“Grandma…”
“Grandma…?”
“Grandpa, have you seen Grandma?”
Little Yunjin woke up and felt the house was empty.
She struggled to climb down from the bed, trying to shake her grandfather’s body, but was only met with a weak, dying cough.
Yunjin then remembered that her grandfather was sick, unconscious, and could no longer carry her to play in the fields like before.
With no other choice, Yunjin went out to seek help from the villagers.
As the child’s cries woke up the entire village, all the villagers gathered, but could only look at each other with worried and helpless expressions.
The most respected old woman in the village sat in the middle of the ancestral hall, holding the three-year-old Yunjin in her arms, sighing softly:
“Yunjin, your grandmother has gone on a long journey. Would you like to stay with me tonight?”
“…”
Although Yunjin was young, she wasn’t foolish. Even a child so young could read the atmosphere from the sympathetic and pitying looks of the many villagers.
That night, Yunjin couldn’t sleep at all in the old woman’s house.
She pretended to be asleep, but after the old woman left, she got up again, staring blankly at the moonlight outside the window.
“Ah, poor child…”
“Her grandfather is sick, and her grandmother is so superstitious. Who knows who told her about that folk remedy, insisting on going up the mountain to seek some nine-colored divine herb…”
“Alas, going up Northern Luo Peak in this harsh winter, it’s likely to be a journey of no return…”
“Let’s not speak ill of the spirits. From now on, we elders of the village will raise this child together.”
Yunjin sat in the room, silently listening to the elders’ discussions in the living room.
She had always had particularly keen ears, not only able to hear tiny sounds that others couldn’t, but Yunjin could even hear the thoughts of every cat and dog in the village.
“Grandma…”
As night fell and the village lights went out, the little girl lying by the bed finally puckered her lips.
Her eyes were red, unable to speak, just staring blankly at the distant snow-capped peaks to the north.
As Yunjin stared, drowsiness gradually overcame her.
For a moment, Yunjin felt she was hallucinating, actually seeing a small deer emitting a faint golden light running above the clouds on the distant horizon…
Yunjin stared half-awake, half-asleep until that little deer stepped through the air, coming closer and closer, its pair of antlers radiating nine-colored light becoming increasingly eye-catching and dazzling.
“Ah!”
Yunjin was startled, almost falling from the windowsill, but curiosity drove her to lean on the window, eyes wide open.
*Clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop…*
The deer’s hoofbeats were soft, and the white snow spirit with nine-colored antlers quietly descended at the village entrance in the night.
For a moment, the divine deer’s golden sacred eyes met the gaze of the little girl peeking from the window.
“I, I didn’t see anything… please don’t eat me…”
Yunjin’s little lips trembled slightly as she turned and ran, quickly diving under the covers and pulling them over her head.
She remembered the stories her grandmother used to tell by her pillow when she didn’t sleep well at night — bad children who didn’t sleep properly at night would be caught by fox spirits and witches who ate children, snatching them through the chimney!
Thinking of the monster’s ferocious claws and teeth from the storybooks, Yunjin felt a wave of fear, curling up under the covers and not daring to breathe.
But as the hoofbeats came closer, Yunjin finally couldn’t escape —
“Ahhhhhh!”
She felt the blanket wrapped around her being lifted.
Yunjin hugged her head, trembling, only daring to peek through her fingers at the enormous creature outside the window.
“Meh?”
The nine-colored divine deer outside the window held Yunjin’s blanket in its mouth, tilting its head slightly, its clear golden eyes full of curiosity.
The divine deer and the little girl stared at each other curiously for a long time.
Perhaps it was a child’s nature, but Yunjin obediently sat up, carefully reaching out her hand towards the nine-colored deer.
The nine-colored deer happily let out a soft snort, actively extending its head into the window, using its soft, skin-friendly face to support the little girl’s trembling, uneasy hand.
The young Yunjin, bathed in the divine light of the sacred deer, felt warmth all over her body, as if for a moment she had forgotten the sadness of losing her loved ones…
“Yingying!”
The nine-colored deer suddenly made an adorable sound.
It broke free from the little girl’s embrace, turning around outside the window with a whimper, showing the unconscious elderly person on its back to the little girl.
Suddenly, Yunjin’s eyes widened:
“Gran… Grandma!”
“Ying!”
The nine-colored deer raised its little face, blinking its eyes proudly, as if waiting to be praised like a little girl.
But at this moment, Yunjin was already too frightened by her unconscious grandmother to make a sound, her eyes filled with both excitement and fear.
The nine-colored deer waited for a while, and although it didn’t hear praise from the human, it still closed its eyes, its antlers radiating sacred light, using gentle spiritual energy to lift the elderly woman and place her on Yunjin’s bed through the window.
Yunjin held back her tears, hurriedly going forward to support her grandmother.
“Grandma!”
“Grandma, please wake up!”
Her grandmother remained unconscious, and Yunjin became more and ore agitated, tears streaming down her cheeks uncontrollably as she finally broke into loud sobs, unable to control her emotions any longer.
As the child’s cries filled the room, the surrounding neighbors were awakened once again.
The nine-colored deer looked around, saying nothing, silently placing a full sack on the windowsill, then turning and disappearing into the night clouds with a single bound.
Later. The village doctor came, and Yunjin’s grandmother woke up, healthy and unharmed.
When the villagers asked what happened, Yunjin hurriedly said that a divine deer had saved her grandmother.
But when she leaned on the windowsill, trying to point out the nine-colored divine deer to prove it to the villagers, Yunjin suddenly realized that the divine deer from earlier had long since disappeared, leaving only a bag full of nine-colored lotus placed on the stone windowsill —
“Later…”
“Grandmother used the nine-colored lotus from the bag to make soup for Grandfather, and within a few months, Grandfather’s illness was miraculously cured.”