95. Mysterious Dream Fairy Tale (18)
Memories I can't bear to forget
Soon, the repair shop in Fairy Tale City officially opened for business.
The first thing to arrive was a small ball.
It rolled in, round and smooth, its once intact body now covered in mud, looking dirty and old, just like many toys in the fairytale city.
It rolled familiarly to Qin Fu'an's feet, hopping around expectantly and asking, "Repairman, can you really do any kind of surgery?"
Before Qin Fu'an could answer, it cheerfully and nervously raised its own request: "Do you have any way to make sure I never deflate again?"
Meeting its hopeful yet apprehensive gaze, Qin Fu'an reached out and picked it up, placing it on the clean and tidy operating table. He said gently, "Of course, but like before, it might hurt a little. Can you bear it?"
"Mmm!!" The little ball rolled twice excitedly, perfectly controlling its body so as not to fall off the operating table, and said impatiently, "I can do it! I am the bravest little ball, repairman, please perform the surgery on me, I am willing to give any reward except my life!"
Although it said that, Qin Fu'an stared at it for two seconds before asking in a calm and gentle tone, "What if the reward I want is your toy heart? Would you be willing?"
Upon hearing this, the little ball's joy was briefly stunned.
It instinctively turned around and looked at the sunflower doctor next to it.
The little sunflower smiled at it with its eyes crinkling, and gently reminded it, "Little ball, this is your own business. You don't need to ask anyone. You have the right to refuse or agree. None of us will force you to make a choice."
At this moment, Little Sunflower is like a real psychologist—gentle, patient, calm, and encouraging.
As it gently soothed him, the little ball squatted on the operating table and began to think seriously.
During its long period of contemplation, neither Qin Fu'an, Xie Zeyuan, nor Little Sunflower stood by and stared at it, putting pressure on it.
Some of them were tidying up their toolboxes, some were rummaging through materials, and others were carefully peeling sunflower seeds for the black building block bear with two leaves.
Without the intense attention and waiting, the little ball's remaining tension and anxiety disappeared.
It began to calmly consider the pros and cons.
Do you want a more powerful body that will never rot or leak, or a toy heart that won't die even if it's gone?
Undoubtedly, while a toy's heart may not be as indispensable as a human heart, it carries all their memories, joys, sorrows, and everything in between. Without a toy's heart, they would lose who they once were.
Even humans can't accept amnesia, let alone toys that yearn to become human.
So how exactly should you choose?
The little ball fell into deep thought.
Inside its body, a glittering toy heart also emits a faint glow, guiding its memories back to the past.
...
The little ball is an ordinary, colorful little ball, which is sold by vendors at a stall by hanging it in a net bag along with other little balls.
From the day it gained consciousness and memory, the little ball had always stayed in that crowded net bag.
It has seen a lot, smelled the aromas wafting from the stalls next door, witnessed stall owners arguing and fighting with other stall owners, and was also hastily packed up and hung on the vehicle to follow the stall owners and evade the city management officers...
The little ball couldn't count, and it didn't know how many days had passed. It only knew that one by one, the other little balls that looked a lot like it were bought out of the net bag, until finally it was empty except for itself and a few other balls.
Then the vendor hung a sign written on a cardboard box that had been opened from the box on the net bag.
Little Ball heard the stall owner shouting loudly that it was a clearance sale, selling toys at low prices.
Then it was finally held in a pair of small hands.
It was so tight, as if it were that child's most unique treasure, no longer neglected like before.
It saw the child's mother pay the stall owner, who then smiled and saw the mother, child, and little ball off.
At that moment, the little ball vaguely knew that it would belong to this little boy forever.
It has a home now.
The spacious and clean living room has a TV, a coffee table, a cabinet, and a little owner who happily throws it away and then stumbles over to pick it up again.
The little ball no longer has to hang in the net bag, living and waiting alongside other little balls.
Toys are not like humans.
Toys don't understand humans' fickle nature, nor do they understand the growth and maturity of young animals.
All it knew was that one day, its little owner, who loved playing with it the most, stopped liking it as much.
At first, they gradually became indifferent, then ignored it, and even acquired newer, more popular, and more fun toys.
The little ball didn't understand why its owner wanted to like other toys even though it already had one.
Could it be that I'm not scrolling fast enough or far enough?
Or is it that my body has become old and dull?
Or perhaps the little owner has only temporarily forgotten about it and will soon remember it again, playing with it as before.
But the little ball is not a human.
It doesn't know that the process of human growth is a process of constantly discarding and forgetting.
And it, a small, old ball, was just the most insignificant one in the process of being thrown away and forgotten.
The little ball watched its little owner grow up day by day, saw his little hands become more and more defined, saw him walk more and more steadily and with bigger strides, saw him acquire more and more toys, and then quickly discard them...
Finally, the little toy, along with the other toys, was picked up by the woman and put into a dark box. She could only hear the conversations outside and never see her little owner grow up again.
During the days when he couldn't see, the little ball would often fantasize about how many new toys its little owner had acquired, and recall every detail of being chosen and tightly held by those little hands.
Then one day, the little ball finally saw the light outside again.
The cardboard box containing them was opened, and the little ball saw a human boy who was both strange and familiar. He casually picked it up from the box.
The little ball recognized him, and it was overjoyed.
It thought that its little owner had finally remembered it, and that its little owner would continue to play the game of fetching and picking up the ball with it, just like when it was a child.
It only guessed half of it correctly.
"Doubao, catch!!"
The boy weighed the old ball in his hand, then laughed and threw it away with all his might.
The little ball didn't have a heartbeat, but it was still terrified the moment it was thrown high into the air and then fell rapidly back down.
It crashed heavily to the ground, and before it could recover from the pain of the fall, it heard a series of rapid, panting footsteps.
As it drew closer, the little ball spotted a dog happily sticking out its tongue.
The next second, the dog picked up the little ball in its mouth and ran back, finally spitting it out wet and dropping it at the boy's feet.
It turns out that it wasn't the little owner who wanted to play with it, but rather the little owner who needed to play with the dog, so it remembered to play with itself – a way to make use of waste!
The little ball had no ability to struggle; it had become the little dog's favorite toy, even though it was once its owner's favorite.
In fact, a puppy's affection can be far more enduring than a human's.
That little dog named Doubao would even bring its little ball back to its bed to sleep, curling it up in its paws before it could sleep peacefully.
But puppies are even less discerning in their affections than humans.
It deflated because the excited puppy bit it.
Its once round body gradually deflated. Little Ball saw the puppy anxiously circling around it, pawing at it and whimpering.
It wanted to comfort the puppy, but neither the ball nor the puppy could speak.
In its final moments, it was picked up by its young owner, who had grown into a teenager.
The little ball heard him comforting the puppy: "Okay, Doubao, it's just a ball. It's okay if you break it. I'll order a new one for you right now, it'll be here soon, okay?"
It followed another parabola before the little ball was carelessly tossed into the trash can by its former owner.
When Little Ball learned that he could come to Fairy Tale City and continue living, his heart was not filled with hatred.
It just secretly breathed a sigh of relief at the gate of Fairy Tale City.
It's so wonderful that there's a new little ball to keep Doubao company and make her less sad!
Hopefully, Doubao won't bite through the new little ball again, otherwise the new little ball will be in pain too.
But now, the little ball has lived in the fairytale city for a very, very long time.
The little ball originally thought that, as humans say, time would fade and forget past memories, but now, when it thinks about those memories, they are still so clear and detailed.
It even remembers the scene of Doubao drooling as it slept with its head resting next to it every night.
Thinking of this, the little ball rolled gently, attracting the attention of the other toys in the store.
It looked at Qin Fu'an, and a pitiful, childish voice rang out: "Mr. Repairman, I'm sorry..."
Qin Fu'an showed no disappointment or dissatisfaction as it had imagined. Instead, it blinked gently, put down its tools, and asked curiously, "It's alright, can I know why?"
I've already refused the repairman once.
The little ball didn't want to disappoint the other party a second time, and there was nothing wrong with explaining its reasons.
So, under the watchful eyes of the three toys in the store, Little Ball explained somewhat shyly in a low voice, "Well... because I have memories I can't bear to forget."
It hopped around, its mood inexplicably brightening, and said in a lively tone, "Mr. Repairman, thank you. If you hadn't given me time to think, I wouldn't have realized I had so many precious memories. It seems I don't need Dr. Sunflower's Little Sun Treatment to become mentally healthy!"
"In the heart of my toys, there are very, very precious memories."
"I can't bear to forget them."
"Although there are still many unhappy memories in those memories, they seem to have become less important, which is amazing."
"So, so I'm really sorry. Although I still want to become stronger, I hope that I can always remember those happy and beautiful memories rather than never falling apart."
So, the first order the repair shop received after opening was temporarily canceled.
The little ball, which was supposed to be lying on the operating table undergoing repairs, jumped off the operating table instead.
Qin Fu'an did not stop it from leaving.
Xie Zeyuan didn't have it either.
But just as the little ball was about to roll smoothly out of the shop's doorway, the little sunflower that had been listening quietly all along suddenly spoke up and stopped it.
"Little ball."
The little sunflower met the little ball's curious and questioning gaze, remained silent for a moment, and then asked softly, "If I could preserve all your happy memories, would you be willing to trade your toy heart to the repairman?"
[Author's Note]
Yunzai: My snake wants the Heart of Toys. I'll do whatever it takes to get it for him!
Anzai: My wife's freeloader, what a delicious feast!
Yuanyuan: ...Report this! How can someone be abusing their love in a horror game?!
Author: (Hands on hips) I've been working hard to update, praise me!!
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