diskusbooks Chapter 35 The Place Closest to Happiness
Chapter 35 The Place Closest to Happiness
On the winding, seemingly endless cobblestone street of the old town, a slender figure was struggling to move forward.
This was a girl who looked to be about eleven or twelve years old. She was wearing a dress whose original color was no longer discernible, the cuffs were frayed, and the hem was covered with dried mud spots.
Her once smooth, long hair was now a messy tangle, like a clump of withered grass, covering most of her face, leaving only a pair of dull and empty eyes visible.
Her name is Shen Xingruo. Of course, no one has called her that name for a long time.
From the time Xingruo became conscious, her world consisted of the gray walls of the orphanage. The old caregiver there told her that she was placed in a cardboard box at the orphanage's gate on a snowy night. Inside the swaddling clothes was nothing but a slip of paper with her birth date and name written on it.
Xingruo wasn't actually like this when she was little. Back then, she was the most cheerful child in the orphanage.
She had expressive eyes, greeted everyone sweetly, and was so polite it was heartbreaking. The teachers and children at the orphanage all adored her. It was precisely because of this sunny disposition and intelligence that, when she was five years old, fate seemed to finally smile upon her.
They were a very refined and amiable couple. The man, surnamed Lin, was a small businessman engaged in international trade, and his wife was a gentle piano teacher. Due to health reasons, they had been unable to have children for many years. Among the children in the orphanage, they immediately took a liking to Xingruo, who was sitting on a swing, trying her best to smile at the sunlight.
"This child is so good, like a little angel." Madam Lin touched Xingruo's face, her eyes full of maternal radiance.
On the day she left, Xingruo cried a lot, but with the teacher's comfort, she finally left with the couple.
Finally, Xingruo had a home that belonged only to her, and a father and mother who doted on her alone.
Xingruo's memories of her early days are colorful. She had many, many pretty little dresses and her own dolls, which she would hug and sleep with every night.
On weekday evenings, Mrs. Lin would hold her hand and dance on the black and white piano keys. Although it was somewhat stern, she found it extremely novel.
During holidays, Mr. Lin would lift her high on his shoulders and take her to the amusement park. The three of them would have a great time.
But happiness is sometimes as thin as a sheet of paper.
The good times didn't last long; Mr. Lin's company suffered a devastating blow. Because a trusted longtime friend tampered with the contract, Mr. Lin not only lost all his savings but also incurred astronomical debts. His once cozy house was seized by the court, and all the valuable furniture and piano were sealed with cold, hard seals.
As their material life collapsed, their once harmonious relationship was completely shattered. The man began to drink heavily, and the woman began to cry all day long. They moved into a cheap rental house that never saw sunlight, the cramped space filled with the pungent smell of smoke and mildew.
Resentment is a contagious poison.
At first, Mr. Lin simply sighed at Xingruo while drunk. Later, it turned into insults. Then, he stared into Xingruo's still clear eyes and growled viciously, "If I hadn't adopted you, you jinx, how could my business have gone wrong? You're a jinx!"
At first, Madam Lin would protect her, but as the debt collectors harassed her day and night, she gradually broke down. The love in her eyes when she looked at Xingruo was gone, replaced by deep disgust.
"It's all because of you. If it weren't for you, why would we be like this..."
The insults escalated into shoving, and the shoving escalated into beatings. Whenever she was upset outside, or whenever she didn't have money to buy rice at home, those cold sticks and flying porcelain bowls would fall on Xingruo's thin body.
Xingruo dared not cry, for crying would only bring more brutal punishment. She learned to curl up into a ball, hiding in that moldy corner, trying to become a silent, unyielding stone.
It was from that time that she began to have serious mental problems. She became slow to react, her eyes were unfocused, and she seemed to have lost her soul, always a step behind others.
Until one stormy night.
The Lin couple had their most heated argument ever in their rented apartment. Pushing and shoving each other in the cramped kitchen, Mr. Lin accidentally knocked over a burning gas cylinder. The already fragile hose snapped, instantly causing an explosion.
Xingruo was huddled in the outermost corner of the balcony when the blast wave knocked her onto the awning below. Despite being seriously injured, she miraculously survived.
The couple died on the spot.
At the Lin couple's funeral, relatives who had never appeared before gathered together. They looked at Xingruo, who was pale and trembling, and although they put on a show of pity, their eyes were filled with deep apprehension.
Little Xingruo overheard their unfounded accusations.
"This child is a jinx; whoever gets involved with her will be cursed. Look at Old Lin and his wife; their business was booming before they adopted her, but after they did, their family was ruined and they died."
"Exactly, look at how dazed she is, that might be the reason."
No one was willing to take her in. Even a distant cousin, upon seeing Xingruo, quickly retreated several steps and turned his head away as if avoiding a plague.
Xingruo listened to the whispers, unable to defend herself, nor could she. This made her feel that she truly was the source of the disaster.
She just stared at her toes, trying hard not to let her tears fall.
In the end, six-year-old Xingruo was sent back to the orphanage she thought she would never return to.
The moment she returned to the orphanage, she buried her face in the old director's arms, sobbing uncontrollably. A year is not a long time for a person, but for six-year-old Xingruo, it occupied a third of her memory and marked the beginning of her journey from heaven to hell.
But orphanages are not safe havens either.
The nickname "jinx" somehow followed her back.
Those children who were once familiar with each other learned to ostracize each other from the adults' words. They said that Xingruo was a jinx, and anyone who played with her would get sick.
Xingruo became increasingly strange. She would sit under the shade of a tree all day, staring blankly at the ground. When someone called her, it would take her a long time to turn her head hesitantly.
Sometimes when someone reaches out to hand her a steamed bun, she will suddenly scream, cover her head, and tremble violently.
The dean felt sorry for her and found a psychologist. But Xingruo didn't trust anyone; her heart seemed to be dead. When the doctor asked her a question, she could remain silent for a long time, finally uttering only a few irrelevant words.
Several couples who wanted to adopt an older child had visited her. They thought the child had beautiful features and liked her very much, even if she was a little slow-witted, they could still raise her. But after hearing her "history," those outstretched hands all silently withdrew.
"Who would want such an unlucky child?"
She gradually got used to the rumors, but spent more and more time alone.
As Xingruo gets older, she has essentially said goodbye to the possibility of adoption.
Xingruo originally thought she would rot away in that gray courtyard for the rest of her life. Until a dream appeared.
That dream was so beautiful, like an unattainable miracle.
In her dream, Xingruo was no longer the freak everyone avoided, wearing a tattered dress. She wore a pretty pink dress and shiny little leather shoes.
Most importantly, a remarkably tall figure stood beside her. Though her face was obscured, his back was as broad as a mountain. He was always protecting her; whenever anyone dared to bully Xingruo, that figure would shield her tightly behind him, gently telling her, "Don't be afraid, I'm here."
In her dream, Xingruo laughed loudly and unrestrainedly.
When Xingruo woke up, she realized that her pillow was soaked with tears, but at that moment her heart was pounding violently, something she hadn't felt in years. She felt as if she had come back to life.
Who is that figure? Does he really exist?
An unprecedented obsession exploded in Xingruo's mind: she had to escape. She had to find the shadow from her dream.
The next morning, while the orphanage teachers were busy distributing breakfast and organizing morning exercises, Xingruo slipped out through the half-open door.
At that moment, she was incredibly excited, feeling her heart pounding. She wandered aimlessly, looking here and there.
Although she didn't know where that figure was, she felt that she could still find him by relying on the feeling she had in her dream.
But reality is not a dream.
Two days of wandering left her completely disoriented. She dared not ask the police for help, nor speak to passersby, for fear of being sent back to that courtyard filled with cold words and mockery.
On the evening of the first day, in a dead-end alley near the train station, Xingruo was spotted by two men who had been following her.
They were two human traffickers with sinister eyes. Looking at Xingruo's dazed yet pretty appearance, they thought she was a "top-quality commodity." They secretly followed Xingruo for two days, and in a dark corner without cameras, they covered Xingruo's mouth and roughly shoved her into a dilapidated van.
Xingruo huddled in the carriage, her eyes filled with despair. She felt as if she had returned to that dark, damp, and musty rented room.
But she was also lucky, as she passed an intersection near the old street.
It was a sparsely populated area, and the car suddenly jolted violently.
One of the traffickers, who had been drinking for the past two days, was in a semi-drunk state. When he got out of the car to check the tires, he not only left the door open, but also dropped the car keys he had been clutching into a nearby ditch as he stumbled.
Another accomplice got out of the car, cursing and swearing, to help.
At that moment, the instinct for survival overcame Xingruo's fear. Seizing the opportunity, she ran so fast that she even lost a shoe, and desperately rushed into the intricate old alleyway next to her.
The two men, due to alcohol and poor vision, circled the alley several times but failed to catch her.
And so, Xingruo wandered around the old street for another two days. She barely survived by scavenging leftover food from garbage cans.
until today.
As Xingruo dragged her blistered and bleeding feet aimlessly into the alleyway filled with the sounds of everyday life, a warm fragrance she had never smelled before, carrying a sense of healing, quietly drifted into her nostrils on the gentle breeze under the setting sun.
A faint glimmer of light flashed in Xingruo's taciturn eyes.
Following the scent, she moved slowly, eventually stopping in front of a shop decorated in a childlike style and covered with rabbit drawings.
On the lintel, four powerful characters are engraved: "Human Fireworks".
Xingruo peered through the half-open door and saw the bustling scene inside. She saw the tall, busy figure, the little girl with rabbit ears happily holding a water bottle, and the people sitting together, laughing heartily.
The lights inside were a warm orange-yellow, so warm it made you want to cry.
Xingruo stood there blankly at the door, her right hand instinctively covering her head, her body trembling. She wanted to go in, but the deep-seated inferiority and fear ingrained in her bones made her like a petrified sculpture, appearing so humble yet so yearning in the afterglow of the setting sun.
Suddenly, her stomach let out a faint, mournful groan.
She didn't know if this was the end of her dreams; she only knew that this might be the closest she had ever been to happiness in her life.