Chapter 675
Chapter 675
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 675
>Chapter Title: Water Banquet
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“Mom, this is delicious too. Try this one. I specially brought it back for you from Da Liang.”
“Right, and these candied dates. I spotted them on the road and thought they tasted good, so I bought two jin for you.”
“Mom, do you like sour things? I brought a jar of sour stuff for you too.”
The excited Yang Kid was finally able to drop all pretense in front of his birth mother, reverting completely to the way a boy his age should be.
“Right, and this!” Yang Kid said as he shoved a large bundle of silver into his mom’s arms.
“Oh my, oh my, that’s too much, way too much. No need, that’s enough, enough.”
Hearing his own mom say that, Yang Kid shoved even harder, as if he meant to empty the entire carriage.
It took a good while of his mom trying to stop him before Yang Kid finally quit unloading things.
He started pouring out to his mother all the pain and longing he’d bottled up over the years, but she was deaf. From the blank look on her face, it was clear she couldn’t hear a thing, leaving Yang Kid with a bellyful of words he couldn’t get out.
“Come on, come on. You just got home and don’t know the family yet. I’ll introduce you.” With that, Yang Kid’s mom stood up, pulled him along, and headed toward the other Dan clansfolk gathered around watching.
“This is your second brother.”
“Greetings, Second Brother!” Yang Kid shouted toward the man in front of him, who was even shorter than he was.
Second Brother seemed terribly awkward, mumbling something incoherent. “Uh, hey, you’re back? Eaten yet?”
“This is your third brother.”
“Greetings, Third Brother.” Third Brother was much steadier than Second Brother. He reached out and clapped Yang Kid on the shoulder. “You’ve grown so big. Good on you. Back when you were little, you were like a baby chick.”
“And this is your little sister. She’s got a child betrothal set. They’ll wed after the new year, so you as her big brother have got to come drink at the wedding feast.”
“Definitely, definitely.”
Besides his own immediate family, his mom went around introducing him to all the other Dan clansfolk watching the show nearby—his various aunts and uncles.
Through his mom’s words, Yang Kid finally realized that all the Dan clansfolk he’d met along the way were actually related to him.
And the family hierarchy was a mess too—he even had to call a girl younger than him “Great-Aunt.”
But Yang Kid didn’t mind a bit. On the contrary, he was thrilled. He wasn’t alone in this world after all. He had so much family.
Once the elders were introduced, it was time for the younger generation. Yang Kid’s mom pulled him toward the stern of the boat.
“These two are your second brother’s kids, your nephews.” She pointed at the two kids in bellybands tied up at the boat’s tail.
The two nephews were fine aside from being a bit skinny, but the ropes binding them rubbed Yang Kid the wrong way. It looked less like raising kids and more like raising dogs.
Yang Kid eyed the scene uncomfortably and glanced over at the three monkey children by the carriage, who were looking around. They’d been tied up the same way back then.
“Mom, why tie up the nephews like that?” Yang Kid couldn’t help but ask.
But his mom was deaf and didn’t hear a thing. She just tugged him along back toward the bow.
That was when Jiang Erlang stepped up beside him to explain. “You’ve been on land too long and don’t get it. That’s how you raise kids on boats. If you don’t tie ’em, they’ll fall in the water. That’s how your second uncle went.”
“Oh, is that how it is? But you can’t keep ’em tied up forever, right?”
“No way you tie ’em till they’re grown. Once they pass the hair-bunning age, burn incense at the Dragon King Temple to register as dragon household, and they can go free.”
“Dragon household? What’s that?”
“That’s what we are—dragon household. It’s like folks on land entering the ancestral hall and clan registry.” Yang Erlang ran a hand over the fish-scale tattoo on his body.
“Oh~” Yang Kid nodded in understanding. So all those rules the boatmaster had mentioned weren’t made up—they had reasons behind them.
“Dad! Guess who’s here? Fifth Brother’s back!” Hearing Second Brother’s shout from the bow, Yang Kid’s heart clenched. Dad?
By the time Yang Kid led his mom back to the bow, he saw a stern-faced old man who looked a bit younger than Lv Zhuangyuan. The man’s neck was thick, and his arms and torso bore fish-scale tattoos too.
“Dad?” Yang Kid took a nervous step forward.
Right then, he watched his dad leap from the neighboring boat back onto theirs. He grabbed Yang Kid’s sleeve, rolled it up, and checked the faint birthmark.
With a “whoosh,” the sleeve dropped back down. Yang Kid’s dad spun around and bellowed to the Dan clansfolk crowded three layers deep all around: “My fifth son’s home today! Big occasion! Nobody fire up your stoves tonight! The Chi family’s throwing a water banquet!!”
Hearing the cheers from the Dan clansfolk around them, Yang Kid looked at the little old man beside him with deep emotion, all his tension melting away.
That night, Yang Kid finally saw what a Dan clansfolk water banquet was like. All the family boats spread out, leaving a waterway in the middle.
Two small wooden boats loaded with platters of food started zipping back and forth along the edges of that waterway, letting everyone grab what they wanted. That was the water banquet.
Maybe because the Dan clansfolk rarely went ashore, seasonings were scarce. The dishes were mostly raw fish slices and blanched seafood.
Some land-style dishes were there too, but those vanished fastest—even the hard flatbreads Yang Kid had used as travel rations on the road.
That one night, Yang Kid ate more fish than he had in the previous half of his life, all kinds of fish and seafood he’d never even seen before in dazzling array.
Yang Kid didn’t care what any of it was. He just grabbed and shoved it in his mouth. One word: bliss.
He picked up a long sea snail, slurped from the front, then copied his third brother and sucked hard from the rear end. The meat from each tasted different—a flavor all its own.
Glancing at his own dad inside the boat awning, toasting away with the uncles, Yang Kid turned to his brothers nearby. “Right, Third Brother, didn’t they say we had four kids in the family? Where’s the last one?”
He remembered clearly—the old man had definitely said four siblings.
Second Brother cracked open a bloody shellfish, sucked hard at the innards, and answered: “We’ve got a big sis too. She’s something else. Family’s only turned around thanks to her.”
“Our big sis went off as a child bride to some big household. She sends money home regular-like. Otherwise, me and your second brother never would’ve snagged wives.”
“Oh, I see.” Yang Kid felt a bit regretful. He’d missed meeting one family member this trip.
“Where’s big sis living? I want to go see her.” Yang Kid figured if it wasn’t far, they could detour.
“No need! Big sis is due back at her family home these next few days!” Little Sis piped up from the side.
She’d started out shy, but seeing Yang Kid was easygoing, the little girl had loosened up.
“Big sis even said she’d bring me stuff!”
“Back at her family home? Dodging the wind, maybe?” Yang Kid wondered to himself. He knew full well what the shores of Later Shu were like these days.
(End of chapter)