The person had rushed out from the left, and on the right was a slope, with a cement-built irrigation ditch below. The car rolled over several times down the slope before slamming violently into it.
Protected by the seatbelt, Qin Ziheng wasn’t thrown out, but his forehead struck the window hard. He felt something warm trickling down from his brow. The phone was still ringing, he tried to reach for it, but his fingertips only twitched, unable to lift no matter what. He hurt everywhere, his vision began to go crimson. He seemed to see Tang Juan, her face white, come running down from the mountain, calling him urgently, Xiao Heng.
His throat was parched, he couldn’t make a reply.
His gaze shifted again, and in the hazy mist and rain ahead, there appeared, when, he didn’t know, the dirt road he’d walked ten thousand times as a child. He saw Grandpa coming toward him with Bao Wa’er on his back. Bao Wa’er was holding an umbrella, lying against Grandpa Qin’s shoulder, one hand gripping the umbrella pole, the other reaching forward to touch Grandpa’s forehead, as if to check whether he was sweating, and asking him, Grandpa, aren’t you tired?
“Not tired. Was my Bao Wa’er good at school today?”
“Yes, Grandpa. I paid attention in class and didn’t fidget.”
“I knew my Bao Wa’er is the best-behaved.”
“Grandpa herds the cattle up in the hills, works so hard. Bao Wa’er will study hard, will work hard, and earn lots and lots of money for Grandpa someday.”
“Silly child, Grandpa doesn’t find it hard. As long as my Bao Wa’er is always happy, Grandpa would be glad even in death.”
Grandfather and grandson talked on to themselves, passing straight through the front of the car, walking right past Qin Ziheng, along that dirt road, slowly off into the distance.
Qin Ziheng watched them walk farther and farther away, until they gradually vanished into the thick white mist.
“Grandpa…”
After that soft murmur, he slowly closed his eyes.
Fluffy Tribe.
Mao Xiaoshu was up bright and early. His stomach was growling and rumbling with hunger. On the big leaf in the corner of the cave there were still two fruits. Mao Xiaoshu grabbed them, wiped them on his hide garment, and, hair a tangled mess, began crunching away.
The fruits were only egg-sized, but very astringent, Mao Xiaoshu ate them baring his teeth, his whole face scrunched up.
He ate both, chewing up and swallowing even the skins, and his stomach was still empty.
Yesterday he’d searched the hills a long while and turned up only a dozen or so fruits. These fruits were watery and didn’t fill you up, two pees later and his stomach would be growling again.
Mao Xiaoshu thought it over: so as not to go hungry today, he’d go into the hills again to look for more wild fruit.
Wild fruit wasn’t as good as meat, but it beat an empty belly. At the thought of meat, he couldn’t help licking his lips.
He hadn’t eaten meat in nearly a year. Demi-beasts and female beasts had little strength, and hunting was dangerous, so it was usually the male beasts who did that work.
The tribe’s demi-beasts and females spent their days mending hide garments at home, or going to the edge of the woods to find fruit and dig up tubers. When the male beasts brought back a kill, they’d help skin it and portion out the meat. No one was bold enough to go into the deep woods to hunt.
Mao Xiaoshu was bold, though. His sister had married out, his father was dead, and his mother had formed a new family with another male beast, leaving him the only one at home. Back before he’d come of age, he was among the tribe’s weak and vulnerable, so every month the chief would send some meat over to him.
He had a big appetite, and the meat the chief sent, along with what his sister and brother-in-law gave, honestly wasn’t enough to fill the gaps in his teeth, but it was better than nothing, and at least once a month he could ease the craving.
Once he came of age, though, the tribe stopped giving him a share of meat. And these past two years his brother-in-law had broken his leg hunting, his sister’s family didn’t even have enough to eat, so how could they spare any for him?
There’d been a time he craved meat so badly he actually went into the woods, but he caught nothing, and a White-Fur Beast kicked him in the waist and sent him flying eight or nine meters. If his brother-in-law’s father and the other male beasts hadn’t happened to be out hunting, spotted him, and carried him back, he’d probably have stiffened up in those woods long ago. That time he’d lain flat for the better part of a month before he could get up.
Mao Xiaoshu was easygoing by nature, but that one time had scared him half to death. However much he craved meat now, he didn’t dare go into the woods again, he just looked for a bit of food around the outskirts to fill his belly.
Just now, as he reached the riverbank, two female beasts saw him and let out a little cry.
“Xiaoshu, up this early?”
“Mm.” Mao Xiaoshu patted his stomach. “It’s bright out. Xiaoshu’s belly is hungry, so I’m going to find food. Where’s Sister Ah Hong off to?”
One of the female beasts strained to open a corner of the green bundle in her arms to show Mao Xiaoshu, it was ox intestines wrapped in banana leaves.
Mao Xiaoshu remembered.
Yesterday the hunting party had gone out and caught two Bighorn Beasts.
The snow season was a little over three months away, and the tribe had been busy lately, even the male beasts of the hunting party were rushing about. The woods were dangerous, so the male beasts usually went in groups, whoever put in the most effort got the innards and offal of the kill.
The innards weren’t tasty, smelly things, but they were better than the green, astringent wild fruit.
Mao Xiaoshu looked away and secretly swallowed, not daring to keep staring.
A few days ago, going to his sister’s, he’d passed outside Uncle Bao’s stone house, where Auntie Baohua was boiling meat, so fragrant he couldn’t move his feet. He hadn’t been able to help stopping to look a moment or two longer, and Auntie Baohua, thinking he was hoping to cadge a bite, had hurriedly carried the pot into the cave.
His sister had told him not to stare so fixedly in the future, it wasn’t good.
As for why it wasn’t good, Mao Xiaoshu didn’t quite understand.
At the hunt two days ago, Ali had put in the most effort, so naturally the Bighorn Beast’s innards went to Ali.
Sister Ah Hong was Ali’s mate. Once she’d washed the ox intestines, Sister Ah Hong would get to eat something good.
Mao Xiaoshu felt a little envious.
Thinking of the boiled intestines, his stomach growled again.
The female beast beside Ah Hong heard it, her brows knitting slightly, and instinctively hid the intestines behind her back.
Seeing Mao Xiaoshu’s cheeks a little sunken with hunger, Ah Hong felt a pang of pity.
Back when Uncle Mao was still alive, whenever he came home from a hunt with wild fruit and saw her, he’d always hand her a few.
Uncle Mao had returned to the Beast God’s embrace, and Auntie Mao had partnered with Uncle Ah Yu, Sister Mao had married out, and now there was only Mao Xiaoshu. He’d come of age, so the tribe no longer gave him a share of meat, and he was a demi-beast whose mind wasn’t quite right, probably hadn’t eaten meat in a long time. Rather pitiful.
Ah Hong said, “Come eat at my stone house later.” Before she’d finished, the female beast beside her tugged at her.
“Sister-in-law.” Ah Li’s tone held some displeasure.
She hadn’t eaten meat in a long while either. Because they had to stockpile food for the snow season, her mother hardly ever boiled meat, lately it had been boiled cassava, several days running now, and her stomach hadn’t a drop of grease in it, it was miserable. It was only yesterday, after she’d pestered her mother, that her mother had allowed them a meal of Bighorn intestines.
But she knew, too, that she could eat at most one length of intestine and a bowl of soup, any more and there’d surely be none left.
Because the household’s male beasts had to come first.
Her father and three older brothers couldn’t hunt without their strength, they had to eat more. Hunting was dangerous, go hungry, run too slow, and you might never come back.
The share she got was already small. Add another mouth, and she’d surely be down to a couple of bites.
Mao Xiaoshu’s mind wasn’t quick, but he was sensitive to the goodwill and ill will of other beasts.
Sensing Ah Li’s displeasure, he grew a little flustered. Head lowered, at a loss and uneasy, he kept plucking at his worn-out, ill-fitting hide trousers and shook his head.
“No need, no need.” And then he ran off.
“Hey, Xiaoshu, wait.” Ah Hong called after him.
Mao Xiaoshu stopped and looked back timidly, glancing at them with unease. Seeing Ah Li looking at him, he immediately dropped his head like a child who’d done wrong, not daring to meet her eyes.
Ah Hong sighed. She knew Mao Xiaoshu’s mind wasn’t quick, and that he lived alone, Sister Mao used to be able to lend a hand or two, but this year probably couldn’t anymore. She asked, “Where are you off to?”
Mao Xiaoshu pointed to the woods across the river. “To find wild fruit.”
“Find plenty. The snow season’s coming before long, so you’ve got to stockpile some wild fruit. Otherwise, what will you eat when it comes?” Ah Hong said.
In the Beast World the snow season was fraught with danger, and the woods more so. All through the snow season, not only did the beastmen suffer, but the wild beasts of the woods suffered too. With food scarce, the beasts grew even more savage, not content to come into the tribe looking for food, they’d go mad at the sight of a beastman and lunge to bite.
On top of that, the snow season was bitterly cold and game was scarce, so the beastmen always stockpiled food ahead of time to eat through it.
Thinking of Mao Xiaoshu living alone, and that his house probably had no beast fur either, Ah Hong added, “Cut some fluff-grass too and dry it out. You know fluff-grass, don’t you?”
Mao Xiaoshu nodded.
“Do you have a bone knife at home?” Ah Hong asked.
Bone knives were ground by the male beasts from beast bones, very sharp and very tough, good for chopping bone or wood alike.
Mao Xiaoshu had had one in his cave, but a beast of the tribe had borrowed it and never returned it. When he’d gone to ask that female beast for it back, she’d said she’d broken it, and hadn’t compensated him either.
Mao Xiaoshu shook his head and said honestly, “Don’t have one. It broke.”
“Then come to my stone house tomorrow and get one,” Ah Hong said.
Mao Xiaoshu glanced carefully at Ah Li, and only nodded once he saw she wasn’t displeased.
Lending out a bone knife was no trouble, and Ah Li didn’t object. The two of them crouched at the riverbank washing the ox intestines. From a distance, Mao Xiaoshu could still hear Ah Li asking, displeased, why Ah Hong had invited him to eat at their home.
“What if Mao Xiaoshu starts sponging off us from now on?”
“He won’t, surely.”
“Why wouldn’t he? He’s a demi-beast, and simple-minded. Once the snow season leaves him with nothing to eat, you feed him once, and you’ll see, come the time his belly’s empty he’ll be squatting outside our house begging for food.”
Ah Hong was about to say, that couldn’t be, but seeing Ah Li jerk her chin toward Xiao Hu’s father not far off, she remembered last snow season, when Mao Xiaoshu had squatted outside Xiao Hu’s cave begging for food, and fell silent too.
Mao Xiaoshu heard it. Head down, he said nothing and walked quietly toward the outskirts of the tribe.
He wanted to say he hadn’t gone to Xiao Hu’s to beg for food, he’d been playing with Xiao Hu, and when Xiao Hu ate he’d squatted outside to wait, and Uncle Hu had handed him a piece of meat, so he’d eaten it.
After he finished, his sister had hit him, and everyone had scolded him too.
Mao Xiaoshu felt a little unhappy, not knowing why everyone had scolded him.
In front of the Fluffy Tribe was a river, the only way across to the woods opposite was a small dirt path. This season the woods were full of wild fruit, but the fruit in the safe zone outside the woods was often picked over by the tribe’s female beasts and demi-beasts, and there wasn’t much left.