When they got home, Lin Jing did not, as he usually did, make a beeline for the vegetable plot. Instead, he followed Lin Wu into the kitchen like a little shadow, not missing a single step.
Lin Wu found this strange. The little fellow had always had his own routine. For instance, upon returning home, he would first inspect the vegetable plot, then go to the side room to check on the leaf-vein pieces laid out to dry. He almost never deviated from this order.
Lin Jing soon revealed the reason. He walked straight to the basket of radishes they had brought in the day before and looked at Lin Wu. “A Wu, could you help me carry the basket of radishes outside? I want to put them out to dry. We have to hurry, or the sun will move away!”
They had left home early that morning, while it was still too early to risk the morning dew, so they had not taken the radishes out to dry. Now the sun was already hanging bright and clear in the sky. In his mind, every moment delayed meant one less moment for the radishes to bask in the sunlight.
No wonder drying the radishes had become the most important task of the day, surpassing even the vegetable plot and the bookmarks. So he had been racing the sun all this time.
If he had not mentioned it, Lin Wu really might have forgotten. “Thank goodness A Jing reminded me. We do need to hurry.”
With that, she dragged the basket outside.
Lin Jing remained in the courtyard and began arranging his radish army in battle formation.
After returning to the kitchen and putting everything away, Lin Wu suddenly remembered that they would be making quite a lot of dried meat this time. The charcoal at home was probably not enough.
She turned and went outside, intending to see whether anyone was selling charcoal at the mouth of the lane. When she had just reached the entrance, she saw Fourth Sister He and several neighbors gathered around a peddler pushing a cart of charcoal.
Fourth Sister He knew her well and was the first to greet her with a smile. “Lady Lin, you’re back?”
She naturally knew that Lin Wu had gone to help in the academy’s kitchen these past few days. Some time ago, when a clerk from the ward had come to summon her to the Compassionate Warmth Home, Lin Wu had given her the idea of claiming that the child she had studying at the prefectural school was about to return home for the ten-day recess and needed someone to look after him. That had allowed her to turn down the assignment.
The prefectural and county schools were quite different from academies. Though academies also taught the Confucian classics and policy essays, they placed equal emphasis on arithmetic, philosophy, and even the various schools of thought, and Confucian scholars often lectured there and passed on their teachings. Prefectural and county schools, on the other hand, were devoted entirely to the imperial examinations, with lessons closely following the examination syllabus. Students went to extraordinary lengths to gain admission, and once they got in, they naturally studied with all their might, determined to win academic honors. Some even “sat for ten years without returning home.”
Thus, although Fourth Sister He’s child studied at the prefectural school, he rarely came home even during the three ten-day breaks granted each month. This time, with the Winter Solstice approaching, he had finally been given leave to return, and she naturally could not possibly go to the Compassionate Warmth Home at such a time.
“Yes, I’ve just finished up. I came to buy some charcoal—I’m planning to make a few things to eat,” Lin Wu replied with a smile.
The moment she finished speaking, a woman beside them took up the conversation. She wore her hair in a high coiffure with a pearl hairpin tucked into it. Fair-skinned and smiling even before she spoke, she looked quite amiable.
“Lady Lin, your handiwork is truly excellent. My sister-in-law tasted one of those Jade Cakes and went on about it for days after she came home. She said they were refreshing and refined, unlike the pastries we usually eat.”
The two women beside her joined in as well.
“They are delicious, but they’re expensive! Such a tiny piece costs five wen. We can’t afford to buy them often. Lady Lin, why haven’t you been setting up your stall these past few days?”
“I saw you. Every morning these past few days, a rather fine-looking carriage has been waiting at the entrance to your lane. Have you landed some big business?”
Carriages were still uncommon in those days. In earlier years, only officials had been permitted to ride in them. Later, wealthy merchants began flouting the rules so often that the restrictions were gradually relaxed. Even so, most ordinary households in the city streets still used ox carts or donkey carts. Even a mule cart was considered a rarity, let alone a horse-drawn carriage. Naturally, one was bound to attract attention.
Lin Wu’s courtyard lay at the very end of the lane, with no one living opposite her and only Fourth Sister He’s home nearby. She was usually busy and had no need to fetch water from the public well at the mouth of the lane, so she truly did not have much contact with the other neighbors. Yet the way everyone now addressed her as “Lady Lin” made it clear they had been keeping an eye on her for quite some time.
With everyone’s attention on her, Lin Wu remained perfectly composed. “The pastries caught the eye of Canglang Academy. They needed refreshments for a lecture gathering, so I went to help out for a few days.”
There was no need to hide the matter. In fact, she wanted people to know. With the academy and the Shen family behind them, anyone who wished to trouble a lone mother and her child would have to think twice.
“Canglang Academy? That’s an impressive place indeed. It seems your skills really are extraordinary, Lady Lin. I’ll have to save up a few coins and buy one for my boy to satisfy his craving. He’s been talking about them for days.”
The woman with the pearl hairpin spoke again, her smile warm and bright. “If you ask me, there’s nothing surprising about the academy taking a liking to Lady Lin’s pastries. What sort of place is an academy? The people who come and go there are all learned teachers and students, so of course they appreciate elegance and refinement. Lady Lin’s pastries aren’t greasy or heavy, and they have such a delicate flavor. They may cost a little more than ordinary pastries, but anyone with discerning eyes can see the thought and quality of the ingredients that go into them. Besides, having a talented pastry maker whom the academy has invited come from our own lane—doesn’t that bring honor to all of us?”
Her words were considerate and perfectly phrased. Lin Wu felt grateful and smiled. “You flatter me, sister-in-law. It was merely a fortunate coincidence.”
At that moment, Fourth Sister He reminded her, “Lady Lin, how much charcoal do you need? If you need a lot, you can have this gentleman deliver it directly to your home. Little Jing is there by himself, isn’t he?”
Lin Wu nodded. “I’ve been so busy these past few days that I haven’t had time to replenish our supply. I do need quite a bit, so I’ll trouble this gentleman to come with me.”
They still had to make the dried meat for the shu xiu gifts, and they would certainly need a great deal of charcoal for that.
So Lin Wu and Fourth Sister He walked together toward the depths of the lane.
After the charcoal had been neatly stacked against the kitchen wall and the charcoal seller had left, Fourth Sister He finally lowered her voice.
“The woman with the high coiffure and pearl hairpin was Second Aunt Chen, who lives at the entrance of the lane. Lady Lin, you’ve only just arrived in Clear Water Lane, so you should be careful around her.”
Lin Wu was taken aback. Fourth Sister He had always been mild-tempered and amiable. She lived alone and generally did not like getting entangled in the affairs of her neighbors, so she rarely gossiped about anyone.
Fourth Sister He pulled over a stool and sat down. “You haven’t been selling at the morning market these past few days, have you? Second Aunt Chen has gone every day instead. She’s selling your Jade Cakes. They look almost identical, but she charges only four wen apiece, or seven wen for two.”
Lin Wu was somewhat surprised to hear this, but not overly so. The method for making Jade Cakes was not especially complicated. Anyone who noticed her regularly buying spinach and red dates, then spent some time experimenting, could easily imitate seventy or eighty percent of the recipe.
Fourth Sister He, however, was indignant. “That woman is shameless! She waited until you were away for a few days, then copied your recipe and undercut your prices to steal your customers. It’s downright dishonest to bully a mother and child like you. Her family home runs a food stall at the morning market, and she must have inherited some skill from them. So she made the cakes and set up a little table beside her family’s stall to sell them.”
Lin Wu was kind and well-mannered, and she had dealings with both the Shen family and the academy. Fourth Sister He’s child was studying hard at the prefectural school, while her husband spent most of the year away conducting business. Naturally, she felt a particular closeness to Lin Wu, and every word she spoke was filled with indignation on Lin Wu’s behalf.
Just then, Lin Jing returned from laying out the radishes to dry. His ears were sharp, and he happened to hear everything Fourth Sister He had said. His temper flared at once. That awful Second Aunt Chen—wasn’t this just like reaching into their purse and snatching away their money? At the thought, his little face flushed bright red. His brows drew tightly together, and his small fists clenched. Clearly, he was furious.
Lin Wu merely shook her head helplessly and gently patted his little shoulder. “Even if she really does learn how to make them, there’s not much we can do about it. In the marketplace, everyone relies on their own ability. Look at the morning market—there’s more than one person selling steamed buns and flatbreads.”
Still, she found it somewhat amusing. When she had first chosen to make these chilled jade-green cakes, it was only because she did not yet have a food cart and could not make hot dishes. Second Aunt Chen, however, had set up beside her parents’ hot-food stall, yet she had also chosen to sell cold cakes. With the hot steamed buns and hot soup cakes beside them sending up clouds of steam and offering substantial portions, those cool, dainty little treats naturally looked even more forlorn by comparison.
Fourth Sister He had clearly already made a point of gathering information for her. “She didn’t learn the method properly, either! I happened to pass by and take a look. Her jade cakes were dull in color and not half as delicate as yours. The cakes themselves had risen into dense, heavy lumps, and they didn’t look soft at all. They aren’t selling well—I always see her stall deserted.”
Lin Wu thought, Exactly. People who came to the morning market wanted something hot and filling. Jade cakes were neither hot nor filling, which was why she had deliberately chosen to set up beside the flower stall.
Seeing that Lin Wu remained fairly calm, Fourth Sister He finally relaxed as well. When she herself had first seen Second Aunt Chen selling jade cakes too, she had been so indignant on Lin Wu’s behalf that she had stewed over it for ages.
“It’s good that you can keep your composure. But whatever you do, don’t go arguing with Second Aunt Chen over this. She’s always been rather high and mighty in Clear Water Lane. Her husband’s younger sister is married to the yamen runner who oversees this neighborhood—the younger one who came to our door last time to summon people to the Mercy and Warmth Home. If you accidentally offend her, she could use that connection to make trouble for you, and then you’d really be in for a headache.” Fourth Sister He gave her another warning.
Though an xiangli was merely a low-ranking petty official, he was responsible for neighborhood security, household registers, and all sorts of miscellaneous matters. If he truly wanted to make life difficult for a rootless woman living alone, he had plenty of ways to do it. As the saying went, “The underlings are harder to deal with than the king of hell.”
“Thank you, Sister He, for telling me all this. I’ll remember it and be careful,” Lin Wu said sincerely.
The atmosphere had grown rather gloomy, so she changed the subject. “Sister He, I’ve recently been thinking up a few new things to make. They might sell well alongside the cakes. Why don’t you try them first and tell me what you think?”
As she spoke, she turned and fetched two small square cakes and several slices of dried meat.
Fourth Sister He took them and admired them at once. “Lady Lin, you truly have such nimble hands and a clever mind. Everything you make looks so pretty.”
After tasting the dried meat, she was even more astonished. “Oh! This is dried meat? It tastes wonderful! Fragrant and pleasantly chewy, yet neither too salty nor greasy.”
Then, as if she had thought of something, she asked, “This dried meat can be kept for a while, can’t it? If I could send some with my scholar son to the prefectural academy, he could have a piece whenever he craved meat. That would be wonderful. You have no idea how dreadful the academy kitchen is. Every time my son comes home during a break, I swear he’s lost another few pounds. Lady Lin, if you ever start selling this dried meat, be sure to tell me. I’ll definitely buy some.”
Fourth Sister He was quite straightforward, and she was not one to stand on ceremony. Her husband had spent years traveling around for trade, so she was refreshingly direct when it came to buying and selling.
Lin Wu, however, could only smile helplessly. “Making this dried meat involves a great many steps. Just like the jade cakes, it can’t be rushed or done carelessly, and it takes a lot of time. As you can see, I can only manage to make a few dozen jade cakes a day. One person simply can’t handle everything. As for selling dried meat, I’ll have to think about it carefully.”
Fourth Sister He nodded. “That’s right. Making and selling food is hard work. Second Aunt Chen thought it would be simple, but she only learned the bare surface of your method. Her cakes didn’t sell, and she wasted her money for nothing. She really has some nerve, coming over and saying those things to you.”
The two women chatted for a while longer before Fourth Sister He finally rose to leave.
The moment she was gone, Lin Jing began pacing back and forth around the cramped kitchen like a firecracker that had just been lit. His little face was full of anger and worry.
“That Second Aunt Chen is so mean! She’s horrible!” The more he thought about it, the angrier he became, until his voice rose without him realizing it. “Those are our cakes! Our recipe! How could she secretly copy it? I’m going to stand beside her stall and tell everyone that her cakes were copied from ours and taste terrible!”
It was the first time Lin Wu had seen him this angry. He looked like a little kitten with all its fur standing on end. Finding it rather endearing, she tried to comfort him.
“A Jing is right. It certainly is upsetting when someone secretly imitates our cakes. But in the food business, things are sometimes like this…”
She placed the pork she had bought at the market on the chopping board. When she saw that he had stopped pacing and that his dark, bright eyes were fixed on her, she continued, “Look at the butcher shops in the market. Aren’t there several of them? Yet every time we buy meat, we go to the Li family’s shop. Why do you think that is?”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Lin Jing blurted out, “Because Uncle Li’s meat is the best and the freshest! He’s a good man, too, and he always gives us a generous portion.”
Lin Wu nodded. “Exactly. Everyone knows how to make steamed buns, and there are plenty of bun stalls in the street. But some stalls make buns that are soft, fluffy, and fragrant, while others are just not as good. So naturally, people go to the stalls with the tastiest buns, just as we go to the Li family’s butcher shop for fresh meat. In the end, when you sell food, what you’re really selling is flavor. You heard what Aunt He said just now—the cakes Second Aunt Chen makes don’t taste as good as ours.”
In Lin Wu’s former world, the recipe for these jade cakes had also been something she learned from someone else, so she did not feel particularly enraged at having her recipe stolen. Besides, many families were struggling just to fill their stomachs. Those willing to spend money on jade cakes were usually not buying them for sustenance, but for the refreshing novelty and delicious taste. If they only wanted something cheap, wouldn’t a one-copper oil fritter or steamed cake be far more filling and practical?
Even if Second Aunt Chen truly learned the recipe perfectly, it would not matter. Lin Wu’s food stall could not rely on a single kind of jade cake forever. There would be other creations in the future. Once the stall was firmly established and had developed its own reputation, regular customers would naturally come to recognize it over time.
Listening to her, Lin Jing slowly unclenched his little fists. He tilted his head and thought it over. A Wu’s reasoning made perfect sense. The food A Wu made was the best in the whole world! Even if others learned the recipe with their eyes, their hands would never be able to copy it. The taste would certainly be different.
It was just like watching A Wu write. The brush merely moved back and forth in her hand, and yet she held it so steadily that the characters came out beautiful. It looked incredibly easy. But once he picked up the brush himself, the handle refused to obey him, and every character he wrote came out crooked and wobbly. Clearly, seeing how something was done and truly being able to do it were two entirely different matters.
Even so, whenever he thought of Second Aunt Chen, he was still angry.
“We’ll make cakes that taste even better and look even prettier! We’ll make her furious! No one will buy her terrible cakes!”
“Good!” Lin Wu was roused by the little fellow’s fighting spirit as well. They really did need to get the food stall up and running as soon as possible, but for now, the most important thing was to finish the dried meat on hand.
By the time the dried meat was ready, quite a while had passed. Lin Wu carefully sealed the small pieces of meat in square-cut sheets of oil paper.
Lin Jing watched from the side. The few square but completely bare oil-paper packets somehow seemed to him to be missing something. He looked up at Lin Wu. “A Wu, why don’t we stamp our little leaves on these packets too? Then everyone will know at a glance that this is meat from our family.”
When Lin Wu heard this, she was delighted. The little fellow had developed a sense of branding all on his own.
She smiled and agreed. “All right. A Jing, that’s an excellent idea. Then I’ll have to trouble you with stamping the little leaves.”
Lin Jing immediately climbed down from his stool and ran to fetch his treasured little wooden stamp and the small half-piece of an ink stick.
As he added a little water to the inkstone and ground the ink, he suddenly remembered something else. Looking up, he asked, “A Wu, which packets are for Brother Tigerhead, and which are for Sister Qing and Brother Jue?”
Lin Wu was tidying the stove and answered without looking up, “They’re all the same. I prepared two packets for each of them.”
She had calculated that one jin of pork would ultimately yield roughly fifty-four small pieces of sliced dried meat. She had packed sixty pieces each for them, leaving the rest for their own family to eat—and later, she could also send some along to Sparrow and Brother Tigerhead.
But why had A Jing asked? Curious, she turned her head.
There he was, huffing and puffing as he carefully stamped two little leaves onto one of the oil-paper packets. With great seriousness, he explained, “The packets with two leaves are for Sister Qing and Brother Jue. One leaf each. The ones with only one leaf are for Brother Tigerhead.”
Lin Wu did not understand his reasoning at all, but there was no harm in letting him stamp the packets covered in little leaves if that was what he wanted.
Even after finishing the stamping, Lin Jing was not done. He looked up again and asked, “A Wu, can I send along the copper coins I’ve saved this time too? I can put them in with the dried meat, right? I don’t have to put them in an envelope?”
“That’s right. A Jing can take an oil-paper packet and put the money inside himself.”
Lin Jing ran to fetch his little purse and poured all the copper coins inside onto the table with a clatter. Lin Wu remembered that he should have saved around twenty wen.
He carefully gathered the pile of coins and placed them into an oil-paper packet. Then he took out the two leaf-vein bookmarks he had deliberately kept.
As he looked at the translucent bookmarks, his hands suddenly stopped moving. The excitement on his little face gradually faded.
Lin Wu noticed the change in his mood and asked softly, “A Jing, what’s wrong?”
Holding the bookmarks in both hands, Lin Jing’s small shoulders drooped slightly, and his voice grew quieter. “Before… the Junior Tutor made bookmarks for me too. The Junior Tutor was Father King’s teacher. Brother Wang and I agreed that when I grew up, he would become my teacher.”
Though the words seemed disjointed, Lin Wu understood at once. Grand Tutor Chen was an upright man of great learning who had taught in the Eastern Palace for many years. He had practically watched Lin Jing grow up and was deeply connected to the Eastern Palace. Though they shared no blood relation, he and his entire family had still suffered greatly because of it this time, being sent into exile. The “Brother Wang” Lin Jing spoke of was Chen Wang, Grand Tutor Chen’s only son. Since he was not yet twenty, he had narrowly escaped death, though his future had been ruined all the same.
Lin Jing sighed, sounding rather world-weary for such a young child. “I’ve really wronged Brother Wang.”
Lin Wu’s heart sank abruptly. The child’s mind was remarkably clear. He already vaguely understood the connections and the price that had been paid. Though the Chen family had been close to the Eastern Palace, they were ultimately not bound by blood as the Gu family was. In this disaster, they had indeed suffered far too much simply for being involved.
Lin Jing continued, “I had already promised Brother Wang that he could be my teacher in the future. But now I’m going to take Master Shan as my teacher instead… Sigh.”
Hearing this, Lin Wu could not help laughing. So that was what he had been fretting over.
“A Wu, can I give one of the bookmarks to Brother Wang too? I still need to explain properly that I’m going to take Master Shan as my teacher. I hope he… won’t be angry with me.”
Looking at his solemn little face, Lin Wu nodded. “Of course. A Jing, you’ve thought this through very carefully.”
She imagined that Chen Wang had probably never expected to become his teacher in the first place.
