Li Lanlan’s father was the village accountant. Before the land was allocated to individual households, the village chief, the brigade leader and the accountant were the three most powerful figures in the village.
As for Li Lanlan’s mother, she was skilled in traditional medicine and would occasionally go round giving people acupuncture treatments and the like; once the patients had recovered, they would often send gifts to the family as a token of their gratitude.
The three sisters never went without a variety of snacks from a young age.
At a time when many people were still struggling to put enough food on the table, Li Lanlan’s family could already afford to eat white flour bread from time to time.
Furthermore, Yulong Village, where Li Lanlan’s family lived, was the area with the best soil and climate in Ningzhou County. With favourable weather and abundant harvests, the village boasted a wide variety of fruits and vegetables; it truly resembled a paradise on earth, far more so than the neighbouring Xia Province, which relied on irrigation from the Yellow River.
This was largely due to the unique climate: Ningzhou County lay at the junction of a temperate continental climate and a subtropical monsoon climate, with this dividing line running right through Yulong Village. Coupled with the deep loess soil, the area enjoyed mild winters and cool summers, resulting in a bountiful harvest.
Moreover, Li Lanlan’s parents were exceptionally hard-working people; it would have been difficult for their family not to be well-off.
While the brothers in Wang Dashan’s family were still squabbling endlessly over who would get to wear new trousers when going out, Li Lanlan’s family had already bought a television.
As for why Li Lanlan, from such a well-off family, would marry Wang Dashan from the remote mountain valley, that is another story altogether.
Since time immemorial, people have experienced joy and sorrow, just as the moon waxes and wanes.
Yet in this family, where everything seemed so promising, in the countryside—a place where the preference for sons over daughters runs deepest and feudal remnants remain strong—
Li Lanlan happened to have no brothers of her own.
After dinner, she left Wang Dashan to look after the three children and set off on her bicycle to visit her parents’ home.
It had been many years since Li Lanlan had travelled this road; more than a decade had passed since her parents’ deaths, yet the route remained etched deeply in her memory.
In less than twenty minutes, she reached Ningzhou, the bustling county town. As Li Lanlan looked out over the lively streets, she could scarcely believe that in the space of barely twenty years, the town had become a place where such vibrancy was now confined to public holidays and the New Year.
The small county town had no pillar industries, and wages had remained stagnant for years, whilst the cost of living was higher than even in neighbouring An City in Shaanxi Province—a major metropolis and the leading force in Northwest China.
By this time, the first wave of the ‘going into business’ boom was drawing to a close. The private sector was developing rapidly, and the small county town, riding this wave, had also grown at breakneck speed.
Unfortunately, it couldn’t hold on to its people. People naturally seek higher ground, just as water flows downhill; those who had made money and possessed the ability all headed to An City in the neighbouring province to develop their careers, whilst those of lesser means moved to the district where the municipal government was located. As a result, Ningzhou County, situated in this transitional zone, was left behind.
Ningzhou Town remains a thriving place today.
Three miles south of Ningzhou Town lies Yulong Village.
Li Lanlan’s parents’ home is here; they still live in a mud-brick house built with bamboo scaffolding, nestled halfway up the mountainside. It will be a few years before they build a new brick-and-tile house at the foot of the hill.
It was just past twelve o’clock; Li Lanlan’s mother, Jia Fanghua, was preparing lunch. People in this area generally eat only two proper meals a day: the first at seven or eight in the morning, and the second, lunch, at around two in the afternoon.
Li Lanlan noticed her eldest sister, Li Xiaolan, was there too, filling a porcelain bowl with fried dough sticks. Jia Fanghua watched Li Xiaolan as she worked, muttering under her breath.
This familiar scene, long forgotten, unfolded before Li Lanlan’s eyes once more.
Upon seeing Li Lanlan arrive, Li Xiaolan had just finished packing the fried dough sticks.
“Lanlan, you’re here! I’ve come to visit Mum today. She’s fried some dough sticks at home and asked me to take some back. I’ve had a taste—Mum’s are still the best. I’ve never managed to get that flavour myself. You should have a go too.”
Li Xiaolan spoke politely, but her hands moved swiftly to pack the dough sticks tightly into the bowl, only stopping when it was absolutely full.
Li Lanlan looked at her eldest sister; she really had been fleecing Mum and Dad day in, day out for years.
Li Xiaolan had originally planned to scrounge another meal at her parents’ house, but seeing her younger sister arrive, she realised she’d only be subjected to more criticism if she stayed any longer. So she decided against it, said her goodbyes, covered the dough sticks with a cloth, tied them to the back of her bicycle, and pedalled off at top speed.
“Mum, my sister’s come round to fill her basket with dough sticks again. You really do make delicious ones—with all that white flour, plus the oil and sugar, how could they not be tasty?”
The air was thick with the aroma of the dough sticks. You have to admit, the freshly fried ones gave off a wonderful blend of oil and wheat, enough to make anyone’s stomach rumble with hunger.
In the 1990s, supplies weren’t as plentiful as they are now. In places like Ningzhou County and many other areas, people still used a type of flour known as ‘red flour’. This flour was produced by removing the outer husk of the wheat; this part was used as pig feed, fed directly to the pigs.
What remained was the red flour. This was then further processed to remove some of the bran, and what was left—that slightly yellowish substance—was the white flour.
The flour back then wasn’t as refined as in later generations, but precisely because of this, it retained the wheat’s natural elasticity, making the resulting noodles and dumplings all the more chewy and satisfying.
A decade or so later, many people on diets actually came to love this type of wholemeal food containing bran. Li Lanlan’s daughters were also on a diet at the time; they bought lots of wholemeal bread, which was apparently quite expensive, and even bought some for Li Lanlan so they could all lose weight together.
Li Lanlan took a bite and immediately refused. Having eaten coarse grains for so many years, she didn’t care for them at all. Things like steamed corn buns or dried sweet potato slices were fine once in a while, but as a girl from the countryside, she had no particular fondness for coarse grains; she only loved refined foods like white rice and white flour.
People say fashion goes in cycles, but as far as Li Lanlan was concerned, food trends did too. Things like sweet potato leaves and bran—which used to be fed to pigs—had suddenly been transformed into health foods, whilst polished rice and white flour were now out of favour.
What a travesty!
Li Lanlan picked up a fried dough stick, began eating it as she spoke, and took a bite—it was soft and fluffy, and tasted absolutely delicious.
You have to admit, her mum’s fried dough sticks really were second to none; even at the height of her cooking skills in her previous life, she’d never quite mastered the art.
Munching on the fried dough fritter, Li Lanlan walked out of the ‘kitchen’ (people in our province are used to calling the kitchen ‘the kitchen’) and into the ‘room’ (all other rooms apart from the kitchen are called ‘rooms’) to rummage about. During the New Year, there were bound to be plenty of gifts sent to her mother by her former patients and younger relatives. In her previous life, Li Lanlan had always put on airs, refusing this and that, and had to wait for Jia Fanghua to slip them to her each time.
Having lived through a lifetime, she had made some progress—or perhaps one could say her skin had thickened—and she was no longer so concerned with appearances.
Thinking back, she used to only touch these snacks and such sent by others before she was married; after marriage, some inexplicable sense of pride had always made her hesitate.
It was hardly generous of her; if she didn’t eat these things, it was just a windfall for the relatives on both sides.
Li Lanlan rummaged through them. My, there really were quite a few! As living standards improved, the value of the gifts her mother received had gone up too.
Sponge cakes, biscuits, milk, plus cigarettes and alcohol from others. Li Lanlan opened a packet of sponge cakes; after all these years, they still tasted just as sweet. She drank a carton of milk too; judging by the look of it, it must have been a recent gift that her mother hadn’t got round to locking away yet.
Her eldest sister hadn’t even noticed, which was hardly surprising, given that every time she visited, it was as if a swarm of locusts had swept through.
Having gone through the gifts, Li Lanlan went to rummage through the large jars of food prepared for the New Year, to see what was left. The sugar-coated pastries were gone, but there were still two jars of buns.
Li Lanlan took two cold buns, taking a bite from each. Mmm, delicious. The one on the left was a potato bun, and the one on the right was a tofu and glass noodle bun.
As she munched on the cold buns, Li Lanlan recalled that in her previous life, ever since her mother had fallen ill, she hadn’t really made much of the traditional New Year’s foods anymore.
It had been forty or fifty years since her mother passed away, and she hadn’t seen her since. She couldn’t help but let the tears stream down her face.
Inside the house, Jia Fanghua had finished cutting the noodles and prepared the meat and vegetable soup. She had stoked the fire under the pot to prevent it from boiling over, letting the water simmer slowly—there was no rush, after all.
When she entered the room, she saw Li Lanlan rummaging about, still munching on a cold bun. She was livid. That lazy good-for-nothing hadn’t improved in all these years; even now, in this weather, she was still sneaking cold buns just like when she was a child.
Just as she was about to give her a telling-off, she heard her youngest daughter sobbing softly.
Could it be that the child had been wronged? It’s only just past the first month of the lunar year; that shouldn’t be the case. Besides, she’s lucky if she doesn’t cause others grief—who would ever let her suffer such treatment?
A child’s tears pierce a mother’s heart.
A parent’s love for their child knows no bounds. Jia Fanghua stepped forward and patted Li Lanlan on the shoulder.
“Lanlan, what’s the matter? Tell your mother.”
Looking at Jia Fanghua up close, Li Lanlan began to weep even more bitterly. She threw her arms around Jia Fanghua, calling out ‘Mum’ over and over, her sobs growing louder. This startled Jia Fanghua—could it be that she’d truly been wronged?
Li Lanlan held Jia Fanghua tightly, pressing the little old lady firmly against her chest. She was a tall woman, standing at 1.75 metres, whilst Jia Fanghua was only 1.60 metres tall. Being held like this was unbearably constricting, and Jia Fanghua could only keep saying, “Let go, let go.”
From morning until now, Li Lanlan had finally felt a sense of reality; she had truly returned.
As soon as they stopped, Jia Fanghua began questioning her, though she didn’t even scold her for rummaging through things and snacking.
After all, with her elder sister Li Xiaolan’s track record, Li Lanlan’s little misdemeanours were nothing out of the ordinary. Yet Jia Fanghua was still quite irritable, as Li Lanlan had left everything in disarray—a situation far from ideal for someone with OCD.
Jia Fanghua sorted everything into its proper place in the cupboard, then took out three sponge cakes and three cartons of milk separately before locking the cupboard.
She held out a sponge cake and a carton of milk to Li Lanlan.
Watching her mother still portioning out food like this, Li Lanlan realised that in every mother’s mind, a child remains a child no matter how old they grow.
Li Lanlan followed Jia Fanghua back into the room. The water in the large pot hadn’t come to the boil yet, so Jia Fanghua tossed two more pieces of firewood into it.
“It’s nothing, I just missed you. Oh, Mum, I remember Sister Tao sent word a while back saying she needed someone to cover for her for a few months. Has she found anyone yet?” Li Lanlan asked, sitting on the edge of the kang.
Jia Fanghua replied as she pumped the wood-burning stove: “Not yet. Why do you ask? Do you want to go? Your two little ones are only just over a year old. Have you spoken to Shanzi about going out?”
“I have, I have. We’ve both agreed on it.”