"Yan girl, where did you pick up that child from?" Wu's asked about the child's origin as she came out of the house.
"Little Black came across him on the way back from the city, I'm not sure exactly where he's from."
The child's experiences in the textile workshop were too miserable, and Mo Yan did not want to upset Wu's by telling her, besides she really didn't know the child's true origin, so she quickly moved past the question with a brief answer.
"I see…" Wu's murmured absent-mindedly, nodding her head and saying, "Such a small child, looks even younger than my Si Nier, so thin he's lost shape, and to run out in such cold weather, his family must be missing, I guess… It's hard to say if he was abducted when he was young or if he got lost on his own…"
Seeing that Wu's was reminded of Si Nier, Mo Yan felt glad she hadn't spoken about the child's plight; otherwise, Wu's might have become distressed with all sorts of worrisome thoughts.
