It was an early spring night forty-three years ago.

In the faint moonlight, a dusty little boy in a single coat struggled down the road, shivering as he went, with a frightened expression on his face.

The highway is a county road that connects Duzhang County in Mijang City, a municipality directly under the central government, and Jingkang County in Gaoshu Province. Both counties are remote mountainous counties, deep in the mountains, and the traffic is very difficult, and this county road is the only road connecting the two counties. At that time, the roads were not paved with cement or asphalt, but were simply leveled, and they were all dirt roads with a lot of dust. In particular, as soon as the car passes, the friction between the tires and the ground brings up more than one person's dust.

The night was terriblely quiet! Except for the occasional sounds of animals in the woods and grass on both sides of the road, everything was so silent. The little boy had been walking on the road for hours, without eating or drinking, but just moving forward vigorously, not knowing where to go.

Suddenly, the headlights of a car shone from the corner behind him, and the little boy immediately hid in the grass next to him for fear of being discovered. The wagon whizzed by, kicking up a puff of dust. The little boy still crouched in the grass, not daring to come out, until the truck was far away, and then returned to the road and continued to walk.

After walking for some time, a hare suddenly crossed the road and jumped over the little boy's feet. The little boy was frightened by the hare, and sat down on the road, and he was already shivering, but now he trembled even more. The little boy sat down on the road and rested for a while, then slowly stood up, still persistently walking.

The sky gradually opened up, and the outlines of the two sides of the road slowly appeared. The little boy saw a road sign inserted on the side of the road, and a few words were written on the road sign: Yuanlu Village, Duzhang County, Mijiang City.

The little boy, who was also illiterate, grabbed the iron pole of the road sign with both hands so that he could rest and try not to fall down. Hunger and exertion, the weak little boy finally could not support it, and his whole body slipped down the iron rod and fell to the side of the road. On the side of the road was a slope, and the little boy's body continued to slide down the slope along the grass, sliding five or six meters, and fell into a wasteland.

The little boy was in a coma in the wasteland for two hours. At this time, a middle-aged man with a hoe on his shoulder passed by the wasteland and saw a little boy lying down. The man stretched out his fingers, tested the little boy's nose, found that there was still breath, quickly threw down the hoe, put the little boy on his back, and trotted all the way back to the house.

"Wife, hurry up and cook porridge, this kid is dying!" The man said eagerly to a woman.

When the woman heard this, she immediately started a fire and began to cook porridge, and the man carefully placed the little boy on the bed and covered the little boy's chest with a quilt. After the porridge was cooked, the woman added some sugar to the porridge and fed it to the little boy's mouth one bite at a time.

Under the careful care of the two, the little boy finally woke up after falling asleep for a day and a night. The little boy looked around, it was a mud-walled house, although simple, but also neat. A man and a woman were standing in front of him, smiling at him.

The woman asked, "What's your name?" How old is it? ”

The little boy was silent for a while, and then replied timidly: "I don't have a name, my mother has always called me Mangwa, and I am six years old this year." ”

"What about your mom and dad?" The woman continued.

Hearing the woman's question, the little boy's eyes were full of tears, and one by one he fell, and replied, "They...... They're all dead! ”

The two were taken aback, for such a young child, his parents had already died!

The man then asked, "Then why are you lying alone in the wasteland?" ”

The little boy lowered his head and replied in a low voice, "I don't know either, I'm lost." ”

The woman walked to the bedside, touched the little boy's head with her hand, and asked, "Is there anyone else in your house?" ”

"There's no one left." The little boy replied.

At this time, the man gave the woman a look, and the two went out together, and walked to the edge of the courtyard outside the house. The man took out a cloth bag from his trouser pocket, took out some tobacco leaves and a box of matches from it, took off the cigarette stick tied to his waist, slowly stuffed the tobacco leaves into the cigarette holder, lit the tobacco with a match, and smoked it.

While smoking, the man said to the woman, "I don't know whose child this child is?" Let's send him to the township and let the township help find his other family members. ”

"This kid is so pitiful! Both parents died, and he himself said that there was no one else in the family. Even if we send him to the township, we may not be able to find his family in the township. ”

In those days, there were very few cars, the traffic was basically by walking, and the communication was also very underdeveloped, except for the loudspeaker in the village, there was no means of communication, and if there was an urgent matter to call, it was necessary to go to the countryside. It seems that it is indeed not an easy task to find the family of the little boy.

The woman leaned towards the man, took the man's arm, looked at the man, and said, "We have been married for all these years, and now we are all middle-aged, and I have not been able to give you a son and a half daughter, which has always been a problem for me." ”

The man held a cigarette stick in his left hand, put his right hand around the woman's waist, and said, "It's nothing, it's all our life!" As long as we grow old together, I'm already very satisfied. ”

"Don't you think you can change our lives right now?"

"What do you say? I don't understand. The man was a little confused.

"This kid is here to change our lives. Behold, the child was met by you when you went out in the morning, and that wasteland, which was rarely visited, happened to be discovered by you. The woman said.

The man listened silently, smoking his own cigarette.

The woman continued: "Moreover, this child is almost out of breath, you carried him back, you are his savior." Don't you think he's very close to us? ”

The man turned his head and looked at the little boy lying on the bed in the room.

"We just had a few words with him, and judging by his answers, there should be no problem intellectually. Simply...... Let's just leave him behind. The woman asked the man tentatively.

"However, this child is already six years old, and even if we are willing to keep him, we don't know if he will want to or not." The man replied worriedly.

"Then we'll ask him later, and if he wants to, let's keep him."

The two returned to the house. The woman sat on the edge of the bed, took the little boy's hand, and said, "Son, your parents have died, and there is no one else in the house." You see, both of us are farmers in Yuanlu Village, and we have no children at home, are you willing to stay? We'll treat you like our own! ”

After listening to the woman, the little boy looked at the two of them as if he didn't understand. The little boy thought for a while, lifted the sheet on his body, got out of bed, knelt down in front of the two, kowtowed three times, and said, "Thank you for taking me in." From now on, you will be my mom and dad! ”

The two immediately helped the little boy up and hugged the little boy, with a relieved smile on their faces.