The dampness of the plum rain season hadn't completely subsided when the June 18th sun impatiently climbed onto the clothesline. Blue cloth shirts hanging on bamboo poles emitted a warm, cozy scent. Uncle Li squatted in the courtyard, wiping the bamboo strips of his rattan chest, his fingertips rubbing against the cracked lines with a soft, rustling sound. This was the seventh time he'd opened the camphor wood chest that had been part of his dowry; the aroma of camphor mixed with the pungent smell of mothballs wafted out, startling the sparrows pecking at rice on the windowsill.
"Ayu, do you think this polyester dress is still wearable?" Aunt Zhang stood in the corridor, holding up a light red dress; the lace trim at the neckline had already yellowed. The wooden stairs behind her creaked as Wang Xiaodi dragged his half-person-high canvas bag down the stairs, the strap scraping against the concrete steps. From the third floor came the sound of rummaging through drawers, as if someone had turned the entire wardrobe upside down.
Ayu emerged from the kitchen clutching a crumpled itinerary, the preserved tangerine peel and plums in the glass jar rolled halfway around. Sweat beaded on her forehead, her bangs clung to her skin by the moisture, and she drew a crooked circle in the "Commonly Used Medicines" section with the stub of her pencil: "Aunt Zhang, that dress of yours would look great with those beige sandals! Little Wang, don't pack the soccer ball in your suitcase; go play it on the paddy field ridges when we get to town!"
The door to the west wing slammed against the wall with a bang. Chen Mo stepped out with his hands behind his back, his heel accidentally running over a bamboo winnowing basket on the threshold, scattering dried longans all over the floor. He stared down at the mud spots on his shoes, his Adam's apple bobbing, until Ayu bent down to pick up the longans, at which point he suddenly spoke: "My mom said... I should take this with me."
He had a blue cloth bundle hidden behind him, with half a faded red silk peeking out from the corner. When Ayu took the bundle, her fingertips touched the hard, angular edges. Unfolding the blue cloth, she discovered it was a brass medicine box with a lotus scroll pattern engraved on the lid. Inside, neatly arranged, were brown medicinal cakes—Chen Mo's mother's most treasured Angong Niuhuang Wan. Last winter, as the old lady lay dying, she clutched the medicine box and murmured, "Leave this for those who need it urgently."
“Take it with you,” Ayu gently placed the medicine box back into the bundle. “The town is damp; it’s just in case someone gets a headache or fever.” What she didn’t say was that Chen Mo had knocked on the empty east wing for the third time this morning; it was the room his mother had lived in. At that moment, sunlight shone through the window lattice, casting the shadow of the jacaranda tree on the windowsill onto the dressing table, which was covered in a thin layer of dust.
The sound of a plastic basin clattering to the ground came from the corner of the stairs. Lin Xiaotang rushed down carrying a pile of colorful scarves, her hair still sticky with uncombed curling irons: "Ayu, which one do you think I should wear? This lemon yellow one goes with a straw hat, and this one with daisies on it..." Her canvas bag was open, and sunscreen and sunglasses fell out, rolling to Uncle Li's feet as he was polishing his shoes.
Uncle Li picked up his sunglasses and looked at them in the sunlight. The lenses still bore a "Made in Shanghai" label. "Girl, why are you wearing sunglasses to see the stars in town?" He stuffed the sunglasses into Lin Xiaotang's bag, casually rubbing the shoe polish brush on his apron. The old man's fingernails were stained with years of ink—he had been a primary school Chinese teacher in town, and after retiring, he loved to write "Picking chrysanthemums by the eastern fence" on rice paper with pine soot ink.
The sound of a kettle boiling came from the kitchen. Little Wang tiptoed to reach for an aluminum lunchbox in the wall cabinet, his stainless steel spoon clattering to the floor. When Ayu rushed into the kitchen, he was stuffing braised beef into the lunchbox, oil dripping from his fingers onto his blue apron: "My mom said she was going to give everyone something to eat on the road, so she braised three pounds of beef shank yesterday!"
The lid of the aluminum lunchbox wouldn't close. Ayu squatted down to help him press the beef down, and suddenly noticed a yellowed candy wrapper at the bottom of the lunchbox—it was a candy wrapper that Wang Xiaodi had been saving for half a year, the edges of which were worn rough. Last winter, he was hospitalized with a fever, and the nurse gave him a candy, and ever since then he had carefully tucked the wrapper into his textbooks.
“Take it with you,” Ayu smoothed out the candy wrapper. “You can smell the sweetness if you get a craving on the way.” She looked up and saw that Wang Xiaodi’s ears were red. Just as she was about to say something, the rustling of poplar leaves drifted in from outside the window. Chen Mo stood in the yard, holding a ball of hemp rope in his hand, reinforcing the corners of the wicker basket. The sunlight stretched his shadow long, casting it on the wildly growing mint clump at the base of the wall.
Aunt Zhang came out of the house carrying neatly folded clothes. Her blue cotton shirt slipped down from her arms, revealing an oil-paper package wrapped inside. When Ayu took the package, she smelled a faint fragrance of osmanthus—it was osmanthus cake made by Aunt Zhang herself, using osmanthus flowers that had been stored in a glass jar last autumn. Tiny drops of oil seeped from the edges of the oil-paper package, leaving small damp stains on the bluestone slab.
“It needs to be packed in a tin box,” Uncle Li said, having produced a tin box with a peony pattern. “Paper wrapping is too fragile.” He carefully placed the osmanthus cake into the tin box and stuffed a clean wad of cotton into the gaps. The old man’s knuckles were a little deformed, and his fingers trembled slightly as he pinched the cotton. Ayu noticed that the cuffs of his sleeves were frayed, revealing a faded polyester shirt underneath.
Lin Xiaotang rushed out of the corridor holding her phone, a photo of the guesthouse flashing on the screen: "Look! The landlord said there's a grape trellis in the yard, and we can have tea down there tonight!" Her canvas bag was finally zipped up, but half a copy of "Mountain Dwelling Years" was sticking out of the side pocket, with a dried maple leaf tucked between the pages—she had picked it up in Qixia Mountain last autumn, saying she wanted to keep it as a bookmark.
Chen Mo suddenly squatted down and pulled a brown paper envelope from the bottom of the wicker trunk. The edges of the envelope were worn and frayed, and a yellowed photograph fell out: a young woman holding a baby standing under an old locust tree, the baby clutching a freshly picked locust blossom. Ayu recognized it as a photo of Chen Mo's mother from twenty years ago; the old locust tree in the background had been blown down by a typhoon last year, and now only a stump covered in moss remained.
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