Translator: Dj22031
Editor: Dj22031
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After they left, Li Yi’er lay on the ground, spitting out blood and breathing heavily, his breathing sounding like the wind blowing into a broken pot. He stared wide-eyed at the spider web in the corner of the wall.
A moment later, he raised his hand and lovingly stroked the little head in his arms.
After an unknown amount of time, a few drops of moonlight seeped through the window, and the surroundings were completely quiet.
Li Yi’er sat up and slowly started a fire. He held the cat and looked at it for a long time before putting it into the fire to burn to ashes.
The light from the fire reflected in his eyes was no longer warm yellow, but only cold and chilling.
He sat by the fire until dawn, until the last spark went out and turned into a wisp of smoke.
Li Yi’er took out the ashes and put them into a small portable jar, along with a red paper with the character “福” (fortune) on it, and placed it in his pocket.
He arrived at the fisherman’s house, following the directions the fisherman had given him.
The fisherman wasn’t surprised: “Come sit down, have something to eat first.”
Li Yi’er nodded and ate all the steamed buns and porridge on the table.
The fisherman asked him, “You poor child, is there anything else I can help you with?”
Li Yi’er pointed to the knife at the fisherman’s waist.
The fisherman paused for a moment, then smiled: “You have good taste. This knife is quite sharp. You can use it to clear paths and cut branches on the mountain, or to pick fish and chop bones. I can give it to you, but you have to be careful when using it so you don’t hurt yourself.” He thought about how hard it was for the child to prepare food, and having a handy knife to cook food was indeed better than begging.
Li Yi’er took the knife and bowed to him in gratitude.
….
“Yong Wang, Yong Wang!!” Qian Benzhen slung the basket of wild vegetables over his shoulder. “Hey, that’s strange. I asked you to go over there and see if there were any mushrooms, but I haven’t seen you for ages, and there’s been no response.”
Zhu Yong and Qian Benzhen lived close by and had played together since childhood. Today, they came to the mountain to find some wild vegetables to take back, otherwise they would be scolded by their mothers for doing nothing at home.
The children in the village matured early; they started looking for things in the mountains at a very young age and could distinguish between edible wild vegetables and mushrooms.
Seeing that it was getting late and they had gathered almost everything, Qian Benzhen went to find him. As he rounded a small hill, he tripped over something.
“Damn it, what is that?” Qian Benzhen barely steadied himself, looked down and saw a hand. “Ah—”
Zhu Yong was lying there, and he was covered in blood.
Qian Benzhen quickly put down the basket, squatted down, and reached out with trembling hands to check his breath— he was not breathing.
His legs buckled and he sat down on the ground, his back tingling with fear as he sensed a cold gaze behind him.
He turned around and saw Li Yi’er standing behind him, already holding a knife high.
No, no—
In an instant, blood gushed out, and along with the moonlight, it seeped into the soil.
There was one person left.
Li Yi’er descended the mountain expressionlessly, washed the knife clean, and also washed the blood off his body. Then, without stopping, he went to Wang Siyun’s orchard.
After a meal, Wang Siyun would often stroll through his own orchard, and sometimes he would walk through the orchard to wander around the streets.
“Dad, I’m full. I’m going out for a walk.”
After saying that, Wang Siyun put down his chopsticks, walked out the door with a nonchalant air, and as usual, planned to walk through the orchard and then find Qian Benzhen and the others to go for a stroll.
It was dark in the woods, but he was so familiar with the area and the route was pretty much the same such that he didn’t even pay much attention.
Suddenly, he heard the sound of a branch breaking underfoot, but it wasn’t him making that sound.
“Who is it? What are you doing in my woods so late at night?!”
A gust of wind blew by, rustling the leaves and masking many sounds. Wang Siyun listened carefully for a while, but found nothing unusual, so he decided to continue walking.
Just then, the clouds in the sky were blown away, revealing the bright moon. The moonlight fell on the hall, and Wang Siyun noticed the shadow at his feet.
He quickly dodged to the side, avoiding Li Yi’er’s knife.
Wang Siyun laughed angrily: “Well, you freak, you’ve got guts, daring to brandish a knife at your father. Do you think I don’t have one?” Having been a domineering figure for so long, how could he not carry a knife?
Li Yi’er remained unfazed and continued to attack him. The two quickly became entangled in a fierce fight, using only brute force without any skill.
Li Yi’er’s disadvantage was that compared to the fat Wang Siyun, his strength was simply no match.
“You little beast, see how your father will cripple you today!!!” Wang Siyun’s neck was still throbbing from the bite wound, so of course he wouldn’t let him off easily.
Li Yi’er was quickly pinned against the tree trunk by Wang Siyun, with nowhere left to retreat.
Wang Siyun snatched the knife from him and maliciously provoked, “If you strip naked right now and kneel down in the street…”
He never expected that Li Yi’er would be willing to risk his life. Li Yi’er used his right hand to block him, not caring that his right hand was pierced by the sharp blade. Taking advantage of his distraction, he took away his other knife and forcefully stabbed it into his neck.
Wang Siyun then realized that Li Yi’er wanted to kill him. He wanted to fight back with his knife, but Li Yi’er caught his knife with his right hand.
In the face of life and death, they both saw ferocity in each other’s eyes and tried their best to kill each other.
Blood flowed freely and seeped into the tree roots.
With a “snap,” Li Yi’er’s right hand was severed and fell to the ground, while his left hand still gripped the knife and was deeply stabbed into Wang Siyun’s neck.
Wang Siyun used up his last bit of strength and collapsed.
The excruciating pain caused Li Yi’er to convulse and spasm all over his body, but he didn’t forget to deliver a few more blows to Wang Siyun.
Under the cover of night, Li Yi’er fled the village.
Finally, he collapsed from exhaustion beside a lake, blood from his severed arm flowing from the lakeside into the water.
As the faint morning light appeared on the horizon, Li Yi’er took out the red paper soaked in blood from his pocket. The character “福” (fortune) on it was blurred, and half of the cat’s paw print remained.
He smirked, a half-smile playing on his lips, and placed the paper on the chest where the kitten often nestled.
“Ding ding ding—”
A man wearing a bamboo hat and a monk’s robe emerged from the bamboo forest. His youthful face was extremely alluring, and he held a Buddhist rosary in his left hand and a bell in his right.
“My name is Yan Wusheng, and I have come to find you, my destined one.”
Looking into the child’s dull, lifeless eyes, he laughed and said, “Completely devoid of interest?”
“Those whom I, Yan Wusheng, wish to save will not die, and you cannot die even if you wish to.”
….
“Wen Shu, you’re having a nightmare, wake up,” You Xu called softly.
The two were initially huddled together for warmth, but Wen Shu suddenly developed a high fever in the middle of the night after the surgery, perhaps because it was too cold in the cave.
You Xu sensed that he was sleeping very restlessly, his face was pale, he was sweating profusely, and he was mumbling something incoherently.
Seeing that he was clutching his chest, Youxu thought he was injured there, so she hurriedly opened his clothes to take a look, only to find a piece of red paper inside.
It was about the size of a palm, not very neat, a little wrinkled, with the edges worn rough, and most of the paper was dark red, as if it had been dyed.
She carefully unfolded it and saw a large, blurry character on it, which was extremely difficult to make out. The only thing she could see was half a cat’s paw print in the lower right corner.
Red paper with the character “福” (fortune/blessing), and a cat’s paw print.
This was a birthday gift she gave him when she was still a kitten, and she never expected that he would still keep it to this day.
For some reason, You Xu suddenly remembered something her college roommate had said: if a person clings to the past and is nostalgic, such a person is likely to become obsessed, stubborn and rigid, devoted yet cold-hearted.
You Xu snapped out of her daze and noticed that Wen Shu’s eyelids were twicthing, so she stuffed the red paper back in. “Wen Shu, you’re awake?”
The scenes from his dream kept replaying in his mind. Wen Shu opened his eyes, somewhat dazed, his vision unfocused, but he could still see those clear and bright eyes from his dream.
Seeing that he was not awake, You Xu reached out and waved his hand in front of his eyes, but unexpectedly his wrist was grabbed.
His voice was hoarse as he said urgently, “It’s you!”
“Me? What?” You Xu was completely bewildered. “What is me?!”
After staring at each other for a while, Wen Shu came to his senses, composed himself, released her, slowly lowered his eyelashes, and then whispered, “It’s nothing.”
The author has something to say:
Wen Shu: Other people’s dream lover is a person, mine is a cat.
You Xu: As expected of me.
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