When He Yi led the beast up to Xu Peng, Xu Peng was astonished that they had actually caught a sambar, while He Yi was surprised to learn that this animal was called a sambar.
Sambars were uncommon on Yaluo Mountain. Xu Peng had spent so long in the mountains, yet he had only spotted sambars twice and had never managed to get within a few dozen yards of them. Each time, the sambar bolted at astonishing speed the moment he drew his bow. They were extremely alert and had never stepped into a single one of his traps.
“…” Xu Peng very much wanted to ask how exactly they had caught it, but after glancing at the snow leopard baring its teeth at his sighthound, he felt there was probably no need.
He Yi asked, “Older Cousin, do you think anyone will buy this sambar? Where would be the best place to sell it?”
Coming back to himself, Xu Peng thought for a moment before saying, “It isn’t the closed season for wild deer right now, and this one is male, so of course it can be sold. But there probably aren’t many people in town who can afford to buy it. I’ll have to ask around.”
Xu Peng then started telling him which households dealt in what, what kinds of goods or wild game they bought, and roughly what prices they would offer. He Yi’s head was spinning almost at once.
“How about you make the trip for me, Older Cousin? I can barely remember all this just from hearing it, and I’m worried I’ll get there and either fail to find the right people or have them refuse to trust me.” He Yi only suggested that Xu Peng go on his behalf rather than going along himself because these were Xu Peng’s connections. If He Yi tagged along, it would amount to using his cousin to work his way into Xu Peng’s network, which felt somewhat out of bounds. He was not actually planning to become a hunter anyway. Even if Xu Peng would not mind, considering he had already told He Yi so much, He Yi still thought it better not to casually horn in on another man’s livelihood. This sort of thing was best left to the professional.
Xu Peng nodded faintly. “If you trust me, I’ll take it down and sell it for you. I happen to have quite a lot of dried goods that need selling too. I caught two snakes yesterday.”
Besides, the sambar was still alive. There was some blood on its leg, but it could still walk, and a live animal would certainly fetch considerably more than a dead one.
“I’d say it should sell for about three taels of silver. If we’re lucky, I might even be able to bargain it a little higher.”
“Then I’ll leave it to you, Older Cousin. Can these Chinese francolins be sold too?” He Yi held a thin cord whose far end bound several francolins together by the ankles.
“These won’t sell very well. There isn’t much meat on them, and you didn’t catch many.”
The moment Xue Ci heard “francolins,” he abandoned the trembling sighthound and padded back over to them. He pawed at He Yi’s waist, leaned close to the dangling birds for a sniff, then licked one of his canine teeth.
Seeing how greedy he looked, He Yi could not help laughing. At dinner, he roasted all three francolins for Xue Ci.
As for the remaining two golden pheasants, He Yi had intended to give them to Xu Peng as payment for the trouble and to repay a little of what he owed him, but Xu Peng refused and took only the two wild rabbits instead. He said there was no time to deal with them tonight because he had spent the whole afternoon preparing another dish, which they would eat for dinner; the rabbits could be kept alive for now.
Only when He Yi sat down at the table did he discover what Xu Peng had spent the entire afternoon making. It was steamed pork belly with preserved mustard greens!
The first thing that caught his eye was the deeply browned, fragrant, blistered skin atop the pork belly, followed by the glossy, translucent layers of fat beneath it. He Yi normally did not care much for fatty meat, but on the principle of not wasting food, he did not pick it out and ate it together with the rest.
To his surprise, the fat truly was rich without being greasy. The phrase sounded ordinary enough, but before this He Yi had never eaten fatty pork that genuinely had no cloying greasiness at all. It wobbled springily between the chopsticks, yet had actually been steamed until meltingly tender and intensely fragrant, giving it a soft, luscious texture in the mouth.
That softness mixed with the firm, fine-grained chew of the lean meat, together with the crispness of the blistered skin and the light bite of the dried preserved mustard greens. The layers of texture were rich, the flavor savory with a faint sweetness, and the glossy sauce was full of flavor. It was practically the perfect thing to eat with rice.
He Yi ate with great enthusiasm, and a satisfied look appeared on Xu Peng’s face, a trace of pleasure showing around his eyes and brows.
Xue Ci, who had been gnawing on roasted francolin nearby, was drawn over by the aroma as well. He planted his enormous face on the edge of the table, squashing up the soft flesh beneath his jaw as he stared fixedly at the plate of pork belly, his huge tail sticking straight up.
He Yi glanced at the big furry paw creeping ever closer to the edge of the plate and said, “This is a little salty for you. Aren’t you afraid all your fur will fall out if you eat it?”
“…” Xue Ci’s paw, poised to steal a bite, stopped dead. He turned and gave He Yi a sidelong look, then reluctantly withdrew it. Dragging his long tail dejectedly along the floor, he padded back to gnaw on his roasted francolin.
Unexpectedly, Xu Peng spoke up. “I soaked the dried preserved mustard greens for a long time and rinsed them through several changes of water, so they aren’t very salty… But the meat was marinated for quite a while, so it is still on the salty side.” He had meant to convince He Yi that the dish was not actually that salty, but halfway through he realized he could not even convince himself. He therefore withdrew his gaze from Xue Ci and silently went back to eating his own food.
The mention of dried preserved mustard greens inevitably made He Yi think of A’ma. Back then, A’ma had barely managed to wrest a little from Eldest Aunt for him, and that tiny amount had been his only source of salt among the food he took up the mountain.
Those days had truly been difficult… Now he was eating such an elaborate meat dish, yet A’ma would never have the chance to taste it.
He Yi became even quieter than Xu Peng as he picked up food and ate. He did not even notice Xue Ci pressing close after finishing his own meal until his shoulder suddenly grew heavy and a certain enormous furry head settled on it, finally pulling him out of his melancholy thoughts.
He Yi let Xue Ci rest half his body weight against him and sped up slightly to finish the rest of his meal. Then he picked up his cup, rinsed his mouth thoroughly with water, and spat it into a basin set on the floor.
That was how things were done in Xu Peng’s household. When in another man’s home, one followed the host’s customs, so He Yi did the same.
*
The next day.
Xu Peng was going out as well. He said he planned to head to Peak D to see whether he could collect any mituan-flower honey. Curious, He Yi immediately asked whether it was valuable.
Elio’s Notes: Mituan flower (米团花, Leucosceptrum canum) grows in southwestern China. Its nectar is used to produce a distinctive dark regional honey.
Xu Peng glanced at him. “Of course it is. Two jin can sell for nearly one tael of silver. But these wild bees are troublesome. There’s no guarantee I’ll be able to get the honey.”
Crouched beside He Yi’s leg, Xue Ci shrank his head the instant he heard the words “wild bees.” Then he hurriedly washed his face with a paw and licked his fur, pretending nothing had happened.
He Yi’s gaze shifted toward Xue Ci, who was suddenly deeply absorbed in grooming himself. After thinking for a moment, He Yi crouched down, rubbed the fur on his head, and leaned close to whisper in his ear, “Could you lure some of the bees away, Xue Ci, then hide in the water the way you did last time? Older Cousin and I could use the chance to take the honey.”
Xue Ci’s gaze wandered, but his eyes soon darted around as though he had thought of a good idea. With a snort, he nodded with fierce confidence and agreed.
He Yi told Xu Peng the plan, but Xu Peng flatly said there was no need. Bees did not tend to chase people very far, so it would be difficult to lure them away. Burning mugwort to smoke the hive was enough to collect the honey, but they still had to wrap themselves completely from head to toe. When they shook the bees off, there were usually a few “escapee bees” that had not been fully dazed, and some especially hardy “strong bees” that were difficult to stun and extremely aggressive. That was where the real difficulty lay.
Unfortunately, Xu Peng had only one straw rain cape and one veiled hat, and even those did not fully enclose him. He still had to bind thick hemp cloth over any exposed skin and wrap pieces of pottery or other hard material over it to block the bees’ venomous stingers.
There was no way to put together another full set for He Yi on such short notice, so He Yi could only watch from a distance rather than approach the hive. Collecting the honey would have to be left to Xu Peng.
Xu Peng had also specially boiled a batch of soap-pod water, poured it into a bamboo tube, and sealed it with a wooden stopper.
“What’s this for? Is it meant to be applied to a bee sting?”
Xu Peng could not tell whether his younger cousin understood these things or not. If He Yi did not understand, he somehow still managed to state the answer himself; if he did understand, he insisted on asking Xu Peng anyway. Xu Peng looked faintly as though he wanted to say something but thought better of it, merely nodded, then walked outside first.
He Yi and Xue Ci followed after him.
On the way.
“Have there been any tigers around lately?” He Yi asked, cutting through the grass with a sickle as he looked around.
“I’ve seen paw prints, but there’s been no dung in the usual places. It’s quite possible it hasn’t found much food lately, so it’s still dangerous. We need to get in and out quickly.”
“Got it.”
“Hmph.” The snow leopard stopped in place and stared toward a certain direction, snorting through his nose. Only after quite a while did he catch up with them. It was impossible to tell whether he was displeased with the tiger or had some objection to their conversation.
Xu Peng did not idle along the way. He not only climbed over mountains and rocks, but also scrambled up and down trees, gathering plenty of tender shoots, leaves, and wild greens: bur clover, water-buffalo grass, ferns curled like fists and exhaust fans, and the Chinese toon shoots they were picking now, among other things.
He Yi had not known Xu Peng understood so many plants. He watched from beneath the tree while trying hard to commit everything to memory.
“What’s this one? Is it simply called a Chinese toon tree?” He Yi asked, tilting his head back.
“Mm. What we’re picking now are its shoots.”
The Chinese toon was a large, fairly tall tree. Clusters of vermilion-red new shoots grew sparsely along its trunk. Xu Peng snapped and gathered them handful by handful until he had accumulated a sizable bundle, then tossed them backward into the carrying basket.
At some point Xue Ci had climbed into the tree too. He sniffed the fragrance from the toon shoots without much interest, but when he saw He Yi staring upward, he used his tail to pluck a cluster and made as though to throw it down. He Yi picked up the carrying basket and let Xue Ci toss the shoots inside.
When He Yi saw how accurate Xue Ci’s throws were, he secretly stepped back a few paces. Unexpectedly, Xue Ci still landed every toss perfectly without even looking back. So He Yi retreated again, Xue Ci threw again, and just like that one man and one leopard started playing.
Xu Peng had just finished picking from the top and was about to climb down when he saw the two of them happily playing their game of tossing toon shoots into the basket.
Only after they had picked about enough, perhaps even far too much, did they finally stop and continue toward Peak D.
Along the way, He Yi happened to look up and caught sight of a flash of orange-red in a tree. His first reaction was to assume it was another Chinese toon.
But just as he was about to tell the others there was another toon tree here, something suddenly felt wrong. He backed up several steps to the tree they had just passed and examined it carefully.
To his surprise, the tree was not a Chinese toon at all, and the orange-red patch among the branches above had vanished.
Noticing that He Yi had fallen behind, Xu Peng raised his voice and called, “What is it?”
He Yi looked up again for a while but could not make anything out, so he caught up with them and replied, “Nothing. I saw something red in the tree just now and thought it might be toon shoots or something, but now I can’t see it anymore. Maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me.”
Xu Peng thought for a moment. Just as he seemed to realize something, Xue Ci let out a roar at a certain tree, drawing both He Yi’s and Xu Peng’s attention toward it.
Following Xue Ci’s gaze, they unexpectedly spotted a red-eyed fox in a tree. Its entire body was reddish brown, while its lower jaw and belly were white. All the short fur on its body stood on end as it huddled against the trunk, cautiously reaching downward with one hind paw.
“Is that really a red fox?” Xu Peng’s astonishment was impossible to suppress and showed plainly on his face.
“Can red foxes climb trees?” He Yi was puzzled. It was true that this was his first time seeing one in person, but he had watched plenty of animal videos before and did not remember hearing much about red foxes climbing trees.
“…” Xu Peng glanced at the snow leopard below, staring fixedly at the red fox without looking away, and more or less understood why it had climbed up there.