Chapter 32
Chapter 32: Warm Neighbors
Before Li Jin Zhu could even understand what she was looking at, Shi Gun had already taken off at a fast walk that turned into a run. The porters on his heels vanished just as quickly, leaving behind a courtyard packed with egg baskets—and an entire alley of neighbors gathered to gape.
“What is going on?!” Li Jin Zhu’s voice came out rough.
“Talk inside, talk inside!” Little Nan hurried up and tried to push her through the gate.
“Inside? How?” Li Yu Zhu stood outside the threshold, craning her neck at the wall of egg baskets stacked so tightly the yard looked sealed shut.
The baskets had jammed the gate. If they didn’t move at least two or three, they couldn’t even close it.
Li Jin Zhu grabbed Li Yin Zhu with one hand and Little Nan with the other and shoved them into the corner by the entrance. “These aren’t Xue Dong’s, are they? Are they for you two? Speak—what happened?” Her eyes reddened with panic.
“No, it’s… it’s not… that…” Li Yin Zhu stammered, words tripping over each other.
“This morning, Third Sister and I went out for a stroll,” Little Nan said quickly. “We ran into someone. He bumped into us and apologized, but we ignored him. Just now, that same man’s servant came and said his young master felt bad, so he sent these eggs to apologize.” As she spoke, her gaze kept flicking toward the neighbors edging closer, eager as flies.
“What?” Li Jin Zhu stared at her, as if her ears had betrayed her.
If Yin Zhu had said something like that, Li Jin Zhu would have smacked her on the head. But A Nan was clever and sensible—she didn’t talk nonsense.
And yet this was nonsense.
“We met some rich weirdo,” Little Nan added, lowering her voice. “We’ll explain later. Eldest Sister, you need to decide what to do with all these eggs. There are too many—winter won’t save them. Eldest Sister… eggs.” She pointed into the yard like she was afraid the baskets might multiply if they blinked.
“A Nan’s right,” Li Yu Zhu said, peering in again, her brows knotted. “The eggs come first.”
Li Jin Zhu let go of them, braced herself on the doorframe, and swept her gaze across the yard. Then she slapped a hand to her forehead.
What was she supposed to do?
She’d grown up barely eating whole eggs. When had she ever seen a courtyard full of them?
The four sisters clustered at the entrance—Li Yu Zhu pressed close to Li Jin Zhu, Li Yin Zhu pressed to Little Nan. Four heads leaned in. Eight eyes fixed on egg baskets stacked like a barricade.
Little Nan didn’t dare make a sound. All she could think was: if these rot in a few days, how far will the stench travel?
Li Yin Zhu pursed her lips and ran through every egg dish she knew—boiled eggs, fried eggs, steamed egg custard. Which was best?
All of them.
Li Jin Zhu looked at Li Yu Zhu. Li Yu Zhu looked back. After a beat, Li Yu Zhu shook her head. She truly had no idea.
Outside, the neighbors had already crowded onto the steps. Necks stretched. Eyes gleamed.
“Sister,” a brisk sister-in-law in her thirties called, leaning around Little Nan with a smile, “why did your family buy so many eggs? What business are you in?”
“We’re not in business,” Li Jin Zhu said, forcing a polite smile.
“Oh, come now. Not in business, and you bought this many eggs?” The sister-in-law’s eyebrows shot up.
Li Jin Zhu opened her mouth—”We didn’t—”—but Little Nan cut in cleanly. “It’s a debt repayment. They wouldn’t pay us in copper cash, so they paid in eggs.”
“Oh my! That’s nasty.” The sister-in-law clicked her tongue. “No copper cash, just eggs? Bullying you, that is. Nasty.”
“Yes, exactly,” Little Nan said, nodding along with a helpless smile.
“Sister, you have to move fast with eggs,” the sister-in-law went on, clearly enjoying the drama while sounding sympathetic. “If you sell through the guild… tsk, there are too many. And since your family isn’t in the guild, their handling fees are brutal. You’ll end up selling each egg like it’s worth half.”
Little Nan’s eyes lit. “Sister-in-law, does your family do business? Could you point us in the right direction?”
That jolted Li Jin Zhu into remembering what mattered to these people. She hurriedly added, “We just moved here because my brother passed the licentiate exam…”
“Your brother?” The sister-in-law yelped, cutting her off. “You don’t look old. How old can your brother be, to already be a licentiate?”
The neighbors around them murmured and leaned in harder.
Li Jin Zhu smiled modestly. “He’s seventeen this year. Not that young. He just had good luck.”
“A seventeen-year-old licentiate!”
“And he studies at the Prefecture School right next door?”
“That’s incredible!”
Voices overlapped in a burst of envy and amazement.
Li Jin Zhu slid an arm around Little Nan’s shoulders and smiled as if she’d heard nothing extraordinary at all. “It’s nothing. He just got lucky. They say distant relatives aren’t as good as close neighbors. We’ve only just moved in—we don’t know the rules here yet. Please look after us.”
“Let me tell you,” the sister-in-law said, looping her arm through Li Jin Zhu’s and steering her toward the eggs as if the baskets were a classroom. “I married in from Gao You County—you know Gao You, right? My maiden name is Yin. My family runs a preserved egg shop. The Yin family’s preserved egg shop is one of the best in Gao You. Our preserved eggs are famous. Plenty of people in Ping Jiang know them.”
She drew herself up, proud as a banner.
“If you sell these eggs through the guild, you’ll lose thirty or forty percent. Not worth it. You should turn them into preserved eggs, and pickle some salted eggs too. A preserved-egg-and-salted-egg business—now that’s money.”
Li Jin Zhu tested the idea carefully. “But making preserved eggs isn’t easy, is it?”
“Easy!” Sister-in-Law Yin said, waving a hand. “You’ve got me. I’m telling you, Ping Jiang doesn’t have any truly good preserved eggs. Whenever my family comes, I make them bring some. Ask the neighbors—who doesn’t say our Yin family’s preserved eggs taste good? I’ll help you make them.”
Little Nan leaned forward. “How much capital would it take?”
Sister-in-Law Yin began counting in her head. “Not much, since you already have the eggs. But your place is too small. You need a bigger courtyard. There’s an empty one in the alley behind you—old house, been sitting unrented for more than half a year. It’s big enough to spread everything out.”
“Eldest Sister!”
The call cut through the noise. Li Xue Dong, just back from school, squeezed through the crowd and halted on the steps.
“My brother is home,” Li Jin Zhu said quickly, turning with visible relief. She smiled at Sister-in-Law Yin. “Thank you. This is a big matter—I need to discuss it with my brother and sisters.”
“So this is the licentiate.” Sister-in-Law Yin’s gaze flicked over Li Xue Dong from head to toe, sharp as a needle. Then she smiled brightly. “He looks full of talent—just too thin. Yes, yes, discuss it. My house is right next door, only one door away—there. When you’ve decided, call me.”
As she stepped down, she paused in front of Li Xue Dong again, met his eyes, and called with exaggerated cheer, “Licentiate.”
Then she waved an arm at the lingering neighbors. “All right, all right—don’t stare. Go on, go on.”
The crowd finally broke apart into little knots of gossip, drifting home while still glancing back at the Li siblings as if the eggs might start hatching miracles.