The sun was shining bright on Saturday. The frost resting on the tree branches outside the window slowly melted in the sunlight, dripping down as crystal-clear drops of water.
Lin Duole had just woken up. Raising his head by chance, he saw a footless parrot perched on a withered branch in the yard. As a child, he had seen footless birds before—they never landed on the ground and could only keep flying, because landing meant death.
Lin Duole stared at the treetop. In his line of sight, the parrot bit down firmly on the dry branch with its beak, striving to maintain its balance in its own way. What on earth had stripped a bird of its feet? No one knew what it had been through.
“You little brat! The sun is burning your backside! What are you still doing dazed under the covers?!”
Dragging a bag of pig feed with one hand, the old woman walked into the room and yanked him up from the bed. He truly hated how his grandmother was always shoving and pulling him like this—her grip was heavy, and her movements were exceedingly rough.
“I can get up myself.” Lin Duole tugged his arm, shaking off the old woman’s thick, calloused hand.
“Rebellious, aren’t you?! You wild little pup, you dare talk back!” Seeing him struggle, the old woman dropped the bag of feed. Using both hands to grab Lin Duole by the collar, she hoisted him out into the courtyard: “Don’t think that just because your mom colluded with that bunch from the township government I’m out of ways to deal with you! You lazy, greedy brat! Letting you go to school for a few days and you dare act lazy with me? In this house, unless you’re dead or crippled, you get up and work for me before dawn! Day and night, without stop!”
Choked by his collar, Lin Duole squirmed in pain. Amid his struggling limbs, he kicked over the pig feed the old woman had dropped. Seeing this, the old woman raised her hand to smack his rear. It wasn’t that he hadn’t been spanked by his grandmother before, but those were things from his early childhood—now a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old boy, nothing mattered more to him than saving face.
“You can’t spank me like I’m a kid anymore!” With a hard yank, Lin Duole escaped from under his grandmother’s hands. But the courtyard was small, with nowhere to hide. In desperation, he could only scramble up a tree like a cat, startling the footless parrot into taking flight.
Sure enough, humans were just like birds. He suddenly realized that for some living beings, simply staying alive required every ounce of effort.
“You still want to stop me from spanking you? You little flirt! Born with that seductive face of your mother’s—how did you end up being born a boy?!” The grandmother was tall and sturdy. Seeing her grandson go up the tree, she turned around and grabbed the long, thick walking stick inside the house, using it to poke at Lin Duole’s rear behind him. “If you were a girl, I would’ve sold you to a rich family by now!”
Lin Duole hugged the trunk tightly as he kept climbing higher, yet he was still jabbed in the rear by the old woman’s walking stick, feeling deeply humiliated.
However, even greater embarrassment lay ahead. A black sedan pulled up to his front gate, and someone stepped out of the passenger seat—it was the guy who had helped him beat back his classmates yesterday.
He seemed to be called Lu Chengyu.
Lu Chengyu and his father got out of the car and walked into the courtyard. Carrying rice, flour, cooking oil, and various expensive nutritional supplements, they stepped through the gate only to be met with the comical sight of the old woman poking her grandson’s rear with a walking stick while the grandson hugged a tree for dear life.
“Duole?”
Lin Duole heard the tall man call his name. The man wore gold-rimmed glasses, the corners of his thin lips slightly turned up, with a half-finger-wide scar visible near his prominent brow bone.
Hearing the voice, the grandmother stopped her movements. Turning around, she spat a mouthful of saliva toward Lu Tingyu, “Look who decided to show up! If it isn’t Boss Lu.”
The grandmother sneered, continuing, “Back when you and Duole’s mom were carrying on that scandalous affair, the whole village and every village for miles around knew about it! Truly shameless! After all these years, you still have the nerve to come looking for that sly vixen Ye Wanqiu? Taking advantage of the fact that our Gengsheng died young?!”
“Grandmother!” Lin Duole shouted sharply. Wrapping his arms around the tree trunk, his entire body was shivering from the cold, yet his tone remained firm as he said, “You are not allowed to slander my mom like that!”
It was the first time in his life he had yelled out loud like this. After shouting, he felt a bit dazed, his mind short-circuiting as he looked at Lu Chengyu standing not far away. The young man stood there like a noble presence, exuding an air of privilege and comfort just by standing there. Why was it that every time he ran into Lu Chengyu, it was under such utterly humiliating circumstances? Lin Duole drooped his eyelids, feeling consumed by shame.
Lu Tingyu narrowed his eyes slightly, adjusting his gold-rimmed glasses, and spoke to Duole’s grandmother with a measured, serious breath: “Out of respect for your position as Wanqiu’s mother-in-law, I address you respectfully as Ma’am. Coming here unannounced, I can overlook your insults directed at me, but please keep your tongue civil. Do not insult Wanqiu with such vile words at every turn, and do not escalate this to a point where things cannot be undone!”
Having seen this man first thing in the morning, the old woman was practically driven mad with rage. Gripping her cane, she wanted to step forward to give him a piece of her mind, but her arm was pulled back by the grandfather, who walked out from the house: “Old woman, haven’t you caused enough of a scene?! What he said is right! How much longer do you plan to make a fuss over these groundless accusations?! Do you want to embarrass ourselves and make a public spectacle just like back then?!”
Life was far too absurd. Lin Duole couldn’t understand at all why a dignified, refined, and prominent figure would appear here, let alone have a connection with his mother and stir up trouble with his unreasonable grandmother.
The courtyard gate was wide open. Because of the scene just now, quite a few people had gathered outside. Many onlookers holding children poked their heads in, trying to hear even more shocking revelations.
With the grandfather’s persuasion, the grandmother seemed to calm down, no longer acting so hysterically hostile toward Lu Tingyu. Setting down the gifts in his hands, Lu Tingyu walked over to the tree and caught Lin Duole as he jumped down.
“You must be Lele, right? Wanqiu’s child?”
Lin Duole widened his eyes, looking at the man before him in confusion, then glanced at Lu Chengyu not far away, before nodding his head.
“I am Lu Tingyu, a… close friend of your mother’s.” He paused slightly as he said this, a hint of helplessness leaking through his tone. “You can call me Uncle Lu from now on. Your mother’s condition over the past few days hasn’t been very optimistic, and the hospital is doing everything they can to save her. Would you like to come with Uncle Lu to see her now?”
Lin Duole felt as though he had lost his soul. He didn’t agree or show any emotional response along the way, simply following Lu Chengyu into the car in a daze.
The winding, rugged mountain roads were far from smooth, bumping continuously even inside the sedan. Lu Tingyu held the steering wheel, driving fast along the edge of cliffs and ravines. Seeing that neither of the two kids in the back was speaking, he noticed Lu Chengyu turning his head out the window, seemingly admiring the scenery along the way. But he knew his son—that furrowed brow, though unclear what he was thinking, was enough to express his current displeasure.
Lin Duole, on the other hand, sat with his hands folded over his lap, maintaining a rigid posture, blinking his eyelids only once every ten seconds or so. Looking closely, his eyes glistened with tears, though none spilled over. Through the rear-view mirror, Lu Tingyu kept his eyes on Lin Duole—they were a pair of large, round, expressive almond eyes, almost identical to his mother’s.
The atmosphere in the car was somewhat stifling. Lu Tingyu tried to start a conversation, asking proactively, “Lele, how old are you? What grade are you in?”
Lin Duole’s stiff back straightened even further. He pursed his lips and replied, “Thirteen. Second year of middle school.”
“Then you’re a year younger than Chengyu—he’s in second year of middle school too.” Lu Tingyu already knew all about Lin Duole’s background, yet he continued casually, “Chengyu, as the older brother, you haven’t even greeted your younger brother.”
Older brother? Younger brother? What kind of brothers are we supposed to be? Half-brothers?
Lu Chengyu kept a cold face. Thinking back to the task his father assigned yesterday, he had actually run out to these wild, desolate mountains without a second thought. Lu Tingyu claimed to be a friend of many years, yet today he heard an entirely different version of events from the old woman. It made sense—his father had been in business for many years, possessing high prestige, immense wealth, and respectable looks. What kind of woman couldn’t a man like that have? Why would a man like that have a “friend of many years” in the deep mountains that required a special trip to meet?
The answer was painfully obvious.
Lu Tingyu glanced at his son. Lu Chengyu never replied, but his expression grew increasingly sour. The father made a sudden assumption, believing his son was just unhappy because he had been sent to a mountain area and hadn’t been able to leave yet.
“Conditions in the mountains aren’t like the city. Endure it for a few days, and once I finish handling this matter, I’ll take you back,” Lu Tingyu said, father and son locking eyes through the rear-view mirror. “Besides, your younger brother grew up in an environment like this since he was small. You should be content, rather than pulling a sour face to show you can’t adapt.”
“Got it.” Lu Chengyu finally responded. After speaking, he leaned a bit closer to Lin Duole, glanced at him, and said in a listless tone, “I’ll learn well from my younger brother.”
Lin Duole felt he had become a bit strange, completely losing the friendly attitude from their first meeting yesterday. As he uttered those words, a awkward vibe seemed to slip into Lin Duole’s ears along with his voice, making his heart itch.
The car sped all the way, quickly arriving at the hospital. By the time Lin Duole rushed over, the doctor was issuing a critical condition notice.
Inside the ward, Ye Wanqiu’s lips were pale, devoid of any color. She lay lifelessly on the hospital bed. Seeing Lu Tingyu enter with the two children, she waved her hand toward Duole.
To give mother and son space to talk, Lu Tingyu led Lu Chengyu to sit quietly on the bench outside the ward.
“Mom.” Wearing a ragged, navy-blue padded jacket, Lin Duole hurried over. Shouting “Mom” with a tearful choke, he buried his face straight into Ye Wanqiu’s chest. The tears he had held back the entire journey completely broke down the moment he saw his mother.
“Lele, did you come with Uncle Lu?”
Lin Duole’s throat choked up, and he nodded.
“You didn’t go to school for half a month and didn’t even tell Mom. I only found out when Teacher Xiao visited the hospital. My son is so outstanding, yet he almost couldn’t even go to school.” Ye Wanqiu patted her son’s back to comfort him. Her lifelong obsession was education—it was the only way she believed an ordinary person could change their fate. Yet certain events in the past had seemed like destiny, cutting off her path.
“I didn’t want you to worry,” Lin Duole explained softly, finally raising his eyes.
“Good child, if you can’t go to school properly, even if Mom leaves for heaven, I won’t be able to rest in peace.”
“Mom, don’t talk like that, it makes me sad.” Lin Duole couldn’t help wiping his tears with his hand.
Ye Wanqiu had no strength left. She held her son’s hand, her breathing as faint as a gust of wind: “Lele, Mom doesn’t have much time left. I know saying this to you is too cruel. But birth, old age, sickness, and death are foreordained—no one can avoid them.”
“Mom’s life has been filled with too many things going against my wishes. For a long time, I even thought about just dying and getting it over with.”
Lin Duole’s tears flowed even harder, his head shaking like a rattle.
“But luckily, I had you later on. Whenever I thought of how cute you were as a toddler, I felt like I had something to look forward to in this world. Because of your arrival, I had the motivation to keep living.”
“Mom…” Lin Duole choked out, “Actually, it’s the same for me.”
Wasn’t Lin Duole’s own world another helpless plight? The grandmother’s harshness and suppression, the grandfather’s incompetence and indifference, his classmates’ verbal abuse and slander, and the wild, filthy rumors from the villagers calling him unclean and a bastard behind his back.
This world had given him endless malice, but his mother was his sole motivation to withstand it all.
“Good child, after Mom leaves, what I worry about most is you—whether you can study well and grow up healthy.” Ye Wanqiu knit her brows, emotion hanging heavily on her eyelashes. “When I got Teacher Xiao’s call a week ago, I was frantic with worry. Your grandmother isn’t bad at heart, but she’s been crushed too hard by life, and her thoughts are different from ours. What will you do if she stops you from going to school again after I’m gone?”
Lin Duole didn’t speak; clearly, he had thought about that day as well.
“Mom thinks studying is important because it’s a path for kids in the mountains to know the world and walk out into it. Studying might not necessarily make you a lot of money in the future, but it can broaden your horizons and let you know that beyond Taoxi Village, there is a much vaster world out there. I don’t want you to be trapped here; I want you to go out and see the world outside.”
“Mom, I will.” Lin Duole squeezed his mother’s hand, promising her: “I will leave this small town in the future and see the outside world for you.”
Ye Wanqiu looked at her child and continued, “Uncle Lu is Mom’s friend. Lele, after I leave, I’m truly worried about your situation at your grandmother’s house. So on my deathbed, I want to entrust you to Uncle Lu. Let him support your education and protect you as you grow up, okay?”
Lin Duole furrowed his brow. He understood his mother’s good intentions completely and knew what kind of person she was. Yet, recalling the wild words spoken by his grandmother this morning and the rumors whispered by the village women over the years, he hesitated repeatedly before finally asking: “Mom, is Uncle Lu… is he that bad man from back then?”