"Sizzle, sizzle!"
When Yaoyao was about twenty centimeters away from me, she finally triggered my protective circle. She was electrocuted and shot up into the air, hovering above my head again, her long hair all puffed out, looking like a giant sea urchin. Seeing her comical appearance, I couldn't help but laugh.
In a daze, a distant voice reached me in my dream at a speed of 340 meters per second. It was like a high-speed train approaching, creating a Doppler effect, growing louder, more real, and sharper: "Uncle! What are you grinning about?"
I opened my eyes and saw Zheng Bingbing sitting cross-legged on the quilt beside me, holding half an unripe green corn cob, looking at me with confusion.
"Was I grinning?" I asked, then turned to look at Mu Jige, who was safe and sound.
"You let out a goose-like laugh, haha."
"...How long have I slept?" I wiped the corner of my mouth, sat up, and reached for my cigarette pack. Only one left.
Zheng Bingbing glanced at her watch: "About fifteen minutes."
Fifteen minutes, but it felt like only one minute in my dream.
I put the cigarette back in the pack, casually pulled off a corn leaf from beside me, and covered my face with it. I closed my eyes and continued to sleep, wanting to pick up where my dream left off.
But after tossing and turning for a long time, I couldn't fall asleep again.
After struggling for over half an hour, I got up again, lit the last cigarette, and looked at the sleeping Mu Jige, contemplating whether what she said in her dream was true or false.
I sighed. Zheng Bingbing asked the reason, but I didn't explain. I wanted to use my phone to pass the time but worried about being tracked, so I decided to stay put.
Seeing me bored, Zheng Bingbing actually took out a deck of playing cards from her bag: "Come on, let's play."
"...Why did you bring this?"
"I always bring it when I go out with people," Zheng Bingbing explained. "Sometimes we have to spend the night outdoors, so we need some entertainment at night. Other times, if we get lost and don't know which way to go, we'll need it for things like drawing lots."
"You can draw lots with playing cards? How do you do that?" I asked.
"Silly uncle! You draw red or black! Come on, let's play, what do you know how to play?"
"I only know how to play Dou Dizhu..." I frowned. I never liked playing cards much, but I was okay with Mahjong.
"How can two people play Dou Dizhu? How about... we play Three Card Draw and compare ranks?" Zheng Bingbing explained the rules to me, which was essentially Golden Flower.
"But we don't have chips," I said.
Zheng Bingbing thought for a moment, snapped her fingers, and got up to leave the tent. She plucked a few more mature ears of corn from nearby, shelled the kernels, and piled them up for each of us as chips.
After playing for about half an hour, I had lost all my corn kernels. Seeing that I wasn't good at this, Zheng Bingbing suggested playing "Fishing Hook."
This was quite fun, and it was hard to lose completely. We played until the sun began to set, but we still couldn't decide a winner.
My eyes were strained. I threw down the cards: "No more, no more."
Zheng Bingbing put away the cards and stared at me: "Uncle, I'm hungry again!"
I couldn't just gnaw on corn; we needed real food. Besides, I was out of cigarettes, and if I didn't go buy a pack, tonight would probably be difficult to get through.
After half a day of close contact, Zheng Bingbing was no longer afraid of Mu Jige in her "obedient" sleeping state and agreed to stay guard in the cornfield while I went out to shop alone.
For safety, I brought an outdoor dagger. I didn't buy it from the boss; he gave it to me. It had Damascus steel patterns, and I didn't know if it was genuine.
To avoid damaging the crops and leaving traces, I deliberately took a different direction, heading southwest diagonally. After walking a distance of the square root of two, I reached a small river. Unfortunately, about two hundred meters upstream on the opposite bank, a young couple was sitting on a low wall by the river, cuddling intimately.
I crouched in the grass and observed the sun's position. This small river flowed almost due east. The setting sun cast its rays on the water, and I was positioned between them and the setting sun. They were backlit, so they shouldn't be able to see me.
I rolled up my pant legs, crouched down, and stepped into the water. A piece of tissue paper floated by, stained with some unknown substance. I paused, avoided the tissue, and successfully reached the bank. This was no longer the residential complex we had rented. It was a large compound with a wall about two meters high, and I couldn't see what was inside. I climbed over the wall. Inside was a rural dry toilet, and not far away was a basketball court, but no one was playing.
I climbed over the wall, crossed the basketball court, and came to a row of red houses in front. Peeking through the windows, I saw that they were offices, each with a nameplate: Family Planning Office, People's Armed Forces Department, Forestry Office, Deputy Town Chief. I had stumbled into their town government office...