Chapter Five Little Change

  The sky is blue, and the sunshine is even more brilliant. The quiet heat steams on the ground, shining with light, gently swaying, like fish swimming in a stream.

  Huang Li finished today's treatment and slowly walked out of the village. It can't be said that acupuncture had no effect, after all, it was supposed to unblock the meridians and activate the collaterals. His body did feel a bit different, but his mind was still the same as before.

  In front of the tree stood a frail figure, Huang Li initially didn't pay attention to it, but when he walked closer, he found out it was Xiao Bian'er. He looked up at him, as if wanting to say something.

  "Are you going to pick up firewood?" Huang Li smiled and stopped in his tracks, glancing at the small basket under Xiao Bian's feet.

  The little girl nodded and then shook her head, saying: "I want to go to the mountain to dig vegetables."

  "Alone?" Huang Li frowned and said: "Why don't you go with your little friends together?"

  Xiao Bian'er's face fell, and she lowered her head. At first, people said she was a girl and that she had a hard fate, having killed her mother at birth. So, her father told people that his child was not a girl, but a boy, and gave her the name Xiao Bian'er. In fact, she should have been playing and working with the other girls. In every way, she was more like a girl. But her father insisted on sending her to play with the boys. The boys were very mischievous, often teasing and bullying Xiao Bian'er. So, she usually went off alone to play, going to places where the other children didn't want to go to gather firewood, dig wild vegetables, or pick mushrooms.

  Although Huang Li sympathized with him, he apparently had no other choice and said helplessly: "I'm going back, I can probably walk a section of the road with you."

  The little girl lifted her head and handed the woven willow hat in her hand to Huang Li, saying: "For you, sun poison."

  Huang Li's mood was very complicated. This child knew how to repay kindness, and had deliberately waited here just to give himself a straw hat to shade the sun.

  "It's really cool." Huang Li put the willow hat on his head, smiled and praised: "Xiao Bian'er's hands are really clever, can you weave one for me every day from now on?"

  The little girl's face revealed a rare smile, nodded vigorously, and put on the small basket, following the calendar to move forward.

  A clear brook flowed down to the foot of the mountain, becoming exceptionally winding and curved. The brook babbled and splashed downwards, fresh and lively. This kind of lush vitality can only be given by a mountain stream to this most desolate area.

  Huang Li sat under the shade of a tree, watching Xiao Bian'er catch grasshoppers, cicadas and their larvae in the wild field by the creek, searching for wild vegetables, looking for all green and edible things. This little girl was very thin and small, but she was very capable, with quick eyes and nimble hands and feet. This was tempered in the arena of life's competition, only then could one gain more and greater harvests.

  "Here you are, a wild pear." Little Bao ran over and presented what he had just dug up to Huang Li.

  "We'll take turns eating." Huang Li looked at her frail body and took out a piece of dried meat from his pocket.

  A gentle breeze blew, the sound of water gurgled, one big and one small, one fat and one thin, two people talked and chatted, getting along very harmoniously.

  "You're so thin, you should eat more meat." Huang Li stretched out his hand and pinched Xiao Bian'er's arm, saying: "There are so many wild animals in the mountains. If there's a way, we shouldn't just be eating these wild vegetables."

  "There's no way." Xiaobian shook her head and said, "My father has tuberculosis, can't do heavy work, and can't hunt wild animals either." As she spoke, she looked at the half-eaten dried meat in her hand, swallowed a mouthful of saliva, and carefully put it into her pocket.

  Huang Li thought for a moment and said: "Then you come yourself, the big ones are not okay, like birds, rabbits, these small animals are not too difficult to hit."

  "What can we fight with? We don't even have guns." Xiao Bian'er still didn't have any confidence.

  "I'll make you a slingshot." Huang Li stretched out his hand, pointing at the chirping birds in the tree, and said with a smile: "I'll also teach you how to set traps, and I'll teach you some boxing moves. From now on, whoever bullies you, just challenge them and let them know who's boss."

  The little guy blinked his eyes and nodded repeatedly, this suggestion is not bad, it can really solve many problems.

  For some reason, Huang Li felt a deep connection with Xiao Bian Er, perhaps because although he couldn't remember his childhood experiences in the orphanage, they still had an impact on his subconscious.

  A month of needle acupuncture has passed, and Huang Li's body has recovered quickly, although his memory loss has not changed much. Xiao Bian'er has also undergone significant changes during this period. She can now use a slingshot to occasionally hit a bird, and has even caught two rabbits with a trap. She has learned several grappling moves and can use a net made of broken cloth to catch floating organisms in the creek's bends, drying them out to eat as salt. More importantly, her temperament and personality have not become isolated and irritable due to the teasing and exclusion by her peers, thanks to Huang Li's guidance.

  Huang Li also learned a lot about Xiaobian's family situation and found out that Xiaobian's father had a unique part-time job.

  At that time, the mortality rate of rural children was very high. Some families had five or six children, but not one could be raised alive. Not to mention those major illnesses such as smallpox, measles, and typhoid fever, which could kill people; even these illnesses, such as convulsions, appendicitis, dysentery, and whooping cough, if a child contracted them, it was hard for them to survive.

  The mothers watched their children die, shed two tears, and then went to find Xiao Bian's father to ask for his help in burying the child. Xiao Bian's father would hurry over with an iron shovel, come to the house, wrap the child in a tattered mat or a piece of broken cloth, hold it under his arm, comfort the mother with one sentence: "Auntie, don't be sad. I'll bury him deep, you can rest assured!" After that, he would go out of the village.

  In those years, mothers were not very sad when a child who had not yet come of age died. They regarded it as normal because they encountered too many hardships in life and the children's deaths were also a relief for them. After things were over, they would send some grain or tattered clothes to the little one's father to thank him for his help.

  This job is Xiao Bian's father's patent, which makes Huang Li feel surprised.

  After a month, Huang Li decided not to go to acupuncture anymore. It had no effect and delayed Old Man Meng's trip to the mountains to collect herbs. However, he still occasionally went to Shili Pu to bring some wild game to Old Man Meng and also to improve Xiaobian'er's life. Until one day, he didn't see Xiaobian'er. After asking around, he found out that Xiaobian'er and his father had already left the place, reportedly to seek refuge with a maternal aunt tens of miles away.

  There was a sense of loss, but the calendar would soon forget, after all, it was just a small episode, and he still had to continue his life. Moreover, he already had a plan, he wanted to go out, to places with dense crowds, more open and developed.

  No need to go to Shili Pu anymore, Huang Li started running and increased the amount every day to recover his body faster.