Chapter 13 – Yan Xiao, Raised by the Deep Mountains

At the educated youth spot, aside from the first day when she had difficulty swallowing that coarse corn gruel, every day afterward the meals were balanced with both meat and vegetables—chicken, fish, and occasionally rabbit or wild boar.

She was astonished. So the meals here for educated youths are this good?

She had almost thought that every meal from now on would be like that first one—barely edible…

If the others knew her thoughts, they would have said: No, what you found inedible before was our daily fare!

Yan Xiao occasionally brought her fruits he had picked from the mountains.

She felt it wasn’t right to keep accepting his things and tried to politely refuse, even offering to pay him.

But the man said, “If I don’t pick these fruits, the sparrows will just eat them. Picking and eating them is better than letting them go to waste. Besides, I don’t like them.”

Wen Qinghe thought: If you don’t like them, why do you keep picking them…

Yet, as if he somehow knew she liked them, she ended up with plenty of little wild fruits—sometimes blueberries, little apples, sometimes wild grapes, sometimes kiwifruit.

She couldn’t help but sigh. Apart from lacking electricity and having to fetch water by hand, in terms of food, the mountains were truly rich in resources. With this mountain, life wouldn’t be unbearably hard for the villagers.

What the young lady didn’t realize was that these little fruits grew deep in the mountains—places where ordinary people didn’t dare to venture.

The mountain indeed had abundant resources, but it also harbored wolves, tigers, and other beasts.

In recent days, thanks to Wen Qinghe, the educated youth spot had been eating the game Yan Xiao brought daily.

With meat in their diet, everyone’s spirits lifted considerably.

But most families in the village were still living the way they had when she first arrived—wild vegetable gruel, wild vegetable pancakes, coarse cornbread.

Only a very few families could occasionally afford to eat refined grains as a treat.

…

Meanwhile, on top of working double shifts each day, Yan Xiao was running into the mountains more often than ever.

Besides hunting to supply the educated youth spot, he had been searching for the century-old ginseng an old traditional doctor had requested.

Whenever he thought of the sickly girl, her pale and delicate little face surfaced in his mind.

His heart filled with a dense, aching sourness. Such a beautiful person should have been like a dazzling pearl, cherished and protected by everyone.

Yet now she could only stay cooped up in her little room, unable to run or jump.

That old doctor had long refused to leave the mountains to avoid trouble in these times. Yan Xiao had visited several times, but was turned away each time.

Even when Yan Xiao offered all his family savings in exchange for a single treatment, the old man remained unmoved.

Just as he was losing hope and thinking of looking for another expert, he overheard from his black-market partner that the old doctor had been seeking a century-old ginseng for his medicine.

Yan Xiao’s mind stirred. He decided to search the mountains for ginseng and try once more.

This mountain, he knew well.

The house his parents had left him stood at its foot.

His parents had died young. Until he was eight, he survived on meals given by various villagers.

The old folks said his father had been a military officer—no one knew what rank. Exiled here, he stayed, married, and had a child.

Unfortunately, he later died on a mission. His mother, unable to bear the grief, also passed, leaving him alone.

Did he resent them?

Perhaps, a little.

When they left, he was too young to remember them.

He couldn’t understand why others had parents but he did not.

He didn’t know why his parents had abandoned him.

But once, when he went begging for food, he saw a pregnant mother tenderly stroking her belly, full of expectation for her unborn child.

Then he thought: Once, I too must have been awaited like this.

Remembering that he had, even briefly, been loved like that, he found peace.

When he was small, he ran from house to house at every mealtime. Later, when he grew older and saw how hard life was for everyone, he realized being given food was already a great kindness, so he stopped burdening others.

He learned to fend for himself—first by foraging wild fruits, then catching rabbits, fishing for shrimp in the river.

Gradually, he adapted to feeding himself, no longer needing to trouble anyone.

Alone, with no one to worry about, he never feared even large prey. Sometimes, he even felt a thrill, eager to test himself against the beasts.

Even if it cost him half his life, he always relied on sheer brute strength and willpower to win.

Over time, he ventured deeper and deeper into the mountains. After months and years, hunting became as natural to him as eating or drinking.

At least, he no longer had to beg for food and suffer humiliation.

Where others saw danger, he felt at home.

………

To find the century-old ginseng, he spent half a month searching. Thinking it might help treat the young girl, he hoped to find more than one.

But ginseng was not easily found. After half a month, he had only dug up one fifty-year root and one hundred-year root.

At last, the old man agreed to make a house call. But in these troubled times, he insisted on secrecy regarding his identity and movements.

Yan Xiao understood, so he told others only that he had met a relative of Educated Youth Wen visiting from town.

As he neared the educated youth spot, thinking that perhaps there was now hope for the girl’s illness, he hadn’t even had time to feel joy.

Then he saw Tang Lingling rushing toward him in a panic:

“Comrade Yan! Just now, no matter how I called her, Qinghe wouldn’t wake up. Her health—I didn’t dare move her. Hurry and get the village doctor to come see her!”