Synopsis
Xu He had always lived in his second elder sister's shadow. She was pale and pretty — the Xu family's pride, the village beauty with a line of admirers stretching from the gate all the way to the far hills. He was the other one: sallow, slight, unremarkable. His only talent was cooking, and for that he spent his days bent over a stove or trudging through fields, sooty and sweaty, invisible to everyone. Neighbors gossiped over their bowls: how did the same parents end up with two such different children? With his sister as the standard, Brother He would…
