Ever since taking over the fields, property, and poultry, He Yi had discovered that it was difficult to do whatever he pleased whenever he pleased. Every day he had to set aside a good amount of time to tend the fields and feed the chickens. He could not be careless, and he could not slack off.
He still had to make a trip to Yaluo Mountain today. Before leaving, he went down to the fields early in the morning and finished all the assorted farmwork, then returned and asked Qianli to help watch the chicks at home in exchange for the hen’s eggs. Only after that did he change into his new coarse-cloth work clothes and set out.
He carried his carrying basket on his back. Inside were two dried mud carp and a jar of fish sauce for Hunter Xu, along with his fire striker and other useful outdoor tools. Sickle in hand, he made his way toward the mountainside.
He had arranged to meet the snow leopard at the cattle shed. They were not meeting at the foot of the mountain and traveling together from there because Yaluo Mountain was open to normal access again, and the snow leopard was far too conspicuous. It needed to stay out of sight.
After passing the hunter’s hut, He Yi followed the shortcut Hunter Xu had shown him and continued deeper into the mountain.
The snow leopard walked ahead. Its snow-white back, scattered with ink-dark markings, stood out dramatically against the lush green surroundings. Every so often it glanced back. Whenever He Yi fell too far behind, it would stop for a moment and wait until he caught up before moving on.
The snow leopard was an expert climber, and He Yi could not keep up at all. By the time he had barely cleared a place to put his foot, the snow leopard had already bounded onto some other rock and was looking down at him from above, swishing its huge fluffy tail.
He Yi could not tell whether the shortcut itself was simply safe or whether he had the snow leopard’s protection to thank. Either way, they barely even saw snakes or insects along the road and reached Hunter Xu’s home without incident.
This time, Hunter Xu’s sighthound did not bark. Instead, its fur stood on end as it crouched low on its forelegs, every inch of it on extreme alert.
The snow leopard was highly sensitive to hostility. It stopped advancing too and simply stood there staring at the sighthound.
The sighthound looked ready to throw itself forward and fight for its life. Afraid the two animals would clash, He Yi first soothed the one that seemed weaker. The sighthound appeared to recognize He Yi, but it still growled instinctively at the snow leopard in warning, its paws scraping the ground in agitation.
He Yi watched for a while. When the sighthound ultimately did not charge, he pushed open the fence gate and brought the snow leopard into the yard.
He had no intention of letting the snow leopard escort him this far only to leave. For one thing, he had long since come to think of it as a companion rather than a pet he could summon and dismiss at will. For another, having it nearby genuinely made He Yi feel much safer.
Remembering how the snow leopard and Hunter Xu had bristled against each other before, He Yi thought that if he had held back then because he was not yet familiar with either of them, now was the time to persuade the two to accept one another.
Hunter Xu had not gone out. When He Yi arrived, the door was open, and Hunter Xu was inside scraping back and forth over the leather side of a pelt with a dull knife. He Yi did not understand what he was doing, so he asked, “Sorry to disturb you. Older Cousin, what are you working on?”
Hunter Xu, whose real name was Xu Peng, glanced at He Yi standing in the doorway, then lowered his head and continued scraping the pelt to soften it. “Dressing the hides.”
One stage in preparing fur pelts came after they had been tanned, flattened, dried, and then allowed to regain some moisture. The leather side had to be scraped until it became soft and loose, which also helped expand the usable area of the pelt.
Xu Peng would not be free for a while and was about to tell He Yi to find somewhere to sit when a patch of black and white suddenly entered the corner of his vision. He turned, immediately dropped what he was doing, and backed against the wall with the dull knife still gripped in his hand.
He Yi crouched and wrapped an arm around the snow leopard’s neck. “It came with me. It won’t hurt anyone.” Then he turned to the snow leopard for confirmation. “Right?”
The snow leopard swished its fluffy tail, even brushing it across He Yi’s face. Then it jumped onto the daybed in the corner, lay down, and closed its eyes in bored repose, as though using the gesture to tell Xu Peng it had no interest in him.
He Yi smiled helplessly and looked toward Xu Peng.
Xu Peng kept one hand on the knife handle and stared at the snow leopard for quite a while. The tension visibly drained from his body before he finally returned to the pelt and resumed his work.
“Find somewhere to sit. It’ll take me a while to finish these two pelts. Once I’m done, I’ll stretch them up and hang them in the shade to dry, and they’ll be about ready,” Xu Peng said.
“All right. I brought you some dried fish and fish sauce. Where’s your kitchen? I’ll put them away for you.”
Xu Peng glanced at He Yi’s carrying basket and did not stand on ceremony. He pointed out the way, and He Yi headed over with the basket on his back.
The instant He Yi left, the snow leopard’s jewel-like eyes snapped open. Almost at the same moment, Xu Peng seemed to sense something and cast a sidelong glance toward the daybed in the corner. Man and leopard locked eyes across the room, and a faint smell of gunpowder seemed to gather in the air, ready to ignite at any moment.
Neither of them moved. He Yi soon returned after putting the things away, and the invisible standoff vanished the instant he stepped through the doorway.
The snow leopard gave a huge yawn, gave its soft, fleshy body a shake, licked one fuzzy paw, and settled back down for another light doze.
He Yi sat beside the daybed as well and watched how deftly Xu Peng handled the knife and how skillfully he worked the pelts.
By the time the pelts had been stretched onto wooden boards and taken away to dry in the shade, the sun was already past its highest point. Xu Peng asked He Yi what he wanted for lunch.
He Yi paused. “You usually eat lunch?”
Xu Peng truly was accustomed to eating three meals a day. Only on the rare days when he did absolutely no work would he skip lunch. Otherwise, whenever he had done any labor at all, he never omitted the midday meal.
“You eat bamboo shoots, right? I’ll go break off some in the grove. I happen to have one bamboo rat left from the ones I caught earlier. We’ll cook it for lunch.”
“The ones you caught that time you took a hoe to dig out the burrows? How many did you catch?”
“Two.”
“I’ll go with you.” He had come to return a favor, after all. It would hardly look right to do nothing but eat and drink for free. He Yi rubbed the snow leopard’s head and asked, “Are you coming?”
The snow leopard swung its huge tail against He Yi’s hand, then stretched and rose from the daybed. It appeared to intend to go with them.
“It can come too, right?” He Yi asked Xu Peng.
Xu Peng nodded once, picked up a basket and wooden bucket, and headed out the door.
He Yi and the snow leopard followed.
Only the forgotten sighthound remained behind. Tail drooping pitifully, it stayed in the yard and watched Xu Peng’s retreating back from afar, not daring to follow.
The bamboo grove was closer than He Yi had expected, and they reached it after only a short walk.
Water-bamboo shoots were easy to find and required no special searching. Thin pointed shoots emerged readily from the damp soil near the water.
Elio’s Notes: The “water bamboo” here is the true bamboo Phyllostachys heteroclada, a water-loving species native to China whose shoots are edible. It is not the aquatic vegetable also sometimes called “water bamboo.”
If enough of a shoot had emerged above the soil, they did not even need a hoe to dig it out. They could simply grasp the upper part, press it downward, and snap it off.
It took almost no effort. He Yi copied Xu Peng’s technique and broke off quite a few water-bamboo shoots himself.
Once they had gathered enough, they headed to a mountain spring. They planned to peel the shoots and wash them there, then fill the wooden bucket with water on the way back.
He Yi did not know how to peel water-bamboo shoots, so he waited to watch Xu Peng. Xu Peng tore open the tip of the sheath, gripped it at the top like peeling a banana, and ripped a strip downward. Then he turned the shoot upside down, caught the edge of the sheath, and twisted the shoot in reverse. With only a few motions, the entire sheath peeled away, exposing the beautiful tender shoot inside.
He Yi tried twice and soon got the hang of it. It truly did not take much strength, was unlikely to hurt his hands, and was surprisingly fun. Some peeled shoots were pale yellow and others vivid green, all fresh and moist-looking and remarkably pretty.
When the snow leopard saw what the shoots looked like inside, it came over and sniffed. He Yi handed it an unpeeled one to chew on for fun.
The snow leopard was not a bamboo-eating panda, after all, and had no idea how to peel a shoot before biting it. One huge bite cracked the tough sheath and crisp shoot together instantly.
“…” Watching this, He Yi felt a faint sense of déjà vu… Wait. Hadn’t Xue Ci done exactly the same thing the first time he ate grilled shrimp skewers, biting through the skewer and shrimp together?
But He Yi did not connect the two of them. He looked over the snow leopard’s mouth from both sides and, seeing no injury, snatched the food back from its jaws, peeled off the outer sheath, and handed it back for the snow leopard to eat.
Xu Peng crouched nearby and watched the intimate interaction between his younger cousin and a wild leopard, his expression indescribably complicated.
There were only two people eating, so they did not need to peel too many shoots. The remaining undamaged water-bamboo shoots could be taken back with their sheaths still on, which would let them keep for quite a while until needed.
Compared with Madman Tang’s kitchen, Xu Peng’s was heaven and earth apart. When He Yi had gone in earlier to hang the dried fish, he had nearly failed to find an empty spot. The ventilated area by the window, beneath the rafters, along the walls, and even under the eaves of the corridor outside were packed with all kinds of dried provisions. He Yi could only admire him. This older cousin truly knew how to run a household, and he did it with extraordinary care.
When it was time to cook, Xu Peng refused to let He Yi into the kitchen. He unceremoniously drove him elsewhere and stated outright that he disliked being disturbed while cooking. Having someone beside him would interfere with his performance.
He Yi understood, so he and the snow leopard went to tease the sighthound instead.
When the dish finally reached the table and He Yi smelled the rich meat aroma that instantly stirred his appetite, he understood just how skilled Xu Peng was in the kitchen. If He Yi had actually gone in to help, he might not have gotten a meal this good.
Xu Peng usually cooked only one dish at noon, and the addition of one more pair of chopsticks changed nothing. There was meat and there were vegetables. For villagers, that already counted as excellent hospitality.
Bamboo-rat meat was exceptionally tender. The chopped pieces alternated between fat and lean, and the way the skin and meat sprang beneath the chopsticks made it obvious the cooking time had been carefully judged. A little longer and it would lose some firmness; a little shorter and it would not be as tender.
Once the gamey odor had been removed, all that remained in the bamboo rat was rich savoriness. According to Xu Peng, he had seasoned it with the fish sauce He Yi brought, ginger, star anise, and cinnamon to deepen the aroma and flavor.
The water-bamboo shoots, cut into sections and stir-fried together with the meat, added a gentle sweetness and cut through the richness. Compared with the bamboo-rat meat, they offered an entirely different kind of freshness.
He Yi had always thought people exaggerated when they said something smelled so good they could swallow their own tongues. But once he tasted this, for the first time he felt the saying was not an exaggeration at all. The bamboo rat was genuinely delicious. He could not bear to eat it too quickly. With every piece of meat, he took a large mouthful of rice and chewed slowly, trying to stretch out the enjoyment for as long as possible.
While they ate, the snow leopard sat nearby watching them with predatory intensity. Several times it even pawed at He Yi’s hand, trying to get a share. But He Yi worried that the food might make it shed fur or cause some other problem, especially since the dish contained fish sauce and spices. So he remained unmoved and did not give it a single piece.
After eating his fill, He Yi intended to see whether his older cousin had anything else he needed help with. If not, He Yi would head back down the mountain.
As it happened, Xu Peng did not need help. He planned to go to the two peaks farther back and hunt a wild goat on his own. The instant He Yi and the snow leopard heard that, both their eyes lit up.