The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 10 - Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Rite and Ritual

Nianzhen took a mouthful of lukewarm goat’s milk to wet his parched throat. Maomao, Basen, and Lahan’s Brother waited in silence.

I didn’t expect to get so much information out of him, Maomao thought. She would have to try to sort through all he had told them.

She crossed her arms. So more than fifty years ago, Nianzhen and his tribe had destroyed the Windreaders, and several years after that, a major insect plague had occurred. Nianzhen believed the plague had been caused by the loss of the ritual. He’d become a serf, destined to spend the rest of his life performing that ritual. That seemed like a fair summary.

I guess the ritual involves tilling the earth?

It still didn’t quite make sense to Maomao—but it did to someone else.

“Nianzhen? It’s Nianzhen, right? You’re talking about fall plowing, then?”

Maomao and Basen both looked at Lahan’s Brother quizzically—they didn’t recognize that expression.

“It’s exactly what it says—plowing after the harvest in the fall,” he explained.

“And that’s...good? Wouldn’t it be more efficient to plow right before you plant the crops?” Basen asked. Maomao agreed with him.

“I’m aware of a couple of advantages. For one, you can improve the soil by turning it over and putting down paddy straw mushrooms or some other fertilizer, and for another, it helps eliminate eggs laid in the soil by pest insects.”

Maomao’s ears twitched, and she grabbed Lahan’s Brother by the collar. “Say that again!”

“Er, uh, you can put down paddy straw...”

“No, the other one!”

“Eliminating pest insects?”

“Yes, that!” Maomao shook him violently.

“Hey, quit it,” Basen said, holding her back. “You’re choking him!”

Maomao let Lahan’s Brother go.

“Ow! Yeesh! Is it that exciting? It’s a pretty ordinary farming activity,” he said, in the clear belief that this was general knowledge.

“I don’t know if there are a lot of farmers out there as diligent as you!” Maomao rejoined.

“Er... Oh. Uh, you think so?” Lahan’s Brother was clearly having some conflicting feelings. He appreciated the compliment, but it was hard for him to accept.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing,” Nianzhen broke in. “A quick look around this village probably told you—it doesn’t matter if the people around here know what to do or not; most of them just don’t care to do it. And if knowledge isn’t used, it gets lost.”

Maomao felt a pang. Lahan’s Brother had said the old man was the only one in town trying to keep up a decent field.

“May I ask you something? Are the people here even making an honest effort to raise wheat? It sort of feels like they aren’t, well, trying very hard,” Maomao said, shamelessly cribbing from Lahan’s Brother.

“So,” Nianzhen said, “it’s obvious even to the visitors, is it?”

“Yes, sir. Your field was much prettier than the others.”

Anyway, that’s what a pro farmer told me.

“I’m not trying to be pretty. I’m just trying to get a better harvest, and the field turns out that way. I can tell you, I never thought I would be the only one working myself to the bone out here.”

“Funny how life works out.” Basen’s dig had to hurt. He was a serious and dedicated military man. Maomao could understand why he might take a dim view of someone who had done things that put him at the bottom of the human dung heap, even if it was more than fifty years ago now. He might even be wondering why the man hadn’t been given a harsher punishment.

Maomao had to admit, she couldn’t help wondering the same thing. She knew, though, that executing Nianzhen wouldn’t have changed anything. Because he had been left alive, at least they could talk to him and learn what he knew.

I wonder how Rikuson found out about him.

Maybe, like Maomao, he’d simply walked around this village, and maybe, like Lahan’s Brother, he’d noticed the quality of the fields. Or perhaps he’d heard about Nianzhen from someone in the western capital.

They were talking about criminals who had become serfs fifty years and more before, and had been released from that status long ago. Rikuson was still a fresh face in this area; Maomao doubted he’d come here knowing about them.

Well, asking was quicker than pondering.

“Do you know if Rikuson came to this village because he’d found out about the ritual?”

“Yeah, that’s right. I didn’t think there was anyone left who knew about the ritual. Even the governor doesn’t seem to have heard of it. Rikuson, he said something about an acquaintance mentioning it.” Nianzhen put down the now empty cup of milk and shifted on the hard-looking bed.

“The governor doesn’t know about it? Do you mean Master Gyokuen, sir?”

In his story, Nianzhen had described Gyokuen as an upstart governor.

“Ah, sorry, bad choice of words. Not him. Yeah, Master Gyokuen is the ruler of I-sei Province, but it’s his whelp who’s been running things lately.”

“You mean his son?”

“Yeah, what’s-his-name. Gyoku-ou.”

It seemed a former bandit and former serf was not inclined to show undue respect to the governor. Not that Maomao cared, but Basen appeared to take exception to Nianzhen’s attitude. At least, she told herself, he resisted turning physical with the guy.

“I got the impression that Master Gyoku-ou is well regarded in this village. What’s behind that? Does it have something to do with the ritual?” Maomao asked.

“Hardly. He’s popular, plain and simple. He never punishes the farmers even if there’s a bad harvest. In fact, he’s so generous that if we don’t have enough to eat, he gives to us from the stores. Hell, you can almost get more that way than you would by doing a proper job.”

“Wow, wish I could say that,” Lahan’s Brother piped up.

“Yeah, he’s a real compassionate guy. A lot of the nomads are settling down. They say they’ll be better off as farmers.” Behind Nianzhen’s words, Maomao thought she caught a tone of contempt.

“You’d think such a compassionate leader would want to continue the ritual,” Lahan’s Brother said, setting down his empty cup with a tink.

“Like I said, he doesn’t know the ritual. He doesn’t understand. Even the Yi clan didn’t know exactly what the ritual was or how it worked. What they make me do these days is just a pale imitation, based on the best of their knowledge.”

“So this ritual wasn’t about petitioning the gods at all—it was really a way of preventing insect plagues,” Maomao said.

“That’s what I think. It’s the work me and the other serfs were given to do in exchange for our lives. If we didn’t want to do it, too bad—they forced us. A few guys couldn’t stand it and tried to run away, and a few guys just plain slacked off, but the authorities caught them and hanged them to a man. What did they expect, when they’d spat on their chance to get off lightly? When you’re told that you plow the fields or you die, then you plow like your life depends on it.”

What Nianzhen had done was never going to be simply forgiven or forgotten, so what else was there for him to do?

“After a decade, they started giving us some small change based on the size of the harvest. It wasn’t much, but it meant we could start saving up, and that was everything. We’re close to the western capital here—I think the proximity increased the income from the harvest. It was such a simple thing, but it got us involved, made us start thinking about how we could improve yields or keep the crops from getting sick or keep the bugs away. Part of the reason we started keeping chickens was so they could eat whatever insects turned up when we plowed the fields.”

“Quack,” quacked the duck, not that it was relevant.

“So the birds the Windreaders used weren’t chickens?” asked Maomao.

“No, they weren’t. Chickens aren’t suited to a nomadic life.”

“But if they weren’t chickens, then...” Basen looked very serious. “They must have been ducks!”

“No, they weren’t ducks! What’s wrong with you?” Lahan’s Brother exploded.

Basen frowned at this instantaneous comeback. “Ducks eat bugs. And they’re bigger than chickens, which means they can eat more bugs... Right?”

“Ducks like water. This is a desert. No one is going to raise any ducks!”

“I have proof positive that you’re wrong,” Basen said, indicating his duck. “Even waterfowl can grow big and strong here if they put their minds to it.”

“Whoever heard of a duck putting its mind to anything?!” Lahan’s Brother demanded, but it was hopeless: Basen was a complete duck fanboy. The animal at his feet seemed to puff out her chest.

“Hate to break it to you, but they weren’t...ducks, did you call them? I’ve never seen one of these before,” Nianzhen said. Lahan’s Brother smirked at Basen, who sulked and patted his duck on the head. “The birds are exactly what we’re missing to do the Windreader ritual. Those birds weren’t about eating bugs—they were used to find them. No one can just guess where there’s going to be insects on all the wide plains, can they? I’d say it was because the Windreaders knew how to do that, that the Yi clan gave them their protection.”

And now here was a serf, a survivor of a decimated tribe that had believed the Windreaders and their rites were nothing but superstition.

“All right, can I get back to work? There’s so much yet to do.” Nianzhen heaved himself to his feet.

“Of course, sir. Whatever it is that you still have to do, perhaps you would let us help?” Maomao asked, before looking to either Basen or Lahan’s Brother for approval.

“You visitors from the western capital have funny hobbies. Your Rikuson, he said the same thing. Sure, I’d appreciate it. I’m the only former serf around here. Everyone else came to this village later; they don’t give a care about anyone’s fields but their own. It’s only me looking after the fields of the guys who are gone, and it gets harder every year...”

Nianzhen had to be almost seventy by now. Old enough that he might die at any time, yet he kept laboring away.

I can’t countenance what he did, but still.

As Nianzhen shuffled away, Maomao felt like she could see shackles around his ankles.

For the next two days or so, Maomao and the others helped Nianzhen with his work. They turned over the earth with farming implements, discovering ants and earthworms and small beetles in the damp soil—and something else: long, thin blobs that, on closer inspection, had tiny eggs inside.

The chickens started with the earthworms, but when those ran out they moved on to these bundles of eggs. Basen’s duck joined them, pecking away at the ground.

Grasshopper eggs?

Maomao would have liked to calculate how many there were likely to be in a one-tan field, but she didn’t have time. Whenever she found an egg bundle that the birds had missed, she would pluck it out of the ground and place it in a jar.

These are probably the larger ones, she thought.

It was the kind of work that would drive someone with a fear of insects insane. Even Maomao, who had a good deal of experience with grasshopper dissection, didn’t enjoy looking at the little egg bundles.

Lahan’s Brother and Basen both plowed several times as much soil as Maomao could manage. Lahan’s Brother showed his stuff as a true farmer—the way he held and used the hoe was just different—while Basen’s ridiculous strength, for once, served him well.

I’m glad Basen was willing to join us here. He could have refused on the grounds that this wasn’t soldier’s work; there wouldn’t have been much she could do then. He seemed to have taken Jinshi’s concern about the grasshoppers to heart, though, and joined in without complaint. It probably seemed easy compared to raising ducks.

Basen’s willingness to be part of this convinced the guards and farmers they’d brought from the western capital to help out too. It looked like they were going to plow the entire field within the day. Even Chue was there, scampering across the plowed earth picking up any stray grasshopper eggs. Two children followed close behind her—the brother and sister she’d given the potato to. They seemed to be under the impression that if they helped out, there might be another potato in it for them.

“Miss Maomao! Miss Maomao! I’ve got lots! Wanna see?”

“Miss Chue! Miss Chue! I don’t want to see them. Although if you have a praying mantis ootheca, I’ll gladly take it.” Praying mantis eggs could be made into a medicine called sang piao shao, or mantis egg case, which was pretty valuable in that it was hard to get in large quantities.

“These eggs are hatching—there’s little guys coming out of them! Sure you don’t want to see, Miss Maomao?”

“Well, it is spring. And yes, I’m sure. They’re disgusting; please don’t show them to me.”

From the insect encyclopedia in the Shi clan fortress, Maomao had learned that grasshoppers lived for about three months and could lay upward of a hundred eggs at a time. The eggs hatched in spring, and the new generation would lay more eggs in summer.

I should’ve asked them to bring the Shi clan book about bugs—and the one about medicinal herbs, while we’re at it.

The more information they had, the better off they would be.

It wasn’t like grasshoppers bred all year round. At the moment, the eggs laid last autumn were starting to hatch. “Fall plowing” was a good idea—it would turn up the eggs that had been hidden in the earth, which would then become food for birds or small animals.

I think I remember Lahan talking about this. What had he called it? Multiplying like rats?

Say a single pair of rats had twelve children, for a total of fourteen rats. Assume there were six females among the children—meaning seven total, including their mother. Each of them could have another twelve babies.

This was basically an academic proposition, of course; not all of the rats were going to survive into adulthood. But grasshoppers multiplied much the same way, meaning that it was crucial to bring their numbers down as early in the cycle as possible.

If one cluster of eggs is a hundred, then ten is a thousand, and a hundred would be ten thousand. They could reduce the number of grasshoppers they had to deal with in the future by orders of magnitude if they could take care of the eggs now.

Grasshoppers liked to lay their eggs in ground that was somewhat damp. I guess with the river right nearby and plenty of grass to eat, this is the perfect place for them. Maybe some of the land had deliberately been left uncultivated specifically to attract the grasshoppers.

There were supposedly a number of other villages like this one scattered around I-sei Province—but how many of them were still functioning?

Nianzhen came up to Maomao, carrying a jar of grasshopper eggs. “All we have to do now is burn these.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Mm. Last year I was late with this, and a lot of the grasshoppers got away from me.”

She did recall the farmers of the village saying that last year had been a bad one for bug damage.

“So the harvest was poor?” she asked.

Nianzhen nodded. “There was only enough for us to eat, and we have no stores. If we’d had to pay taxes on top of that, we probably would’ve starved. Then we wouldn’t have had enough left over to buy daily necessities from the merchants, so we would have had to sell off our livestock.”

“But the governor exempted you from taxes, right? In fact, he even sent you support.”

“That he did. He’s cut from good cloth, that governor,” Nianzhen said—but again he sounded like he was saying it through gritted teeth.

Maomao decided not to beat around the bush. “You don’t quite sound like you mean that, sir. May I ask what bothers you so much about him?”

“I realize a former bandit’s in no position to criticize, but these people will take anything they can get. They beg and wheedle and plead for every last bit—they’re like grasshoppers themselves. If they’re so eager not to starve, maybe they should try growing some crops! But they don’t have to bother, because they have a ‘bad harvest’ and in comes the money. What would you do, if you could make as much or more lazing about than by breaking your back in the fields?”

“Is that why none of the fields in this village seem well cared-for?”

“You got it. It was the same way with the grasshoppers last year. Everyone just stood by and watched the bugs ravage their fields. The village headman was only wondering how to spin it in his letter to get the most sympathy from the governor. Meanwhile, I was going from plant to plant, plucking those grasshoppers off the leaves one at a time. They thought I was a fool!”

It hardly seemed like the actions of someone who had once been the vilest of bandits. The terror of the earlier plague seemed to have left a permanent mark on Nianzhen.

No... Maybe I’m wrong.

Maybe Nianzhen had always had a diligent streak. Born and raised to brigandage, he’d learned to shoot a bow and had excelled at what he had been told was important: killing.

Logic was not, after all, something one was born with.

“Judging by how the village looks now, they must have brought in quite a lot of cash last year,” Maomao said.

“They sure did. It’s been this way for more than a decade. Always the same. They have a crop failure, the governor saves their necks. A good, kind governor.”

Good and kind, huh...

She wondered where all this money to support the farmers was coming from. Maybe it was excess from trade? She’d seen what a flourishing place the western capital was—there seemed to be more than enough cash going around to spare a few small coins for a farming village.

“If they’re going to spend all that money out here, it seems like an irrigation canal or two might be nice,” Maomao said.

When people had to do less physical labor hauling water, new kinds of work opened up. More fields could be developed. It would have been a wise investment, in Maomao’s eyes.

“That man Rikuson said the same thing,” said Nianzhen.

“Did he?” When they got back to the capital, she would have to find out how Rikuson had learned about this former serf.

“I suppose I should apologize for making you spend all your time helping me out here,” Nianzhen said. “Was there anything else you needed in this village?”

“Anything else...” Maomao rested her chin on the shaft of her hoe and closed her eyes. “Oh!”

She went over to Lahan’s Brother, who wasn’t just turning over the earth but was starting to build up ridges.

“Are you planning to make a field here?” she asked.

“Ack!”

His face says: Shoot! I always do that! Lahan’s Brother could deny it all he liked, but he was a farmer through and through.

“Aren’t you going to tell people about your potatoes? That’s what you brought them for, right?”

“Yes, well, you’d think, wouldn’t you?” Lahan’s Brother grumbled. “But you saw these people—they aren’t actually interested in field work. You think they’d actually bother growing potatoes if I gave them to them? I doubt they’d use their established fields to grow new crops, but they don’t look like they’re about to bother breaking new ground either.”

“Point taken,” Maomao said.

“That’s why I was so eager to meet the one person around here with a decent field!”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, but there’s no point giving the potatoes to the old guy.”

“I guess not.”

As the last of the former serfs in this village, Nianzhen had to tend to his own field as well as to the plowing for the so-called ritual. Normally, the plowing would have been finished in autumn, and here it was dragging on into spring—a clear sign of just how short of help he was.

“You don’t think we could leave someone here to help?” Maomao asked, looking at the farmers they had brought from the central region.

Lahan’s Brother almost seemed to think about it, but then said, “They only came all the way from the central region because I did. I can’t just leave them to work the soil in a land they hardly know. It would just be too tragic, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, that’s fair.”

Lahan’s Brother’s older-brotherliness could come out at the strangest times. He might have made a really good eldest son, if only he’d been born into a normal family.

“I’m just glad my dad isn’t here. He’d vow to make them understand the glory of potatoes, and then who knows what he’d do!”

“If you’ll excuse my saying so, I can’t picture Lahan’s Father taking matters into his own hands like that.” In Maomao’s mind, he was an easygoing, almost Luomen-esque figure. “And also... The glory of potatoes?”

“Oh, he would describe the beauty of the flowers, the shape of the leaves, the graceful, supple roots...”

“They’re potatoes. He could at least focus on their deliciousness.”

Maomao looked over at the siblings following Chue around. She set down her jar and went over to them.

“Say, would you like another of those potatoes?” she asked, squatting down so she was eye level with them.

“Yes, we would!”

“Want potatoes!”

The kids’ eyes sparkled.

“We’ve never ate something so sweet before! It was sweeter than raisins!”

“Raisins?” Maomao said.

“Sweets are valuable around here,” Chue interjected. “They don’t have honey, and sugar doesn’t come cheap.” She placed her large jar on her head and spun around.

So sweets are worth more here than in the central region.

“I think we can use this.” Maomao headed back to Lahan’s Brother, grinning.

There was a big hole dug behind Nianzhen’s house. It was covered in scorch marks—maybe it was normally for burning trash or something.

“This is where you burn the grasshopper eggs?” Maomao asked him.

“’S right. They don’t burn easy, so you have to add fuel.”

Presumably meaning oil or animal dung. The firewood and charcoal that Maomao and the others took for granted would almost pass for luxury products around here.

“Since we’ve got all these eggs to burn, I wouldn’t mind trying something different,” Maomao suggested.

Nianzhen gave her a look. “Whatever works. What did you have in mind?”

“Maybe I could borrow this.” She touched a big pot sitting outside. It was old, but sturdy; if they got the rust off, it looked like it would be quite usable. The dry grass and dead insects inside attested to how long it had been sitting there.

“Sure. Have fun.”

Maomao promptly turned the pot over and began scrubbing it with a reed scrub brush.

“Here you go, Miss Maomao!” Chue said. She had hauled water from the river, which Maomao gladly used. “That’s quite a pot you’ve got there! Big enough to make qingjiao rousi for thirty people!”

“I wonder if they used it for cooking,” Maomao said as she and Chue faced each other over the pot, scrubbing away.

“That was for making the serfs’ rice. They’d cook up an entire day’s worth at once,” said Nianzhen.

“Huh! So there were plenty of serfs,” said Chue. Maomao had told her Nianzhen’s story, but the unusual lady-in-waiting didn’t seem much bothered. It was as if it hardly mattered to her whether she was dealing with a former bandit or even a killer. “So was this a serving dish?” Chue picked up a round, metal plate.

“That’s a mirror. Used to be in the shrine.”

Mirrors were sometimes used for ritual purposes. This one might have been polished to a shine once upon a time, but now it was streaked with rust and reflected almost nothing.

“As long as we’re polishing things, you want us to polish this?” Chue said, rubbing it with her arm.

“Sure, if you would. Haven’t had time myself.”

Perhaps the serfs had shared the duty of polishing it, once again in some long-ago time, but it was simply too much for Nianzhen to get to by himself.

How much do the villagers really know? Maomao wondered. They seemed to treat Nianzhen as an eccentric, but they weren’t openly hostile toward him. Nor did they seem particularly worried about an insect plague. Was it possible the villagers were pretty laid-back?

Maomao couldn’t stop herself from musing, “Wonder if this village would survive if it was ever hit by bandits.”

She was speaking almost to herself, but Chue chirped, “Oh, they would be fine! They might be settled now, but they used to be nomads. They have bows and swords in their huts, all strung and sharpened and ready to go. Plus they know the terrain—you’d have to be a very brave bandit to attack this place!”

“That explains why they go after travelers instead,” Maomao said.

What did ever happen to that guide of ours?

It seemed like it might be better left unthought-about, but there was something she had to ask. “Why did you decide to have us be the bait, Miss Chue? Master Basen didn’t seem like he knew what you were planning, and it would be unlike the Moon Prince to order us to do something like that.”

Jinshi seemed to be quite alert to Maomao’s safety these days—even Basen’s presence as their bodyguard seemed like an act of consideration from him.

Chue narrowed her already small eyes, making them even smaller. “My orders were to minimize risk. And isn’t it safer to know when and where you’ll be attacked, rather than not having any idea when the enemy will strike?”

So Chue had been thinking of safety too, in her own way.

“All right, but I think normally you try to hide how much danger people are in. It makes them less jumpy.”

“I know you’ve got a lot of guts, Miss Maomao. Anyway, I thought maybe you’d appreciate the more logical approach.”

“I just want to say for the record that if someone punched me, I would die.”

“Understood and duly noted! But if we need anyone to survive any poisons, you’ll be up!”

Chue certainly knew who was good for what.

As they chatted, the pot got progressively cleaner. Nianzhen was doing some other work nearby.

“What would you like us to do with this? I mean, with this pot?” Chue called.

“Put the grasshopper eggs in it,” he replied.

Chue recoiled with almost comical intensity. “Miss Maomao...”

“No, no, Miss Chue, don’t worry. We’re not going to eat them. I promise.”

“You promise promise?” Chue still didn’t look like she believed her.

“Yes. They don’t look very tasty, do they? And they’re disgusting. We should know, we gathered them.” Mature bugs she had eaten, but even she would say no to insect eggs. “We’ll pour oil on these—”

“And fry them?”

“And burn them.”

“Burn them?”

Maomao took the pot and headed toward the shrine. It was of modest brick construction, but if it were cleaned and decorated it would be suitably imposing.

“I say we light a fire here. That seems ritual-ish, doesn’t it?” Maomao asked.

“Oh-ho,” said Chue.

“And a ritual needs a feast, right?” Maomao looked at the kids from the village, who were still hanging around. Word about the potatoes must’ve traveled, because there was a small crowd in addition to the brother and sister.

“I see what you’re getting at.” Chue laughed. She saw where Maomao was going with this—good. “You just leave the decorations to me!” She pulled a length of red ribbon from her collar. “We’ll need a platform for our lovely pot. I’ll get Lahan’s Brother and my little brother-in-law to help!”

Apparently, Chue now also called him “Lahan’s Brother.”

Chue focused on building the platform, so Maomao was left to prepare the meal. She borrowed the oven in Nianzhen’s house to whip something up. Maomao sometimes felt like she was standing in En’en’s pro-chef shadow, but the fact was, she wasn’t a half-bad cook herself.

Cooking is basically just like mixing up drugs, but with food. You put the ingredients and the garnishes together to make something tasty.

“What’re you doing?” Nianzhen asked, narrowing his remaining eye.

“Ritual.”

“How’s that again?”

“Rituals are supposed to be joyous celebrations, are they not, sir? And for that, you need a feast.”

“I suppose you’ve got me there...” He looked uneasy; his gaze settled on Lahan’s Brother.

“Stop! Don’t use all of them! I only brought so many, you know!”

What was “them”? The seed potatoes, of course. They had decided to make this festival a big one.

“I know, I know. Less whining, more steaming!”

“You can’t talk to people like—Grr!”

Lahan’s Brother grumbled angrily to himself, but he put more fuel in the stove. He was using two sticks to pick it up—maybe he felt an instinctive resistance to handling sheep dung with his bare hands, even if it was dried.

“You can use whatever tools I have around my house. If you use up my food, I’d appreciate if you could spare me a few coins for it. I live right on the edge,” Nianzhen said.

“Thank you, sir,” Maomao said.

“I’m going to get some sleep,” said Nianzhen, lying down on the crude bed. He looked hardy, but he was an old man, and days on end of work in the fields took their toll.

“Sweet potatoes get their sweetest when slow-cooked, right?” Maomao asked.

“Yes! You can’t just roast them over a big, hot flame!”

So it’s not just potato farming he’s so well-versed in. It’s potato cooking too.

It looked like Lahan had been relying in no small measure on Lahan’s Brother to dream up ways to use sweet potatoes. Lahan’s Brother could be rough on his younger sibling, but he was fundamentally a decent person—too decent. The way he made a point of pushing back at everything suggested an ordinary but belated rebellious phase.

“I’m not a very versatile cook. What do you think we can make with the ingredients on hand here?” Maomao asked.

“Why are you asking me?!”

“Because Miss Chue is more the eating type, and Master Basen won’t be any help.”

Chue seemed like she might have been able to make congee, if she really had to, but when it came to more elaborate dishes, she was focused on consumption rather than production.

“Well, I don’t know,” Lahan’s Brother said flatly. He looked away from her, but he was obviously lying.

“I see,” said Maomao. “I’m sorry... I was just hoping to treat them to something they’d really enjoy.”

She looked back, toward the door, where children were peeking in. The crowd of kids accompanying the brother and sister had grown to substantial proportions.

“Oh, look at all your friends,” she said, uncharacteristically speaking directly to the children. “I’ll bet you were all hoping you could have something special. Something delicious.”

“What?” asked the sister, on the verge of tears. “You mean... You mean we don’t get to eat potatoes?”

“Oh, you will, you will. It’s just... I’m sorry. I won’t be able to make them taste very good by myself.”

“Why? Are you bad at cooking?” asked another kid.

“Aw, I wish we could have potatoes. Doesn’t sound like we’ll get any,” a third child said mournfully.

Lahan’s Brother looked increasingly uncomfortable. He hunched, he kept his back to them—but only for a moment. Then he sighed a long sigh, turned, and raised a finger. “Listen, you little brats. You want food, help with the cooking. Those who don’t work, don’t eat. But those who do work—I’ll treat you to the best food you’ve ever had!”

The children cheered, and Lahan’s Brother proved he was the ultimate eldest son.

What a soft touch! Maomao thought as she speared a potato in the steamer on her chopsticks.

By the time Maomao and her crew were done cooking, the shrine had been fully decorated. Chue had placed the pot full of grasshopper eggs smack in the middle, atop a small but well-constructed pile of bricks that served as an impromptu platform.

The modest shrine was festooned with red banners, and animal-lard lamps glowed here and there. There was a clanging of metal; Maomao looked toward the sound to discover two metal plates had been tied together to create a clapper. When the wind blew through, it rattled the cymbals and made the banners flutter.

The chair and tables, such as they were, consisted of barrels covered in felt. The “table” was piled with the food Maomao and the others had made.

By the time everything was ready, the sun was already brushing the western horizon.

“What all’s going on here?” someone asked. It wasn’t just kids anymore—the adults had started to show up as well.

Once everyone was there, Maomao poured oil into the huge pot. Then they lit a fire, using dried grass to get it started.

There was a whiff of an aroma that might have been pleasant or might have been stomach turning; it was hard to tell. The pot began to burn brilliantly, accentuated by the gathering darkness.

“What are you, ahem, doing, esteemed visitors?” the village headman asked, perplexed. Several of the other villagers were with him.

“Allow me to explain,” said Basen, stepping forward. Chue came up beside him and briefly showed him a piece of paper.

Cue cards!

Thankfully, the villagers didn’t notice.

“This village was founded long ago in order to carry out a ritual,” Basen said.

“Yes, we’ve heard of it,” the headman said. “You mean the ‘ritual’ of turning up the earth that no one understands. Only Nianzhen does it now.”

“That’s correct. And I’m well aware that you don’t understand it. The reason we have come to you this day is to bring to you the full and proper form of the ritual, which you knew only in part, but which we now give to you in whole.”

Very profound.

Basen was reciting from a script, and he sounded like it, but, backlit by the fire, he still managed to look important, maybe even sacred. Chue was well prepared; she had a whole sheaf of paper, from which she selected appropriate lines based on the villagers’ reactions.

She really knows how to handle her little brother.

Lahan’s Brother was holding the duck in his arms: having it waddling around behind Basen might spoil the reverential image they were trying to create.

Lahan’s Brother nudged Maomao. “Is that true?” he hissed. The moment was so convincingly manufactured that he had been taken in along with the audience.

“It is now. Try to play along.”

“Wait... It’s not true?” He looked scandalized. Meanwhile, Basen continued to speak with the villagers.

“Have you really? I see you’re prepared to conduct the ritual right now...but may I ask you a question first?” the headman ventured.

“What would you like to know?”

“It’s only Nianzhen who’s been entrusted with this duty, isn’t it? The rest of us were summoned here by the governor as settlers—we weren’t told of any ritual.”

There was a great crack from inside the pot.

The headman seemed to be saying that the visitors were more than welcome to conduct their rite, but the villagers had no intention of joining in. By the look on his face it was clear he thought Basen was trying to push something on him, and he didn’t want it.

Chue stopped hopping around for a thoughtful second, then showed Basen another cue card.

“I understand your objection. It need not be you who conducts the ritual.” Basen looked at Maomao. From behind him, Chue gave her a broad wink. “But may I take it, then, that you don’t care what happens as a result?”

Basen pointed directly at Maomao. (This was also at Chue’s direction.)

They’re trying to pass the buck to me! He seemed to be indicating that they would leave the ritual to Maomao, but that was more than she had signed on for. What the hell do they want me to do?!

Still, she had to roll with it. She walked forward one slow, solemn step at a time, toward the big pot.

There has to be something I can try. Some little bluff, something to pull the wool over their eyes...

Maomao placed her hands in front of her chest, which gave her a chance to dig through the folds of her robes. She didn’t keep as much in there as Chue did, but she had some herbs and sewing tools. She walked as slowly as she could and tried to come up with a script. Finally she arrived in front of the cauldron, where she bowed her head.

“This fire carries our offerings to the gods. There was a time, once, when other humans were our sacrifices, but the gods spoke to us and revealed that this was not the manner of sacrifice they desired.”

She’d cribbed the words from a novel that had been popular in the rear palace. It had sounded even more high-flying in the original, but she couldn’t remember all the words.

“The god of this land takes the form of a bird; therefore it was decreed that the deity should be given an offering in accordance with the preferred sustenance of its manifestation.”

She’d spotted one of the chickens sleeping in the shed.

“A bird deity? But we worship a god of the pasture...”

“What? You mean after all this time as farmers, you still worship your old god?” Chue asked, making sure to lay it on thick. “That would explain it! Now I see why your wheat grows so poorly. Let me guess—it gets worse every year, doesn’t it? Well, who can blame it, when the people who live here don’t even worship the god of these parts?”

That set the villagers muttering among themselves. It was true, Maomao suspected, that the harvest got worse and worse—with such listless cultivation, the land itself would decline. Unlike wet rice cultivation, grain needed soil that had been well cared-for, or the crop would wither.

I think this is going well?

It seemed rather promising. Until:

“That’s a lot of nonsense. I think the land is just exhausted. All this talk of gods—who knows if they even exist?” one of the village youth called out.

Come on, have a little faith! Maomao thought—never mind her own attitude.

Other villagers started to speak up:

“We’ve been here all this time. Why bring up gods and rituals now?”

“Yeah, we don’t need a good harvest, anyway—not with such a compassionate and generous governor watching over us!”

“He’s right! We don’t know if the gods exist—but we sure know the governor does, and we know he’ll watch out for us!”

There was a general murmur of agreement.

Believe only what you can see. Uh-huh. Fair enough. Maomao sympathized; she couldn’t say she would have done any different in their place. But she had a job to do.

Maomao bowed her head and laughed. “Heh heh!”

“What’s so funny?” one of the villagers demanded.

“Why, nothing. Only, you all seem to be laboring under a misunderstanding. Allow me to reiterate: it need not be you who conducts the ritual,” she said, repeating Basen’s words. Then she turned her back to the villagers, taking the opportunity to rifle through the folds of her robe. She was careful not to let any of them see her.

Let’s see. What we need is...

She gave a great flourish of her hands, and the flame in the cauldron whooshed and danced.

“Look! The fire!” someone exclaimed.

The flames had turned yellow.

“What is this?!”

Maomao had more than just medicinal herbs stashed in her robes—she also carried disinfectant alcohol. Not to mention she still had a pinch of the salt from cooking earlier. Chue kept some with her—she’d explained it was a luxury item around here.

Ahh, this takes me back.

The same thing had once been behind a mystery in the rear palace: salt burned yellow.

“Can you not see the god’s will?” Maomao picked up the mirror housed in the shrine. Chue had polished it, somewhat, but only enough to get off the worst of the rust.

That’s perfect, though.

She dribbled some alcohol on the mirror and transferred some of the fire from the pot to its surface. Now the fire burned blue-green.

Maomao turned and put on her “business” smile.

“It appears the god is angry, and grieved.”

The bronze mirror was growing quite warm with the fire on it, so she set it beside the pot.

A buzz started among the villagers when they saw the color-changing flames.

“Now, I realize that you will not participate in the ritual.” She looked at the meal set out on the barrel. “But we seem to have made somewhat too much food tonight. Won’t you all have some before it goes cold?”

“Yippee!” the kids said, throwing their hands in the air. It wouldn’t be right to make them help all day and then not give them any food.

The adults were more hesitant, intimidated by the colorful fire—but they were undeniably drawn to the unusual food, the likes of which they’d never seen before. When everyone was looking at the table, Maomao nudged Chue. “Don’t put me on the spot like that again,” she muttered. Frankly, she’d broken into a cold sweat.

“I had faith that you could do it, Miss Maomao,” Chue said innocently, and then with a smile she jumped in to join the general melee over the feast.

I sure hope it works.

Maomao was exhausted. She decided to let Chue and the others handle things from here—she would go back to the tent to get some rest.