Chapter Seventeen: Hometown

  I'm still immersed in my great-grandfather's stories, and three days have passed unnoticed. Now I'm sitting under the big locust tree in front of the old mansion, watching the adults in the courtyard busily preparing for the ancestor worship. They call it preparing for ancestor worship, but to me, it's no different from bandits raiding a village. I see them rummaging through trunks, searching every room, and I reckon they won't even leave out a single tile on the roof or a hole in the ground. I find it hilarious, thinking to myself, "Is this ancestor worship or treasure hunting?" Of course, I only dare think this, not say it out loud - I don't want to get beaten up!

  As I was lost in thought, six or seven kids around ten years old ran towards me. The first two were my uncle's children, a boy and a girl. The girl, eleven years old, was named Wang Feng, and the boy, nine years old, was named Wang Long. It so happened that my uncle got married relatively late, at a time when my parents were still in school and had just started dating. After they got married and found work, their family's financial situation improved, and they spent money to help my uncle find a wife in the village. As a result, they were several years younger than me, so I became the older brother.

  Big brother, that's not for nothing! First of all, we're city people, and secondly, I'm the eldest. So I generously took out a small handful of cash, two yuan per person. With a wave of my hand, I said "buy some candy to eat". But to my surprise, after these kids took the money, they didn't leave. I was puzzled: "What's going on? Are you dissatisfied with the amount?"

  Just as I was puzzled, my sister Wang Feng came up and grabbed my hand, saying: "Brother, what's the point of sitting here? Come and play with us!" I felt touched in my heart, looking at my sister, she has been so considerate since childhood, she will definitely become a great person when she grows up!

  Then I got up, patted the dust on my butt and asked: "What's next? What are we going to play?" Little brother Wang Long also ran over, jumping and skipping, grabbed my other hand, shaking it while shouting: "Hide-and-seek!"

  Hide and Seek, also called Catch the Blind Man. Children in the village have been playing this game since they were young. In the city, it's also played, but called Hide and Seek. If you haven't even played this game before, then I can only describe your childhood as pitiful.

  To be honest, I'm not very good at this game, and I only played it when I was five or six years old. As I grew older, the games I played became more varied, and naturally, I forgot about this one. But since my opponents are just a bunch of kids, what's there to be afraid of? Let's play! And so we set off towards the village entrance in high spirits.

  You'd think I'm walking in the front, and indeed there's a bit of an elder feeling, but unfortunately these "younger brothers" behind me look like they can't take a single blow.

  All the way, Wang Long kept telling me about their past heroic deeds of hiding and seeking. When it came to his sister, this kid patted his chest and shouted: "My sister is the most powerful in our village! No matter where you hide, I guarantee she can always catch you. Every time, I'm the first one to be caught."

  Little sister Wang Feng burst out laughing: "You're still talking, every time you're in the haystack, if I couldn't find you, that would be weird." Just like this, we came to the village entrance's threshing ground with laughter. I took a look at this place and it wasn't bad. A big yard, with three earth houses on the side. All around were haystacks, with a small ditch on the side, and most striking were the two large stone mills in the middle of the yard.

  I thought to myself, apart from those three earthen houses and these stacks of firewood, where else could people be hiding? I looked around in a circle, and several children couldn't wait to shout: "Let's play hide-and-seek, whoever wins will be the master."

  It's a Northeastern dialect, actually just Rock-Paper-Scissors. So everyone stretched out their fists and shouted: "Jiang lao hei, who is the thief!" Then they all acted together. After several rounds of brutal elimination, I finally had the honor of becoming the person.

  Why does this sound so awkward? Anyway, no matter how you say it. After defeating Lao Hei in a fierce battle, I won the championship, so I'm going to disguise myself and catch those "little devils".

  I sat carelessly on a stone millstone, ready to start counting. At this time, Wang Long, that little brat, ran while shouting at me: "You have to count up to one hundred, no peeking allowed, close your eyes!"

  I thought to myself, "What's wrong with this bear, where did all these troubles come from?" But who let us be bigger than them? No choice, I had to honestly cover my eyes with my hands so they wouldn't say I'm taking advantage of the kids. After covering my eyes, I shouted: "I'll start counting now, one, two, three... a hundred."

  I counted to one hundred, then let go of my hands, and only felt a bit dizzy in front of my eyes. It seems that being too kind is not good for people either. I took a deep breath, stood up, and looked around. At this time, the threshing ground was quiet, without even the sound of insects. I nodded secretly, "professional" is indeed "professional"! Not to mention how well these little ghosts are hidden. This one skill of "swallowing one's voice" is quite impressive. First, I roughly circled around the courtyard, and finally thought it would be better to go check the haystack first, maybe that kid Wang Long was hiding there.

  There are five haystacks in the yard, each one is over a person tall and three or four meters wide. It's easy to hide several people, let alone a few kids.

  Thinking of this, I started flipping from the first haystack on the left. With corn stalks in my hands and shouting: "I saw you, kid. If you come out by yourself, it's fine. If you hesitate, I'll strip your pants!"

  It wasn't until I flipped over the fourth haystack that I finally found Wang Long. Just looking at how he was covering himself with corn stalks, my hands were already in front of him, and he still pretended like nothing was wrong. I chuckled to myself, and casually lifted his * , and only then did this kid hurriedly cover his crotch and crawl out.

  After coming out, he didn't say a word, just drooping his head and following behind me. I smiled proudly and went to rummage through the fifth haystack, just as I thought, there was nothing. After finishing, I took Wang Long towards the earthen house, and while walking, I kept an eye on this kid.

  "This kid didn't say a word for half the day, just staring at me with an angry face. I thought to myself, what's wrong with him? So I asked him: 'What are you looking at? You're not satisfied with something?'"

  The little guy finally spoke up: "How did you know I was hiding there?"

  I was speechless and thought to myself, "Can't you little brat change your location? Even a cat hiding in a pile of hay can be found by pigs!"

  So I smiled and asked him, "Am I right that your old man is always at home collecting you? Always using a broom to sweep the dust off your head?" After hearing this, I saw this little guy's mouth wide open, his face full of surprise as he stared at me: "How did you know?! I haven't told anyone else!"?? Four Small Hidden Gates 17

  I sympathetically patted my brother's shoulder without saying a word. In my heart, I thought: what a good kid, he was actually beaten silly.

  There's a saying, "Strike while the iron is hot!" Right now, my brother and I are getting along great, so I should seize this opportunity to win him over. So I squatted down in front of him, held his little hand and said: "Good younger brother, I'm your older brother, your real brother! You have to help your older brother out. This is what they mean by 'brothers are like limbs, a father and son are like soldiers on the battlefield.' How can you not be on the same side as me?"

  I thought that with this family relationship card, this kid would be so touched that he would throw himself into the country's arms. But unexpectedly, this kid was quite stubborn, and with a tilt of his head, said: "Hmph, I'd rather be an anti-Japanese ghost than a slave to a lost nation!"

  Fine, he's become a little devil. I gritted my teeth and gave him a big thumbs up, with a fierce smile: "Good! Good job! You have the spirit of our Wang family!" Without another word, I turned around and walked towards the three earthen houses.

  I entered the first room, looked around and found it to be quite simple. There was a large earthen bed in the room, with a grass mat on top that was all tattered. Against the wall stood an old broken wooden cabinet, next to which was a large clay vat. Besides these, there were some farm tools like rakes and winnowing baskets, I thought to myself, can people really hide in such a shabby house?

  After looking around, I set my eyes on the broken wooden cabinet and the large jar. First, I opened the cabinet, which was empty inside. There were only a few broken bowls, nothing else, so I went to check the jar. When I reached the edge of the jar, I saw that it wasn't empty either, filled with a bunch of corn kernels. I thought, "That's it!" So I stretched out my hand and scooped up a few handfuls, feeling something wrapped in cloth, which moved slightly.

  I secretly laughed to myself, stomped my feet a few times on the spot, and pretended to walk away. After doing all this, I quietly turned around to the side, crouched down and waited for him to come out. Sure enough, before long, a small head popped out of the jar.

  Just as he was about to catch his breath, he suddenly saw me. I stuck out my tongue and rolled my eyes, this kid wasn't on guard, and let out a loud "ahh!" as his whole body trembled. "Haha, come out, baby, where are you going?" I laughed loudly as I pulled him out, and so another little grey-headed, dirty-faced shadow appeared behind me.

  I came to the second room, and the layout was roughly the same as before. However, this time, not only were the cabinets empty, but the jars were also empty. I searched for half a day without any gain and went to the next room. The third room was the same, the jars were empty, and the cabinets were also empty. I felt frustrated, thinking where did these little rabbits go? Did they all burrow underground?

  Then I searched around again. Just when I was about to give up, I found that Wang Long was tense and kept glancing at the kang. I thought to myself, don't ask, there must be a ghost on the kang!

  Without saying another word, I went up and lifted the quilt. Sure enough, in the middle of the kang was a big hole with two wooden boards on top. A boy and a girl, two "little devils", were squatting inside. I lifted the quilt and scared them both. At that moment, I laughed: "Oh my, nowadays kids are really precocious, it seems you two have come to enjoy this sweet pleasure?" Like this, there were seven little devils in total, now four have been found, and three more are still unknown where they are.

  After the discovery on the kang, I turned over the kang in the first two rooms again. Unfortunately, both big kangs were good, nothing was found. I took these prisoners to turn around everywhere, don't know how many circles we searched, but still no discovery was made, damn it, this time it's really hopeless!

  I said to myself, "No way, I can't give up. Losing to this little kid would be a loss of face! This breakthrough must be made on Wang Long's body." So, taking advantage of the opportunity to pee, I pulled Wang Long aside.

  This time I didn't say a word, directly took out two yuan and waved it in front of the kid. Then smiled and said: "Baby, look! The snow-white silver is waving at you, as long as you give your brother a little breath, this will all be yours, how about it, not bad?"

  But then this little brat curled his lip and sneered: "Hmph, think you can buy me off with just two stinky coins? Dream on!"

  "Ah, I'm going! Alright, let's see how long you can pretend! Thinking of this, I steeled myself and added a bit more. I don't believe you won't be moved by this! Just as I was about to take out the money, before it even came out, this kid stuck out four fingers in front of my eyes and flashed them, then said 'At least three bucks!'"

  This time it was my turn to be stunned, and for two whole seconds I didn't react! After coming back to my senses, I quickly grabbed a handful of cash, without even counting how much, and slapped it into his hand with a loud "pa". Then, with a flirtatious smile, I said: "Here you go, sir, all yours!"