Yang Lin

On a frosty night as the flat snowflakes sprinkled from the heavens, underneath the canopy of a snow-clad maple tree, a fifteen-year-old boy crouched. He embraced his knees into the cavity of his chest, as the wind blew by, he would occasionally sneeze out segregating coughs from his blue lips.

The tip of his nose was already stung red, and his eyelids had felt heavier than the bulk of wooden stacked onto his thin back and fragile-looking shoulders. As he gazed down at his feet which sunk deep into the white tapestry of snow, he couldn't even spot the shins of his ankles, but he didn't care.

For the past few months, Yang Lin would make a detour from his Timber Run; a weird regime his aunt instructed him with since he became twelve years of age.

His aunt had him dash all the way to the pinnacle of the Greenwood Maple Hill, stack up to twenty jins worth of firewood on his back, then descend all the way back to the village. As he grew older, his aunt would add ten jins by every six months.

Just as Yang Lin was losing hope, his eyes brightened, a sense of relief jolted him awake as he watched intensively at the distance. A colony of children, led by an elderly granny in black garments, slowly ventured into a large building at the hillside.

The children wore a stack of clothes, but Yang Lin's focus was on an ordinary-looking young lass. She had silky black hair, pale skin, a delicate frame that wasn't too supple nor too lacking. The distance was quite far so Yang Lin was unable to discern her facial features much, but he could never forget that one time when she aided him to shuttle through the woods back to the village a few months ago.

It was when Yang Lin encountered an enigmatic-looking fox with three silver tails. But till today, Yang Lin remained indecisive as to whether he was hallucinating or not. Nonetheless, when he was lost that day, this ordinary-looking girl who didn't seem much older than him guided him through the darkness.

Since then, Yang Lin would make this detour towards the Cloud Mist Orphanage around this late hour to glimpse at the girl whom he admired. The more he watched her from the dark, the more he felt an indescribable notion bud in his heart, it almost felt like a dream. Whenever he saw her getting bullied, he would subconsciously grow oblivious to the stack of wood weighing down his shoulders as his knuckles crackled.

Whenever she's happy, it's as if he could generate the reverberating laughter of her tender lips even if he could not hear her. Inversely, whenever he awaited under the shade of this maple tree, as long he did not see her, every minute would feel like an eternity or longer.

After waiting for almost an hour, Yang Lin was able to once again grace his sight with this young girl as she crossed the courtyard back inside the building. Even when this brief encounter lasted for a fleeting moment, Yang Lin felt that his blue feet, red nose, and callus hands won't complain. Even if they did, his heart would always tolerate it.

"On my 16th birthday, I'll become a man! Then, I will introduce myself to her!" Yang Lin shot these two sentences in succession before he coughed up a faint mist with an odor of blood. His throat dried up from breathing frosty air for so long, and only now did he notice how serious his cold was.

Although he felt bitter, he felt it was worth it. Thus, he unhurriedly gathered up his strength to stand up, faint crackling noises emitted from his joints and tendons, and his pale face distorted slightly.

One stiff step at a time, Yang Lin descended the hill, his silhouette desolate and lonely.

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With a soft creak, the door to a ground-leveled hut opened. After a gale of frost invaded the hut, a young boy tumbled over the floor with a loud bang.

The sudden noise startled a woman who was busy eyeing a boiling pot of soup over a tranquil flame. The sudden gale fiercely impacted the barely struggling torch, instantly extinguishing it to oblivion. The seated woman didn't care for the fact she was painstakingly maintaining the fire over the past five hours, she anxiously rolled the wheels of her chair to approach the young lad, her misty eyes on the verge of tearing.

For the past few months, her adoptive son returned home in a miserable state of body and mind, especially during this merciless winter! She anxiously unbuckled the stash of wood off his shoulders, then assisted him into sitting up before her numb legs, she carefully held his face that was akin to an ice sculpture, only to notice the dried blood at the tips of his lips.

The woman felt her heart quench, she anxiously called out Yang Lin's name, it wasn't until her crystal tears began to shatter against his face did he finally part his eyes open, and he could discern some of the words this aunt of his chanted.

Seeing his crippled aunt like this, he doesn't understand why she would always, though reluctantly, pressure him to fetch up wood from the pinnacle of Greenwood Maple Hill; she's obviously conflicted about this.

When he turned ten years of age, his aunt told him that she wasn't his real mother, but an adoptive one. If she had a choice, she would have lied about it. Alas, everyone in the village, including herself, knew that the lower half of her body was disabled, she couldn't have children even if she was to sell herself to the street, she wouldn't even sell for ten copper coins in a brothel, let alone attract a man for a stable relationship.

Nonetheless, she loved Yang Lin as if he was her flesh and blood, and she knew she would never have another chance of raising a son in the future. Though her heart melted in warmth when he called her 'Mother', 'Mommy', 'Mama', and so forth... she knew that she couldn't afford to have him live a lie.

Thus, on his tenth birthday, she unveiled the truth. Two years later, when he turned twelve, she followed the instructions inscribed on a piece of paper that she found together with Yang Lin in the cradle.

The instructions were very clear, and the consequences for disobeying were very clear as well. Thus, regardless of the soul-splitting pain, she felt upon seeing Yang Lin return home in a state described as living worse than death, she had to endure it.

"Lin'er! Lin'er! Wake up... wake up..." She unreservedly embraced Yang Lin.