After walking for a while, Shen Fei noticed something. Half the people in the village were thin. Not lean in a healthy way, but thin from years of never having enough to eat, of never getting enough nourishment.
The adults had jutting cheekbones and slender wrists, their clothes hanging loose around them.
It was even more obvious in the children. Their arms and legs were skinny, their faces had little flesh, and some had pale lips, as though they had long suffered from anemia.
The people working moved slowly. When carrying things, they had to stop and rest every few steps, their labored breathing audible from several paces away.
Just as Shen Fei was taking all this in, two children suddenly came running out of the alley ahead.
A boy and a girl, both looking no older than five or six, wore patched clothes of coarse cloth. Each clutched a twig as they chased each other in play.
The boy ran ahead, turning back to grin at the girl. Without watching where he was going, he ran headfirst into Shen Fei's leg.
Shen Fei felt a weight against his leg, but the impact was far lighter than he had expected, as though a wad of cotton had bumped into him.
He looked down. The boy had already bounced back, lost his footing, and landed on his bottom.
The girl behind him could not stop in time and ran into them too. She tripped over the boy and pitched forward, landing right against Shen Fei's knee.
Shen Fei reached out and caught the girl's arm, steadying her. As his palm closed around her arm, what he felt gave him pause.
Her arm was astonishingly thin, like a withered twig. There was almost no flesh beneath the skin; he could feel the