Chapter 76 - A little girl’s hea (1/2)

Translator: Lionwwang  Editor: Lionwwang

I really want to keep talking with this little girl. But she looks very resistant. Although her cigarette was taken away, but she takes out a piece of chewing gum from her pocket and has chewed for an hour.

For an hour, she’s sitting on the sofa and chewing the gum. If I speak to her, she would turn her eyes and not listen or speak at all.

I smile and stop talking, turn on the TV in the living room and sit next to her. The girl is moving aside immediately as if I have virus. Ignore her, I just hold the remote controller, tilt my legs on the tea table to watch TV. After turning more than a dozen channels, I stay on a video of a European League football match. I saw this match before, but now I pretend to enjoy it.

Sure enough, little girl is a little girl after all. Her patience can’t be compared with an adult. She pretends to be cool for an hour, and finally can’t help it. First, she’s constantly moving around on the sofa, as if there are worms on her body. Then she’s starting chewing gum bubbles, blowing more than a dozen. I don’t glance at her, just staring at the TV.

“Hello!” Suddenly, she’s calling, “Uncle! What the hell are you thinking? Do you regard here as your home? If you want to kill me or cut me, just give me a word!”

I smile.

“Well, you want to talk now?”

She’s still rolling her eyes at me: “Are you sick? You come to interfere my business for no reason. I don’t even know you!”

I shrug my shoulders.

“I don’t know you either. If it isn’t for your father, such a child like you, I would have been too lazy to take care of you.”

She’s rolling her eyes again.

“You know that son of…” Seeing me staring at her, she’s quickly swallowing the rest words, continue saying, “You know him. What’s the matter with me? I don’t want you to control! Come on, I’m a grown up! I have government ID! Do you know that you are violating my human rights? I can call the police!”

I’m calm.

“Up to you.”

She’s jumping up and yelling: “What do you really want?” Her cheeks are bulging with anger and her index finger is almost pointing to my nose.

I look up at her and say: “First, I ask you to get your hair done. It’s a bad hairstyle. So ugly!”

“I don’t want you to mind! Even I shave to a bald head, it’s none of your business!”

I simply ignore her shouting: “Second, I need to have a good talk with you, if you are still holding such a bad attitude, we can’t communicate.”

“OK… Let’s talk!” She’s sitting on the tea table, skillfully pulling one cigarette out of my cigarette box. But when takes a look at me, she quickly puts it down again and says with dissatisfaction, “I can’t even smoke?”

I sigh and take out the picture.

“It’s you, aren’t it?”

I look into her eyes and try to sound genuine: “Did you take this picture a few years ago? How nice it looks? Such a lovely little girl.”

She says nothing.

I continue: “When your father asked me to take care of you, I saw this picture. I think you should be a lovely little girl, but after meeting, I feel very disappointed.”

She raises her eyebrows: “That’s my business! Don’t pretend to be fucking pure in front of me! I don’t think you’re a good man either! Today in KTV, what did you do with those people? Are you a good man?”

I hum and stare into her eyes: “If I didn’t knock those guys down today, I’m afraid you’d be finished today!” I sigh, think better of it, take out a cigarette and hand it to her.

She is stunned, taking the cigarette, lighting, and taking a deep smoke.

I shake my head and tell myself not to rush. Just step by step.

“Do you know what that classmate wanted to do with you today?”

“I don’t know.” She doesn’t look me in the eye.

I sneer: “When you went to the toilet, they were discussing how to drug you! When I went in, there was a package of psychedelics on the table. Do you know what would happen after eating it?”

“Cut! How do I know that? I didn’t eat it before!” she’s yelling.

I feel a little bit at ease. Fortunately, she hasn’t touched that kind of staffs. That is to say, she hasn’t been damaged to that extent. It’s a lucky misfortune.

“That thing, if you eat it, you’ll lose your mind… Well, just like getting drunk, then you lose your sense of judgment. What other people ask you to do, you will do what… And… You will…” I think about it and say vaguely, “You don’t even know that someone has taken advantage of you.”

There is a thoughtful expression on her face, and she still does not speak.

“Those guys, did you see each other for the first time? This kind of little messes, are not of the worst stripe. They will only drug you, and then rape you at most. If you meet someone who is bad enough, maybe find a few people to gang-rape you first, then take the pictures or VCR, then blackmail you endlessly in the future! They might even inject you to make you addicted! You will become a drug addict. Every time you have a drug addiction, they show up in front of you and sell you the drugs! Your life is ruined then! Do you know?”

She’s listening quietly. To my surprise, she does not interrupt me or refutes me this time. After I finish, her eyes are showing a little indifference. She hums: “So what? My life has long been ruined anyway. What am I afraid of?”

Although this is still a child’s stubborn tone, but the words with a bit of desolate taste, which is making my heart trembling.

Looking at the girl with heavy make-up, sitting in front of me smoking sullenly, with an indifferent look on her face, I’m feeling helpless in my heart.

“Dorra… Why are you doing like this?” I say.

“What?”

I look into her eyes to keep her eyes from flashing.

“I mean, what made you become like this? That picture proves that at least in the past few years, you shouldn’t be like current way, right?”

I stand up and look around the living room.

This apartment is obviously an old-fashioned apartment built in the last century. It has two bedrooms and one living room, not big, but it’s enough for a small family to live in.

There are two bedrooms. One I’ve just entered, it is her room. The other bedroom’s door is closed. I go and push it open for a look.

This is a slightly smaller room. From the furniture style inside, I think it belongs to older people who lived in. Because the furniture is obviously the kind of hand-made goods of the sixties and seventies, the color of paint is very deep, the bed is a wooden bed frame strung with crisscross coir ropes. This kind of bed is now almost extinct. The sheet on the bed looks old too. The whole room is clean. There is a lacquer wooden box in the corner.

It can be seen from all these that the person who originally lived here should be an old man.

“I heard you lived with your grandmother in the last few years?” I turn to look at her. The muscles on her face are trembling apparently, but then she’s saying coldly, “It’s your business too?”

I shake my head. “I’m just asking.”

Then I approach her and say: “She… When did she pass away?”

“Two years ago.” She speaks quickly and then takes a deep smoke.

I nod and then change the subject: “It’s late. Do you hungry?”

She’s squinting at me and saying: “If you are hungry, please hurry up to leave! I don’t welcome you at home here!”

Ignoring her, I go to the kitchen and check it over, but the refrigerator is empty. There is no any food in the kitchen cabinet too, not even a grain of rice!

“Come on, I’ll take you out for dinner.” I sigh.

“No! No!” She’s sitting still and refusing to stand up.

I smile and say: “I invite you to have dinner and I’ll go after the dinner. How do you think?”

“Really?” Her eyes are lighting up.

“True!”

Then she’s standing up, running to the door and yelling: “Open the door! Let’s go for dinner!”

While opening the door, I ask her: “What would you like to eat?”

“Korean food, I want to eat barbecue.” Mention to the food, she looks a little better, “You say you treat! If spend too much, you just don’t feel hurt!”

I pat my pocket and say: “Do you forget that I have a card here? It’s all your money. How much you eat will be deducted from the card!”

She’s shrinking and losing her spirits: “In that case, then let’s go down to eat noodles!”

I thought she was just saying casually, but when we go downstairs and I ready to drive, she really takes me to a small noodle shop at the intersection.

This is a very ordinary noodle shop, very small, has only three to four tables. The tabled are greasy dirty, the corners of the table are covered with stainless steel. The wall is pasted with newspapers and the roof is made of simple plastic materials.

She skillfully finds a table in the corner and sits down, then orders two bowls of beef noodles.

“There’s nothing interesting to see!” She notices that I am looking at her strangely, and she gives me an angry look.

“How can you eat noodle here?” I feel a little funny.

Two bowls of steaming beef noodles are soon sent to our table. They are full of ingredients. The soup is covered with fragrant onions, and several pieces of roasted beef are lying on the noodles. She picks up the chopsticks, forks several noodles and sucks them into her mouth. Then she picks a piece of beef up and chewing hard.

I watch her eating so well, a little surprise: “That delicious?”

“Well, I’ve been eating for years.” While eating, she’s saying vaguely, “When my grandmother was in hospital, I don’t know how to cook, so I just ate here.”

I put down my chopsticks and looking at her quietly.

The girl is sitting in front of me with the explosive hair style. Her face is full of makeup with insubordinate. But don’t know how, there is such a picture is appearing in my mind.

A beautiful little girl with long hair, who is wearing the school uniform, carrying a schoolbag, sitting in a noodle shop to eat noodles in the morning, at noon and at night.

How did she persevere in those days?

Looking at the bowl with the noodles and the steaming beef in front of me, I remember the time I was living in master’s house and he made us pork ribs soup in the evening.

“You ate all three meals a day here that time?” I ask her in a low voice.

“Nonsense!” She’s curling her lips, forking the noodles up with chopsticks, blowing to reduce the heat, “If I didn’t eat here, you fed me?”