Chapter 1
Since I was born, I have often heard these small, sharp sounds. They are always crying out in pain.
“Not free.”
“It’s so painful.”
"It's not a happy place here."
"Let's leave quickly."
…
When I asked adults what freedom was, what pain was, and why I felt unhappy, my mother would always remain silent, covering her mouth with her wide kimono sleeves.
When I asked about my father, he became furious and locked me in a solitary cell.
After that, I realized that their words should not be told to others.
I got down obediently.
My father seemed quite satisfied with this, and he often boasted about his "little warning" when the family got together to talk.
I lowered my eyes and acted obediently, neither refuting nor resisting. My behavior seemed to make my father even more pleased.
But that was all. My father cared more about talents, such as business and politics, and my brothers and sisters were better at these things than I was.
I am just "obedient", which is not worth mentioning, so this love comes and goes quickly.
Only when someone else in the family made a mistake would my father bring me up again.
This other person refers to the younger generation in the family, all those who can be commented on by the father.
He said that they were too jumpy and not stable enough, etc. My father seemed to be dissatisfied with this.
If he just frowned, we would feel like we had made a huge mistake, our mothers would punish us, and the servants would not be nice to us.
Even children in the family would fight for their father's favor.
When it comes to pleasing our father, there was a boy named Tsushima Shuji among our generation who was the best.
But it has nothing to do with me, I am not smart enough, I am a bit stupid. It takes me a long time to sort out some logical problems that seem simple to adults.
The Tsushima family mansion was actually quite large, and children like us were generally not allowed to go outside without our father's permission.
Even Shuji Tsushima, who was the most favored by his father, had never been outside.
But I did it.
That was a week after I realized that I couldn't just say what they said.
My father was going to meet a government official. He seemed to have heard that the official particularly liked children, and he thought of me.
He probably thought at that time that I was the most obedient child in our generation.
It was also my first time riding in a car. Maybe it was because it was my first time riding in a car and I was not used to it and felt carsick. The driver opened the window to take care of me and let the wind in.
For the first time, I knew that the wind could be so strong and so happy. They were shouting and chattering excitedly in my ears, making it difficult for me to hear what my father was saying.
However, after my father finished speaking, the driver quickly closed the car window.
The car was stuffy, but thanks to the driver, I felt much better. So I quickly sat up next to my father, following the rules taught by my etiquette teacher at home.
My father was very satisfied and he felt that bringing me out was the right choice.
That was also the first and last time in my life that I felt grateful to my father from the bottom of my heart - because he brought me out.
There was a strong smell of cream in the place where the government official lived. The smell was so sweet that I swallowed subconsciously.
My father heard it and looked at me with dissatisfaction.
So I straightened my back, hoping he would forgive me for the mistake I had just made.
This government official was a man with a big belly. His slit eyes looked me up and down, which made me feel uncomfortable, but I still endured it for the sake of making my father happy.
My father pushed me forward with a smirk, and I tried hard to smile at him.
It probably didn't work very well, because the official made a "tsk" sound and tilted his head to the side, which seemed to make my father uneasy and he tightened his grip on my shoulders.
This is really not my fault. I don't usually smile, let alone in front of this man who looks like a pig. It's not my fault that my smile is twisted.
My father left me aside and walked up to the government official and started talking to him.
I was alone and happy, looking back and forth in this room.
Finally, I found something interesting. It was a dessert, a small dessert. It was a style I had never seen before, maybe from the West. After all, my family was very conservative and had never had desserts like this before.
It is in a cylindrical shape and covered with a layer of cream, and looks delicious.
It really whetted my appetite. To be honest, it was difficult to eat in that kind of environment at home. There were more than a dozen people at the table, but apart from the chewing sounds, there seemed to be no other sounds.
That’s why I hate eating with my father. With him around, even the few chewing and breathing sounds are much quieter.
It happened that my father was having dinner with us today.
I only ate half a bowl of rice, but even so, I still felt it was enough.
But now I don’t feel that way. I just feel that the dessert seems to be waving at me, telling me to eat it quickly.
I always remembered my father's teachings, or warnings. This made me try to stick to my heart, but that cake seemed really... cute.
It's tempting me.
I turned to look at my father and the VIP. My father was still pestering him with something, and the VIP was very impatient - I could tell from his frown.
The Tsushima family was the local boss, and there were not many people around, so the important official could not directly ask his father to leave. So he maintained this ambiguous attitude.
You can't expect a six-year-old to have much self-control, so I tiptoed toward the dessert.
I guarantee that this is the only time in my six years of life that I have been so careful.
Just as I was about to get closer to the cake, a thought flashed through my mind:
——Father, will you blame me?
——It’s just a dessert, my father won’t find out.
——If he blames me, will he throw me back to the same confinement room as last time?
My hand hesitated.
Suddenly, the sound of the wind rang in my ears: [The children here] [The children wearing white clothes] [They are all so pretty]...
Their words were always intermittent. A six-year-old child could not really understand them and instead thought they were noisy.
I rubbed my ears.
Today they made a rather sharp sound, much stranger than the lifeless sound at home, and it made me feel a little uncomfortable.
During the moment I was in a daze, my father seemed to have finished talking. He turned around and noticed my little action.
In fact, I didn't get to taste any of the cream on this dessert.
My father was very angry, his face was gloomy, and his cheeks were bulging from biting. I knew that this was a sign of his punishment.
I retracted my hand in fear, feeling that even if I hid in the warm bed at home, I would not feel comfortable at this moment.
The wind seemed to have frozen, and it was no longer noisy, giving me a suffocating feeling of terror.
I said timidly, "Father, father..."
Perhaps because the government official was still present, my father did not punish me on the spot. Instead, he chose to roughly stuff me into the car and started his journey home.
All the way, I was sobbing quietly, and my father was sitting beside me impatiently. When he heard my voice, he said angrily, "Shut up!" I immediately held my breath.
But after a while, I couldn't hold my breath anymore and started to breathe heavily, with tears and snot all over my face. My father seemed to dislike me and gave me a dissatisfied look.
I sensed his displeasure, and thought that I would most likely return to that dark and dreary confinement room, so I began to cry loudly, like a broken jar.
Along the way, the driver and my father were silent except for my crying.
When I got home, I was thrown into the confinement room by the servants as expected. How should I put it? This confinement room and I are friends, right?
I squatted down dejectedly in the same place where I squatted last time. After a while, I started crying again.
I recalled the look in that government official's eyes, my father's angry eyes, and I always felt that I was the cause of everything that happened.
But I soon recalled the brief wind that appeared in the car, and when I thought of it, I stopped sobbing unconsciously.
They were just coming in from the fields, racing down the road. I heard their sounds more than most people smelled the exhaust.
[I can fly with a seed!]
Where are you taking it?
[It travels with me. When I stop, it stops.]
and
[I smell like flowers]
[Where did you get it?]
[In the direction I came from!]
and
[The bread there is delicious!]
[You collect human things again]
[The wind in the bakery is warm, and I still smell like bread]
…
…
I never knew that the wind outside felt like this before. It made me realize what a beautiful place it is outside.
However, no matter how beautiful I thought the outside world was, I could never step out of the Tsushima family's door because my father would not allow it.
He seemed to think that if I went out I would bring shame upon him, not only me, but also the other children in the family.
From that day on, my father never mentioned me again, as if he had forgotten that there was such a person in the family.
But I still kept an eye on my father secretly, and also noticed Tsushima Shuji, the most favored person beside him.
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