Rebirth in 1972: Redemption in Changbai Mountain

Zhou Rui carried Xiao Niangao home, and An'an and Zhou Ping quickly climbed off the kang (a heated brick bed).

"Second brother, has Xiao Nian Gao had her milk yet?"

"He's drinking it, he's even burping from it." Zhou Rui put the little rice cake down.

"If someone hiccups, you should pat them. I've seen Aunt Chunni do that." As she spoke, she put one small hand around Xiaoniangao and patted her back with the other.

"An'an is so amazing, I didn't even know that."

"Second brother, hurry up and eat. I've kept the food warm." Zhou Ping brought the food over from the pot.

"Okay, are you two full?"

"I'm full. Look, my belly is bulging." An'an lifted her clothes to show Zhou Rui.

Zhou Rui quickly pulled An An's clothes down, "Put them down, put them down. Girls shouldn't just lift their clothes up for others to see."

"Second Brother is none other than..." An'an pouted.

"Brother, what are we doing this afternoon?" Zhou Ping was a little bored, since they were far from the village and there was no one around to play with.

"I'll go fetch water this afternoon, otherwise we won't have any water tomorrow," Zhou Rui said while eating. "Later, go to the riverbank and find some brambles. After I fetch the water, I'll weave a few fishing traps. When I came back today, I saw a lot of fish near Wangfeng Cliff. I'm thinking of setting a few traps there when I go hunting tomorrow morning, then you'll have fish to eat."

"Really? What does a fish trap look like? Can you catch fish with it?" Zhou Ping asked.

"Second brother, is the fish delicious?" An'an was more interested in the food.

"You'll see when it's finished," Zhou Rui said, then turned and flicked An'an's nose. "Delicious, so fresh."

Zhou Rui finished eating quickly, instructed An'an to watch over Xiao Niangao at home, and then picked up the water buckets and went out.

The house was quite far from the river; otherwise, the villagers wouldn't have moved outwards in the first place. After walking for about ten minutes, Zhou Rui reached the riverbank, filled two buckets with the river water, and leisurely made his way back. He didn't encounter anyone on the way; everyone had gone to work, so Zhou Rui was happy to be free.

After carrying the water back and forth twice, Zhou Rui suddenly realized that he seemed to have become stronger. He remembered that in his previous life, he didn't have this much strength at this age; he could only carry half a bucket of water and had to rest frequently. Today, he carried two full buckets in a row without feeling tired. Could it be that the Tai Chi Bagua tablet had also modified his body? If so, his physical limits in this life had increased. With age and training, would he eventually reach the standards of those strongmen?

As Zhou Rui pondered this, he carried water, and it took him three trips to fill the water tank.

Just then, Zhou Ping returned with a small bundle of brambles: "Brother, do you think this is enough?"

"That's enough." Zhou Rui took the brambles and went to the backyard to process them. The backyard wasn't big, only about two meters wide between the house and the mountain wall, but it was shady because the house blocked the sun from shining on it.

Zhou Ping and An'an, along with Xiao Niangao, sat down in the backyard. Since their father and older brother passed away, the two younger children had been very restless, often needing to cling to Zhou Rui to feel secure. Zhou Rui was also very happy; in fact, in his previous life, when he was alone abroad, he often thought of his younger siblings when they were little.

Zhou Rui used a machete to trim the brambles, removing the excess branches and cutting them to the same length.

"Pingwa, go and get some firewood. Let's light a small fire here and roast the brambles," Zhou Rui instructed after he had finished preparing.

Normally, processing wicker is quite troublesome, requiring air drying, soaking, and smoking. It takes a long time, and only wicker treated in this way is durable and resistant to insects. However, Zhou Rui needed it urgently, so he couldn't wait that long. If it broke later, he could just weave more, which wouldn't take much effort.

Once the fire was lit, Zhou Rui and the others began weaving the fish traps. His ten fingers moved with the dexterity of threading a needle, occasionally holding a thorn branch and roasting it over the fire, bending it to the desired angle.

"Second Brother, who taught you to weave this basket?" Zhou Ping asked, somewhat puzzled.

"I didn't learn it much. I just learned it by watching others weave when I went to the market with my dad," Zhou Rui replied casually. He couldn't very well say that he learned it when he left the village and wandered around in his past life.

"You're amazing, you learned it just by watching."

Before long, the fish trap was finished.

"Brother, is it ready? But this is just a small basket, can it even catch fish?" Zhou Ping looked at it in his hand.

"Definitely. If my second brother says it's possible, then it is."

"It's not finished yet, we still need a lid." Zhou Rui said, picking up a plate of shorter brambles.

In no time, a cone-shaped bucket, wider at the top and narrower at the bottom, was finished. The bottom of the bucket wasn't sealed; only about ten thorny branches, about the size of chopsticks, extended downwards. Zhou Rui took the fish trap from Zhou Ping's hand, put the cone-shaped bucket inside, and then used a thin thorny branch as a rope to secure the two together.

"See, this will do the trick. The fish swims in through this opening, and then the brambles inside will bounce back, sealing the narrowed opening like thorns, so the fish can't get out."

"Hey, really." Zhou Ping poked the brambles that stretched downwards with his hand.

"Really!" An'an said, mimicking Zhou Ping's tone, even though she didn't understand anything.

In this way, Zhou Rui spent almost an afternoon making a total of five fish traps.

Zhou Rui put down the last fish trap, unconsciously twisting his neck from side to side. He was exhausted, feeling even more tired than hunting. Just as he turned his head, Zhou Rui noticed a small patch of green moss on the stone wall, and within the moss, there seemed to be a tiny stream of water. Zhou Rui looked up at the sky, but it wasn't raining. Where was the water coming from?

Zhou Rui stood up and slowly walked over. He saw water dripping from the moss about a meter high on the stone wall. The water was small, with only one drop every two or three seconds. Zhou Rui peeled away the moss and finally found a crack a few centimeters long in the stone wall. The crack was small, only the size of a hair. A stream of water seeped out along the crack. The stream was small, but still visible to the naked eye.

Zhou Ping and An An saw Zhou Rui suddenly dazed and walk blankly to the stone wall, neither of them knowing what had happened.

"What's wrong, Second Brother?"

Zhou Rui didn't answer, then turned his head to the left and looked outside the courtyard. Through the wooden courtyard wall, he saw a pool about half a meter deep more than ten meters away, which was where the spring water used to be.

Zhou Rui quickly ran out of the yard and came to the edge of the pond.

"Dry, no water?" Zhou Rui muttered to himself.

"Second Brother, what's wrong? Are you alright? Don't scare me." Zhou Ping followed him out, a hint of worry in his eyes.

"Second brother, second brother." An'an followed behind, holding Xiao Nian Gao, not understanding why her second and third brothers had suddenly run away.

"Stop arguing, wait a minute, there's something I haven't figured out." Zhou Rui raised his hand to stop the brother and sister from continuing to talk.

Zhou Rui looked at the original spring outlet, a hole the size of an egg, and then looked back at the spot in the yard where the moss had been; it was about the same height.

Could that be the location of the spring's waterway? Zhou Rui wondered. If so, why was there no water at the outlet? What if... what if the spring hadn't dried up before, but rather the outlet had been blocked for some other reason? Like an earthquake or something else, like a stone falling down.

Never mind, I'll just try and see.

"Let's go back."

So the three of them went back into the courtyard. Zhou Rui searched for a long time but couldn't find any other tools, only a hoe. Zhou Rui swung the hoe and struck hard at the crack in the stone wall, thud, thud, thud. He struck for a long time, but the stone didn't react at all.

Zhou Rui looked up and pondered for a moment: "Pingwa, go and get me some larger pieces of firewood."

"Second brother, what happened?"

"I suspect that the spring used to flow through this area," Zhou Rui said, pointing to the spot on the stone wall. "Then something might have blocked the original spring. Now there's a leak here, and I want to open it up and take a look. If it really is spring water, then we'll never have to fetch water from the river again."

"Oh, really?"

Zhou Rui set up several large logs and moved the fire he had been using to roast the brambles under the firewood. Watching the flames slowly rise, Zhou Rui felt a sense of anticipation.