In the stillness of dawn, as the golden light filtered through the misty fields, an old farmer named Lian cradled a fragile, newborn baby in his arms. This wasn’t his child, but a tiny soul abandoned at the edge of his farm, wrapped in a worn blanket, crying with a voice as small and trembling as the wind. The cries were not ordinary — they followed a pattern, a strange rhythm that echoed in a “tong” cry, like a bell struck out of sync.
Lian called it the tong cry rotation — the way the baby’s wails came in spirals, with intensity rising, dipping, and circling back again. It reminded him of the old irrigation wheels turning endlessly through the seasons, always crying out before returning to stillness.
He took the baby inside, fed her warm goat’s milk with a spoon carved from wood, each drop calming the whirl of her cries. His hands were rough, calloused by years of tilling earth, but they moved with unexpected gentleness. The animals, too, seemed to sense the shift. The chickens clucked softly, and even the old cow stood still, watching.
Days passed, and the baby’s tong cries softened, replaced by coos and quiet sleep. Still, every now and then, when the wind turned or a shadow passed too quickly, the rotation of the cries would return. Lian grew used to them — they became part of his rhythm, just as the rising sun and the evening bell.
No one came searching for the child. But the farmer, with soil in his veins and compassion in his soul, had already made his decision. In the dance of cries and calm, he found something sacred. The baby was his now — a seed planted by fate, growing in the arms of an old man who still believed in quiet miracles.
