Xiao Xiao - Chapter One

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen – The Love of Grandparents

 

On the second day of the Spring Festival, Xiao Xiao visited her mother’s parents. Wai Po and Wai Gong were ordinary peasant folk, rice farmers by trade. Ma ma sent back money every month and it helped them tide over hard months when the rice harvest failed. There had been frequent droughts.

Xiao Xiao had never seen her father’s parents. They were deceased. She didn’t know much about them, except that her grandfather was a great emperor.

The sedan carried them to the humble brick-and-mud-roof house. Xiao Xiao had spent the entire trip nauseated by the constant swaying. But Ma ma didn’t seem to care; she simply sat with a smile on her lips, her eyes glistening.

Wai Po and Wai Gong welcomed them at the door. They were wearing new clothes, only that they were simple spun and plain. Their faces were crinkled, lines carved deep in their cheeks and along their jaws. The lines were laugh lines, because they laughed a lot and were cheerful. Their skin was brown from the sun and honest work in the fields. Wai Po held Xiao Xiao’s hand and Wai Po’s hand was dry, leathery.

“You are so tall now!” Wai Po exclaimed.

Wai Gong also added his comment. “You have become so round!”

They played with Xiao Xin who had also joined them for the visiting trip. Ma ma muttered something to Wai Po who nodded slowly, Xiao Xin on her lap. Xiao Xiao caught some of their whispered conversation. “Thousand gold,” Wai Po was saying. “Headache to find a man for her.”

Xiao Xiao wondered what a man would do for her. Her die die was a man, but he was also emperor. Master Gu, her tutor, was a man, but he was old and irascible. Xiao Xiao decided that a man would nothing for her. She was Xiao Xiao. She was going to do her things her way. Perhaps she would persuade die die to send her to one of the barbarian countries she had studied about so that she could study there. Their schools sounded interesting.

Lunch was simple fare with rice and small side dishes of sour pickled radishes and chopped up preserved vegetables from Wai Po’s vegetable patch, served hot and fried with eggs.

The main dish, of course, was steamed river fish, liberally drizzled with soy sauce and lashed with fried scallions. The flesh was firm and sweet. It was freshly caught, according to Wai Gong.

Wai Po and Wai Gong also fed the sedan carriers and the two guards with hot rice and the preserved vegetables. The men ate with gusto, thanking the two elders.

After lunch, Xiao Xiao knelt down in front of her grandparents and wished them long life and health. They patted her head and gave her their blessings. She later tucked the red packets in her pouch and went outside to the small courtyard while Ma ma talked to them. The sky was wonderfully grey and the air cold. Xiao Xiao looked around her, twirling on her fine slippers.

Ming Zhu stirred. For a while, the dragon princess watched and observed.

Clouds swirled and spun in the sky. Xiao Xiao thought she could see the shapes of dragons, two of them, dancing amongst the clouds. A sense of melancholy and homesickness swept over her, and she knew Ming Zhu was missing home. The dragon princess was supposed to protect Xiao Xin, wasn’t she?

Yes, whispered Ming Zhu’s voice.

Xiao Xiao wondered if the dragon princess was lying. But she thought that thought in a secret part of her mind, far away from Ming Zhu.

The green pearl was warm in the pouch.

~*~

When Ma ma bade Wai Po and Wai Gong farewell, there were tears in her eyes.

Xiao Xiao napped most of the way back home. It was late evening when they arrived back at the palace.