After hesitating for a moment, Xiao Feng spoke softly.
"N-no... don't want to go back."
His voice was very low, swallowed by the surrounding noise as soon as it left his lips.
Zhao Ger didn't catch it and leaned closer: "What did you just say?"
Xiao Feng nervously gripped the rough wooden stick, like a student caught not paying attention in class.
"I... I don't want to... go back."
Zhao Ger asked him: "Then where do you want to go?"
"I... I don't know." Xiao Feng shook his head and said, "If I go back... I'll... I'll be beaten."
Liu Gouzi wouldn’t care what had happened to him; his only concern would be whether the household chores had been done.
As was usual, if he returned, Liu Gouzi would undoubtedly beat him first without asking why—because he hadn't done any work for so many days, and chores must have piled up.
Even if Liu Gouzi learned he had met with disaster in the mountains, he would only scold him for bringing it on himself, beat him, and then make him work.
Going back meant a fate worse than death.
He was terrified of being beaten.
Truly terrified.
Zhao Ger fell silent. Seeing that merely talking about it made Xiao Feng tremble with fear—his back hunched, sweating profusely in the middle of winter, whether from exhaustion, pain, or something else—Zhao Ger stared at him intently. The cold wind chilled him to the bone. In a daze, Xiao Feng's figure seemed to slowly transform, becoming his own seven-year-old self.
Their forms overlapped perfectly—both equally thin, as if born inferior, their backs perpetually bent!
Back then, he had been just the same.
After being beaten by Ma Dazhuang, he was punished by standing in the yard. He stood motionless. When a light wind rose, he swayed, trembling along with it.
He wanted to run away. Turning to look back, the courtyard gate stood wide open. But the repeated beatings had carved a deep servility into his very bones—he did not dare take even one step across that threshold.
His deed of sale was in the Ma family's hands. He couldn't leave that place. Even if he could, the world was vast—where could he go?
For just an instant, his heart clenched in pain, as if being gnawed by ten thousand ants.
Xiao Feng's current helpless, ashamed appearance was so strikingly similar to his own back then. It was as if he were looking at his own childhood self.
Xiao Feng said: "I... I can b-beg on... on the street."
If even sturdy men from the village couldn't find work in town, with his small frame it would be even more impossible. But he could beg. He'd heard that begging could also earn some silver. People said an ordinary beggar could get three or four copper coins a day. If he met a kind-hearted master, he could earn even more.
Three coppers a day, six in two days. He could eat just one steamed bun, or...
Once, a wealthy master held a celebration, booked a restaurant, and the restaurant, afraid they'd be short-handed, hired temporary laborers from outside. Liu Gouzi happened to be available and helped with slaughtering pigs.
Returning home for a meal, looking at the boiled vegetables on the table, Liu Gouzi flew into a rage, saying why should he live worse than a dog in town.
He said to Meng-shi: "You know what? Today, working at the restaurant, a master was holding a celebration, invited so many people, twenty tables' worth! There was fish and meat. They hardly ate any of it. On my way back from work, I saw the waiters dumping a lot out in the back alley. Those chicken legs still had meat on them, just a couple of bites taken. The dogs ate so heartily. And then look here, goddammit, all I get is a plate of greens!"
Xiao Feng had overheard this and knew such things happened. He could go behind those restaurants and wait for them to dump leftovers in the evening, then pick through them to eat. That way, he wouldn't need to buy steamed buns.
He stammered: "Any s-silver I g-get... I'll... I'll give it to you."
Zhao Ger was taken aback and blurted out: "Why give it to me?"
"You... you and Uncle Fang... saved me. Spent... a lot of silver." Xiao Feng knew about this.
The medicine boy who brought him his soup had told him. Said the soup he was drinking was ginseng soup, that Fang Zichen had spent six hundred taels to buy it for him, that it was terribly expensive. Asked him how it tasted, if it was good. When he heard that, he nearly choked to death on the spot. There was still more than half a bowl left, but he didn't dare drink any more. The medicine boy said not drinking it wouldn't get the silver back either, it would just be wasted.
Six hundred taels was an astronomical figure to someone penniless like him. He felt he probably could never repay it in his lifetime. But even if he couldn't repay it all, he had to repay what he could. As long as he had breath in him, he must repay, he ought to repay.
Zhao Ger bent down, placing his hands on his knees to look Xiao Feng in the eye. His face was sickly, thin and haggard, his skin dry like an old man's—not pleasant to look at—but his features were unexpectedly delicate and gentle: "You're not well yet. Come back with me first."
Almost as soon as the words were spoken, Xiao Feng turned his gaze away, resistant.
"It's back to my place." Zhao Ger understood how he felt. Back in the Ma family, during moments when he felt utterly suffocated, he had wished countless times for someone to come and pull him out of that abyss.
Now, Xiao Feng was no different from his younger self.
Back then, no one had reached out to pull him free. Now, he hoped he could be the one to pull Xiao Feng out of the deep abyss.
Because that kind of unanswered longing, that agonizing despair, was simply too devastating to bear.
Xiao Feng’s head snapped up: "B-back to… your home?"
"Mm!" Zhao Ger took his hand: "Let's go. If you don't want to go back to the Liu house, then don't. Uncle Zhao will protect you."
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