Chapter 67 Stone is the key to return home
In the darkness, Xiaowu no longer groped around aimlessly. His original hesitation and uneasiness turned into a sense of security and determination to protect his younger brother after he hugged Curly Sugar Star.
No matter where I am, no matter what happens, as long as I am with my brother and as long as I can protect him, nothing else matters.
The child's shallow breathing fell on Xingxing's face, feeling a little itchy.
He couldn't help but move his head, and his hairy and dirty head rubbed against Xiaowu's face. Xiaowu couldn't see clearly in the darkness, so he could only hug him tightly and whispered: "Xingxing, are you awake?"
The stars opened their eyes in the darkness.
He had a dream that only a human cub would have.
In the dream, it was snowing heavily, and he was hidden in a thick cotton roll. Then the person wrapped him in cotton, layer by layer... He felt like he was about to suffocate.
After waking up, Xingxing found that this was not a dream, but reality.
He struggled to move his head, the only part of his body that could move, and said sullenly, "Brother, it's so hot..."
In fact, it was not because it was hot, but because it was too tight. His whole body was trapped in the cotton coat, and his brother was very strong, and he could hold his hands and feet tightly through the clothes, making him unable to move at all.
Xiaowu was stunned for three full seconds.
After he gently untied the clothes wrapped around Xingxing, Xingxing let out a long sigh, and then her brother took her and her clothes into his arms.
The two little ones hugged each other, both wrapped in that big thick military coat. For a moment, the only sound they could hear was the sound of the wind and snow raging outside the window, and no one spoke.
Until Xingxing heard her brother's stomach growling.
“…”
Xingxing lowered her head and touched her brother's bulging belly with her little hand, then broke free from his embrace. Amid his gentle calls, she found the tomatoes and water that she had placed next to her without being hindered by the darkness.
"Brother, eat quickly."
Something cool was gently placed against his lips.
Xiaowu raised his hand in a daze, and followed this thing to touch his brother's two little hands, and found that he was holding it up with two hands.
But he took it with one hand.
"What is this?" he asked, having already bitten off a large piece of cold fruit flesh.
"It's a tomato~" Xingxing snuggled back into his brother's arms. The two dirty and stinky kids didn't dislike each other.
Xiaowu doesn't know tomatoes.
But he ate very quickly and happily. After taking the first bite and confirming that it was really edible and not bad, he immediately put it into Xingxing's mouth.
Xingxing shook her head and said that she had just eaten.
Xiaowu didn't believe it and tried to coax Xingxing into eating a few more bites.
As Xiaowu was eating, tears began to fall.
He hugged Xingxing, sniffed, and sobbed, "If only, if only a few days earlier, it would have been so great..."
Xingxing didn’t quite understand what her brother said.
He raised his hand and clumsily patted his brother's tender, thin but extremely strong shoulder, and asked softly, "Brother, what do you mean by a few days early?"
Xiaowu wiped away his tears and reached out to touch Xingxing's neck. Guilt and self-reproach surged into his heart. No matter how strong the 7-year-old child was, he had experienced so much, even life and death, but he cried breathlessly in the brief and confused peace of that night.
"If I...had it been a few days earlier...Xingxing, you wouldn't have to exchange the thing on your neck for that half a wheat cake!"
At that time, he said he didn't want to change anything, and he even thought about cutting off his own flesh to feed his younger brother.
But he and his brother were almost starving to death.
The young master standing in front of them, accompanied by several burly servants and women, took a liking to the inconspicuous stone on Xingxing's neck at first sight.
Xiao Wu was once afraid that the only stone on Xingxing's body would be stolen or dropped, so he wanted to pick it off and hide it. But the night the stone left her body, Xingxing fell seriously ill. If he hadn't held Xingxing and begged a barefoot doctor to give them some unwanted herbal residues for Xingxing to chew and eat, Xingxing would probably have died.
So even though he was worried, the stone still hung on Xingxing.
He even went out of his way to make the stone dirtier and more inconspicuous.
No one paid attention to that little stone for so long.
But Xiaowu didn't expect that the young master just took a glance at Xingxing when he passed by and then specifically asked for the small stone on Xingxing's neck.
Xiaowu doesn't want to give it.
But Xiaowu is not stupid.
He knew he had to give it, because even if the young master was rejected, the servants around him would help him achieve his goal.
If Xiaowu agrees, he and Xingxing can get half a wheat cake to fill their stomachs.
But if you don't agree, there might just be two cold corpses.
When Xiaowu thought of the scene at that time, he couldn't stop crying.
He would not cry loudly, just like Xingxing. The two little ones hugged each other, tears falling from their eyes, but even the sound of crying could hardly be heard.
Xingxing raised her little hand and wiped her brother's tears for a long time.
"It's okay." Xingxing said softly, "Brother, don't cry~"
"But... that stone must be very important. You are not a little beggar like me who is unwanted by anyone."
Xiao Wu hugged Xingxing tightly, choking with sobs and whispering to him, "You are still young, you don't know how important it is to have an identity card. Xingxing, your parents must love you very much. You are not an abandoned child, you just... got lost from them. If you have that little stone, your family may be able to find you faster."
But all these hopes ended with half a piece of wheat cake.
Xiaowu was born a beggar. He was an abandoned baby. Because he ate too much, his parents would have abandoned him even if he was a boy.
He was picked up and raised by an old beggar. The old beggar's request for raising him was that after he died, he be wrapped in a complete shroud and buried.
Xiaowu is the fifth child picked up by the old beggar. The previous four had all died, and the old beggar collected their bodies.
The old beggar always said that he had done his best, and he always told Xiaowu that there were many wanderers in troubled times, but many of them were children who were forced to be separated from their parents.
The old beggar said that such children, even if they became beggars, would be different from the little beggars in heaven like them.
Because they still have concerns in this world, they have a home whose whereabouts they don’t know and parents and relatives who love them.
They all look like beggars.
But there is a difference between a person who has no place to go and is displaced and a person who has worries and misses home.
In the past, Xiaowu didn’t understand what was different.
It was not until he dug a hole for the old beggar with branches and buried him with his bare hands that he suddenly felt at a loss as to where to go in the vast world.
At that moment, Xiaowu realized that he had really become a little beggar.
Not long after, he picked up the baby Star on his way to talk to the old beggar.
There was blood on the swaddling clothes, and the only thing on Xingxing's body that could serve as proof of his identity was the small stone on his neck.
Xiao Wu wrapped the baby in swaddling clothes and buried it beside the old beggar. Holding the clean white baby in his arms, he knelt in front of the old beggar's grave and said to him, "Dad, I have a younger brother now. I will not be alone anymore. I hope you will bless me and my younger brother, let me live and grow up, and then accompany my younger brother to find his family safely."
However, on the first night when Xiaowu returned to the ruined temple with Xingxing in his arms, he was struck by the evil of human nature.
Every pair of hungry eyes in the dilapidated temple was staring at the babbling baby in his arms. After Xiaowu stepped into the dilapidated temple, it was as if he had walked into an abyss surrounded by wolves.
They swallowed their saliva eagerly and ugly, and with the messy weeds on their heads, they approached Xiaowu step by step, their eyes as fierce as those of hungry wolves were always fixed on the baby, and their skinny claws stretched out like evil spirits seeking death...
Xiaowu, who had just turned five at that time, finally realized how great a "delicious gift" he had brought back.
But this is not food.
He picked him up and he will become the younger brother of the family.
The 5-year-old Xiaowu knew that he couldn't escape, so he had no choice but to fight with these people.
Even if it is not full, its small body can still push the hungry beggars like a calf and cause them to suffer heavy losses.
He was covered in wounds, and so were the beggars, but the baby in the cradle was well protected.
Finally, Xiaowu placed the baby in her arms at the feet of the collapsed and damaged Buddha statue in the dilapidated temple, and made an agreement with the beggars in the temple: if the baby starved to death, or she starved to death, both of their children would be left to the beggars to deal with.
But since then, Xiaowu has never slept soundly every late night in the ruined temple.
He held his little brother in his arms, wary of anyone who had ulterior motives.
Xiaowu never felt that the stars were a burden, because even the names of the stars were given by him.
The old beggar once told him that picking him up and giving him a name, even if it was a cheap name, meant that they were the only people in the world who were tied to each other.
It used to be the old beggar and Xiaowu.
Later it will be Xiaowu and Xingxing.
The names of the stars were given by him to the Buddha after he placed the stars at the feet of the Buddha statue.
The offering was a bitter fruit that Xiaowu found in the mountains and forests, and he asked the Buddha to give the little child a name.
Then he looked up and saw a bright and quietly twinkling star in the dark night above the Buddha statue and the broken temple.
It was evening, and it was the first and brightest star to appear in the sky.
From then on, stars were called stars.
Xiaowu picked up the fruit again, mashed it into paste with a wooden stick, and fed it to Xingxing little by little.
Xiaowu always says Xingxing is his younger brother.
But Xiaowu knows better than anyone that Xingxing will return home in the future.
That stone is the key back home.
But when Xiaowu reached out his trembling hand to hold the half piece of wheat cake, he knew that Xingxing could not return home.
Just like the old beggar himself after his death, Xingxing, who picked up the stones ignorantly, finally became a real little beggar at that most ordinary moment.
From then on, he was displaced and homeless.
Tears slid down his cheeks. Xiaowu used to be unable to shed tears. There was no food or water in his body, not even any saliva to spare.
But now, as he hugged the stars, the dull pain in his heart that he had been aware of belatedly finally surged up and almost destroyed him on this rare warm and full night.
Perhaps from now on, he would never be able to look directly at every piece of wheat cake he took.
Even if that half piece of wheat cake did save his life, the price was too high and too heavy.
A soft sigh sounded in my ears.
Xiaowu was hugged by his younger brother in the dark.
"Brother, I understand."
I understand the difference between having a home and not having a home, and I also understand the difference between having a family and not having a family.
"But it's okay~" Xingxing hugged her brother and whispered in his ear, "Brother, don't be sad. Xiao Shitou wants me to live more than to go home."
That little stone allowed him and his brother to survive, and it was the best blessing his parents in this physical body could give him.
The stars cannot be exchanged for any value or opportunity, and he doesn't care much. In his short career as a zombie, the only thing that is scary is hunger, but he also knows that for humans, death is also scary.
But now he and his brother can eat their fill, and Little Stone has kept the star in this body and his brother alive and waiting for him, and that's enough.
In Xingxing's eyes, this is the greatest and most precious value of the little stone to the original owner and his parents.
Behind them, Qiuqiu, who was originally angry about Xingxing’s opportunity being snatched away, suddenly froze.
……is that so?
The so-called opportunity, before it became an opportunity, had you done your best to protect the two children?
Rather than letting the star die in the winter, die in a place where no one knows, and then this little stone will never see the light of day again, the star's parents should really just want their child to survive.
Even if it was only exchanged for half a piece of wheat cake, as Xingxing said, that is already the greatest and most precious value of this small stone in the eyes of his parents, right?
The love of family and great wealth are far less important than giving your children a chance to survive.
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