Chapter 55: 42

Chapter 42 - Bringing the small loyal dog to celebrate >u<

I turned over only half-awake and patted the empty space next to me, Ye Tan wasn’t there. The sun was already shining brightly, and I squinted for a bit until I remembered what I had to do, so I hurriedly crawled out of bed. I first went around to Doctor Lu and asked him how the injured person was doing, he said he was already much better and that in a few days he would be recuperated enough to send him back, I could finally relax, and only then did I slip away and went looking for Qiqi.

Qiqi was in the kitchen, as expected, chopping up ingredients for filling with a vegetable knife. Unexpectedly, Ye Tan was also there, he had taken off the black armguards in which he usually carried concealed weapons, and had his sleeves rolled up halfway up his arm, exposing his long forearms, and was currently kneading dough.

“Master.” Ye Tan somewhat awkwardly pulled his hands away from the dumpling dough and lowered them by his waist.

“It’s alright, you carry on.” I moved closer to take a look, “Is A-Tan also cooking today?”

Ye Tan hadn’t answered when Qiqi rushed to complain: “There’s not enough time, he came to help. It’s your fault for making so much noise all night, I couldn’t sleep properly and I woke up late today.” As she said this, she chopped up the ground meat, put it into a pot, and added seasoning, then she thrust a pair of chopsticks into my hands, “You came just in time, hold these, help me mix it evenly.”

Ye Tan hurriedly said, “This subordinate will do it.”

“Ai, you keep kneading, let me have fun.” I took them and drew my arms in, tightly grasping the bamboo chopsticks and rapidly mixing, “Like this?”

“You do you.” Qiqi looked at me with contempt.

Qiqi grabbed a rolling pin and started rolling the dough, I looked at her and asked: “Oh right, Qiqi, it’s the Winter Solstice today, do you know how we’re supposed to celebrate? Do we need to prepare anything?”

Qiqi held up the pin and patted the dough down, frowning: “Aren’t we already doing it?”

I looked at the ground meat in my hands, was this any different to the fried dumplings we usually eat?

“For this holiday, people offer sacrifices outside and pray for good weather for the upcoming year. Normally, people reunite with their relatives at their house and wrap dumplings together, and friends and neighbours gift each other food, then at night there’s the markets and temple fairs.” Qiqi sighed in disappointment, “The Winter Solstice is so big every year, and yet you all came to ask me about it, are you all stupid? How did you all live so long?”

I was feeling ashamed when I head Ye Tan interject: “Miss Qiqi, you shouldn’t offend Master.”

Thinking about it, Ye Tan is the only one that still seriously treats me as his master and distinguishes between superior and subordinate. In contrast, everyone else isn’t stupid and just steps all over me. If he didn’t remind me, I would have all but forgotten that I hold this identity.

“Families make dumplings together?” I asked as I mixed the filling.

Qiqi rolled the dough and replied: “Yes. Usually a household has a dozen or more people, so how could one person manage to do it alone.”

“Like what we’re doing now?” I asked again.

Ye Tan’s movements stopped, he glanced at me, then lowered his head behind his hair and went back to kneading determinedly.

Qiqi gave a rare laugh: “Hey.”


I saw Ye Tan suddenly start kneading the dough particularly vigorously, and asked: “A-Tan, how did you celebrate Winter Solstice at the Nightrunner before?”

Ye Tan kept his head lowered: “The Nightrunner uses the Winter Solstice to begin cross country training, it’s done on the coldest winter days and the hottest summer days1 as a way to improve endurance.”

I: “Endurance? How do you train that?”

Ye Tan said: “In the summer we went to the desert under the scorching sun, and in the winter we went to a snowy mountain and meditated in a cold pool of water, we had no food supplies and we couldn’t stop to sleep or rest.”

I felt like that must have been very difficult: “You swam during winter? Wasn’t that very cold...?”

Ye Tan calmly said: “It wasn’t too bad. Actually, a lot more people died in the desert during the summer.”

“......” I knew he had ben cruelly pushed past his limits, but hearing it made it even more serious, “Then you must really not like the winter.....”

“Yes, I didn’t like it before.” Ye Tan’s movements slowed, he lifted his hand and tucked a strand of stray hair behind his ear, and in a soft voice he said, “But now I think it’s good.”


I then remembered something else: “Qiqi, are you a Yangxi local? If you feel homesick during the holiday, you can go back, I won’t insist on you staying here.”

Qiqi sneered: “Who wants to go back, what’s sold is sold, unless you need to receive a beating for the holiday celebrations to be complete?”

I heard her tone drop, and I was sure I touched on a sore subject, so I felt guilty: “I’m sorry.”

Qiqi turned her head to look at me, and hurriedly said: “I didn’t mean it like that, you.... ever since I came here, my days have actually been a lot better, so I’m really grateful. I know I have a bad temper, if.....”

“I’m hungry do you have any food Qiqi!!”

A loud voice drowned out Qiqi’s increasingly quiet words, and in an instant Ye Xiao had pulled half the window down and stuck his head in to beg for food, but he shrank back as he saw me and ducked in through the entrance instead to come in and pat me on the shoulder: “Wow boss! How come you’re here! Did you know?! I dreamt about you last night!”

I was on alert: “What are you doing dreaming about me.”

“I also didn’t want to dream about you! I want to dream about boss Ye Tan! Right boss?!” Ye Xiao went to slap Ye Tan on the shoulder, but he evaded and Ye Xiao missed, dropping his hand back down and continuing on, “Boss, I dreamt that you hit me, and then you said you wanted to take me to the temple fair.”

.....this idiot.

I carefully said: “That wasn’t a dream, I really went to talk with you at midnight. It’s the Winter Solstice today, and the temple fair is really happening tonight, let’s all go together then.”

Ye Xiao acted frightened and pressed a hand against his chest: “.....wow I was still thinking I was dreaming when you hit me, I was so angry I almost hit you back. Luckily I was too sleepy to do it.... luckily....”

.....I felt like there was a big problem with the Nightrunner’s education, since the results are not good at all.

When Ye Tan heard this, he slowly moved his line of sight towards Ye Xiao, staring at him with such coldness he almost exuded ice shards.

As Ye Xiao saw this gaze, he sucked in a breath of cold air and stammered: “I was joking, boss, don’t take me seriously.”

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Ye Tan: “You want to try joking again?”

Ye Tan’s tone was extremely flat, without any traces of anger, but even I felt my hairs stand up on end.

Ye Xiao stood bolt upright with a perfectly straight spine, and dryly asked: “My Lord, is there anything you need from this lowly one?”

I continued mixing the filling and said: “Qiqi said everyone wraps dumplings together during Winter Solstice, go grab Ye Lan and tell him to come.”

Ye Tan bared his teeth and said: “You want him to wrap dumplings....isn’t this looking for trouble....”

“It’s fine, the most important thing is that everyone in the house has a good time together.” I bathed him in a benevolent radiance, “You can just eat the ones he makes.”

Ye Xiao gave me an indifferent smile as though we were separated in life and death: “Thank you, Lord, for your kindness.”


After calling everyone together, we moved in some stools and started nosily busting about without looking into things, a quarter of an hour later, everyone except Ye Tan was kicked out of the kitchen by Qiqi.

You may not believe me when I say.

My dumplings were even uglier than Ye Lan’s.

Ye Xiao struggled to stuff the filling into the dumpling he was holding, but as soon as he closed it the wrapping burst open and everything leaked out. Ye Lan saw Ye Xiao and also wrapped one up like him, handing it to Ye Xiao when he finished and waiting for praise.

Ye Xiao seriously advised him: “Don’t learn from me, you won’t be able to learn properly, you should learn from Qiqi and boss Ye Tan.”

Ye Tan was as serious as when he practised calligraphy, fast and steady, and there was no difference between his dumplings and Qiqi’s, their folds were extremely beautiful and looked just like the products for sale at the street stalls, one would be unable to tell it was his first time learning how to make them. Ye Lan watched him for a while without moving, and then with great difficulty was able to make an ordinary-looking dumpling.

Meanwhile I was only able to make balls of dough, the dumpling skin was always sticking together when it needed to be spread out, and when it needed to hold together it wouldn’t move, and I felt like this kind of thing was really too inhuman.

I suspect that my enemy Ye Xiao did something to my dumpling skins.


Qiqi looked at the row of dough lumps in front of us and wrung her hands in regret: “There really are people even worse than idiots.”

My and Ye Xiao’s hearts were not affected, we had given up hope.


A-Heng and A-Shu returned home for the Winter Solstice, they said their goodbyes when they found out they could leave first thing in the morning, the only ones remaining in the Yun Garden were the ones of us in the Association without any parents or loved ones.

At noon I forced the shadow guards who usually hid away in the trees to come to the table and eat together, Ye Xiao’s dumplings that had fallen apart had been put into a pot of soup alongside my clumsy dough balls, and were cooked separately, so I gave it to Ye Xiao to eat by himself. Everyone else ate the normal dumplings.

.....yes, Ye Lan’s dumplings were fortunately in the group of regular ones.


Ye Xiao looked at the pot full of indistinct, thick mush in front of him, and he was so happy the corners of his eyes became moist.

Ye Lan saw that he hadn’t moved, so he filled his plate with dumplings and pushed it in front of him, indicating that he should eat his share.

Ye Tan bitterly declined: “This is my fate, you don’t need to feel sorry for me.” And his hands trembled as he raised his chopsticks.


Ye Tan suddenly asked in a low voice: “Can you give me some?”

Ye Xiao stared blankly at him, and I was alarmed: “A-Tan, do you like making yourself suffer?”

Ye Tan lowered his head and didn’t say anything, quietly chewing on a dumpling for a moment, until he couldn’t help but ask again: “Can’t you?”

Ye Xiao scooped out a spoonful: “What are you being so polite for, boss? Here, I’ll give you some of my personally-made mush.”

Ye Tan frowned: “I don’t want your mush, give me a dumpling, one of the round ones.”

Turned out he was doing it for this, I immediately felt embarrassed: “No, no, you shouldn’t, I’ll practice more and after I’ve mastered it I’ll make some again and give them to you, you don’t need to be in a hurry to eat it today.”

Ye Tan said in a low voice: “This one is good.”

I was going to say something else, but I suddenly remembered that there was a term in tea ceremonies known as “for this time only”2 , which talks about how people are brought together only once in their lifetime: when you have the opportunity to sit with someone and have tea, it will be the only time in your life, even if you have the opportunity to meet with the same person again, because today’s cup of tea will not be the same as that next time’s cup of tea.


I always felt like these small matters were insignificant, and I never cared about them, but I’m afraid he doesn’t think like this.

Seeing Ye Tan cautiously asking about this, my heart was unable to bear it, so I put down my chopsticks and stood up: “A-Tan, wait.”

I leapt into the kitchen, rolling my sleeves up and seriously wrapping some dumplings, after a few discarded ones I gradually improved a bit, until I made some with a slightly nicer appearance.

Ye Tan was also not eating, leaning against the door frame and wordlessly looking at me repeating my actions again and again.

I held up two dumplings in my hands and took a look at them: “Don’t these look a bit better? Let me try a few more, I should be able to do it.”

Ye Tan: “Ok.”


In the courtyard, Qiqi spat out: “Hmph! I wrapped mine up so well! You aren’t eating! Unreasonable!”

Hearing this, Ye Tan lowered his head in embarrassment, and I kept answering: “Yeah, it’s really unreasonable.”

 

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1 冬季三九天 lit. Winter three ninth days and 夏季三伏天 lit. Summer three hot days. The first refers to the third ninth day after winter solstice (starting from the solstice, every nine days are counted as one ‘ninth’) which is believed to be the coldest time of the year, and the second refers to the hottest days of the year which are divided into 初伏 beginning, 中伏 middle, and 末伏 end, they last around 10-20 days with a few days in between each one. Top.

2 一期一會 lit. one time one meeting. The term comes from Japanese tea ceremonies. Top.

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