That night, Yuan Hao slept very soundly. Since his parents died three years ago, he has never slept peacefully. He dreams every night, dreaming about his sister leaving and not wanting him anymore, and dreaming about the food at home. They were all moved away by his eldest aunt. He dreamed that he was sick but had no money for medical treatment. He dreamed that the little bully in the village held him down and beat him to death. He was frightened to wake up every time. He could only fall asleep again when he saw that his sister was still there.
But tonight, it was as if all his worries no longer existed. For the first time, he slept until dawn and woke up. His body felt indescribably comfortable. The previous depression was swept away, and he felt clear and refreshed from the inside out.
A faint aroma of porridge was already wafting from the kitchen outside. He walked out of the house quickly and saw that his sister had cooked white porridge. It was the same thick porridge as last night, instead of the light porridge they ate every day.
"Sister, we don't have much food in the tank, why are you still cooking such thick porridge?" Although he likes to eat this porridge, he can't just eat today and not be hungry tomorrow, right
Yuan Qiu brought the white porridge and freshly mixed cold vegetables into the main room and said without looking back: "Silly boy, if we don't eat enough, how can we have the strength to go up the mountain?"
"But -" Yuan Hao was about to say more, but Yuan Qiu pulled him over, sat down at the table, and said with a smile: "Don't worry, from now on, my sister will not let you go hungry again. If you want to live in a good house, you have to go to school next spring, so you don’t have to worry about money and food, you know?"
Yuan Hao looked at his sister's firm eyes. His nose was slightly sour and his eyes were foggy. He flattened his mouth and said stubbornly: "I don't study. What's the use of studying? It's better to work like this for money."
Yuan Qiu stretched out her finger and flicked his forehead: "Do you think I don't know what you are thinking? If you don't talk about it for now, you will soon know that my sister is not lying." She knew that Yuan Hao wanted to study, and every time she saw him When children in the village carrying school bags passed by the house, he would stand and watch for a long time, unable to conceal the envy and longing in his eyes.
He said this just because he didn't want to put a burden on his family.
Yuan Hao looked sideways at his sister, is this still his sister? In the past, except when she called him to eat, her sister hardly talked to him the rest of the time, and she never cared about what he was thinking. But now, not only does her sister talk more, she even asked him to go to school. This is incredible.
He suddenly shook his head and cursed himself for being boring. My sister is my sister, so how could I not be my sister? It was just because he was hurt by Liu Wenxuan that his temperament suddenly changed, but he was still very happy to be like this.
After eating, the two siblings each carried a basket and hurried to Yunying Mountain, one mile away from Xipo Village.
Yunying Mountain is not too high. There are many trees on the mountain. People from the entire Xipo Village cut firewood on the mountain. Villagers who are lucky can occasionally catch a pheasant or rabbit back home.
Standing at the foot of Yunying Mountain, Yuan Qiu looked at the forest shrouded in smoke in the distance to the southwest and wondered: "Where is that place? Why don't we go there? I see so many people coming and going in Yunying Mountain all day long. I can’t find any good firewood, let alone anything else.”
When Yuan Hao heard what she said, he immediately shook his head like a rattle: "Sister, you don't know, that forest is called the Ghost Forest. I heard that every night there are ghost fires floating everywhere in the forest, and there are ghost cries. , but it was scary, and some brave people went in, but never came out again, and no one dared to come near it anymore. Even the nearby fields have been barren for many years, and no one dared to come near the ghost forest."