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“Oh, nothing much. Just how good of a hunter you are—”
“Hunter? I have literally never held a weapon in my hands.”
She waves that away as though it were hardly important. “How deadly of a fighter you are—”
“Are we talking, like, fighting on the internet? ’Cause I am pretty good at taking down Chads online.”
“And when they mentioned that overnight horseback camping trip we’re going on, I told them back in China, you were known as Zhou the Horse Whisperer.”
I stop walking and gape at Mushu in horror. “Mushu, I like horses as much as the next person, but I am no horse whisperer, you know this.”
“What do you mean?” Mushu looks genuinely surprised. “Don’t you remember our Disney trip when we were kids? You went on that pony ride and you had so much fun, whereas I puked all over my pony and then jumped off and cried?”
“First of all, you’d had three churros, one whole turkey leg, and a bucket of soda, so I’m not surprised you ended up puking. Second of all, you said it: It was a pony. They’re half the size of actual horses, and there was a—a pony dude holding on to it at all times.”
“Potayto-potahto,” Mushu says. “You’re going to do great.”
“Oh god,” I moan.
“They said they have just the perfect horse for you,” she says cheerfully.
I pat my cheeks. “This is a nightmare. I need to wake up now.”
“Oh, Mulan, you’re such a drama queen. Come on, I’m famished. Shang’s made dumplings.”
The rest of the morning passes by peacefully. Shang’s dumplings are delicious and plentiful, and when James heckles Shang about cooking, Shang merely laughs it off. By the time breakfast is done, everyone is stuffed. The Lis show Mushu and me to the distillery, where Uncle Hong takes us carefully through each step of the whiskey-making process.
“The first step to making whiskey is malting,” Uncle Hong says. “You know what malting is?”
To everyone’s surprise, I say, “Malting is when you take grains of barley or whatever and soak them before spreading them out so they germinate.”
“Impressive,” Shang says, with a small wink. A wave of pleasure trails down my spine. I think back to the private tour that Shang gave me yesterday and have to hide my smile.
I turn back to Uncle Hong. “Back at my family farm, we used to make everything from scratch, even our own candies. There’s this malted candy that we made from wheat and then mulch with glutinous rice—”
Uncle Hong’s face breaks into a joyous grin. “Mai ya tang! Ah, my favorite candy growing up. You know how to make mai ya tang?” He sounds so excited it makes my heart twist a little.
If byyou knowhe means, have I memorized every step I’ve watched on TikTok? I tamp down my guilt as I say, “Sure, yeah.”
“My mother used to make it from scratch,” Uncle Hong says, and the enthusiasm on his face makes the years melt away. “She’d boil the syrup for hours and hours, until it was brown and thick and gooey, and my brothers and I, we would sneak little spoonfuls here and there when she wasn’t looking. Ah, the smell of the boiling syrup was so good.” He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath in, then, seeming to remember himself, straightens his back and says, “Okay, so you know all about malting, very good. Now, over here is where we have our tuns. We mash our dried malt and then mix with hot water in the mash tun. We have to be very careful with the water. We add it in separate stages and each stage has a different temperature—” Uncle Hong turns his head and barks, “James!”
James, who’s been sauntering along behind us while scrolling on his phone, lifts his head. “What?” he says irritably.
“What are the proper temperatures for the water?” Uncle Hong says.
All eyes turn to James, who groans and says, “Seriously? Not this again.”
“Aiya, Er zi,” Auntie Chuang says, “how can you boast about our family distillery when you know nothing about the process?”
“That’s why we have employees,” James snaps. “So we can delegate.”
“The first stage is 152.6 degrees Fahrenheit,” I say helpfully, “the second stage is 161.6 degrees Fahrenheit, and for the third water, you want it to be between 176 and 185 degrees Fahrenheit.”
There is silence as they all turn to look at me. I secretly thank the gods of the internet. Herding cattle? Not so much. But numbers? All I have to do is glance at them once and they will be imprinted in my memory.
The aunties and uncles nod solemnly. Uncle Hong smacks me on the back and laughs. “Ah, good girl!”
Shang is studying me with something approaching admiration on his face, and the sight of it does funny things to my stomach. Funny, warm, nice things.