Is that a head on your neck or a walnut?

Yunling County, Shiban Village.

Once night deepened, the temperature in the mountains plummeted. As soon as the sun that had scorched people's scalps during the day sank below the horizon, cold seeped out of the cracks between the rocks.

Jiang Xun lay on the only plank bed in the main room and rolled over. His stomach growled.

The little bit of thin porridge and corn in his stomach had long since been digested without a scrap remaining. Hunger scratched at his belly like a little claw, and no matter how much he tossed and turned, he couldn't sleep.

Grandpa slept at the other end of the bed. The old man was a light sleeper and would wake at the slightest movement. Not daring to roll over again, Jiang Xun quietly sat up.

Shen Wangjing lay on his side with his back to the door on a "bed" made of two long benches pushed together, one arm tucked beneath his head.

The benches were less than two-thirds the width of his shoulders. The slightest roll would send him tumbling off.

He had only a military overcoat covering him.

The family's only quilt covered Jiang Xun and Grandpa.

After a full day of physical labor, a person would be so exhausted their bones felt ready to fall apart. Never mind benches-they could fall asleep in a second even on a bed of nails.

Shen Wangjing's breathing was steady and deep. He was clearly fast asleep.

Jiang Xun quietly stepped around the benches and pushed open the door to the main room.

The mountain village's night was utterly dark.

There were no streetlights, no neon, only a dense canopy of stars overhead, with the Milky Way stretching across the sky.

Back at the orphanage, Jiang Xun had often been too hungry to sleep in the middle of the night and had gone up to the rooftop alone to look at the stars.

Back then, the city lights had blotted out all but a sparse handful of stars overhead.

Here, there were enough stars to blanket the entire sky.

He sat on a stone block in the courtyard and tipped his head back to count the stars. When he reached the forty-seventh, his stomach growled again.

"Stop it," he said, lowering his head to pat his stomach. "There's no point making noise. It'll definitely be thin porridge again tomorrow morning."

Jiang Xun sighed and was just about to go back inside and force himself to sleep-

A rustling came from the eastern corner of the courtyard wall.

His gaze sharpened instantly, alertness driving away both his drowsiness and hunger.

In the eastern corner of the courtyard wall, near the chicken coop, a dark figure crouched atop the wall and climbed down with practiced movements.

His foot slipped as he landed, crushing a clod of earth. The man froze for a moment, then hunched over and crept toward the coop.

There were two old hens in the coop.

Shen Wangjing relied on their eggs to build Grandpa's strength back up. He gave them food and water every morning and evening, and had made the coop more secure than the house they lived in.

The man had clearly scoped the place out. He knew the household had only the old, weak, sick, and infirm, and that the only one who could fight, Shen Wangjing, was sleeping like the dead after a full day of physical labor. It was the perfect time to strike.

His hand had already reached into the coop. Disturbed, a hen clucked in protest.

Jiang Xun rose without a sound, picked up the chipped cleaver from the low table, and crept over along the foot of the wall.

The chicken thief remained completely oblivious. He had already grabbed one hen by the legs and was pulling it out. The hen beat its wings and let out shrill squawks.

"At this hour of night," Jiang Xun said, coming to a stop behind him, a hint of lazy amusement in his voice, "are you here to steal chickens, or are you looking to die?"

The chicken thief, who had never expected anyone to be in the courtyard in the middle of the night, went rigid and whipped his head around.

In the moonlight, a chipped cleaver pointed straight at the tip of his nose.

The boy holding it smiled with his eyes curved into crescents, two dimples plainly visible on his face, his eyes brighter than the stars above.

The chicken thief shuddered in fright and loosened his grip. The hen flapped free, smacked a faceful of feathers into him, and flew wildly around the courtyard.

Moonlight revealed the man's face-shifty eyes, high cheekbones, and a cheap gold chain hanging around his neck. He was one of the two burly men who had come with Li Guizhi to make trouble that day.

"Y-you put that knife down!" Gold Chain looked sturdy, but his legs shook like leaves. "I was just passing through! Passing through!"

"Passing through?" Jiang Xun moved the cleaver half an inch forward, pressing its tip against Gold Chain's nose, his smile utterly innocent. "Through someone else's chicken coop? What, are you a chicken? Coming back to the nest to lay an egg?"

Cold sweat streamed down Gold Chain's temples. His eyes darted around, then he suddenly raised his voice and howled, "Help! Murder! Someone from the production crew is attacking me with a-"

The last word was still in his throat when Jiang Xun lifted his leg and kicked him hard in the back of the knee.

Gold Chain's knees buckled, and he dropped to his knees in front of the coop with a thud, his nose ending up right in front of a half-dried lump of chicken droppings.

The stench made him retch on the spot.

"Shout. Keep shouting." Jiang Xun looked down at him, twirling the chipped cleaver between his fingers.

"Better yet, wake the whole village. Let everyone see what a lackey of the village chief's wife is doing crouched in someone else's chicken coop in the middle of the night."

Gold Chain knelt on the ground, his nose only half an inch from the lump of chicken droppings. The stench made his eyes roll back, but he still didn't dare move.

The cleaver rested on his shoulder. Each time it tapped him, his legs shook.

"I-I wasn't stealing! I was just-"

"Just what?" Jiang Xun crouched down, sliding the back of the blade along Gold Chain's shoulder to the nape of his neck.

"Just checking whether the chickens were sleeping well? Are you a chicken-coop caretaker? Or did these two hens visit you in a dream to tell you they had insomnia?"

The production crew was finally alerted.

The director rushed into the courtyard with a coat draped over him, followed by a cameraman and two production assistants carrying flashlights.

The flashlight beams swung wildly, first illuminating Gold Chain kneeling on the ground, then Jiang Xun crouching beside him and tapping his shoulder with a cleaver, before finally settling on the two old hens huddled together and trembling inside the coop.

The director's blood pressure shot up at a practically visible rate.

"What is going on here?!"

Jiang Xun raised his head, the two dimples on his face looking especially innocent in the moonlight. "Director, you're just in time. This man climbed over the wall in the middle of the night to steal chickens. Caught red-handed."

"I didn't steal anything! I didn't manage to!" As though clutching at a lifeline, Gold Chain shouted at the director at the top of his lungs. "You need evidence! The chickens are still in the coop. I didn't take anything!"

Jiang Xun chuckled, picked up an enamel mug, and took a gulp of water. Only after wetting his throat did he leisurely add, "So attempted murder isn't a crime? Is that a head on your neck or a walnut?"