Chapter 61 Part 2

After learning that houttuynia was just another name for chameleon plant, Li Cunxin ran over to the breeding farm. Zhou Huan had cut and stored quite a lot of chameleon plant as green fodder for the pigs. Li Cunxin went there and carried back a huge armful, chopped it up fine, and mixed it into Mei Wenqin’s feed. She coaxed it to eat, even forcing it in when it wouldn’t.

Zhou Huan had said that sometimes, an animal with acute pneumonia that isn’t treated in time might be gone that very night. But Mei Wenqin survived the winter.

The snow melted, spring came, plants sprouted green, seeds germinated. Li Cunxin pinned her hopes on when the plants and grass grew back.

Those wild grasses were inconspicuous, but in Traditional Chinese Medicine, they could be medicinal herbs. When the grass seeds sprouted and grew anew, Taishi Huan could use his talent to identify which ones could treat lung diseases. Even if this was akin to searching for a needle in the sea, even if they found the herb and didn’t know the dosage or usage—in the end, it was a method, a hope, wasn’t it?

The spring sunshine was always pleasant. Li Cunxin looked up at the sky. What a pity, it was an overcast day. She felt a little annoyed. Perhaps she hadn’t slept well last night, woke up with some morning grouchiness, a nameless fire in her heart. Now, not seeing any good weather, she felt even more depressed.

She walked toward the adobe house out back. After Mei Wenqin fell sick, she had to go see it three times a day—first thing in the morning, right after getting up, she’d go.

Actually, in the past, back when they still lived in the adobe house, she could see it all day long. As soon as she stepped outside, Mei Wenqin would purse its lip skin and flash its big, white square teeth at her.

She didn’t know when—when had it changed…

There were villagers to feed and care for it. She bustled about in the fields and among the crowds, dizzy and overwhelmed. She hadn’t looked at it properly.

Li Cunxin lifted the door curtain. “Mei Wenqin, how did you rest last night?”

Li Cunxin’s expression froze on her face. Her hand fell. She walked into the shed in a daze. “Mei Wenqin?”

The shed was empty. The black donkey that always leaned against the railing was nowhere to be seen.

Li Cunxin walked to the railing. She could still see the depression in the hay pile, the rope wear on the railing, and the marks left from Mei Wenqin’s habitual gnawing.

As if unable to process it, she looked all around the shed, then threw open the curtain and walked out, shouting, “Mei Wenqin!”

Li Cunxin went to the donkey shed opposite and roughly yanked the curtain aside. Most of the donkeys were still standing, asleep. No sign of Mei Wenqin.

Bai Ling returned, having fetched water to refill the donkeys’ troughs. Li Cunxin walked up to her. “Bai Ling, have you seen Mei Wenqin?”

Bai Ling looked blank. “No, what’s wrong?”

Li Cunxin said, “It’s gone!”

Bai Ling hurriedly checked the donkey shed. Sure enough, Mei Wenqin was gone.

“Village Chief, don’t panic.” Bai Ling reached out as if to support her. “How can such a big donkey just disappear without a trace? Maybe it got tired of the shed after all this time. The weather’s warmed up a bit—couldn’t stay put, untied its own rope and ran out. It should be nearby. I’ll get people to help you look for it.”

“Hey! Supervisor Zhao, Uncle Xu!” Bai Ling waved at Zhao Penglai and Xu Yin in the distance. The two were just behind them, carrying water to the kitchen.

The two in the distance glanced at each other, then came this way carrying their water. Li Cunxin went to the vegetable garden behind the adobe house to look. No sign of the black donkey. When she returned, Zhao Penglai and Xu Yin had already arrived and were informed of the situation.

Zhao Penglai said, “Mei Wenqin is still sick—how far can it have run? Let’s search nearby first.”

It was as if a nerve snapped taut in Li Cunxin’s brain. She snapped back to her senses. Without another word, she went into the donkey shed, led out one donkey, mounted it, and urged it forward, heading into the distance.

Zhao Penglai called out, “Village Chief, what are you doing?”

Li Cunxin didn’t answer. The donkey trotted all the way to the breeding farm. Reaching the small wooden hut outside the farm, Li Cunxin reached into its arched doorway and dragged out a gray wolf still in the depths of slumber.

The gray wolf opened its massive jaws, revealing a mouthful of fangs. Its scarlet tongue curled as it stretched with a lazy yawn.

“Old Gamma, good Gamma, do me a favor.”

The gray wolf was extremely reluctant about being woken up. It nipped at Li Cunxin’s pant leg, but it always agreed to her requests.

Li Cunxin led it trotting back to the adobe house. The gray wolf sniffed thoroughly around the spot where Mei Wenqin had lain, then left the shed and dashed toward the west. Li Cunxin mounted the donkey and followed behind it.

If the sun were out, it should be rising higher. But right now, thick clouds covered the sky, and the wind was clear and cold.

The path the gray wolf took was very familiar to Li Cunxin—it was the road to the open-pit iron mine. Most of that route ran alongside the river; the landmarks were too distinct.

After running a stretch, the gray wolf veered away from the river and turned up a slope, stopping beside a few willows.

Past the willows was a flat area ahead, mostly shrubs and wild grass, with only one old, withered, crooked-necked willow tree, as good as dead. A short earthen step lay a dozen paces further. Li Cunxin walked down. On the flat below the step was a mud pit. The missing black donkey lay sprawled sideways in the mire.

Maybe it had fallen in without noticing when coming down the step. Maybe it had reached this place and run out of strength, unable to go further. Maybe it had stopped here willingly, choosing this mud pit as its own grave.

It had probably rolled in the mud pit. Its entire body was smeared with wet mud. The mud in the mane on its back had dried, sculpting the bristles stiff and erect like spears of hair. The mud had also obscured the white rings around its eyes and its white mouth. Its belly rose and fell, but even that undulation seemed to hold no vitality.

“Mei Wenqin!”

The black donkey lifted its head from the mud pit and glanced at her once, then slowly lowered its head again, letting out a short, low bray.

When a dog is about to die, it leaves home. When a cow is about to die, it also runs far away, not wanting to die at home.

“You’re a donkey—why are you copying them!” Li Cunxin stepped into the mud pit and grabbed the halter rope around the black donkey’s neck. “Come home with me.”

“Uncle Xu and the others are about to set off on their long journey. Maybe this time, among the people they find and bring back, there’ll be a veterinarian. Spring is here, bodies recover faster then. Every tree and plant is growing. I’ll have Taishi Huan find you pangdahai, find you monk fruit. I’ll have Yunxiu make you honeysuckle dew, alright? When I was little and had a cough, a few monk fruits and I was fine. Mei Wenqin.”

The mud pit made it hard to get a foothold; pulling her legs free was already difficult. The black donkey lay motionless in the mud. She grabbed the halter rope and used all her strength, but only dragged it a little. Precisely because she was pulling so hard, the rope tied around the donkey slipped off.

The moment the resistance on that end of the rope vanished, the force Li Cunxin was exerting on this end, with nothing to brace against, made her stumble forward a step, nearly falling into the mud pit herself.

She looked back at the black donkey. The halter rope rested in her hands, its other end submerged in the mud. “Mei Wenqin, go home, please, I’m begging you.”

The black donkey’s belly rose and fell intermittently. A gray mist seemed to veil its dark eyes. It lay there in the mud pit longingly, as if this was the source of its life and the resting place of its death. It no longer had any reaction to the outside world.

The fire in Li Cunxin’s heart opened its mouth like a snake and gnawed at her heart. She hurled the halter rope viciously onto the black donkey.

Li Cunxin pulled her leg out of the mud pit, turned, and left. As she walked away, she said bitterly, “If you want to rot away dead in this mud pit, then rot away dead in this mud pit!”

Li Cunxin walked forward. The farther she got from the mud pit, the closer she got to the gray wolf and the donkey waiting for her by the willows. She suddenly stopped, stood for a moment, then slowly turned back.

She walked to the edge of the mud pit and stood beside the black donkey, looking down at it from above. After a moment, she crouched down and said in a low voice, “Mei Wenqin, this place is so far from home.”

“I won’t come see you often. I’ll forget you.”

After a long while, Li Cunxin said, “Why are you all so stubborn?”

A wrenching pain seized her heart. Her body had no sluice gate to release it.

She hated this feeling. She let out a long cry, her voice tearing. It sounded like weeping, yet also like a wolf’s howl. At its very end, it was like the lingering echo of a bamboo flute.

She looked up at the sky. The overcast sky was vast and empty, like a void. Winter’s chill hadn’t fully receded. The weeds were a mix of yellow and green. Across the way, a clump of withered grass rustled in the wind, sounding like rain.

It started to rain.

The rain fell into her eyes. At first a drop or two, then fine and dense, like an expanse of crystalline water-needles, linking into a curtain of rain, turning this patch of wasteland into a hazy world.

Li Cunxin took Gamma and led the donkey she’d ridden away. She didn’t mount it, just walked slowly.

The fine rain pattered on the pine needles, gathering into droplets at the tips before falling. The ground was soaked by the rain; footsteps would leave prints.

Li Cunxin walked slowly along the river, listening to the sound of rain hitting the forest. The river flowed with a gentle murmur. Birds flew home, hiding in their nests to preen their feathers. A badger scurried through the underbrush. Gamma was drenched, shaking its body to fling off water droplets, with no inclination to hunt.

Someone appeared ahead, coming toward her. Spotting her, they quickened their pace. “Cunxin!”

Li Cunxin looked up and saw who it was. Her calm, empty heart immediately became bitter and helpless. The spring temperature still wasn’t very high. After the rain, Li Cunxin could still puff white breath when she spoke. Holding back a sob, her voice hoarse, she said, “Could you… not have found me so quickly…”

Yan Baiyu’s hand, holding the bamboo hat, tightened. She pulled it back slightly, a flash of uncertainty in her eyes.

Li Cunxin was drenched all over. Her unruly hair hung obediently, dripping at the tips. Her face, washed by the rain, was as pale as jade, making the redness around her eyes even more pronounced.

Yan Baiyu extended the bamboo hat. Without saying much else, she simply said, “Wear the hat. Don’t catch a cold from the rain.”

Li Cunxin stepped around her and walked forward without a word. Gamma returned to its brothers’ side.

Yan Baiyu held the bamboo hat and gazed at the path from where Li Cunxin had come. That path was empty and dim, shrouded in a thin mist. She withdrew her gaze and stood where she was, watching the direction Li Cunxin had gone. When Li Cunxin had walked a distance, as far as her sight could reach, she finally moved, silently following behind.