Cangmang Asks the Way 1: Guardian of the Lamp

With the tireless efforts of his mother and Tianci, Tianci's scores in Chinese and Mathematics gradually improved, from a few points to over ten points, and then to over twenty points...

Finally, during a second-grade final exam, when a bright red "62" appeared on the Chinese test and an equally precious "61" appeared on the math test, Tianci's hand holding the test paper trembled slightly. He looked up at his mother, Su Yumei, and the tears welling up in her eyes and the smile blooming on her lips were more dazzling than any award certificate.

The summer heat intensified, and cicadas chirped incessantly. One sweltering afternoon, Wang Yaowu saw Tianci squatting under a camphor tree, intently watching ants carrying food. Finding the stuttering boy's silly antics amusing, he decided to tease him. He grabbed Tianci's neck and said, "Hey, stutterer, come play in the water with us." Tianci was practically pushed and pulled to the pond's edge. Everyone jumped into the water, wearing only shorts. Tianci also took off his outer pants, revealing his worn-out underwear, and splashed around in the shallows.

Seeing Tianci struggling clumsily, Wang Yaowu thought to himself, "This stutterer not only speaks poorly, but even swimming is a silly sight. It's hilarious. If I push him into the deep end, his desperate struggle will be even more entertaining." He secretly swam behind Tianci and slowly pushed him towards the edge of the deep end. Tianci had been weak since childhood and had never played in a pond alone before, so he was completely unaware of the impending danger. He was just wondering why Wang Yaowu kept pushing him. Suddenly, he felt a strong force pushing him from the water. Caught off guard, Tianci plunged into the deep end like a stone. The pond water instantly submerged him. He thrashed about in terror, grabbing at the water with his hands and feet, but only stirred up more water as his body sank uncontrollably.

Some of Tianci's friends noticed his unusual behavior and screamed, "Oh no! Tianci has fallen into deep water!"

Wang Yaowu let out a mischievous, triumphant laugh: "Hahaha, look at how he paddles like a dog, it's so funny."

In the nick of time, Wang Xiuzhu, who was washing clothes on the flagstones, heard the commotion. She put down her clothes and anxiously looked around for any adults. However, apart from the panicked children in the pond and Cang Tianci's gradually sinking figure, there was only silence around her. Should she run to the village to call the adults? That would be too late. What to do? What to do? In desperation, she saw a long-handled bamboo rake stuck in the edge of the field. Her eyes lit up, and she immediately rushed over, frantically pulling out the rake, dragging it to the bank, and desperately stretching the handle towards Tianci: "Tianci, grab it! Quickly grab the rake!"

Tianci's consciousness was blurred, but his survival instinct made him cling tightly to the rake handle. Xiuzhu pulled with all her might, but her feet slipped on the wet, muddy bank. Just as she was about to be pulled into the water, several children in the water rushed up to help.

Finally, with everyone's combined efforts, Tianci's severed body was pulled onto the shallows. He lay on the rocks, vomiting large mouthfuls of murky pond water. Through his blurred vision, he could see Wang Xiuzhu's eyes filled with concern and her beautiful, flushed, sweat-drenched face.

Many years later, Cang Tianci could still vividly recall that moment: the suffocating feeling of water filling his mouth and nose, Wang Yaowu's cruel laughter tinged with childlike mischief, the bamboo rake extended towards him, and the faint yet resolute warmth emanating from Wang Xiuzhu's palm at the other end of the rake. It was the only light that caught him in the dark abyss of despair. He collapsed to the ground, vomiting not only the water he had swallowed but also seemingly releasing some of his pent-up fear. A mixture of the tremor of surviving a catastrophe and a profound gratitude for that kindness was deeply etched into his heart. For the first time, he felt so clearly that the warmth from others could possess such power, enough to combat the coldness of the world.

His soaked body shivered in the warm summer breeze, but something had subtly changed in his eyes as he looked at Wang Xiuzhu. Fear still lingered, but a more complex emotion—a cherishing of kindness and compassion for the weak—sunk deep into the lake of his heart like a lotus seed encased in mud.

Cang Tianci trudged along the dirt road home, his small body trembling uncontrollably, like a withered leaf swirling in the autumn wind. His right hand clutched a tattered, mud-caked jacket, his upper body bare, his soaked underpants clinging to his skin, bringing a chilling cold. Water droplets mingled with unstoppable tears and snot streamed down his pale, cold cheeks. In his mind, Wang Yaowu's狰狞 (zhengning - ferocious) smile, the suffocating feeling of the pond water filling his mouth and nose, and the despair of his uncontrollable sinking, intertwined with Wang Xiuzhu's concerned eyes, making him momentarily dazed, sometimes jolted awake. The brief warmth brought by Wang Xiuzhu had long been swallowed up by the cold of the pond and Wang Yaowu's monstrous grin.

He didn't know how he got into the house. In the dim light of the kitchen, his mother, Su Yumei, was busy at the stove, her back bent.

"Mother...Mother..." Tianci's cries were choked with dying sobs, "Chi...Chi...Wang...Yaowu...pushed...drowned...Xiuzhu...rake..."

Hearing the noise, Su Yumei turned around and saw her youngest son's miserable state. The spatula in her hand clattered to the ground. She rushed over, squatted down, and stroked his pale face and purple lips with her fingers, asking in a trembling voice, "Tianci! What happened to you? Who pushed you? Did you fall into the pond?"

Tianci stammered, "Um...push...deep water...drown...xiuzhu...rake...pull..." He tried to gesture the name, tears streaming down his face.

Listening to her son's fragmented account, seeing the undried tear stains on his pale face and his terrified eyes, Su Yumei felt a chill rise from her feet and then instantly spread throughout her body. She instinctively reached out to wipe away his tears, but her fingertips trembled violently. She unbuttoned Tianci's soaked underwear and used a dry, tattered cloth to wipe his body, as if trying to erase all the injustice and coldness inflicted upon them. As the cloth brushed against the still-rapid heartbeat beneath the child's thin chest, her heart felt as if it were being gripped tightly by an invisible hand, the pain suffocating her.

Her gaze involuntarily slid from her son's soaked, patched clothes to the drafty, bare kitchen. In the corner lay her husband's old shirt, worn through at the shoulders and stained with mud, silently telling the story of the family's hardship. Wang Zhenkun's cold face, Zhao Jinhua's biting curses, the meager land their family had been forcibly seized and then reclaimed, the daily cold stares and harassment… all the humiliation, resentment, and unwillingness that had been forcibly suppressed, like volcanic lava dormant for many years, were ignited at this moment by the terror of her son's near-death experience.

This time, it wasn't about arguing over trivial matters. This time, the Wang family had reached out to take her child's life. If she could tolerate even this, then the Cang family wouldn't even have the right to live on their knees in Xiqiao Village. A mixture of despair, maternal instinct, and indignation at the loss of her last shred of dignity burned away the last vestige of hesitation like wildfire.

She abruptly pulled a dry, worn-out garment over Tianci, then gripped her son's hand tightly, saying each word distinctly:

"Come on, Mother will take you to demand an explanation! Today, even if we have to break down the Wang family's doorstep, we'll show them that the lives of the Cang family are not worthless!"

She led her son across the bumpy dirt road of Xiqiao Village. Along the way, villagers peered out with curious eyes, but she seemed not to see them. She simply held her son's hand tightly, her gaze fixed firmly on the secretary's courtyard that stood out prominently in the village.

The Wang family mansion, with its high brick walls and vermilion gate exuding an air of solemnity, stood out starkly against the surrounding low, mud-brick houses. Su Yumei paused for a moment before that gate; the high walls and vermilion gate seemed like an invisible barrier, making her heart ache. She instinctively gripped Tianci's hand tightly, the child's cold fingertips instantly bringing her to her senses—she couldn't back down; one step back meant an abyss! With that thought, she hesitated no longer, raising her hand and forcefully striking the door knocker.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

A rapid knocking shattered the evening tranquility. After a while, the door creaked open, revealing Zhao Jinhua's impatient face. She immediately spotted Cang Tianci trembling in the doorway and Su Yumei's desperate expression. Her brows furrowed instantly, and she asked in an unfriendly tone, "Su Yumei, what is it?"

"I'm looking for Secretary Wang." Su Yumei's voice sounded harsh as she tried to suppress her anger.

Zhao Jinhua looked the mother and son up and down suspiciously, pursed her lips, and finally stepped aside to make way for them: "Come in."

Su Yumei, holding Tianci's hand, stepped over the high threshold and into this courtyard she would never normally set foot in. The courtyard was swept clean, paved with blue bricks, and several pots of winter-keeping plants were placed in the corners. The eight-immortal table and grand master chair in the main room were gleaming with oil.

Wang Zhenkun was sitting in a grand chair in the courtyard, leisurely sipping tea from an enamel cup. He didn't even lift his eyelids when Su Yumei and her son entered, as if they were merely two insignificant ants. He didn't invite them to sit down, leaving them standing in the courtyard like servants being interrogated. Only after Su Yumei explained her purpose did he slightly lift the lid of his cup, blow away the foam, and lazily call out into the house, "Yaowu, come out."

Wang Yaowu came running out and said first, "Dad, don't listen to this stuttering kid's nonsense. He fell down by accident. I tried to help him but couldn't. Zhao Ergou and Wang Laizi both saw it."

Wang Zhenkun slowly put down his teacup, making a soft "clang" sound. He put on a stern face and pretended to scold his son: "You good-for-nothing, what's wrong with you? You took your friends out to play, and now that something's happened, it's all your fault for not taking good care of them!"

Then, he turned to Su Yumei, his tone serious: "Su Yumei, you need to be reasonable and consider the bigger picture. Children playing together, bumps and bruises are inevitable. Don't let personal emotions escalate things and disrupt the village's stability and unity. Yaowu may be a bit mischievous, but he's not a bad person; he did try to save people. You're just jumping to conclusions, bringing up 'pushing someone into the water,' that's a serious matter. If word gets out, how bad will the impact be? People who don't know better will think our Xiqiao Village has a terrible atmosphere, that the Party Secretary's family is bullying orphans and widows!"

His words, sharp and veiled like cold needles, not only distorted the truth but also used grandiose terms like "influence" and "social climate" to try and place Su Yumei in a position of being unreasonable. Su Yumei trembled with anger; how could she possibly win against such official rhetoric?

Just then, Wang Zhenkun's wife, Zhao Jinhua, rushed over like a gust of wind and chimed in, "That's right! I think you're just deliberately picking a fight. Don't you know what kind of background your Cang family has? An outsider, a run-down family! You have a convict in your family, raising two good-for-nothing crippled kids—a lame girl who can't even finish first grade three times, and a stuttering boy who always comes in last place in exams. You're hopeless yourself, yet you have the nerve to come and extort money from our Wang family? Are you crazy for money? Bah! I think it's because your Cang family ancestors didn't accumulate any good karma that they gave birth to these stupid and crippled debt collectors!"

The vicious curses and utter insults directed at her child were like a red-hot dagger, instantly shattering Su Yumei's last shred of reason and patience. She trembled violently, her eyes bloodshot, and let out a low, almost beast-like growl: "How dare you insult my child?"

Zhao Jinhua was startled by her appearance and instinctively shoved her: "So what if I scolded you? I only scolded your little cripples and stutterers!"

That push, along with the words "little cripple, little stutterer," became the final straw that broke the camel's back! The humiliation Su Yumei had accumulated over half a lifetime, the anger of her maternal instincts being trampled upon, all erupted at that moment. Without thinking, she used all her strength to deliver a powerful backhand slap.

"Ah—" Zhao Jinhua screamed and covered her face in disbelief.

The next moment, the two women, like enraged female beasts, roared and wrestled together.

Seeing this, Wang Zhenkun's triangular eyes flashed with a fierce light. He took a step forward, grabbed Su Yumei's hair with his thick hand, and dragged her backward violently. "You bitch, you dare to hit someone!"

Su Yumei felt a tearing pain in her scalp, and she staggered backward involuntarily, her vision going black.

As soon as she was free, Zhao Jinhua screamed and pounced on Su Yumei, who was unsteady on her feet, slapping her right cheek again and again. "Slap! Slap! Slap!" Su Yumei's right cheek instantly swelled up, blood seeped from the corner of her mouth, she saw stars before her eyes, and her ears were ringing.

The boy, who had been trembling with fear under his mother's protection, witnessed her being beaten and humiliated. A surge of unprecedented brute force erupted from his small body. Extreme fear and his deepest protective instincts towards his mother mingled into an impulse to destroy everything. His eyes instantly turned bloodshot, like a wild beast enraged beyond measure. He let out a muffled but extremely angry roar and charged forward recklessly.

His two little hands, like iron clamps, gripped Wang Zhenkun's hand that was pulling his mother's hair tightly. Then, with all his might, he lowered his head and bit down hard.

"Agh—" Caught off guard, Wang Zhenkun let out a bloodcurdling scream like a pig being slaughtered. He violently swung his arm, trying to shake Tianci off.

But Tianci was filled with rage. His teeth were deeply embedded in his flesh, and even with the salty, bloody taste filling his mouth, he still refused to let go! At that moment, he vaguely realized that this was the most direct and vicious counterattack he could muster.

In excruciating pain, Wang Zhenkun became enraged. He clenched his other hand into a fist, the size of a bowl, and with a whooshing sound, he slammed it hard into Cang Tianci's temple.

"Bang!"

A muffled thud.

Cang Tianci felt as if a red-hot iron had been shoved into his head. His vision went black, all sounds and images vanished instantly, his grip loosened, and his small body slumped to the ground...

Before his consciousness completely sank into darkness, the last things imprinted on his mind were his mother's piercing, distorted cries, Wang Zhenkun's twisted and ferocious face, and a chaotic yet chilling thought: Why...

Then he remembered the lamp.

A distant light, a very faint light, that has been shining continuously.

He tried to reach out and grab it, but he couldn't.

The light flickered, but did not go out.

Watching Su Yumei frantically rush out of the courtyard with her son in her arms, Wang Zhenkun's heart sank. He forced himself to remain calm, his eyes sweeping fiercely over the neighbors watching from a distance. He said, "Did everyone see that? This madwoman started it all. That little brat bit like a wolf. I had to pull them apart, and that's why I knocked the child down. If anyone goes around gossiping and ruins the reputation of the Wang family and Xiqiao Village, don't blame me, Wang Zhenkun, for being ruthless."

The crowd dispersed. The door closed.

Wang Zhenkun stood in the courtyard, staring at his still trembling hand. The bloody teeth mark on his hand was excruciatingly painful. But he couldn't care less.

"Will that child... die?" Zhao Jinhua's voice came from behind, trembling violently.

Wang Zhenkun didn't turn around. He just stared intently at the tightly closed door, at the last bit of light shining through the crack.

He didn't know if Cang Tianci would survive.

All he knew was that if the child died, he wouldn't survive either.

This thought hurt more than the bite mark on his hand.

He looked down at the teeth mark and remained silent for a long time.

"Call Yaowu here," he suddenly said, his voice hoarse.

Zhao Jinhua was taken aback: "Why call Yaowu?"

Wang Zhenkun didn't answer. He just stared at the teeth mark, his eyes gradually turning gloomy.

He needs to think about his options.

As for what he thinks and what he's thinking, only he knows.