Yan Zheng remained silent as always. Jiang Xi, mindful of his expression, also refrained from speaking. The babbling brook and the chirping of cicadas filled the air as she lay on the grass, resting her head on her hands and closing her eyes for a short nap.
After a long while, Yan Zheng added a piece of firewood: "Go to sleep. Tomorrow we'll continue upstream."
"Upstream?" Jiang Xi suddenly opened her eyes and sat up upon hearing his words, directly asking the question that had been on her mind: "Since ancient times, humans have chosen to live near water. We can only go back by going downstream."
She knew in her heart that Yan Zheng wouldn't make such a common-sense mistake, and she waited for his answer.
Don't even think about it.
Holding a wooden stick, Yan Zheng drew a curve on the ground by the firelight, then pointed to the lower left corner of the curve and said calmly, "This is where we woke up. I have observed it carefully; there is black bear droppings and signs of activity here."
“That beast is twice the height of a person when it stands up, and it can bite through an iron plate. We were lucky that we didn’t encounter them along the way.” His voice was calm and emotionless, but Jiang Xi could hear the chilling intent in it.
After saying that, Yan Zheng pointed to the upper right corner of the curve with the stick: "It took us at least eight hours to get out of the dense forest. Look at our current environment and the direction of the stream."
The stick drew another line, pointed to the other two points of the curve, and added, "Here... and here, all the way down the river is dense forest. Do you think you'll be this lucky next time?"
Jiang Xi stared at the map on the ground with a pale face, not looking up. She had observed the terrain at dusk, and she understood what he meant in an instant.
They were deep in the mountains, and beyond the stream stretched a dense forest; one wrong step and they could be devoured by a bear.
Are we going to have to stay here for the rest of our lives?
Jiang Xi asked, "If we keep going upwards, won't we be stuck forever?"
Yan Zheng threw down the stick and gathered his clothes: "Not entirely. If we place a distress signal on the mountaintop, and a rescue team or forest ranger helicopter patrols the mountain, we still have a chance to get out."
Jiang Xi thought to herself that with the global snow disaster, there were simply no people patrolling the mountains. They couldn't even save all the people in the cities, so who would bother to spend their energy in the primeval forest?
But she didn't say it aloud. Yan Zheng's expression wasn't good, and saying such discouraging things at this time might anger him, so she wisely chose to remain silent.
"Okay, I'll do as you say." She looked up at him.
The firelight illuminated Yan Zheng's slightly disheveled face, and Jiang Xi had to admit that he knew this jungle well and had a different understanding of wilderness survival than she did.
Unconsciously, the person in front of her became even more unfamiliar. Jiang Xi's heart, which had been dormant for a long time, seemed to start beating again, stirring up many thoughts in her mind. If this man's skin were a little whiter, his stubble a little lighter, and his hair a couple of inches shorter, would he be just like the person in her memory?
Accompanied by the warm firelight, many fragmented memories were gradually pieced together in my heart.
Before she was six years old, she lived with her maternal grandmother in the countryside of Xiacheng, a small village crisscrossed by rivers. White walls and black tiles were set against lush green rice paddies, making it a land of fish and rice that people would never want to leave.
When she was six years old, her parents took her to settle in Huaichun City during the summer vacation. At that time, her mother was a junior high school Chinese teacher and her father ran a bicycle shop. The family of three lived in the family compound allocated to her mother's workplace.
When she first arrived in the new city, young Jiang Xi had no playmates. The only child her age was Yan Zheng, who lived in the same building. Jiang Xi lived on the third floor, and Yan Zheng lived on the first floor.
Jiang Xi met Yan Zheng on her first day of school at Huaichun School. Although they were in the same grade, they were in different classes. The school gate was full of children who had just finished school and their parents who were picking them up. Her mother was holding her hand and dodging the passing bicycles while looking towards the gate. When she saw Yan Zheng, she quickly led Jiang Xi over.
Yan Zheng's father, Yan Tongqing, is a professor at Huaichun University. He is focused on academic research and rarely picks his child up from school. His mother and Jiang Xi's mother teach at the same middle school. High school teachers are generally very busy, so the two mothers agreed to take turns picking up and dropping off their children.
Yan Zheng was a bit introverted. He was taller than his peers, but looked excessively thin. The boy's small face was always downcast. When he saw Jiang's mother and Jiang Xi, he only timidly said, "Hello, Auntie," and then lowered his head and said nothing more.
Jiang's mother pulled Jiang Xi over and asked her to call him brother. Jiang Xi felt that he was a bit too delicate and introverted, not at all like the fierce Da Hu and Zhuang Zhuang in the village.
But Grandma said that only obedient children would be liked, so she obediently greeted Sweetie's brother. Upon hearing her voice, the boy couldn't help but look up at her again, then immediately lowered his head, his ears slightly red. Jiang's mother then took his hand and led the two children home.
The second meeting was three days later, on Saturday noon. Jiang's mother was cooking when she heard the old man at the tofu stall downstairs calling out. She gave Jiang Xi 50 cents and asked her to buy a block of tofu.
She grabbed the money and ran downstairs, thinking she could buy a cup of soy milk later. But she froze before she even left the building.
The door of a house on the first floor was not closed properly. Jiang Xi could only hear the sound of wind whipping willow branches, just like the sound of her grandmother using firewood to herd geese in the countryside. She leaned closer and looked through the crack in the door. The thin Yan Zheng was curled up on the ground.
The man, whom we'll call Yan Zheng's father, was whipping him with a belt, muttering fiercely, "What did you study during the holidays? You got such a low score. I think you're tired of living. How could I have given birth to such an idiot like you?"
Jiang Xi couldn't see Yan Zheng's expression, nor did she hear any crying, but she knew he was in pain. Accompanied by those repeated "stupid thing," he curled up tightly like a wounded little animal.
Like the little black dog chained up at Aunt Zhang's house next door to Grandma's. When it rains, it also curls up like this in the rain.
Each crack of the belt created a gust of wind, as if it were hitting Jiang Xi.
That day, they couldn't buy the tofu. Jiang Xi's face turned pale with fright. She ran back to the house and locked herself in the closet until her father came back and took her out.
As Jiang Xi was sleeping that night, she overheard her mother's hushed voice next door saying to her husband, "What is Professor Yan dissatisfied with? His child is so smart, he got first place in the grade and he's still not satisfied. He's always scolding or beating his child at home."
"Well, everyone has their own way of doing things, so it's not really our place to say anything. We've tried to persuade her so many times, but it's no use. You'll have to keep an eye on your daughter from now on, and make sure she doesn't run into them again."
In her daze, Jiang Xi wondered, "Yan Zheng is such a good student, why does he still get beaten? If I don't do well in school, will my dad beat me too?"
As Jiang Xi grew older, she heard a lot about the Yan family from the gossip of the older women and men in the family compound.
Yan Zheng's father is a professor and his mother is a math teacher. The couple always hoped that their son would become successful. When Yan Zheng was three years old, he was made to stand in the sun as punishment because he couldn't memorize all the English words.
When he was six, they stopped making him stand as punishment and started "educating" him behind closed doors.
Grandma Zhang, who is retired next door, always complains: "What's the use of being good at studying? Six or seven years old is the age when boys love to play. That boy from the Yan family always has his head down and a sullen face. He's such a good child, but he's been raised to be dull and stupid."
A few months later, perhaps out of curiosity, or perhaps because she felt sorry for the little black dog, once the sound of the willow branches twitching subsided, and after watching her parents leave through the window, Jiang Xi grabbed the math book from the table and ran downstairs to knock on the door.
Jiang Xi pressed her ear close to the crack in the door, and after a long while, she heard a faint scraping sound coming from inside. Behind the crack, Xiao Yanzheng peeked out with half of his pale face, looking at her.
"I...do you want some candy?" She carefully took a piece of fruit candy out of her pocket. Actually, she originally wanted to ask her a math question, but somehow she changed her mind.
Children always get close quickly. From that day on, a piece of candy after being scolded or hit seemed to become an unspoken secret between the two. Sometimes, when Jiang Xi made a mistake and was scolded harshly, she would receive chocolate or pine nut candy from Yan Zheng in return.
These memories were too distant, and she could no longer connect the little boy with the man in front of her.
——
Seeing that she was still in a daze, Yan Zheng urged her, "Go to sleep, you have to get up early tomorrow."
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