By now, midday had passed, but the mountain air still carried a sharp chill. Pulling their clothes tighter, they knew they had to hurry to find something edible.
Beneath their feet lay a thick layer of fallen leaves and pine needles that crunched and crackled with each step. Every so often, a flock of sparrows would be startled into flight, making Sanxi jump.
“Don’t be scared—it’s just sparrows,” Erguo said softly, taking his sister’s hand to comfort her.
Yuanxiang walked at the front, clearing the way with her hoe dragging on the ground as her eyes scanned the undergrowth.
Spring hadn’t arrived yet, so wild vegetables were scarce—but not entirely absent from the mountain.
She knelt down and brushed aside a clump of dry grass to reveal a patch of tender green shoots. Smiling, she pointed and said: “It’s grey amaranth—this is edible.”
Erguo leaned over to look, then carefully pulled up the shoots like she did, shook off the dirt, and placed them into their basket with great care.
As they searched and walked, before long they had collected wild chives, grey amaranth, shepherd’s purse… With these, they could at least make a meal—they wouldn’t starve after all.
Erguo moved swiftly, sometimes crouching to pull up wild garlic, sometimes pushing aside weeds to look for shepherd’s purse, glancing into the basket now and then as if worried it wouldn’t be full enough.
Suddenly, he stopped beside a dead tree root and called out quietly: “A-Jie, look—there’s a vine here with lots of grey beans on it… it looks really strange…”
Yuanxiang turned and her eyes lit up immediately. She hurried over and knelt down to look closely.
“This is… a Chinese yam vine!” Her voice rose with excitement as she carefully used her hoe to scrape away a bit of soil, revealing more vines bearing the same grey pods.
This meant there must be wild yams buried in the ground nearby!
When she was young, villagers would often come to the mountains during slack farming seasons to gather wild goods for extra income, and wild yam was one of them. Valued for its medicinal properties, it was difficult and time-consuming to dig up, but once found, it was easy to sell for a good price.
Erguo had never heard of yams before and looked at her with confusion.
Yuanxiang explained simply: “This is a real treasure! We can eat it as a staple food, boil it in soup, or roast it over a fire. If it’s big and old enough, we can even sell it for money.”
Sanxi perked up at the mention of food and money, chattering excitedly: “What? What can be sold? Where is it?”
Rolling up his sleeves, Erguo said: “A-Jie, let’s get started then!”
Following the thick, tough vines carefully, Yuanxiang had a feeling they’d find large yams—and soon she located the spot.
“Here it is.” She raised her hoe and began to dig.
With only one proper hoe, Erguo found some flat stones and sticks, binding them together to make makeshift hoes—one for himself and one for Sanxi.
For a while, none of them spoke, their hoes rising and falling in unison.
Each swing of the hoe drove into the earth, prying up clumps of soil. After just a dozen or so strokes, Yuanxiang’s arms were already aching—Good grief, the original Yuanxiang’s physical condition is really poor!
Looking over at her siblings, she saw they too were leaning on their hoe handles, catching their breath.
The soil was full of rocks, and once they hit stone they couldn’t use the hoe anymore, or they’d ruin it. At those points, Erguo would use a hard wooden strip to scrape under the rocks with Yuanxiang, removing them before they could continue digging.
Still wearing their padded winter clothes, they were soon sweating profusely from the effort.
“It’s coming out!” Erguo shouted joyfully.
They’d been digging for nearly half an hour, creating a hole almost a meter deep—just when they’d started to wonder if they’d ever find anything, they finally spotted the yam’s thick root.
Wild yam roots grow straight down deep into the soil; it’s not uncommon for them to go two or three meters underground. All three could barely contain their excitement.
Once the top of the root was exposed, digging went much faster.
“Now we have to be careful—don’t damage it,” Yuanxiang panted. She was still thinking about selling the yam for money, and a damaged one wouldn’t fetch a good price.
“I understand,” Erguo replied earnestly.
Fifteen minutes later, they finally pulled the long wild yam from the earth. It was thicker than Yuanxiang’s wrist—clearly an old one that had been growing for years.
She gently brushed off the dirt and carefully placed it in their basket. By the end, they had nearly ten jin* of wild yam inside.
Turning to her siblings with a smile, she said: “We’re so lucky today! Let’s head back and make yam porridge.”
Though they’d never eaten yam porridge before, it sounded delicious to Erguo and Sanxi. They grinned and chimed together: “Okay!”
When they’d rested enough, their basket was full of wild vegetables, fruits, and yam. Erguo picked up a bundle of firewood for heating the hut that evening, only to notice Sanxi crouching in front of a patch of tall grass, staring intently at something.
“Sanxi, let’s go,” he called.
“Shhh… there’s something really big in the grass over there,” Sanxi whispered, holding up her hands to show how large it was.
Yuanxiang’s heart tightened—from the size Sanxi was indicating, could it be a wild boar?
Following her pointing finger, she saw the edge of a black boot sticking out from the grass, the leaves around it trampled and still.
Erguo saw it too and gasped in shock: “It’s a person!”
Pressing down her surprise, Yuanxiang gripped her hoe tightly and approached slowly. When she pushed aside the grass, all three drew in a sharp breath.
It was a person—a man!
He was lying on his back, his face and clothes stained with blood. His eyes were closed and his skin was pale, but on closer look, his throat moved slightly with each breath.
Erguo reacted quickly: “He’s still alive!” He turned to Yuanxiang. “A-Jie, what should we do?”
Sanxi saw the blood and pulled nervously at Yuanxiang’s sleeve, asking timidly: “Is he going to die?”
Yuanxiang looked carefully around the area. Besides finding a short knife, she saw nothing else out of the ordinary.
His identity was a mystery. From his clothing—black, form-fitting martial attire—and his pale complexion, he was clearly not a local farmer. Add in his injuries and the knife… he seemed very likely to be dangerous.
Yet seeing his pale face, she knew leaving him here would mean certain death once the mountain grew cold at night.
“Let’s take him back,” she said quietly. She simply couldn’t leave someone to die.
Erguo and Sanxi would naturally follow their sister’s lead—they too felt they should save him. But the man was tall and broad-shouldered; moving him would be no easy task for just the three of them.
Yuanxiang picked up the short knife and tested it on a nearby branch. It was incredibly sharp, slicing through the wood cleanly—clearly a fine weapon.
She quickly cut a large bundle of vines and branches. First spreading the vines flat on the ground, she laid branches across them, then covered them with grass to make a makeshift stretcher.
Erguo supported the man’s left side while Yuanxiang took the right, and Sanxi ran over to hold his arm—though she had little strength, she did her best to help. It took great effort to drag him onto the stretcher.
Yuanxiang padded the back of his head with a thick clump of grass before securing him tightly with vines. They’d already spent too much time on the mountain, and the sun was beginning to set—they had to hurry home.
All the way down, the three pulled the makeshift stretcher by its vines and branches, making their way carefully to the hut.
…
By the time they finally carried the man back, darkness was just falling. They were exhausted—Yuanxiang most of all, her hands and shoulders red and raw from the rough vines. She thought to herself that when the man woke up, he’d better repay her well—either with hard work or, even better, money!
Erguo had already fetched water by then.
Blood covered the man’s face and clothes, so Yuanxiang suspected he was wounded somewhere. She began to undo his clothing and was met with the sight of broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and well-defined, powerful muscles.
Nice physique, she thought to herself, though she didn’t have time to admire it for long.
Besides several small cuts, the wound on his waist and abdomen was the worst—a deep, clean-edged gash that looked like it had been made by a knife. She also felt the back of his head and found a large lump. How he’d ended up with so many injuries, she had no idea.
Blood was still seeping from his wounds—they needed to stop the bleeding quickly.
“Where’s our salt?” she asked, turning to her siblings.
She remembered they had a small salt jar among their few belongings, one the original Yuanxiang had brought from their hometown. They’d used it sparingly along the way, and a little was left.
Erguo immediately brought over a palm-sized bamboo salt jar, his lips pressed together as he said: “A-Jie, this is all we have left.”
A thin layer of coarse salt lay at the bottom of the bamboo container.
Yuanxiang took out half the salt, dissolved it in water, then used a clean cloth strip to carefully clean the man’s wounds with the salt water.
Seeing half their salt disappear at once, Erguo’s heart ached. He suddenly felt a twinge of regret about saving the man—they could barely take care of themselves, how could they look after someone else? He pursed his lips but said nothing.
In their basket was the cattail pollen Yuanxiang had collected that day—she’d spotted it on the way back and picked it specially. It looked like a sausage covered in soft yellow powder, and as a child she’d called it “sausage grass.”
Back in the modern world, her grandfather had been the village’s barefoot doctor, and she’d often gone into the mountains with him to gather herbs. She remembered him collecting the fine yellow fuzz from cattail pollen to store away, using it to reduce inflammation and stop bleeding whenever someone got hurt.
Yuanxiang gently crushed the pollen into powder and applied it to the wounds on the man’s waist and head before bandaging them up. She touched his forehead—it was burning hot—but with night having fallen completely and them still new to the village, she had no idea where to find a doctor. She decided to wait until morning to figure out what to do next.
Sanxi was still curiously examining the man their sister had brought home. She reached out her small dirty hand and carefully poked his cheek, finding it hard and solid. Seeing that he didn’t wake up no matter how she poked him, she asked in confusion: “A-Jie, when will he wake up?”
On their journey as refugees, she’d seen many people close their eyes to sleep and never open them again.
Yuanxiang said nothing—she really wasn’t sure, and with the medical conditions here… all they could do was their best and leave the rest to fate.
Suddenly, there was a loud knocking at the door. The three exchanged glances—who could be visiting them at this hour?
Note: A “jin” is a traditional Chinese unit of weight, approximately 500 grams (1.1 pounds).