Quite a few years had passed when looking back.

Back then, A’Heng hadn’t yet met her husband; back then, A’Heng was still secretly agonizing over whether she had sprung from a stone.

Every time she sat on the bamboo stool at Old Wang the Town Chief’s house, watching the Monkey King who bounded across the TV screen once every year, she would feel a tearful kinship with him—this fellow was just like her.

Then, head lowered and sniffling, she would walk back home from the Town Chief’s house. The town’s schools were all far from her home, and this was the same road she took every day after classes.

In those seasons, in this town of a thousand households, boats connected like houses, alleys followed the streams, and spring and summer blended indistinguishably.

Back then, whether A’Heng had sprung from a stone remained uncertain, but she was at least more fortunate than her monkey classmate—she had adoptive parents, plus a brother who lay languishing in a sickbed.

Her brother, very well-behaved and good, was named Yun Zai and suffered from congenital heart disease.

Yun Zai grew up on her back. His medicine was her sole responsibility, while the matter of her origins was Yun Zai’s conjecture.

In childhood, A’Heng was often bullied by the town’s children, constantly derided as a “bastard.” Returning home, she would always be dejected.

Yun Zai’s condition was slightly better than, allowing him to learn some characters with her. While teaching her brother and passing him medicine, she would quietly mutter: “You were born from mother, I wasn’t born from mother, so where did I come from?”

Yun Zai’s lips, perpetually bloodless, stared at the medicine bowl, and pondered for a long while, before finally opening those colorless lips sincerely: “Sister, you sprang from a stone.”

A’Heng thought about Sun Wukong, then thought about how Yun Zai had never seen Sun Wukong from his sickbed, hmm, and reluctantly accepted this answer.

But little did she know, when Yun Zai felt slightly better, he had also secretly watched “Journey to the West” at the Town Chief’s house, and specifically the first episode.

The town was too small; much knowledge only became common after taking middle school biology classes.

But perhaps it would have been better not knowing, as beliefs could collapse too easily.

Well, if I didn’t come from a stone, then what do my birth parents look like?

A’Heng thought this way and gradually crafted countless origin stories for herself. Watching “Little Dragon Man,” she thought perhaps she was born of a goddess; watching “Debt of Sin” and singing “Papa has one family, Mama has another family,” her thoughts stirred—perhaps her parents were sent down youth?

In any case, children could be quite troublesome.

Later, she became busy dealing with Yun Zai’s illness, gradually grew up, and gradually learned to keep her worries to herself.

Father was the town’s only doctor, his medical skills were passed down through generations.

Yet, he couldn’t save his son.

When Yun Zai was thirteen, he was already critically ill, but they had no money to seek treatment in the provincial city.

When Yun Zai developed a high fever, she held her skeletal brother in her arms, awkwardly saying: “Don’t be afraid, I’ll give you half my heart, they say surgery will make it better. I’ll give you half my heart, and we’ll live together.”

Yun Zai smiled, his lips showing color for the first time.

Just when they were about to despair, a car worth more than their entire family combined arrived from a place even further than the provincial city. A man in a suit stepped out, saying he would take her home.

He said he could send Yun Zai to the provincial city for treatment; he said, Miss Wen, please come with me.

Who was Miss Wen?

She had the surname Yun.

A’Heng stumbled about packing her belongings, tears filling her parents’ eyes.

She didn’t look at Yun Zai once—that glance would have to wait many years to be cast. At this moment, it wasn’t that she had forgotten, but rather that she didn’t dare.

She didn’t know that Yun Zai hadn’t watched her departing figure either. He closed his eyes, clutching the corner of his blanket until the thread broke.