Chapter 177 The New Life of the Happy Prince
The little girl grabbed the match with her trembling little hands and rubbed it lightly on the wall. A pleasant "chi chi" sound was heard, and the match was lit. The faint flame illuminated the little girl's surroundings.
"I wonder what kind of delicious food people are enjoying in that beautiful big house next door?" The little girl smelled the fragrance in the cold wind and couldn't help thinking about those delicious foods.
In the faint flickering firelight, the little girl seemed to see a large dining table with plates filled with countless colorful fruits such as apples, peaches, grapes, and large bowls filled with fragrant roast duck, roast chicken and roast goose.
The girl saw the fat and greasy roast duck jumped out of the bowl. The roast duck with a knife and fork stuck on its back walked on the tablecloth, leaving a delicious and greasy chicken paw print on the tablecloth with every step.
The little girl pounced on it and grabbed the plump roast duck.
She did catch the roast duck.
The warmth and real touch told the girl that the roast duck appeared in reality.
In front of her, there really was a dining table with delicious food on it. Pure white snowflakes like goose feathers fell on the roast duck and fruits. Every detail was real.
"Food really appeared?"
"Like the furnace yesterday?"
The little girl couldn't wait to pull out the knife and fork from the back of the roast duck, quickly cut the roast duck into pieces, and put them into her mouth one bite at a time. After eating the roast duck, she went to eat the roast goose, grapes, juice and other delicious food next to it until she couldn't eat any more.
The little girl ate with great relish, as her whole face was stuffed into the plate, and her lips and cheeks were covered with grease stains.
She felt that this was the most filling and delicious meal she had ever had in her life. After eating, she felt warm all over.
Only then did the little girl have time to think about why a delicious meal suddenly appeared in front of her. She caught a glimpse of the burnt match on the ground from the corner of her eye.
"It was the same yesterday. When I was rubbing the match, my fantasy became reality."
"Could it be that these matches have magical powers?"
"That kind sister from yesterday, was she a magician?"
Thinking of this, the little girl felt a little guilty:
“Unfortunately, I can’t find that sister, so I can’t return the magic matches to her.
"Well, I'll use some first, and then apologize to that sister when I meet her later. I'll give her the rest of the matches.
"I would do anything to help her get me a few more matches if I could."
After making up her mind, the little girl stretched out her rosy little hands and took out a match with twinkling lights on it.
She gently rubbed the match against the wall and listened to the pleasant "chi chi" sound.
Aurora, who had turned into a flying bird in the sky, quietly observed the scene, wanting to see what the first wish the little girl would make after she understood the magic of matches.
"I want to see my grandma. I want my grandma to come back from heaven and see me."
The little girl whispered a wish towards the dim firelight.
She thought of her kind grandmother. She was very kind to her and was definitely the person who loved her the most in the world. But one day, her grandmother disappeared. Everyone said that she had gone to heaven. She wanted her grandmother to come back from that distant heaven to see her.
She just stared at the faint firelight until the flickering flame was extinguished by the cold wind, and no miracle happened.
Aurora and Rhine transformed into flying birds and watched all this, feeling a little sad.
They all knew that there was no magic in this world that could bring the dead back to life.
Certain forbidden necromancy may allow a powerful magician to be reborn elsewhere at the moment of death, but this is because their life essence is preserved elsewhere, and they do not actually die when their physical body is destroyed; magic may also block immortal souls, turning them into vengeful spirits, or trapping them in gems and bottles, unable to reincarnate - although in this case, the deceased is not considered alive at all.
However, even the most skilled magician cannot call back the souls that have been reincarnated and disappeared, and make the dead walk out of the grave in a normal posture.
"It seems that heaven is a very, very far away place. Even a magic match can't find grandma."
The little girl hung her head sadly.
She looked at the shining matches in the matchbox and felt sad. For a moment, she didn't know what wish to make.
Suddenly, the little girl had an idea.
"By the way, although Matchstick can't help me find my grandma, it can help me find the swallow who gave me the sapphire!"
"I also want to thank it for giving me such a beautiful sapphire!"
The little girl rubbed and lit another match. She prayed to the flame:
"Please take me to find the swallow that gave me the gem."
The warm fire grew bigger and bigger, enveloping the girl's entire body.
The little girl felt very warm, and in the firelight, she saw a square - it was the square at the highest point in the center of the town.
She saw a gray and tattered sculpture of a young boy on a tall column in the center of the square.
The little girl remembered that a long time ago, when her mother and grandmother were still alive, her grandmother had brought her here.
It was a warm spring day, and she sat on a chair with her grandmother, looking at the golden sculptures on the towering stone pillars.
She remembered that the sculpture was plated with gold, the sword was inlaid with rubies, and the eyes were blue gems. In the sunlight, the sculpture sparkled and the girl couldn't open her eyes.
"Who is that person standing on the column?" The girl pointed at the sculpture on the column and asked her grandmother curiously.
"He was a prince of our country a long, long time ago."
The grandmother told the girl: "He lived in the palace and led a carefree life. The palace walls isolated him from all the ugly and dark things. People called him the Happy Prince. After he died, people made a statue for him."
"Why do they put the Happy Prince so high up?" asked the girl. "Why don't they put him within the palace walls?"
Standing at such a high place, the Happy Prince will certainly see all the ugliness and pain in the town, and he will never be happy again... the girl thought.
Now, however, the Happy Prince looked nothing like the one the girl remembered.
The prince's eyes were reduced to nothing but holes, and all the crystals on his body had fallen off, leaving only gray spots. Even the ruby on the hilt of the prince's sword had disappeared.
The little girl then remembered that the sapphire that the swallow had given her was exactly the same as the one in the Happy Prince’s eye! The little girl walked to the Happy Prince’s pillar.
She wanted to return the beautiful sapphire to the prince, but the sapphire had already been taken away by her father, and she was very sad about it.
At this moment, she saw the swallow that had helped her before flew over again and landed at the feet of the Happy Prince.
"Thank you, Swallow, for the jewel you gave me. But it seems to be the eye of the Happy Prince, and my grandmother told me that I should not take what belongs to another. I want to give it back to the Prince, but I have already given the jewel to my father."
The girl looked up and said to Swallow.
But the swallow shook her head and told the girl: "No, the prince asked me to give the gem to you."
The swallow told the girl that he was just passing through the city temporarily and wanted to follow his companions to a warmer place to spend the winter, but the Happy Prince kept him.
On the first night, the Happy Prince let the swallow peck away the ruby on the hilt of his sword and gave it to a thin and haggard mother with needle holes on her hands. On the second night, the Happy Prince let the swallow peck away a sapphire from his eye socket and gave it to a young man who lived in a shabby attic and wrote scripts for the theater. The young man was so hungry that he felt dizzy, and there was no fire in the fireplace, so he could not continue writing. On the third night, the Happy Prince asked the swallow to peck away the last sapphire from his eye socket and gave it to a little match girl who had no shoes or socks. That girl was her.
Today, the Happy Prince asked the swallow to take the golden leaves from his body and give them to the starving children in the city - the children begging at the door of the mansion, the children shivering in the cold under the bridge, the children who were so hungry that their faces turned pale and they were dying...
Just like that, there was nothing valuable left in the Happy Prince, and he was reduced to the ugly statue he is today.
"Oh my God, when did the sculpture in the square become like this?" In the distance, the voices of several adults discussing were heard.
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"Yeah. That sculpture is too ugly. We should tear it down and melt it." said another adult.
The little girl heard the adults arguing about how to deal with the molten lead after melting the prince, whether to make a statue for the mayor or some other important person, and she burst into tears.
She threw herself in front of the towering column and cried loudly. She felt that the Happy Prince was as good as her grandmother and didn't want him to melt and go to that distant heaven.
"Oh, I still have matches."
The little girl then took out the box of matchboxes sparkling with stars from her tattered clothes and took out a match while crying.
She rubbed the wall, lit a match, and made a wish to the match.
On the hilt of the Happy Prince's sword the ruby reappeared, larger and brighter than the original one.
But the Happy Prince's eye sockets were still ugly holes, and his body was still dull gray.
"No, one matchstick is not enough."
The little girl poured out all the shining matches and kept rubbing them against the wall. The wall was heated by the matches and the matches started burning one by one.
New sapphires grew in the eye sockets of the Happy Prince, more stunning and translucent than before. Pieces of gold foil appeared on the body of the Happy Prince, more dazzling than before.
In just a few minutes, the Happy Prince was back to being the beautiful prince he always was, even more dazzling than before! The little girl was now left with only one match.
She made a wish with her last remaining match, to give the swallow warmth and help it through the freezing winter - because she saw the swallow shivering in the cold wind and might fall at any time and fall into eternal sleep.
With a faint glow on its body and feeling warm all over, the swallow flew to the girl's palm and kissed her face.
The Happy Prince also looked at the girl and thanked her.
The little girl happily said goodbye to the swallow and the Happy Prince, left the square and walked towards home.
At this time, the little girl remembered that she had not sold a single match yet, and all the matches she could use to make a wish had been used up!
The snow fell heavier and heavier, and the goose-feather-like snowflakes covered the girl's hair and shoulders, making the girl, who had just had a full meal, shiver with cold again.
"What should I do? We have run out of magic matches."
The girl knew that her father would beat her once she got home.
But she was not actually afraid, because she had eaten the fullest and most delicious meal of her life today and had helped the kind Happy Prince and the Swallow, so she had no regrets.
"What a pity, I only have a box of magic matches." The little girl thought sadly.
If she had many, many boxes of matches, she would have many, many wishes to make. She wanted to be like the Happy Prince, helping the beggars at the door of the mansion, the hungry children who couldn't sleep under the bridge, and the poor writers who worked all night on their manuscripts in the attic.
The little girl walked all the way back to the front door of her shabby home, and prepared herself mentally for a severe beating from her father.
"Little girl, your father is dead!" A neighbor saw the girl and shouted at her.
"Yes, the creditors caught him and asked him to pay back the gambling money from last year. But he didn't have a penny, so the creditors beat him to death. I saw it with my own eyes," said another neighbor.
The little girl didn't react and just stood there blankly.
After a long time, the little girl opened the door.
It was empty inside and the cold wind sneaked in through the window.
At this moment, the little girl suddenly saw that there was a table full of matchboxes on the table!
Each matchbox was just like the magic matchbox before, shining with stars! The little girl walked to the table in disbelief and found a letter under the matchbox. The girl was illiterate, but she unexpectedly found that she could understand the entire content of the letter.
"My name is Aurora. I'm your sister who bought a box of matches from you last night. I'm also a magician. You have proved your kindness with your actions. The things on the table are all my gifts to you. Please accept them..."
After reading all the letters, the little girl looked at the table full of wishing matches and tears of excitement welled up in her eyes.
…
After successfully harvesting the power of wishes, Aurora followed Rhine and returned to the palace of the Kingdom of Rose.
"Teacher, I'm thinking about a question."
Aurora looked at the clouds in the sky and thought of the kingdom of snowflakes. She said solemnly: “The power of magic is so strong that it can create delicious food, a warm stove, thick clothes and a big house out of thin air. It can create everything people need.
"Theoretically, as long as we have powerful enough magic, there will be no more hunger and cold in this world?"
Rhine understood what Aurora meant and nodded slightly: "Your Majesty, the future queen, you are right. Magic is indeed the primary productive force on this continent."
Then, Rhine's tone became a little heavier: "It is easy to use magic to help one or a few people. However, if you want to use magic to help thousands of people, you will have to face more complicated difficulties and cannot use the original method completely."
"What's the dilemma?" Aurora pricked up her ears and waited quietly for the teacher's answer.
(End of this chapter)