Chapter 24: Warmth

Twelve-year-old Mao Xiaotong is a sixth grader whose academic performance is far from ideal. However, she possesses a remarkable artistic talent; she has already passed her Grade 5 piano exam and has begun taking Latin dance lessons, making her a petite, talented beauty among her peers.

This afternoon, upon arriving at school, she saw a group of female classmates huddled together, chattering away with great excitement.

"None of my business," she thought.

Xiaotong doesn't have the best relationship with the girls in her class. Because of her reserved and quiet nature, and her early decision to attend a dance academy rather than a regular middle school, she lacks common ground with her peers. She sat at her desk, eyes fixed straight ahead, let her hair drape over the sides of her face to hide it, and began to drift off into a daze.

Suddenly, her deskmate nudged her. "Xiaotong, didn't you buy today’s issue of *Sprout*?"

"Hmm?" she asked, confused.

"Fang Xinghe!" her deskmate gestured dramatically. "That super handsome cover from the last issue! Didn't you see it?"

"Oh, right!"

She remembered, but still didn't understand what that had to do with her. "So? What about it?"

"His essay was published in it. It’s super amazing!"

"???"

What does that have to do with me?

Though she felt a bit impatient, she didn't show it, simply nodding. "Oh, I see. That is pretty impressive."

"Right? Right?" Her deskmate grinned, persisting in her recommendation. "Hey, don't you want to take a look?"

"I didn't buy it."

"It's okay, you can borrow mine!"

*Seriously, is it really that big of a deal?* she thought. *And why must I read some essay just because the young writer you like is particularly handsome?*

Xiaotong was speechless. She cared nothing for whether someone was handsome, nor did she care for middle school essays. But before she could refuse, her deskmate shoved the magazine into her hands, her face full of anticipation.

"Just take a look! Fang Xinghe is really handsome, cool, and talented!"

"Oh, okay, sure."

She wasn't incapable of refusing; she just felt that such a trivial matter wasn't worth the rejection. Since class was boring anyway, she might as well look.

She didn't specifically search for Fang Xinghe's article; instead, she casually opened the magazine and began reading from the beginning, flipping through page by page, scanning things that interested her and skipping over those that didn't.

It wasn't until page 22 that the title of an article caught her attention, genuinely and thoroughly stirring something deep within her soul.

*My Fate Should Be Determined by Me?*

What a feeling...

She shifted in her seat, leaning over her desk, and became fully absorbed.

She began to immerse herself, starting from the very first sentence. The word "infection" gave her an intuitive sense of being touched. When she reached the long, winding sentence—"Only the people who constitute civilization, and the various consciousnesses, behaviors, emotions, and desires born from people, will carve, shape, and even toy with or destroy the young individuals within that civilization"—she felt a sudden tremor in her heart, even if she only half-understood it.

"Young individual" seemed to be the keyword of her life, instantly flipping a switch. She subconsciously clenched her fists.

None of her classmates knew that her biological father was an addict who fought with her mother constantly. When he had an episode, he was like a beast; when she was very young, he had even been crazed enough to throw her into a trash can.

Why?

Simply because he couldn't get money from her mother to buy drugs.

It was freezing that day. She was terrified and crying loudly. Perhaps it wasn't her time to die; her mother had finished her street stall early and, while passing by, heard the now-weak cries and pulled her out of the trash heap.

That very night, a little girl quietly died, and in her place, a new life—sensible, cautious, and one who rarely cried—was reborn.

Now, she no longer remembered the specific details, but the cold and fear that had seeped into her bones still reminded her from time to time: *Mao Xiaotong, you are not a whole child.*

Therefore, she knew all too well what the "process of bad infection" looked like, and what it felt like to be "bitten" by someone.

Every word Fang Xinghe wrote seemed to be written directly into her heart. The girl who used to hate studying and reading now found herself in a wondrous resonance with the text.

"Xiaotong? Xiaotong?!"

Her deskmate shook her out of her overwhelming emotions. "Are you okay?" she asked, looking worried and timid.

"I'm... I'm fine..."

Only when she spoke did she realize her voice was hoarse. When she reached up to wipe her face, she discovered the hot, rolling tears on her cheeks.

"I just... I was just... so moved."

She sniffled hard, buried her head again, and choked out, "Don't mind me, just let me finish reading."

"Oh..."

Her deskmate scratched her head, puzzled. *Fang Xinghe's article is good, but is it really that moving? Why do I only feel like it's impressive?* She didn't understand, but she didn't bother her again, letting Mao Xiaotong lose herself in greedy reading.

"Things that happen in childhood are always the most tragic. A missing childhood is a pathology that takes a lifetime to heal, yet no one can guarantee it will ever be cured..."

*Yes, it can't be cured.*

"What kind of family we are born into, what kind of environment we grow up in, what kind of education we receive, and what kind of gaps are bitten into us—before the age of 18, we decide nothing..."

*That's right, what could I do?*

"When you realize you've been bitten, don't panic. Look closely at where you were bitten, how deep the wound is, and ponder why it happened. Then, make a vow to yourself—I will never let this happen again..."

*Yes! Exactly!*

She really should make a vow: *I will never let that man hurt me and my mother again!*

"I am doing well now, living arduously but vividly. I hope you are the same—not domesticated, not infected, not bowing to fate, and proactively becoming the 'you' you most want to be..."

*Wow, that's beautiful!*

Truly, if that could be achieved, there would be no future more wonderful than that. *I want to be like that, too. I want to become a strong, vivid version of myself!*

Mao Xiaotong felt as if she were looking into a mirror; she was the one facing the mirror, but inside the reflection was Fang Xinghe.

There was a great power that allowed her to see herself clearly through Fang Xinghe, and from that wild declaration at the end, she drew courage and fighting spirit. It was a warmth she hadn't felt in a long time—unique, unconventional, yet undeniably real.

"How was it?"

Her deskmate bumped her gently, her clean, innocent eyes full of pride. "He's amazing, right?"

"Hmm." Mao Xiaotong sniffled and nodded vigorously. "So amazing!"

"Hehehehe..."

The little girl giggled happily, as if she possessed the whole world. Mao Xiaotong solemnly pulled out five yuan, bought the magazine stained with her tears, and carefully tucked it into her schoolbag.

After school, she cut out the cover and pasted it on the wall beside her bed, in a place she could see the moment she turned her head. Although she still didn't understand the meaning of "stardom," she had already placed Fang Xinghe in her heart.

The night grew deeper and heavier.

Mao Xiaotong had a dream. She dreamed she fell into an absurd and terrifying world. There, the earth was dry and desolate, the air filled with crimson ash. In the distance stood many shadowy figures like dried corpses; they looked up at the sky, dazed.

Mao Xiaotong looked up, too, her pupils shrinking. There was no sky—it was clearly a sky of flesh and blood covered in lacerations!

The sky-flesh pulsed restlessly like a heart. Every time it expanded and contracted, it tore open its wounds, raining down a deluge of blood that covered everything. The corpses let out shrill screams, a mix of pain and rage, endless and unceasing.

Mao Xiaotong trembled and hid back where she was. It was a huge, gloomy trash bin. It was terrifying, but she had no choice. She pulled all the debris around her to cover herself, biting her lip, curled up in the corner, and shivering.

She didn't know how much time had passed. She grew colder and more afraid. Fear was like an invisible rope, tightly strangling the little girl's throat. Suffocation, pain, despair...

Just when she felt she couldn't bear it anymore, the wailing suddenly stopped, and the rain of blood above vanished. She looked up, dazed, and saw that within that bloody, terrifying scene, a pair of hands was gently touching the wounds of the sky.

The fingertips brushed lightly over the torn flesh, and the restless tissue instantly calmed, like a small beast soothed by a warm spring breeze.

*Who is that?!*

The girl tried to open her eyes wide. But she couldn't see the owner of those hands clearly. Sometimes it seemed like her mother, sometimes a red-haired boy, and sometimes it looked like herself, grown up.

Mao Xiaotong stared, entranced. The fear gradually subsided, and her emotions began to settle, but something within her heart was bursting to come out.

*Huff, huff, huff...*

Her breathing grew heavier, and courage began to sprout inch by inch. Suddenly, she gritted her teeth, threw off the debris, climbed onto the rim of the trash bin, and leaped!

*Bang!*

She landed heavily on the ground, but ignoring the pain, she crawled on all fours up the mountain of trash before her.

*Who are you exactly? Let me see you clearly!*

The girl waded through the filth, climbing desperately, her small figure appearing and disappearing amidst the trash, struggling fiercely through the ashes.

The perspective widened—tens of thousands of figures were walking and running simultaneously, climbing mountains when they encountered them, wading through water when they met it. The army of the dead crossed the border, terrifyingly majestic.

The person in the sky suddenly stopped moving and slowly looked down.

Mao Xiaotong held her breath, looking up with great anticipation... but at the very last moment, she woke up with a jolt.

She sat up in bed, gasping for air for a long while. Suddenly remembering something, she turned her head and finally saw the face of the red-haired boy in the moonlight.

The cold moonlight spilled onto that face, brilliant and magnificent. The girl sat in a daze for a while, then suddenly burst into tears. She cried because of her grievances, she cried with relief, she cried with liberation.

Playing with words is not a grand feat, but on this night, and in the many days and nights to follow, Fang Xinghe's empathetic writing warmed and encouraged one "bitten" child after another.