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Back at the mountain slope vegetable patch, Grandpa Yu was tearing up some more chili pepper trees. The black dog was still gazing down at the village, motionless.

"Wake up, silly dog!" Grandpa Yu called out, "We're going home in a minute!"

He went to work plucking peppers from the torn - up trees. When he had about enough to make one dish, he spoke to the dog again:

"Let's go back, breakfast time!"

At the foot of the mountain, he couldn't help looking back over his shoulder at the forest behind." I should just go quickly and gather some termite mushrooms ( Termitomyces albuminosus ), " he thought. This was an easy task for him, but not for anyone else. The other villagers had to scour the whole mountainside just to find a few termite mushrooms, but he only ever went to a handful of special places only he knew about. Whenever people saw him walking back into the village with mushrooms in his basket, they always said the same thing:

"Ah, this whole mountain is your garden! For you, finding mushrooms is no different to picking a few bulbs of garlic from your vegetable patch!"

Grandpa Yu would just smile, and never told anybody where he got his mushrooms.

So, he turned back towards the forest, telling the black dog to not follow him. She tilted her head to one side and watched him disappear into the trees.

He headed straight to an out - of - the - way hollow where there was a huge natural roof of brambles and bushes, under which the ground was just one big blanket of fir needles. In Water Village, people just called the needles "fir grass." Until twenty years ago, people collected fir grass and burned it as fuel, but now they used coal instead. The tools that people used to collect fir grass disappeared from the houses of Water Village, too.

Grandpa Yu knew every rock and tree on the mountain, which hollows were good for termite mushroom hunting, and where tasty ferns grow. The other villagers also roamed all through the forest, but try as they might, they couldn't work out the secrets and tricks of effortless foraging.

As expected, Grandpa Yu found a big stash of mushrooms tucked under the brambles. The biggest were about half the size of his hand, sprouting out of the loam like umbrellas; the smallest were tiny buttons, glowing with a dim blue light. Termite mushrooms are like loach, in that the big ones are the most satisfying to catch, but the smaller they are, the better the flavor.

When he was done picking mushrooms, he turned to leave, and saw the black dog sitting some distance away, watching him.

"Didn't I tell you not to follow me?" he shouted, "If you follow me around everywhere, everyone will find out where I get my mushrooms! Come on, you know my mountain garden is a secret!"

Grandpa Yu always took time to survey Water Village on his way down the mountain, a little village surrounded by little parcels of land, each field divided by a raised ridge. His house was the only wooden one, and there was nothing very special - looking about it from this distance. Everyone else lived in brick houses, all white walls and black tiled roofs, two or three stories high. The brick houses were new; not long ago, everyone lived in wooden houses. They were all roughly the same height, and they all had old chimneys that breathed out constant kitchen smoke, as if as a natural by - product. Grandpa Yu's sons wanted to pull down the old wooden house and build a new one out of brick. But Grandpa Yu put his foot down, firmly:

"What's the point? You're never here anyway, and why exactly would I want to build a brick house?"

"We'll come back when we get old," they said to comfort their father. Grandpa Yu had nothing more to say on the subject, but he already had opinions about brick houses. Not worth the fuss, and not nearly as comfortable as a nice wooden house, especially not one that he'd built from the ground — every nail, every tile, every post and rafter, he'd run his hands over every component of his home. He wouldn't trade it for anything, not even a house made of gold.

Grandma Hui and Grandpa Yu were not only close friends, but also next - door neighbors. There was a thin strip of land between his house and hers, where they both had their gardens. Hers was for growing vegetables, his for growing flowers. They both kept the land busy and productive all through the year, so not a single season went by idly. The soil there was rich and fertile, but somehow, Grandma Hui's vegetables never grew as nicely as Grandpa Yu's did up in his mountain garden. She didn't have the strength to do the gardening herself anymore, so the work fell to her son, Qiangtuo, and so did the blame when the harvest didn't meet expectations. For this, he got his fair share of motherly scolding and proverbs:

"When the gardener works hard, the land will always keep up! Just look at your uncle Yu — his garden's on the mountain, crumbly yellow soil and all, and his chilis still grow so fat on the branches the tree can barely stay standing!"

Qiangtuo never took his mother's criticism sitting down. He usually answered back with something like:

"Well I'm not a vegetable farmer, you know that! My money doesn't come from selling vegetables I grow, but we have enough to eat. Isn't that enough?"

Grandpa Yu never got involved in these arguments, but only because Qiangtuo wasn't his blood nephew. If he was related to Qiangtuo, he would tell him:

"Planting the land is the same as planting your good name. If you don't do it well, you'll never gain anyone's respect!"

Grandpa Yu placed a high price on respect received from other people, so he made sure to be meticulous in everything he did.

Grandma Hui's house had one other resident — a big yellow dog, one of the black dog's many children. Mother and son had a strong bond. When the yellow dog saw his mother coming home, he would jump up and down in excitement and then maybe chase his tail a few laps. The black dog was calmer. This morning, as usual, she took a quick look at her son, to see that he was alright, nothing was wrong, then walked slowly over to her own house, gave her tail a lazy shake, and laid down under the overhanging eaves. Grandpa Yu wasn't far behind her. Walking into his house, he made breakfast for one, sat down to eat, and made the same old joke about the solitude in which he lived that he always made:

"It's never been easier to keep the whole family full and well - fed. All it takes is one old man's breakfast."

He knew perfectly well that he was repeating himself. All this nonsense over and over again, maybe he was getting old. Anyway, enough of such thoughts. The days were slow. The rest of the village had already finished eating by the time he was only just getting round to wash his breakfast rice. Qiao'er, when she came home, told him that in the city nobody washes their rice anymore. Apparently it's not necessary for factory - processed rice. But she thought it was great he still washed his rice, which is to say, she were impressed by how diligent he was about his hygiene. These days in the cities you can't trust anything that's made for you, and everyone lives in a state of constant worry. Grandpa Yu knew nothing about city people's anxieties —he just kept doing what he'd always done.

Rice is easy to wash; termite mushrooms are not. If you're careless, you'll get bits of grit and mud in your mouth. That morning, Grandpa Yu was absorbed in washing termite mushrooms when suddenly loud dog barking brought him back to the world. It was his black dog barking. At the same time, he heard someone outside shouting:

"Bring out your rubbish! Copper, iron, duck and goose feathers ... !"

Grandpa Yu rushed outside to grab the black dog and prevent it from doing anything regrettable. Too late. The junk collector, who wasn't from Water Village, had been bitten, but by the yellow dog, not the black. He saw Grandma Hui rushing outside, all in a fluster:

"What happened, what happened? How bad is the bite?"

The stranger seemed to be in pain. He rolled up a trouser leg, groaning as the fabric brushed over the bite:

"Look, look, you can see the teeth marks! See how deep they are? Oh look, now I've started bleeding!"

Grandma Hui kept bowing little apology bows at the man, wringing her hands:

"I'm so sorry, so so sorry. If only I'd been in time, this wouldn't have happened! Oh my, but you're young, you'll be alright, oh, will you forgive us?"

The stranger didn't seem too bent out of shape about being bitten. He was just confused:

"Forgive? You mean, forgive you, or forgive the dog?"

"Both, both!" Grandma Hui answered." I should take the blame. I raised it to be a stupid dog, just like I raised a stupid son! Really, biting people for no reason, just because it heard another dog barking!"

Grandpa Yu started laughing:

"Old sister, is what you're saying that my black dog is a clever mother? Or do you mean the yellow dog is a stupid son? It's a stupid son, raised by a clever mother!"

This took the stranger aback a little bit. Re - entering the conversation, he said:

"You see how much pain I'm in over here, and you two think it's a good time to make jokes? I know I'm not going to die or anything, but what I am worried about is rabies. What if I get rabies?"

Grandma Hui, remembering the situation at hand, hurried into her house. Just as she was about to go in the door, she turned around and said:

"Don't worry young man, I'll get you some money, and then you can go and get the vaccine. I'll go and get the money."

But before she could go inside, Grandpa Yu had something else to say:

"Old sister, don't worry about the money, he can have mine. It was my black dog that started all this after all. If she didn't bark, your yellow dog would never have bitten anyone."

But Grandma Hui just ignored him and carried right on walking inside.

A minute or two later, she was back outside with a wad of cash in her hand. Meanwhile, Grandpa Yu had also got his money out. He tried to laugh his way out of the deadlock:

"Oh, don't bother, old sister! I'm the one who should take responsibility. After all, it's my black dog's bad parenting that's to blame. It's not right for a mother to go around making a racket and causing trouble like that!"

Grandma Hui had a good poker face on, and didn't reply. She just went straight to the junk collector and put her money in his hands. Then she said to him:

"I know how much the vaccine costs, and there's a little bit extra there for you too."

But Grandpa Yu was having none of it. He snatched the money straight back out of the poor man's hands, and then replaced it with his own wad of bank notes, and said:

"Now listen here, young man, you mustn't take any money from her."

Grandma Hui protested:

"I know you have a little more money than I do, but that's got nothing to do with what's happening here! Just let it go, won't you!"

By now the junk collector was at a total loss, and almost beyond caring about the outcome to this bizarre little old persons' drama he'd somehow stumbled into:

"Wait ... so, so ... whose money should I take, then? Oh, forget about it, forget about it, I don't need your money. Just, please, stop bickering and let me go, I need to be on my way! I'm a busy man, I've got business to attend to!"

Grandpa Yu got the message, and said:

"Alright, just take the money and be on your way," giving him encouraging little shoves as he spoke, "I was going to have you stay for breakfast, but don't worry, I won't take it the wrong way, just take the money!"

That was all the invitation the junk collector needed. Once he was on his way, pulling his handcart behind him, the yellow dog began barking furiously, much to the ire of Grandma Hui:

"Oh, so now you start barking, eh? And what do you think that's going to achieve? You want one of us to go bite that poor man for you? Stupid dog."

This kind of little street drama was considered excellent entertainment in Water Village, and small villages in general. Quite a few people had gathered round to watch, and now that it was over, they started making jokes, getting as much fun out of it all as possible.

"Grandma Hui," one of them said, "Why would a person bite another person just because of a dog? You got it the wrong way round, it's dogs who bite people, for other people!"

Grandpa Yu stepped in:

"What's wrong with you? You can see Grandma Hui's angry, and you're just trying to get her even more worked up! And another thing, are you saying the yellow dog bit that man because of me? What quarrel could I possibly have with an out - of - towner?"

Now this was good fun. Another of the onlookers jumped in:

"The yellow dog is an excellent son, I should say. It did exactly what its mother told it!"

"Well, the yellow dog may be a good son, but if that's the case, she's a rotten mother!" another said.

"Then the yellow dog's a bad son, too," another villager argued, "A truly good son wouldn't just do anything his mother told him without first thinking about whether what she said was the right thing to do, wouldn't you say?"

Grandma Hui, her face rapidly turning purple, spun on her heels and stomped inside. Grandpa Yu, feeling irate and very unimpressed by the behavior of his fellow villagers, began to lecture them, his voice low so Grandma Hui wouldn't hear:

"You all should be ashamed of yourselves, teasing poor Grandma Hui like that, as if she's a little girl! Couldn't you see how angry she was? It's lucky Qiangtuo isn't home, or you'd really be in trouble!"

He'd ended up with Grandma Hui's money in his hands, so he handed it to a little village boy, and gave him instructions to quietly take it inside her house and put it under her pillow.

The boy was reluctant, but his mother was there, and few sharp words from her quickly put things right:

"Well, are you going or aren't you? When Grandpa Yu tells you to do something, you listen to him. Do you hear? No questions!"

So the boy obediently took the money, and quickly decided his little mission was a great little secret. Chuckling sneakily under his breath, he slipped through Grandma Hui's door on stealthy feet, much to the amusement of the adults. A good final scene to a thoroughly entertaining show "that nowadays every kid is shrewd."

Grandpa Yu walked back inside his house, and slowly went about making his meal. It was already past breakfast time, so he decided to eat breakfast and his midday snack together. The word "lunch" is not a part of Water Village's vocabulary — to the villagers, "lunch" is a city - people word The whole time he was cooking, he couldn't stop thinking about how angry he'd made Grandma Hui. He wished he'd reacted differently. There was just no need for it, really, no need for people to fight over something a dog did. The junk collector must have thought he was a crazy old man, and he was right. He was getting stranger with each passing year.

The house soon filled with the fragrant aroma of garden - parting - gift chili termite mushrooms, with a few chrysanthemum petals sprinkled on top. His garden was full of chrysanthemum, some as big as a dinner plate, and the smaller ones about the size of his clenched fist.

Grandpa Yu had almost finished eating when he bit down on a grain of sand, cracking unpleasantly in his mouth. He must not have washed the termite mushrooms quite well enough. Normally, his attention to detail was unassailable. When it fails, there must be something deeper going on beneath the surface, troubling him. uU/S9WEHuYFOShq8e9YmAlTxNmTPtF9GFt9X6OE74yck6bHecAh5ZOyOIEl4vVZB