She kissed the photos on her phone screen one by one and put the phone onto her chest, hoping to feel her mom and dad, to feel their love and protection.
The phone suddenly started playing music. She didn’t care. She just held the phone up to her chest as if doing so could bring her physically close to her parents, as if two invisible arms were embracing her.
The music continued to play from her phone. It was a popular song titled "Dad, where are you going?" She seed to be addicted to it. She wished she could be like those happy girls in the song, like Wang Shiling and Sen Die, the joyful princesses in their father’s arms.
But the image of the man in the photo on a tombstone flashed in her mind. That man was looking at her with a smile. Chenxing shook her head forcefully, rejecting this man’s image from her mory.
She suddenly recalled the tis when she was little, when she would sit in her mom’s lap and complain, "Mom, Aunt Wang said I don’t look like you guys." Her mom would smile and pinch her nose, joking, "That’s because we found you on the street." Back then, many kids would ask their parents where they ca from, and the parents would joke about having found them on the street or in a garbage can. So, she thought her mom was just joking with her, too... But now thinking back, it was a heart-wrenchingly painful realization — it was hurting her so badly that she could hardly breathe.
"Young girl, your phone is ringing." A middle-aged woman sitting next to her said with a kind smile. The woman was holding a sleeping baby in her arms. She didn’t explicitly say it, but it was apparent what she ant: the constant ringing of the phone was disrupting the baby’s sleep.
Only then did Chenxing answer the call.
"Chenxing, did you call ? What’s up? I haven’t been carrying my phone with in the past few days; I just turned it back on." The caller was her cousin, Luo Xi.
Chenxing’s voice choked, as if she was holding on to her last lifeline. "Cousin, where are you? I...I want to see you...I want to see you..."
"Okay, I’ll co to you right away. Are you at school or ho?"
"I..." Chenxing looked around and said: "I don’t even know where I am. You give the address, and I’ll find you. Cousin, I...I..." But she couldn’t say anymore. Could she ask her cousin? Would her cousin even know...?
Her cousin Luo Xi was her aunt’s daughter, but her aunt and uncle had been out of the picture for a long ti. Luo Xi had been living in Arica with her grandfather for several years, only occasionally sending money back to help with her grandmother’s dical expenses.
But her grandmother must know, right?
Her grandmother must know whether she was her parents’ biological daughter... and yet, she didn’t have the courage to seek the truth, to confront the reality. She just wanted to escape, far, far away from everything, remaining oblivious.
The car stopped at a city bus station. She got a ride, gave the address her cousin had provided, but the driver looked puzzled: "I’ve never heard of this place. It doesn’t exist.".
"It does exist, there is a clock tower mall on Hengjiang Road." Had she rembered it wrong?
The driver shook his head: "Young lady, I’ve been driving for years in City T. I know every street in this city. There’s no such place as Hengjiang Road. Are you sure you didn’t get it wrong?"
"City T? Isn’t this City E?"
...The update ends here on February 9, the story will continue tomorrow at 10 AM.
User Comments
0 comments from readers