The vegetable patch behind Grandma Zhang’s thatched cottage had ceased to look like a normal garden. It looked like a town park populated by emerald pavilions.
Located in Peach Blossom Hamlet, nestled along the gentle southern foothills of the Floating Mountain, Grandma Zhang’s family had farmed the same two-acre plot of terraced loam for six ages. For a hundred and twenty years, the routine had remained the same: scrape out the stones in spring, haul well-water through the dry summer, and pray to the earth spirits that the autumn frost wouldn’t rot the winter cabbages before they reached the size of a tea kettle.
Now, Grandma Zhang stood on the top rung of a sturdy four-legged wooden stepladder. He held a bamboo watering bucket with both hands.
“A little more to the left, Granny!” her nine-year-old grandson, Little Bao, shouted from the dirt path below. The boy was pointing excitedly toward the upper leaves of a vegetable that towered twelve feet above their heads. “The second leaf on the sunny side has three thirsty caterpillars! Don’t let them nibble the sweet core!”
Grandma Zhang chuckled, her round, wrinkled face beaming with grandmotherly satisfaction.
Thanks to the golden rain, the severe arthritis that had hunched her back for forty years had fully vanished. She moved upon the wooden rungs with the nimble balance of an eighteen-year-old girl. She tipped the wooden ladle. She poured a generous splash of well-water over the ruffled, semi-clear green foliage.
