They continued walking out of the village for a while and noticed that the water seemed to have gotten deeper.
Old Madam Yang said to her son, “Youwei, you should get on too. The water is almost up to your upper thighs. If you stay soaked for too long, your legs will start hurting.”
Fang Youwei took a look. Although the current wasn’t swift, the water level kept rising. He nodded to his mother and sat down directly on the wooden plank, rolling down his pants that had been tucked up to his thighs. His feet had turned white and wrinkled from being submerged for so long.
He pulled a long bamboo pole out from under the luggage and, like poling a raft, pushed it down to the bottom and propelled the plank forward. This was much faster than walking and pushing it from behind.
Jiayin found this very interesting. She crawled out of Li’s arms, ran over, and sat down next to Fang Youwei. She watched as he pulled the bamboo pole out of the water and pushed it down again, sending the plank gliding forward quickly.
She looked at Fang Youwei curiously and asked, “Uncle, is there water everywhere?”
Fang Youwei shook his head. “No. There was a drought around here before—no water anywhere. The water only appeared after several days of heavy rain. Our town is low-lying, which is why there’s so much flooding—it’s all from the mountain-top lakes that couldn’t hold any more and overflowed. Once we keep heading east, there won’t be as much water. The terrain there is much higher.”
Jiayin scratched her head. “Then if there’s no water, how will this wooden plank move? Will we have to drag it?”
Fang Youwei patted her little head and laughed heartily. “Of course not! There are two wooden wheels tied underneath this plank. When we reach flat ground, we just attach them. This wooden plank is actually a cart. Because of all the water, I took the wheels off and tied them underneath crosswise.”
When Ao Jiayin heard that wheels were tied underneath, she immediately stuck her head straight into the water. Looking around underwater, sure enough, two wooden wheels were tied under the plank, along with two protruding brackets and a crossbeam.
This action of hers startled Fang Youwei and Old Madam Yang—all three of them jumped! Fang Youwei scooped her up with one hand.
Completely unaware of the alarm she had caused, the little dragon cub looked up with an innocent, beaming smile and said to them, “There really are wheels underneath!”
The four family members looked at her speechlessly. This child had really scared them to death.
Li reached out, pulled her into her arms, and took out a dry cloth to wipe her hair. Jiayin’s hair wasn’t very long—it only reached a little past her shoulders. Now that it was all down, two dry cloths were enough to get it mostly dry.
While wiping, Li scolded her, “How could you stick your head into the water like that! Luckily your uncle grabbed you right away, or you would have fallen in headfirst. Besides, doing that makes it very easy to choke on water. Don’t ever do that again, understand?”
Jiayin looked at her blankly. Why couldn’t she put her head in the water? She wasn’t afraid of water—water was where she liked to be most! Her home, the Dragon Palace, was in the water. Then she suddenly remembered that these were ordinary humans, probably different from her. So she didn’t argue and just nodded to show she understood. These ordinary humans were really quite amazing—they could float on water and had wheels so they could travel on dry land. She looked up at the grass mat overhead. Hmm, and they had a canopy for shelter too.
Old Madam Yang saw that she had stopped talking and thought she was sleepy—after all, little children need a lot of sleep.
She patted her own lap and said to her, “Jiayin, are you feeling sleepy? Why don’t you lie down on Grandaunt’s lap and rest for a while?”
Ao Jiayin shook her head. “I don’t want to sleep. I want to play.” She often went days without sleeping, and also often slept for days at a time.
Fang Zhiyuan noticed that she was just holding the little wooden horse he had given her without actually playing with it. He thought she didn’t like it and said, “Little sister, don’t you like the little horse? When we see Big Cousin, I’ll have him carve something else for you. Big Cousin is a famous carpenter in town! He carved this little horse for me.”