Brother Tie took the ring and the money, and genuinely did not mention it to anyone. Wen Ye figured that was a given; on this matter, they were two grasshoppers tied to the same string. If Aunt Rong found out he had dared to take the ring and not hand it over, he would not get off easily either.
Not only did Brother Tie keep quiet, but he also helped her hide the medicine so it would not be discovered during Aunt Rong’s body search during the evening inspection.
As soon as the handover was done, he found an opportunity to give it back to her.
Holding the 5140, Aunt Rong smiled with benevolent eyes. “Xiao Wu, I was just trying to scare you this morning. Right after you left, I gave Xiao Xiao her medicine. If you don’t believe me, ask Yellow Hair. Isn’t that right, Yellow Hair?”
Yellow Hair hurriedly nodded. “That’s right, Xiao Wu! Aunt Rong is so good to you kids; she even gave Xiao Xiao some porridge.”
Within Wen Ye, any feelings of sorrow or joy had already faded away. She only wanted to go upstairs and see how Gu Sheng was doing.
Carrying the bottle of purified water gifted by Aunt Rong, Wen Ye returned to the small room. She walked quickly and then knelt beside Gu Sheng. Reaching out to touch Gu Sheng’s head, she truly doubted what Aunt Rong had said. It was every bit as burning hot as it had been this morning.
Wen Ye took out the medicine. She could not understand the instructions, so while they were in the van, she had asked Brother Tie. Brother Tie had merely glanced at them briefly and told her that both types should be taken twice a day. Having looked at them so quickly, she doubted whether he had even looked carefully or if he was just brushing her off. But she did not have anyone else to ask.
Wen Ye first propped Gu Sheng up, sat down behind her so that Gu Sheng could lean against her, and then carefully popped the pills out of the blister pack. She gave Gu Sheng a gentle shake. This medicine was not liquid; Gu Sheng had to swallow it herself.
Gu Sheng had been in a feverish sleep all day. She felt someone forcing medicine and water down her throat, but feeling dizzy and nauseous, she threw it right back up. She heard the person next to her muttering curses: “Damn it, take the damn medicine or don’t, crap.”
It sounded like a man’s voice. Struggling, Gu Sheng tried to open her eyes, but no matter what she did, she could not.
Fortunately, the man left right after cursing.
In a hazy, dreamlike state, she heard her mother playing the piano, asking her, “Darling, when you grow up, do you want to be a pianist?”
A moment later, she was at school again, and the teacher was praising her from the podium: “Gu Sheng got the top rank in her grade on this exam again. Excellent job!”
After school, her mom and dad were waiting for her at the school gates. Overjoyed, Gu Sheng ran quickly toward her mother and threw herself into her arms.
“Gu Sheng, Gu Sheng!” She heard her mother calling her.
“Mom.”
Holding Gu Sheng, Wen Ye heard her weak voice calling for her mother.
Torn with heartache and anxiety, Wen Ye realized Gu Sheng’s fever had made her delirious. She gently pinched the area right beneath Gu Sheng’s nose, having seen others do that in an outdoor screening of a movie, though she had no idea if it would work.
Pinching away, Wen Ye kept calling out to her.
Seeing Gu Sheng finally open her eyes, Wen Ye let out a breath of relief. “Gu Sheng, you are finally awake. You scared me to death.”
Gu Sheng slowly blinked her eyes, and the double vision in front of her gradually merged into one. She saw clearly now: it was not mom. It was Wen Ye.
She pressed her forehead a little closer into the crook of Wen Ye’s neck. Although it was not mom, the sense of security Wen Ye gave her right then was no less than that of the mother in her hallucination.
Wen Ye patted Gu Sheng’s shoulder, speaking in a soft, gentle voice, “Gu Sheng, do not go back to sleep just yet. Take your medicine first, then you can sleep.”
She brought the medicine to Gu Sheng’s lips and nudged it forward slightly. “Ah, open wide.”
Listening to Wen Ye coaxing her, Gu Sheng suddenly felt like crying, but she could not. She did not have the strength. She parted her lips slightly, letting Wen Ye put the medicine in.
Seeing Gu Sheng willingly open her mouth, Wen Ye quickly opened the water bottle and pressed it to Gu Sheng’s lips.
Gu Sheng obediently drank two sips of water and, fighting down the nausea, swallowed the capsule. She had no idea where this medicine came from, but it must have taken a massive amount of effort to get. She could not throw it up.
Seeing her take the medicine, Wen Ye was delighted. “Gu Sheng is amazing. Now you need to take one more.”
Gu Sheng’s heart felt a sweet ache. She gave Wen Ye a weak, strengthless glance. Clearly she was the older one, yet she was the one being taken care of by Wen Ye.
After feeding her the medicine, Wen Ye put the rest away safely. She helped Gu Sheng drink a few more sips of water a little at a time, and then slowly assisted her in lying back down.
As soon as Gu Sheng lay down, another wave of the room spinning came over her. Closing her eyes, she gently rolled her eyeballs, waiting a moment until she felt a bit better. Opening her eyes again, she looked at Wen Ye. “Wen Ye.”
Rumble. Before Gu Sheng could finish speaking, Wen Ye’s stomach interrupted her.
Self-consciously, Wen Ye rubbed her stomach.
Gu Sheng asked, “Have you not eaten?”
“Xiao Wu has not eaten since this morning. She begged Aunt Rong on her knees this morning, and Aunt Rong only gave her the medicine after making her pick pockets for a full 5000 today.” This was said by Xiao Si. Today, Xiao Wu’s actions had left her stunned. She could not bring herself to do that, nor did she believe anyone would ever do such a thing for her.
Gu Sheng’s eyes instantly turned red. She wanted to reach out and pull Wen Ye close, but when she lifted her arm, she had no strength.
Sensing this, Wen Ye took off her outer jacket, crawled under the covers, and taking Gu Sheng’s hand, said, “I am not really that hungry today.”
Sobbing with a hitch in her breath, Gu Sheng cried, “I am sorry, I am always dragging you down.”
Wen Ye replied, “We are good friends. We are supposed to take care of each other.”
With that, she asked Gu Sheng, “Are we good friends?”
Gu Sheng nodded. Right after nodding, feeling dizzy again, she leaned closer into Wen Ye’s embrace. “Yes, we are the best of friends.”
With a satisfied smile, Wen Ye said, “That settles it then.”
After taking her medicine, Gu Sheng fell into a deep sleep, but Wen Ye did not dare sleep. Every once in a while, she would reach out to feel Gu Sheng’s forehead. Gu Sheng was sweating profusely, and Wen Ye kept wiping the sweat away using the cuff of her inner shirt.
Aside from sweating on her forehead, Gu Sheng’s neck and body were also drenched. Fearing that keeping the damp clothes plastered against her skin would make her catch an even worse cold, Wen Ye took off Gu Sheng’s top. At first, she thought about using Gu Sheng’s own top to wipe her body, but worried that it would not dry by tomorrow morning and leave Gu Sheng with nothing to wear, she instead stripped off her own inner shirt entirely. The two of them lay bare in the cramped bedding, and Wen Ye used her own shirt to wipe away the sweat from Gu Sheng’s body bit by bit.
Wiping down toward her chest, Wen Ye realized that Gu Sheng was much bigger than her. Had growing three years older really made this much of a difference? She did not quite understand it, only finding it quite amazing. Out of curiosity, Wen Ye reached out a single finger and gave a gentle poke. Her finger immediately sank into the softness.
“Wen Ye, what are you doing?”
Startled, Wen Ye pulled her hand back, looked up, and found that Gu Sheng had woken up at some point and was staring right at her.
Feeling a bit guilty, Wen Ye offered, “I was worried that your sweat-drenched clothes would make you catch a cold, so I helped take them off to wipe you down.” Right, that was the truth to begin with. Why was she feeling guilty?
“Then why did you poke there?”
Tongue-tied, Wen Ye did not know either. Why did she? Did curiosity count as a reason?
“Is it fun to poke?” Gu Sheng also raised a hand and poked Wen Ye in the exact same spot. “Does not feel any different.”
Blushing with embarrassment, Wen Ye retorted, “Mine is so small, of course it is not special. Yours is softer, that is all.”
Giving a weak smile, Gu Sheng leaned back into Wen Ye’s warm embrace. “So cold.” Her mother had told her that this place on her body could not be touched by just anyone, but Wen Ye was not just anyone. She was her very, very best friend.
Stopping her nonsense, Wen Ye hugged Gu Sheng tighter, skin against skin, transmitting her own body heat directly to warm her up without any barriers.
In the second half of the night, Gu Sheng finally stopped sweating so much, and her head was not burning nearly as hot either. Setting her mind at ease, Wen Ye wiped Gu Sheng down one last time and carefully dressed her back in her clothes.
Wen Ye kept watch until almost dawn. Waiting until Gu Sheng’s body temperature grew closer and closer to her own, she finally could not fight it anymore and drifted off to sleep. Her final conscious thought right before dozing off was that that doctor really was a miracle worker and the medicine he prescribed was truly magic.
A week after Gu Sheng recovered, the only holiday Wen Ye could remember arrived: New Year’s Eve.
Why was it the only one she remembered? Because this was the only day of the year when Aunt Rong gave them half a day off, from afternoon until evening. Everyone everywhere was at home celebrating the New Year. There were not many people out on the streets, so there was no profit to be picked from pockets anyway, and Aunt Rong and her crew wanted to celebrate the New Year themselves.
By noon that day, all the enforcers guarding them brought their people back and reported to Aunt Rong. With a wave of her hand, Aunt Rong granted them half a day off, and they happily headed out to find some fun.
As for the children doing chores like Wen Ye, they were not allowed to step a single half-step outside the building. Still, not having to work in the chilling wind and being able to stay indoors was already plenty satisfying to Wen Ye.
Wrapped in quilts and leaning against the wall in the corner of their room, Wen Ye and Gu Sheng sat cross-legged side by side. Sunlight from outside the window still reached this spot, making it nice and warm.
Glancing around at the others, Wen Ye saw that everyone else was playing their own games, with no one paying attention to their corner. She reached into her clothes and pulled out a notebook and a ballpoint pen.
“Gu Sheng, teach me how to write.”
Taking the notebook and pen, Gu Sheng smiled and said, “Okay.”
Opening the notebook, Gu Sheng paused to think, then wrote down Wen, Wen, Wen, Ye, Ye, Ye, Ye.
She asked Wen Ye, “Do you remember which wen and which ye you saw?”
Relying on her memory, Wen Ye inspected them one by one. She remembered that the two characters she had seen were very complex and hard to write. Looking back and forth, these two looked the most similar.
Holding the pen, Wen Ye circled the characters for Wen and Ye.
Gu Sheng read them aloud: “Wen Ye. Such a nice name.”
Then, Gu Sheng wrote the two characters Wen Ye in a blank space and pointed them out to Wen Ye. “This is your name.”
Wen Ye asked, “Then how do you write Gu Sheng?”
Lifting her hand, Gu Sheng wrote Gu Sheng directly beneath Wen Ye’s name.
Pointing at her own, Wen Ye said, “Wen Ye,” and then pointed at Gu Sheng’s, “Gu Sheng.”
“Look, our names are written so close together, too.”
Without finding her childish, Gu Sheng smiled along and asked, “Do you want to learn how to write your own name?”
Wen Ye nodded her head as fast as a chick pecking at rice.
Gu Sheng first taught Wen Ye how to hold the pen, and Wen Ye caught on very quickly.
Once she got the hang of it, Gu Sheng let Wen Ye hold the pen while she placed her own hand over Wen Ye’s, guiding her hand across the paper stroke by stroke.
“These are the strokes for Wen. Try it yourself.” After guiding her through it a few times, Gu Sheng let go of her hand.
Following the model stroke by stroke, Wen Ye tried her best. The final result turned out pretty decent. Although the strokes were not quite fluid, you could at least recognize it as a Wen.
Using the same method, Wen Ye next learned Ye, Gu, and Sheng.
By the time Wen Ye could write these characters correctly all on her own in one go, the sun had already set.
With no light left inside the room, it was no longer suitable for writing, so Wen Ye carefully packed away the notebook and pen.
After sitting idly for a little while, they finally heard the sound of bowls being banged downstairs. The children hurried downstairs to collect their meals. Today’s meal was still steamed buns, but each person got an extra egg. Munching on their eggs, they listened to Aunt Rong lecture: “Work harder next year. Those who do well picking pockets will get eggs to eat.”
In one ear and out the other, Wen Ye just kept her head down and focused on eating her egg.
As soon as they finished eating, they were herded back upstairs, and the door was locked from the outside because Aunt Rong and the others were heading out to enjoy themselves.
Wen Ye and Gu Sheng huddled together. Ever since that incident, they had not slept apart, continuously sharing two quilts.
Xiao Si and Xiao Liu copied them, stacking their two quilts together to sleep under, and praised them for being smart. It really was warm this way.
Since it was still early and neither of them felt sleepy, Wen Ye listened as Gu Sheng talked about things back home.
She learned that Gu Sheng’s home was in Shencheng, and that her family had a big dog named Beibei.
After talking for a bit, Gu Sheng turned the tables and asked about Wen Ye’s childhood.
Wen Ye shared, “I do not remember much. I only know that my mom died very early, and my dad sold me to Aunt Rong. I was still really little back then, so I have pretty much forgotten about things in the village. But I do remember there was a little stream in the village that was exceptionally clear and cool. It felt so nice to touch. The very first time I heard you speak, I thought your voice sounded just like that stream.”
Hearing that she had been sold to Aunt Rong, Gu Sheng knitted her brows in heartache. Hearing that her voice sounded like a stream, she asked with curiosity, “Why did it sound like a stream?”
Wen Ye thought about it for a moment. “Because both are so comforting. The water of the stream felt wonderful to touch, and your voice sounds wonderful to listen to.”
Gu Sheng smiled.