After lunch, Zhao Lin chatted with his parents in the house for a while. In the afternoon, he went out to the courtyard to watch his older brother fashioning a hobby horse.
It was clear that Zhao Shan had poured his heart and soul into it. The horse's head was carved so vividly it seemed alive, and the wood he used was aged elm.
Zhao Lin had also played with hobby horses as a child, but his were much cruder—just a bamboo stick he straddled, pretending it was a horse, using a willow switch to whip its "rear."
He would run around everywhere, finding friends to pair up with for mock battles. It was nothing compared to the one before him now.
"Brother, have you ever seen the Wuzhu people?"
Zhao Lin asked after watching for a while, taking the opportunity when his brother took a break.
"The Wuzhu?"
Zhao Shan wiped the sweat from his head with a towel and thought for a moment. "You mean the barbarians, right? Big noses, small eyes, bow-legged?"
"Yes!"
