The sun, a tired orange disc in a haze of humidity, dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in strokes of bruised purple and faded gold. Liu Banxia, a boy of ten, felt the last of its warmth seep from his skin. The mud between his toes, cool and familiar, was a comfort as he bent his back one last time to pull a stubborn weed from the paddy. The scent of damp soil and growing rice was the smell of his life, a scent as constant as his father's weary sighs.
Banxia, it's late, his father, a man whose face was a map of hard-won wrinkles, called from the edge of the field. Your mother will be worried.
Liu Banxia straightened up, his small frame aching with a fatigue that felt much older than his years. He nodded, his eyes scanning the endless expanse of green that was both his family's livelihood and their relentless burden. In the distance, the village lights were just beginning to flicker on, like fallen stars. The world beyond those lights, a place of cities and clean, paved roads, was a fantasy he could only glimpse in his dreams.
He followed his father home, the silence between them filled with the unspoken weight of their lives. Their house, a humble structure of mud and thatched roof, stood on the edge of the village. The warmth of the single kerosene lamp spilling from its window was a beacon in the growing darkness. But the light didn't just signify home; it signified his mother, sitting hunched over her sewing machine, and his younger sister, Mei, whose delicate health was the constant, gnawing worry that tightened the knots in his stomach.
Mei was six, a slip of a girl with eyes that held the universe in them and a heart that was failing her. A congenital condition, the village doctor had called it a hole in the heart. A simple phrase for a devastating reality. Her cheeks were often tinged with a faint blue, a ghostly reminder of the oxygen her body couldn't quite circulate. Her laughter, a sound as precious as a pearl, was often punctuated by a breathless gasp, a sudden fatigue that would send her to bed for the rest of the day.
Inside, the smell of cooked rice and salted fish filled the air. His mother, her face etched with a permanent look of quiet concern, looked up from her work. You're back she said, her voice soft. Wash up and come for your dinner.
Liu Banxia went to the basin outside and splashed cold water on his face, the weariness of the day washing away. When he returned, Mei was sitting at the small wooden table, tracing patterns in the condensation of her water glass. She looked up at him and smiled, a fragile, beautiful thing that made his own heart ache.
"Big brother!" she whispered, her voice a little too weak. "I drew a picture for you today. Of a doctor. He wears a big white coat and makes people better."
He sat down beside her, his hand gently ruffling her hair. "That's a beautiful drawing, Mei."
His parents sat on either side of the table, their quiet conversation a backdrop to the meal. But tonight, it wasn't quiet. He heard them talking about the city, about the new doctor there who specialized in Mei's condition.
The money... we don't have it, his mother said, her voice barely a whisper. The treatments, the surgery... it's more than we'll ever earn.
The farm, the livestock... we can sell more, his father replied, but the hope in his voice was thin, a fragile thread stretched to its breaking point. We have to try. The city doctor is the best. They say he can mend hearts.
Liu Banxia ate his rice, but the words were a stone in his stomach. The city. The place of impossible miracles, a place that seemed as distant as the moon. He looked at Mei, at the faint blue on her lips, and a fierce, burning resolve ignited within him.
That night, lying on his mat, he couldn't sleep. The words of his parents and the image of Mei's fragile smile echoed in his mind. He wasn't old enough to work in the fields full-time, wasn't strong enough to carry the financial burden of his family. But he could study. He could learn. He could do something that might, one day, bridge the impossible distance to that city and the doctor who could mend hearts.
He imagined himself, not as a farmer's son, but as a man in a white coat, a man with the power to heal. A doctor who could make Mei better. He saw it in his mind's eye, a vision as clear and bright as the sun. And in that moment, under the dim light of the single kerosene lamp, a boy from a poor village on the edge of the rice paddies decided what he would be. It wasn't a choice; it was a promise. A promise to his sister, to his family, and to himself. He would become a doctor. He didn't know how, but he knew he would. It was his only hope.