"It was only a possibility."
The old woman pondered. "Children are forgetful by nature, and he'd just been seriously ill..."
"Or maybe his parents stopped him from coming after he got seriously ill in the village."
"You said it yourself. Xiaobai came to the village to recuperate."
"But instead of getting better, he ended up seriously ill."
"What do you think his parents would make of that?"
"..."
The old man nodded silently.
"...You're right."
"I remember now."
"Xiaobai's maternal grandparents spent some time living in the city."
"After that, when I went to the city to study, I more or less forgot about Xiaobai."
"Actually, I don't know if he ever came back after that..."
"That was all a long time ago."
"Don't dwell on it."
The wrinkles at the corners of the old woman's eyes relaxed slightly, but soon creased again. "Has it really been that long?"
"Lei Lei..."
The worry on the old woman's face was impossible to hide. "I wonder how he's doing."
"I'll go look for him in the woods."
As she spoke, the old woman had already stood up. "Why's he been gone so long?"
"That child..."
"All right."
The old man held her back. "Don't worry so much."
"Lei Lei's fine."
"How do you know?"
The old woman was a little displeased by the old man's baseless confidence.
"If something really happened, it'd be too late by then."
"I don't know."
The old man's unexpected answer made the old woman pause.
"But—"
The old man smiled faintly. "I know Xiaobai and Lei Lei are both unharmed."
"If the tiger meant to hurt people, Lei Lei wouldn't have come back in one piece yesterday."
"Besides, according to Lei Lei, he got lost, and the tiger took him to the edge of the woods."
"Tell