Living Hand to Mouth

As the sun sank in the west, a frail little figure walked along a mountain path. Two bloody scratches marked his face, likely left by the mountain brambles. His blue hemp clothes had been washed until they had faded white, patched everywhere, with frayed threads hanging from the cuffs. Even his shoes had worn through enough to expose his big toes. A large bamboo basket was strapped to his back, filled with all sorts of miscellaneous herbs gathered from the mountains.

The boy was called Er Gouzi. His real name was Wang Hong, and he came from Wang Family Village. Not a single person in the entire village could read or write, so his name had been chosen by an old Taoist fortune-teller in town for ten copper coins. The adults believed cheap names were easier to raise, so everyone usually called him Er Gouzi.

There were plenty of names in the village involving dogs, pigs, and oxen. There were six boys named Gouzi alone, and Wang Hong ranked second, so he became Er Gouzi. He thought his nickname was quite good—far better than nicknames like Ox Dung Lump or Roundworm.

Wang Hong was twelve years old this year. His mother had died when he was five, and his father had entered the mountains last spring and never returned. The village adults said he had encountered a wolf pack and been buried in their bellies.

That left Wang Hong and his eight-year-old younger brother to depend on each other for survival. His brother was named Wang Yi, with the nickname Si Gouzi. When their father had still been alive, he had rented ten mu of land from Steward Wang's household, and their days had been barely manageable.

After his father died, Steward Wang saw that the brothers were too young and feared they would not be able to farm the land properly or pay the rent. He took the fields back. There were more people than land in this area, after all, and countless people were waiting to farm for his household.

As for entering the mountains to hunt, no one was willing to bring along a burden like him. He might fail to keep up with the prey, only to become a snack for the mountain beasts himself.

With no other choice, Wang Hong could only gather herbs in the relatively safe outer regions of Cangyun Mountain and sell them to the town pharmacy for a few copper coins.

His younger brother wandered through the fields all day, looking for wild vegetables, gathering firewood, and taking charge of washing clothes and cooking.

As he walked, Er Gouzi calculated today's haul. His luck had been terrible. After wandering the mountains all day, he had only gathered one or two liang of honeysuckle, half a liang of pinellia, and a little wild chrysanthemum, schizonepeta grass, wind-chasing vine, and other herbs. Altogether, they would sell for at most two copper coins.

He had also dug out three bird eggs the size of fingertips and picked a handful of wild fruit.

The mountain's outer regions were safer, with no large beasts roaming about. But anything worth even a little money had long since been picked clean, again and again, by everyone.

At the foot of the mountain, Wang Family Village was already wreathed in ribbons of cooking smoke. A few children were playing at the village entrance. Wang Family Village had only several dozen households, all tenant farmers of Steward Wang's household in town. They made their living renting farmland, and during the slack season, they also entered the mountains to hunt and gather herbs to supplement their households' income.

In good years, they could barely scrape together enough food and clothing. In bad years, selling sons and daughters was not unheard of.

From far away, he saw a child of seven or eight squatting by the door, sorting wild vegetables. The child worked with great care, shaking the dirt from every stalk, plucking off each leaf one by one, and removing the parts chewed through by insects.

Wang Hong crept quietly up behind him, unnoticed.

"Ah!" Wang Hong suddenly shouted, startling Wang Yi so badly that he fell flat onto the ground. Once he saw that it was Wang Hong, he angrily smeared all the dirt on his hands over Wang Hong's clothes.

He chased Wang Hong until Wang Hong was hopping and darting about. After his younger brother had vented his anger, Wang Hong took a small parcel wrapped in leaves from his basket, its edges carefully stitched together with grass stems.

"Little Brother, look what this is."

Wang Yi's eyes lit up. He snatched it away and said, "This counts as compensation for scaring me."

His younger brother gently opened it. Inside were raspberries, each one formed from tiny millet-sized beads clustered together, as large as a thumb and black all over when fully ripe. They were sweet with a touch of tartness, and his younger brother loved them most.

"Wow, so many raspberry clusters! I dug up lots of wild vegetables today too." His younger brother smiled until his eyes narrowed into thin slits, then pinched up a few and tossed them into his mouth.

"Mmm... delicious!"

He grabbed another handful and stuffed them into Wang Hong's mouth.

"I found several raspberry bushes in the mountains. There are still lots on the bushes that aren't ripe yet. We'll pick them again in a couple of days. Eat them—I'm going to cook."

Wang Hong grabbed a handful of rice, put it into the pot with plenty of water, and brought it to a boil. As it simmered, he slowly stirred it with a wooden spoon.

His younger brother helped tend the fire beside him, popping raspberries into his own mouth from time to time and occasionally feeding some to Wang Hong as well.

After nearly half an hour, the water and rice had completely blended into a thick-looking white porridge. He added shredded wild vegetables, then cracked the three bird eggs into it and gently stirred them apart with chopsticks. Green leaves floated in the white porridge, along with wisps of egg. After adding a little salt for flavor, a pot of fragrant, tempting wild vegetable egg-drop porridge was ready. They filled two large bowls and sat on a big stone outside the door, slurping it down.

That night, Wang Hong watched his younger brother sleeping sweetly beside him, but sleep had utterly fled from him. Ever since their father's death last year, he had relied on gathering herbs in the mountains each day and selling them to the town pharmacy to earn a few copper coins, barely sustaining the two brothers.

More often than not, they had a meal one moment and none the next. The events of last winter were still fresh in his memory. Heavy snow had sealed off the mountains for two months, leaving the earth a vast expanse of white with nothing to eat.

The brothers had dug through the snow for grass roots to fill their bellies, often waking in the middle of the night from hunger. Luckily, they had trapped a wild rabbit in the meantime, and together with grass roots, it had carried them through the final ten-odd days. Winter was almost here again. His younger brother had dried more than twenty bundles of wild vegetables, but they had to last until spring, when fresh wild vegetables could be dug again. They were still far from enough.

By pinching pennies and tightening their belts this past year, they had saved a little over twenty copper coins. That could only buy a little over two jin of rice. It seemed he would have to venture into the deep mountains tomorrow.

In truth, there were also precious medicinal herbs deep within Cangyun Mountain. Last year, Wang Laoqi had found a ten-year-old ginseng plant there and sold it for four taels of silver.

One tael of silver was worth one string of cash—one thousand copper coins. Two taels of silver were enough for the two brothers to live on for a year.

But there were many wild beasts in the mountains as well. Hunters usually had to gather five or six people before daring to enter, and even then, casualties occurred from time to time. Better to gamble in the deep mountains than sit at home waiting for death.

Early the next morning, Er Gouzi packed his things, brought a corn bun and a hunting knife, and entered the mountains through the morning dew.

More than ten li into Cangyun Mountain, ancient trees towered overhead, and trees requiring several people to encircle them stood everywhere. The ground was even more thickly overgrown with brambles, and his clothes and trousers had been torn in several places.

Wang Hong held a long stick to clear the way, pushing aside the brambles blocking his path while carefully sweeping his gaze over the surroundings. Suddenly, delight appeared on his face. Following his line of sight, there was a small cluster of emerald-green plants not far to his left. Their stems were like pen shafts, covered in little white blossoms. Their leaves grew in pairs and resembled bamboo leaves.

"Ha! Ha! Ha! So much solomon's seal." He took out his small medicinal hoe and carefully began digging. A moment later, he had gathered thirteen solomon's seal plants in total. One was eight years old, two were six years old, and the rest ranged from three to five years.

He left several small seedlings untouched for those who came after. This was also an unspoken rule among herb gatherers: harvest the large and leave the small. Those who gathered ginseng scattered ginseng seeds nearby afterward. For plants with rhizomes, they left a bit of the smaller rootstock in the soil. For vines, they left some of the vine behind. If everyone gathered herbs with methods that cut off descendants and ended bloodlines, those precious medicinal herbs would have gone extinct long ago.

Afterward, he found several more herbs that were not worth much, as well as a wild walnut tree. He picked up twenty or thirty wild walnuts. Walnuts would not spoil and could be saved for winter.

Just then, Wang Hong discovered a wild kudzu vine. With his rear stuck up in the air, he dug away with all his might. Kudzu root could be eaten raw, sweet in flavor and thirst-quenching. He tore off a small strip, put it into his mouth, and chewed with relish. Kudzu root could also be cooked; it tasted somewhat like boiled yam and was very filling. It could even be sold as medicinal herbs for money.