The air was quiet for a moment before Hua Zizhou spoke up, “Mao’er is not my child, it’s true. You have to believe me. Everyone in the village knows. But some malicious people can’t stand to see me doing well, so they spread rumors that I have an illegitimate child from fooling around outside.”
He had always known that many people in the village slandered him as unclean and had affairs with other people. However, he had grown up in the village and had never been away for long. Since he and his fellow villagers saw each other every day, how could he possibly hide a pregnancy? Moreover, many people had seen him bring the child back from outside the village.
He usually didn’t care what others said about him, but in front of Qu Qing, he wanted to explain but felt his words were weak and unconvincing.
Seeing how sad he looked, Qu Qing walked over, wrapped a cloth around his head, and wiped away the dripping water droplets. “I believe you. Don’t overthink it or be upset. I was just asking, so don’t mind me, okay?”
Hua Zizhou nodded.
Qu Qing suddenly began to realize that if little Qu Xin was not Hua Zizhou’s child, then the “responsibility” mentioned by Hua Zizhou’s mother during their first meeting referred to something else, not to the child.
That meant little Qu Xin was originally not his child.
Upon receiving this information, Qu Qing did not feel disappointed, instead, he felt a sense of relief.
It doesn’t matter if they weren’t biologically related. After all, he could only stay here for a maximum of ten years. If there were blood ties, how could he leave without regret?
He smiled, bent down, and picked up the clean Mao’er who’s following Hua Zizhou, playfully teasing him for a moment. Then he realized he didn’t have much strength left in his hands and put the kid down. Turning around, he said to Jiang Zhu, “Let’s go, I’ll help you take a bath.”
After everyone was clean, the sky darkened, and with the evening breeze blowing, Qu Qing looked at the remaining faint red clouds on the horizon and felt a rare sense of contentment.
Dragging his tired body home, he tidied up a bit, closed the doors and windows, and collapsed into bed.
Since the bed was narrow and there were many people, they split into two sides. Qu Qing and Jiang Zhu slept on one side, while Hua Zizhou and little Qu Xin took the other side. Even so, the tall Qu Qing had to sleep sideways to ensure he wouldn’t fall off the bed.
After the exhausting in the past two days, Qu Qing fell asleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow, and the two children also fell asleep quickly. The only one who couldn’t sleep was Hua Zizhou, who seemed troubled by his thoughts.
He closed his eyes and felt the steady breathing of the other two on the bed. For some reason, he recalled the time when he first found Mao’er.
At that time, he was still just a child himself, so one can imagine how difficult it was to take care of a newborn baby. Yet, he managed to persevere and got through it all on his own.
His family was actually quite annoyed by the extra child in the house and had been planning to give Mao’er away. However, because of Mao’er’s unusual eyes, they could never find a family willing to adopt him, so they ended up raising him.
When Mao’er was three years old, Hua Zizhou’s older brother fell and broke his bone. Somehow, this incident was blamed on little Mao’er, with claims that his bad luck caused such a misfortune.
Naturally, Hua Zizhou was unwilling to back down and had a huge argument with his brother in retaliation. Afterward, he went back to work in the fields, leaving Mao’er at home, only to return and find the kid missing. Noticing the strange looks from his family, he realized Mao’er had been abandoned.
If it hadn’t been for his family holding him back, he might have fought with his second brother, who had discarded Mao’er, until they were both bloodied.
From that point on, he kept Mao’er by his side at all times, which worsened his relationship with his family considerably.
He was surprised by his own willpower, realizing that he had actually managed to raise a child, and now, he was even married…
He turned over beside him and slowly reached out to touch little Qu Xin’s head, feeling grateful that he had such a good dad.
Yet, he couldn’t shake off an inexplicable feeling of gloom, and it wasn’t until much later that he understood why he felt this way. It was because he was starting to vaguely realize that he was not worthy of Qu Qing.
Night.
The vast starry sky spun slowly around the North Star until the moon was about to set, and the sky began to lighten.
In his sleep, Qu Qing turned over, only to unexpectedly fall to the ground with a muffled grunt.
He opened his eyes and saw the thatched roof with holes above him, as well as the other three sleeping soundly on the bed. It took him a moment to realize where he was.
Then he frowned at the too-narrow bed, wondering if there was any way to widen this small, shabby bed. After all, he didn’t want to be woken up by falling every day, and it was too uncomfortable to sleep so tightly together.
Hua Zizhou, who had been fast asleep, heard the noise and immediately sat up. Seeing Qu Qing on the floor, he quickly jumped out of bed to help him up.
Qu Qing waved his hand and said in a low voice, “I’m fine, you can go back to sleep.”
Seeing that he was not going to sleep, Hua Zizhou shook his head and replied softly, “I’m up too.”
“Great! You can come with me to a place and help me with something.”
The two of them got dressed, carefully making sure to make no noise as they went outside. It was a bit cold outside, and Qu Qing couldn’t help but rub his arms while Hua Zizhou shivered slightly.
Qu Qing, holding a sickle, explained his purpose.
“Our bed is too narrow. I just thought of a way to temporarily use stones as supports and then cut some bamboo for the bed surface. Otherwise, it will be too difficult to sleep.”
Hearing that they were going to the bamboo forest, Hua Zizhou also took a small hoe with him, and the two of them went out together. The plants by the roadside were covered with pale white dew in the morning.
Once they reached the bamboo forest, Hua Zizhou dug up a few bamboo shoots. It was then that Qu Qing realized why he had brought the hoe and couldn’t help but exclaim in admiration, “Wow, Zizhou! How did I forget about bamboo shoots? This is great, we can have stir-fried bamboo shoots for lunch today!”
Qu Qing quickly selected suitable poles, cut a few, stripped off the branches, and dragged them back. He cut the poles into sections and then sliced them into about three-centimeter-wide pieces. After that, he found a large number of stones and swiftly began the work of widening the bed.
The original bed was only about 1.3 to 1.4 meters wide, and this time he planned to widen it directly to two meters.
He stacked the stones to form bed posts and then wove and reinforced a row of posts that were nearly one meter wide.
It was simpler than expected. Looking at the two-meter-wide bed that cost him nothing and reeked of poverty, Qu Qing actually felt a strange sense of accomplishment in his heart. He pointed to the bed with a hint of pride, saying, “Not bad, right?”
Hua Zizhou looked at Qu Qing and responded in agreement, “Yeah.”
Qu Qing suddenly felt a bit embarrassed, saying, “For now, let’s use this one. It’s a bit shabby, but I believe it won’t be long before we can replace it with a new and better bed, along with a house.”
Hua Zizhou responded again, but deep down, he was engulfed by an indescribable emotion. At this moment, Qu Qing appeared to him like an eagle ready to soar high, while he felt like a wild chicken gazing up from the ground.
The distance between him and Qu Qing seemed to be growing ever wider. Meanwhile, on the other side of the village.
The thugs who had teamed up with Er Mazi to rob Jiang Zhu’s family heard about what had happened at Er Mazi’s house. When they found out that everything had been moved to Qu Qing’s, they immediately became a bit envious. After mocking Er Mazi for a while, they planned to seek trouble for Qu Qing.
The leader said, “We have numbers on our side. As long as we threaten him a bit, he’ll definitely hand over everything. He’s just an orphan without parents, a coward who squanders his wealth.”
Upon hearing this, the others chuckled maliciously, calculating how to divide the spoils they might acquire and wondering if Qu Qing still had anything valuable left in his home, given that he had once been quite wealthy.