Peach Blossom Land On Longyin Island Chapter 7
bySearching the Village Chief’s House
The key to making a bamboo lantern lies in two steps: first, creating a sturdy frame with bamboo strips; second, pasting beautiful patterned paper onto it. An Xiaoyu learned on the spot, but he got stuck at step zero.
“What does a mermaid… look like?” An Xiaoyu held the bamboo strips, unsure how to begin, and asked An Le with a reluctant expression.
An Le sat across from An Xiaoyu, resting her chin in her hand and smiling as she looked at him. “A mermaid, naturally, is half-human and half-fish.”
“A jiaoren?” An Xiaoyu asked.
“Something like that.”
An Xiaoyu nodded and began working on the mermaid’s skeleton. An Le and Su Su both rested their chins in their hands, eating wild fruit snacks and watching An Xiaoyu’s movements.
After a morning of effort, and breaking countless bamboo strips, An Xiaoyu finally lived up to expectations and completed a lantern head that resembled a sphere!
“Sister-in-law Xiaoyu is so amazing~” After Su Su’s exaggerated praise, An Xiaoyu quickly ate a few snacks for lunch, then immediately threw himself into making the human body and fish tail.
An Le watched An Xiaoyu all morning and afternoon. Seeing An Xiaoyu’s brow furrow deeper and deeper, and bamboo strips breaking one after another while the fish body was still far from complete, she felt quite pleased. She smiled and said, “An Xiaoyu, hurry up. It’s almost dark, and your savior is waiting to show off the mermaid lantern.”
Snap. The bamboo strip broke again. The difficulty of making a human body and fish tail frame was harder than the road to Shu for a novice. The veins on An Xiaoyu’s temples throbbed violently, his eyebrows were knitted into the character for ‘river’ (川), and he looked up, glaring at An Le. He squeezed three words out from between his teeth: “You. Shut. Up!”
Father An laughed heartily. “Su Su, don’t make things hard for Brother Xiaoyu. How about Daddy makes you a fish lantern?”
Su Su looked at the setting sun, then glanced at the half-finished mermaid skeleton. Understandingly, she said, “Okay, then I don’t need the mermaid lantern.”
Hearing this, An Xiaoyu secretly let out a sigh of relief, as if a great burden had been lifted. However, An Le then said, “Su Su, your Sister-in-law Xiaoyu worked hard all day just to make you happy. If you say you don’t want it, won’t that make Sister-in-law Xiaoyu sad?”
“But…” Su Su looked hesitantly at An Xiaoyu, then leaned close to An Le’s ear and whispered, “But Brother, Sister-in-law Xiaoyu doesn’t seem to know how to make a mermaid lantern, and the Fish Lantern Parade is about to start.”
“Fish Lantern Parade?” Although Su Su’s voice was low, An Xiaoyu still heard it.
“That’s right, Sister-in-law Xiaoyu. We make so many fish lanterns just for the Fish Lantern Parade,” Su Su smiled sweetly at An Xiaoyu. “After dark, the Village Chief will lead the villagers, holding large fish lanterns, starting from the Ancestral Hall in the village, parading through the fields, and finally leading everyone up Dragon Chant Slope to the Dragon God Temple to worship the Dragon King, express gratitude, and pray for a bountiful harvest.”
“The Village Chief will lead the team personally.” An Xiaoyu said this, simultaneously giving An Le a meaningful look.
An Le understood. If the Village Chief personally led the parade, the village would be empty, which was the perfect opportunity to search the village for the map.
The Fish Lantern Parade began at the hour of Xu (7-9 PM), starting from the village’s Ancestral Hall. Before the hour of Xu arrived, the men, women, and children of the village had already gathered at the Ancestral Hall, preparing items to worship their ancestors. Inside and outside the Ancestral Hall, the atmosphere was boisterous and noisy. As soon as the hour of Xu struck, a gong sounded, and the crowd instantly fell silent. Village Chief An Mu held incense and led the Longyin Village residents in worshipping their ancestors.
A quarter of an hour into the hour of Xu, another gong sounded, followed by a rhythmic beat of gongs and drums. At the same time, cheers erupted. Village Chief An Mu, along with several strong men, carried a massive dragon head, internally lit with candles and glowing red, at the very front. Behind them followed dozens of young people carrying the long body of the dragon. The rest of the Longyin Village residents held lanterns of various sizes and shapes, surrounding the parade team on both sides and the rear. They set off from the Ancestral Hall, beginning the Fish Lantern Parade.
People were pressed shoulder to shoulder, and the lanterns blazed brightly, accompanied by the clamor of drums and gongs. Before they knew it, the procession had reached the wide wheat fields. Countless fish lanterns floated along the field paths, gathering like scattered stars to form a long, fiery red dragon.
This was An Le’s first time participating in such an event, and she found it novel. Holding the rabbit lantern Father An had made for her, she was half-pushed and half-carried forward by the crowd.
Suddenly, An Le felt her wrist tighten, and in an instant, she was pulled out of the sea of people.
“Let’s handle the main business first,” An Xiaoyu said, leaning slightly and speaking close to An Le’s ear.
The two stood in the wheat field, watching the parade team reach the foot of Dragon Chant Slope and then wind its way upward. The evening breeze rustled the wheat, and the noise gradually faded into the distance. An Le reluctantly withdrew her gaze and said, “Fine, let’s go to the Village Chief’s house first.”
Perhaps sensing An Le’s lingering attachment to the parade, An Xiaoyu said, “If you want to go play, I can go look by myself.”
An Le glanced at An Xiaoyu, thinking, *You say that only after the procession has gone far.* She did want to go play. Although she was eager to find the map to leave Longyin Island, she wasn’t actually in a rush to depart. There were many places on Longyin Island she hadn’t explored, and she hadn’t fully appreciated the scenery of all four seasons. Her curiosity about Longyin Island was far from satisfied.
However, An Le looked down at her tightly held wrist. The way he refused to let go didn’t match the thoughtfulness of his words about letting her go play while he searched for the map alone.
“Let’s go,” An Le said helplessly. “To the Village Chief’s house.”
Walking against the direction of the parade, the two headed towards Village Chief An Mu’s home. Longyin Village was sparsely populated across a wide area. When the villagers first built their houses, they chose their preferred spots freely—some near the sea, some near the fields, and some settled next to a specific tree they liked. Consequently, the houses in Longyin Village were scattered haphazardly. Since it was the Mid-Autumn Festival, every household had hung lanterns outside their doors. Looking from afar, they resembled scattered starlight across every corner of Longyin Village.
“If we find the map, do you plan to leave immediately?” An Le asked as they turned onto village paths and arrived at Village Chief An Mu’s doorstep, which was quite far from the farmland.
“Me?” An Xiaoyu paused, turned his head to look at An Le, and asked, “Aren’t you leaving?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” An Le answered truthfully, walking without stopping toward the Village Chief’s house. Every household in the village had a small fenced yard with a simple wicker gate. The gates were never locked, at most secured with a simple latch made of vines or wooden sticks to prevent chickens, ducks, geese, or rabbits from escaping the yard.
Although Village Chief An Mu had children and grandchildren, before marriage, the villagers of Longyin Village would help newcomers build new houses, and after marriage, they would generally move out. Therefore, although Village Chief An Mu had many descendants, he currently lived alone. Naturally, the courtyard was empty. An Le pushed open the wicker gate and walked straight in, but then turned to see An Xiaoyu still standing outside the gate.
Under the bright moonlight, An Le saw An Xiaoyu’s brow slightly furrowed, his gaze fixed on her.
“What’s wrong?” An Le asked.
“Since you said you are not a Longyin Village resident, why aren’t you leaving?” After a moment, An Xiaoyu spoke, his voice low.
“It’s not that I’m not leaving, I just haven’t decided when to leave,” An Le said lightly. “Besides you, no one knows I’m not An Le.”
“Then where is An Le?” An Xiaoyu asked again.
An Le stared at An Xiaoyu for a moment, then turned and stepped into Village Chief An Mu’s house, saying as she went, “I don’t know. I woke up and became An Le. He might be dead, or he might have gone to my hometown.”
“Where is your hometown?”
“Somewhere you don’t know.” An Le heard footsteps behind her, knowing An Xiaoyu had followed. She walked straight into Village Chief An Mu’s living room without stopping.
The layout of houses in Longyin Village was mostly similar: upon entering the courtyard, one faced three rooms—the middle one being the living room, and the two sides being bedrooms. Some houses would have a study; in Village Chief An Mu’s case, one bedroom had been converted into a study. There would also be a few rooms in the backyard and on the sides of the courtyard, mostly used as woodsheds or kitchens. An Le guessed that even if the map was in Village Chief An Mu’s house, it would only be in the living room, a bedroom, or the study. There were no candles lit in the living room, but the moonlight was bright, and An Le was carrying the rabbit lantern, which provided some illumination, though the light was dimmed significantly after passing through the paper lantern.
Pfft. An Le heard a faint whoosh of air, and simultaneously, the area around her suddenly brightened. An Le turned in surprise to find the source of the light, and immediately saw that the object in An Xiaoyu’s hand, which was burning with a flame, looked very familiar.
“A fire starter?” An Le was intrigued. She had seen fire starters on television. When she first arrived at Longyin Village, she wondered why this world hadn’t developed the fire starters seen in historical dramas. It turned out the outside world already had them.
“Did you make this?” An Le took the fire starter from An Xiaoyu’s hand with great curiosity, looked at it for a while, and said, “How did you make it? Teach me too. The flint here is too difficult to use.”
In the flickering firelight, An Xiaoyu curved his lips slightly. “I’ll teach you tomorrow. It’s very simple. Don’t you have this in your world?”
“No, oh, no, we do,” An Le returned the fire starter to An Xiaoyu, smiling. “But we don’t use them daily. We have more convenient tools for starting fires.”
A faint smile, tinged with nostalgia, appeared in the corner of An Le’s eye. The tear mole beneath her eye glowed softly in the dim firelight.
An Xiaoyu stared at the tear mole. “Don’t you want to go back?”
“Huh? Go back where?” An Le pretended not to understand, put away her smile, and held the lantern up to search the living room. There weren’t many things in the living room: a table, a few stools, and a storage cabinet. An Le opened the cabinet doors one by one, casually checking the contents. There were many children’s toys, and occasionally a few wooden boxes, but An Le generally didn’t bother to rummage through them.
An Xiaoyu followed An Le, meticulously checking the items in the cabinet, tapping and knocking to search for hidden compartments.
“Don’t you want to return to your hometown?” An Xiaoyu seemed unwilling to drop the subject and asked again. “You haven’t lost your memory, have you? Then don’t you miss your family? Or did they treat you badly, so you don’t want them?”
“No, they treated me very well. I miss them a lot,” An Le said.
There wasn’t much in the living room, so the two quickly finished their search without any discoveries. They moved on to the bedroom. The bedroom was also simple: a wooden plank bed, a small square table, and a few cabinets.
The cabinets mostly contained clothes and bedding.
“Then why don’t you want to go back?” An Xiaoyu felt the bedding in the cabinet, continuing the previous topic.
Seeing that An Xiaoyu wasn’t going to give up the questioning, An Le sighed and said, “I’m different from you. I can’t go back.”
An Xiaoyu paused, turned his head to look at An Le, and asked, “Why?”
An Le looked up at An Xiaoyu and said calmly, “In my world, I died.”
“Died?!” Startled, An Xiaoyu unconsciously raised his voice, his eyes wide with shock as he stared at An Le.