Chapter 7: A Perfectly Closed Loop

Breakfast was yellow millet rice, pickled radish, and scallions dipped in soybean paste. The plain spread was enough to kill anyone’s appetite.

“Mom, boil me an egg,” Lu Hongli called. “I don’t like any of this.”

Liu Chunhua’s face was cold. “There aren’t any. Eat it or don’t.”

Qiao Ran and Xia Xiaoqi came in one after the other.

Xiaoqi looked at the breakfast on the table. “I’m not hungry this morning. I won’t eat.”

The truth was, she’d filled up on roast chicken.

Qiao Ran didn’t like the food either, though she had to admit it was suitable for losing weight.

Seeing her elder daughter-in-law sit down reluctantly and the younger refuse to eat at all, Liu Chunhua muttered, “You’re getting harder and harder to please. Have you both gone mad?”

She rose and went into the kitchen, returning a moment later with an old cream-colored porcelain jar.

When she opened it, a rich, savory aroma filled the air.

“It’s lard!” Lingling, Lu Hongna’s daughter, practically drooled.

In the countryside, people might go a whole year without tasting meat. When the harvest was poor, even filling their stomachs could be difficult.

With two successful sons, the Lu family counted as well-off in the village. Even so, Liu Chunhua was so frugal that they barely ate a couple of pieces of meat all year.

She’d saved this jar of lard from the New Year. Too reluctant to use it ordinarily, she brought it out to cook only for holidays or visiting relatives. Half the jar was still left.

Liu Chunhua took a little from the jar with a small spoon and mixed it into each grandchild’s rice. Then she scooped out two more spoonfuls for Xiaoqi and Qiao Ran, sealed the jar, and carried it away.

The adults in the room stared in disbelief.

Lu Hongna wasn’t picky about food or clothes, and she felt guilty living with her two children at her mother’s home, so she didn’t mind missing out. Still, she couldn’t understand why her mother had given the daughters-in-law lard for their rice. Normally, she hid anything good from them for fear they’d see it.

Hongna didn’t dare complain, but Hongli couldn’t let it pass. “Mom, what’s that supposed to mean? You give it to them and not me?”

Liu Chunhua slammed her chopsticks onto the table. “Why shouldn’t I? They’re my family, members of the Lu household. They’re on my side. You? You’ll marry out sooner or later.”

At dinner yesterday they hadn’t been family. One visit from Chunhua’s elder sister-in-law that morning, and suddenly they were all on the same side.

Qiao Ran and Xiaoqi exchanged a smile. They had her figured out.

With a little soy sauce, the rice mixed with lard was surprisingly tasty—much better than pickled radish, at any rate.

After breakfast, Liu Chunhua cleared the table and told Qiao Ran and Xiaoqi to hurry to work for the production team. It was harvest season; the more work points they earned, the larger their share of money at year’s end.

Just now she’d called them family, yet when there was work to do, she was perfectly happy to work her family into the ground. Why didn’t she send her daughters into the fields?

Qiao Ran raised a hand to her forehead again. “I don’t think my headache’s gone away.”

Xiaoqi was about to clutch her belly when Liu Chunhua said, “We have analgin at home. Take two tablets and get to the team.”

The old woman was almost as bad as Zhou Bapi, the notorious cruel landlord. Granted, they were pretending to be ill, but did she have to be so heartless?

When Chunhua actually held out two tablets, Xiaoqi hurried toward the door. “Nothing hurts. I’m not taking them.”

Make her take medicine? As if. She’d rather die of illness.

Especially if it was bitter: put it in her mouth and she’d spit it straight out. As a child, she couldn’t stand the smell of hospitals, so a doctor was summoned to the house whenever she was ill. Her medicine had to taste sweet. Even now, at twenty-three, she took children’s medicine for colds and fevers.

Qiao Ran, who was faking her headache, was even less inclined to swallow the pills. She accepted them, however, and slipped them into her pocket when no one was looking.

Once outside, Qiao Ran led Xiaoqi straight to a little grove beyond the village.

Work in the fields? Not a chance. First they’d find a pretty place to stroll.

The autumn air was crisp beneath a cloudless sky. Wind passed through the trees, sending an occasional leaf drifting onto the deserted path. The scene resembled an oil painting, and the two friends wandered through it arm in arm.

“Sweetie, I want milk tea.”

Walking through a peaceful autumn landscape, breathing fresh air and sipping milk tea—how wonderful that would be.

Qiao Ran poured cold water on her fantasy. “Do I look like milk tea to you?”

Xiaoqi pouted. “Have you forgotten all the things you promised me last night?”

“Promises are easy. Making them happen is hard. You have to give me some time.”

“I think the most important thing is to have money,” Xiaoqi said confidently, pleased with her own insight.

Qiao Ran rolled her eyes. “Brilliant. Thanks for telling me nothing.”

How annoying. She always had a comeback.

Still, it was true: making money came first. But how? Doing business now was considered speculation and profiteering, something that could get a person publicly denounced.

“Sweetie, we shouldn’t stay cooped up in the countryside. We’d have better opportunities in town,” Xiaoqi suggested.

Qiao Ran nodded. “We could go there and beg.”

Xiaoqi thumped her shoulder. “I’m serious.”

“My princess, so am I. We don’t know anyone in town, and we’d have nowhere to eat or sleep. What else could we do but beg?”

“What do you mean, we don’t know anyone? What about your handsome young man?”

Qiao Ran’s eyes lit up. “Right! I still need to borrow money from him to buy chickens.”

Everyone ought to make a spontaneous trip to town at least once. Abandoning their walk, they went home to search their belongings for money and ration coupons.

Ten-odd minutes later, they met in the courtyard empty-handed.

“I didn’t find a thing,” Xiaoqi said, spreading her hands.

Qiao Ran sighed. “This family really is poor.”

After standing there for a dozen or so seconds, both glanced toward the east room, where the old woman slept. Nobody was home. The door was locked, but one window stood open.

“She must have money in there,” Xiaoqi said.

Qiao Ran hesitated. “Is that really all right?”

“Where does her money come from?”

“Her sons give it to her.”

“And what are her sons to us?”

“Our husbands.”

“Is it a crime for us to spend our husbands’ money?”

“It’s reasonable, justified, and legal.”

There: a perfect closed loop.

They felt no guilt whatsoever. They even added another justification: the original wives had worked tirelessly to keep the family going. What was wrong with spending a little on their behalf?

With no one home, one kept watch while the other climbed through the window.

In the past, nimble Qiao Ran had done all the wall-climbing, window-hopping, tree-climbing, and river-swimming, while Xiaoqi followed and watched.

But things were different now. The village window had an upper and a lower section, and Qiao Ran, at 160 jin, would have a terrible time getting through it.

“I’m holding you up. It’s fine. Hurry in.” She stood beneath the wall, lifting Xiaoqi by the legs.

“I’m scared.” Xiaoqi’s hands trembled as she gripped the window frame.

“It’s all right. A fall won’t kill you. Be good,” Qiao Ran urged. “Hurry, before the old woman comes back.”