Chapter 66: The Liang Sheng in Memory
At that time, he had asked Liang Sheng: wasn’t he afraid of being bullied by the other children just like him? He had never received kindness from anyone else, and he didn’t know how to accept it.
He always felt that such kindness made him uneasy.
“If you stand up to them for me, you’ll end up just like me—being spat on, having trash thrown at you, going hungry, and even being locked up…”
Little Xingyu sat in a corner, hugging his knees. His stepmother’s torture had made him not dare to resist anymore.
Doing so would only result in a worse beating.
Little Liang Sheng was holding a plush doll. Although his face was dirty and he was clearly terrified of such torture, he still didn’t avoid Shen Xingyu because of it. He sniffled forcefully and raised his head stubbornly: “I’m not afraid!”
Little Xingyu was astonished. In his grey eyes, a small, immature yet firm face was reflected. That clean gaze barged into his dark world just like that, without warning.
“Why?”
He looked away. He only thought the child before him was quite foolish. When others saw him being bullied, they couldn’t get away fast enough. Only this fool would foolishly approach; he deserved to be beaten along with him.
“Xiao Tian-laoshi said that only good children can be adopted by new mamas and papas. They’re too bad; no one will want them. We can’t be like them. We have to… be good children!”
Six-year-old Liang Sheng clenched his small fists. His eyes were bright, and his baby-fat cheeks puffed up.
His greatest wish was for a papa and mama to want him, to have a warm little bed and a happy home.
“You… are truly foolish.”
Little Xingyu curled his lip in disdain. His eyes held a maturity that was completely mismatched with his age:
“New mamas and papas won’t be good to you either. You aren’t their biological child. They won’t care about you at all; you’re just a tool for their entertainment.”
“How do you know?”
Little Liang Sheng didn’t believe him. He tilted his head slightly, looking at the child before him who was about the same age as him.
Most of the people who came here were orphans. Since the other didn’t have a papa or mama, how did he know these things?
“Because…”
Little Xingyu choked. Thinking of that stepmother his father had married, his injured body couldn’t help but shiver.
But seeing Little Liang Sheng’s curious gaze, he was too embarrassed to speak about the shameful thing of being abandoned. He had no choice but to turn his head away arrogantly, using a loud voice to hide the fear in his heart: “I just know!”
“Oh! Your hand-hand is bleeding!”
Little Liang Sheng’s attention was drawn to a wound on the boy’s finger. It was very red, and it looked like it hurt.
He wanted to pull the boy’s finger, but the boy thought he was going to hurt him and pushed him away:
“It’s none of your business!”
“Ugh…”
Little Liang Sheng landed on his bottom. The pain instantly made his eyes redden. His large, watery eyes looked at the person before him, and in the next second, he wailed aloud:
“Waaaaahhh, my bottom hurts…”
“I told you not to mind other people’s business!”
Little Xingyu glared impatiently at the sobbing little fellow, a look of disdain on his face. He hated crying most of all; crying couldn’t solve any problem.
“Are you a dummy? Can’t you get up yourself?”
“My bottom hurts from the fall, I can’t get up…”
Little Liang Sheng looked at him pitifully.
“Truly a waste.”
Hearing the other call him a useless waste, Little Liang Sheng’s heart was completely broken. His pink face turned beet red, and he cried even more sorrowfully:
“Waaaaahhh hng hng hng!”
Little Xingyu couldn’t take it anymore. He turned to leave, but then he thought of how the other had protected him in front of the bad children. He still couldn’t bring himself to leave this pitiful-looking fool.
He turned back again and extended his hand from above:
“Alright, stop crying. Get up.”
“Mmm… hng…”
Little Liang Sheng stopped wiping his tears. His attention was diverted, and the frequency of his sobs gradually decreased.
Through his teary eyes, he looked at the small hand extended toward him, then at the boy’s arrogant look. He hesitated for a bit, then still carefully took that hand. He was pulled up by the other.
“Crybaby.”
Little Xingyu still didn’t spare him with his words.
“I-I am not a crybaby!”
Liang Sheng’s face turned red as he argued back. Seeing the boy’s finger where blood had already soaked through, he couldn’t help but worry.
“Y-you wait for a little bit for me.”
After leaving the boy with those words, he ran back to his little bed without looking back. He lay down and pulled out a small wooden box from underneath, then started searching through it.
“Where is it…”
“What are you doing?”
Little Xingyu walked over in confusion.
“Found it!”
Little Liang Sheng happily took out a Chuangketié. “Shengsheng will put it on for you.” As he spoke, he was about to put it on the boy’s hand, but Little Xingyu tucked his hand behind his back, his face full of disdain:
“It’s just a little bit of blood. I don’t need such a melodramatic and childish thing. Don’t give it to me.”
“You be good! Once it’s on, it won’t hurt!”
Little Liang Sheng gently pulled his hand over.
“You…”
The warmth of the little fellow’s palm made Little Xingyu forget to break free for a moment. He hadn’t felt this feeling of being cared for in a long time.
He was used to being yanked and having his hand pulled roughly. Suddenly being treated gently was something he really wasn’t used to.
“There! This Chuangketié was given to me by Xiao Tian-laoshi! It has a cute Da’ergou pattern. Da’ergou will protect you and won’t let you get hurt!”
Having just finished crying, Little Liang Sheng’s eyes were still red. He looked at the boy and smiled, a glimmer of tears in his eyes.
Meeting those bright, beautiful large eyes, Little Xingyu’s heart raced. It seemed that something had silently been planted in his heart along with that flutter.
He was suddenly a bit embarrassed. He turned his face to the other side, not looking at him, but his ears unconsciously turned red.
Since then, Little Liang Sheng was like a shadow that couldn’t be driven away, constantly following behind him. He’d share his food with him, let him sleep in his clean little bed, and cast a small beam of light into his world.
The winter in the south was too cold, and the children in the orphanage weren’t dressed warmly. Little Liang Sheng would often wake up from the cold at night.
Although Little Xingyu appeared unwilling to accept the little fellow’s kindness and always acted distant and cold, he would still take advantage of Little Liang Sheng being asleep to hold him tightly with his own body, letting him be a bit warmer.
As time went by, he began to get used to having someone with him. He had an optimistic and cheerful little cat by his side who would jump around, find ways to make him happy, and share the candies given by the teachers with him.
Sometimes he would think that if things could always be this way, it would be quite good. This little fellow might be a bit foolish, but at least he was better than those hypocritical people; he wouldn’t hurt him or force him, he only treated him well.
But birds belong to the sky. Once they fly out of their shackles, they are free. They cannot be kept.
On the day Liang Sheng left, Little Xingyu had a fever. He slept fuzzily for a long time. By the time he was a bit clearer, that fool had already been taken away by someone.
Xiao Tian-laoshi told him that a couple who had been married for years but hadn’t conceived had come to the orphanage to take a look. They really liked the cheerful Liang Sheng and thus adopted him.
Hearing the news, he was as if struck by lightning. He should have been happy for the other. Liang Sheng often told him that he wanted a home, to have a papa and mama who loved him. He had been hurt by family, so he looked down on such things and always struck down the little fellow’s idea, telling him to give it up.
But the little fellow was too persistent.
Now that he had finally gotten what he wanted, that fool must have forgotten him in his joy long ago…
Sure enough, no one was truly sincere toward him.
Since he wasn’t sincere toward him, why provoke him, make him dependent, and then leave him?
As a small person, he couldn’t understand.
It rained heavily that day. His heart hurt so much. He hid alone on the bed the little fellow had slept in and cried for a long, long time—cried until he was breathless, cried until dawn. The person he missed still hadn’t returned.
On the second day after Liang Sheng left, Xiao Tian-laoshi brought him a little white kitten. She said Liang Sheng had entrusted his adoptive parents to buy it for him. There were also several rolls of Da’ergou pattern Chuangketié and a small note.
On the note, a paragraph of words was written crookedly, using a combination of Pinyin and Chinese characters.
The general meaning was: Sorry, I have to go and can’t be with you anymore. I’ve found a papa and mama. You’ll be happy for me, right! Although you’re always cold, I still feel that you’re very lonely, so I asked my papa and mama to buy a kitten for you! You have to behave well too, don’t fight with the other children. A papa and mama will definitely come and adopt you and take you home!
After he finished reading, the note was already wet with tears.
He angrily crumpled the note into a ball, wanting to throw it into the trash, but in the end, he still couldn’t bear to.
The kitten beside him “meowed” twice.
It even nuzzled him with its head.
Perhaps out of anger over Little Liang Sheng’s unannounced departure, he didn’t acknowledge the cat for several days and didn’t feed it.
Without Little Liang Sheng, he returned to a life of being alone. He often fought with the other children, fighting until their heads were bloodied. At that time, his health wasn’t as good as it was now, and his heart always hurt. The orphanage’s doctor prescribed medicine for him, but he found it bitter and secretly threw it away every time.
On a rainy night with thunder and lightning, his small body huddled on the bed. There was no longer anyone beside him he could embrace. The finger that had been bitten and injured from fighting with someone started to bleed again. This time, no one knew to put a Chuangketié on him, and he didn’t care about it as before.
A sudden faint meow sounded behind him. The kitten he had discarded crawled back to his side, gasping for breath. It extended its small tongue and gently licked the wound on his finger as if comforting him.
He woke from the pain and saw the kitten huddled before him. Its milky-white face and clear eyes were just like that fool’s.
“Why did you abandon me…”
He picked up the kitten. Perhaps because he missed Liang Sheng too much, he treated the kitten as Liang Sheng and couldn’t help but recount his sadness from the past few days: “Liar who doesn’t keep his word. Didn’t you promise me you’d always be with me? Why did you leave so easily with someone else…”
The kitten gave a weak cry and licked away his tears.
He arrogantly turned his head away, holding back his tears.
“Hmph. I don’t need you anyway. Go ahead and leave, go wherever you want. I can be fine on my own.”
Although he said that, his hand wouldn’t let go of the kitten. After all, this was what Liang Sheng had left him…
A trace of a thought.
He didn’t know why he always thought of that person—the only person in his life who was willing to get close to him.
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