He Yi was just about to set Xue Ci down when Xue Ci refused to slide off. Instead, he hooked both legs around He Yi’s waist, bent backward, and with astonishing agility shifted himself onto He Yi’s back, looking utterly delighted.
He Yi had still been happy a moment ago, but Xue Ci’s maneuver nearly scared the life out of him. Fortunately, he had trained before and reacted quickly enough to steady his center of gravity, so neither of them fell.
“…Get down. You’re heavy.” Xue Ci was nearly of age to receive his crown, so of course he had some weight to him. It was not that He Yi truly could not carry him. He was only trying to embarrass him a little.
Xue Ci simply wrapped his arms around He Yi’s shoulders, leaned close to his ear, and challenged him, “Try making me get down.”
He Yi turned his head as though he were going to look at him while secretly reaching back to grab Xue Ci’s legs and lower him. Xue Ci was far too quick, however. He sensed the movement immediately, dodged and shifted, and this time swung directly around to He Yi’s front, still clinging to him with his legs hooked around his waist.
Xue Ci was still laughing, but He Yi could no longer laugh. Right in front of his eyes was the crossed collar over Xue Ci’s chest. Beneath his nose lingered Xue Ci’s cool, clean scent. Against his skin was the steady warmth of Xue Ci’s body…
They were far too close face-to-face. If He Yi had any sort of reaction, Xue Ci would inevitably feel it. He could only do his utmost to shut out his senses, give Xue Ci a light smack on the backside, and sigh. “You win. I surrender. Hurry up and get down.”
Xue Ci had not expected him to surrender so readily. He looked a little pleased and a little unsatisfied, but obediently hopped off him anyway.
Unbelievable. This brat is treating me like a cat tree. He Yi rubbed at the tips of his burning ears, turned away, went into the woodshed for his sickle, and prepared to head to the fields.
While working, He Yi heard an uncle and auntie nearby mention that people had recently been going up the mountain to gather river clams. They had collected quite a lot, and the clams were particularly plump and tasty at this time of year.
Hearing that, He Yi decided he might go up the mountain later and see whether he could add another dish to their meal.
Around ten in the morning, He Yi brought Xue Ci along. The two of them walked to the stream halfway up Yaluo Mountain, took off their shoes, and waded into the water.
They could hear children laughing somewhere not far away, along with adults talking. Someone had probably brought children up to gather river clams too.
The rain over the previous two days seemed to have washed every cloud from the sky. Now it was cloudless and brilliantly blue. The stream reflected the clear heavens and was transparent all the way to the bottom. From time to time, little fish darted past with flicking tails, their scales flashing white in the light.
Xue Ci stirred his porcelain-white feet through the mud and sand, clouding the water. Even so, they could faintly see rounded triangular shells piled along the streambed, some brownish yellow and some yellow-brown. The texture intrigued him. He bent down and scooped up a handful. Muddy water and sand streamed through his fingers, leaving several little river clams in his palm.
“There really are a lot. Let me fill the bucket with some water, then you can toss them in.” He Yi also scraped aside the streambed mud with his feet and reached down to feel around. Every handful brought up a heap. Before long, the bucket held a large pile of tiny river clams submerged in water.
“How are we going to cook these?” Xue Ci, unusually, asked how the ingredient would be prepared.
“Stir-fry them. Do you know what stir-frying is? You put a little oil in the wok, add the ingredients, heat them, and keep turning everything with the spatula.” He Yi demonstrated with his hands as he explained.
“Do you add honey?”
Xue Ci was probably craving honey. He Yi had never heard of that particular combination and found the idea a little terrifying. Maybe next time he could make something that actually used honey, like honey-glazed wings… The only problem was that they had no chicken.
He Yi’s gaze shifted toward Xue Ci. On second thought, perhaps that was not much of a problem after all.
Dinner ended up rather late that day because He Yi did not know that river clams needed quite a long time to purge their sand. He had only heard that sticking a kitchen knife into the soaking water could encourage them to spit it out. The method he knew was soaking them in salt water. Perhaps salt was too expensive for the villagers to waste that way. River clams were not very filling to begin with. People gathered them mostly for a change of taste and an extra dish that cost nothing, so spending salt on them would hardly be worthwhile.
For He Yi, that was not much of a concern. They could save the salt while soaking them, but he still intended to add some during cooking. Otherwise he was afraid the whole dish would come out bland after all that effort.
He Yi changed the clams’ water twice and soaked them until night was approaching before he finally dared cook them. He borrowed some perilla from Qianli and got ginger and scallions from Auntie Liu. He minced them and tossed them into hot oil to release their fragrance, then added the river clams and perilla and stir-fried until all the shells opened before seasoning the dish.
He used salt for seasoning, but Auntie Liu, who had taught him, had not given him an exact amount because she had always seasoned by feel. He Yi therefore had no choice but to improvise. In the end, he let the clams simmer briefly in the liquid they released, then took the dish off the heat.
The river clams they had gathered were unlike the ones he had bought at markets in his previous life only in that they were even fresher. After cooking, there were hardly any shells that remained closed. He had done very little to remove any fishy smell, yet there was no unpleasant odor at all. There was not much meat in each shell, but they had cooked so many that slowly picking them clean still let them eat quite a lot of rice.
Xue Ci did not much like the faintly spicy flavor of perilla. After tasting one leaf, his little face scrunched up. After that, he quietly picked the perilla aside and did not touch another leaf.
He Yi noticed and asked whether he wanted to rinse the clam meat before eating it to wash away some of the flavor, but Xue Ci shook his head.
“Next time I’ll stir-fry them with some xiebai bulbs or something instead. I won’t add perilla.” He had assumed Xue Ci was not especially picky about food, so now that he had finally found something the other man disliked, he made a mental note of it.
“Okay.” The perilla flavor clinging to the clam meat was nowhere near enough to stop Xue Ci from enjoying the clams themselves. Soon all the shells were empty.
“I’ll wash the dishes!” Xue Ci licked his lips after eating, brought over a wooden basin, gathered the bowls, chopsticks, and plates into it, and claimed the cleanup for himself.
“Thanks for the hard work.” He Yi smiled.
*
The days continued moving steadily forward. Life seemed somewhat repetitive, but He Yi did not dislike it. If things could remain this way, it meant they were safe and settled, and stability was precious. It was a luxury.
Xue Ci drank yao dew again. That same afternoon, entirely by himself, he finished several interior walls that had originally been expected to take another two or three days. Only the central section and the southwestern outer wall remained.
The speed was astonishing. Layers of earth that normally took more than ten strikes to ram solid needed only three to five blows in Xue Ci’s hands.
Even after working the entire afternoon, Xue Ci showed no sign of fatigue. He Yi could no longer avoid believing that the yao dew truly possessed remarkable power.
With the house progressing by leaps and bounds, He Yi estimated that all the walls might be completed within seven days if they continued at this rate. Naturally, he was delighted. But before seven days had passed, that sense of stability was abruptly shattered and his mood plunged. Nothing had gone wrong with the house. Instead, his cotton field had been invaded by cotton aphids.
The weather had alternated between sun and clouds over the past few days. When the rainstorm had come, he had worried that the cotton seedlings might be waterlogged, so he had specifically cleared the drainage ditches and removed standing water. In the glutinous-rice and indica-rice fields, he had drained excess water and skimmed away floating debris and filth.
Instead, what came was an insect infestation.
And all the work he had previously done to prevent pests had turned out to be useless.
His cotton plants had already begun forming flower buds, but now nearly half of them were densely covered in cotton aphids. To stop the infestation from spreading, he would need to pull up every affected plant and either bury it deeply or burn it. Yet there were far too many infested plants. If he truly destroyed them all, his losses would be severe…
But he could not simply leave them alone either. The damaged area would spread until every plant was infested. Even if bolls eventually formed, the cotton yield would probably be pitifully low.
The weather had also been growing hotter. According to experienced cotton farmers, these conditions were exactly when the summer aphids among the cotton aphid population became most rampant.
He was not the only one affected. Several other households had pest problems too, though the situations differed.
“Those few mu of dry fields over at so-and-so’s place already suffered badly earlier. Quite a lot of vegetables were planted there, and they were chewed to pieces.”
“Ai, our family didn’t plant cotton, but the vegetables on one mu got aphids too, and red spider mites besides. It’s enough to make you sick with worry!”
“There’s really nothing much to do about it. It happens every year. If you’re lucky, they thin out after a few days. If you’re unlucky…”
“Then I suppose our luck hasn’t been too bad. We haven’t had many bugs these past two years. Our problem is that the plants lodge badly.”
Every family had its own worries. After seeing with his own eyes the dense mass of insects crawling over his cotton plants, He Yi thought for a long time, only to realize he truly could not come up with a good solution.
He crouched silently on the field ridge for who knew how long.
By the time his legs had gone numb, he had probably missed the hour when he normally returned home to make breakfast, because Xue Ci came looking for him. Xue Ci crouched down too, lightly pressed against He Yi’s right side, and tilted his head to look at him.
“You’re unhappy.” Xue Ci studied He Yi’s face for a moment and spoke with certainty.
He Yi blinked woodenly, lacking even the energy to answer. He only glanced faintly at Xue Ci before turning his gaze back toward the cotton field.
Xue Ci rarely received such a cold response from him. Puzzled, he tilted his head, then edged even closer, nearly nudging He Yi sideways. “Why won’t you talk to me?”
Feeling the pressure of Xue Ci leaning toward him, He Yi simply relaxed his body and let his weight fall against him.
“I don’t feel like talking,” he said.
He Yi taking the initiative to lean against him eased much of Xue Ci’s agitation. Xue Ci did not move away. Instead, he braced himself properly and let He Yi rest against him.
The warmth and strength coming from Xue Ci made He Yi feel deeply reassured. His low mood gradually loosened. The cotton field in front of him no longer seemed gray and bleak. Instead, its green leaves appeared edged in brilliant gold beneath the sunlight.
Once He Yi finally explained what was happening in the cotton field, Xue Ci thought for a moment and suggested, “If the bugs are afraid of low temperatures, could I freeze them to death with cold air?”
He Yi considered it. “But cotton is afraid of low temperatures too. I’m afraid the plants would freeze along with them…”
“That won’t work either…” Xue Ci drooped as well. He Yi could almost see his round beast ears sagging, and could not resist placing a hand on his head and giving it a light pat.
Xue Ci was only disappointed for a few breaths before suddenly lifting his eyes. “Then I’ll go catch some birds!”
The subject had jumped so quickly that He Yi could only ask, “What would you catch birds for?”
“Don’t birds eat bugs?”
“…They do. But some birds eat crops, and some eat beneficial insects too. They might not necessarily eat aphids.” Xue Ci’s idea was somewhat simple and forceful, but it was undeniably a new direction: biological pest control. That was right. Perhaps he could ask the other villagers who grew cotton and find out what natural enemies cotton aphids had.
“So that doesn’t work either?”
“It might!”
“Really?!” Xue Ci’s eyes brightened with delighted pride.
He Yi turned toward him, about to praise him for being clever, when a huge fluffy tail suddenly smacked him across the face.