One More Step

''Uncle Chen, what is that with your strange expression? Did something bad happened to you?'' The girls were a bit worried. Even tho he got close to them with some strange motives, he never tried to harm them in any way.

''Its not me. It is about the two of you. Come, let me get in.'' he barged inside, closed teh doors behind him while taking a deep breath and took their hands to lead them into the kitchen where they sat down.

The girls sat still in a daze and looked at the pacing man. He suddenly stopped and laughed loudly. ''The two of you really have some weird ideas, don't you?''

After the girls looked at each other and then at him with confusion, he just sat down and chuckled. ''That family... tried those things and invented about seven different dishes for this Buddhas festival.''

''So. Where is the problem?'' they didn't understand his aggravation.

''Sigh. Crown prince bought their dishes and gave them his mother. She liked it so much that she ordered to give them a monetary reward and honored name. Now they can open a restaurant under the name Great Zhou. They were so grateful that they send you half of the money they got from the Queen'd reward.'' He spoke hastily while waving his hands.

''Uncle Chen. Could you stop them giving us that money?'' Kyra asked.

''What?! Why?'''he looked at them like they are lunatics.

''Uncle Chen. We want to live a quiet life. If we, two girls that live alone, get so much money, what do you think will happen to us? Do you think we will be safe?'' Anna asked while holding Kyra's hand.

''Then hire martial artists that will protect you.'' He stubbornly held onto his idea.

''How long will it be until that money is gone and we can't pay anymore those people? But after they leave in people's minds it will be still shiny money. Thinking that we have it, all kinds of sleazy people will hit our doors. Can we fight them?'' Kyra tried to explain and saw change on his face.

''Uncle Chen, please rush and tell them not to make things big or it could harm us greatly. If they want to do something for us, they can let us sell them the greens and rest of healthy plants by common price. Like that we would be able to live just as regular people. Please.'' They stood up and bowed to the man that didn't know what to think about these two children that had not even an ounce of greed in them. He sighed and took long strides out.

''I will leave my carriage here. I will rush with a horse there to stop them. let's hope I arrive on time.'' He jumped on the horse and rushed off.

The girls just shook their heads and took the baskets in hands and bags on their back and walked up into the forest.

''Do you think he will be fine after this?'' Anna was a bit worried about Chen.

''He will be fine. He is just worried about that money. But, Anna, we can earn our own money, you know. We don't need anyone to feel sorry for us. Even if we are just little girls, but our mind is not that small. Your parents taught you well, my grandma taught me well. We can survive more than good, just working together. If we are hungry we will be together, holding hands like now and just work hard to survive. No need for people to feel sorry for us. We are strong. We can do that.''

Anna held her hand tightly. ''You are right. Since that day when we ate just a bit of bread and some greens I knew we will be fine to survive even if we were thrown in the middle of the forest with nothing but just two of us. Let us live good from now on.'' Kyra held her hand while they walked the path up.

Anna smiled. ''Well, when you think about it. We live in a world that is not ours. To be thrown in wildness is I feel less dangerous than these people that live in that city. They are really scary. They can chew you whole even leaving you without one bone. Scary.'' She shook a little bit her body and just continued to walk.

The beautiful meadow was for them like heaven. The sunlight hit the colored flowers and they just inhaled the flower scent.

''Anna, I read but of that book. Let's just take flowers for now as long they bloom. In a month or so most of these plants will stop blooming so we can take their leaves. At that time we can transplant some of them in our yard. Next year when they bloom we can have a beautiful view.'' She passed teh flowers and started plucking them slowly and carefully.

''Then let's pluck just two kinds of today. So we don't mix them up.'' Anna picked the yellow ones and Kyra the white ones. As they choose to pick just certain kinds of flowers it went faster.

On their way back they found a bunch of fern seedlings and packed their bags with them.

''Let's send these to Zhou's family. Soon these will disappear anyway.''

Soon the summer will come and they won't be able to find many of these anyway.

''We should gather some more later on and send as much as possible to them and then tomorrow morning we can... '' Kyra remembered the fish trap. ''Come I will show you something, almost forgot.''

They arrived at teh spot Kyra let the fishing trap in. ''I found this next to our house, hanging. I don't know if any fish is inside but we can check it now. What do you think?''

Anna was curious as well so she looked at the stream in anticipation.

As Kyra slowly took the trap out, water started falling out holes and only the trap came out. She slowly put a trap on the floor. Both of them curiously stared at the opening of teh trap and suddenly they started to cheer and clap their hands...

''There is fish inside, wow. Should we take it out or leave it inside and just take whole trap home?'' Anna was really happy this time. She wanted to see the fishies but ha dto wait until home. Luckily they were not far away.

They greeted the brothers in passing by and hurried home to take the fishes out and clean them as long they are still fresh.

What they didn't expect was that Chen was already back, sitting there and waiting for them.

''Uncle Chen, what happened?'' they were this time worried.

He smiled and just sighed deeply. ''On way to the city, I thought over and over again about teh words you girls gave me. You are right. You girls have no parents, no earnings and can protect yourself teh only way possible. Be as invisible as possible. I was wrong. About teh Zhou family... they said they understand... they will buy all the wild vegetables you girls can find. They sent you the standard payment for the stuff you already sent.''

He took a bag with money and gave them. ''The greens were not that much, just five jin and as it was counted as wild healing vegetable it is 10 silver per jin. The fern seedlings and those green leaves were heavier. From fern you had 6 jin per 11 silver and green leaves were 7 jin per 5 silver. All together 151 silver stone. They send you and told you to send them as many as you can as long it is the season.''

Their girls literally had mouth open wide agape. The big bag filled with small silver stones gave amazing sound. He chuckled as they dazedly stared at the bag on the table. They didn't even realize that he pushed them inside the house and they were sitting and staring at the bag.

Kyra was first to snap out daze and stood up quickly running outside. She brought cold water and started lighting a fire.

''Uhm, what are you doing?'' He was kind of puzzled about her strange behavior, did she receive a shock?

Kyra stopped in her movements and then shook her had and continued while her lips were pressed in a straight line. He blinked and then looked at Anna that had eyes still glued to a big bag of silver.

One stranger than the other...

He was about to leave when little hand held the corner of his clothes. ''If you leave now we will lose face. Please stay...''

Kyra had a strange expression on her face while she held his clothes. She let it go and bowed. ''Sorry. I know I stepped overboard while touching you, but had no bad intent. Could you please forgive me?''

He sighed. He was a soldier and such thing as rules and nice behavior were not etched in him. But for a chidl to remember the rules of propriety.

He nodded and went back to sit. Seein her as she hushed front and back was something he saw so often in the army, but seeing the little girl running with buckets of water, bringing all kinds of stuff from the pantry... He felt rather curious.

''Uncle Chen, do you know how to clean fish?'' She looked at him with unnatural calmness.

He nodded and all she did is pointing at the trap made out rattan. He looked inside and saw multiple river fish inside. They were not big by size but not small either.

He took one basket, took out the fishes and quickly used the knife to clean them near the water well. then he took the rests of fish and threw in something like a big pot. He saw her before throwing garbage inside so he did the same.

He counted the fishes after he was done. Five fishes twice the size of his hand and six small fishes that were the size of the children's hand. He took them in and gave Kyra that smiled brightly.

''Anna. Come, help me.'' The moment Anna heard Kyra's voice she stood up and run there. She saw neatly cleaned fishes and was happy.

''What can I do?''

''Put the three big fishes aside. They will be dried for later. Season all the small fishes and one big fish with salt and roll it in flour. Put the last big fish into a bowl and the put salt on it, oil and spicy red pepper. Rub the mixture inside and outside and then run quickly and bring be those leaves. The cattail.'' While she spoke she already started preparing dough for bread. She found something in the store that will rise the dough considerably so she just mixed it, knead it a long time and covered with a clean cloth.

Anna was finished with the first part of the task. So Kyra put some oil in the pot and waited until it became very hot. She slowly dropped the fishes inside and waited for them to be done. When she saw them turning orange color she knew that they were done. She scooped it out and put the new pot on the stove.

The oil from frying she put aside. She can use it for something else later on.

The new pot she put a little bit of oil, spicy peppers, and leeks for taste. After that, she slowly put the fish inside and took the gleaming cinder outside bit by bit and put the old flat pan on it. Afterward, she kneaded the dough one more time, oiled it a bit and put on the flat pan. She covered it with a big lid and covered the lid with more gleaming cinder from the fireplace.

Chen now understood why she lit two fires.

On the other side, Anna rushed in with long green cattail greens and went to wash them.

She saw Kyra slowly turning big a red fish in the pan and was intrigued.

Kyra slowly put inside bit rice wine and water and closed the lid. Then she put it on the side while She checked teh rice she already prepared.

''Kyra what else to do?''

''Put a bowl for rice in front of him and bowl of water. I will be soon done.''

She cut quickly the leaves, leaving only white parts aside. She blanched them in hot water and added some soya sauce, sesame oil and bit sugar to add taste.

She put everything in front of Chen on the table and then stared at him.

They already ate before so she had no plan to eat so soon again.

Chen looked at these simple dishes and a small smile appeared on his face. ''Then I shall eat.''

He put the fish inside his mouth and was simply surprised. She fried it in oil but was not oily?

He heard her saying. ''Eat the greens to pat your stomach. And open the pot with spicy fish I made. I don't have much skill or ingredients but I still hope it is edible.''

He hated actually green stuff as he suffered a lot in the army when tehy went to wars and had to eat grass raw to survive. But seeing her Ernest look he couldn't bring himself to reject the meal. So he took a big scoop of rice, put the greens on top of it and ate.

But the taste was not so bad. So he took another bite of it and he liked it. Now he remembered the spicy fish. He opened teh lid and the strong spicy smell hit his face.

He slowly used his chopsticks to take a piece of it and the taste was something so amazing that he blanked for a moment. But then the peppers started working and burning his tongue so he swallowed it quickly.

''This... Spicy fish... I heard of it in restaurants, but would never believe that is this easily made...'' He continued to east until whole fish was stripped clean and three bowls of rice, all small fishes and all green she prepared were swept clean.

Anna and Kendra just stared at empty pots and then at the man that seemed to have a new stomach grown. But he is a big man, maybe all men eat like him?

They just shrugged. They cooked so he could eat. ''Uncle Chen. We do not have much. And we are just little foreigners. We hate people feeling sorry for us. We trust you so please, do not make us lose face and feel sorry for us again. even if we are about to starve to death. We will fight to survive. All you can do for us is just watch us grow. We do not need help or something like that.''

Anna sighed after Kyra's words. ''We would like to hire you. We spoke about that when we walked. I think we would like to ask you to come to work at our house when you have time. We will provide a meal like this and money. Chief Jafar told me that daily work is actually around 40 bronze coins, but those in the city get 10 silver. Please tell us how much we have to pay you for half-day of work?''

He saw that the girls were earnest. ''I can come three times a week. You can pay me 50 bronze coins. It is enough for half day work. If there is no work I will go back home. If you provide me with a meal I would be honored.''

He stood up and bowed in front of the two girls that bowed back. ''So be it, uncle Chen.''

When they saw him going back home they smiled. ''At least he won't do this kind of thing again.''

''But Kyra. That amount?'' Anna breathed deeply.

Kyra smiled. ''The salad on the city market was more expensive than rice. If they want to pay that much, let them pay. This is understandable. Wild vegetables are filled with sun, water from spring, dew in the morning and healthy earth under them. So much of natural energy is the of course healthier than those grown on field.''

''Does that mean that the vegetables we will plant are not healthy?'' Anna was a bit worried.

''No. But I planned to go to the forest and bring as much earth around trees back. After we save it and only earth stays we can use it to plant our vegetables in the plants will get more earth energy. I will plant vegetables at a different time of day to see when is the best time for it. We can bring water directly from spring to water small plants until they are strong enough. Do you have some ideas?''

Anna put her finger on chin. ''Hmmm. What about the sun? Will plants be able to handle direct sun in mid of summer.

''Some plants need direct sun and some can be in shade. But, we will see this summer and maybe find a way to protect them from too much f they start to dry out.''

''We will try many different ways. Let's split the garden into four sections. One section will be in the shade of the forest. One completely under the sun and one will be under the sun and in a wet part of the land. Let's see how the plants react. ''

It is easy to plant vegetables at home as tehy are protected. If there is a strong storm or wind or snow, just bring them inside and tehy will still be able to survive. But in the garden, it is completely another story.

Luckily their garden will become quite big. So some plants might be less or some wil maybe rot or just dry up. But they hoped that some will survive and let them have food for wintertime...