In the pot, there was a bowl of warm greens, half a bowl of beef slices, and a boiled egg. At first glance, Mi Niang knew that this bowl of greens was specially prepared for her. In the presence of meat, Bahu wouldn’t touch the greens.
She first scooped a spoonful of honey into warm water, sipping on the fragrant honey water before starting to eat the vegetables. Mouthfuls of greens alternated with bites of meat. Finally, she peeled the shell off the egg and held it in her hand as she ate while leaning against the felt mat, watching Bahu skim off the clear milk from the churned butter.
Following the river upstream, from east to west, every household was churning butter. Most of the people pounding the butter were men, including servants. Crossing the river from south to north, every person outside the felt tents churning butter was a woman. They might have been servants while the men were outside or, more likely, the men were back in the felt tents catching up on sleep after guarding through the night.
Mi Niang drank half a bowl of milk and cleared her throat, saying she wanted to go see Qiqige and Jiya “Was the betrothal gift from Asyl sent to the west bank or Grandma Zhao?”
“To the west bank.”
When Mi Niang arrived, she first went to find the two children. The siblings were mingling in a crowd of children, each holding onto Ajima’s legs, swaying on the ground as they watched others eat. “Auntie, I didn’t feed Qiqige and Jiya any random food as you said,” Ajima explained, holding some dates and roasted peanuts in his hand.
“You shouldn’t feed them. You can eat by yourself,” Mi Niang said as she took out a handkerchief from her pocket to wipe the drool off the children’s mouths and hands. She then took out two strips of beef from her pouch and stuffed them into their mouths. “Are you going with Mom or playing with your brother?”
Busy chewing, they both stayed close to Mi Niang’s legs, grabbing onto her pants. Whenever they saw their mother, they only wanted to be with her.
After giving some instructions to Ajima, Mi Niang noticed Pandi and the others preparing to take the sheep out. She called out to them and then walked in their direction, holding the slow-moving children’s hands.
“Asyl’s betrothal entourage hasn’t left yet. Why don’t you go in and sit for a while?” Pandi approached, offering to hold one of the children.
“No need. Asyl’s marriage proposal has been accepted, and the matchmaker has stepped over the threshold. His affair with Wan’er has already been settled, so there’s no need for a matchmaker,” Mi Niang replied, holding Qiqige and following behind the sheep. She asked about the situation during the morning’s betrothal, “Was it lively?”
Lan Niang nodded vigorously, “It was very lively. Asyl brought many people, several brothers, and a group of Uncles and Aunts’. They were very generous, giving out red dates and peanuts to everyone they met. There were also quite a few cattle and sheep for the betrothal gift, but when I counted, it wasn’t as much as what Bahu sent you.”
Mi Niang sighed twice, “That’s incomparable.”
“I didn’t say that in front of her.”
…
Walking all the way to the easternmost felt tent, Mi Niang first carried Qiqige across the river, then took over Jiya, who was being held by Pandi. In a short while, Ajima also returned. The other children had gone to the Xushui to study on horseback, so he came back alone.
“With Qiqige and Jiya taken care of by me and your uncle, you can go home to accompany your father,” his elder sister had come to call him back yesterday before the feast, saying that his father wasn’t feeling well. She had also heard from the workers about Ajima’s father’s condition, which wasn’t too good.
Ajima hesitated for a moment and said, “Then I’ll wait until my father gets better before coming back.”
Mi Niang nodded, caught a chicken for him to take back to make chicken soup for his father, and said, “Take this. In our Central Plains, sick people always need to drink chicken soup.”
Ajima bit his lip and didn’t speak, bowed, and then turned to run back with the clucking hen in hand.
“Let’s go, let’s go find your father to play,” Mi Niang whistled and called Dazao over, pulled out the cart, hung the rope around the horse’s neck, and placed the children in the cart, sitting at the front of the shaft.
“Ride a horse,” Qiqige poked his head out and pointed at the tall horse, wanting to sit on its back.
Mi Niang pretended not to understand and kept diverting until they reached the grazing area for the cattle. Bahu came every morning to check on the calves and cows. He blended in with the herd, only occasionally showing his head, and sometimes bending down, completely submerged under the backs of the cows.
Mi Niang released Dazao to graze and run around, then took the two children down. She let them catch insects in the grass while she kept watch. In a short while, she caught a handful of grasshoppers. She didn’t throw them away, but instead put them in her bag, planning to feed them to the chickens later.
“How did you guys come here?” Bahu washed his hands and walked over. He lifted Jiya up and hung him around his neck, then picked up Qiqige and pointed at the cows that were mooing softly, “These are all our cows. When you two grow up, you’ll have to help Dad raise them, okay?”
The siblings ignored him, both wanting to climb onto their father’s neck. One tightly hugged his father’s head, afraid of losing the spot.
Bahu felt like a tree stump, with both children stepping on him and he couldn’t open his eyes. He had no choice but to put them both down, taking turns to carry them on his neck.
“Hmm,” Mi Niang signaled Bahu to look over. A yellow-haired cow, not much shorter than a cow, was also kneeling down to suckle milk. “What’s going on here?”
“Shameless, addicted to milk, can’t quit,” Bahu glanced over, then shifted his attention back to the children, grinning, “Still, my Qiqige and Jiya were obedient. We stopped breastfeeding them after four months. They never got greedy like this.”
Mi Niang chuckled, the obedient children were almost turning his hair into a beehive. She pulled Qiqige off his neck, “Mom will take you to find your little horse. The one your dad left for you, you haven’t seen it yet.”
She asked again, “Should I drive away that cow?”
Bahu said there was no need. If the mother cow got impatient and nudged it a few times, it would remember. He also carried Jiya and went into the herd. The bull, without calves, roamed freely, grazing on grass here and drinking water there. The mother cows, on the other hand, gathered at a distance, with fluffy calves frolicking around them. The calves, still not weaned, were taller than Qiqige and Jiya, who could eat on their own.
There were only two cows with red ropes wrapped around their horns, easy to recognize. They were the first ones born, and among the calves, they were relatively large. They weren’t afraid of people and looked at them with curiosity in their big eyes.
“They must be thinking now, ‘Wow, there are people this short.'” Mi Niang grabbed Qiqige’s hand and felt the cow’s back, sliding from its back to its head, and from its head to its nose. Their two clear eyes met, one giggled, and the other let out a low moo.
“All right, from now on, it’s your cow,” Mi Niang, tired from carrying the child, tentatively put Qiqige on the cow’s back, standing aside to watch over. Nearby, Jiya also sat on the back of a calf, almost lying on it, chubby fingers scratching through the cow’s fur. The calf’s fur was long and soft, much better to touch than his father’s hair, even Mi Niang liked touching it.
While the children played, Mi Niang and Bahu stood beside talking, surrounded by shades of green, rolling hills, bulls basking in the sun after eating their fill, chestnut horses running in the river, and calves butting heads… She said the cattle, sheep, and horses in the Mobei were even more carefree and relaxed than the people in the Central Plains. In the Central Plains, cattle were shadows of the old farmers, busy plowing fields during planting season, pulling carts after harvest, spreading crops on the ground to thresh with stone rollers in the courtyard, and when the crops were stored, they would have to plow again. Only in winter were they idle, but even then, they went hungry.
“The people in the Central Plains have it harder than those in the Mobei,” Bahu disagreed. He had seen Central Plains people move here during his childhood, but they often returned to the Central Plains after a few years, whereas most Mobei people who went to the Central Plains never came back.
…
On the way back from driving the cart at noon, Bahu heard hoarse “howling” sounds from behind the hill to the west. He got off the cart to take a look, and not far away, he saw Big Spots and Little Spots rushing over with two rabbits in their mouths, making indistinct howling noises.
“Big Spots and Little Spots are back?” Mi Niang stuck her head out and asked.
“Yeah, they’re back and brought gifts,” Bahu squatted down to pat the marten jumping around him, then picked up the dead rabbits thrown on the ground and placed them on the cart shaft. “Let’s go, back home.”
He opened the car door, and Big Spots and Little Spots immediately jumped in. The children inside the car became excited and started imitating the marten’s howling, making noise all the way.
Upon arriving home, they saw two large and two small camels by the river at the doorstep, with bells jingling around the necks of the two smaller ones as they walked.
Bahu got out of the car and opened the door. Big Spots and Little Spots were the first to jump out, with a rabbit in their mouths. They strutted proudly towards the house, showing off to the dogs at home. Bahu carried Qiqige and Jiya down from the cart, intending to help Mi Niang, but she jumped out of the car by herself to see the camels.
“How come you’re back again? You’re grass-eating animals, where do you find bread and rice every day?” In the beginning, when milking the camels, Bahu would always bring a few steamed buns to appease the mother camels. In winter, he even gave them bean sprouts, green vegetables, and radishes. Once the mother camels had milk, he stopped milking them. The two mother camels were also untied and driven to the pasture to find food on their own, but it seemed like they had gotten used to eating human food. Every evening, they would come back demanding some, even if there was no food, they would lick some salt. They would be driven away but then come back again, and the cycle continued. Bahu didn’t dare to not feed them, fearing that if they didn’t have the camel herd, they might run away and become feral.
Until now, they would come back at least every two days. If they were craving, they wouldn’t wander far and would stroll around near the house. When they saw someone coming back, they would trot back as well.
Camels are tall, and Mi Niang could only reach out and touch their necks. Before she could touch them much, the one-year-old young camel playfully bit her clothes and nudged her toward the house with its neck.
Bahu grabbed a handful of salt in one hand and a bunch of greens in the other. The greens were freshly picked in the morning and washed clean. Some were wilted because Mi Niang hadn’t finished cooking them.
“Here’s the salt for you to feed them,” Bahu handed the salt to Mi Niang, then extended his palm for the young camel to lick off the residual fine salt. When they returned, they craved this taste. Cattle, sheep, horses, and camels all ate coarse salt, which contained mud and grass residue, with a slightly bitter taste. Those who could afford to eat fine salt were unwilling to touch coarse salt.
After feeding them the salt, Bahu divided the greens into four portions and fed them to the camels. “That’s enough for today. Let’s go after drinking some water near the house.”
It was time for Bahu and Mi Niang to cook, as well as to prepare the rabbit brought back by Big Spots and Little Spots. Bahu peeled off the fur and soaked it in birch bark juice. He then cooked the rabbit in the pot. By the time the humans’ food was ready, the rabbit was also about seventy percent cooked. They mixed it with lamb and rice and fed it to the dogs.
“The rabbit today was brought back by Big Spots and Little Spots. After eating the meat they caught, we can’t bully them anymore in the future,” Bahu muttered while pouring out the food. Dogs take advantage of numbers and look down on people. Even the head of the household was looked down upon by the dogs, so it was only normal for Big Spots and Little Spots to be bullied by the dogs.
“Bahu, come quickly to feed your son. I can’t handle him alone,” Mi Niang shouted loudly.
Bahu poured out the basin of water for washing and ran to the kitchen. “Coming, coming.”
