After a brief conversation, Qin Ming learned that his neighbor's surname was Zhou. He was a peddler who traveled far and wide. This time, he had settled in the city with his family, hoping to live steadily for a few years and let the children learn a few characters.
The woman did not speak much. She simply smiled as she served dishes and added rice, placing chunk after chunk of meat into Qin Ming's bowl.
The two children sat properly, though their eyes kept drifting toward the plate of brown sugar rice cakes on the table.
They spoke of everyday matters over the meal, such as where rice was cheaper, or how there had been too much rain that autumn and firewood was hard to dry.
Most of the time, Qin Ming merely listened, only responding with a word or two now and then.
After dinner, the little boy carried a small stool into the courtyard and pestered Qin Ming until he agreed to let him watch him carve stone.
As the saying went, once you had eaten someone's food, it was hard to refuse them.
Qin Ming felt too embarrassed to turn him down. Besides, he had not finished the carp stone carving from before, so he might as well complete it now.
Qin Ming's knife rose and fell, and more and more stone chips gathered on the ground. His hands moved faster and faster until afterimages of each stroke seemed to appear.
The boy watched without blinking, even forgetting to eat the candy he had been holding for so long.
The little girl still hid shyly behind her mother, only occasionally poking her head out to look.
By the time the carp's final scale was carved, night had fallen.
Qin Ming then rose to take his leave. Peddler