Chapter 25 Crucian Carp and Tofu Soup
The morning dew was still condensing on the eaves as Xu Yao squatted in front of the stove, decocting medicine.
The smell of angelica mixed with bupleurum bupleurum bubbling in the medicine jar made the faded window grilles on the window frames of the west wing taste bitter.
She had just used a palm-leaf fan to suppress the flames when she heard footsteps coming from outside the fence.
"Yao girl!" Villager A leaned half his head in through the wooden door, his nose stained with paper ash from watching the fun last night, "The living ancestor of the Sun family ran into her third sister when he went to the commune to make a phone call this morning!"
He pointed three fingers mysteriously, "The third sister went to the land temple at the end of the village with a cloth bag in her hand, her eyes rolling around like a weasel."
The palm-leaf fan in Xu Yao's hand fell into the stove with a "pop".
A few sparks rose from the ashes, very much like the sparks from Wang Tiezhu's boot nails last night.
She looked at the white mist bubbling out of the medicine jar, and suddenly felt a slight heat on the back of her neck where the mint-flavored kettle had burned her.
In the reed marsh at the end of the village, Xue Han was repairing fishing nets.
His dark green military pants were rolled up to his knees, and the morning light cast a golden edge on his back muscles.
Xu Yao saw the Five Emperors' Coins hanging on his tactical belt from three meters away - they were the same copper coins that were dangling from the puppy's collar last night.
"She hid twenty kilograms of tung oil in the cellar."
After listening to the retelling, Xue Han inserted the shiny harpoon into the mud.
Duckweed swayed along the ripples, startling the sparrows that were stealing food from the reeds. "In the twelfth lunar month, white flour attracts mice, and tung oil burns the warehouse - a chain of traps."
Xu Yao tightened her grip on the military canteen.
The body of the pot still retained Xue Han's body temperature. The fragrance of sea buckthorn fruit brought from the border mixed with the scent of pine needles on his body calmed down the anxiety in her heart.
Just as she was about to speak, she suddenly saw a piece of green scale on Xue Han's tactical gloves - it was the crucian carp he caught specially for her this morning.
"We're having crucian carp and tofu soup tonight?"
He bent his head to tie the fishing net's slipknot, and the old scar on his Adam's apple was cut in two by the shadow of the reeds. "Put more coriander."
Xu Yao looked at the faint traces of bandages under his shirt, and suddenly remembered that when paper ashes were flying all over the place last night, this man used his back to block the stones thrown by her third sister for her.
The kettle in her palm suddenly became scalding hot, so hot that her eyes felt sore.
When the sun was setting, my third sister arrived as expected.
She changed into a gray jacket with a slanting collar and pinned a pale paper velvet flower in her hair, looking like a filial woman crawling out of a grave.
Just as Xu's mother's cane touched the threshold, the third sister fell to her knees in front of the bamboo plate where the herbs were drying, causing the angelica leaves to fall to the ground.
"Sister Yao, I have been blinded by greed!" The third sister wiped away her non-existent tears, and half of a brand new red hairband was revealed at her sleeve - it was the one that had been tied around her neck last night.
She crawled on her knees to reach Xu Yao's cloth shoes, but a piece of hemp rope was exposed from the cloth bag hidden behind her, and the knot was still stained with ashes from the incense burner in the land temple.
Father Xu's cough came from the inner room, mixed with the gurgling sound of the boiling medicine jar.
Xu Yao stared at the crooked patch on her third sister's lapel and suddenly discovered that the stitches were made of military canvas thread - exactly the same thread that Xue Han used to mend fishing nets.
She calmly piled the dried mugwort on the windowsill, where lay the fresh hibiscus that Xue Han had brought this morning, with dew still condensed in the stamens.
"Third sister, get up quickly."
Xu Yao gave her a firm hand and her fingertips touched the hard object in her sleeve pocket.
It was a new brass lock from the supply and marketing cooperative, the kind that could quietly tear people's clothes when pushed and shoved.
The scratches on the bluestone stele in the ancestral hall last night were also such half-moon-shaped marks.
The third sister took advantage of the situation and grabbed her wrist. The smell of tung oil between her nails made her temples jump. "Good sister, I will help you dry your bedding tomorrow to make amends?"
As she turned up her sleeves, Xu Yao caught a glimpse of the dark red cloth strip sewn on the inner pocket - it was exactly the color of the seal on the production team's warehouse.
As dusk deepened, the third sister finally left, looking back every few steps.
When she was about to leave the hospital, she "accidentally" kicked over the ceramic jar containing pickled cabbage. When she bent down to clean it up, her nails stained with marigold juice quietly scraped the windowsill.
Xu Yao pretended not to see her stuffing things into the hibiscus pot. She just crushed the mint leaves given by Xue Han and scattered them on the edge of the jar - when the sun shines tomorrow, the smell of tung oil on some people's hands will be visible.
The wind swept across the threshing floor, carrying a few pieces of burnt paper money and sticking them to the fence.
Xu Yao looked at her third sister's back as she disappeared into the twilight, and suddenly discovered that her lower back was bulging, as if she was holding a tin can of kerosene from the supply and marketing cooperative.
The cheerful barking of a puppy could be heard in the distance, and the Five Emperors' Coins on its collar were shining eerily in the setting sun.
As the moonlight climbed up the hibiscus pot, Xu Yao was smearing mint leaf juice in the gaps of the window frame.
The wild mint that Xue Han gave to her glowed silvery in the moonlight, and the juice that was squeezed by his fingertips was as sticky as the solidified night.
She deliberately left the window half open, and the night wind brought in the smell of the cheap lotion on her third sister's body.
Before dawn the next day, Xu Yao carried a bamboo basket and pretended to pick shepherd's purse.
As the morning mist spread over the ridges of the fields, I heard the muffled sound of a clay jar being moved coming from my own kitchen.
She turned back along the fence wall and through the gap in the slatted window, she saw her third sister opening the lid of the rice jar with her fingernails dyed with marigolds.
"What are you looking for, Third Sister?" Xu Yao suddenly pushed the door open, startling the Third Sister so much that she hit her elbow on the jar of pickled vegetables.
The pickled pepper water splashed onto the other person's newly changed blue cloth shirt, leaving a crooked skull shape.
The third sister hurriedly stuffed the oil-paper bag she was holding into her waistband, and when she turned around, she knocked over the soybeans in the bamboo sieve: "Hey, didn't Sister Yao go to pick wild vegetables?"
The mint juice on the soles of her shoes left sticky marks on the blue brick floor. "I'm looking for some brown sugar to mix with water for my aunt, and you, as a girl, are acting like a thief."
Xu Yao stared at the bulging oil paper bag around her waist and suddenly smelled the familiar scent of tung oil.
The oil stain that Xue Han found on the back wall of the land temple last night was now dripping down the third sister's trouser legs.
The hibiscus pot on the windowsill suddenly moved without wind, and the copper bell hidden in the pistil made a tiny sound - it was the warning bell that Xue Han tied in the reeds.
"The brown sugar jar is clearly in the attic of the east room."
Xu Yao deliberately raised her voice. She caught a glimpse of Xu's mother's cane reaching into the kitchen door. "Why did Third Sister insist on overturning the pickle jar in the west room?"
The third sister's face suddenly changed, and she suddenly grabbed the soybeans in the bamboo sieve and scattered them on the ground: "Xu's sister is so powerful!"
She cried out in a shrill voice, jumping and rolling towards the villagers who came rushing over after hearing the noise, "I just feel sorry for my aunt who is blind and miserable, but she has to be treated as a thief by the youngsters!"
Father Xu's coughs exploded in the inner room, and the lids of the medicine jars rattled due to the steam.
Xu's mother fumbled with her shaking hands to hold onto the door frame, and banged her cane on the ground: "His third sister, the ten kilograms of corn flour you borrowed on the eighth day of last month..."
"Stop slandering me, you old bastard!" The third sister suddenly jumped up and pointed her red-nailed hand directly at Xu's mother's nose.
The tung oil from her sleeve splashed onto the back of Xu Yao's hand, leaving a red mark as big as a needle tip.
Suddenly, there was a dull thud of something heavy falling to the ground outside the courtyard gate.
The third sister's cousin, Wang Ermaizi, rushed in carrying a spiked rake, the teeth of which were still stained with red paint from the production team's warehouse door: "The Xu family's daughter is bullying a widow!"
He deliberately smashed the rake onto the bluestone steps, and the sparks splashed onto the fishing net that Xue Han had brought to him in the morning.
Xu Yao was about to speak when she suddenly felt a gust of wind carrying the scent of pine needles coming from behind her.
Xue Han stood next to the bamboo plaque where herbs were dried without him knowing. The Five Emperors' Coins on his tactical belt happened to block the spiked rake that Wang Ermaizi was throwing down.
His military boots rolled over the soybeans on the ground, and the crushed bean shells made a crisp sound that made his teeth ache.
"Two panels are missing from the warehouse door." Xue Han lowered his eyes and wiped the harpoon, the cold light reflecting the instantly pale face of the third sister, "The newly planed sawdust is mixed with balsam petals."
The third sister’s crying suddenly stopped.
She stumbled backwards, her lower back hitting the hibiscus pot on the windowsill.
The copper bell hidden in the flowerpot suddenly rang, startling her so much that she tried to cover it in a panic. Half of a delivery note from the supply and marketing cooperative fell out of the oil paper bag with a "pop" - it was the tung oil approval slip that the production team had lost.
Wang Ermaizi's rake was still hanging in the air when Xue Han suddenly poked the harpoon into the blue brick ground.
Amid the crisp sound of the Five Emperors' Coins colliding, Xu Yao saw that his left hand behind his back made a special gesture - that was the secret code they agreed upon in the reed marsh last night, which stood for "the IOU is in the southeast corner."
"I heard that the deed to the Xu family's old house..." The third sister suddenly lowered her voice, and her fingers stained with tung oil hooked a strand of Xu Yao's hair, "It is in the iron box where the village secretary kept the IOU." Her nails scratched Xu Yao's earlobe, leaving a red mark with the smell of kerosene, "If you are willing to erase what happened today, I will make sure you see the real thing."
The evening breeze blew across the drying mugwort, dispersing the third sister's sinister laughter into the deepening dusk.
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