On the day of the awakening, the small kitchen started up an hour earlier than usual.
The front courtyard needed lunch prepared for the families coming to watch the ceremony. Uncle Zhou and Chen Chuan tended the fires at both ends, and Chen An was not idle either. He rinsed the rice for his own kitchen first, then noticed that the front courtyard still needed two buckets of water, so he picked up the empty buckets and headed for the well.
"Weren't you told to go watch the awakening today?" Uncle Zhou followed him to the doorway.
"I'm going," Chen An said. "Someone still has to fetch the water. Once they go inside, I can hardly stand at the hall doors waving a rice ladle to hurry them along."
Uncle Zhou laughed at that and took the other bucket. The front courtyard handled its own meals, but the bowls for the small kitchen's twenty regulars still had to be set out. A few more families would not magically emerge from the same pot of rice just because it was an auspicious day. Only after arranging everything at the stove did Chen An wash the rice starch off his hands and head for the hall where the ceremony was being held.
Ning Fengzhi had already arrived. The children had just turned six, and each sat beneath the covered walkway with their family, waiting for their name to be called. One clutched a name tag and had already asked three times when their turn would come; another looked unhurried, but kept scuffing a toe against the ground. The teacher responsible for the awakening waited inside the hall, while the steward opened the register beside the crystal. Each time a child came out, a family rose to meet them.
Rongrong waited for Chen