Li Changyu returned as expected in late spring. Just as he'd promised, he didn't stand on ceremony and had a meal at both Zhang Huai's and Qingmu's homes.
He brought all sorts of specialties from the Qinghui County town—pastries, dried fruits, pickles, jerky, and braised meats—for Juhua and the others to use as reference. The idea had come to him on New Year's Eve after seeing all the food they had made. 'The villagers haven't seen much of the world,' he thought. 'They don't know what kinds of good things are out there. They need to have a taste.'
And so, he had gathered a wide assortment of items, buying small amounts of the expensive ones and larger portions of the cheaper ones. Some of the fresh goods, like braised duck and soy-sauce chicken, he even brought back packed in ice. Otherwise, delayed by a day on the road in this weather, they would have likely become a pile of rotten meat by the time he arrived.
