Chapter 6 A white, soft sheep…
There was vomit on him, but Li Sheng didn't stop. Instead, he rode even faster and turned around to steady Li Jiacong: "Hang in there a little longer, we'll be there soon."
So Li Sheng rode along while Li Jiacong vomited.
Perhaps due to the shadow of his grandfather's sudden death, Li Jiacong could clearly sense that Li Sheng was very nervous. When they arrived at their destination, he trembled as he carried Li Sheng off the back seat, even though he wasn't in that much pain.
The clinic was located on the main road where the bus stopped. It had a very small storefront, and inside was a small room of no more than ten square meters. The doctor was watching TV and laughing. When the curtain rustled, two big boys rushed in, one carrying the other in his arms.
Doctor: "Oh my goodness, what happened?"
"He...he's been poisoned by pesticides!" Li Jiacong gasped for breath.
"Huh?" The doctor jumped up. "Did you take medicine? Attempt suicide? I can't treat you! Get him to the town hospital right away."
Li Jiacong clutched his stomach and glanced up at the doctor. He was a man, his white coat stained with orange-red oil, food crumbs clinging to his lips, and his hair styled in a slicked-back part. Li Jiacong felt even more nauseous. He patted Li Sheng's shoulder: "Put me down."
Li Sheng slowly released one hand.
“That corncob poison,” Li Jiacong clutched his stomach, “I wasn’t wearing a mask.”
The doctor sat back down: "Oh, you threw up from the smell?"
Li Jiacong nodded.
"It's alright, you seem quite lucid," the doctor said, grabbing a handful of sunflower seeds from his pocket and cracking them open. "Just spit it out and you'll be fine."
Li Jiacong exclaimed in surprise, "What?"
Li Sheng was more anxious than him, pressing him for details: "Isn't there any needles or medicine?"
"Yes, we do. Want to get a shot?"
Li Sheng looked at Li Jiacong nervously, seeking his opinion.
Li Jiacong frowned. The doctor seemed reluctant to work: "There are always people who vomit from pesticide fumes. Vomiting will make them feel better. After vomiting, they can eat something to soothe their stomachs."
"That's settled then," Li Jiacong said. "No fighting."
Li Jiazong walked out, and Li Sheng followed him out, asking, "Don't you want to get a shot?"
Li Jiacong nodded.
"Then I'll take you to the town hospital."
Li Jiacong glanced at him: "What are you doing?"
Li Sheng was still catching his breath: "I'm afraid he won't treat this well, I'm afraid of you..."
"Forget it, I feel better after throwing up," Li Jiacong waved his hand. "Let's go back."
Li Sheng hesitated, but wasn't as forceful as Li Jiacong, and could only drive him back. Lying down on the kang (heated brick bed), Li Jiacong immediately closed his eyes because he felt dizzy. In his dazed state, he heard Li Sheng say, "You need to take off your clothes."
Li Jiacong ignored him.
"You might have pesticide on you, and there's also the vomit you made..."
"Damn it." Li Jiacong had no choice but to open his eyes and slowly take off his clothes.
Li Sheng stood in the middle of the room, took a step forward, and looked like he wanted to help him, but hesitated and didn't know how to start.
"Help me pull it down." Only after Li Jiacong spoke did Li Sheng move closer, grab the clothes that had been turned up to his waist, and pull them up to help him take them off.
Thanks.
After undressing, Li Jiacong looked up and noticed that Li Sheng was turning his face away, as if embarrassed to look at him. Li Jiacong glanced at him, then at his own naked body. He wasn't exactly a young woman; was he afraid of being seen?
But at this moment he was too tired to care what Li Sheng was thinking, so he lay back down, closed his eyes, and felt like he was asleep. In his dream, he heard the sound of rubbing clothes, and felt something probing around his nose.
When he regained consciousness, he smelled a pumpkin scent. Opening his eyes, he saw Li Sheng sitting on the charred kang (a heated brick bed), dressed in a black short-sleeved shirt with a cheap, rolled-up hem that was too small, and the shirt was tight under his armpits. Li Sheng had his eyes closed, and a bowl of pumpkin porridge was beside him.
Li Jiacong sat up, and Li Sheng immediately opened his eyes alertly, picked up the bowl, and handed it to him: "Are you feeling better?"
Li Jiacong breathed a sigh of relief: "Much better."
Li Sheng: "Drink porridge, it's good for your stomach."
Li Jiacong: "I don't like eating pumpkin."
Li Sheng lowered his eyes and looked at the porridge bowl: "It's still quite sweet."
Li Jiacong stared at him, stunned. The angle at which Li Sheng lowered his head revealed a scar at the corner of his eye that resembled a tear stain. The regretful expression on his face moved Li Jiacong, and he asked, almost without thinking, "Did you do this?"
"Um."
"...Then I'll try a bite."
Li Jiacong picked up the bowl and took a sip. It was indeed sweet, but he really didn't like the taste of pumpkin, so he put it down in one gulp. He looked outside; it was getting dark. Today had gone by damn fast.
He asked, "Where's my grandma?"
Li Sheng: "I'm going to play mahjong."
Li Jiacong: "..."
At the village store, a group of people who were not yet engaged in farming would gather every now and then. Li Jiacong lowered his eyelids, looking quite speechless.
"Um... I already told Grandma. She just came back to check on you and said you're fine—shall I go and call her again for you?"
“No need,” Li Jiacong waved his hand, then pointed to the wardrobe, “Get me two pieces of clothing.”
Li Sheng nimbly got up to get it for him.
Two short-sleeved shirts, one black and one gray. Li Jiazong picked out the gray one and put it on himself, then threw the other one to Li Sheng: "This is for you."
Li Sheng paused for a moment and then said, "No need."
Li Jiacong: "Keep wearing it. I don't have any new ones to replace it with, so just make do—want to listen to music again?"
Li Sheng held onto the clothes, unable to push them back. Li Jiacong didn't give him a chance to refuse or agree before putting the earphones on his ears.
It's a female voice—
"People say that love is like flying a kite. If you are too calculating, you will regret it. But you all forgot to tell me that unrestrained love can also leave the sky full of scars."
There's a kind of gentle, melancholic song about love and breakups that's hard to describe. I don't quite understand the meaning of the lyrics yet, but the female voice is so beautiful, like a warm hand that can soothe unnamed wounds.
Li Jiacong: "It sounds good, doesn't it?"
Li Sheng nodded, clutching his clothes.
And so, Li Sheng sat by the window, keeping a certain distance from Li Jiazong, and continued listening to the songs he hadn't finished at noon. After listening to one album, it was getting late, and the aroma of food was already coming from the neighbor's house. Li Sheng moved his body toward the edge of the kang (a heated brick bed), as if he was about to leave, and Li Jiazong said: Listen to this one too.
Li Sheng moved back. It wasn't until Li Jiazong's grandmother returned, cooked the meal, and called out from behind the door that Li Jiazong unplugged both of their earphones and said, "Come on, let's go eat."
Li Sheng finally realized Li Jiacong's deliberate intention—he wanted him to stay for dinner. Li Jiacong turned to look at him: "Why aren't you leaving? Don't you need me to lead you around?"
Li Sheng smiled and followed.
At the dinner table, his grandmother teased him about his pesticide poisoning, telling him about how many people in the area drank alcohol and then went to spray pesticides, only to end up buried in the ground. She also talked about how she won two eggplants while playing mahjong, and how Old Zhang's second son from the front street was nineteen this year and had just gotten married. Blah blah blah, Xiuying's tea party never stopped.
Li Jiacong finally heard what he wanted to interject: "Nineteen, getting married?"
His grandma said, "What's wrong? Are you still a child? You're arguing with your parents. Kids in the village are already established and married!"
Li Jiacong was generally aware that people in rural areas get married early, but it didn't feel real to see someone who was almost the same age as him getting married: "That's too early. They're not old enough to register their marriage."
"We can make up for it later. Some women have babies at eighteen, and the neighbor is forty and already a grandmother. That's how it is here. You're more particular in the city. If you don't go to school, you'll be too old to get married. Those of us who didn't go to school got married a long time ago."
Li Jiacong frowned, looked at Li Sheng sitting down, and asked him, "Then why aren't you married?"
Li Sheng paused, surprised that he was suddenly asked the question. His expression was somewhat complicated, but before he could say anything, Li Jiacong's grandmother immediately chimed in, "They'll all have them eventually."
Li Jiacong reasoned, "Then this isn't 'everyone's like this,' nor is it a fine tradition. Don't promote it. Getting married and having children doesn't mean you're established in the world. Even if you have a child, you might not be able to raise them well, and they'll just be a burden."
Li Jiacong's grandmother clicked her tongue, about to retort. His grandfather pushed his glass of baijiu towards her: "Is anyone drinking?"
Li Sheng and Li Jiacong both shook their heads.
Xiuying said disdainfully, "Old man, you drink it yourself!"
The conversation ended there. After the meal, everyone went home. Li Jiacong went to the courtyard to see Li Sheng off. After watching his figure disappear, Li Jiacong suddenly noticed that Li Sheng's short-sleeved shirt was swaying in the night wind on the clothesline.
Li Jiacong called out, "Grandma, did you wash it?"
“No, you didn’t wash it yourself? I thought you did—Li Sheng washed it for you?” his grandmother said through the window.
Li Jiacong coughed lightly and asked, "What time does Li Sheng usually go out to work?"
"Six o'clock, I guess."
"ah?"
He exclaimed in surprise so loudly that his grandmother was startled: "What's wrong? Why are you making such a fuss!"
Li Jiacong: "Getting up so early? What does he do?"
His grandmother said, "Herding sheep, once in the morning and once in the evening."
"Once in the morning and once at night?"
"nonsense!"
—The night sky was clear, and the barking of dogs made the village seem even more secluded, interspersed with faint, subtle noises. Li Sheng, panting, carried two large bags of hay and fodder, and with a thud, he burst open the sheepfold door: "I'm so sorry, I'm late."
Inside the sheepfold, several sheep were frantically grazing on the ground.
At six in the morning, Li Jiacong sat up with dark circles under his eyes. He had made a terrible promise to his grandmother yesterday: to wake him up at six tomorrow morning. But when morning came, he almost changed his mind. However, his grandmother, like an alarm clock, kept waking him up, repeatedly reminding him, "Did you make plans with someone?"
"Don't keep Li Sheng waiting!" "As they say in the city, regular eating habits are important, even sheep need regular eating habits!" "If you don't get up, you won't get breakfast!"
"Bring Li Sheng a steamed bun? I just steamed one!"
At 6:03, Li Jiacong looked at the still dark sky outside and questioned his life for a minute. At 6:04, he got off the kang (a heated brick bed), poured a basin of cold water, washed his face, and took two hot steamed buns to the back of the house.
It was that long road again, lined with corn on both sides, leading north into the mountains. It was still dark. Li Jiazong walked in, half-asleep, until he crossed a small hill and the view suddenly opened up—
The fields are vast, and white, soft sheep run wildly. Not far away, there is a small pond that reflects the deep blue sky like a mirror. The boy stands in a patch of wild grass, his face serene, like a fallen star in the evening.
Li Jiacong held his breath for a moment, feeling as if everything before him was a lonely dream, and that he might not have really woken up yet.
The person in the dream looked up and saw him, then suddenly smiled, their eyes crinkling: "Up so early?"
Ah, some of them are quite pretty. Li Jiacong caught his breath, paused for a while, and then said, "Want some breakfast?"
"Um?"
“I have steamed buns.”
…
Li Sheng herded the sheep to a patch of lush grass, and Li Jiacong found a large rock nearby to sit on, leaning against a tree. Li Sheng was wearing the clothes he had been given yesterday, which fit perfectly in terms of shoulders and sleeves. After herding the sheep, he slowly walked over, his tall and thin figure sitting on a lower rock next to him, and began to eat a steamed bun.
Li Sheng noticed his gaze following him, his eyes widened slightly, and he asked, "What's wrong?"
Li Jiacong asked directly, "Your parents haven't arrived yet?"
He suddenly realized that since Li Sheng's grandfather passed away, there seemed to have been no one in his family, yet his grandmother said he wasn't an orphan. This question seemed to stump Li Sheng. After a long pause, he turned to look at him and asked, "You don't remember anything from when you were little?"
Li Jiacong: "What is it?"
I said, "We've met before."
Li Jiacong looked away from him: "It's been too long, I don't remember."
Li Sheng didn't reveal any emotion in his eyes: "Okay," he said calmly, looking into the distance, "My dad is gone, my mom might be alive, but I have no news of her."
Li Jiacong paused, realizing that "not an orphan" meant she was practically no different from one. He hesitated for a moment before saying, "If you want to find her, you should be able to. Do you have an address?"
Li Sheng immediately replied, "No!"
Li Jiacong was stunned.
Li Sheng softened his tone: "I...I don't really want to look for her."
Li Jiacong guessed that Li Sheng might hate him because he was abandoned. He didn't mention it again and leaned against the tree: "Okay, but things are developing really fast now."
He looked up at the sky: "Pagers are slowly dying out, and cell phones now have color screens and polyphonic ringtones. The feel of those things in your hand is amazing—it will definitely be easier to find people in the future."
“Probably,” Li Sheng also looked up, the clouds stretching across the horizon, and said, “if that person doesn’t hide.”
A note from the author:
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