A young boy from the 1970s, separated from his family, fled famine and led his younger brother into

What are life like?

The scene depicts Su Nianci squatting beside a stone table in the courtyard, with fifteen kinds of medicinal herbs laid out in front of her, while Banxia sits on a small stool opposite her, her feet dangling in the air, unable to reach the ground.

"this."

Su Nianci pointed to the first dish on the table.

Banxia tilted her head and looked at it for two seconds, then reached out, picked it up, and sniffed it.

"Angelica dahurica has a pungent taste and can clear the nose."

"The one next to you."

Banxia took another one.

"Ligusticum striatum has a pungent smell and is good for promoting blood circulation."

"Further to the right."

Banxia picked up the third ingredient, but this time she didn't smell it; she just looked at its color and shape.

"Pinellia ternata".

She looked up and grinned.

"The one with the same name as me."

Su Nianci's lips curved slightly.

"What about its effects?"

"It dries dampness, resolves phlegm, relieves nausea and vomiting."

Dosage?

"It is poisonous when used raw and must be processed, either by ginger or alum."

Su Nianci raised an eyebrow.

"Who taught you how to prepare this?"

Banxia's eyes darted to the side.

"I looked it up in the book myself."

Hoshino squatted at the other end of the flower bed, not looking up, writing something in her notebook with a pen in her hand.

Su Nianci stood up, walked behind him, and glanced down at him.

He had drawn an aerial view of the courtyard in his notebook.

Absolutely accurate.

The location of each cosmos flower was marked with a small dot, the jujube tree was in the southwest corner with its crown diameter marked, the stone table was in the center with its tabletop size marked, and even the coverage of the ivy on the courtyard wall was drawn with a dotted line.

The illustration in the lower right corner has five lines of small characters, the handwriting as neat as if it were printed.

Su Nianci looked at it for two seconds.

"Have you measured it?"

"It was measured; the ruler used was the military folding ruler that my uncle left behind last time."

When was the measurement taken?

"Measured once every weekend for three consecutive months, and the average value was taken."

Su Nianci stared at the picture for a long time.

She crouched down and patted Hoshino on the shoulder.

"Well drawn."

Hoshino's ears turned red, and she lowered her head to continue drawing, pressing her pen harder on the paper.

The sound of a spatula flipping a pot came from the kitchen.

Not the deep fryer kind.

It's a uniform, rhythmic sound, the sound of the spatula pressing down on the bottom of the pan, pushing it around, and then flipping it over.

Su Nianci walked to the kitchen door.

Lu Xingzhou stood in front of the stove, his apron tied neatly. He held a pot in his left hand and a spatula in his right. The scrambled eggs with tomatoes in the pot were a mix of red and yellow, with the sauce coating the egg pieces without any burnt bits.

He sensed someone behind him and turned around.

Su Nianci leaned against the door frame and looked at him.

"Didn't you call the police today?"

"no."

"No oil splattered?"

Two drops splashed, but I dodged them.

Su Nianci walked over and picked up a piece of egg with her chopsticks.

I chewed it twice.

Her expression slowly changed from doubt to surprise, and then from surprise to a subtle sense of relief.

"It's edible."

Lu Xingzhou steadied his hand holding the pot a little more.

His lips twitched, as if he wanted to laugh but dared not laugh too obviously.

"It's been four years."

Su Nianci placed the chopsticks on the stove.

"What do you mean four years?"

"It's been four years since the first time the kitchen was blown up."

He ladled the food from the pot onto a plate, placed the plate on the stove, and wiped his hands on his apron.

"You've improved, haven't you?"

Su Nianci looked at the plate of scrambled eggs with tomatoes that were neither burnt nor undercooked, and the sauce was evenly distributed, and her shoulders trembled slightly.

"Lu Xingzhou, if you learn at this speed on the battlefield, the enemy will be at your doorstep and you'll still be figuring out how to load magazines."

Lu Xingzhou's face fell, but the curve of his lips betrayed him.

In the afternoon, the landline rang.

Su Nianci answered the call.

Lin Wenjun's voice came through the microphone, accompanied by the rustling sound of pages turning.

"Sister Nianci, the health clinic data for this year is out."

"How many?"

"As of this month, Niancitang has helped build a total of 32 township health clinics."

Su Nianci switched the microphone to her other hand.

"What about next year?"

"The budget for next year has been approved, and the target is to double it to 64 institutes. The medicinal herb supply chain has also been established, and the planting base in Yunnan will officially start production next month."

Su Nianci tapped her finger on the table.

"Wenjun".

"Um?"

"Thanks for your hard work."

There was a two-second silence on the other end of the microphone, then Lin Wenjun smiled.

"Sis, you've already compiled all the recipes, I just had to run errands, it's nothing."

After hanging up the phone, Su Nianci sat at the table for a while.

Zhang Chengzhi reduced his goji berry tea intake from three cups a day to two cups.

It was Su Nianci who made him lose weight.

"With your blood pressure, after three cups of goji berry tea, your head would be hotter than a thermos."

Zhang Chengzhi grumbled for two days, but on the third day he obediently reduced his intake by one cup.

Lu Zhenhua's chess skills remain as good as ever.

But he won a game against Zhang Chengzhi last week.

Zhang Chengzhi had taken a nap while leaning back in his chair. When he woke up, there were three more pieces on the chessboard, and the situation had been reversed.

"You downloaded it while I was asleep?"

"I downloaded it openly and honestly, but you didn't see it yourself."

"That doesn't count!"

"Once a move is made, it cannot be taken back. Don't you understand the rules of the chessboard?"

The two argued about this game of chess for three days, from the rules to chess etiquette, and from chess etiquette to character. In the end, Banxia slapped the chessboard to end the battle.

Lei Ming's chubby son can now greet people.

The first word he uttered was neither "daddy" nor "mommy".

It is "aunt".

But the pronunciation is similar to "bu mu".

Banxia squatted in front of him and corrected him eight times.

"Auntie—" "No, Mother!"

"Uncle—" "No—"

"Fine, call me whatever you want."

Su An's postcard arrived in the afternoon.

The postman slipped it into the mailbox by the gate. The front of the postcard featured a snow-capped mountain, while the back had only six characters written on it.

"Sister, everything is fine."

The handwriting is more illegible than before, and the ink has smudged in one place, as if the paper was not smooth when the pen was put down.

Su Nianci took the postcard out of the mailbox, read it twice, and went into the kitchen.

The refrigerator door was covered with things—Hoshino's yard map, Banxia's family portrait doodle, and recipes that Lu Xingzhou had cut out from magazines.

She used a magnet to attach the postcard to the center of the refrigerator door.

The snow-capped mountains face outwards.

Six characters facing inwards.

In the evening, a swing was set up in the yard.

It was Lu Xingzhou who tied it between two thick branches of the jujube tree; the rope and the plank were sturdy enough for two people to sit on.

When Su Nianci sat down, the wooden board wobbled twice and creaked.

Lu Xingzhou stood behind her, his hands on the knot of the hemp rope above the rope, took a step back, and let go.

The swing went off.

One high, one low, one back and forth.

The wind blew across my face, carrying the scent of cosmos flowers and dried herbs from the flowerbed.

The setting sun shone in from above the courtyard wall, casting long, overlapping shadows of the two people on the ground.

When the swing reached its highest point, Su Nianci suddenly spoke.

"Xingzhou, I had a dream."

Lu Xingzhou paused for a moment while pushing the swing.

"What kind of dream?"

"I dreamt of a woman in a white coat standing in front of an operating table, with the operating light shining on her face. She turned around and glanced at me."

The swing slowly swung back and forth.

"and then?"

Su Nianci closed her eyes, tilted her head back slightly, and the wind blew the stray hairs at her temples.

Then she smiled and waved at me.

Lu Xingzhou paused for a moment while pushing the swing.

"Is she saying goodbye to you?"

Su Nianci opened her eyes and looked at the clean patch of sky between the branches of the jujube tree above her head.

It's very blue.

It's very far.

"Um."

Her voice was so soft it seemed to be carried away by the wind.

"She's gone."