RPAGF Chapter 3 Bamboo Dragonfly
Chapter 3 Bamboo Dragonfly
She mumbled "Little Sizi" incoherently, and before she could even swallow, she picked up another piece with her chopsticks.
Its cheeks were bulging, like a little squirrel hoarding food.
"Eat slowly, no one's going to take it from you," Wang Zhi said, sitting down next to him.
"Pretty buddy, why aren't you eating?" Si Zi looked up, a grain of rice stuck to the corner of her mouth. "It's all red, so pretty!"
"You eat first, Guoguo isn't hungry."
"No way!" Sizi pushed the plate towards him. "Let's eat together! Father said we have to eat together on the seventh day!"
Wang Zhi paused for a moment, then smiled and said, "Okay, I'll listen to you."
He got a bowl of rice, and the two sat facing each other, each taking a bite with their chopsticks. After eating for a while, Si Zi suddenly looked up.
"Pretty pot."
"Um?"
"The butterflies are gone, but the food made by the pretty potty is prettier than butterflies."
Wang Zhi almost choked on his food: "What kind of analogy is that?"
"Well—butterflies are pretty, but they can't be used for anything. Guoguo's cooking is both pretty and can be used for anything. So Guoguo wins."
"Okay, I won against the butterfly."
Sizi nodded in satisfaction and continued eating, rice grains sticking to the tip of his nose.
After finishing their meal, Sizi took the initiative to pick up her bowl and tiptoe to place it on the stove. Wang Zhi quickly took it from her.
"Sizi wants to help."
"Okay." Wang Zhi scooped half a basin of water from the water vat. "Then you help Guo Guo wash the dishes."
Sizi happily rolled up her sleeves and put her two little hands into the basin, splashing water everywhere.
Her method of washing dishes was to shake the bowls in the water a couple of times and then lift them up to see if they were clean. Wang Zhi would squat down next to her and wash the parts that she hadn't washed clean again.
"Pretty guy, do you live alone at home?"
"Yeah, just me."
"Do you ever cry? Does Jizi cry when she's all alone?"
When this question came from a three- or four-year-old girl, Wang Zhi was silent for a moment.
"No," he said. "Because I have a lot of things to do. So I don't have time to cry."
"Oh, what department is that?"
"I do a lot of things." Wang Zhi stacked the washed dishes together. "Farming, treating tenants, and—"
He paused.
"There are still some things that can't be done right now."
"What can't be done now?"
"It's a big deal." Wang Zhihuan smiled. "You'll understand when you grow up."
Sizi grumbled in dissatisfaction, "Why do you adults always say that?"
But she was quickly drawn to something else—Wang Zhi had taken something out of the house.
It is a bamboo dragonfly.
It's made of bamboo, with bamboo strips shaved into two thin propeller blades and a thin bamboo stick inserted in the middle.
The bamboo strips were polished very smoothly, with no burrs on the edges.
He had adjusted the angle of the propeller blades repeatedly—when he rubbed them fast, they could fly very high, and when he rubbed them slowly, they could still drift crookedly for a while.
This was the first handmade toy he played with at his maternal grandfather's house in his previous life. His grandfather sat in the yard and used a small knife to carve it out piece by piece for him.
Later, his father took the knife from his grandfather and shave for his grandson. Then he learned to shave for himself.
After transmigrating, he made several bamboo dragonflies. While making them, his hands were moving, but his mind was blank.
He didn't make the bamboo strips for anyone to play with. He made them so he wouldn't forget them.
I've forgotten the cicadas chirping in my grandfather's yard, and I've forgotten the boy who used to run in the sunset.
These things were the strings that bound him. One end was tied to him, and the other end was tied to that world he could never return to.
But now it seems this thread is going to tie down someone else.
Si Zi put down her cup, saw what Wang Zhihuan was holding, and tilted her head to study it for a while.
She had never seen a bamboo dragonfly before. Children are always full of curiosity about new things.
"Pretty guy, what's this?!"
"My brother calls this a bamboo dragonfly."
"Bamboo—dragonfly—" she learned each word carefully, "Can it fly?"
Wang Zhi also placed the bamboo dragonfly in his palm, clasped his hands together, and rubbed them vigorously.
The bamboo leaves spun rapidly, the propeller blades creating a blur as the bamboo dragonfly darted upwards, paused briefly in the air above the courtyard, and then began to drift away.
As it drifted, the leaves twirled, reflecting the afternoon sunlight and sparkling.
The ox tilted its head back, its mouth opening wider and wider.
"It flew away!" she shrieked, her voice so shrill it could shake the leaves off the jujube tree. "Our beautiful little guy flew away! Hahahaha!"
The bamboo dragonfly circled three or four times in the sky before beginning to fall.
Sizi ran after it, raising both hands above his head to try and catch it.
The bamboo dragonfly landed off course and fell under the jujube tree.
She crouched down to pick it up, held it in both hands, and ran back, her face flushed and her eyes shining brightly.
"Pot, pot, beautiful pot! It just flew so high! Hahaha, higher than a butterfly! Higher than a bird!"
"It can't be that high, can it!?"
"Yes!" she insisted. "The rhinoceros saw it! It was this high; it flew right up into the clouds!"
"There are no clouds today."
"Then—" She looked up at the sky, and sure enough, it was clear, with a clean and bright blue sky.
She paused for a second, then said, "So it flew up to the clouds, but the clouds hid it, so the rhinoceros couldn't see the clouds. But it still flew up!"
Wang Zhihuan completely gave up on refuting it. Right and wrong were not important at this moment; what mattered was being happy.
"Pretty pot, show this to the ox! Fly again! Fly again!"
Wang Zhi rubbed it again.
This time, they rubbed it even faster, and the bamboo dragonfly flew even higher than before, almost vaulting over the courtyard wall.
Sizi chased after it for a couple of steps, then ran back, tilting its head back and turning around to look, its neck almost parallel to the ground.
The bamboo dragonfly landed, and she quickly ran over to pick it up. After picking it up, she tried it out herself.
She rubbed her two little hands together. The first time, she couldn't get it to spin properly, and the bamboo dragonfly only spun around once before falling from her hands.
She rubbed it again, her face flushed as she rubbed with gusto—the bamboo dragonfly flew up crookedly, falling down less than two feet off the ground.
But Sizi still screamed.
"It flew away! The rhinoceros let it fly away! Hehehe, I'm so happy."
She turned to look at Wang Zhihuan, her smugness filling the entire courtyard.
Her victorious smile lasted less than two seconds before she looked down at the bamboo dragonfly in her hand, then looked up at the sky, then looked down at the bamboo dragonfly again, and then looked up at the sky again.
I watched it several times.
"Sizi, what's wrong?"
"Pretty buddy." Her tone suddenly turned serious. "Doesn't the bamboo dragonfly fly as high as you?"
"What's the problem?"
"It's like—when the pot is being rubbed, it flies up there."
She pointed to the jujube tree branch, "When the rhinoceros is being rubbed, it only flies this far."
She pointed to her knee. "Is Sizi not strong enough?"
"Oh, I see. Then Sizi will practice more and become as good as her brother."
"Really? As good as my brother? Then I need to train the rhinoceros!" She gripped the bamboo dragonfly tightly. "The rhinoceros needs to fly up to the clouds! Even when the clouds aren't hiding, it needs to fly up to the clouds too!"
She ran to the middle of the yard and started rubbing it over and over again.
After three or four attempts, the bamboo dragonfly finally flew to a height similar to that of the jujube tree branch.
She turned around and shouted to Wang Zhihuan, "Brother, did you see that?!"
"I saw it."
"Isn't Sizili amazing?"
"Sizi is really amazing."
She turned around with satisfaction and continued rubbing.
I rubbed it countless times until my fingers were a little red.
Wang Zhihai told her to rest for a while, but she said she wasn't tired, and then rubbed herself again—
This time, the bamboo dragonfly veered off course, crashing straight into the trunk of the jujube tree, bouncing once, and falling into a pile of grass next to the tree roots.
Sizi ran over to pick it up. He bent down and rummaged through the haystack for a long time, then suddenly stopped moving.
"Pretty pot."
"Um?"
"There's an ant here." She squatted down, her voice suddenly softening. "It's all alone. Is it lost too?"