"Why would someone's perfectly good eyes get smeared with shit? Have *your* eyes ever been smeared with shit? What's that like? I've never even seen it happen!"
The little girl searched her memories from the past few years, ever since she could remember. It seemed she had never seen anyone whose eyes were smeared with shit! On second thought, maybe there was someone—Uncle Four of the Li Family. He had studied late into the night, poring over his books, and for a time, he had suffered from an eye disease. His eyes had been completely crusted over with eye boogers. She'd heard it was incredibly itchy and painful, and it took a long time for him to recover. That year, it was said, Uncle Four failed the imperial examination because of this eye disease.
Thinking this, the little girl decided that what Xiao Er meant by 'shit-smeared' was that he had an eye disease.
She looked at Xiao Er sympathetically and spoke with great earnestness.
