In the evening, Chang Weicai cooked a pot of sugar water with the remaining loquats.
Firstly, boiling it with water would give them a sense of 'waterful' satiety;
Secondly, the temperature was getting lower, and hot soup would provide some warmth.
After finishing the loquat sugar water, he ladled it out bowl by bowl, fortuitously there were exactly ten bowls in the cupboard.
The yellowish fruit flesh, pale orange soup, when served in pure white porcelain bowls, looked especially tempting.
Chang Weicai then took a spoon to portion the soup, ensuring that each bowl had a similar amount, then carried them to the dining table, and continued to ponder ways to fill everyone's bellies.
Although there was no food in this house, the bottles and jars in the kitchen were not lacking in seasonings, a jar full of salt, another full of sugar, along with spices like pepper and bay leaves.
