Chapter 30: Returning Home
Smoke rose from the cooking fires.
Washing up, lighting the fire, the water in the pot went from calm to rippling.
Brewing medicine, picking wild vegetables, tending to the stove.
When Mother returned, the house became lively.
Mother wouldn’t let her elder brother get up to work, so he sat in a chair and cleaned the wild vegetables.
Elder sister Jiang Yu continued to simmer yesterday’s medicine in the clay pot.
Medicine bought with money must absolutely not be wasted.
The dregs from yesterday were also kept, intending to brew them together with the new batch, which would be equivalent to three doses of medicine.
Mother was quietly preparing python meat.
Jiang Mianmian knew this because Mother hadn’t avoided her; Mother probably thought she was still too young to understand.
Then, from Mother’s back, Jiang Mianmian watched with a pounding heart as piece after piece of meat was prepared.
It was sliced just like salmon; she didn’t know how big the original creature must have been.
Then she saw the head of the creature itself.
Waaaah…
Mother is killing me.
Jiang Mianmian felt her little infant heart skip several beats.
Scared the baby to death.
A huge, brightly colored python head was neatly placed there.
At first glance, she thought it was a dragon’s head.
Just like the kind used in lion dances during festivals… vivid and lifelike.
Waaaah…
This head was sitting on her family’s cutting board.
Waaaah, the eyes were yellow, with vertical pupils.
Wasn’t it said that even after a snake’s head is chopped off, you still have to prevent it from biting?
If this head were to bite, it could swallow her whole in one gulp.
However, Jiang Mianmian looked closer; it had been chopped up like a work of art… it shouldn’t be able to bite anymore.
So scary, so scary.
She was so scared she let out two little hiccups.
The tender skin of an infant would definitely get goosebumps, it surely had.
Mother worked very earnestly and was even unconsciously humming a tune.
Jiang Mianmian couldn’t quite understand the lyrics; it might have been a local folk song.
She only caught one phrase: “Fishy~ silly cat~ fat~… Fishy~~ silly cat~~ fat~~”
She didn’t know if that was the meaning, but the tune sounded like it.
It sounded like a harvest song.
She could feel that Mother was in a good mood too.
Plus, her working speed was extremely fast, almost dizzying to watch.
Jiang Mianmian, having hiccuped twice, fell asleep to the rhythmic cadence of Mother’s work.
Before falling asleep, she thought groggily that she would definitely remember this scene when she grew up.
Mother’s back was so soft, like a boat, swaying and drifting, but she never had to worry about falling off; she felt very secure.
Even her dreams were sweet.
At this moment, it was evening.
The room was actually a bit dark.
A woman lowered her head, holding a large knife, slicing meat without a hint of emotion, while a huge, dead-eyed python head sat there, staring coldly.
This woman was even colder than the giant python.
Like a psychopathic killer.
However, if you walked closer, you would see that the only reason she was crouching was to make her back into a nearly flat slope, so that the infant on it could sleep more soundly.
The infant’s face was pressed against her back, flattened in sleep, her chubby cheeks puffed up, her mouth occasionally mumbling softly, her breathing very light, like little snores, as if she could blow little bubbles.
She was the fiercest hunter, and also the gentlest Mother.
…
Evening.
In the county government office hall, the plaque inscribed with “Bright Mirror Hanging High” looked solemn and cold.
It was already past office hours.
Any business was handled in the morning.
By the afternoon, they generally wouldn’t take any cases.
The county office was in the center of the county town, adjacent to the City God Temple on the left, and the mansions of some well-connected gentlemen on the right.
The world today was not peaceful; natural and man-made disasters occurred together.
Treacherous officials held sway, and sycophants monopolized power.
The common people lived in dire straits.
Yet the rich had vast fields, while the poor had no land to stand on.
In a room in the westernmost corner of the county office, a man who looked like a scholar was sitting.
Various medicinal herbs were arranged neatly in the room, with each one labeled with its name, usage, age, and quality.
This should have been a messy room, as there were too many things piled up.
Yet it had been forcibly tidied up into perfect order, and at the window, a wooden board had been attached to serve as a desk.
Stacks of roots were piled up to form a stool.
A man in a coarse cloth robe sat here; he must have sat for a very, very long time, as the roots had been worn smooth and polished.
The makeshift wooden desk was connected to the small wooden window, allowing light to shine in, and under this light, he could read and write.
The man’s calligraphy was full of character; if it were an essay, without even looking at the content, just by looking at the characters, one couldn’t help but clap and exclaim, “What fine calligraphy!”
However, these densely packed characters were not poetry or prose, but rather notes on various medicinal herbs.
The ink on the table was also the poorest quality, very prone to clumping, requiring extra care when writing, and it always had a pungent smell, fortunately masked by the medicinal scent in the room.
The man wrote many, many characters in such a corner; if he were a scholar, he would have calluses from writing, but he wasn’t; he had many calluses on his hands, which covered over the calluses from writing.
An unfilial or disrespectful person could not take the imperial examinations.
No one would vouch for him.
His path to studying and advancing had been cut off many years ago.
But at that time, he didn’t understand how important this was.
In every day that followed, labor, repetitive labor, day after day of labor, he could never see hope or a future; not only did he have no future, but neither did his children.
A whole lifetime of doing the hardest and most exhausting work, eating food that barely kept him full.
A whole life, worse than a pig or dog.
He slowly understood; he had resisted, and for the sake of his children, he had knelt and begged.
When he was first expelled from home, he didn’t kneel, but later, when he had children, he knelt easily.
He didn’t tell his wife that he had knelt, only to receive more abuse and humiliation.
It turned out there was no gold under a man’s knees; after you knelt, others would only spit on you, then press down hard on your spine, trying to bend it, to shatter it.
To make you as lowly as the mud, never able to rise again.
Giving always has a return; giving one’s heart will surely lead to being hurt.
This room was small and stuffy, with only one tiny window and a thin sliver of light.
Yet here, he read all the books he could access, writing and recording them over and over again.
The work he did involved a lot of labor for little pay, but its only benefit was that he could write.
He was ashamed as a head of the household for not being able to provide his wife and children with plenty of food and clothing.
Utterly incompetent.
It was evening.
The bell of the City God Temple began to ring.
It would ring three times.
After the three rings, those wealthy families would be setting out their dinner.
The position where he sat didn’t offer a far view, but it just happened to look through a small door; when that small door opened, he could see the street outside and the side door of a mansion across the street.
The side door opened five times a day.
The number of people entering and exiting was countable.
His hand tapped lightly on the tabletop.
He watched as that side door opened and two people came out.
He reached out his right hand, rubbed his stiff neck, and turned his head.
Then he lowered his head and continued writing.
The room was full of the scent of medicine.
The ink gradually appeared on the paper.
Arsenic, Strychnos nux-vomica, Aconitum carmichaelii, Typhonium giganteum, Pinellia ternata, Arisaema erubescens, Mylabris, Euphorbia kansui, Gamboge, Euphorbia lathyris, Rhododendron molle, Red Mercuric Oxide, Toad Venom, Datura stramonium…
All medicine is three parts poison, but these medicines were highly toxic.
Below the medical list, there was another sheet of paper that detailed a person’s life.
Guard Wu Liu, black mole at the corner of his eye, skilled with an awl, five feet three inches tall, likes to eat meat pies from He’s shop at the corner of West Street. Has a lover, married, lives at No. 46 West Street…
Finished writing.
He tore up these two pages and crumpled them into pieces.
It was dark.
He got up and pushed the door open to leave.
The man walked out, his long hair draped over his shoulders, his footsteps soft.
When he met people, he would greet them politely.
He was quite popular.
“Big, big, big, open!!” Several gambling Yamen Runners saw Jiang the Second approaching and shouted, “Mr. Jiang, come join us for a round.”
Jiang Changtian waved his hand and explained good-naturedly, “My wife and children are waiting; I must return home.”
He walked out of the county office, passing the City God Temple, where the incense was burning brightly; the worse the times, the more prosperous the incense.
Not far past the City God Temple, the crowds became even busier.
The scent of women overpowered the scent of Buddha.
Red sleeves waved, “Come here, dear guest, come up and sit for a while.”
Jiang Changtian walked past without glancing to the side.
Passing a steamed bun shop, he stopped, hesitated for a moment, and bought two meat buns.
Then, clutching the buns, he continued walking, his pace quickening slightly.
The sky was gradually darkening, and the trees on both sides looked like they were clawing at the air.
He used to be very afraid of the dark.
Mother always locked him alone in the room without any light, and in the black room, he would see countless terrifying things.
Later, he became a father, and slowly he was no longer afraid.
Because his child was like a lamp, illuminating his heart that had been in pitch darkness.
He walked quickly, with only the wind in his ears.
Slowly, he heard the sounds of chickens crowing and dogs barking.
A smile uncontrollably appeared on his face.
He was almost home.
