He looked at the ground as he spoke, and made an upward lifting motion, the scars on his wrists contorting with the movement.
Lin Zixi imitated him and lifted it, and the lock opened.
Pushing open the door, a musty smell hit me.
Inside the room was only a wooden bed, a rickety stool, and some farm tools piled up in the corner.
But to my surprise, the bed was covered with clean straw, and there was even a broken jar on the windowsill with a few withered wildflowers stuck in it.
"You... huh?"
Zi Xi turned around to ask, but found that Ji Yanchen was gone. Only the enamel bowl was left at the door, and the ointment inside emitted a pungent smell.
She dipped her finger in the mixture and carefully applied it to the wound on her forehead.
The burning pain made her gasp, but then she saw two crooked characters engraved on the bottom of the bowl: "Stop bleeding".
It gets dark very quickly.
As Zi Xi was packing her luggage by the light of a kerosene lamp, she heard rustling sounds coming from the roof.
At first she thought it was a mouse, until a snowflake drifted down from a crack in the roof beam and landed on the back of her hand, and someone was walking among the thatched roof above.
She held her breath and suddenly held the kerosene lamp up to the window.
Outside the plastic sheet, a blurry shadow retreated hastily and disappeared into the night.
When Zi Xi woke up in the middle of the night from the cold, she found something stuffed under the door—a patched cotton-padded jacket that was still warm to the touch.
It's obvious without even thinking that it was given by Ji Yanchen.
Zi Xi lay back down, but couldn't fall asleep no matter what.
Zi Xi tossed and turned on the hard bed, the moonlight filtering through the thatched roof casting dappled shadows on the ground.
The story of this world in the 1970s was far more suffocating than she had imagined.
Ji Yanchen, the male protagonist whom the villagers call "mad dog," lives in an abandoned cave dwelling at the end of the village.
After his parents died tragically during a struggle session, he became a lone wolf, his sinister gaze capable of silencing even a child's crying.
In his previous life, only Li Xiaorou, the youngest daughter of the brigade leader, would secretly leave a bowl of steaming sweet potato porridge in front of his door.
In the first winter, Li Xiaorou found Ji Yanchen huddled on the frozen riverbank, his lips turning purple from the cold.
She took off her cotton-padded coat and wrapped it around him, but he pushed her away violently, scratching her hand on the stone until it bled.
During the autumn harvest, she hid behind the threshing floor and stuffed half a mixed grain bun into his arms.
This time, Ji Yanchen didn't push her away. He just stared at the red marks on her wrist caused by the straw, his eyes dark and unfathomable.
That sweltering summer, when Li Xiaorou was cornered in the cornfield by some village hooligans, it was Ji Yanchen who stormed in, wielding a sickle.
The man was later found in a mass grave, missing one ear.
Li Xiaorou bandaged his hand wound with trembling hands.
Ji Yanchen suddenly laughed, gradually developing a morbid dependence on Li Xiaorou, and began to follow her and record her every move.
He doesn't allow any men to get close to Li Xiaorou. Once, a young man from the village showed interest in her, and Ji Yanchen almost buried him alive.
Although Li Xiaorou was afraid, she still tried to guide him, believing that he was simply lacking warmth.
But when Li Xiaorou's family suffered misfortune, Ji Yanchen, who was already rich and powerful, could have helped, but he stood by and watched coldly.
His exact words were: "The Li family favors sons over daughters; they're a bunch of ungrateful wretches. You've already broken free from them, so why do you still want to save them?"
Ji Yanchen truly doesn't understand Li Xiaorou's heart.
Later, Li Xiaorou even voluntarily married the son of a commune cadre because of her family background.
But on the eve of the wedding, Li Xiaorou was found in a cave with her ankles chained and her red wedding dress worn to shreds by the rock walls.
"Your fiancé accidentally fell into the steel furnace this morning."
Ji Yanchen looked at Li Xiaorou, his voice gentle.
A week later, Li Xiaorou fell off a cliff while Ji Yanchen was running away. Ji Yanchen jumped after her, and their bodies were not discovered until a month later.
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