Fang Youwei looked down at Jiayin and said, “This is a wild donkey. With some training, it can help pull the cart and do farm work. Eating it would be such a waste. Let’s take it back and use it to pull our cart.”
Jiayin nodded, glanced at the wild donkey, and said to it telepathically in her mind: Come back with us.
The wild donkey suddenly heard a soft, childish voice in its head. It looked at the little girl in front of it and nodded its donkey head in awe.
Fang Youwei stroked the fur on its back. Seeing that it had stopped trembling, he tentatively pulled the makeshift halter. To his surprise, the donkey obediently followed him forward.
Fang Youwei didn’t think much of it. He was just thrilled to have gotten a wild donkey for free, along with so much other prey.
When the three of them returned to the shelter, Old Madam Yang had already boiled water, and Li was rinsing rice.
For breakfast, they planned to make some rice porridge and reheat the leftover coarse grain pancakes from last night.
Fang Zhiyuan shouted from a distance, “Mom! Grandma! Look what we brought back! A wild goat! And a donkey!”
Old Madam Yang and Li looked over and were both astonished! There was Fang Youwei carrying his backpack and a goat on his shoulder, with a sturdy big black donkey walking beside him!
Li hurried over and exclaimed, “What a fat black goat! And where did this donkey come from?”
Seeing the donkey following them step by step as they walked back, she guessed, “This wouldn’t be someone’s lost donkey, would it?”
Before Fang Youwei could answer, they reached the clearing where they had eaten yesterday. Old Madam Yang walked over and said, “Whose donkey is this? How did it end up in the mountains?”
Since wild donkeys wouldn’t be so obedient, she assumed it was someone’s domesticated donkey that had run off into the mountains.
Fang Youwei beamed with joy and said, “This is a wild donkey. I don’t know what happened, but it was trembling in the bushes. It probably ran into a fierce beast and got scared out of its wits. I calmed it down a little, and it followed me back.”
Fang Youwei thought his calming had done the trick and said this proudly to his mother.
Old Madam Yang glanced at him, not quite believing his words. But after carefully examining the marks on the donkey’s body, she confirmed it was indeed a wild donkey. It didn’t look like it had ever been tamed—there were no long-term halter marks on it.
Fang Youwei set down the black goat he had been carrying on his shoulder, tied the donkey to a nearby tree, took off his backpack, and pulled out the rabbit to hand to Li.
“This is great. Once the floodwaters recede, we’ll have a draft animal to pull the cart. That’ll free me up, and I can focus on driving the cart from now on,” Fang Youwei said happily.
“Yes, you won’t have to work like a beast of burden anymore,” the old lady said with a smile, teasing her son.
Li laughed quietly to herself as she busied herself preparing the rabbit.
They had originally planned to eat the rabbit from yesterday for lunch, with just some pancakes and rice porridge for breakfast.
But now that they had two rabbits, they decided to stew them both together. They could reheat them for lunch and dinner.
Li skillfully skinned the rabbit. Fang Youwei put the goat on the cart, planning to save it for the next day.
Jiayin asked curiously, “Uncle, why are you putting it away? Weren’t we going to roast the goat?”
Fang Zhiyuan also looked at his father in confusion.
Fang Youwei patted both their heads and replied, “We’ll eat the two rabbits today. We’ll have the goat tomorrow.”
The two little ones nodded and ran off to watch Li skin the rabbits.
Li skinned the rabbits and chopped them into pieces. The pot had water in it, but she hadn’t added the rice yet. She blanched the rabbit pieces in the water.
Then she poured out the water, heated oil in the pot, and started stewing the rabbit.