Teacher Zhao finally managed to coax Chen Hu and turned her head to look over, she saw Bei Yao was looking at her and the fat little man wide eyed.
Teacher Zhao squatted down to examine Bei Yao’s calf, a large part had already turned red, and even had some broken skin. The little girl neither cried nor made any noise. She was quiet and sensible. When she came to the kindergarten earlier this month, the youngest girl still loved to cry.
Seeing that Bei Yao didn’t cry, Xiao Zhao was relieved. She didn’t expect the two children to explain exactly what had happened, it was all well as long as they didn’t make trouble anymore.
When teacher Zhao left, Chen Hu red eyed glared at Bei Yao. Then the fat man snorted and left.
In the afternoon, children were folding the papers but Pei Chuan didn’t come over for once and just stood at the door looking afar. Teacher Zhao came to push his chair inside, but he pressed his lips and tightly clasped the door with his little hands. Teacher Zhao was afraid to hurt his finger so she had to give up.
Bei Yao knew what he was looking for, his parents still had not come to pick him up.
She vaguely remembered that Uncle Pei and Aunt Jiang Wenjuan were divorced when she was in primary school, and after his parents divorce Pei Chuan followed his father. However, she didn’t pay attention to him at that time. She even forgot the grade of her primary school.
Bei Yao stayed there all afternoon.
She was not a real child, so naturally it was impossible to be interested in those games liked by other little children. And she was having a high fever which made her confused and listless.
It was actually very uncomfortable to grow with the memory and soul of an adult in the body of a child.
When school was over, parents came to pick up children one after another.
Chen Hu’s father was still the first to come. The little fat man stood up from the small bench with pride, and glanced at Bei Yao while passing by. However, what he hated more was Pei Chuan. When he went out, he said to Pei Chuan in a loud voice, “Your father will not come to pick you up!”
Pei Chuan raised his dark eyes and silently looked at Chen Hu. His pale fingers quietly clenched the wheelchair tightly.
Then the fat guy ran away.
Bei Yao was very angry!
'This naughty kid!'
Bei Yao’s mother and Zhao Xiu left the work a little late. Therefore Fang Minjun was picked up by her grandmother as usual. In the end, only Bei Yao, Pei Chuan and Teacher Zhao were left in the classroom.
Teacher Zhao was cleaning up the paper scraps left by the children. Bei Yao looked at Pei Chuan’s back and walked over with her short legs.
The rays of the setting sun fell on the courtyard. She took a paper plane in her chubby hands and gently placed it on his legs.
Pei Chuan’s wheelchair wasn’t high, but sitting on it he was higher than the four-year-old girl.
Pei Chuan looked at her.
She smiled, her almond eyes bent in crescents, and she said in a soft voice, “Here you go. My name is Bei Yao and our house is very close. Shall we go home together?”
Pei Chuan was caught off-guard, but then with a cold face he threw the plane away.
‘Go away, I don’t want you.’
She could read the message in his eyes.
However, Xiao Pei Chuan forgot that it was a paper plane. The breeze drove the paper plane and it fluttered all the way to the plum tree in the garden.
Bei Yao looked at the paper plane and then turned to look at him.
The next moment, she walked with her short legs to pick it up. Then, she ran back and put the paper plane on his legs. The light in her eyes did not extinguish at all.
Pei Chuan felt angry, and although he didn’t know why, he gritted his teeth and threw it away again.
The little girl continued to pick it up for him. Every time she picked it up, she was careful to brush the dust off the plane before placing it on his leg. Then, she raised her head and smiled at him.
For the sixth time, she carefully placed the plane on his lap.
This time he tore it off without any expression.
Bei Yao’s slightly yellow soft hair was tied in two little buns.
Pei Chuan felt that she would definitely cry, just like Chen Hu. After crying hard she would also complain to the teacher. All the children in the kindergarten didn’t like him. He was always quiet and had no friends even before he broke his legs. The children felt that he wanted to be alone and was difficult to get along with.
Bei Yao knew that all the injured people were like a hedgehog, but their hearts still remained soft.
She asked him in a naive tone of a four-year-old child, “If you don’t want to play, then shall we go home? My mother didn’t come to pick me up. How about we go home by ourselves?”
He did not speak, but when Bei Yao reached out to touch his wheelchair, he raised his hand and hit her on the back of her hand.
He didn’t show any mercy at all, and a loud sound of slap was heard in the room. Her soft hands instantly turned red.
Bei Yao subconsciously withdrew her hand and both simultaneously looked at the beaten hand.
Several small red blotches appeared on the little girl’s chubby soft hands. When Bei Yao was a child she was really afraid of pain and the injections made her tremble with fear. Pei Chuan was born with a hard palm, he mercilessly hit her hand and an unexpected pain followed after it.
Bei Yao sighed in her heart.
‘He is really not easy to get along with’.
She wanted to say something more but Zhao Zhilan’s figure had already appeared on the path outside the kindergarten.
Bei Yao twisted her eyebrows gently. Zhao Zhilan came over to hug Bei Yao, and then greeted Teacher Zhao. When passing by Pei Chuan, her heart softened and she said, “Pei Chuan, Aunt Zhao will take you home.”
Pei Chuan bowed his head and fastened his fingers to the door.
Teacher Zhao smiled awkwardly, “Bei Yao’s mother, you go first.”
Zhao Zhilan walked away while holding Bei Yao in her arms.
She hugged her little daughter and sighed softly, “Ah, what evil did those couples do that the child’s character became like this…”
After the two went away, Teacher Zhao touched Pei Chuan’s head with a smile.
Pei Chuan was motionless. Teacher Zhao followed his gaze, only to find that he was looking at the mother and daughter at the end of the road.
Zhao Zhilan folded a small yellow wildflower and pinned it on the little girl’s hair. The little girl’s big eyes bent into crescent moons.
She looked really innocent, happy and cute.
Pei Chuan’s eyes fell on Bei Yao.
After a long time, he opened his fists and quietly released the pieces of paper plane hidden in his palms.
The paper pieces flew away with the wind.
She was lying to him. He knew her mother would come to pick her up.
***
After dinner, Bei Yao opened the bedroom window. Taking advantage of the time while Zhao Zhilan was washing the dishes, she painstakingly stepped on the stool and looked over.
She saw the lights on the fourth floor of the opposite building were on. That was Pei Chuan’s home. If there were people in his family, then he should be taken home already. Knowing this, she was relieved.
They lived in a community where the Bei Yao’s family lived on the third floor and the Pei Chuan’s family lived on the fourth floor. Bei Yao and her parents separated their beds early and they had their own bedroom. Looking over from her room, she could see Pei Chuan’s house.
She had a fever again in the middle of the night. Zhao Zhilan slept beside her and felt her daughter’s body was burning hot.
Zhao Zhilan didn’t know what Bei Yao was talking about. Zhao Zhilan heard her daughter sobbing and wetting the pillow in tears in her dream. Zhao Zhilan woke up from her grogginess, and quickly took alcohol to cool Bei Yao’s temperature down.
Bei Yao opened her eyes at dawn and her forehead was still hot. What made her afraid was that her memory began to blur.
It was like you were being able to see the world through a piece of transparent glass. However, gradually, the piece of glass began to cover little by little, thus making it unclear to see through anymore.
She was confused, remembering that she died at the age of 22.
It was a bloody death.
Now, those unforgettable memories were covered with a layer of fog. It seemed that the body of the four-year-old girl was rejecting these memories.
As soon as Zhao Zhilan went out, Bei Yao got out of bed with difficulty and found her tian grid writing pad and pencil.
She wrote, “Bei Yao married Huo Xu in 2010. Only after marriage did she get to know that he liked someone else. And Bei Yao was a shield against his family to protect his true lover. Huo Xu was a descendant of soldiers and businessmen’s family so he was rich and powerful. He never touched her, and when she knew what her place was like and was about to leave, Huo Xu did not allow her.”
Bei Yao wrote such a paragraph from the perspective of an onlooker. She finished writing this with difficulty and her forehead was full of cold sweat. Thus, she knew she had to continue or she would forget all the memories soon.
“2012. Bei Yao tried to find the person Huo Xu liked. But in the blink of an eye, Huo Xu found out. He drove her back and slapped her for the first time. Mrs. Zhao Zhilan and Mr. Bei Licai both were almost broken, rushing around for her affairs in their middle age. In the end, Mr. Bei had an accident and went into a coma.”
Bei Yao’s tears fell down as she recalled the memories.
She continued to write firmly, “Mrs. Zhao Zhilan finally asked for a man to rescue Bei Yao. The man was called Pei Chuan, and he was a very bad man in the eyes of the world. All the programs he wrote were all about destroying social stability. He quietly protected Bei Yao for two years. On the day she died, Pei Chuan told her ‘you are the one that I dare not to love in this life.’
She further wrote, “In 2014, Bei Yao still became the woman’s shield and died in vain.”
Zhao Zhilan’s footsteps were approaching, and Bei Yao had no time to continue. Finally, she could only scribble and tell her future self, “Be good to Pei Chuan.”
At the end of the last word “chuan”, she quickly put the notebook back in the drawer. Zhao Zhilan pushed the door open and glared at her before saying, “What are you running around for when you have got a fever!”
Bei Yao wiped away her tears and went back to bed.
She didn’t know the day when her memory would fade up. It was counterintuitive for a person to survive with the memories of the previous life. Originally, it was a great gift to be able to live again.
“Mom, you sing me a song.”
Zhao Zhilan smiled and chided her, “You want to listen to songs without being obedient!”
After feeling distressed for her daughter, she began to sing in a clear voice:
“Gently knock your soul awake from its sleep,
Slowly, open your eyes.
Look at the busy earth,
Is it still solitarily revolving without stop?
Spring breeze have failed to understand,
How sentiments affected the hearts of the teenagers…”
This was an album released in 1985, and Bei Yao had not heard such a familiar yet strange song for many years.
She vaguely remembered that the song was called, “Tomorrow Will Be Better”.
Under the effect of her mother’s singing, she fell asleep again.
Before going to bed, Bei Yao thought, would Pei Chuan come to kindergarten today?
Because of yesterday’s incident, he refused to go to kindergarten in his last life and stopped talking anymore. What about this time?
***
The sun was shining brightly today, and the children in the kindergarten were watching the white butterflies flying above the grassfield.
Fang Minjun was surrounded by several children who all wanted to catch the beautiful butterflies.
Chen Hu ran over to her and asked, “Fang Minjun, would you like to play hide and seek?”
Fang Minjun turned back.
It was a face called “Little Jade Girl” in 1996, taking a Hong Kong Star’s face as a prototype. This made Fang Minjun’s mother Zhao Xiu particularly proud.
Fang Minjun was not as chubby as her peers. On the contrary, with less meat on her face, she looked rather delicate and elegant.
She said, “OK, but I’m not gonna be a seeker.”
Chen Hu agreed.
Then he pointed to a little boy to be a seeker. The child pursed his mouth and reluctantly agreed .
With a loud cheer children went into hiding.
They were having a good time. While Pei Chuan coldly watched them as he sat in the corner.
In the tender laughter, he looked at the empty seat of the little girl at the front of the class.
He came to school, but she didn’t.