Chapter 76 - A little girl’s hea

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?”

I taste the noodles quietly. To be honest, the taste is good, the noodles are very biting, the soup is very fragrant. But I have no appetite at the moment, put down the chopsticks and pull out a cigarette.

Girl’s appetite won’t take too much food. After eating a few mouthfuls of noodles, she’s concentrating on beefs. Generally, girls do not like meat. But she seems to be different, eating beef very sweet. But how many beefs in a bowl of beef noodles? No sooner she has finished them all.

I put down my cigarette, pick up my chopsticks and pick out the beefs from my bowl piece by piece and put in her bowl.

“Eat, they are clean. I didn’t touch.”

The expression on her face is stiffening for a moment. Suddenly, she’s raising her head and looking at me deeply. Then she says nothing, just bowing her head and eating.

She’s eating too rush that she’s even making a very rude sound of snoring. But soon I have discovered her secret. She makes these noises deliberately just for cover up!

Her head is hanging low. I find that she is crying!

She notices that I am looking at her. Suddenly she throws the chopsticks away and pushing the bowl, lying on the table, burying her head deep in her arms and starting sobbing.

She’s crying very quietly at first, but gradually becoming louder. Finally, her body is shaking constantly. I want to clap her on the shoulder, but my hand stretches out half of the way and don’t know why, my hand falls slowly.

At that time, she has raised her head. She’s quickly wiping the tears and runny nose on her face, giving me a cold stare: “What are you looking? Haven’t you seen a woman cry before?”

She’s glancing at the bowl in front of her, then pushing it hard, patting the table and crying out: “I won’t eat it! This is the beef you’ve eaten. Dirty!”

She’s getting up and going out. I take out a bank note, put it on the table and follow her. She’s walking very fast to the direction of her home. I just follow her about two steps behind.

We’re quietly walking like that untill arrive the downstairs of her house. She stops suddenly, turns her head, looks at me fiercely: “Hello! I’ve had dinner with you! You should also keep your words. Just go! Don’t follow me anymore!”

I smile and say: “Okay, I’ll not follow you anymore. You just go home.”

“Hum!” She’s immediately turning around and walking into the building.

I go to the car, get in, start to play the music and light a cigarette. I just listen to the music and smoke silently with the car window open.

About five minutes later, as soon as I almost finish a cigarette, I see her rushing out of the building in a rage, running quickly to my car and knocking on the door heavily.

I smile and ask her: “What’s wrong?”

“You’ve broken your words!” She’s saying angrily, “You said you would leave after dinner! Why are you still here?”

“I just said to go after dinner, it means I’ll be away from your house. I didn’t say I wouldn’t stay downstairs, did I?” I smile and ask, “How do you know I didn’t leave?”

“I’m looking at you in the corridor!” Just finish saying, she’s regreting and blushing.

I push the door open and get out of the car, standing in front of her and looking at her. She looks uncomfortable, staring and cursing. But suddenly I reach out to her and whisper: “Don’t move!”

Then I quickly bounce off a piece of residue in the corner of her mouth, take out a paper towel and wipe the greasy on her mouth. I sigh: “Don’t you wipe your mouth when you finish eating? What about hands? Show me your hands!”

She’s freezing and raising her hands mechanically like a wooden robot. I grab her hands and wipe it vigorously against the beef soup on her palm: “Remember! Wipe your mouth and wash your hands after eat in the future!”

She seems silly, just opening her mouth for quite a while, but at last she doesn’t scold a word. She’s raising her eyes and looking at me carefully. It seems something is melting, but at last she’s still pretending to be angry again and crying out: “What are you doing? Who do you think you are? You don’t have to mind my business! No bother!”

After that, she’s lifting my hand forcefully, throwing the paper towel on the ground, stepping on it, turning around and rushing into the corridor.

I’m still smiling. Just shaking my head.

She’s still a child, only knows to use the anger to cover up the shocks in her heart.

I sit in front of the car and wait quietly for a while. Actually, I’ve noticed it. She still didn’t go upstairs. She’s hiding in the corridor on the second floor and peeping at me.

Instead of puncturing her, I take a bottle of water out of the trunk of the car and take a sip, stretching leisurely.

Ten minutes later, she’s coming out again.

But this time, instead of rushing out as before, she’s coming out of the corridor with a hesitation. She seems to have some helpless appearances: “Uncle, what do you really want? Either you leave, or you go up, you are just staring at me downstairs, what is it for?”

I smile. A little girl is still a little girl after all. Such a young child, no matter how she’s pretending, she still can’t hide the inner emotions like an adult.

I know she’s softened. I just make a few seemingly subtle moves and have successfully opened a little gap in this girl’s heart. It’s a little bit small, but it’s already enough.

In fact, she is also contradictory. There might be a little bit feeling in her heart that she doesn’t want me to go.

This feeling may be hard to explain. But I remember it very clearly: when I was taken away from the door of the detention house by my master, for a long time, I felt as attached to my master as a young bird. I was even afraid of my master would leave my eyesight!

When suddenly there is a real, sincere person who is kind to a helpless person, even if only a little warmth, he instinctively would have a trace of sentimentally attached and reluctance!

Because people live in the cold world are fascinated by the warmth.

It’s liking why I used to hang out in such noisy and chaotic places. In fact, a major reason was that I was afraid of the cold feeling at home. In the disco, there are countless people are crazy shouting, screaming, carnivaling. It could bring me a sense of liveliness. That’s what I was obsessed with!

I don’t answer her, but smile gently: “I’m hungry. I didn’t eat that bowl of noodles just now. Let’s go out and find another place to eat. That noodle tastes good, but I don’t like noodles very much personally.”

Then I pull the copilot door open and say to her: “Get in.”

She’s standing in front of the car, staring at me for a while, then looking down at her toes for a while, coming and getting into the car finally. Then she’s slaming the door like a vent, and saying in a bad voice: “Where are you going? Just go!”

Long after that, I ask her why she would hide in the corridor to see me this afternoon and why she would get into the car.

She answers me that no one except her dead mother would ever wipe the cinder from her mouth with a paper towel, wipe the grease from her hands, and then scold her in the voice of a seemingly nagging woman.

This kind of feeling, actually quite ‘family’.

My relationship with her has finally improved slightly.

I take her to a favorite restaurant. I drink a bottle of beer and, under her protest, I allow her to drink half a glass. But not allow her ever smoke again.

Earlier at her house, I allowed her to smoke because she needed a movement to ease the atmosphere a little. But now I firmly refuse to allow her to touch the cigarette.

A girl has better to be delicate. Smoking is really not a good habit.

But our agreements are also gradually changing.

“I’ll leave after dinner, all right?”

After dinner, I take her to eat ice-cream. “I’ll go after the ice-cream, OK?”

Then I take her to buy clothes: “After bought clothes, I’ll go. All right?”

There is a little dispute when we are buying the clothes. Because she chooses clothes with metal chains and the pockets and holes everywhere, and I certainly won’t let her buy them. I choose clothes that looks livelier and more normal.

Finally, I buy her a small Lapel sweater and green jeans, and at her insistence, I buy her a dress she determines to buy. But I notice that when she is trying on her clothes. She has tried the girl’s outfit I have chosen for her. When she looks in the mirror, there is a flash of a blooming smile on her face. When she’s coming out of the dressing room and dressing as a girl, I almost think this is the Dorra in the picture!

Of course, her explosive hairstyle is still striking.

After buying her clothes, she takes the soda I bought for her and sucking with the straw. Although her attitude towards me is still bad, but the interesting thing is, she has stopped talking about let me go.

“Well, now… Let’s get you have a haircut.” I look at her and laugh, “After the haircut, I’ll go, regardless of you, OK? I promise I won’t lie to you this time. After the haircut, I’ll really leave! I promise I’ll keep my word this time!”

She has a grieving look on her face, looking at her toes, waiting for a while, then looking up and saying softly: “I… Can I not shave my hair?”

I laugh and say to her, “Dorra. Do you not want to cut your hair? Or just don’t want me to leave?”

She’s looking up, blushing, and yelling: “Bah! I wish you would disappear from my sight now!”

I am not angry at all, because I feel I have some control over the girl’s personality.

“Well, let’s go for a haircut. After that, I’ll go, OK?”

“Ignore it! I say no is no!”

“So, what do you want to do?” I am as kind as I can.

“I…” She’s bowing her head and daring not to look at me, “I think… I want to… I want to eat ice cream.”

I laugh and feel a little complacent. My face remains silent. I deliberately understated, “We will eat it after the haircut.”

“Well, all right.” She gives a quick reply. I notice that this little girl’s eyes seem to breathe a sigh of relief.

Actually, I understand that she doesn’t want ice cream, but wants to find something after haircut. In that case, I won’t leave right away.

In fact, no one is born to fall, right?

I look at the little girl in front of me and start feeling she is really cute.

I drive to find a hairstyle salon, which is very famous in our city. Jojo often does her hair here and designs her own image. Several of the experts here are also the makeup artists for the TV station.

Of course, the fees here are quite high. A simple haircut cost three or five hundred!

When I bring Dorra into the door, I find a hairdresser and point at Dorra: “Please help to get her hair done.”

The hairdresser gives her a strange look, probably amused by the explosive hairstyle. After all, her skin and face are not really suitable for this hairstyle.

The hairdresser is circling around her, taking a look at me. He calls an assistant to take Dorra to wash her hair first.

I pull the hairdresser aside. He looks at me and says with a bitter smile: “Where did this lady’s hair make from? Her temperament, face shape, is completely incompatible with it! What do you want me to do for her? Still have this personalized hairstyle?”

“Of course not!” I shake my head, “Just to make it as a little girl’s style. A little normal! Good-looking! Cute! That’s all.” Thinking about it, I take out a note from my wallet and hand it to him, “There’s one more thing. Do me a favor, the makeup on her face, you just do something like unexpecting to let her wash the powder off her face when she washes her hair. Then I’ll trouble you to make up for her again… At least make her looks like a normal person, not a ghost, OK?”

“OK!” The hairdresser quietly accepts my tip.

Alas, suddenly I feel a little exhausted. It’s really hard to take care of a child nowadays. I do have some admirations for those parents. It’s really not easy to be a parent!