Mao Xiaoshu had watched closely just now and listened carefully, and this time he went about it far more cautiously, lifting each stone to inspect it a couple of times before, like Qin Ziheng, setting the flat side on the ground.
The firewood stove didn’t need to be built tall, about forty centimeters, in a C-shape, since a gap had to be left for feeding in the firewood. Mao Xiaoshu knew how to build it now, but as he set the first stone he suddenly turned to look at Qin Ziheng. “That’s right,” Qin Ziheng said, and Mao Xiaoshu immediately broke into a smile, seeming to find fresh strength in his whole body, and had it done in a few quick moves.
He set the pot on top and gave it a testing push, finding the firewood stove hadn’t collapsed at all. His eyes lit up again, and he looked at Qin Ziheng happily, like a dog begging for praise.
Qin Ziheng couldn’t help himself, he reached out and rubbed Mao Xiaoshu’s head. Seeing Mao Xiaoshu go still, he realized he’d overstepped and was about to withdraw his hand, when to his surprise Mao Xiaoshu narrowed his eyes and rubbed his head against Qin Ziheng’s palm, like a cat being petted just right, begging for more.
Qin Ziheng accidentally brushed the fluffy yellow ear standing up on his head, and Mao Xiaoshu, seeming to feel it tickle, immediately twitched the ear this way and that. Qin Ziheng found it novel and rather funny, and asked him:
“What’s your name?”
“I’m Xiaoshu, Mao Xiaoshu.” He pointed to a big tree on the right side of the cave. “This is ‘xiaoshu’, little tree.” Then he pointed to the river across from the cave. “That’s my sister, ‘xiaohe,’ little river. And you?”
Qin Ziheng understood now: he was saying his name was Mao Xiaoshu, “shu” as in tree, and that he had a sister called Xiaohe, “he” as in river. Qin Ziheng answered, “My name is Qin Ziheng.”
Mao Xiaoshu cocked his head.
Qin Ziheng touched his ear again. “What is it?”
“No one in the tribe is called that. It’s strange,” Mao Xiaoshu said.
The Fluffy Tribe had surnames, but they didn’t give overly “profound” or tongue-twisting names, it was either Ah Hong and Ah Lü, or Auntie Baohua and Huya and the like, each carrying a clan name.
Qin Ziheng ruffled Mao Xiaoshu’s head again. “Nothing strange about it. Say it enough times and it’ll roll off the tongue.”
“Mm, right.” Delighted at having his head patted, Mao Xiaoshu wanted all the more to cook something good for Qin Ziheng. He scooped up the pot and went pattering off toward the river again.
Qin Ziheng couldn’t tell what kind of tree the big one beside the cave was, but it was very tall and very large, beyond it was a dense bamboo grove. Far off across from the cave was a river, quite wide, on one side of the river lay a plain, and beyond the plain rose ranges of great mountains, unbroken. A little way to the left of the cave were scattered a number of stone houses, it was early morning now, before mealtime, and only a few had wisps of cooking smoke rising before them.
In the distance the birdsong went on and on, chirping and twittering, very lively.
Absurd as it seemed to him, Qin Ziheng knew he had probably arrived somewhere utterly unfamiliar.
Seeing Mao Xiaoshu’s two ears just now, and that outfit of hide, he could still console himself that maybe Mao Xiaoshu was simply different from ordinary people. But looking at those stone houses not far off, he couldn’t convince himself of anything anymore.
He’d once gone to Yunnan on a business trip, and down at the local level, even the poorest villages there had people who wore clothes and lived in houses of packed earth or wooden walls, topped with roof tiles. But here, everything looked so primitive.
Someone came out of a distant stone house.
For all his years of study, Qin Ziheng’s eyesight was actually a bit blurry, he couldn’t see clearly, past ten meters faces went slightly fuzzy, and past a hundred meters he couldn’t tell people from livestock. He usually wore glasses, but now his glasses had fallen off somewhere. And yet, far as they were, he saw clearly that the person also wore a full hide garment, with a leopard’s tail behind them, another had two very long ears, like a rabbit’s, drooping nearly to their shoulders. The two were talking about something, and before long walked off toward the river.
In that dazed moment Qin Ziheng felt as though he’d been struck a heavy blow with a hammer. His body was still weak to begin with, and seeing this scene, a wave of dizziness swept over him again, he braced against the stone wall to barely steady himself. For a moment he felt as though he still hadn’t woken, or as though he were dreaming, because it was all simply too absurd.
But the endless birdsong in the distance, the heavy weight of the stones in his hands just now, and Mao Xiaoshu’s soft, warm ear, every one of them told him he wasn’t dreaming.
Everything before his eyes was real.
One car accident hadn’t sent him to heaven, it had sent him to a strange place.
Mao Xiaoshu came running back cradling the pot. He was in too much of a hurry, and the pot held so much water that as he ran it sloshed to and fro, soaking a big patch of the hide garment on his chest, but he seemed not to notice. In a rush, the moment he set down the pot he shoved at Qin Ziheng. “You’ve got the hot-hot, you sleep. Xiaoshu’ll cook something good for you.”
Qin Ziheng understood, and said with a smile, “I’m much better. I slept a long while yesterday, and I can’t sleep now. Can I stay here and watch you cook?” His heart was a mess just now, and he had nowhere else to go.
Mao Xiaoshu gazed at him for a moment, wanting to feel his forehead to see whether he was really much better, but seeming afraid Qin Ziheng wouldn’t like it, yet worried he was still sick, so his hand reached out and drew back, reached out and drew back, looking very flustered. Qin Ziheng bent down of his own accord, took his slightly damp, cold hand, and pressed it to his own forehead. “Not so hot anymore, right? I didn’t lie to you.”
It was a very ordinary gesture, but Mao Xiaoshu looked delighted, as if the mere fact that Qin Ziheng didn’t shrink from him, was willing to let him touch, could make him overjoyed. Finding that Qin Ziheng really wasn’t hot anymore, he nodded. “You didn’t lie to Xiaoshu. Then you can sit here.”
“You go on, then,” Qin Ziheng said.
Mao Xiaoshu immediately crouched down by the newly built firewood stove, and then Qin Ziheng saw him stop moving, only his two delicate brows knitting fiercely tight, as if trying to squash a fly.
Qin Ziheng held back a laugh. “What is it?”
Mao Xiaoshu was distressed, feeling utterly useless, an air of dejection about his whole body. “There’s no firewood. What do we do?”
Watching how he did things and how he spoke, Qin Ziheng knew he either lacked life experience or was a bit slow-witted.
Qin Ziheng crouched beside him, bringing his eyes level with Mao Xiaoshu’s. “No firewood, we can go gather some. Gather it and we’ll have it.” He pointed to the mountains across the river. “There’s firewood in the hills. Are you hungry?”
Mao Xiaoshu nodded, then shook his head.
Qin Ziheng looked at him.
Twisting his fingers, Mao Xiaoshu said in a small voice, “Xiaoshu wants to cook for you to eat.”
“Hm?” Qin Ziheng kept looking at him.
“Xiaoshu wants to cook for you. Grandpa Rabbit said you’ve got the hot-hot sickness and have to drink meat soup, drink lots and lots, and then you’ll get better fast, and meat soup is tasty too.” Mao Xiaoshu said, “Yesterday Xiaoshu went to gather meat to cook for you, and got back very late, all dark, and I… I didn’t dare go out. The mountains are far away, and you hadn’t eaten, and were hungry.”
His words were muddled, but not hard to follow. Qin Ziheng asked, “Did you eat anything yesterday, then?” This cave must be Mao Xiaoshu’s home, and there was nothing in it but pucker-fruit, the firewood stove had only just been built, so presumably Mao Xiaoshu hadn’t eaten anything yesterday.
Sure enough, Mao Xiaoshu shook his head.
A whole night without food and he was surely hungry, and that mountain was far, a round trip probably took over an hour.
Qin Ziheng said, “Then I’ll go into the bamboo grove and gather some dry bamboo. Dry bamboo doesn’t burn long, but we can gather plenty.”
With that he stood, meaning to head toward the bamboo grove, but his sleeve was lightly caught by Mao Xiaoshu.
“Hm?” His look asked Mao Xiaoshu what was wrong.
Mao Xiaoshu said in a tiny voice, “Xiaoshu… wants to go with you too.”
He asked it cautiously, in a testing tone.
He’d been busy a good while, and Qin Ziheng hadn’t had the heart just now to make him work more, now that Mao Xiaoshu had offered to come along, Qin Ziheng naturally wouldn’t object.
“You want to come with me?”
Mao Xiaoshu nodded hard again and said obediently, “Mm.”
“All right. Wait for me a moment, I feel a bit warm, let me go into the cave and take off some clothes.” Qin Ziheng was still in the three-piece suit with the long overcoat over it. When he’d come to this place it had been Qingming, and the mountains back home were still very cold, but here it was hot. Since he’d be busy soon, he simply took it all off and was left in a single, very fine white shirt.
When he came out of the cave again, Mao Xiaoshu’s eyes lit up once more.
In the black overcoat, Qin Ziheng had looked cold and severe, humorless, a distance about his whole person, handsome, yes, but with a real sense of remoteness.
Now, in just the white shirt, its hem tucked into fine black suit trousers, white above, black below, his proportions were flawless. Three buttons undone at the collar bared his sexy collarbones and a stretch of fair, fine skin, and the smooth, firm chest showed and hid by turns as he bent to brush the dust off Mao Xiaoshu’s arm. He looked even better this way, crisp and clean, handsome and gentle.
Mao Xiaoshu was struck dumb staring.
Seeing him blankly gaping, Qin Ziheng smiled. It wasn’t the first time he’d been looked at this way, so he felt no embarrassment. He flicked Mao Xiaoshu’s forehead and asked, with obvious amusement in his voice, “Good-looking?”
Mao Xiaoshu’s head swam, his whole self about to spin, and he said loudly, “Good-looking.”
“Had your fill of looking?”
Honest as he was, Mao Xiaoshu shook his head and said loudly, “Not enough.”
His shameless answer made Qin Ziheng laugh again. He found the boy quite adorable, looked simple, yet was unexpectedly guileless and obedient.
The bamboo grew rather densely in the grove, stretching out of sight, probably that was why wild beasts couldn’t get through it, and why everyone had chosen to settle here. On the way Qin Ziheng asked a few questions, and Mao Xiaoshu, off his guard, answered whatever was asked.
He was slow, but not utterly foolish, he understood some things.
He knew the tribe he lived in was called the Fluffy Tribe.
He knew what beasts were in the tribe.
He also knew his father had passed, his mother now lived with Uncle Bao, and a few years back Uncle Bao’s father had come looking, taken his mother and Uncle Bao away from the tribe to live in another tribe, his sister had a mate now too, and there was only him left at home.
Qin Ziheng’s steps paused. “Have you been alone a long time?”
“Mm, a long, long time,” Mao Xiaoshu said.