Chapter 131: An Existential Crisis

After turning down Lu Qing’s invitation, Chen Xin gathered her things and went downstairs.

The farmhouse also had a game room, and the students who did not want to hike had gathered there to play cards. There were six or seven of them.

“Xiaoxin, are you looking for Qin Qing and the others? They went to the village entrance. Someone is making chilled rice cake there on the spot.”

“All right, I’ll go take a look.”

Following the directions, she reached the village entrance and saw an old woman turning a stone mill beneath an old fig tree. Several people were squatting nearby, watching.

The old woman’s mill was small enough to turn with one hand. She pushed the mill with her left hand and ladled rice into it with her right. Grayish-white rice slurry flowed along the groove, gathering in a plastic bucket beneath the mill.

Qin Qing and the others had never seen anything like it before and were brimming with questions. The old woman seemed unable to understand them. No matter how they asked, she merely smiled without saying a word.

Chen Xin had made chilled rice cake before, but by then the mixture was already sold in supermarkets as a ready-made powder. She had only ever seen fresh stone-ground rice slurry being prepared by others.

“The rice slurry probably has to be boiled, like soy milk, and then left to set?”

Since the old woman offered no answers, the students began guessing among themselves.

“What are you all squatting here for?”

“Watching the granny make chilled rice cake.” Qin Qing tugged Chen Xin over and made room for her. “Have you eaten this before? I don’t know if it’s anything like tofu pudding.”

“Chilled rice cake is made by boiling rice slurry with limewater and then letting it cool until it sets naturally. When you eat it, you add melted brown sugar syrup. It’s even better chilled. It’s a summer snack from my hometown.”

After explaining, Chen Xin greeted the old woman in her hometown dialect. As it turned out, the woman was not a local. Her granddaughter had brought her here for a visit, and with nothing else to do, she had decided to make some chilled rice cake for the family.

The old woman did not speak Mandarin and had rarely talked to anyone since arriving. When she heard Chen Xin speaking her native dialect, she was overjoyed. She insisted that Chen Xin wait while she brought over a bowl of finished rice cake for her to try.

“Granny, are you selling this? None of my classmates have ever tasted it. Could you sell me some so they can all try a delicacy from our hometown?”

The old woman glanced at Chen Xin, then at the girls squatting beside her, and nodded with a smile.

Making chilled rice cake was not difficult. The main challenge was getting the proportions right. Too much limewater made it bitter and astringent; too little, and the mixture would not set.

“Does it really have to be made with limewater?” Watching the old woman’s movements, one of the students began to lose her nerve. “Never mind. I’d rather not eat it.”

Chen Xin did not try to persuade her. Everyone had their own preferences and taboos, and if she insisted and something went wrong, the blame would surely fall on her.

In later years, most people stopped using limewater and switched to gelatin sheets instead. But at that time, gelatin sheets were available only in large bakeries and dessert shops. Ordinary households had no choice but to use the traditional method.

The bucket of rice cake would not set until the afternoon. Chen Xin paid in advance and arranged to collect it from the old woman’s granddaughter’s house at around four.

Just then, a minibus pulled up, and Sister Wei and several other doctoral students got out.

“What are you all squatting here for? You look like a bunch of little beggars.” After teasing them for a while, Sister Wei came over and took Chen Xin by the arm. “Come back to the room with me first. I need to pack.”

Once they returned to the room, Sister Wei’s expression grew serious.

“Xiaoxin, do you know about Qin Qing and that fellow townsman of hers?”

“Not really. I know a little. What happened?”

Sister Wei muttered a curse under her breath. Then she opened the door and looked outside. After confirming that no one was there, she pulled Chen Xin down beside her and lowered her voice.

“Her fellow townsman got into a fight at school around noon today. The other person was from outside the university, and apparently a section chief from some government office. It seems his girlfriend was dating two men at once. But I clearly heard that he was pursuing Qin Qing. Could he be two-timing her as well? Does Qin Qing know?”

Chen Xin gave a bitter smile. “I knew this was going to become troublesome.”

“What is it? What do you know?” Sister Wei keenly sensed that there was more behind Chen Xin’s words.

“There’s actually nothing going on between Qin Qing and her fellow townsman. I heard he’s dating a female teaching assistant from the same university. Her family disapproves of the relationship, so the two of them were afraid that word would get out and her family would interfere. They asked Qin Qing to act as a shield. I knew something would go wrong.”

Chen Xin then told her about the time she and Gou Xiangru had encountered the teaching assistant with another man while eating at the City God Temple.

“Gou Xiangru and I both urged her to talk things through with her fellow townsman first and end the arrangement before anything else. But she seemed worried that she might agree and then change her mind, making things difficult for him, so she never went.”

“She’s unbelievably foolish. Go and bring her up here. We need to sort this out properly. It hasn’t landed on her yet, but if things escalate, it’s hard to say what will happen.”

Qin Qing’s fellow townsman was not from their department, and the fight had nothing to do with Qin Qing, so no one had thought to notify her. But if the situation could not be contained, it would become troublesome. At the very least, Qin Qing would be dragged unwillingly into the mess because of her supposed “relationship” with him.

“I don’t think we should call her over just yet.” Chen Xin considered the matter. “Qin Qing is very straightforward. If we tell her now, she’ll definitely explode. First, everyone came out together to have fun. If her problems ruin the mood, it won’t do her any good. Second, even if we tell her now, it won’t change anything. Why don’t you have someone keep a close eye on what’s happening over there? I’ll talk to Gou Xiangru first and make sure she knows what’s going on. That way, if things blow up, we won’t be completely unprepared.”

Sister Wei hated dealing with this kind of pointless trouble. After hearing Chen Xin’s suggestion, she simply handed over the task of speaking with Gou Xiangru to her.

“I still have to discuss things with several of your senior brothers and sisters these next few days. We say we’re here on holiday, but really, we’ve just moved our meetings somewhere else. It’s infuriating.”

After complaining for a while, the two of them finished packing and went downstairs for lunch.

The students who had gone up the mountain had just returned as well, bringing back some fresh wild vegetables sold by the local farmers. They asked the owner to cook them.

Everyone ate a fairly simple lunch. Afterward, they split up to do their own things. Several of them chose to take naps at the farmhouse and were mocked by their classmates for spending money just to sleep.

“Xiaoxin, let’s go up the mountain. Lu Qing and the others just said that someone is filming a television series up there.”

Young people were especially interested in things like that. Perhaps they might run into a celebrity they liked and get a photograph or autograph. Then the trip would not have been in vain.

As soon as word spread that a television series was being filmed, even the village children could not sit still. They swarmed toward the mountain.

The filming location was a scenic spot halfway up the mountain. It had long since been cordoned off, and tourists were not allowed through. Getting an autograph was out of the question. Being able to watch the filming from a high vantage point was already considered fortunate.

Chen Xin was not particularly interested. After watching for a while, she realized that it was merely a local production filmed by the regional television station. It held no appeal for her at all.

However, amid the crowd of people involved in the filming, she seemed to spot someone vaguely familiar, and for a moment, she began to question everything she knew about life.