Asking around the village yielded no answers. Everyone said they hadn’t dug up any notoginseng, nor seen anyone else do it. The notoginseng in that field seemed to have vanished into thin air. But it couldn’t have simply vanished. Yu Muyang suspected Liu Kan. But as Li Cunxin had said—without proof, even questioning him, he had no firm ground to stand on.
The village immediately needed to turn the soil and plant winter wheat. The harvested soybeans also needed to be dried while the weather was good before threshing and storing. The matter of the notoginseng wasn’t investigated further.
Only two days later, Miao Bing and his group went to the potato field to harvest. They discovered that this time, not only was another patch of notoginseng missing, but a patch of the potato field had also been dug up.
Li Cunxin looked at the section of the potato field where potatoes had been dug. The soil for growing potatoes was loose and aerated. After being dug up, it became especially soft; anyone stepping on it would leave footprints of varying depths.
Yu Muyang followed Li Cunxin’s gaze, tilting his head to look at the ground. “Village Chief, what are you looking at?”
Li Cunxin asked the group, “Did any of you step on these edges here?”
The group looked down and said in a jumbled chorus, “Don’t know. Don’t remember. Probably, I guess.”
Li Cunxin scanned their feet. Everyone wore straw sandals, which left irregular prints. But there were prints in the soil that were regular, bearing complex patterns. And more than one type. These looked more like prints from modern rubber-soled shoes with anti-slip tread patterns. “It wasn’t just one person.”
Yu Muyang said, “If not people, then wild animals?”
“…” Li Cunxin didn’t want to talk to him anymore.
Xia Qing, following Li Cunxin’s instructions, brought the three gray wolves over. The wolves’ noses pressed to the ground, sniffing. Unfortunately, the thieves’ activity window was small and too much time had passed. The scent was already faint. The strong body odor and sweat of the crowd standing here interfered even more with scent detection. The gray wolves could only circle around in the vicinity.
Li Cunxin pondered for a moment. “Don’t harvest these potatoes and this notoginseng just yet.”
Yu Muyang pointed at the field. “If we don’t harvest now, they’ll be completely stripped bare.”
Li Cunxin pulled him aside. “During the day, have someone keep watch.”
Yu Muyang immediately understood. Once is happenstance, twice is a pattern, thrice is a habit.
“And at night?” he asked.
Li Cunxin said, “Have Xia Qing build a small den here and let the alpha and the others guard the field.”
“Got it.” Yu Muyang went into the field to send everyone away, then went to discuss building the wolf den with Xia Qing.
Li Cunxin returned to the village. The very first building on the west side of this field was Chang Yue and An Ning’s house. Coming back from the fields, she couldn’t resist going inside to check on the plums still fermenting.
Chang Yue said this jar of wine should ferment successfully and could be opened before long. But afterward, it would need to be distilled in a pot, with the foreshots and tails cut to minimize methanol and fusel oils as much as possible.
Before, Li Cunxin had always been afraid the wine wouldn’t be ready by the time Yan Baiyu returned, afraid she’d be caught scrambling. Now that the wine was almost ready and there was still no sign of the person, her heart felt hollow and desolate.
Her mood went up and down. Sometimes she was optimistic: Yan Baiyu and Xu Yin could each survive alone in the wilderness for a year or two. The rest of the group had already been on several expeditions and were experienced. This time, they had draft animals and carts and field rations—they didn’t know how much easier it was compared to before. Besides, this group wasn’t reckless. They must have been more cautious this time with the new route, which was why the journey was taking longer. But at night, when she couldn’t sleep and her thoughts turned to the people on the journey, she became pessimistic: perhaps it was precisely because conditions were better, because they had experience and more people, that the expedition team had become more careless. After all, it’s the swimmers who drown. Maybe they’d encountered venomous creatures or fierce beasts, cliffs, rapids, extreme weather… if someone got sick or injured… her mind could conjure every kind of danger.
It wasn’t just her imagination running wild. This time, the expedition team’s trip duration was longer than the previous one—not by a day or two, but by an entire season.
The parasol tree in front of the door—its leaves had turned from green to yellow, with quite a few red leaves mixed in. In the old days, when there were fewer people, the passage of time wasn’t very noticeable. Apart from this land, the plants on the land, and the sky above the plants, almost nothing else in the village changed.
But now, the oil-pressing workshop had added a new press. Separated from industrial oils, edible oil was now pressed in this new press. The rapeseed harvested in late spring had already been pressed, and the resulting rapeseed oil was delivered to the kitchen. Rapeseed oil had a distinctive aroma. Lately, the oiliness of their meals had noticeably increased. Zhao Penglai’s newly built canteen was complete. The canteen was positioned to the east, past Li Cunxin’s house, closer to Jiang Beibei and Liu Cuo Jin’s place. The canteen was exceptionally spacious, even larger than the village chief’s house. The bare, undecorated interior seemed, at first glance, capable of holding a hundred people.
Shen Hu’s paper and ink had also been produced. On the first attempt, Shen Hu had used leftover paper mulberry bark from Xia Qing’s timber processing. The bark was old, resulting in overly coarse paper.
This time, Shen Hu sought out paper mulberry bark only one or two years old. After soaking in flowing water and boiling in lime slurry, the fibers were pounded into a pulp. Sieved multiple times, it became fine, like muddy slurry.
Unable to curb her curiosity, Li Cunxin walked over to the water trough. The edge of the trough was soaked with pulp, its greenish-gray, off-white color turning a deep green. The paper pulp inside the trough was murky and greenish. Upon closer inspection, you could see the flocculent matter within.
Shen Hu went back to his house to get the inksticks. Today, he’d seen that the inksticks from the initial batch were ready. After improving the paper—though still not up to modern standards—it was now fine-textured, didn’t bleed, and wrote smoothly. That’s why he’d called Li Cunxin over, wanting her to see his results.
He hadn’t expected Li Cunxin to bring Zhao Penglai along too. His heart surged with even greater excitement.
Shen Hu said, “Would you like to try too, Village Chief?”
Li Cunxin smiled. “A little curious.”
Shen Hu placed the inkstick, a small dish taken from the kitchen, and two bamboo sticks snapped off from Miao Bing’s supplies on a long table beside him. He picked up a bamboo screen and secured its four edges with a wooden frame. With a smooth motion, he dipped the screen into the water and scooped upward. The murky greenish water surged onto the screen, then trickled back down, leaving only a thin, even layer of white flocculent matter adhering to the screen. “Just like this, Village Chief. Give it a try.”
Li Cunxin took the screen and, imitating Shen Hu, dipped one end into the water.
Shen Hu said, “A light scoop makes thin paper; a heavy scoop makes thick paper.”
Li Cunxin scooped up the pulp. The excess slurry trickled down through the gaps. She laughed. “Why is this so slippery and sticky?”
Shen Hu took the screen and walked to the table, flipping it over to stack the paper sheet on top of the pile already formed. The stack was now two hand-spans thick. “We added the juice of elm wood shavings as a paper additive. It acts as a kind of binder.”
“Elm wood shavings?” Li Cunxin suddenly remembered. “Ah! You mentioned that to me last time.”
Shen Hu smiled. “I heard from Xia Qing that elm wood shavings water can be used as hair conditioner. Back in the day, the hairpieces opera singers used were styled and set with elm wood shavings water.”
Li Cunxin said, “A plant-based glue.”
“Right.” Shen Hu poured a little clean water into the dish and began grinding the inkstick. The clear water in the dish went from translucent to murky black, then ink-black. “Village Chief, why don’t you try out my inkstick?”
In the corner, against the dry wall, a layer of straw had been spread. Over the straw was a layer of coarse, thick paper, and on top of that were placed the new sheets of paper Shen Hu had processed.
Zhao Penglai walked over and picked one up. Li Cunxin had already dipped a bamboo stick in some ink and brought it to her nose to smell.
Shen Hu said, “After burning, the soot has to be washed, separated into layers, and dried in the shade. I only had it shade-drying for a month—far too short—so this ink has a very strong smoky smell.”
Shen Hu actually wanted to tell Li Cunxin in more detail how the ink had been made. They hadn’t had hide glue at the time. They couldn’t very well slaughter a donkey just to make ink for him, and certainly couldn’t kill a cow. In the end, they’d used fish bladder glue. He’d boiled the glue and soot together, pounded it thousands of times, then divided it, molded it, and left it to dry in the shade. It had taken over half a year for this batch of inksticks to be ready. But because last time, not knowing the situation, he’d asked for donkey hide glue and mentioned skinning Mei Wenqin—something he wanted to slap himself for whenever he thought of it late at night—he was now afraid that bringing it up would remind Li Cunxin of what he’d said back then. So he hesitated, wanting to speak but holding back.
