Chapter 10: The Tribe on the Tip of the Tongue
In the valley below the cave, where tall trees and grasses intertwined, Yu Qian'er and her elder brother were searching for an elusive seasoning: pepper.
Yu Qian'er didn't know what pepper was. Her brother had told her it was something that could make food taste like a flame.
The woods were a bit cold under the setting sun. The pepper plants hid in clearings with few trees, their short stalks covered with sharp thorns—a defense developed in their struggle against nature, guarding their unique flavor.
A thorn pricked Yu Qian'er's finger. Frowning, she put the finger in her mouth while watching her brother skillfully pick the pepper leaves. The seeds were still developing; when they matured, their taste would be a condensation of the plant's full essence. The leaves, in contrast, were not as strong, but they possessed a delicate fragrance. Paired with tender white mutton, they would give birth to a unique taste.
Half a bag of pepper leaves, collected in a simple cloth pouch, represented the tribe's first true pursuit of culinary flavor.
A few hundred meters away, a plant that has densely covered the land since the Jurassic period stubbornly pushed out its shoots, clenched like fists, showing its strength to the earth. This was bracken, a plant the tribe often ate in spring. But today, it wasn't the women who were gathering it, but Wolf Skin and several of the younger men.
Following Chen Jian's instructions, they used sweat-slicked animal bones to dig up the bracken roots. The dense, tangled roots, the source of the plant's strength, were naturally the most nutritious part. Wolf Skin was not careful, and a white sap gushed from a wound in a dirt-caked root. It took a lot of effort to excavate them with the bone tools, but strength was something Wolf Skin and his companions had in abundance.
The bracken fought against nature, and the men fought against nature as well. It was just that from now on, the bracken had one more enemy. The white juice was both their blood and their tears. And since they were tears, they were naturally bitter.
Bitterness was not a taste the tribe enjoyed.
So, Yu Qian'er's mother and the other women carried their fiber bags to the densest part of the woods. The spring rain a few days ago had convinced them that a familiar, strange scent would now be sprouting from the branches. As the tribe's gatherers, they knew the location of every fruit tree and every edible bud. This was a memory left by their ancestors, paid for with their lives, and it was the most precious wealth they could pass down.
They were after old thorn buds. This thorny plant had left many scars on the women of the tribe, but its sweet taste made them quickly forget the pain. They hooked the branches with wooden sticks and picked the most tender shoots, placing them in their bags. Sometimes the brittle branches would break from the force. But the women knew that in the spring of the following year, new life would bloom beautifully from beneath the dead wood.
Death was only the beginning of new life.
This was true not only for the twigs but also for the ancient trees that could not escape the invasion of time. Rot began in the heart of a tree, perhaps with a tiny insect that had escaped a woodpecker's notice. But on that dead wood, new life was quietly born.
Under the opened forest canopy, an insect was already devouring a delicious juice when a rough hand snatched its prize away. The bug itself was flicked off; it arched its back in dissatisfaction but was sent flying by a finger. Mushrooms that absorbed the nutrients of dead wood were also a favorite of the clan, but no one dared to try unfamiliar ones. The old grandmother had taught her daughters which could be eaten and which could not. As for how they knew which were inedible, that was a very old story, a bitter story accompanied by the tears of their ancestors.
Stories also have a taste—not only bitter, but sometimes sweet.
Yu Qian'er, having collected the pepper leaves, was now experiencing a sweet story, the sugary juice overflowing from the tip of her tongue and flowing down her throat. She knew the taste of sweetness, but she had never experienced it for so long. She had already drained the juice in the clay pot and was licking the corners of her mouth with her tender tongue, but her brother pampered her, wiping away the sticky remnants with his hand.
Nearby stood a newly sprouted maple tree with a broken piece of pottery shard embedded in its trunk, puncturing its phloem, severing its artery. The sugars it had stored all winter for germination had embarked on a road never traveled. For the first time, they saw the world outside the bark and smelled something other than their own sweetness. They did not like it, but they could not go back. Reluctantly, they and their fellow droplets fell into the light red clay pot below, gathering more and more.
Dozens of clay pots waited under various trees; both maple and birch were sweet in the spring. It was a sweetness not as cloying as honey; the extra flavor was that of spring itself.
Spring is sweet, and naturally, it is also filled with love.
Singing birds guarded the crystallization of their love, looking forward to the throbbing life inside breaking out of its shell. Warm fluff carried their body heat, protecting the child still sleeping in the egg. The couple looked at each other and called out, the female opening her beak to wait for her mate to bring food.
But this warmth was disturbed by the footsteps of the hairless monsters. The birds cried out, trying to distract the intruders. However, the animal-skin-clad monsters were not affected by the mournful, warning cries at all. They simply reached out and snatched the eggs.
Life thrived in such cruel competition.
The lost lives gathered in the tribe's cave, condensed into different flavors, and bloomed on the tongues of the people.
Flames licked the sides of a large pottery pot. The water inside had boiled, and large chunks of mutton tumbled within, the milky white soup exuding an umami aroma the tribe had never smelled before. Mushrooms, cut into cubes with a stone knife, were mixed in with the lamb to create the ultimate freshness. The numbing quality of the pepper leaves diffused in the boiling liquid, penetrating the already soft, tender meat. Two slices of mint and three tubers simmered with the meat, boiling not just with flavor, but with the people's pursuit of life and their desire for its continuation.
In another clay pot, white, greasy sheep fat melted into oil, and a light blue smoke rose. Yu Qian'er stood aside, watching her brother stir the oil with two twigs. In a pottery bowl beside him was whisked egg liquid, mixed with the slightly bitter juice from the bracken roots. The tender green thorn buds and toon leaves were rolled in the egg liquid until they were tightly coated.
Gripped between the two twigs, they were dipped into the hot suet and immediately turned a golden brown. The sun had already set, but the color of the sunset had reappeared in the pot. The fried thorn buds and toon rolls were piled high in a pottery bowl. The tempting aroma finally made Yu Qian'er understand why her brother had drooled when he saw these plants earlier.
In another small earthenware pot, the sap of the maple and birch was gradually concentrating. The water turned into white mist and dissipated, leaving behind a sweet, viscous syrup. Two logs had been placed on the ground, with small hollows carved into them with stone tools. Shielding her hands with a cloth, Chen Jian's mother lifted the pot and poured the thick syrup into the hollows, leaving it to cool and harden into blocks. Yu Qian'er, who had already tasted a full pot of birch juice, swallowed hard, wondering just how sweet the condensed syrup would be.
But her attention was quickly captured by another smell. Tubers, cut into large pieces, were thrown into the bubbling suet and fried until golden yellow. The sweetness of the fried starch was different, but this was not the end. After taking them out, the remaining half of the syrup was poured into the oil. A sizzling sound filled the air. Splattering oil stung Yu Qian'er's skin, but she was reluctant to leave, wanting to witness the birth of a new taste.
The mixture of sugar and oil became another kind of viscous liquid. When it was thick enough to leave silky threads as it dripped from a twig, the fried tubers were put back in and turned quickly, coating every piece in a sugary glaze.
It was the first time the people of the tribe had known that food could be prepared like this. Just by smelling it, they could already imagine the beauty of these flavors blooming on their tongues. The silent waiting turned to anxious anticipation. The clansmen began to tap their clay bowls and pots, waiting for the final moment.
The old grandmother watched all this happily and gave Chen Jian the right to distribute the food.
His own reward was a special dish. The white bracken root juice was poured into the boiling soup. The starch-rich liquid quickly condensed into a soft, transparent, creamy ball. It was carefully lifted out with a fiber cloth and placed into a bowl, looking so delicate it might fall apart at any moment.
He sprinkled it with a little juice from a tart physalis berry, served it with a few spicy chive leaves, added smashed dogwood for a pungent kick, put in a little syrup, added two mint leaves, and finally poured over a little suet that had been fried with pepper leaves.
At the first taste, there was a hint of numbness within the spiciness. The taste buds bloomed, blood flow quickened, and all the other flavors intensified. The sourness of the physalis, the sweetness of the maple syrup, and the richness of the suet mixed together to form a new taste, blanketing the slightly bitter fern root jelly. Just as one was about to savor it, the coolness of the mint leaves took over, forcing another bite to recapture the feeling of that fleeting moment.
The old people and the aunts with bad teeth all got a bowl of the fern root jelly, with half a boiled bird egg in it. The heat of late spring was dispelled by the physalis and mint, the spiciness turned into sweat on their foreheads, and the bitterness lingered between their teeth, a pleasant counterpoint to the sweetness. After a few mouthfuls, they hurriedly called their children over to feed them a bite, so they too could experience the strange, wonderful taste.
The adults each started with a bowl of mutton soup. The freshness of the sheep, combined with the earthy taste of mushrooms that carried the memory of spring rain, stimulated everyone's appetite. Wolf Skin was so hot he kept sticking his tongue out, but after finishing one bowl, he immediately filled another, this time with a large piece of boiled mutton in it. He had never eaten boiled meat before and discovered a taste different from grilled meat—slightly sweeter, and much more tender.
In the pottery bowl next to them, the golden-fried thorn buds and toon leaves wrapped in egg were the children's favorite. The outside was crisp and the inside was tender. Although there was a slight hint of mutton from the suet, it didn't detract from the flavor. The oil soaked into the buds, the first time toon had ever fused with oil within a hundred miles. They were a natural match, sweet upon the first bite.
Yu Qian'er ate a whole bunch of the thorny old buds before turning her eyes to the bowl of glazed tubers. Her brother picked up a piece with two twigs, and the sticky sugar juice stretched out into long strands. The children clapped their hands and applauded. The silk thread grew longer and longer. The children stopped shouting, staring at the thread, afraid it would break. When it finally snapped, another round of applause erupted. Curiously, they imitated Chen Jian, spearing pieces with twigs and pulling out the sugar threads until they were long.
The taste was even better: waxy, soft, and sweet. The sugar on the outer skin melted, and as the tongue sipped, the fine, sandy texture of the tuber spread across their taste buds, searching for every sweet sensation.
Laughter echoed in the cave. Chen Jian's favorite flavors had temporarily gathered in this simple place, combining with each other, lingering between lips and teeth, rippling on the tip of the tongue.
Among all these vibrant flavors, only one was missing: the pure, savory taste of *xian*, its absence a lonely note in the symphony.