twenty one
The train lurched along for six hours before arriving at the station. This was the farthest north I'd ever been in my short life. As soon as I stepped off the train, I felt the chill pierce through my winter coat, cotton boots, and underwear, biting my skin.
As usual, the station entrance was thronged with touts: illegal taxi drivers, map sellers, and hotel chauffeurs. I squeezed through them, bought only one map, and squatted in a corner to examine it. After exhausting nearly every nook and cranny of the map, I realized Renmin Road was only a stone's throw from the train station. It was a short walk, practically a dark place.
Renmin Road is lined with small, shabby restaurants that seem to cater specifically to tourists. "Ma Xin Noodle House," numbered 12, is a small shop where an elderly couple bustles around serving customers. I order a bowl of plain noodles and, while slurping the bland noodles, observe the shopkeepers, but I don't see any other staff.
I had no choice but to ask the shop owner for information. The silver-haired old lady, working the cash register, replied, "You mean the little girl? My daughter graduated from university a long time ago and went to work in Beijing. How could there be someone like that?"
With no other choice, I paid and left. As I exited the shop, the wind blew coldly. Pulling my head into my collar, I glanced at my watch. The last bus home was almost here. Facing a completely unfamiliar street, even if I wanted to, I had no idea where to find anyone.
There was no choice but to go back to Zheng Kun and verify the information first. I had just taken two steps when I stopped involuntarily. The person walking towards me looked very familiar.
The man carried a heavy-looking shopping bag, a bright green lettuce peeking out from the opening. At first glance, he looked like a boy, his hair cut very short. But the proportions of his waist and curves betrayed his true gender. His face was thin, the hollow of his collarbone as deep as a reservoir. Only the stubborn expression, his lips pursed tightly, remained unchanged. It was undoubtedly Li Zitong, whom I hadn't seen in over two years.
She looked like she was worried about something, and when she came in front of me, she didn't even look up. "Please make way."
I didn't know how to answer, and she looked up in confusion, our eyes meeting. She had an expression of disbelief.
"Long time no see." This was the only meaningless small talk I could muster. With a "pop," the plastic bag in her hand fell to the ground, and she turned and ran away.
"Wait, I just wanted to talk to you..." I wanted to chase her, but my legs felt like they were filled with lead and I couldn't move. The panic on her face as she ran away hit me harder than I thought.
Forget it, let's just pretend nothing happened. I turned around and prepared to leave. Suddenly, I heard footsteps behind me. It was Li Zitong, pinching the corner of my coat with his fingers.
"You came so suddenly that you scared me." She whispered, and I almost didn't recognize her distorted voice.
We walked down the street, one after the other, Li Zitong still clutching the bag of vegetables. To others, we might have looked like siblings going grocery shopping together, but the reality was far from harmonious. She said nothing, and I didn't know what to say. Logically, my purpose in coming all this way was to confirm her suspicions and persuade her to return. But I couldn't just say it out loud. I thought of a dozen different ways to ask the question, trying to mentally simulate it aloud. But each one sounded equally foolish. There was no way. The situation itself was beyond the pale, and it was impossible to ask a reasonable question.
"Which noodle shop do you work part-time in?" I finally came up with a less sensitive topic.
Li Zitong nodded. "The cash in my pocket was only enough to buy a ticket to this stop. When I got out of the station, I saw a job advertisement posted at the door of the store."
"They didn't realize you were underage?"
"Of course they found out, since I couldn't produce my ID. But the old couple were very nice. I told them I was an orphan, so they let me stay to help them. I got paid, and they provided me with food and lodging."
My heart trembled. "Have you heard about your father's affairs?"
She didn't reply, and her expression lacked vitality, giving people the feeling that she was mentally unbalanced.
"Well, it's a shame. Your parents were honest, good people, and yet something like this happened."
"I understand what you're saying." She suddenly stopped, her expression unchanged. "But I can't even fake a sad expression. Don't you think someone like this looks like a murderer?"
Such a straightforward topic immediately threw me off balance. This was indeed the question I wanted to know the answer to, but it was also the one I wanted to avoid the most. "What are you talking about..."
"That's a really hard question to answer." She smiled faintly. "Then let me ask you this way. Do you think I'm a murder suspect?"
"Don't joke like that, it's meaningless." I felt like I'd been punched in the temples. "Of course you're innocent. But the situation is tense right now, and the police are inevitably suspicious. You have to go back and tell the truth."
"But if I do that I'll be arrested," she pressed. "What will you do?"
I felt like I was losing my breath. "If that's the case, I'd advise you to turn yourself in."
She stared at me intently, as if pressing her eyes against the viewfinder of a camera, observing the light and shadow. I clenched my fists and struggled to speak. "Continuing to hide isn't an option. If a high school student like me can find you, the police will probably be right after me. Besides, you're still a minor, so even if... you still have a chance to start over. You still have a long life ahead of you. You can't hide forever."
Her face seemed to be covered with an opaque film. She nodded and said the answer I least wanted to hear, "I understand. I will turn myself in."
I felt like I was falling into a bottomless abyss, plummeting downwards. "No, you're just saying that out of anger, right? You have such a good relationship with your family..." At this point, like a drowning man grabbing a floating straw, I couldn't help but cry out, "All those things you said about your harmonious family, your parents treating you well, and you loving them, were they all lies?"
She faced me calmly. "It would be a long story if I were to explain it from the beginning. Let's go sit in the waiting room."
I looked around and realized that we had circled the street market and returned to the entrance of the train station.
We sat down side by side on a bench in the ticket hall, but the surging crowd drowned out our small figures.
Li Zitong looked at the train schedule and said, "Actually, I've been an orphan since I was a child."
"Why?"
"Don't be so impatient, okay? I'm not speaking in anger, I'm just stating the facts."
I nodded and she continued.
"Mr. and Mrs. Li Xueqiang are my adoptive parents. As for my biological parents, I've never even met them."
"I heard I was swaddled and abandoned at the entrance of a social welfare institution. It's unclear whether the reason was an unmarried pregnancy, poverty, or simply because they didn't want a baby girl. After being found by the welfare institution staff, I naturally came under their care."
"My earliest memories begin when I was three or four years old. The details have long since faded, but I only remember being extremely hungry. I only had half a bowl of porridge for three or four days in a row. I only survived thanks to a friend my age who shared half a steamed bun with me. How can I describe the orphanage? It seemed a harmonious place, and the children were full of vigor. When leaders came to inspect or when donations were received, we would all dress neatly, powder our faces, and sing in formation with happy smiles. In fact, the economy wasn't great in those years, and even children with parents couldn't necessarily get enough to eat, let alone those of us without parents."
"The staff were all good people. There was a middle-aged woman named Li, whom we all called Mother Li. She was the kind of person who would rather go hungry herself than see us go hungry. No matter how hard it was, she always tried her best to raise money and get enough food for us to survive. But it was only enough to survive. The porridge was often so thin that it could be used as a mirror, and the vegetables were just things like bean sprouts. What's worse is that in that environment, the children matured earlier than usual. The older children used their physical advantages to bully the weaker ones and get more food. The staff were all vaguely aware of this, but there was nothing they could do. On the one hand, there was a shortage of staff, and just keeping the orphanage running normally and feeding a large group of children was a life-threatening task. On the other hand, the bullies were far more cunning than their peers. They pretended to be honest and obedient children in front of adults on weekdays, but they would beat and kick the younger children in private and threaten them not to complain to the adults."
"Every day I longed to escape from there. Before adulthood, there was only one way to leave—to be adopted. But such opportunities were extremely rare. And even if adopters did find one, they would often have to choose from among all the children in the institution. As for the selection criteria, although they varied from person to person, they were generally the same. Healthy boys were most popular, followed by girls. Good-looking and eloquent children were even more popular, while those with physical disabilities were usually not chosen, yet these children were the most numerous in the orphanage. This was the experience summed up by the older children who had been selected over the years."
"Every time the adoptive parents arrived, I was filled with anticipation. I put on my best clothes and tried my best to cover the holes. I crushed the petals of Impatiens balsamina to extract the juice and applied it to my face to make it more rosy. When singing in the parade, I smiled sweeter and sang louder than usual. But I was never chosen, and could only attend the farewell party again and again. Disappointed, I pinned my hopes on the next time."
"This went on month after month, year after year. Before I knew it, I was almost seven. I'd heard that adoptions rarely happened after school age, as parents worried that older children, with their memory, wouldn't truly consider adopters their parents. I was terrified and prepared even more meticulously, practicing the song privately over and over again. But that year, no one showed up to complete the adoption paperwork. It wasn't until July, just before my birthday, that a couple arrived. I happily changed my clothes, only to learn that they had already chosen their child and that their visit to sing and dance was just a formality."
"Sure enough, when they lined up to sing, I spotted a boy sitting next to them. He was smiling, and I knew exactly what had happened. My heart immediately sank, and I couldn't help crying the moment I started singing. Everyone looked at me in surprise. I knew if I didn't stop, I would be doomed, maybe even put in solitary confinement, but I couldn't hold back the tears."
"Sure enough, I was taken to a separate small room, crying non-stop. The lights were off, and the door was closed. I continued crying for a long time. Hungry and tired, I finally couldn't bear it anymore and fell asleep. When I woke up, I found myself in someone's arms. The woman from the couple was holding me kindly with a smile on her face. I will probably never forget that smile. 'Mother Li' beside me said excitedly, 'They are going to adopt you, why don't you call me mother?'"
At this point, Li Zitong smiled. I was genuinely happy for her, but then I thought of the tragic death of the Li couple and couldn't help but shudder.
"After that, I was completely lost, like I was walking on clouds. I attended my own farewell party and received more than a dozen farewell cards. The night before I left, I pretended to go to bed early. I heard people around me discussing my situation. They said I cried on purpose during the performance, and the couple took pity on me, so they chose me. The next day, after completing the paperwork, as the couple led me away, I glanced back at the orphanage and vowed to myself that I would be a good and obedient child."
Her voice remained the same, but it became cold and hard. "You know that couple. They're my adoptive parents who just passed away."
I hesitated for a moment before asking, "The police seem to know nothing about your background."
"Maybe they checked the household registration files but found nothing." She looked at the long line at the ticket window. "Li Xueqiang, oh, my father. He knows someone in the office who's in charge of household registration. He paid a lot of money to have someone help them change my household registration, changing my information from adopted to biological."
I was startled. "Why?"
"Originally, this wasn't something I should have known," she sighed. "But one time, when my parents were arguing, I overheard them through the door. They'd been married for ten years and childless. After going to a major hospital in Beijing for tests, they found it was my father's fault, so they had to adopt a replacement. But my father didn't want anyone else to know about this embarrassing situation, so he quit his job and went to another city to adopt a child. After adopting me, he left his hometown and bought an apartment in Chengguan City to start a new life."
"Whatever the reason, my gratitude towards them will never change. My mother treated me very well, and my father was not good at speaking, but he would occasionally ask about my grades. Our family lived in harmony for several years until my younger brother was born."
I was stunned, "He's not adopted?"
"No. That year, my parents heard that a hospital in Beijing had introduced assisted reproductive technology, so they went there to give it a try. After several attempts, she actually got pregnant."
"My position in the family became very delicate. The cost of artificial insemination was very high and almost drained our family savings. Considering the upcoming birth of my child, my mother asked around and found a distant relative who didn't have any children and wanted to adopt me. But my father disagreed. He said it was just a matter of adding a pair of chopsticks to the family, so why would they give their own child away?"
As she spoke, her cheeks flushed slightly. She was no longer the almost emotionless girl she usually was; her inner self was now showing. Her voice remained calm, but I sensed a hard core beneath it that transcended simple pain and anger.
"At the time, I had no idea what he was thinking and was very grateful to him. Until he bought a camera..."
Hearing this, I couldn't help but exclaim and stood up. Li Zitong stopped talking.
"Bathroom." I said briefly, and without waiting for her to reply, I went into the station toilet.
The toilet was poorly cleaned and smelled terrible. I opened the stall door and vomited into the squat toilet.
The videotape, the one I stumbled upon in the attic of a video store five years ago, the one that made me vomit after watching it, but the memory of it won't go away. That's how the human mind works, ruthlessly yet logically combining all that little bit of information, and suddenly it all makes sense. I should have figured this out long ago.
At the scene of Li Xueqiang's death, I broke into Li Zitong's room looking for someone. I sensed something was amiss, but I couldn't understand why. Later, due to a series of shocking events, including being interrogated as a suspect, I had long since forgotten those doubts. Only now, after hearing Li Zitong's story, did I recall them and understand why I felt so uneasy.
The furnishings in Li Zitong's room are the same as in the videotape.
The room's size and shape, the wall-to-wall wardrobe and window placement, the curtain patterns, and even the angle of light streaming in from the window—everything was identical. The only difference was the floor. In the video, the simple iron bed and desk had been removed, and the floor covered in tatami mats—presumably a deliberate change to conceal the filming location.
I even vaguely thought I had caught a glimpse of a piece of clothing with a cherry blossom pattern in the closet in my room.
I understood everything now. There were many things I hadn't understood before: why the videotapes in the attic were selling for so much, why Li Zitong hated people who watched porn, and why she clearly loved movies so much, but was so unwilling to play a role in one...
Just because I'm an adopted daughter, can I do whatever I want? Is there such an unreasonable thing in the world? Either I'm crazy, or the world is crazy. I don't know which one is crazy.
This time, the vomiting was remarkably long and thorough. The noodles I'd just eaten, the bread I'd managed to gnaw on before leaving that morning, and so on, had already been completely vomited out, leaving only acidic fluids like gastric juice and bile. But the nausea wouldn't subside, like someone had stuck a finger deep down my throat.
I finally managed to cover my mouth and emerge from the cubicle, my legs and feet completely weakened. I washed my face at the sink, and a pale face appeared in the dirty mirror in front of me.
She had survived so hard until now, and I, like everyone else, was completely oblivious, only able to smile foolishly and heartlessly look for dates. An uncontrollable rage welled up in my heart, and I couldn't tell whether it was towards the evil people who had done so much evil, towards this unfair world, or towards myself, who was powerless to do anything about it.
"Are you okay? It's been almost half an hour." Li Zitong asked when he saw me coming out of the bathroom.
I forced a smile, waved my hand, and sat down next to her again.
She looked down at the ground at her feet, her eyes unfocused on anything. To me, the girl before me looked like a hollow shell.
"Is my story a little too heavy?"
"I just have a stomachache."
"There's still a short paragraph. Can you hold on to the end?"
"No more!"
She hunched her shoulders like a wounded cat. I quickly lowered my voice, "I mean, it's not a rush. It's late, and you're tired. Let's talk about it later."
A pale smile crossed her face, a mere mechanical twitch of muscles, vanishing before it even reached the corner of her eye. Her expression returned to indifference, as if she were mediating a third-party emotional dispute completely unrelated to her. "Understood, the last train back to Chengguan is at 7:20 pm. Let's go buy the tickets now."
After she finished speaking, she stood up and tried to leave, but I grabbed her and said, "It's okay if you don't go back."
She was stunned.
"Forget about the train ticket. Let's escape together." There was no time to think carefully. The words came out like a conditioned reflex.
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