up the basket and ran, before Xu Xiangqin could even manage a gift in return.
“Is a dog chasing you, running that fast? Did you deliver the things or not?”
Yan Xi’s mother saw her granddaughter come in like a whirlwind and was afraid the errand hadn’t been done properly.
As she spoke Yan Xi’s mother set the dumplings in the middle. On the table were a bowl of vinegar and a bowl of dipping sauce with houttuynia root and chopped chili in it. Whoever liked which put it on themselves.
Yan Xi liked soup with her dumplings, so she went to the kitchen and ladled out a spoonful of dumpling broth, then put in a dozen or so dumplings, and last poured a little of the dipping sauce into the bowl. Looking at the bowl all red, Yan Xi’s mouth was nearly watering.
Most of the others in the house liked them dry, some dipping them in vinegar, some in the sauce, and then drinking a bowl of dumpling broth at the end. It had to be said that each way had its own flavor.
By the end nothing at all was left, even the dumpling broth in the pot had been drunk down to the bottom, so you can imagine how good that meal was.
Yan Xi, thinking of the knotwork she had only just started on, didn’t stay outside long, and going back to her room she went into the space and went on trying out all sorts of ways of braiding.
At last, with Yan Xi’s constant efforts, she finally braided one basic pattern, called “a stick of incense.”
This kind of knot was simple to braid, you only had to start it off with two cords laid in a straight line. It was hardly something to bring out for sale, but this was the first handwork Yan Xi had done in several years, and being able to make it at all was good enough!
Having got her confidence back, Yan Xi came out of the space well satisfied, meaning to try a few more times and then let other people make them, while she only had to be in charge of designing new styles.
Yan Xi stayed at home a few days and made several Chinese knots and true-lover’s knots. The colored thread she had bought before was nearly used up, and she meant to go to the Jinxiu Shop and see whether Yun Niang needed any.
Before she knew it the eighth month had come. The autumn harvest was at hand, and the household was busy again.
Less than half a month before the autumn harvest, Yan Jiang and the villagers who had gone out with him came back, and for a while the village grew rather more lively.
The people gathered under the big locust tree saw their own children and stopped chatting, and one after another got to their feet.
“Dad, Mom, Eldest Brother and Sister-in-law, Second Brother and Sister-in-law, Little Sister, I’m home.”
Yan Jiang was shouting at the top of his voice in the yard before he was even through the door. This time he had been away nearly three months, and if the crops at home hadn’t ripened nobody would have wanted to come back.
“What are you shouting for? If you’re back then come inside. Put your things away and go and call your dad and the others back to eat.”
Yan Xi’s mother looked at this worrisome son, three months without seeing him and he was as flighty as ever, and coming home he hadn’t even thought to send word ahead.
Yan Jiang gave a heh-heh laugh. Home was better after all. Out there were a lot of people, and if you wanted to eat something good it was awkward, they were all from the same village, and giving to one and not another was no good either.
At the table Yan Jiang kept looking at Yan Xi, there was no ignoring it.
“Third Brother, what are you always looking at me for? Three months apart and you don’t recognize me anymore?”
“Heh heh, no. My little sister’s as pretty as ever. In ten villages around, my little sister’s the best-looking.”
“Eat your food properly. Whatever it is can wait. If you’re not eating, don’t put your little sister off.” Yan Xi’s mother gave Yan Jiang a sidelong look and said it out of temper. He really did make people angry the moment he came home, who he had got this nature from nobody knew, not a scrap of the old Yan family’s steadiness.
After the meal Yan Jiang opened up the bundle he had brought back and handed out the presents he had brought for the family.
Six feet of cotton cloth each for Yan Xi’s father and mother, just enough to make an outer coat, a pair of cloth shoes each for the eldest and second brothers, a pot of face cream each for the two sisters-in-law, for Yan Xi a silver hairpin, simple in style but by the look of it worth a fair bit, and for the nephews and niece the rest was some snacks fashionable in the county town, dragon’s-beard candy, pea-flour cake and a few pieces of maltose candy.
Everyone was very pleased with their presents, and the juniors crowded around Yan Jiang, thick as anything with him.
“You came back a few days later than last time. Was the work in the county town hard to get? I see you’ve come back thinner than before, and a good deal darker too.” Yan Xi’s father did feel for his son after all, and pressed him with a few questions.
“It’s a good thing, Dad. This time there was no telling how it happened. There were so many work gangs at Songjiang, but plenty of people still came looking for our Yanjia Village, and some whose goods weren’t urgent would rather wait a couple of days. It was a bit tiring, but everyone earned a good deal of money.”
“The wages went up too, from thirty wen at the start to thirty-five wen. Over three months I actually earned several hundred wen more.”
Yan Jiang brought out all the money left after board and lodging and buying presents, about one tael five mace in all. Yan Xi’s mother took only one tael four mace of silver and let Yan Jiang keep the remaining hundred-odd copper coins himself.
“From now on you needn’t hand over all the household money. Keep a little of what you earn yourself. Later, when the children in the family are grown, you’ll be able to bring out money to buy them something.”
Seeing it was getting late, Yan Xi’s mother called on everyone to turn in early.
The Yan men had been going to the fields every day lately. Summer weather was changeable to begin with, and the weather recently wasn’t good, clouds drifted over now and then, so to keep the harvest from being spoiled by rain, they meant to bring the crop in early after letting the village head know.
Yan Fusheng was worried about this very thing. If the grain couldn’t be got in because of rain, never mind this year’s taxes, whether they could fill their bellies in the days after was a question too.
Although there were still a few days till the day for the rush harvest, going early would certainly mean losing some grain, but that was still better than having it spoil in the field when the time came.
These few days the old men in the village who could read the sky had all been rather anxious. Farming folk who lived by the weather feared nothing so much as a bad harvest, and one after another they went to Yan Fusheng, meaning to get the grain in first.
The brass gong sounded in the village, and villagers walked in twos and threes toward the threshing ground.
Yan Fusheng stood on the high platform and told them that the weather lately had been abnormal and it looked likely to rain, and once more instructed the villagers to get ready, to clear out their granaries and prepare to start the rush harvest.
The villagers knew what mattered too, and even those who usually liked to gossip and take the contrary line were busy going home to find their tools, and the village’s ox carts were led out ready to haul grain.