When There Is Nothing Left But Love

Naturally, this eighteen-hour car ride was exhausting.

Boris prepared water and bread for Brandon. I started to eat next to the car, and Brandon followed suit. “There are about twenty-seven families in this village. However, the population is considerably higher. Every family has seven or eight children. I’ll bring you around later. If there aren’t any problems, I’ll contact a doctor as soon as possible to start the surgery,” he said.

I was slightly confused and frowned. “The surgery can take place so soon? It isn’t easy to find a suitable bone marrow and kidney donor,” I said in surprise.

He ignored me and gobbled up the rest of the bread and gulped down a few mouthfuls of water before proclaiming, “Let’s go!”

The villagers stayed on the hillside. Perhaps it was because of the recent rain, but the roads were flooded with mud and water. One step in and our shoe would sink in, making it really difficult to walk. Soon, our pants were also covered with dirt.

Brandon was used to it. When he saw Boris and me struggling, he frowned and said, “Don’t walk clumsily. Find places where there are rocks or where people walked before you and step there.”

a few hundred meters to walk. We were not driving because

I followed him for a while. We noticed that the sky was darkening. Luckily, our phones still had battery and we used

mud to our knees and our shoes were full

the door. When it heard someone coming, it started to bark fiercely. A rope was tied around its neck but I was

were standing in front of was built with red bricks and some parts were covered in black tiles. It was built in a slipshod manner and from afar, it looked like it was going to collapse at any moment. There was a patch of concrete floor in front of the house with a black coal stove on top. There was also a thin weather-worn film on top. When the wind blew, one corner of the film that had been stained black would

had probably heard someone shouting outside. He pushed the old wooden door open and stuck his head out to see. When he saw who had come, he smiled to reveal a row of yellowed teeth and said, “It’s

wearing black clothes that gleamed with an oily sheen. I peered closer at it and noticed that the clothes were originally grey and had fur. They were dirty from constant wearing and all the fur had become matted and coated by layers of dirt which was the source of the oily

brought friends with me to visit your house. Are you done working?” Brandon spoke to the man in the local

gruffly in the local dialect, “Yes, we’re done. Come in

in, I was immediately stunned. The house was only about twenty square meters, but there were seven or eight children and a frail woman huddled around a