Chapter 263: Strange Child
Chapter 263: Strange Child
“Hello there, fellow villagers. I’m from Qinggang, just looking for a place to stay for the night. I’ll be leaving tomorrow.”
Looking at the people in the village, Lu Xin explained cordially.
Propriety costs nothing, especially when traveling.
Though the people in this village seemed a bit strange. They all slumped their shoulders, tilted their waists, propped themselves on one leg while dragging the other behind. Their figures were somewhat hunched. Even when looking at someone, they tilted their heads back slightly, faces angled upward.
But Lu Xin didn’t look at them strangely just because of their appearance.
Living in the Wilderness, they might just be malnourished.
As he spoke, he caught the aroma of stewed meat wafting from somewhere deep in the village. His smile became even more earnest.
The difference between stewed meat and canned food couldn’t be more obvious.
…
Facing Lu Xin’s friendly smile, the villagers looked at him in silence.
Lu Xin continued to smile back at them, his expression unchanged.
It was the silent and somewhat wooden villagers who slowly started to seem uncomfortable.
Quite a few people instinctively turned their heads away.
“Are you alone?”
An old man stepped slowly out from the crowd. He wore a tattered down jacket, his wrinkles dark and deep.
“Yes.”
Lu Xin looked at him sincerely. “Please don’t be nervous. I’m just here to find a place to sleep.”
As he spoke, the savory meat smell drifting from not far away grew increasingly strong, and his stomach rumbled with obvious hunger.
He added, “Providing some dinner would be even better. I can pay.”
The old man silently looked Lu Xin up and down, then slowly shook his head. “Then follow me.”
“That easy?”
Lu Xin relaxed.
No wonder it had been determined by previous merchant caravans and scouts to be the Gathering Point with the lowest danger rating.
Such Gathering Points were generally very popular with merchant convoys and land reclamation teams.
While they often chose to camp while traveling in the Wilderness, they regularly traded food and salt at the settlements of ordinary folks. Over time, they had thoroughly grasped the habits of these Gathering Points scattered through the Wilderness.
That massively informative military map was created by compiling all this intelligence.
As Lu Xin pushed his Motorcycle, following the Old Man forward, the people on both sides sluggishly parted a path. However, their gaze remained numb and slow, fixed on Lu Xin, their eyes utterly devoid of emotion.
Even Lu Xin felt uncomfortable under their collective stare. He looked back at them in a friendly manner.
They didn’t blink; neither did he.
Generally, under his determinedly friendly gaze, the other party would eventually look away.
…
“You’ll stay at Old Lady Meng’s place. She has an empty room.”
The Old Man brought Lu Xin to the middle of the village and pointed to a pitch-black building by the roadside, his voice rasping as he said:
“People in the village go to bed early. If the guest has nothing important, best rest early. Don’t run around outside…”
“Alright,” Lu Xin agreed readily, then added, “About dinner…”
But before he could finish, the Old Man had already waved his hand, his voice rasping, “Everyone, go back now!”
Whether they were the people who had followed Lu Xin, those watching him from afar, or the hidden figures spying from behind dark windows, they suddenly scattered upon the Old Man’s words.
Some ducked into nearby rooms, some slammed their windows shut with a sharp clatter, and one person crouched down in a patch of shadows beside the road. He stared at Lu Xin for a moment, a vacant, Anomaly-tinged smile spreading across his face. Then he started crawling backward, slowly retreating into an alleyway.
…He was indeed crawling on all fours into the alley.
…
“He might have been injured, and the village doesn’t have good medical care…”
Lu Xin sighed sympathetically for him. He pushed his bike to the designated house and carefully locked it up.
“Squeak…”
He pushed open the slightly ajar door. Pitch-black darkness greeted him, so thick he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face.
The stench of old furniture and dampness mingled with mildew, decayed clothing, and a fishy foulness inside the room. Lu Xin stood quietly at the doorway for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness within, before looking around.
By the faint light filtering in from outside, he could see a large brick bed near the window.
A pile of dark, indistinct objects was heaped on the bed, the source of much of the room’s pungent odor.
Leaning against the headboard of the bed sat what seemed to be an old woman. She had been silently watching him, her gaze in the darkness appearing sullen and gloomy.
If he hadn’t seen her, Lu Xin wouldn’t even have known someone was watching him.
The stranger feeling was that Lu Xin sensed that in this room, it wasn’t just the old woman watching him.
“Auntie, hello…”
Lu Xin was silent for a moment, his voice warming considerably. “Is there a light in the room?”
The old woman on the bed silently watched Lu Xin, saying nothing.
Lu Xin smiled. “No problem. Fortunately, I have one.”
As he spoke, he closed the door behind him, crouched down, and fished out a black cylinder about twenty centimetres long from his bag. He gently twisted a ring at its top, and instantly, a blinding light shot from one end, casting a brilliant, pinpoint glare in the room.
“Swish—”
Lu Xin heard the sound of something in the room scurrying away in panic.
“Don’t be scared, I’ll adjust it.”
Lu Xin explained with a smile, then turned a ring situated below the first one.
The dazzling, harsh spotlight began to soften gradually, finally transforming into a warm, pale yellow glow.
Then, Lu Xin slowly slid a button on the cylinder downwards. The light ceased concentrating in one spot and began spreading evenly throughout the space. Once he placed the torch upright on the ground, it resembled a table lamp without its shade.
This was one of the supplies prepared for him by Han Bing – the multifunctional flashlight developed by the Special Clean-up Department.
It had solar charging capability and maintained high-intensity illumination for over three hours on a full charge.
At the front was a slider; pushing it up refracted and concentrated the light, turning it into a focused beam flashlight.
Pulling it down dispersed the light, converting it into a soft table lamp.
……
The room filled with this soft light, instantly revealing every detail.
Lu Xin saw that, to the right upon entering, by the window, was indeed a large kang (heated brick bed).
Piled on the kang were some bedding that was either originally black or had turned that color over time; it looked thick and damp.
A white-haired old woman in a heavy padded jacket leaned against the window frame, coldly staring at him.
As his gaze fell upon her, Lu Xin couldn’t help a flicker of surprise.
Now he understood where that other pair of watching eyes he’d felt had come from.
The old woman was cradling a small child in her arms.
The child’s age was indeterminable; it was curled up tightly against her.
Based solely on the head protruding slightly from the bundle, the child’s face bore distinct deformities.
The left half of its cheek and forehead were abnormally swollen and protruded. Its eyes, seemingly unused to the light, were squeezed into tiny pinpricks, its gaze unnervingly intense. Its upper lip was curled back completely, exposing a row of uneven, blackened upper teeth.
One of its hands also rested outside the quilt, crammed into an unnatural, spastic curl.
Lu Xin recalled his past research; the child somewhat resembled pictures he’d seen of Down’s syndrome individuals, which he’d studied extensively years ago while trying to understand if he himself was somehow… fractured.
……
Under the silent gaze of the old woman and the strange child, Lu Xin offered them a friendly smile.
Faced with Lu Xin’s smile, the old woman turned her head away and closed her eyes. The strange child, however, continued to stare at him with its unnerving intensity.
Lu Xin grabbed a small folding stool from under the table, opened it, and sat down. “Do you have any food at home?”
The old woman remained silent, as if she hadn’t heard him at all.
The strange child continued its unblinking stare.
Lu Xin chuckled. “It’s okay. Fortunately, I have some.”
Saying this, he stepped outside the door, retrieved a large packet of instant noodles and a partially eaten tin of canned beef from his box.
The can had been opened, and the smell wafted into the room.
The strange child curled up on the bed against the old woman sniffed the air, its nose twitching. Suddenly, with a “whoosh,” it leapt off the bed.
Its speed was astonishingly fast. Lu Xin’s folding stool was at least two, if not almost three, meters from the bed. The space included the act of throwing aside the quilt and getting down from the kang. Yet, the child was before Lu Xin in an instant, snatching the canned food from his hands.
“Swift—!”
Lu Xin reached out, grabbing only empty air.
By the time he extended his hand, the strange child had already grabbed the tin and scampered back onto the bed.
“It’s okay.”
Lu Xin’s hand remained clenched in mid-air, fingers cupped as if holding something, as he shook his head gently.
He was speaking to his Little Sister.
Seeing the strange child snatch his food, Little Sister had almost lunged forward, but fortunately, Lu Xin had managed to grab hold of her just in time.
……
The sounds of frantic, messy chewing and swallowing came from the bed.
Lu Xin sat on his stool, watching. He saw the strange child rip away the half-opened lid of the tin, toss it aside without care, and begin stuffing chunks of the beef from inside into its mouth. Brown gravy dripped from its everted lips, coating its chin.
The already sparse half-tin of beef vanished quickly. When only the tiniest morsel remained, the child hesitated.
It picked up that last, small piece and held it up to the old woman’s lips.
Only then did Lu Xin finally look away. He smiled gently and said, “It’s okay. I have more. Besides, that beef is pretty salty. It’s best cooked into the instant noodles. I brought several packets of noodles; each one has five pieces inside.”
He looked around the room and asked, “Do you have any water?”
This time, the old woman didn’t remain completely silent. As she chewed the small piece of beef the child had offered, her eyes – dull and vacant – settled again on Lu Xin.
Perhaps moved by the genuine warmth in Lu Xin’s steady smile, she slowly lifted an arm and pointed towards the space behind the door.
Lu Xin’s face brightened. “Perfect.”