Pin:
Eventually I did find a company that agreed to teach me fancy farming skills. Unfortunately, it
was hosted by a teenager in the back of an alleyway, with the stink of the dead wafting over me.
When had I sunk so low?
Surprisingly, the teenager had more knowledge of the plants than I did. After months of
hard work and maxing out my brain cells, I finally stored enough knowledge on how to properly
plant trees.
Wait for me, Yang, I’m coming home.
Yang:
The untamed beast refuses to shrink down. It wants to grow, grind up the grasslands, pulverize
the farm and attack the city.
But surely, slow and steady should win the race? Should this tumor not shrink under the tip of
my mighty trees?
Pin will get help, I’m certain of it. But help is not enough - This fire needs to be poked daily,
otherwise when help comes, the fire will be too big for even the veteran firefighters to help.
I slap myself out of my misery, and continue planting the seeds one by one.
Suddenly, I hear a shout.
“Yang!”
I turn around, and there he is, in his scuffed and worn shoes, his messy hair unwashed, and
his clothes reflecting a man of hard work.
I forget about the plants and rush over to my brother. He smells of the city, the busy streets
and rush of air, but underneath that, he smells of the desert, warmth, and all the things I’d never
knew I missed.
Pin:
Later, when I settled down in our familiar warm farmhouse, I began to tell Yang about the
adventures I’d been through, leaving out the part of giving up.
The next day, we started our long awaited mission, which was much more difficult than
I expected.
I was so sure that as soon as I knew the tricks of trade, planting trees would be as simple as
counting to five. I thought that we could save the farmhouse in a flash, and go back to climbing
apple trees and teasing the chickens. Guess I was living in fantasy land.
Yang:
When Pin failed to even dig a hole, a part of me was…pleased. Secretly under my heart, I wanted
to laugh gleefully and tell him that knowing the craft was not the same as doing the craft.
I wanted to laugh at his weakness and instant tiredness, and ignored the fact that just a day
ago I too was sweating my heart out. Instead, I just turned my back on him and pretended to
effortlessly plant seeds.
