Chapter 737 Yang Huaiqing
Memories came flooding back like a tide - the crying baby in the cradle on that windy and snowy night.
In the alleys of the black market, there was a small figure holding a medicine box tightly and protecting him. Under countless oil lamps, there was a young boy accompanying him to recognize the handwriting in medical books.
As the flames flickered, he seemed to see again the old beggar's pleading eyes before his death, and hear the promise he made in front of the grave.
The pipe between Yang Huaixi's fingers suddenly shook, and sparks fell on his clothes, but he was completely unaware of it and pointed at the tip of his nose in astonishment:
"I?"
The flames in the stove crackled, causing the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes to tremble.
"You kid..."
Before he could finish his words, he was interrupted by Douzi's sparkling eyes and the boy grabbed his sleeve.
His knuckles turned white from the force, and that unquestionable dependence was like a needle, gently piercing into the softest part of his heart.
"OK,"
Yang Huaixi took a deep breath, and the embers in the pipe flickered.
"Then I'll give you a name."
He stroked the new stubble on his chin and glanced at the bundles of herbs piled in the corner of the room - bupleurum, angelica, saposhnikovia, each medicine had a name that carried hope.
"Do you have any particular preference for names?"
He tried to make his tone casual, but he couldn't hide the trembling in his voice.
"Do you want something louder or more interesting?"
Douzi squatted down and fiddled with the fire, and the flying sparks flashed across his eyelashes in an instant.
He stared at the jumping flames for a while, then suddenly looked up with a startlingly bright look in his eyes:
"I want to take my brother's last name Yang!"
The words came so suddenly and fiercely that Wang Jianguo was so frightened that the wine bowl he was about to raise to his mouth stopped in mid-air.
The young man ignored all this and moved closer, his cotton jacket sleeves brushing across Yang Huaixi's knees:
"We have to be brothers once people hear us!"
Yang Huaixi's heart suddenly sank.
The baby in his memory who was frozen purple in the dilapidated temple had grown into a teenager who could stand shoulder to shoulder with him. At this moment, he was looking at him with wet eyes, like a little animal seeking shelter.
He subconsciously raised his hand to touch Douzi's head, but stopped in mid-air - this child, after all, regarded him as his only support.
"My surname is Yang..."
Yang Huaixi repeated to himself, his fingers tapping his knees unconsciously.
The spark in the pipe had completely gone out, but he was unaware of it. His eyes fell on the old bamboo hat hanging on the wall, which he had bought when he was making a living on the black market. The edges of the hat still had stitches from where Dou Zi had patched it.
"We need to let people know that we are brothers..."
He suddenly laughed, and there was a warmth of relief in his laughter.
“Got it!”
The firelight illuminated his suddenly bright eyes, as if lighting up the entire winter night:
"My name is Yang Huaixi,"
He spoke word by word, pressing his palm heavily on Douzi's shoulder.
"Your name is Yang Huaiqing!"
“Huaiqing?”
Douzi repeated quietly, the tip of his tongue pressing against the roof of his mouth to savor the unfamiliar name.
"Brother, what's the point of this?"
"Happy, happy!"
Yang Huaixi's voice suddenly rose, shaking the strings of dried chilies on the beams.
"Huai means missing someone, and xi and qing both mean a good day."
He pointed at the dark night outside the window, as if he could see the sunrise over the Great Northern Wilderness through the wind and snow.
"We will take root in Jianye Village in the future, and hope that our lives will be like its name, with happy events one after another and a smooth life!"
A cluster of sparks burst out from the firewood in the stove, and fell on the back of Yang Huaiqing (Douzi)'s hand like scattered gold pieces.
He was completely unaware of this and was only focused on grabbing Yang Huaixi's arm and shaking it hard. The shiny patches on the cuffs of his torn cotton-padded jacket swept across the stove, causing the bunches of herbs hanging on the beam to rustle.
“Yang Huaiqing!”
There was excitement in the boy's voice, and the tail end of his voice swirled in the main room.
"This name sounds like a peanut just dug out of the ground. It sounds real! Brother, I want this name!"
Yang Huaixi couldn't help laughing as he was shaken by him. He reached out and rubbed his messy hair, his fingertips touching the shallow scar behind the boy's ear.
That was the result of being knocked over by gangsters in the black market in his early years, and now it has become a mark left by time.
“I like it.”
He looked at Yang Huaiqing's shining eyes and suddenly remembered the first time he saw the child in the dilapidated temple.
He was wrapped in a torn quilt, his cries were weak but tenacious, like bean sprouts breaking through the frozen soil in early spring.
"What a great name! What a great name!"
Wang Jianguo knocked the pipe in his hand against the edge of the kang, and the ashes fell on his patched trouser legs.
He rubbed his red, frozen hands, and his rough palms made a rustling sound as they rubbed against the edge of the ceramic bowl.
"Look at the character '怀', which means to hold the brotherhood in one's heart; the character '庆' with '广' means to live a spacious life!"
As he said this, he suddenly stood up, and the red pompom on his felt hat swept across the cobwebs on the beams.
"I'll go to the commune right now and report my name before Director Song has lunch!"
"Now? You're in a hurry. Let's go after dinner."
Yang Huaiqing looked out the window, a piece of ice crystal fell on his eyelashes, reflecting tiny lights in the firelight.
"What do you call this? This is called good things should not be delayed!"
While Wang Jianguo was stuffing the waist rope into his cotton-padded jacket, he hooked his cotton shoes under the kang with his toes.
"When I come back, I will make sure that the three characters 'Yang Huaiqing' are written in the red book of the commune more lively than the dolls in the New Year pictures!"
When he opened the door, a gust of wind and snow rushed in with cold air, but it could not cover up his loud voice.
"Brother Huaixi, Brother Huaiqing, wait for me to bring back the good news!"
The wooden door closed with a creaky sound, and Yang Huaixi took out a blue cloth bag from the wooden box in the corner. Inside was half a cracked ink stick and a bamboo brush.
"Come, I'll teach you how to write your name."
He poured some snow water into the broken inkstone. The ink stick slowly rotated in the inkstone, and dark brown liquid gradually spread out.
Yang Huaiqing lay on the edge of the kang, his nose almost touching the paper, looking at Yang Huaixi's hand holding the pen.
Those hands that had warmed his frozen toes on snowy nights, and had blocked the sudden rolling rocks for him when he was picking herbs, were now steadily writing the three big words "Yang Huaiqing" on the rough paper.
"Look, 'Yang' is our surname, just like a tall poplar tree."
Yang Huaixi's pen tip stopped at the vertical heart of the word "怀".
"These two points are the heart. We should keep our feelings in our hearts."
When he raised the pen to outline the downward stroke of the word "庆", he exerted a little force on his wrist.
"This stroke should be long, just like the road ahead, which should be open and bright."
The young man suddenly snatched the brush, his fingertips trembling with excitement. With the first stroke, the ink spread out as a small circle on the paper, but the crookedness revealed a sense of stubbornness.
"elder brother,"
He suddenly looked up, and the ice crystals on his eyelashes turned into water droplets and dripped onto the paper.
"Once the clinic is built, I will carve words on the door lintel, making 'Yang Huaixi' and 'Yang Huaiqing' taller than the eaves!"