The boy paused, then spoke in a muted tone. “I saw him in my dreams when I fell asleep at night. He was standing alone, covered in wounds.”
“Gong Fan?”
“Well, back then, he didn’t have a name. He didn’t seem to notice me, but I could see him, standing in the dark world, there was loneliness in his eyes.” The boy continued, “He has no friends.”
Alice continued to fix her gaze on him. “Have you ever thought of being friends with him?” she asked suddenly, gently.
“No.” The boy frowned uneasily. “I’m afraid he’ll fight me for it.”
“Fight you for what?”
“Mommy…” The boy gradually looked tired. “I have nothing but Mommy. I don’t have any friends or any family. I only have Mommy. What if he tries to take her from me?”
“So, at that time …”
“I wanted him to die.” His tone was suddenly icy. “I was hoping that he would never come into my world again.”
Frowning, Alice turned to Yun Shishi, who was holding back her tears.
I’m sorry… she said in her heart. She had not expected the boy’s childhood experience to leave him with such a dark spiritual world.
“But … afterwards, I didn’t want him to die.” The boy was clearly getting into the swing of things. He rubbed his eyes and rolled over slightly. Alice immediately adjusted the bedding for him.
“Why did you no longer wish him dead?”
“Because Mommy seemed to like him a lot.” The boy said solemnly, “I feel guilty about him, too. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have been able to bear all that darkness pressing down on me. I think Gong Fan is a real powerhouse, maintaining calmness in the dark. He’s taken on so much for me. It would be too cruel for me to chase him away again. Mommy feels sorry for him, too, and she likes him… so I want him to stay. He had taken on so much for me when we were young. What I take on for him now is not even worth mentioning.”
“Actually, if you had told your mommy what happened to you at that time, you wouldn’t have had to go through all these things.”
The boy suddenly sighed in exasperation. “I wouldn’t. I don’t want Mommy to know any of this.”
He sounded so determined that it surprised Alice. “Why?”
“Because I happened to hear Mommy telling Grandpa that she regretted keeping me by her side. Perhaps she thought that I had a bad childhood, so she wanted to send me back to Daddy to have a better life. If I let her know that I was doing so badly, she’d send me away for sure.”
“You can’t bear to be apart from your mommy.”
“Even in death…” The boy’s pink lips parted and closed. “I’ll die in Mommy’s arms. I will not go anywhere else.”
At that, Yun Shishi rose gently to her feet and made her way to the balcony, her head hanging limply.
After a quarter of an hour or so, Alice came out too. She leaned back against the rail and lit a cigarette casually. Wisps of smoke drifted past Yun Shishi’s nose. Even though she didn’t find it pungent, she gasped and choked several times.
“Why did you come out here?” Alice raised her eyebrows. “Do you feel sorry for him?”
“What state was he in when he said those things just then?”
“He was already in a trance at the time, so everything he said came from his heart.”
