Learn one small skill every day

Bai Miao casually brushed it off.

Everything along the roadside seemed both familiar and strange.

Bai Miao felt that he had seen every face of everyone before, but he could not remember the name of any of them.

It was about three kilometers from the market to his old home. Bai Miao trekked for nearly two hours before he finally saw the white roof halfway up the mountain.

In my memory, you should be able to hear roosters crowing when you get to this place.

But at this moment, there was only deathly silence.

The road home was piled high with fallen leaves. Stepping on the withered leaves, Bai Miao saw the old house covered with vines standing alone in the dirty courtyard.

"How could it have fallen into such a state of disrepair... Has it not been properly cleaned over the years?"

With each step he took toward the old house, Bai Miao felt his physical age decreasing.

The viewpoint has become increasingly shorter, and the towering trees that seemed unreachable in my childhood remain unchanged.

His physical attributes also declined until each one became consistent with the standards of a six-year-old child.

But Bai Miao continued to move towards home.

“Brother, you shouldn’t have come back at this time. The time is not right yet.”

In the center of the courtyard, the girl with dark skin, wearing a thin shirt and jeans, and a straw hat slowly appeared and said to Bai Miao with a sad expression.

"Sister, I want to face my past. I don't want to run away anymore."

The thought of this girl guarding this place day after day, year after year, brought a bitter feeling to Bai Miao's heart.

The girl lowered her head, and after a brief silence, she sighed, "Then I'll wait for you inside."

As she spoke, she walked towards the door and passed right through it.

Bai Miao chased after him, forcefully tearing off the ivy from the door. He pushed open the long-sealed door, smelled the damp, musty odor inside, and, with the help of sunlight filtering through the gaps in the tiles, saw a mourning hall deep in the first-floor hall.

The large red candles piled up below the mourning hall had melted and spread outwards, and countless gray-white ash plants symbolized the countless paper money that had been burned here.

Among the pile of ash, Bai Miao discovered some skeletons woven from thin bamboo strips.

There were also paper figures that had been burned to half their original size.

In the mourning hall, there are three portraits from left to right.

Bai An's father, Bai An's mother, and Bai An.

"Brother, the house is a bit messy and hasn't been cleaned yet."

The girl appeared beside Bai Miao, squatted down, and picked up the dust from the ground bit by bit.

Bai Miao stared at Bai An's portrait and touched his own pulse.

I didn't jump.

"Sister, am I dead?"

"What nonsense are you talking about? You're perfectly fine."

The girl tried to touch Bai Miao's head, but her hand missed.

She withdrew her hand somewhat awkwardly.

"Sister, what is the truth about that day? Can you tell me?"

"Brother, stop asking. Why don't you go back to the county?"

The girl's voice sounded a little flustered: "You're graduating soon, how about I take you out to play during the summer after graduation?"

Bai Miao remained silent for a moment, then gave a bitter laugh: "Sister, it seems that the one who needs to face the past is not me, but you."

"No...that's not the case..."

Bai Miao felt the mourning hall in front of him rapidly moving away from him, and his body was also growing rapidly in a short period of time. When he came to his senses, he was lying in bed.

This is my parents' home in the county town, and this is my bedroom.

The time is...12:15 AM.

The sound of boiling oil wafted from the kitchen, and the fragrant aroma of stir-fried meat gradually spread into the room.

"Bai An, get up quickly! Lunch is ready!"

Bai An's father knocked on the door and urged Bai Miao, "All you do on Saturdays is sleep. You don't even get up early to help with the housework."

Bai Miao rubbed his throbbing temples and gradually realized what the problem was.

"I'm the one who was created..."

……

"Miss Bai Ping, would you like to watch your younger brother grow up?"

"Yes... I really want to see what he will look like when he grows up."

"Would you be willing to give up your memories, your lifespan, in exchange for your brother's elementary school years? You will be an observer, you will be a witness, and you will also be the executioner who puts the end to the story."

"I...I'm willing, as long as I can see the day he graduates from elementary school."

"Okay, thank you for your transaction with Shengshoutang. I wish us a pleasant cooperation."

……

Bai Miao silently finished his lunch at home, sat down at his desk, and took out the Barbie doll that had appeared on his bedside table the night he had a fever.

"Sister, are you there?"

Got no response.

Bai Miao directly used psychoanalysis on Barbie dolls.

The figure from his memory reappeared, but Bai Miao noticed that the girl was surrounded by darkness and was crouching down with her back to him, as if she were curled up in some corner.

The aura-gazing technique couldn't discern anything about the doll, but advanced psychoanalysis revealed someone's thoughts contained within it.

Bai Miao stood up and walked out of the room, where white scraps of paper were floating everywhere.

Just as Bai Miao placed his hand on the doorknob of that dusty room, his parents suddenly appeared behind him and warned, "Bai An, didn't I tell you not to come into this room without permission? Have you finished your homework?"

Bai Miao turned around and smiled slightly: "Dad, Mom, I've already been admitted to the Third Municipal High School without taking the entrance exam, so I don't need to do any more homework."

"Have you been exercising? You just stay at home all day and never go out to play with your friends."

Bai Miao answered with ease, "I'm stronger than an adult now, and I estimate I'll grow to 1.8 meters tall after graduation."

Bai Miao passed both the academic and health tests perfectly.

The parents' figures disappeared, and the long-sealed door slowly opened.

The room was still covered in dust. Bai Miao strode into the room and opened the wardrobe.

"Sister, I've found you."

Inside the wardrobe, a dark-skinned girl wearing a straw hat was trembling in the corner.

"Brother... don't look for me, you need to live your own life."

The girl turned her head and cried, saying, "I want to watch you grow up."

"Sister, look at me, I've grown up healthy and strong, but you're still the same as when you were a child."

The girl looked Bai Miao up and down, pursed her lips and nodded: "You've grown taller than me now."

"So, sister, can you come out of the closet now?"

"If I come out... then you will..."

The girl hugged her knees, burying her face deep in them: "Sister wants to see you grow up, see you become an adult, see you get married and have children..."

"Sister, this isn't realistic. You need to move on."

Bai Miao took out the White Rabbit milk candy that his grandmother had given him when he was in second grade from his pocket.

Even after five years, it still looks brand new.

"Do you remember this candy? We loved eating this when we were little. Grandma would give each of us one, and you would always give me yours."

"This candy... it's a good thing you didn't eat it."

The girl's face was filled with deep apology, which only strengthened Bai Miao's suspicions.

"You made a deal with Shengshoutang to create me, didn't you?"

I was never the child who suddenly grew up after suffering a great disaster.

Rather, it was another child who suffered a great calamity and could not accept reality, born with twisted desires with the help of Shengshoutang.

The girl nodded: "I thought Shengshoutang would give you a complete and healthy childhood... but I never imagined you would suffer so much pain... I'm sorry..."

"It's okay. I overcame these difficulties and became a better version of myself. Before I put a period to this, I want to ask you, sister, what was the truth back then?"

The girl wiped away her tears, then suddenly grasped Bai Miao's hand: "It's my fault for not holding you tight enough..."

"No, sister, it was my fault for asking to go play in the river. If anyone made a mistake, it was Shengshou Hall, which led all of this."

"Was the upstream flood discharge really such a coincidence? Was it also a coincidence that Shengshoutang came knocking on our door so quickly after the incident?"

Bai Miao is talking nonsense right now. As long as he can resolve his sister's guilt and help her get out of the shadow of her childhood, Shengshoutang is the perfect scapegoat.

"Brother... are you saying that the Hall of Longevity wanted to obtain my memories and lifespan, and thus created that disaster?"

"Ah."

The girl pondered for a moment, then smiled bitterly: "But it was indeed because of me that you were swept away by the current."

"Sister, I don't blame you."

Bai Miao was startled, because these words were not spoken by him, but by Bai An.

A child's voice mingled with a slightly more mature one; whether in the past or present, Bai An had never blamed his older sister.

She's the best sister in the world.

"Xiao An..."

"Sister, please let me leave."

The girl wiped away her tears and struggled to her feet.