If you make a date with the early morning, the early morning will never let you down — she always arrives on time. But Li Diudiu had no desire to make a date with the early morning. He wanted to make a date with breakfast, and he arrived at the dining hall even earlier than the morning itself.

Talking about making dates with the early morning was all too poetic, and Li Diudiu had no patience for such romantic notions. Every beautiful thing in his heart right now was the food spread out across the long tables of the dining hall.

Auntie Wu smiled the moment she saw Li Diudiu. Though the child never left any food behind — which was a little off-putting — everything else about him she liked. Most importantly, he was polite to her.

No one else ever showed her such respect when they spoke to her. Little did she know that Li Diudiu’s respect for her far surpassed his respect for Yan Qingzhi.

Li Diudiu’s thinking was that straightforward: food mattered more.

“Young master, what will you have today?”

Auntie Wu asked.

Li Diudiu looked over the table, a little unsure of what to choose, when he suddenly recalled a saying the common folk liked — “nothing beats dumplings for fun to eat”… no wait, “nothing beats sister-in-law for good eating”… bah!

“Do you have dumplings?”

Li Diudiu asked.

Auntie Wu nodded eagerly. “Of course, of course! Here in Jizhou, noodle dishes are the staple, so dumplings we certainly have. Would young master like meat or vegetable?”

Li Diudiu was eleven years old, and he had never eaten dumplings before.

His master naturally never made dumplings, and naturally never treated him to any either. From the day his master took him in to make their way through life together, the old man had set his sights on overturning the heavens and changing the boy’s fate — how could he bear to waste a single copper coin? Now, that fate was indeed beginning to change.

So it was that Li Diudiu, a northerner by birth, had never once eaten dumplings — something many people would find completely unbelievable.

Seeing that Li Diudiu didn’t answer, Auntie Wu figured that a child from a grand household probably had no particular appetite for meat-filled dumplings, so she described another option: “Over here are dumplings wrapped fresh this very morning — shepherd’s purse and egg. They should be quite delicious.”

Li Diudiu asked, “What’s shepherd’s purse?”

Auntie Wu said, “A kind of wild herb. Absolutely delicious.”

Li Diudiu replied, “Impossible. What’s good about wild herbs?”

Auntie Wu thought to herself, sure enough, a child from a wealthy family — he has no idea what wild herbs taste like. She was just about to say something when Li Diudiu declared flatly, “I’ll have meat! Three portions!”

Li Diudiu thought to himself: trying to trick me into eating cheap food? Not that easy.

Although he couldn’t remember what any particular wild herb was called, wild herbs were what his master had fed him most over the years, and his master always said that eating wild herbs was good for you — that wild herbs tasted far better than regular vegetables.

Li Diudiu had once asked his master why wild herbs tasted better than regular vegetables, and his master had thrown an analogy at him.

His master said: a wife is not as good as a concubine, a concubine is not as good as a secret lover, a secret lover is not as good as one you can’t have. Meat was like the proper wife, vegetables were like the concubine, and wild herbs were the kind you couldn’t have.

Li Diudiu’s thinking had gotten a bit muddled at the time, and no matter how he worked it out, something felt off. As he saw it, if you followed his master’s ranking, meat should actually be the kind you couldn’t have, and wild herbs should be the proper wife…

One portion of dumplings was twenty pieces. Auntie Wu assumed Li Diudiu couldn’t possibly finish them all — after all, he looked so thin and small, and twenty dumplings was almost enough to fill even her.

But Li Diudiu pressed straight through without stopping and ate three portions — sixty dumplings — then called over to Auntie Wu, “One more portion, please.”

Auntie Wu was startled. What was this young master’s little stomach made of?

“Young master, you should stop — I’m worried you’ll make yourself ill. Meat-filled dumplings are heavy. They’ll bloat you.”

Auntie Wu hurried over. “Come back at noon if you’d like more.”

Li Diudiu shook his head firmly. “No. One more portion.”

Auntie Wu had no choice but to go and boil another portion for him. As she set it down in front of Li Diudiu, a young student who looked about sixteen or seventeen came over to have a look and asked Li Diudiu, “What’s so good about these things?”

Li Diudiu said, “They’re delicious. Really delicious.”

The student reached over, pinched one, and put it in his mouth to taste. He frowned. “No flavor whatsoever.”

Without swallowing it, he turned his head and spat it into the nearby rubbish bin.

He turned to leave, but Li Diudiu wasn’t having it. He looked at the young man and said, “You owe me one dumpling.”

The student was taken aback. This little fellow had quite a spine — one dumpling, and a free one from the dining hall at that, yet this small kid wanted him to pay for it.

“How am I supposed to pay you back?”

The student laughed and sat down across from Li Diudiu, pointed to himself, and said, “My name is Xiahou Zuo. Tell you what — forget paying you back a dumpling. I just watched you eat three portions already. If you can still finish this portion, I’ll give you one tael of silver.”

Li Diudiu’s eyes lit up. “One tael of silver!”

Xiahou Zuo looked at his expression, thought for a moment, then reconsidered. “Actually, we’re all students at the academy — who cares about one tael? How about two? Consider it a bet, me wagering on you finishing your dumplings.”

Li Diudiu nodded. “No going back on your word.”

Like a whirlwind sweeping away the last of the leaves.

In no time at all, Li Diudiu had finished nineteen dumplings. Xiahou Zuo stared with wide eyes, then fished a piece of broken silver from his sleeve and set it on the table. “It’s been a very, very long time since I’ve seen anyone eat like you. It’s also been a very, very long time since I’ve eaten like that myself…”

Li Diudiu asked curiously, “When was the last time you ate like that?”

Xiahou Zuo said, “When I was still being held in someone’s arms, being fed whatever they put in my mouth — eating it like it was a proper meal. Now I just eat for something to do.”

Li Diudiu wondered: what had he been eating back then?

Xiahou Zuo smiled and stood up. “I’ll be back tomorrow to watch you eat. This is rather entertaining.”

Li Diudiu waved him off. Xiahou Zuo laughed and said, “No need to see me out.”

Before he’d finished speaking, he heard Li Diudiu wave his hand and call out, “Bring money, yeah?”

Xiahou Zuo: “……”

Without waiting until the next morning, when Li Diudiu arrived at the dining hall for lunch, Xiahou Zuo and seven or eight students who all looked about sixteen or seventeen were already there waiting. None of them were eating — they seemed to have come specifically to wait for Li Diudiu.

Auntie Wu was just about to greet Li Diudiu and ask what he wanted, when Xiahou Zuo waved him over. Li Diudiu thought to himself that, one way or another, the man had given him two taels of silver, so he walked over to say hello.

“So this is the one.”

A young man laughed and said, “I heard you can eat eighty dumplings?”

Li Diudiu said, “Seventy-nine.”

Another young man said, “I also heard you’re the only poor person in the academy.”

Li Diudiu felt a little awkward, not knowing how to respond.

Xiahou Zuo said, “Don’t talk nonsense. If you’re here to have fun, then have fun. Why bring up someone’s background?”

“Right, right, right…”

The others all nodded. It was clear that Xiahou Zuo was the leader among them. Li Diudiu figured it was probably because Xiahou Zuo’s status was the highest.

“Do you want to earn money?”

Xiahou Zuo asked.

Li Diudiu nodded. “I do.”

There was no shame in it. Li Diudiu felt there was nothing embarrassing about saying he wanted to earn money — who didn’t want to earn money? What he didn’t know was that among the students of this academy, he was probably the only one who ever thought about it, because all the others had no need to.

“Alright then.”

Xiahou Zuo pointed at the long tables of the dining hall. “Whatever we order, you eat. You eat one portion of steamed buns — that portion is worth twenty copper coins, I’ll add twenty copper coins. You eat one portion of dumplings — worth fifteen copper coins, I’ll add fifteen. Whatever you eat, I’ll add that amount, calculated by the price of what you’ve eaten.”

Li Diudiu asked quite curiously, “Why?”

Xiahou Zuo sighed. “Because I’m bored and I want to have some fun with you.”

The others burst into laughter.

Xiahou Zuo looked at Li Diudiu and said quite seriously, “People of our background have nothing left to entertain ourselves with inside this academy. How wonderful it is to spend a little money and buy some amusement.”

Li Diudiu said, “This morning you gave me two taels of silver. Why have the rates dropped now?”

Xiahou Zuo said, “Because I know you’re poor now.”

He smiled and continued, “I went and asked Teacher Yan Qingzhi about you — he told me all about your background and origins. So I thought two taels was a bit much. Of course, you can refuse — we won’t give you any trouble either way.”

Li Diudiu was silent for a moment, then turned and walked away.

One young man sighed. “Boring. Is he putting on a show of being ashamed?”

Another said, “Looks like there’s no fun to be had today.”

Li Diudiu sat down at a table on the other side of the room and slowly exhaled. Were wealthy people really this bored?

“Go ahead and order,” he said.

“Hm?”

Xiahou Zuo, already heading out, turned back. He looked at the young boy’s back, and smiled. “Interesting.”

That noon meal, Li Diudiu ate three steamers of xiaolongbao — thirty in total, on the small side — drank two bowls of rice porridge, ate a small bowl of rice with two side dishes — one meat and one vegetable — and gnawed through an entire braised pork hock.

After all of that, he’d earned one hundred copper coins. According to the rules set by the Dachu court, one tael of silver could be exchanged for one string of a thousand copper coins. But Dachu was now in turmoil with the people suffering, and the exchange rate between copper coins and silver had long since departed from the official standard.

These days in Dachu, one tael of silver could get you one thousand six hundred copper coins — and only if they were good-quality coins from earlier years. If they were newer coins from recent years, one tael could fetch two thousand copper coins, since the new coins were of far poorer quality.

Two taels plus one hundred coins — that was what Li Diudiu had earned today, and he was very happy.

“I’d say I now have a rough sense of your limit,” Xiahou Zuo said. “Next time we play this game, anything you eat beyond your limit, I’ll pay triple the rate.”

“Quintuple,” Li Diudiu said, looking Xiahou Zuo in the eye seriously. “Eating past your limit when you’re already full is extremely unpleasant, so it can’t be less than five times.”

Xiahou Zuo thought about it and nodded. “Fair. Five times it is then.”

Li Diudiu gave a nod, turned to leave. “See you tomorrow.”

Xiahou Zuo suddenly asked, “Why did you agree to earn money this way? Don’t you feel humiliated?”

Li Diudiu turned back and looked at him. “Why would I feel humiliated? You have money, I don’t. I want to earn some, you want to give some. I haven’t stolen, robbed, or cheated anyone. Sure, it’s not exactly a dignified way to earn a living, but I’m trading something I can do for fair compensation. There’s nothing shameful in that.”

Xiahou Zuo was quiet for a moment, then said, “That was the second question.”

Li Diudiu didn’t follow, so he asked, “What do you mean, second question?”

Xiahou Zuo said, “You answered my second question — about humiliation. What I wanted to know was why you want to earn money at all. Even if you came from a poor background, you don’t need to spend money here at the academy. You could easily pretend you’re not poor — no one would be able to tell.”

“Why would I pretend to have money?”

Li Diudiu had his own confusion. “You don’t eat, but you spend money watching others eat. Why do you still think you’re the ones having fun at my expense?”

Xiahou Zuo said, “Then what do you consider being had?”

Li Diudiu said, “You make a promise, and then don’t pay up. That’s being had.”

Xiahou Zuo thought about it, and nodded.

Though he still felt it was deeply beneath him.

Li Diudiu asked one more thing. “Do you all really find the dining hall food unpleasant?”

Xiahou Zuo gave a quiet sigh. “You’re probably the only one who finds it good.”

Li Diudiu thought to himself: he’d have to earn a great deal of money someday. All these years, his master hadn’t even had food like what the dining hall served. The Daoist temple where his master stayed probably wasn’t much better. With money, he could take his master out to eat the kinds of things Xiahou Zuo and his crowd considered genuinely good — surely those would be wonderful.

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