Chapter 5 - 005 Yuequan Village
Tian Manjin laughed heartily as his daughter showed concern for him, while Zhu Aiqing fiercely glared at her husband and then stared at Tian Sisi, her eyes filled with the message "I'll deal with you tonight". Tian Sisi wasn't scared at all, guessing that Zhu Aiqing's anger might subside by the evening, and if not, she could always stall by staying up late at Mr. Tian's place.
After smoking a cigarette, Tian Manjin got up and headed to his uncle's home, feeling it was high time to sort out his daughter's matters early to prevent any upset from her. Mr. Tian didn't like smoking cigarettes; he smoked a water pipe with tobacco grown from their own fields. It required quite an effort to take a puff, producing a "gurgling" sound as he smoked. Tian Sisi, trying to curry favor with her grandfather, diligently packed the tobacco and filled the pipe with fresh water, busily running around.
Having finished smoking a pipe, Mr. Tian sent Tian Sisi out to play, saying, "Off you go, you're making my head spin. Go out and play."
Granny Zhao had just washed her hands and brought out a large basin with mostly sticky rice flour mixed with some regular rice flour. Pure sticky rice flour was too soft; the added regular flour made the rice balls chewy—a favorite texture for the Tian Family, be it in rice cakes or rice balls.
Granny Zhao poured hot water into the basin. Seeing Mr. Tian putting on a look of disdain despite obviously enjoying it, she scolded laughingly: "Old man being capricious. Ah Nan, go play outside, don't mind your grandpa. It's pitiful; he's been bedridden for so long, let him get some fresh air."
Tian Sisi had intended to help Granny Zhao make rice balls, but the grandmother, doting on her granddaughter, shooed her out of the house with hands covered in rice flour, telling her to take her younger brothers out to play. Zhu Aiqing, following behind Tian Sisi, warned, "Ah Nan, don't run off to the river again."
"Oh, got it." Tian Sisi put on her rain boots, pulling her two brothers along, and dashed outside. She was eager to see what Yuequan Village from the 1970s looked like and if it was truly as beautiful as her mother described, with lush mountains and charming waters.
Outside, the sun was already high in the sky, the accumulated snow on the roof, road, and trees quietly melting into droplets. The roof was adorned with clear, sparkling icicles of varying lengths, the longest stretching a foot, casting a spectrum of colors in the sunshine. Encountering these long-missed icicles, Tian Sisi joyfully ran to the woodshed, removed her gloves, and broke off an icicle, crunching it in her mouth, relentlessly hissing as the cold numbed her lips, yet unable to resist biting into it.
Donghua and Qinghua had also snapped off a couple of icicles and couldn't stop biting into them, their breaths visibly frosty, unbothered by the cold. Tian Sisi, having only had a few bites, threw her icicle away, wary that her body, having just recovered from a severe illness, shouldn't risk ending up in bed again. Seeing Donghua and Qinghua reaching for more, she quickly stopped them, reminding that children have delicate stomachs and shouldn't eat too much ice, especially in such severe winter.
Tian Sisi surveyed her family's house—an ordinary farmhouse with five rooms spread over two wooden floors, with yards at both the front and the back. The backyard housed pigs, chickens, and ducks, while the considerably larger front yard included a large threshing area and two small vegetable patches filled with cabbage and Swiss chard. From what she could see, her family's house was quite decent, at least it was a two-story building!
"Sister, are we still going to play?" Qinghua, seeing his sister standing motionlessly, urged her on.
"Sure, where do you guys want to go?" Tian Sisi asked for her brothers' input.