Chapter 7: Smashing the Bowl and Seizing the Meat

Page (1/3)

A soft call suddenly came from outside the courtyard.

Shen Guilan looked up and saw Auntie Liu peering over the waist-high fence. She was wrapped in a gray cotton-padded jacket patched over with yet more patches, and in one hand she clutched something wrapped in a lotus leaf.

Snowflakes clung to her temples. The tip of her nose was bright red from the cold, and each breath condensed into little clouds of white mist before her face.

“Auntie Liu, come in quickly!” Shen Guilan hurried to her feet and carefully crossed the icy flagstones.

The dilapidated fence gate gave a creaking groan as she pushed it open.

“I came to borrow some fire. The stove went out last night, and every pot in the house froze solid.” Auntie Liu rubbed her stiff, frozen hands as she stepped into the courtyard. Her eyes swept over the empty woodpile behind Shen Guilan, and her brows furrowed. “You’re short on firewood too?”

Shen Guilan gave a bitter smile and shook her head. “Aren’t we all? The other day I went to the back hill to gather dead branches, but the Old Li family had claimed the place and said the mountain belonged to them.”

She helped brush the snow from Auntie Liu’s shoulders. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed spots of oil seeping through the lotus-leaf wrapping. “And this is...?”

“Oh, this? After those eggs you brought my family last time, my husband went to town to sell some piglets and happened to buy a piece of cured meat.” Auntie Liu pushed the lotus-leaf parcel into Shen Guilan’s hands. “There are only two old people in my household, and we can’t eat all this meat. Take it and give Xiuwei something nourishing.”

Shen Guilan held the parcel of cured meat, her palm feeling the warmth it still retained.

Her eyes stung. The last time Auntie Liu’s little grandson had come down with a fever, Shen Guilan had brought out the five eggs she had spent half a year saving. Only after feeding him egg-drop soup had his fever finally gone down.

These were hard times for everyone, yet there were always people who remembered even the smallest kindness.

“Then I’ll thank you, Auntie Liu.” She tucked the cured meat against her chest, then turned and rummaged in the kitchen until she found an earthenware jar. “These are dried peppers I prepared myself. Take them home and add them to your cooking. They’ll help keep out the cold.”

Page (1/3)

After Auntie Liu left, Shen Guilan sliced the cured meat into pieces so thin that light shone through each one.

Xiuwei squatted beside the stove, her little head following the movement of her mother’s hands. The tip of her nose was red with cold. “Mama, that meat smells so good.”

“It’ll smell even better once it’s cooked into the rice porridge.” Wrapping a scrap of cloth around the ashes at the bottom of the stove, Shen Guilan coaxed the fire back to life.

The firewood crackled and popped. She added half a ladle of coarse rice to the earthenware pot, then arranged the slices of cured meat on top.

The fragrance of rice mingled with the savory scent of meat and spread through the kitchen. Xiuwei sniffed, then rested her head against her mother’s knee and whispered, “Mama, I’m not craving it. You eat too.”

Shen Guilan’s throat tightened. She stroked her daughter’s ears, cold as ice. “Mama will eat. We’ll both eat.”

But the meal was never enjoyed in peace.

Madam Zhang came tottering into the kitchen, her tiny feet shuffling across the floor. Ash still clung to the tip of her nose; she had just been heating water in the east room for Shen Yongzhi to soak his feet.

The moment she saw the oil gleaming on the surface of the porridge, her cloudy eyes lit up. “Well, well, Shen Guilan. Hiding food for yourself, are you?”

“Mother, Auntie Liu gave us this cured meat. There’s barely any.” Shen Guilan shifted the pot behind her. “I cooked it so Xiuwei could have something nourishing.”

Madam Zhang spat. “Nourishing? What’s the use? That little money-loser can get by on a mouthful of thin gruel! Yongzhi is going to town to study tomorrow. He needs something good to eat!”

She reached for the pot, her withered nails scraping painfully across the back of Shen Guilan’s hand.

Shen Yongzhi swaggered in from the east room, the scraps of sweet potato Madam Zhang had secretly given him that morning still clinging to the corner of his mouth.

He let out a loud belch and cast a sideways glance at the pot. “Grandmother’s right. I need strength to study.”

Page (2/3)

Shen Guilan stared at Shen Yongzhi’s greasy mouth, and suddenly remembered her previous life. In the bitter winter, she had huddled in a ruined temple, gnawing on a steamed bun frozen hard as stone, while this very son had been embracing his new wife on a heated brick bed and eating a lamb hot pot.

Her hand tightened around the pot, trembling faintly. The rice broth inside rippled in tiny waves.

“Yongzhi gets the thick porridge.” Madam Zhang had already taken a coarse porcelain bowl from the cupboard and filled it more than halfway with thick porridge. “I’ll make do with the thin soup.”

Then she reached for the small bowl in Xiuwei’s hands. “Give that half-bowl of rice soup to Yongzhi. You can drink whatever’s left.”

Xiuwei clutched the bowl and shrank back, her eyes reddening. “Grandmother, Mama saved this for me...”

“Let go!” Madam Zhang yanked at Xiuwei’s wrist, and the little girl’s fingernails scratched several red marks across her hand.

Shen Guilan looked at her daughter’s fingers, purple with cold, still gripping the rim of the bowl with all their strength.

Suddenly, she snatched the bowl of white porridge from Madam Zhang’s hands.

“Smash!”

Shen Guilan suddenly snatched the bowl of white porridge from Madam Zhang’s hands.

The celadon bowl struck the bluestone floor and shattered into fragments.

White porridge splashed across Madam Zhang’s gray cloth trousers, scalding her so badly that she leaped in place. But before she could begin cursing, Shen Guilan had already yanked loose her own hair, seized the broken porcelain and the parcel of cured meat from the ground, and rushed out of the kitchen. With a heavy thump, she collapsed at the courtyard gate and burst into loud sobs.

“Oh, heavens! What sin have I committed to deserve this?”

Page (3/3)