In early December, the royal city began preparing for the Year-End Sacrifice.
The New Year festival in Northern Shuo wasn’t called “celebrating the New Year”—it was called the “Year-End Sacrifice,” and preparations started over half a month in advance. The main day fell on the twelfth month.
On this day, herders would slaughter winter sheep, offer sacrifices to their ancestors, exchange dried fruits, preserved meats, and felt pieces sewn by their own families, and dance around bonfires at night until dawn.
Xi Yu had been in Northern Shuo for quite a while but had never experienced a Northern Shuo festival.
When Hulü Xiong casually mentioned at the hunting grounds that “the Year-End Sacrifice is almost here,”
Xi Yu, who was crouched by the fire roasting a rabbit leg, looked up. “What’s the Year-End Sacrifice?”
“You know what a festival is, don’t you?” Hulü Xiong explained.
“On the coldest days of the year, the grasslands light bonfires to worship the Eternal Sky. All the tribes come to the royal city—it’s even livelier than the autumn hunt.”
Xi Yu flipped the rabbit leg over. “I was still on the road around this time last year. Missed it.”
Back then, he’d been traveling with a merchant caravan through the desert, and it must have been right around the Year-End Sacrifice.
He hadn’t met Que Zhi yet, either.
“No wonder!” Hulü Xiong slapped his knee. “You’ve got to make up for it this year.”
Then he raised his voice and yelled toward the other end of the hunting grounds for the old cook, saying they’d need to prepare an extra sheep for the Year-End Sacrifice this year—to make up for last year’s for Ayu.
News traveled fast.
That evening, as Xi Yu was leading Little Snowball back from the horse grounds, he passed by the kitchen and was grabbed by the old cook.
On the stove sat a fresh batch of hand-grabbed mutton; on the cutting board lay dough rolled half a finger thick and several bowls of filling.
The old cook had flour on his hands and kept talking nonstop, firing off a string of questions:
“Besides pork, what other fillings do Central Plains dumplings have?
Do you write Spring Festival couplets for the New Year?
Last Year-End Sacrifice, the couplets Batu pasted up were drawn by himself—the characters were more crooked than sheep hoof prints.
Now that you’re here, those little rascals are definitely going to come begging for your calligraphy. Write a few pairs in advance so they don’t go scribbling all over the courtyard walls again.”
Xi Yu thought for a moment.
“Dumplings can be filled with mutton and scallion, mutton and wild onion, or mutton and radish. I’ll go pick out some radishes from the cellar tomorrow.
I’ll write a few couplets too—one pair for the kitchen entrance.”
The old cook said to write: “Stove fire blazes, sheep and cattle fill the pens; winds and snows obey, pasture grasses touch the sky.”
Xi Yu turned it over in his mind and thought it was pretty good.
And that was how it all started—with a few couplets.
First, a pair went up at the kitchen entrance, and Hulü Tao saw them.
He’d lived in the royal city for years, and no one had ever written couplets for the kitchen before. So without a word, he led Little Snowball over to the horse grounds and pasted a pair on the stable doorframe too.
After the stable was done, Batu’s father came to the royal city to deliver winter meat. Passing by, he thought they looked great and asked for an auspicious pair to take back for his sheep pen.
Batu chimed in: “The person who writes them is right here.”
His father nearly shoved the winter meat over as a writing fee.
Then somehow the old Khan found out. He called Xi Yu to the study and said everyone in the palace had a pair—not that he, as Khan, was jealous,
but he hadn’t gotten a single one himself.
Xi Yu held back a smile. “Then I’ll write a pair to hang at the study entrance.”
The first line came from the Khan: “Across ten thousand li of grassland, winds and rains in harmony.”
The second line Xi Yu completed: “Within a thousand felt tents, livestock thrive and people rest.”
The horizontal scroll read: “Peace year after year.”
The old Khan personally pasted it onto the doorframe, stepped back three paces to admire it for a long while, and praised Xi Yu at length.
From that day on, people coming to ask Xi Yu for couplets never stopped.
The old horse trainer at the stables brought a block of fine ink he’d been reluctant to use. The guard captain at the palace gate shyly brought a stack of cut red paper.
The kitchen maid who washed dishes, the old veteran who fed the hunting hounds, and several herders from the Helian tribe delivering wool felt—they all came in turn to ask for couplets.
Hulü Xiong personally came to ask for one that read: “Bow drawn full moon, horse gallops long wind”—he said it was even more impressive than the official plaques he’d seen in Daliang.
Eventually, the red paper ran out. Xi Yu was about to head to the market to buy more when he discovered that the old Khan had already prepared several stacks of cinnabar-red paper, neatly piled under the windowsill, with an inkstone and ink sticks placed beside them—even the paper knife had been sharpened.
Xi Yu spread out the red paper and wrote for two days, distributing them to all the tribes who came to collect. He saved the last small stack in a wooden chest, saying he’d keep them for next year.
Before the ink on the couplets had even dried, the old cook’s side of things was already busy with New Year preparations.
For the Year-End Sacrifice, they had to make “reunion meat,” and the kitchen fire burned almost day and night.
Batu was called over to peel wild onions. Squatting at the kitchen door, he peeled a whole big basinful, the fumes making his eyes stream. Hulü Tao was chopping firewood nearby, laughing at him between swings for not even being able to peel onions properly.
Batu protested, “Then you peel them!”
“I’m the wood-chopper—different job, different specialty.”
While the two bickered, the old cook came out of the kitchen with a basin of mutton filling and handed each of them a piece of dough wrapper, telling them to learn how to make dumplings.
Batu’s first one had skin too thick—it looked like a steamed bun. His second had too little filling—more like a pancake. His third finally came out right, with eighteen pleats. After he finished, he asked,
“Are too many pleats bad luck?”
Beside him, Hulü Tao was faster at wrapping, but every one of his pleats looked like stacked silver ingots.
Batu said, “That’s a Central Plains silver-ingot banquet, not a grassland dumpling.”
Hulü Tao retorted, “Silver ingots attract wealth—you want good fortune for the New Year, don’t you?”
The old cook rapped his rolling pin twice on the cutting board and told them to quit bickering and wrap twenty more.
Que Zhi wasn’t idle either.
Every year before the Year-End Sacrifice, each tribe had to send a batch of dried meat, cheese, and felt blankets to the royal court as a year-end tribute.
The tribute lists were personally submitted by each tribe’s chieftain, reviewed in person by the young master, then presented to the old Khan for approval.
The camel caravans lined up for miles outside the royal city, their backs loaded with bundled air-dried meat and sacks of cheese, hooves leaving crooked tracks in the snow.
Que Zhi left before dawn every day and didn’t return until evening.
The day before the winter solstice, the tribute caravan arrived.
This year’s scale was larger than usual. The leader from the Tata tribe was a lean old herder who led three camels loaded with air-dried mutton and several sacks of cheese.
He counted the tribute twice before handing it over to the kitchen. Then he pulled out a small pouch from his bosom and handed it to Xi Yu.
“These are wild goji berries growing by the Tata tribe’s pasturelands. Brew them in tea—they warm the body in winter. This is the young lord’s first Year-End Sacrifice since marrying into the grasslands. On behalf of the entire Tata tribe, I offer this as a token of good fortune.”
“This isn’t on the tribute list—I brought it myself.” The old herder smiled warmly.
Xi Yu took the goji berries and said a solemn “Thank you.”
The old herder pressed a hand to his chest in salute, turned, and led his camels away.
Xi Yu stood at the kitchen door, looking down at the pouch of wild goji berries in his hand. The berries were well-dried, plump and full, glowing a deep red in his palm.
Batu poked his head out from behind him and said, “That’s an old Tata tribe custom—giving goji berries means they see you as one of their own.”
“Hulü Tao’s father got some last year too.”
Xi Yu tied the pouch to his belt and made his way through the bustling crowd toward the light in the study.
He lifted the curtain and entered. Que Zhi was bent over the desk handling affairs, and looked up at the sound, his expression calm and gentle.
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