Chapter 6
Ignored, I finally felt a sense of presence, but the old man's words made me frown, and my mind suddenly flashed back to what Teng Zheng had said back in the alley. I couldn't help but turn and look at Li Ying'an, who also turned his head to look at me. Only then did I realize that at less than 1.7 meters tall, I was still almost a head shorter than him.
Although Li Ying'an did look a little malnourished, he was also much taller than me.
"No, we just met a friend of Xiaoju on the road, so we came together to bury Xiaoju."
Li Ying'an introduced me in a reasonable way. I retracted my inquiring gaze, turned to look at the old man opposite, then pointed to my throat and waved my hand: I am a mute and cannot speak.
Perhaps the old man saw that I was a stranger and a mute, so he naturally associated me with deafness. He seemed to have tacitly agreed that I was a deaf-mute, so he just nodded thoughtfully.
Then he said to Li Ying'an, "Let's keep the child here for dinner. You two can go inside and rest for a while. If you feel uncomfortable, don't hold it in. Talk to me if you have anything to say."
Li Ying'an smiled and responded to him tiredly.
When Li Ying'an invited me to sit in his house, I did not refuse, even though he repeatedly emphasized to me that the environment in the house was very bad.
I have never seen his house, and after hearing what he said, I imagined that kind of dirty and messy environment in my mind. But even if it is really as I imagined, I will not dislike it. After all, I am a cat that has seen harsh conditions when wandering outside.
But when I saw his hut with my own eyes, I felt that Li Ying'an was really trying his best to belittle himself.
The furnishings inside the house were extremely clean and tidy. Although there were few pieces of furniture, one could count them on one hand, but the touch of the hand revealed that it was spotless. A bed, a table, a stool, and a stove that had gone out were all the living utensils in the small house.
The first thing I saw was the quilt that the shop couple had thrown at Li Ying'an. It was clean, soft, and had no peculiar smell. There was only a faint smell of sand in the air.
I sat on his bed, looked up and looked around.
Suddenly, I patted his bed gently, and the "bang bang" sound attracted the attention of Li Ying'an who was burning the stove.
He half-knelt and looked back at me, his expression full of confusion.
I pointed at him: You seem to understand my sign language.
He turned around and gestured to me: There was a deaf-mute person in my family, so I have known the meaning of sign language since I was a child.
So that’s how it is, I thought to myself.
To allow him to communicate better with me, I put my hands behind my ears: I could hear.
Immediately, Li Ying'an showed a look of sudden enlightenment, and he said to me, "No wonder you were able to understand what I said before."
When the stove was burning more vigorously, Li Ying'an took out a thermos from the cabinet to boil water. Then, he went out to the old man's house nearby to get a cup of hot water and handed it to me steadily.
I wasn't too keen on water so I just took a sip, and when I subconsciously wanted to lick it I made a sudden correction.
"Can I ask how old you are?" he asked.
I put down the cup of water, and made a number with one hand, then one with the other.
"So young, only twelve years old?" Obviously, my real appearance did not seem to match the number I gestured.
I shook my head and put two numbers again, but this time the first one would come later than the second: actually twenty-one.
"Twenty-one?" As expected, my rebuttal surprised Li Ying'an even more. "You look very young."
I leaned on my hands and shrugged, indicating that I was used to this kind of answer.
He was right when he said I was small. A 21-year-old boy is less than 1.7 meters tall. Even if he eats delicious food and drinks spicy drinks, a person transformed from a cat will not give as healthy an impression as a person himself. He would be labeled as malnourished.
But I didn't think so: What about you? I think you don't look very healthy either. Are you old this year?
He made a "V" sign to me: "I'm only two years older than you."
My eyes suddenly widened, my face frozen for a moment. I still couldn't quite believe that Li Ying'an was only two years older than me. After all, people between 20 and 30 don't look much different. Even so, Li Ying'an struck me as closer to 30. I hadn't expected him to be so much younger than I'd imagined, only two years older than me.
I stared at him for a while, my mind full of the words "he looks old". I finally overturned myself and suddenly remembered that Li Ying'an had just lost the orange cat that had been with him for several months.
Afraid of making him feel worse, I patiently organized my words and finally said:... I didn't expect you are only two years older than me, but you look very mature.
Li Ying'an smiled slightly at what I said.
From his expression, he probably guessed that I called him old, but he was a nice guy and didn't look down on me like some people do.
When the atmosphere gradually became awkward, Li Ying'an suddenly asked me the reason why I was mute, and the topic was about to continue to expand in depth, so I told him everything without waiting for him to ask one by one.
The only thing I lied to him about was that I was mute. I couldn't tell him that I was actually a cat, so I lied and said I couldn't speak since I was born.
Come to think of it, this is not a lie. I have always been a cat that can only meow, so how could I know how to speak human language? It is not unreasonable for Empress Wuqing to deprive me of the right to speak.
Then, perhaps like Teng Zheng, he thought that my background seemed to be pretty good, and asked me why I didn't go to a big hospital for treatment. I decided to confront him.
When I say I have no parents, of course I mean in terms of people. I have survived the past twenty years by wandering on my own.
As for why I didn't go to an orphanage, I have many reasons to give, such as I don't know about such a thing, there is no such thing in the area where I wander, I don't like the environment there, etc., but I don't want to say more. After all, asking why again will not change the existing facts. Instead of asking about my unbearable past and the reasons, it is better to see whether there is still a way forward for my future, so I just made up a nonsense.
My life is basically as simple as that of a homeless person. Being alive is the highest luxury. As for high-level topics like academics, Li Ying'an is a person who can read the situation and didn't say anything more.
But what surprised me was that Li Ying'an also had a low level of education. To be precise, he dropped out of junior high school and started farming.
I looked at the man in front of me. Although his whole face gave people the impression of being honest and simple, his eyes were really dazzling. When he was sad, his eyes were slightly moist, like a shining silver star.
The eyes of a scholar are full of wisdom and sharp. No matter how you look at him, he doesn't look like someone who just graduated from junior high school. Instead, he looks like someone who has some knowledge.
"But we can't be too absolute," Li Ying'an murmured suddenly, "After junior high school, I also learned some things from a female teacher, so I still have some reserves."
I didn't ask much about why I had to study alone with a teacher instead of in school.
I thought of Li Ying'an's crazy mother and his family who didn't like him when I first met him. They thought he couldn't continue his studies, and in most cases it was because his family blocked his studies.
There was another period of silent silence, and this time Li Ying'an did not ask any more questions.
The old man outside the door's words "Dinner is ready" broke all the silence, and soon the only sound in the room was the sound of chewing.
After dinner, knowing that I had no home, Li Ying'an specifically offered to take me in for one night.
Thinking about what I had experienced today, I felt guilty about it, so I didn't refuse him again. Besides, I didn't know where to sleep tonight, and I was a little afraid that if I turned into a cat, I would be killed.
The room was not big, with a bed taking up half of it. But even so, it was still a little crowded for Li Ying'an and I to lie on it.
I was lying flat on my back, he was lying on his side, and occasionally a few dogs barked outside the house.
From where I lay, I could see the swaying branches of the sycamore tree through the small windproof window.
Suddenly, an extremely subtle and low sob sound came from the quiet space. Although this pitiful voice tried hard to hide, it still could not escape my sensitive ears.
I subconsciously looked towards Li Ying'an's position, and all I could see was his thin back. If I looked more carefully, I could clearly observe that his shoulders were not as smooth as they should be when breathing normally, but were shaking in a suppressed manner when his emotions erupted.
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