Chapter 43

Upon being questioned closely, the group learned that although Taishi Huan remembered seeing ramie, it had been several months. He only knew the general direction and couldn’t pinpoint the exact location. The one certainty was that it wasn’t too far from their adobe houses; he had found the adobe houses the day after seeing the ramie.

The group discussed it and agreed that finding it was uncertain. Sending everyone to look for ramie would be a huge waste of manpower.

They now had three donkeys, which served as light and swift mounts, greatly reducing travel time.

A donkey could at most carry one person at a run. The group decided that Li Cunxin, Taishi Huan, and Wen Mi would go first to scout the situation.

The night before, after dinner, Yunxiu had cleaned the pot and dried it with the stove’s heat. She lowered the fire, poured a large bowl of flour into the pot, and dry-fried it with brown sugar until the flour changed color. She scooped it out into a bowl.

The group thought she was making a late-night snack and craned their necks toward the kitchen to look. When Yunxiu came out carrying the bowl, they gathered around curiously.

Li Cunxin recognized it at a glance and smiled. “Aha, fried flour.”

Yunxiu placed the bowl on the table in the yard and wiped her hands. She glanced at Di Wanling. “I mentioned something to Wanling earlier about your trip west to the mine, and we started talking about field rations. We thought of fried flour and fried rice. This stuff fills you up, is easy to carry, keeps well, and you can eat it directly.”

Li Cunxin grabbed a pinch to taste. Following her lead, everyone else did the same, trying a little in their mouths.

Compared to raw flour’s hard, astringent texture, this was softer. Being powdery, it didn’t need chewing. You pressed it against the roof of your mouth with your tongue to savor the taste. It had a toasted aroma and, because sugar was added, a hint of sweetness.

Yu Muyang, gluttonous as ever, swallowed a huge mouthful and promptly coughed it back out. Eating too much made it hard to swallow dry; you had to wait for saliva to mix with it before swallowing.

Xia Qing said, “That’s not how you eat it. Just a little at a time.”

Yu Muyang coughed. “Have you eaten this stuff before? The texture is weird.”

Xia Qing smiled. “Yeah, I have. It was a snack when I was little.”

Xu Yin pinched a bit of fried flour between his fingers and put it in his mouth, letting his tongue savor it carefully. After a while, he said, “Back when supplies were scarce, soldiers on the march used this as rations. This is excellent stuff.”

“Right?” Yunxiu said happily. “Next time you have to travel far, I’ll fry up two bags of flour and rice for you to take.”

When Yan Baiyu tried the fried flour, she also choked a little. She turned her head, covering her mouth and suppressing a light cough.

Li Cunxin thought Yan Baiyu wasn’t interested in this stuff. Plus, so many people were crowded around that bowl of fried flour. Yan Baiyu wasn’t like Yu Muyang, who eagerly tried everything he saw. She usually didn’t like shoving through crowds to grab things. So when Li Cunxin turned her head and saw she had also taken a little to taste at some point, she found it a bit amusing.

Li Cunxin gently patted Yan Baiyu’s back to help her catch her breath and went back into the main hall to pour her a cup of water.

Yunxiu whisked the bowl away from the crowd of hands constantly reaching out to grab more fried flour. “This is for their dry rations. Don’t you finish it all now.”

The next day, Yunxiu again rose early and baked six flatbreads for the three of them to take on the road.

Li Cunxin and her two companions each had two long bamboo tubes hanging from their waists—one for water, one for fried flour. Li Cunxin and Wen Mi each carried a sickle.

Riding their donkeys, munching on flatbread, they headed south in search of ramie.

The Gamma tagged along beside Li Cunxin. Li Cunxin tore a flatbread in half and tossed it down. The wolf leaped forward and caught it in its mouth.

Wen Mi said, full of wonder, “This wolf is becoming more and more like a dog.” So tame and obedient.

Taishi Huan, riding ahead, heard this. His hands and feet began to ache at the memory. He muttered, “It’s much fiercer than a dog…”

After finishing their flatbread, the three nudged the donkeys into a jog. Miao Bing had woven three simple horse saddles from wheat straw. They were usable but not very sturdy. So the three didn’t dare go too fast. Still, even so, this was two or three times faster than walking.

By noon, as they continued their journey, Taishi Huan stopped, hesitating. He was familiar with the nearby paths he frequented. But once they’d gone farther and the scenery became unfamiliar, finding the way wasn’t so easy. His fuzzy memory made every path seem familiar.

This wasn’t his fault. A path looks vastly different depending on your direction of travel.

If not for the fact that this route lacked dense clusters of tall trees blocking the view, that the environment along the way was a mix of wild grass, shrubs, and trees, interspersed with earth slopes, ditches, boulders, and ponds that could serve as landmarks, and that Taishi Huan’s group of three had rested at certain spots, gaining some familiarity with the surroundings… by now, Taishi Huan probably wouldn’t even know the general direction, much less a specific spot.

Taishi Huan mentally calculated the distance, feeling they were about there. But looking closely at the surroundings, it felt familiar yet not quite right. He clearly understood that even if they retraced their exact path, it was impossible to return precisely to the original spot.

The donkey under him was pulled to a halt, pacing in place.

Li Cunxin saw he was a bit uncertain and said, “Let’s rest a while first. We’ve been traveling for half a day. I see a pond up ahead.”

Taishi Huan was somewhat agitated. “You guys rest first. I’ll look around nearby.”

Li Cunxin said, “Don’t rush. We just came to scout the route today, see if the path is easy. Even if we don’t find it, it’s no big deal. It’s not like we’ll eat you.”

“…” Taishi Huan.

The three led the donkeys to the pond to drink and sat under a tree to rest. They took out their bamboo tubes, pouring out fried flour to eat.

Li Cunxin said, “Ramie is quite common in the south. It’s got strong vitality. If it’s in this area, there shouldn’t be just one clump. It’s likely scattered across the whole region. You don’t need to obsess over finding that exact spot from back then. Once you feel we’re roughly in that radius, we can start searching the area.”

Taishi Huan hesitated, then said, “Based on the distance we traveled, I thought we’d arrived. But looking at this pond… when we rested back then, it was also next to a pond, but different from this one… though it could be the same. After all, the scenery differs between winter and spring…”

Li Cunxin was entirely nonchalant. “Then let’s start searching from around here. The worst that happens if we don’t find it is these clothes have to last a few more months. Finding it is a bonus.”

It was Wen Mi’s first long trip with them, and one carrying a mission and the expectations of the group. She didn’t want a failed start. Though her face didn’t show it, her heart was weighted, and she couldn’t relax.

Taishi Huan’s hesitant, stammering speech had already irritated her. But Li Cunxin’s words immediately steadied her heart. Contemplating Li Cunxin’s words, Wen Mi found her own relief and laughed ruefully. “Finding it is a bonus? That’s a good way to put it.”

The spring breeze was incredibly cool. Wen Mi leaned against the tree trunk, discreetly observing Li Cunxin. The more she looked, the more she liked her. The young girl might lack some boldness, but in the position of Village Chief, she was just likable. She made people feel calm.

Li Cunxin sensed the gaze focused on her and turned her head to see Wen Mi staring. “Sister Wen, what are you looking at me for?”

Wen Mi, caught, openly met her eyes and joked, “Just thinking about how you, a little girl playing the pig to eat the tiger, managed to trick us into your village. Praised everyone in the village one by one, but never said you were the chief. The four of us were thinking, in the future, your older sisters here will protect you. Who knew everyone in the village protects you, and we’d have to queue up.”

Li Cunxin protested, “I didn’t mean to hide it. You didn’t ask. Who goes around always calling themselves the village chief?”

Wen Mi plucked a leaf stuck in Li Cunxin’s hair. “Looking back now, the choice to come back to your village with you wasn’t wrong. We haven’t thanked you yet for your wholehearted invitation.”

Li Cunxin’s eyes sparkled. “So, you think living together in the village is good too? You’re not planning to go back?”

“We’re not going back.” Wen Mi said, “Unless you drive us away.”

Li Cunxin replied seriously, “I won’t.”

After they’d rested enough, the three mounted their donkeys and began searching from the pond’s vicinity.

Ramie is a shrub, typically about a meter tall, but when it grows well, it can be taller than a person. They didn’t need to bother searching forests where only fallen leaves and low ground-covering grass were visible at a glance.

Even though they told themselves “finding it is a bonus” and “no big deal if we don’t,” they didn’t turn back that same day.

They survived two days in the wild on their dry rations.

On the third day, the three headed home. The donkeys and the wolf retraced their path. In less than half a day, they found their way back.

Xia Qing and Ning Yikui, working on woodworking in front of the house, were the first to spot them. Xia Qing cried out, “Hey, they’re back! They’re back!”

The donkeys trotted up to the house, and the three dismounted.

Liu Cuo Jin heard the sound and came out to look. She saw the three leading their donkeys to the shed opposite. On the donkeys’ backs were bundles of emerald-green branches. Her eyes lit up, and she rushed toward the new house.

Jiang Beibei, Miao Bing, and Wang Ran were sitting inside. A bundle of straw lay on the ground. Wang Ran held a small knife, cutting thin, long grass stalks for the other two, who were weaving straw sandals.

Liu Cuo Jin said, “Sister Beibei, the Village Chief and the others are back. They found the ramie.”

The three were delighted. They put down their work, exited the house, and went around to the back. Sure enough, Li Cunxin and the others were “unloading the cargo.”

As soon as Jiang Beibei approached, she smelled a faint, plant-like fragrance. The elliptical leaves had serrated edges. Touching one, it felt like rough paper. The leaf surface was emerald green. Flipping it over, the underside was white. Delighted, she said to Li Cunxin, “It really is ramie.”

Li Cunxin said, “There’s indeed quite a bit over there, but it’s scattered. That’s why it took us so long to return. I can’t give you this ramie in perfect condition. I need to cut off the tender shoots first for cuttings.”

Jiang Beibei smiled. “I know.”

While Li Cunxin was talking to Jiang Beibei, she was holding her denim jacket, tied up like a bundle. After speaking, she carried the jacket straight to the kitchen, calling out as she walked, “Yunxiu, get me a basin.”

Yunxiu brought out a basin. “What do you need a basin for?”

Li Cunxin grinned. “Look at the good stuff I brought back for you.” She untied her jacket, and golden-yellow fruits the size of pigeon eggs tumbled into the basin.

Xia Qing exclaimed in surprise, “Loquats!”

Yunxiu poured a ladle of water into the basin and washed the loquats clean. Xia Qing took one, peeled it, and tasted it. She bounced on her little feet.

Although there was a basin of loquats, with so many people, plus Yu Muyang’s gluttonous nature, the loquats quickly hit the bottom.

Li Cunxin looked left and right, then asked Yunxiu, “Where are Baiyu, Uncle Xu, and Sister Huanhuan?”

Yunxiu said, “Zhou Huan saw that little spotted pig growing up and insisted on breeding it for propagation. The three of them went out hunting early this morning. They should be back soon.”

“Oh.” Li Cunxin responded casually, then scooped the remaining loquats from the basin into a bowl and covered it with a plate, refusing to give out any more.