The next time Lou Deyu saw Zhou Zan was at his sister-in-law’s wedding. He glanced down at the suit the rural tailor had made for him, and for a moment felt a sudden flush of shame.

Western suits had become fashionable recently, but the ones at the county department store were too expensive. Lou Deyu had copied the style and had a tailor make one for him.

In this scorching heat, Lou Deyu had deliberately worn the suit to look more presentable — it was the finest and most expensive piece of clothing he owned. But the more he tried to look presentable, the less presentable he seemed. Sweat was soaking through into the suit. Comparing himself to Zhou Zan, Lou Deyu wondered — was he going to embarrass Gu Jingshu again this time?

Honestly speaking, Lou Deyu’s features and build weren’t bad at all. Those same features transplanted onto his daughter made for a pretty little girl. He wasn’t short by any measure, and his frame was reasonably proportioned — but he had always lacked a certain quality. As a child he had been so accustomed to feeling inferior that he always hunched and looked down, his eyes fixed on the ground as if he might scrape something to eat from it. Later, he overcorrected, deliberately pulling his shoulders back and tilting his head upward, always looking at the sky. It wasn’t until he decided to marry Gu Jingshu and take care of her for the rest of his life that he finally learned to meet people’s eyes on equal footing — but now he didn’t know where to put those eyes at all.

Lou Deyu was the youngest son in his family. His hometown had always held the tradition of valuing sons over daughters, but having too many sons was also a burden.

His family had too many sons. To his father, these sons were not sons at all — they were just mouths to feed. His father would come home to all those mouths and be filled with nothing but rage. If not for those mouths, would he have to run himself ragged every single day?

With so many people in the house, food was obtained through scrambling for it. And Lou Deyu was the smallest and weakest child — he couldn’t out-scramble his older brothers. Getting even one steamed corn bun was considered a good haul. By the time the thin rice porridge made its way to him, there wasn’t a single grain of rice left in it. He was already frail by nature, and with so little food, he grew even weaker.

He was always hungry, so naturally he was always looking. His father was the household’s main laborer. During the busy farming seasons, dinner would include a single plate of pan-fried egg, just for him, along with his wine. Lou Deyu would stare at that plate of egg and swallow hard with longing. His father, seeing this son who seemed like a starving ghost reincarnated, would feel his fury rise. Always cowering and cringing, not a peep to be gotten out of him with three good thwacks. And yet every day he still had to run himself ragged for this burden of a child.

After a long day, Lou Deyu’s father had two forms of entertainment when he got home: drinking and beating his children.

Lou Deyu received no small number of kicks from his father. One time, his father looked at him with particular fury, gave him one kick that sent him flying into the wall, and knocked him completely unconscious. The faint scar on Lou Deyu’s forehead was the result.

Though Lou Deyu’s father resented his youngest son’s existence, he wasn’t capable of actually kicking a child to death — that would bring the pointed fingers of the whole village down on him. Seeing his youngest son unconscious, he stopped drinking and hurriedly carried Lou Deyu on his back to see the village doctor.

The consultation fee that time cost the equivalent of twenty eggs. In the days that followed, Lou Deyu’s father had nothing to go with his drinks. When he drank again and thought of his youngest son, he grew even angrier. But this son didn’t hold up well under beatings, and he didn’t want to lose another twenty eggs’ worth. So he settled for cursing: “You’re nothing but a curse on this family — get out of my sight!”

Lou Deyu obediently got out of his sight. A child who doesn’t get enough to eat can’t afford to be heartbroken all the time. For a while, he walked every day with his head down, scanning the ground to see if anyone had dropped any food. But in the countryside, no family had so much that food would be left lying on the ground to be picked up.

One day, at his father’s request, Lou Deyu went to the Gu family’s home to borrow something. His stomach held nothing but watery, rice-free rice water, and the whole world seemed to spin before his eyes. He saw so many, many stars.

Lou Deyu called out weakly a few times at the Gu family’s gate. No one answered. He guessed there was no one home. As he turned to leave, he spotted some dried sweet potatoes laid out to dry on the windowsill. A gust of wind blew a few pieces to the ground. Without thinking, he bent down to pick them up.

His fingers touched the dried sweet potato. Stars burst before his eyes. He straightened up — and didn’t place the sweet potato back where it had been. Instead, he crammed it into his mouth as fast as he could.

He hadn’t managed to get all of it into his mouth before a girl came out of the Gu family house. Lou Deyu recognized her as Gu Jingshu. He had started school late and was one grade below her. He wasn’t well-liked at school either. On his very first day, he had shouldered a worn-out, hole-ridden bag that his brothers had discarded and gone to school alone and hungry. The bag had a hole in it, and throughout the teacher’s lesson, his entire mind was full of thoughts of food. He didn’t catch a single word of what was said at the front of the room — except that when he heard the words “white rice,” he automatically swallowed hard. The teacher shouted from the podium: “Lou Deyu, stand up!”

That seemed to be the omen for his entire school life. Lou Deyu often showed up to school with a bruised and dirty face. Nearly every student knew that he was regularly beaten at home by his father and brothers, and that he often had nothing to eat. Sometimes, when he watched other students eat, he couldn’t help swallowing, and the other students would call out: “Lou Deyu, what were you eating in your dreams?” Lou Deyu never argued back. He didn’t have the energy to argue.

In an instant, the world spun around Lou Deyu again. Blood rushed to his face, and only one thought existed in his mind: he’d been caught. No one would believe the sweet potato in his hand had simply fallen — they would assume he had stolen it. Lou Deyu’s father cared about his reputation above all else. If word got out that he had “stolen something,” the rolling pin at home would likely be cracked to pieces across his back. As for school — he might as well not go anymore.

The sweet potato was still in Lou Deyu’s mouth. He didn’t know whether to swallow it or spit it out. He summoned every last bit of strength he had to defend himself: “This dried sweet potato just fell on the ground — I was picking it up… I…” Lou Deyu couldn’t go on. He’d picked it up — to do what with it? To taste whether it was salted? In those days, Lou Deyu had no friends. No one at home or at school needed him to speak, and he’d had no opportunity to practice the gift of persuasion he would later develop.

Lou Deyu’s words came out in halting, broken fragments — anyone who heard him would think he had something to hide. Despair washed over him. He waited for whatever fate was coming for him.

Then he heard Gu Jingshu say to him: “Dried sweet potato is no good to eat plain. Wait a moment…”

He stood frozen there, so stunned he forgot to run away. The seconds ticked by, and Gu Jingshu came back out from inside the house holding a steamed corn bun: “Here, eat this.”

Lou Deyu was ravenously hungry, yet he didn’t take the steamed bun from Gu Jingshu’s hands. His hands were too dirty — black all over. For once in his life, when his entire mind was usually filled with nothing but food, he found himself, with unprecedented concern, paying attention to his own hygiene before anything else. This was a luxury he had never before been able to afford.

He had long been accustomed to always wearing dirty, ragged clothes, always having blackened hands — just as he was accustomed to being beaten by his father and brothers, and always having an empty stomach.

But Gu Jingshu had awakened something like shame in Lou Deyu. He said haltingly: “I won’t eat… you keep it.”

“This steamed bun is made really well — it’s no worse than a proper steamed roll.”

“I don’t mean that I dislike…”

“If you don’t dislike it, then hurry up and take it and eat.”

Lou Deyu almost snatched the steamed bun out of Gu Jingshu’s hands. He thought to himself that Gu Jingshu must be thinking inside her head that he was a starving ghost reincarnated — but it wasn’t like that. The reason he grabbed it so quickly was only because he was afraid she’d see his blackened hands. He didn’t want her to think he was someone who didn’t care about cleanliness.

Before that day, only two things had mattered in his head: having food and not getting beaten. He had never once cared how he appeared to others. But that day, for the first time, he desperately wanted Gu Jingshu to think at least a little better of him.

Years later — more years than he could count — Lou Deyu still remembered the taste of that steamed bun. He had never eaten anything so delicious. And it wasn’t just the bun. In all the years that followed, he ate many other fine things, but none of them tasted as good as that steamed bun.

Many years later, Gu Jingshu asked Lou Deyu exactly which day he had fallen for her.

It was that day. The first time in his life anyone had been so kind to him.

Because of a single steamed bun, he had fallen for Gu Jingshu — and he never had feelings for anyone else again. For a long time, the person Lou Deyu envied most was Gu Jingshu’s younger cousin, Gu Jinghui. Even though Gu Jinghui had neither father nor mother, this didn’t stop Lou Deyu from envying her.

The greatest dream of Lou Deyu’s childhood was to have a sister or younger sister like Gu Jingshu — to live in the same household as Gu Jingshu. That was his greatest vision of happiness. To have a family member like her — he truly couldn’t imagine how happy he would be.

After that steamed bun, Lou Deyu began paying attention to his personal hygiene. He started hauling well water to wash his clothes. He washed his hands whenever he could, and washed his hair at the slightest opportunity. His hands were never blackened again throughout his years in elementary school. He taught himself to mend his clothes. Though his clothing was still in tatters, it was far cleaner than before.

Because Lou Deyu kept himself so clean, he was scolded more than ever. In his father’s and brothers’ eyes, he was a boy who spent all day failing to help around the house while fussing over pointless things. One day he was washing clothes at home when his father kicked over his washing basin: “You’re using up every last drop of water in this house!”

For the first time, Lou Deyu’s father was startled by his son. This always-cowering youngest child didn’t flinch and dart away in fear as he usually did. Instead, he righted the overturned basin and went on washing his clothes.

His father was so surprised that he didn’t give his youngest son another kick.

Lou Deyu kept thinking that the next time Gu Jingshu saw him, she would realize that he was actually a clean child — not dirty and grimy like people thought.

But he and Gu Jingshu were in different grades, and opportunities to cross paths were rare. During breaks, Gu Jingshu would play sandbag-toss, skip rope, and kick shuttlecocks with the other girls, and he would watch her from afar. He had no other gift to give Gu Jingshu — no way to thank her for the steamed bun she had given him.

Lou Deyu decided to go to the commune to pick up coal scraps. The commune was near the railway tracks, and freight trains carrying coal would sometimes pass by, and chunks of coal would fall from the cars. Finding coal scraps could be sold for money. On days when he wasn’t in school, he would walk alone to the railway line and wait for coal to fall from the train cars. While he waited, his mind was entirely occupied with imagining what he might get Gu Jingshu with the money from selling the coal scraps.

Every single vision he had was connected to something to eat.

Lou Deyu finally exchanged his gathered coal scraps for a small handful of crispy candy. The crispy candy was not as practical as a steamed roll or bun, but he very much wanted Gu Jingshu to taste this thing he himself had never tried. By the time he walked back to the village, night had already fallen. The northwest wind howled. A child not yet ten years old walked alone on the narrow path back to the village — but he wasn’t the least bit afraid. His mind was entirely full of imagining Gu Jingshu’s expression when she saw his candy. He was not a boy who could only pick dried sweet potato off the ground.

Just as Lou Deyu’s father was cursing and wondering where on earth this wretched child had gone, Lou Deyu didn’t return to his own home. He went to the Gu family’s house.

He called Gu Jingshu’s name from the front gate. Once she came out, he opened his hands to show her what he held: “All of this is for you. Try the crispy candy and see if it’s good.” As he spoke, Lou Deyu swallowed hard. He had been picking up coal scraps all day and still hadn’t eaten anything.

Gu Jingshu seemed quite surprised: “Where did this crispy candy come from?”

Lou Deyu’s face turned red from the question. The reason Gu Jingshu asked was probably because he had “picked up” the dried sweet potato from her family’s windowsill — and now seeing candy in his hand, she must have suspected this too had been “picked up” from somewhere.

Lou Deyu immediately explained where the candy had come from: “I went to the commune to gather coal scraps and traded them for this.”

Gu Jingshu looked at the candy in his hand, then at him: “You’ve been at it since now, gathering coal scraps?”

Lou Deyu nodded.

“You should keep it and eat it yourself!” He had gathered coal scraps all this time and only managed to exchange it for a few pieces of candy — how could she possibly eat it in good conscience?

It was only then that Lou Deyu realized he had been gripping the candy so tightly on his walk through the dark that it had been squeezed completely out of shape. He guessed that Gu Jingshu probably thought the candy was too crushed and misshapen to want. Disappointment and embarrassment piled on top of each other, and once again Lou Deyu found himself stuttering: “This candy wasn’t like this at first. Even though it’s crumbled now, it tastes just the same… If you don’t believe me, try a piece.”

With Lou Deyu watching her like that, Gu Jingshu reached into his palm and picked up a piece of the candy.

Under Lou Deyu’s gaze, Gu Jingshu delivered her verdict on the candy: “Thank you. It’s truly delicious!”

—