The Foolish You and Her

Qin Yanan held her phone, intending to find a photo of Zhu Juntang to show Liu Chang'an, when a little girl came bouncing in, her arms swinging wildly from side to side.

Zhou Dongdong walked up to Liu Chang'an, held her soy milk high in the air, and said, "Brother Chang'an, four bad guys ran away outside!"

"Wasn't it six?" Qin Yanan was startled. Had the remaining two been beaten into a state of emergency by Liu Chang'an?

Thinking this, Qin Yanan hurried outside to take a look, but there was no one left. How could she say only four had run away?

"Her name is Zhou Dongdong. She's a silly kid; she can't count past five," Liu Chang'an said to Qin Yanan.

"The teacher didn't teach me..." Zhou Dongdong swayed dismissively.

Qin Yanan couldn't help but chuckle and shake her head, only to notice Zhou Dongdong leaning against the doorframe, staring at her stomach. When she realized Qin Yanan had noticed, her eyes darted away.

"Do you want some soy milk?" Liu Chang'an asked Qin Yanan, holding the cup Zhou Dongdong had brought.

Qin Yanan waved her hand.

"Big Sister, you need to drink more soy milk so the baby in your tummy can grow up faster," Zhou Dongdong said with concern.

"I don't have a baby. Big Sister doesn't have a baby," Qin Yanan said, feeling a bit embarrassed. "Why would you think there's a baby in Big Sister's tummy?"

Qin Yanan was quite confident in her figure; surely Zhou Dongdong wouldn't think there was a baby in there just because she saw her stomach was large?

"Big Sister, when a boy and a girl sleep together, they get a baby," Zhou Dongdong explained earnestly, as if it were obvious.

Qin Yanan was mortified and nudged Liu Chang'an, who was busy drinking the soy milk as if he hadn't heard a word.

"You have to call her Auntie. If she's about the same age as your mom, you call her Auntie," Liu Chang'an said, shaking his head and patting Zhou Dongdong on the head. "You're so big now and still don't know how to address people. Don't deny it when I call you a silly kid from now on."

"You are! You are! You are!"

"What is five plus five?"

"How should I know!"

"See..."

"You are! You are! You are!"

Qin Yanan watched Liu Chang'an bickering with Zhou Dongdong with a blank expression. If Zhou Dongdong was a silly kid, then he certainly looked very clever by comparison!

After Zhou Dongdong left, Liu Chang'an brought out the realgar wine to sun it again, then carried out the glutinous rice and zongzi leaves that had been soaking overnight to wrap zongzi, using a meat filling.

Zongzi leaves include reed leaves and broadleaf bamboo leaves. In the south, broadleaf bamboo leaves are commonly used; they are very common in the countryside, where every household used to plant a few to use when wrapping zongzi for the Dragon Boat Festival.

"Help me wrap the zongzi."

"I only know how to wrap the triangular ones."

"Either is fine. I'm wrapping the ox-horn ones."

Qin Yanan and Liu Chang'an sat on stools wrapping zongzi. After finishing breakfast, Zhou Dongdong came back down to cause trouble, but was soon taken away by her mother to tend to their stall. Qin Yanan noticed that Liu Chang'an was quite popular; every now and then, an old man or woman would stand far away to watch, or two or three would stand together pointing and whispering. Those who weren't as gossipy would walk over to invite Liu Chang'an to play mahjong or Pao Hu Zi in the evening.

Qin Yanan had many things she wanted to ask him, but seeing his focused expression as he wrapped the zongzi, she felt the gap in their ages. If a young man of the same age were with her, he wouldn't be able to take his eyes off her, and he would certainly notice every subtle shift in her expression.

"Where is your great-grandfather?" Qin Yanan couldn't help but ask the most critical question.

Liu Chang'an looked up at Qin Yanan, said nothing, and continued wrapping the zongzi.

Qin Yanan pursed her lips. If he didn't want to talk, fine. She clapped her hands and walked aside to make a call.

"Brother Wen, I'll send you a location in a moment. Please help me check around 6:30 this morning. Six people came to cause trouble for a cousin of mine, and they left around 6:40. There are no cameras in this residential complex, but there must be some on the surrounding streets. As long as they didn't come on foot, you should be able to find out who they are."

"They must have had the guts of a bear..." The person on the other end was clearly shocked.

"Sorry for the trouble."

Qin Yanan couldn't be bothered to ask Liu Chang'an. After a few encounters, she felt that if she asked him directly, he would either refuse to speak or claim complete ignorance.

After the call, Qin Yanan sat back down and continued wrapping triangular zongzi.

"Do you know how I used to cook zongzi?" Liu Chang'an initiated the conversation.

"How?"

"First, dig a pit in the ground, line it with animal hide, pour water into the pit, then throw stones heated red-hot by fire into the water. The water would slowly boil, and then you'd drop the zongzi in to simmer."

"Little cousin, are you a caveman?"

Liu Chang'an laughed. When he told Qin Peng that back then, Qin Peng also questioned if he was a caveman... though, later on, Qin Peng stopped questioning it.

"I had a dream last night. I dreamt of my great-grandmother." Qin Yanan watched Liu Chang'an's reaction.

"And?"

"And she kept calling out a name, but I can't remember what it was... Now that I think about it carefully, it felt like it was me in the dream. It's all a bit blurry."

Liu Chang'an stopped his movements and looked closely into Qin Yanan's eyes.

Locking gazes with him, she felt his eyes were as deep as the night. She found herself irresistibly drawn in, unable to look away. Feeling uncomfortable, Qin Yanan turned her head, but he pinched her chin with his fingers.

Qin Yanan felt he was being abrupt and wanted to get angry, but his earnest expression seemed to be scolding her for not cooperating. She stopped moving, her pupils trembling in their sockets. Gradually, she felt her cheeks flush, her mind in a state of chaos, and inexplicable emotions surged like koi in a pond fighting for food.

"You were restless and agitated a while ago, which clouded your mind. Once you relaxed, your spirit became unstable at night, and you were influenced by the lingering obsessions of those who came before you," Liu Chang'an explained.

"Are you saying my great-grandmother was sending me a message in my dream?" That was what Qin Yanan had thought, too.

"A message?" Liu Chang'an smiled. "You could say that... A while ago, Old Man Lu passed away. His daughter said he appeared in several dreams, saying he didn't have shoes to wear over there and his feet were cold. His daughter went and bought shoes to burn, and she never had that dream again... Such things are simple to explain. Old Man Lu wanted a new pair of shoes before he died. His daughter knew this, but for various reasons, she didn't get around to buying them. After he passed, even if she didn't think about it consciously, the guilt of not having bought the shoes manifested in her dreams. Once she bought and burned them, she felt at peace, and the dreams stopped. It wasn't because Old Man Lu actually wore the new shoes."

"But I have no idea what my great-grandmother's unfulfilled wishes might have been; my father wasn't even born when she passed away." Although Liu Chang'an was very reasonable when explaining other people's affairs, he couldn't quite explain Qin Yanan's situation.

"That is because you have been thinking about your great-grandmother quite a bit lately. Have you developed any new perspectives or insights regarding her?"

"That is true. I feel it is perfectly normal for my great-grandmother and your great-grandfather to have been close, but after digging through the archives and considering my great-grandfather's silence, I always get the feeling that there were some secrets between those people of the older generation." Qin Yanan couldn't quite put her finger on what exactly felt off, though it was likely mostly due to that photograph.

"If they are secrets, then let them vanish with the wind." Liu Chang'an fell silent for a moment. In truth, he didn't really want to recall some of the things that happened back then, or perhaps one day he would see Qin Peng again to chat about the romance and turmoil of that war-torn era.

Perhaps, one day, he would tell Qin Yanan.