If the person who had knocked last night had also been this child, we could have relaxed.
But the child said it hadn't been him, immediately putting us on edge again.
We all thought the child was lying, because after we'd chased outside last night, we'd also seen a child's retreating figure.
Could all the children in his village like coming out at night?
"If it wasn't you, who was it?" we asked him.
He thought for a moment. We couldn't tell whether he was making something up or couldn't explain it.
In the end, he raised both hands beside his ears and made a face to scare us.
"An animal?" Zhang Rong asked him.
He nodded and said he'd seen it last night.
We understood at once. An animal had knocked last night, but the child had been watching from a distance the whole time, so when we'd chased outside, it was his retreating figure we'd seen.
Zhang Rong took out two compressed biscuits and gave them to the child.
Compressed biscuits tasted awful, but the child ate with relish. Clearly, he hadn't been lying; he really was hungry.
"Doesn't your family feed you?"
"They do... but not much."
After he finished, he even licked the wrappers clean.
Looking at how painfully thin he was, we guessed his family treated him badly.
But we could barely keep ourselves safe, and he wasn't an orphan. All we could do was take him back to his village so a wild animal wouldn't carry him off in the middle of the night.
"Full now?"
"I'm full..."
"Then we'll take you back to your village. Don't come running out at night again. You're just a child, yet you're so bold. What if you run into a wild animal?"
We gave him a scolding,