this growth

Amidst the crying, Du Nan heard his mother say to him gently: "Don't be nervous, that's Xinglang, the ginseng-like branch that your grandpa and grandma gave you today, put it in a box and handed it to you personally." , remember?"

His mother's voice was very gentle, reminding him of his childhood, a long, long time ago - his father was not capable, as far as he could remember, his mother was fighting for his family's livelihood, so Du Nan's impression of his mother was always hard Yes, toughness alone is not enough to describe his mother. His mother is more like a rock, solid and stable. She uses her body to support the sky above him and his father little by little. It is not high, but it can Give him enough sense of security, this is also the impression people outside have of his mother, but only Du Nan knows his mother's gentle side, whenever she is with him, her mother always speaks to him gently and tells him Stories, about things outside, told him not to be afraid, and told him her own plans.

It was a tender memory indeed.

That memory was so nostalgic, and her mother's hands patting her back were so gentle, Du Nan's tears stopped bit by bit.

"This is a custom here. If you have been outside, you should have noticed that there are apricot trees in every household here, right? Although they are also called apricot trees, the apricot trees here are still a bit different from ours. Hehe, when I was young, I lived in A family I passed by had apricot trees in their house, and their apricot trees were beautiful when they bloomed. This is the only apricot tree I have ever seen in my life. After all, the plants began to be scarce at that time. ..."

His mother mentioned something from his previous life, or something from his mother's childhood. Although this topic was a bit off topic, it attracted Du Nan's attention, so that he was wiped clean by his father without any resistance. He wiped his buttocks, changed a new diaper, and finally wiped some of his parents' facial fat. He was held in his mother's arms deliciously, just like when he was a child in his previous life, his mother began to tell him stories.

"The apricot trees here are not ordinary apricot trees. Well... I was also taken aback at first. The apricot trees here have spirits. They like to take care of children."

"When I was young, I also had an apricot tree, just outside. Have you seen the apricot tree in our house? Is it very thick? Have you looked at it carefully? It is actually not one apricot tree, but many. Me and you Dad and your grandma's apricot tree are all there, and all the trees are huddled together, which makes such a thick apricot tree."

"Your apricot tree has just been planted. It is still young, and you are also young. It has to take care of you, and it will not integrate into our apricot tree for a short time. It will take care of you next to you when you wake up, When you fall asleep, it will return to the yard and put its roots into the soil to rest. Here, once a child is born, the child’s father’s mother’s family will choose the most suitable branch from their own apricot tree. The child was buried in the soil and cultivated carefully from the day he was born, and a special person was asked to dig it out and cast spells before the child was born, and then gave it to the child at the hundred-day banquet, this is the Xinglang you received."

"The so-called Xinglang is the tree spirit nanny that people here invite to take care of their children. You can understand it this way, but Xinglang's company for people is far better than that of a nanny. People here will only have one Xinglang in their lifetime, and one Xinglang Lang will only have one little master in his life. When the little master doesn't need his care, he will go to the yard of the little master's house and take root in it. This time, its roots will not be pulled out. It will grow into a big tree, and it will grow in the little master's house forever, and when the little master's house has another young master, maybe one day, a certain branch of it will be selected and become the new Xinglang..."

Du Nan was fascinated by what his mother told, and finally pulled out his mind from the story-like narration, and lifted his face from his mother's arms. The next second, Du Nan's eyes met the side of the bed of two tree branches.

Black, wet, with not too clean black soil.

Look carefully, it is not a branch, it is more like two roots, the root of a tree, the kind that is more delicate, and on top of this root, there are many thinner roots, the thinnest one looks smaller than what he is now The lanugo is even finer.

Is this the thin thread-like thing that scared him before?Du Nan commented calmly.

Thinking about it carefully, he didn't know that he was scared like that before, did he live a peaceful life for several days and forget the experience of his previous life?Or is the body too immature after rebirth?

Or maybe it was neither, because he was afraid that what he had experienced in the past few days was a dream, and when he woke up from the dream, he would be alone again and return to the previous world——Du Nan didn't continue to analyze.

Instead, he continued to focus on the two branches.

Just looking at the two branches, it was fine, but under his gaze, another branch appeared between the two branches, slightly thicker, and looked like a section of branch that had been broken off, and then this branch came out again. It stubbornly re-grows a little bit, just covering the part of the broken branch, a little thinner, this... To describe it with a possibly scary adjective, this newly-emerged part looks like a section of neck.

A neck without a long head.

No way, I don’t know if the term “Xinglang” gave him the idea that this is a “person”, or it is the job function of this Xinglang—nanny or family member, now the more he looks at it, the more he feels that The two branches on the side of the bed are like two hands. If those two branches are hands, then the part protruding from the middle of the hands should be the head, right?

Well, this guy has no head.

Do "Xinglang" look like this?The adults here are used to it, so they think it’s nothing. It’s also because these "Xinglang" take care of children who don’t understand anything. If it’s a little older children, especially those who have been scared by adults, listen to Children who have experienced some ghost stories, the first time they saw this "Xinglang"...

Du Nan felt that his reaction should not be too much.

Sniffing, Du Nan reached out to "Xinglang" beside the bed.After all, he is not a real child, even if his hand strength is not stable, his control is still better than that of a real child. Du Nan just put his hand on Xinglang's and stopped moving.

Then, he watched the branch of Xinglang not move for a long time, then trembled slightly, and finally all those roots suddenly turned up, covering his hand.

That Xinglang wrapped Du Nan's two chubby hands first, probably seeing that Du Nan had no intention of resisting. After about a minute, Du Nan saw more roots crawling up from under the bed and spreading to himself. body, and then he watched himself being wrapped and dragged down by those roots, as if he was tied up, and he was finally put on a reclining posture and lay on the ground. A twig woven chair.

Uh... is this a baby chair that can automatically define its shape?Du Nan looked down and looked around.But—look at the white and fat feet that I have already stepped on the floor, and look at the roots that look extraordinarily small in comparison with my own feet, and feel the constant trembling under my body... I can't speak , Du Nan sighed.

It was Du Nan's mother who spoke out for Du Nan.

"I'm sorry, Xinglang, our baby is too...too strong, you may have to work harder."

Looking at Xing Lang who could barely hold on to the collapse and the little baby sitting on Xing Lang with a look of lovelessness, Mama Du finally couldn't hold back, and she and Papa Du laughed together.

The author has something to say: The strongest passenger in the history of Xinglang World