Three and a Half, Hunting in the Mountains: Every Creature There Loves to Tattle on Me

[Toddler heads into the mountains + Beloved by the whole family + Wild mountain adventures + Farming and business + Lighthearted comedy + Healing family bonds]

Lin Sui Sui is three and a half, and her family is dirt poor.

Her father broke his leg, her mother's eyes are red from staying up, her eldest brother's books have been sold, and her sister's dowry cloth has turned into money for medicine.

On the day the family split up, her aunt shoved a chipped bowl into her arms.

"Go with your father. You'll be drinking the wind for dinner from now on."

Lin Sui Sui climbed the mountain with the bowl in her arms. She hadn't found any firewood when she heard a whole bellyful of complaints.

An old chestnut tree: "A squirrel hid its food in my waistband. It tickles!"

A little wild boar: "Help! Can someone do something about this vine strangling my bottom?"

A mountain spring: "You inconsiderate person up there, stop pouring your foot bath water on my head!"

Sui Sui scratched her little topknot.

How could life on this mountain be even harder than at home?

She helped the chestnut tree clear out its hollow and found a nest of plump chestnuts.

She freed the wild boar from the vine, and it rooted up a patch of yams hidden beneath the fallen leaves.

She cleared silt from the spring, and the old irrigation channel, dry for three years, began flowing into the Lin family's barren fields again.

Later, other people went into the mountains to gather wild goods. Lin Sui Sui went to the mountains to handle complaints.

Other people prayed to the mountain god for wealth. She held up a little wooden sign and called in her baby voice:

"One at a time! Anyone who cuts in line can file their complaint tomorrow!"

At the foot of the mountain, smoke rose once more from the Lin family's stove, though they had run out of food.

Halfway up the mountain, a wild boar ran by with a notice in its mouth.

Written crookedly on the notice were the words:

Closed for the day.

The little mountain chief is going home to eat dumplings.