The Ma family often scolded him. Ma Xiaoshun led a group of children isolating him. Sometimes even some gossipy women and fulang pointed fingers at him.
So in his shallow and limited memory, he believed himself to be unwelcome and disliked by others.
But little brother was cute, so he couldn't help but ask.
"Of course you can!" Wu Ger replied, gently pinching the boy's cheek. "Would you like me to help you cut the grass?"
Guaizai shook his head earnestly. "No need! Guaizai is very capable at working!"
Wu Ger laughed out loud.
Capable?
A tuft of grass took half a shichen to cut. Any slower and the family goat would starve to death.
That evening, after Fang Zichen returned home and they had eaten dinner, Zhao Ger gave Guaizai a bath, dried him, and then asked Fang Zichen to carry the boy to their room to get him dressed.
Afterward, Zhao Ger tossed the used bathwater onto the vegetable patch. It had been a busy day, and he had worked up a sweat. Since there was still plenty of hot water left in the pot, he decided to wash his hair and take a proper bath himself. By the time he finished washing his hair and bathing, a considerable amount of time had passed. As he approached the bedroom door, the sound of Guaizai’s clear, bell-like laughter rang out from within.
Guaizai was still completely naked, his little bottom exposed. It was impossible to tell what sort of game he was playing with Fang Zichen. The boy had latched onto him like an octopus, his short legs wrapped tightly around Fang Zichen's neck and his small hands clutching his father's head, pressing his bare stomach flush against Fang Zichen's face.
Fang Zichen was kneeling on the bed, like a mad bull, violently shaking his head, seemingly trying to throw Guaizai off.
Guaizai's two butt cheeks were squarely facing the door. He clung on with all his might, his face flushed red.
Fang Zichen shook his head until he grew dizzy and began to feel suffocated. Left with no other option, he could only suck on Guaizai's belly like sucking jelly.
Guaizai couldn't stand the tickling, squirming and laughing continuously.
Fortunately, it wasn't very cold now. If it were winter, he might have caught a chill.
Zhao Ger sighed and went over to pull Guaizai down: "Put your clothes on first."
Fang Zichen was so tired he collapsed onto the bed. Zhao Ger remembered that the kitchen cabinet hadn't been closed, and there was a plate of leftover dishes inside. The mice were rampant at night, so after dressing Guaizai, he went out again.
Guaizai crawled over and lay on Fang Zichen's chest: "Father, Guaizai wants to hear you tell a story."
"Alright!" Fang Zichen said.
The stories children should hear ought to be educational and beneficial, but Fang Zichen simply refused to act like a proper person!
"Once upon a time, there was a child called Wang Tiezhu..."
The Wang Tiezhu in his story had terrible luck! He encountered ghosts.
When he went to fetch water at night, the well gurgled and bubbled. He leaned over to look, and a woman with disheveled hair climbed out. Her nails were red, she wore a white dress, her body was bloated, her arms covered in corpse spots. Her left eyeball had been gouged out, leaving an empty socket crawling with maggots. A small snake slithered out from her nose.
That female ghost stretched out her rotting hands, revealing stark white bones, wanting to drag Wang Tiezhu into the well. Wang Tiezhu, brave and fearless, scared the female ghost away with a stream of his virgin boy's urine.
Then, when he was sleeping at night, he heard noises under the bed, as if someone was scratching his bedboard with their nails, one scrape after another. He peeked over the edge of the bed and came face to face with a female ghost who had no whites in her eyes and a mouth split open to her ears.
Later, he found his back aching terribly. When passing by a river and looking at his reflection in the water, he saw a female ghost oozing black liquid clinging to his back.
Anyway, it was a series of absurd ghost encounters.
The ghost would appear in the water vat, the outhouse, the cabinet, the big pot, under the bed, on his back—like the air, it was everywhere and could seep through any crack.
Fang Zichen made the story sound so real. At that moment, only an oil lamp was lit in the room, its bean-sized flame casting dim light. The wind blew in through the open window and the roof, making the flame flicker.
As he spoke, he even imitated the ghost's eerie, sinister voice. Guaizai listened until his little heart felt like it was about to shatter, his two small hands tightly clutching Fang Zichen's arm.
Last time Liuliu came to play at their house, Fang Zichen also told ghost stories. A few days later, Zhou Ger came visiting and said he didn't know what was wrong with Liuliu—these past few nights, he had been getting jumpy and suspicious, often scared into wetting himself midnight.
Zhao Ger felt utterly embarrassed at the time. He didn't dare say anything, nor did he have the face to explain.
Zhao Ger was now standing at the doorway, his temple throbbing faintly. He wanted to go to the kitchen and grab a wooden stick to teach Fang Zichen a lesson, but...
A gust of wind blew past, rustling the leaves behind the house, the sound seeming mixed with some strange, unknown noises.
Zhao Ger's back turned cold. He felt as if a pair of crimson eyes were staring through the holes in the fence from outside, watching him eerily. He whooshed into the room.
The moment Fang Zichen saw him come in and met Zhao Ger's eyes that seemed capable of devouring someone, he broke out in a cold sweat and immediately stopped talking.
Guaizai frowned. He had drunk a large bowl of bone broth in the evening and now felt an urgent need to relieve himself. He sat up, tugged at Fang Zichen's sleeve, and whispered: "Father, Guaizai needs to pee."
If he had said he wanted water, Fang Zichen might have immediately gone to fetch it for him. But saying he wanted to pee...
He didn't want to take Guaizai.
To be honest, Fang Zichen had been in Xiaohe Village for so long and had adapted to most things, but he just couldn't get used to the outhouses here.
The outhouses here were really something else.
He didn't know if other places were all like this, but the outhouses in Xiaohe Village were quite rudimentary. They dug a big, deep pit, placed a few wooden planks over the opening with a gap left in the middle, then enclosed the outside—that became their outhouse.
Every time Fang Zichen used the outhouse, it was sheer agony. If it weren't for the fact that he was absolutely unable to hold it in, and relieving himself outright outside was socially unacceptable, he truly had no desire to step into that outhouse. The water in the pit was pitch black and reeked terribly. When waste dropped in, it went plop with a splash. Even though he knew the wooden planks would block it and the filth wouldn't actually splash onto him, every time he answered nature's call, he would still subconsciously jerk upright. Using that pit was like performing a series of squats—it was utterly exhausting.
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