The Water Feast

Chapter 675: The Water Feast

“Mother, this one is good too, try it. I brought it all the way from Daliang for you.”

“Oh, and these honeyed dates—I happened to see them on the road, thought they tasted good, so I bought you two catties.”

“Mother, do you like sour things? I brought a jar of pickled things too.”

The excited Yang Xiaohai, standing before his birth mother, finally didn’t need to pretend anymore. He had completely reverted to the boy he should have been at his age.

“Oh, and this too!” Yang Xiaohai said, stuffing a large bundle of silver into his mother’s arms.

“Aiyo, aiyo, that’s too much, too much. Stop, that’s enough, enough.”

Hearing his mother say this only made Yang Xiaohai grab more things, as if he intended to empty the entire carriage.

His mother had to stop him several times before he finally stopped moving things.

He began to tell her of the pain and longing he had endured over the years, but his mother was deaf. Looking at her somewhat confused expression, it was clear she couldn’t hear him. This left the words he had bottled up inside unable to escape.

“Come, come, you’ve just come home, you don't know the family yet. Let me point them out to you.” Yang Xiaohai’s mother stood up, took his hand, and led him towards the other Dan-min who had gathered to watch.

“This is your second brother.”

“Second Brother!” Yang Xiaohai called out to the man who was even shorter than him.

The second brother was very nervous, his words a bit jumbled. “Uh, hey. You’re back? Have you eaten?”

“This is your third brother.”

“Third Brother.” The third brother was much steadier than the second. He reached out and patted Yang Xiaohai on the shoulder. “Grown so big. Good, very good. When you were little, you were like a little chick.”

“This is your little sister. She’s been betrothed since she was a child. She’ll be married after the New Year. When the time comes, you, as her elder brother, absolutely must come for the wedding feast.”

“Of course, of course.”

Besides his immediate family, his mother also introduced him one by one to the Dan-min who had been watching the show. These were all his various aunts and uncles.

Through his mother’s words, Yang Xiaohai finally learned that all the Dan-min he had passed along the way were actually his relatives.

And the generational lines were a complete mess. He even had to call a girl younger than him “great aunt.”

But Yang Xiaohai didn’t mind at all. On the contrary, he was incredibly happy. He wasn’t alone in this world; he had so many family members.

After introducing the elders, it was time to meet the younger generation. His mother led him towards the back of the boat.

“Those two are your second brother’s children. They are your nephews.” She pointed at two toddlers in bellybands at the stern.

The two nephews were fine, aside from being a bit thin. But the ropes tied around them felt very jarring to Yang Xiaohai. Seeing it, he couldn’t tell if they were raising children or dogs.

The sight made Yang Xiaohai deeply uncomfortable. He couldn’t help but glance over at the carriage, where the three monkey-children were looking around. They had been tied up just like this once.

“Mother, why are the nephews tied up?” Yang Xiaohai couldn’t help but ask.

But his mother, being deaf, still couldn’t hear him. She just pulled him to walk back.

Just then, Jiang Erlang walked over and explained. “You’ve been on land too long, you don’t understand. On a boat, this is how you raise children. If you don’t tie them up, they’ll easily fall in the water. That’s how your second uncle was lost.”

“Is that so? But they can’t stay tied up until they’re grown?”

“Of course not. Once they’re past the pre-hairpin age, they’ll go to burn incense at the Dragon King Temple and be registered as Dragon Registration. Then they can be untied.”

“Dragon Registration? What’s that?”

“People like us are Dragon Registration. It’s just like going to the ancestral hall and entering the family register on land.” Jiang Erlang touched the tattoos on his body.

“Oh.” Yang Xiaohai nodded in understanding. So the various rules that boat boss had talked about weren’t just made up. They all had a reason.

“Father! Guess who’s here? Fifth brother is back!”

Hearing the second brother’s voice from the bow, Yang Xiaohai’s heart tightened. Father?

By the time Yang Xiaohai had led his mother back to the bow, he saw an old, stern-faced man. He looked a bit younger than Lyu Zhuangyuan, with a very thick neck, and his hands and body were also covered in scale tattoos.

“…Father?” Yang Xiaohai stepped forward, incredibly nervous.

Then he saw his father jump from that boat back onto their own. He reached out and rolled up Yang Xiaohai’s sleeve, checking the faint birthmark.

Swish. The sleeve was rolled back down. Yang Xiaohai’s father turned around and shouted to the Dan-min packed in layers all around: “Today, my fifth son has come home! A great celebration! Tonight, no one cooks in their own home! Our Chi family will host the Water Feast!”

Hearing the cheers from the surrounding Dan-min, Yang Xiaohai was deeply moved as he looked at the old man beside him. The nervousness in his heart vanished in an instant.

That night, Yang Xiaohai finally saw what a Dan-min Water Feast was like. The boats of each family scattered, leaving a waterway clear.

Two small wooden boats were laden with plates of food, both large and small. They began to quickly patrol the edges of this waterway, allowing others to take what they wanted. This was the Water Feast.

Perhaps because the Dan-min seldom went ashore, they lacked many seasonings. The dishes were mostly various kinds of kuai (raw fish) or boiled in plain water.

There were also some dishes from the shore, but those were the ones that disappeared the fastest—even including the hard griddle cakes that Yang Xiaohai had used as travel rations on the road.

That night, Yang Xiaohai ate more fish than he had in the entire first half of his short life. All sorts of fish and seafood he had never seen before were laid out in a dazzling array.

He grabbed whatever it was and stuffed it into his mouth. One word: happy.

He picked up a long conch, sucked from the front, and then, imitating his third brother, sucked hard from the back end of the shell. The meat from the two ends tasted different; it had a unique flavor.

Glancing at his father inside the awning, toasting and drinking with the uncles, Yang Xiaohai asked his brother next to him: “By the way, Third Brother, I remember us being told there were four children in our family. Where’s the last one?”

He remembered it very clearly. The old eunuch had indeed told him there were four siblings.

Beside him, his second brother opened a bloody shellfish, put it in his mouth, and sucked hard before answering: “We have a big sister. She’s amazing. Our family’s rise is all thanks to her.”

“Our big sister went to be a child bride for a wealthy family. She often sends money home. Otherwise, your second brother and I really couldn’t have found wives.”

“Oh, I see.” Hearing this, Yang Xiaohai felt a little regret. He was still missing one family member on this trip.

“Where does our big sister live? I want to go see her.” Yang Xiaohai thought that if it wasn’t far, he would make a detour to visit.

“No need! Big sister is coming home to visit in a few days!” the little sister beside him spoke up.

Though she had been a bit shy at first, seeing that Yang Xiaohai had a good temper, the little girl gradually opened up.

“She even said she’d bring me something!”

“Coming home to visit? Is she coming back to lie low?” Yang Xiaohai thought to himself. He knew very well what things were like on the shore in Shu back then.