97: Severe drought in Yanzhou

Yan Province.

The land cracked into a spiderweb-like pattern, with some fissures large enough to fit an entire fist.

The midday sun was like a scorching hot branding iron, baking the air until it rippled and distorted.

Bai Shui Village, Chen family.

The iron pot on the stove was already encrusted with white salt scale. Li Cui squatted on the doorstep, picking at the dirt in her fingernails.

The daughter in her arms was too hungry to cry, only occasionally rubbing her forehead against Li Cui's chest, her chapped lips leaving faint bloodstains on the coarse cloth of Li Cui's clothes.

"Mom, why isn't Granny back yet?"

The six-year-old Xiao Zhu Zi was sprawled on the crooked window frame, gazing at the shimmering heat waves in the distance.

Li Cui broke the last half of a hard, tooth-jarring flatbread into two, stuffing it into the child's hand.

Half a month ago, when her mother-in-law left, leaning on a jujube wood cane, she said she was going to Eagle Beak Cliff, twenty li away, to find water. Before leaving, she pressed her treasured silver hairpin into Li Cui's palm.

"If... if I don't come back, this hairpin can be exchanged for some food, enough to last a month or so."

Li Cui counted the days; her mother-in-law had been gone for sixteen days.

Her husband, who had gone with the main group to find water, also hadn't returned for two days.

Why was life so bitter!

She looked down at the half of the flatbread in Xiao Zhu Zi's hand, reluctant to eat it, only carefully licking the raised salt grains on the bread with the tip of her tongue.

But with extreme dehydration, she didn't even have much saliva left.

The baby in her arms no longer had the strength to suckle, her shriveled little face pressed against her equally shriveled chest.

"Mom, you eat first."

Xiao Zhu Zi offered the bread, his eyes holding a maturity unbefitting his age.

Li Cui's throat felt like it was filled with sand. She shook her head, pushing the bread back.

"Mom isn't hungry."

Outside the window, the wind whipped sand against the paper window, making a faint rustling sound.

A few caws of crows came from the distance, hoarse as if their throats had been scorched by the sun.

The old locust tree at the east end of the village had long since withered, its branches grotesquely reaching towards the sky, its bark completely stripped.

"I'll go check the well."

Li Cui stood up, her knees creaking under the strain, as if they might collapse at any moment.

She carefully placed the baby on a straw mat, which had turned black from sweat.

Xiao Zhu Zi followed behind her, his small hand clutching her clothes.

The well in the courtyard had long since dried up, but Li Cui still went to look at it three times a day, as if looking at it more might make water appear.

The hemp rope tied to the well curb had weathered, crumbling into powder at a light touch.

Li Cui leaned over the well curb and looked down; the dark bottom of the well was like a hungry maw.

She remembered the day the well water disappeared: first it became murky, then shallower day by day, until only a layer of viscous mud remained at the bottom.

Villagers queued to scoop it, drinking it mud and all, until even the mud had dried up.

"Mom, is Grandpa Well asleep?"

Xiao Zhu Zi asked, looking up.

"Yes, he's asleep."

Li Cui stroked his head; his hair was withered and yellow like autumn weeds.

Back in the house, Li Cui took a small cloth bundle from the corner, containing the silver hairpin Granny Chen had left.

The hairpin head was carved with a lotus flower, and a tiny pearl was embedded in the stamen.

This was the Chen family's only valuable item, worn by Granny Chen when she married into the family.

Li Cui rubbed the lotus pattern with her fingertip; the pearl had lost its luster.

"Zhu Zi, Mom is going out for a bit."

She squatted down, looking her son in the eye, "You watch your sister, don't go out, Mom will be back soon."

Xiao Zhu Zi nodded, a flicker of fear in his eyes.

Li Cui hid the silver hairpin in a pocket close to her body, then tightly wrapped her chapped feet with strips of cloth.

No one in the village wore shoes anymore—everything that could be eaten had been eaten, everything that could be exchanged had been exchanged.

The bark of the old elm tree at the village entrance had been stripped clean, and the trunk bore scars from knives, like the blue veins on an old man's arm.

Stepping out of the courtyard gate, a wave of heat washed over her.

Li Cui squinted; the distant mountains rippled and distorted in the heat haze.

There was no one on the road, only a few shriveled animal carcasses, sun-dried until only skin covered their bones.

As she passed Aunt Wang's house, she smelled a strange scent of meat and quickly picked up her pace.

In the open space in front of the ancestral hall, several old people sat in the shade, their eyes cloudy as if covered with a layer of ash.

As Li Cui passed, they didn't even lift their heads.

The ancestral hall door was wide open, and the idols on the offering table inside were long gone.

Li Cui's destination was the Zhao family at the end of the village.

The Zhao family had a son who did business in the county town; last year, he returned with a bag of salt and half a bag of millet.

Now, the Zhao family was the only one in the entire village with some provisions, although the price was terrifyingly high.

The Zhao family's courtyard wall was a section higher than others, and dried mugwort hung on their door.

Just as Li Cui was about to knock, the door opened by itself.

Zhao's wife poked her head out, her cheekbones sharply prominent, her eyes frighteningly bright.

"Chen family wife?"

She scrutinized Li Cui up and down, "Trading food?"

Li Cui nodded, pulling out the silver hairpin from her bosom.

Zhao's wife snatched it, held it up to the sun, and then bit the tip of the hairpin with her teeth.

"The quality is decent," she sneered, "Half a liter of bran for it."

"Last time, Liu's wife's gold earrings got a liter of millet."

Li Cui's voice was as dry as sandpaper rubbing.

"That was last month's business."

Zhao's wife scoffed, "Now half a liter of bran can save two lives. Take it or leave it."

Li Cui clenched her fists, her fingernails digging into the flesh of her palm. She thought of Xiao Zhu Zi licking the salt grains, of the baby's chapped lips.

"I'll take it."

Zhao's wife turned and went into the house, returning a moment later with a small clay bowl containing grayish-brown bran, no more than half a bowl.

When Li Cui took the bowl, her hands trembled violently, and a few grains of bran spilled onto the ground. She immediately squatted down and picked them up one by one.

The return journey seemed longer than the way there.

Li Cui clutched the clay bowl tightly to her chest, afraid of spilling another grain.

Turning a corner, she saw a human-like figure lying by the roadside, so thin it was just a skeleton, its face covered with a tattered cloth.

Li Cui quickened her pace, not daring to look longer.

As she neared home, she heard Xiao Zhu Zi's crying.

Her heart lurched. Li Cui started running, and the bran in the clay bowl bounced, spilling some more.

The courtyard gate was wide open, and Xiao Zhu Zi was kneeling in the courtyard, with a person standing in front of him.

"Mom! Granny is back!"

Xiao Zhu Zi saw her and happily tried to rush over, but he had no strength at all.

The clay bowl in Li Cui's hand almost fell to the ground.

She stumbled and ran over, her knees giving way as she knelt on the yellow earth of the courtyard.

Dust rose, blurring her vision, but it couldn't obscure the familiar figure—a hunched back, a gray cloth headscarf, and those calloused hands.

"Mother... Mother?"

Li Cui's voice was hoarse beyond recognition, as if she hadn't spoken in a long time.

Granny Chen turned around, her deeply lined face even thinner than when she left, but her eyes were unusually bright.

She held Li Cui's young daughter in her arms, the child greedily sucking on the narrow mouth of a water skin, making faint swallowing sounds.

"Cui'er,"

Granny Chen's voice was gentle yet firm, "I'm back."

Li Cui's vision blurred.

She saw a bulging cloth bag hanging from her mother-in-law's waist, and Xiao Zhu Zi was wolfing down a flatbread, immediately picking up and eating any crumbs that fell to the ground.

What shocked her even more was that her mother-in-law handed her a large water skin.

"Water... where did you get the water?"

Li Cui's hands trembled as she reached out, unable to believe her eyes.

Granny Chen didn't answer immediately, but first took the pitiful bowl of bran from Li Cui's hand and sighed, "You went to the Zhao family to trade for it?"

She shook her head, pulling two oil-paper packages from the cloth bag, "Eat some proper food first."