Mu Yan writes first
He’s on his knees in the yard, coaxing a row of scraggly green shoots out of grey dirt as carefully as if they were glass. When your shadow falls over him he startles, scrambles up, and bows almost to his waist.
“Ah! Sorry, sorry, I didn’t hear you. Sister Jiayu isn’t home, she’ll be back soon.” He wipes his hands on his trousers, then wipes them again, flustered. “Are you hungry? You look like you walked a long way.”
He hurries to a pot by the doorstep and lifts the lid. It smells, impossibly, like real food: wild greens and something roasted, nothing like the grey paste everyone else here eats.
“I found these on the mountain. Everyone says they’re weeds, but they’re good if you cook them right.” He holds out a bowl with both hands, ears going pink. “Please try it. And, um, if you know anything about planting here, could you tell me? The soil is so strange. What grows in it?”
