Chapter 114: Two Pig Trotter Bones
It sounded rather unreliable.
But this was the guidance of the ancestors. It hadn’t been very reliable when he went either, yet he had gotten there nonetheless.
Therefore, on the way back, A-Feng did exactly as he was told.
After spinning three times, he didn’t feel dizzy, but his toes were pointing right at a rock wall. In front of him was just a mountain side, without even a fork in the road.
Yet Grandfather had said that was exactly how the ancestors guided them.
A-Feng hesitated for a moment. Thinking that he had already seen enough wonders for one day, he resolutely dashed headfirst into the rock wall—
“Huh? I’m fine?!”
The expected pain didn’t come. Instead, he found himself inside a pitch-black mountain cave.
Calling it dark was an understatement, for he could still see. A source of light from somewhere unknown provided just enough visibility to see the path clearly.
A-Feng followed the cave and emerged before long. Looking up, he saw the large willow tree at the entrance of the village.
He was back!
A-Feng’s heart finally settled as he hurriedly ran home.
“Grandfather! Grandmother! I’m back!”
The first to see him was Grandmother Sui, who was weaving cloth in the courtyard. The moment Grandmother saw A-Feng, her heart sank slightly.
This child had listened to his grandfather’s nonsense and carried a huge stack of crates and bamboo baskets out, yet he returned without a single one. There was no telling what he had encountered out there.
But Grandmother Sui said nothing, only rising to her feet and saying, “A-Feng is back? You’ve been out for so long, you must be hungry, right? Grandmother will go heat up some food for you.”
A-Feng, however, shook his head excitedly. “Grandmother! I’ve already eaten! I encountered a manor in the mountains today, and the people there are all kind-hearted, benevolent souls!”
“They only had me weave two bamboo crates, yet they gave me water to drink and food to eat… I even ate two eggs! And a huge bowl of pig trotter and celtuce soup!”
Grandmother Sui was stuck between tears and laughter. This child had been lively and sharp since he was small, but he just loved to talk absolute nonsense.
Never mind pig trotter and celtuce soup, their household hadn’t even eaten eggs in ages.
In the past, eggs had to be saved to trade for salt in town, though occasionally when there were extras, she could boil one for A-Feng every now and then.
But ever since the old man broke his leg, the family’s source of livelihood had snapped. The bamboo crates, baskets, chairs, and stools sat at home with no one free to go sell them. Even though she wove cloth day and night, it was barely enough to pay the taxes.
Grandmother Sui felt a bit of an ache in her heart. Thinking of the old man’s leg injury, even the eggs had to be saved to barter for money and herbal medicine.
Yet her grandson A-Feng wanted to eat so badly he had gone crazy, talking nonsense in broad daylight. Grandmother Sui couldn’t bear it.
“A-Feng must be hungry. Grandmother will boil an egg for you and mix it with yam bean rice, alright?”
A-Feng’s eyes snapped wide, and he said solemnly, “Grandmother, I’ve already eaten! I truly have. Look at my belly!”
A-Feng lifted his shirt directly, exposing a round, plump little belly.
Grandmother Sui reached out to feel it, and it really was! It was bulging and round, clearly indicating he had eaten his absolute fill.
A-Feng pulled Grandmother Sui into the house. Inside, Old Man Sui had already heard the noise and propped himself up.
Compared to Grandmother Sui’s worry, Old Man Sui felt mostly excitement and anticipation.
“A-Feng, the place the ancestors guided you to truly exists?”
“It does! It really does!”
A-Feng reached into his pocket and fished out two pig trotter bones.
“I went to the manor, and a kind-hearted lady made a meal. The young mistress allowed me to eat, and she even told me to eat more and fill myself up!”
Most of the newly arrived laborers at the manor hadn’t eaten a square meal in a while, and Jian Xingxia never shortchanged them on food.
A-Feng said, “First, she had me eat a piece of fruit. Seeing that I was hungry, she gave me sweet potatoes and corn.”
“Right around noon, Lady Lin went to cook and made quite a few dishes. She used a large sea-sized bowl to scoop a mountain of rice for me, along with two eggs!”
Speaking up to this point, A-Feng couldn’t help but turn to look at Grandmother Sui. “Grandmother, guess how those eggs were made?”
Seeing A-Feng so excited, Grandmother Sui steeled her heart and guessed toward extravagance, “Could it be they were stir-fried in oil?”
A-Feng shook his head.
“Then they were pan-fried in oil?” Pan-fried eggs used even more oil.
A-Feng shook his head again.
“Then it was…”
“They were deep-fried in oil!”
A-Feng’s voice was filled with excitement and thrill. When he was at the manor, he had been a bit nervous and kept himself heavily restrained. Now that he was back, in front of his grandfather and grandmother, he was once again that chirping, mischievous grandson.
A-Feng gestured extravagantly, “A single egg was this big! The young mistress also called it a fried egg, but to my taste, it wasn’t pan-fried at all; it was practically deep-fried in an oil vat! One bite down, and it was pure, rich oil fragrance! The oil was wrapped right inside the egg, sliding straight down my throat!”
A fried egg that was ordinary as could be in Jian Xingxia’s eyes was the most precious food imaginable to this family of three.
It was true that she was too lazy to cook with grand fanfare, but as for eggs, they usually cost fifty cents—sixty cents for the expensive ones—so there were truly as many as one could want.
As Grandmother Sui and Old Man Sui listened to their grandson’s account, their gazes gradually cleared.
“There was still oil in the bowl after finishing the meal? Goodness, how much oil must have been used!”
A single bowl of oil in their house lasted until the end of the year with plenty to spare!
A-Feng said, “That’s not all! There were the vegetables too, all stir-fried in oil! The chili-fried pork had thick, plump slices of meat, and even the cucumbers were cold-tossed with sesame oil!”
“After the mistress finished the cucumbers, she told Lady Lin to pour out the vegetable juices. But Lady Lin couldn’t bear to waste it, so she begged the mistress to let us use it to mix with our rice.”
“The mistress asked if Big Brother Da Hei and I minded… Heavens! Rice mixed with sesame oil! I couldn’t even dream of eating that, so how could I mind! I agreed instantly! But Big Brother Da Hei wanted to eat it too, so in the end, the two of us split it between us.”
A-Feng was young and sharp, so Jian Xingxia and Lin Sanniang naturally looked after him a bit more. Coupled with his genuinely engaging and earnest personality, he had completely blended in at the manor in just half a day.
Grandmother Sui and Old Man Sui’s eyes had already gone completely vacant as they listened.
“Cucumber juice tossed with sesame oil was actually going to be thrown away? Goodness, those aren’t our ancestors; that sounds like the life the Emperor lives!”
The ancestors of their household had never been this wealthy!
“And that’s still not all!” A-Feng held out the two pig trotter bones for his grandparents to see. “I ate three large bowls of rice, and Lady Lin specifically scooped a huge bowl of soup for me. Inside it was packed completely full of pig trotters!”
The skin, meat, and tendons on pig trotters were abundant, fatty, and rich in gelatin. They tasted delicious even when simply simmered, which was exactly the flavor impoverished people loved.
It was just that pig trotters were expensive normally. Even for the New Year, they only dared to buy a catty or two of fatty meat; they absolutely couldn’t afford pig trotters.
“Such a massive bowl! There were only a few pieces of celtuce, and the rest was all pig trotter meat! Lady Lin said the young mistress didn’t care for fatty meat, and since she and Big Brother Da Hei had already eaten it the day before, she scooped out an extra portion for me.”
A-Feng said innocently, “I figured you wouldn’t believe me, Grandfather, Grandmother, so I specifically begged the young mistress to let me bring the pig trotter bones back. The young mistress said that as long as I could carry it, she would let me take it.”
A-Feng didn’t dare mention that he had originally only intended to bring back one pig trotter bone for his grandparents to see, but he had also secretly hidden a piece of pig trotter meat, wanting to bring it back too.
But on his way back, halfway through his journey, he had suddenly heard a voice that sounded exactly like his grandfather’s say—
“Fetching evaluation… Today the manor owner has assessed your labor as Grade B-Minus. Sufficient compensation has been provided. If you wish to bring back the pig trotter, you must surrender other compensation.”
A-Feng only half-understood the words, but he caught the meaning of the second half perfectly. If he wanted to bring the pig trotter back, he had to leave something else behind.
The remaining two pieces of compensation were the machete and the medicinal powder! Neither could be surrendered!
Thus, A-Feng pulled out the pig trotter and gnawed it completely clean. Consequently, the pig trotter bone turned into two pieces.
Feeling those two bones which had been gnawed absolutely bare—and still bore teeth marks, showing the sheer force A-Feng had used in attempting to crack them open—the two elders woke from their story-listening state of mind.
This time, they couldn’t disbelieve it even if they tried.
