Chapter 5: Reciting Ancient Poems

The thick rain cloth blocked the view, and the two children in the back of the cart could no longer see the outside. The thunder rumbled, and the raindrops fell relentlessly. The man pedaled the tricycle with all his might.

Although there was an adult’s mind, Wang Jiexiang still ended up in this situation. The silver lining was that neither she nor Yin Xian had been tied up. Perhaps it was because this abduction had been a spur-of-the-moment decision, and he hadn’t prepared any rope; or maybe it was because Wang Jiexiang’s appearance disrupted his plan, forcing the man to leave in a hurry.

Perhaps because of the rain and the shock, Wang Jiexiang sat next to Yin Xian and noticed his arm was cold, and his face looked pale.

To be honest, the boy in front of her didn’t look like the grown-up Yin Xian; she didn’t recognize him at first. His big round eyes, delicate eyebrows and mouth, and the softness in his gaze made him seem more like a little girl, with an aura of fragility and bookishness. If anything, he resembled the little white rabbit she had seen on Little Rabbit Island.

Wang Jiexiang raised her hand and tried to move the rain cloth above them. It was weighed down by heavy objects from outside but wasn’t very secure. She could easily escape on her own; the key was to take Yin Xian with her.

“Look at this. Do you understand he’s a bad guy now?” She showed him the slap marks on her face.

“Just a little,” Yin Xian replied. Compared to Wang Jiexiang’s familiar actions and tone, he seemed particularly reserved. He didn’t know her, and a crazy little girl with an uncle who seemed to know his father could be suspicious in his eyes.

“How did you know he was a bad guy in the first place?” he asked timidly.

Wang Jiexiang couldn’t exactly say, “I was at your house when you two were talking, and based on the social news I’ve seen over the years, I judged him to be a bad guy.”

“This guy,” she furrowed her brow, “I saw his report as a kidnapper in the newspaper.”

The lie sounded good, and Wang Jiexiang basked in her own cleverness, but she didn’t take Yin Xian’s age into account. He had never encountered the dangers of the world, didn’t know that some demons wore human skins, and even the word “kidnapper” was foreign to him.

“You can read the newspaper?” Yin Xian’s focus shifted entirely: “Then you must know a lot of words. I recite ancient poems every day, but I still can’t read the newspaper.”

At this point, his expression soured a little: “Today’s poem was so hard, I couldn’t memorize it. When I get home, Mom’s going to scold me.”

“Little one, we’re talking about a kidnapper,” Wang Jiexiang rubbed her temples and tried to put it simply: “We encountered a really bad bad guy, a super scary one. Wake up! Why are you thinking about memorizing poems now?”

Back when she was in a relationship with Yin Xian, he often teased her, calling her a pig brain. Who would have thought that in her lifetime, she’d end up in a situation where she needed to accommodate his intelligence?

“Oh,” little Yin Xian shrank his neck, reading her expression, “Then… shall we run away?”

“Of course, you finally get it.”

Wang Jiexiang pulled out the mini hammer from her pocket and smiled at him in satisfaction.

“Trust me, we’ll escape together.”

Seeing her smile in a strange way, Yin Xian thought she would hit him with the hammer if he disagreed.

“Mm.” He immediately sat up straight and nodded vigorously.

“Follow my command. After I count down, you quickly lift the rain cloth and run. I’ll hammer that bad guy on the head and knock him out, then catch up with you.”

She was so immersed in her plan, not noticing her volume or the slowing pace of the cart.

“Three, two, one!”

As she said, Yin Xian used all his strength to tear open the rain cloth.

The heavy rain poured over them, and Wang Jiexiang looked up to see the man on the tricycle staring at her with blank eyes.

Raindrops flowed down his face, tracing deep lines, making his face resemble a cracked mask.

“Run!” She pushed the child forward with her elbow.

Yin Xian jumped off the cart.

Wang Jiexiang swung the hammer toward the man’s head.

He blocked it with his hand, and her tiny hammer met it head-on.

Wang Jiexiang cursed inwardly, discarded the hammer, turned, and leaped off the cart.

Her foot caught on the back panel of the cart, and she fell, landing on her knees.

Yin Xian, ahead in the run, kept looking back at her. Wang Jiexiang waved for him to keep going, glanced around, and felt a chill in her heart.

An empty field, the rain casting a gray veil over it.

At this moment, who wouldn’t lament: This is a perfect place to dispose of a body.

Wang Jiexiang clutched her aching knee and limped a few steps. But as she ran, her foot suddenly lifted off the ground.

“Did you really see me in the news?”

The man grabbed her collar with one hand and forced her to face him.

Wang Jiexiang almost cried but managed to stay calm. “Big brother, can I take it back if I said I saw wrong?”

He didn’t respond.

She eagerly suggested, “Why don’t you go catch Yin Xian again?”

As she spoke, Wang Jiexiang’s mind raced through memories of the self-defense techniques she had seen.

Was it better to kick his legs or poke his eyes?

The man sneered coldly, dismissing her attempts to talk her way out of it.

“Go ahead!”

Wang Jiexiang decisively delivered the “combo.”

She used her short legs to push herself into his crotch and, with the momentum, jabbed her fingers into his eyes.

The man hadn’t expected her to fight back, and both of her moves hit their mark.

He cried out in pain and released his grip.

Wang Jiexiang wasted no time and ran.

She had grown up in the countryside, a child of the mountains, and running like this felt like returning to her childhood.

Childhood, with its injuries, both physical and emotional, and an undeveloped body that carried countless pains, with floods and beasts chasing after her. Wang Jiexiang kept her head down and ran, focusing only on running, into the torrential rain, into nature.

She ran faster, becoming lighter in the wind and rain, shrinking into a tiny dot.

“Run, Yin Xian.”

She grabbed the little boy’s hand, and they ran together.

No one knew where to run for safety.

The hem of her clothes was splattered with mud, and she couldn’t tell if the water dripping down her forehead was sweat or rain. The footsteps behind them followed like shadows.

Wiping sweat from her brow, Yin Xian pointed to the right ahead.

“There!”

After the rain had washed away, the clear view of the mountain revealed a house!

A house blocked by a large iron gate!

“How can we get past if there’s a gate?” Wang Jiexiang dared not stop.

Yin Xian ran faster than her to the gate.

At the bottom of the gate, there was a gap just high enough for him to squeeze through. He gripped the lowest part of the iron gate, pushed himself forward with his feet, and slipped through like swinging on a swing. Yin Xian vanished from Wang Jiexiang’s sight.

“You’re smarter than me.”

She was overjoyed and, imitating him, crawled through the narrow gap under the gate to the other side.

Soon, the man reached the gate and shook it, making it creak and groan.

The two children, reunited, automatically held hands and continued running toward the more populated area.

Gradually, Yin Xian recognized the way.

“That’s the village entrance, there’s a pavilion.”

He led her toward it, and from a distance, they saw a few adults taking shelter from the rain in the pavilion.

That meant they were finally safe!

Wang Jiexiang and Yin Xian sat in a corner of the pavilion, panting and looking at each other. She should have cried in relief, but she couldn’t help but smile. Before she could catch her breath, her laughter bubbled out in an odd way.

She laughed, and Yin Xian laughed too.

The child’s hair, wet from the rain, stuck out in strands, and his short hair made him look like a little hedgehog covered in dew. He was so cute at this moment. At four years old, Yin Xian smiled with a little tiger tooth. That must be a baby tooth, right? He would lose it when he grew up.

She almost wanted to ask him, “How were you so silly as a child?”

But she knew he wouldn’t understand.

The other people in the pavilion gave them strange looks. Seeing the two children covered in dirt, they assumed they had been out playing in the rain.

In the adults’ eyes, Yin Xian suppressed his smile and slowly returned to the reserved demeanor he had when Wang Jiexiang first met him.

Staring at the rain outside the pavilion, he seemed lost in thought.

“Don’t worry,” Wang Jiexiang patted his shoulder. “The rain’s stopped. I’ll take you home.”

“Home…”

Yin Xian pouted and murmured, “I still haven’t memorized today’s poem.”

Again with the poem.

Wang Jiexiang looked into the boy’s sorrowful eyes and, belatedly, realized something: Yin Xian had been tricked by that man partly because of his innocence, because he trusted strangers too easily; and partly because he hadn’t memorized the difficult poem. Even in the back of the cart, even after realizing they were in danger, his mind was still troubled by the worry: he didn’t know how to face his mother when she came home from work.

“What’s the name of the poem?”

Yin Xian looked at Wang Jiexiang. “Night Rain Sent North.”

“You’re four and can memorize this?” Wang Jiexiang was so surprised, her mouth almost fell open.

She remembered learning this poem in middle school.

Fortunately, she still remembered it. If Yin Xian kept going, her knowledge might not be enough.

“Okay, ‘Night Rain Sent North,'” she cleared her throat. “What’s the first line? You start.”

“Night Rain Sent North, Tang Dynasty, Li Shangyin,” Yin Xian recited haltingly, “，Bashan，Bashan…”

“Bashan night rain rises in the autumn pond.” She continued for him, word by word.

Yin Xian’s eyes were filled with admiration as he looked at Wang Jiexiang.

She basked in his respect, feeling more and more energized as a teacher: “Say it with me: ‘Bashan night rain rises in the autumn pond. When will we cut the candle at the western window together, and talk about the Bashan night rain?'”

“…”

Yin Xian silently pointed out, “You’re saying it faster each time.”

The rain stopped.

Pedestrians left the pavilion in small groups.

The last time Wang Jiexiang taught the poem, little Yin Xian recited “Night Rain Sent North” fluently.

The village’s cooking smoke was sparse, and she prepared to take him home.

As they left the pavilion, a dark shadow suddenly jumped out from the bushes in front of them.

“It’s a wild rabbit!” Yin Xian squatted down and picked it up from the ground.

“Don’t touch it!”

Wang Jiexiang shouted, but it was too late. She had become quite sensitive to this, having formulated the theory of “Yin Xian was kidnapped by the Rabbit King to Rabbit Island.”

The rabbit was presented to Wang Jiexiang by Yin Xian.

“Are you afraid of rabbits?”

Her frown relaxed the moment she saw the rabbit, and her eyes widened in surprise.

“Do you see? There’s a key on its neck.”

Yin Xian looked at its neck, as she said.

“It’s true!” He happily pulled the key off and handed it to her.

As the key fell, time seemed to slow down, like a movie on slow motion.

Their gazes locked onto the key, and the faces of the boy and girl grew darker by the second.

When the key landed in Wang Jiexiang’s hand, the entire world collapsed into nothingness.