Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
When Xia Feng had gone home, Xiaotu was the only one left in the living room. After she’d finished eating her watermelon, she looked down at the trash bin underneath the table for a long time. She then glanced around to make sure there was nobody watching, before she carefully picked up the love letter, which was now drenched in watermelon juice.
That night, uncharacteristically, Xiaotu didn’t insist on staying at Cheng Zhiyan’s house to play with Brother Orange Juice, but went straight home with her mother instead.
Zhou Ling gave Xiaotu some strange looks as she watched Xiaotu obediently eating her meal at home with her. She couldn’t help but ask Xiaotu what was going on. “So, you didn’t want to eat your meal with Brother Orange Juice today?”
“Yep.” Xiaotu agreed. Then, after using her spoon to wolf down her dinner, she sat up straighter in her chair and said to her mother, “Mommy, I have a question to ask you.”
“What question is that?” Xiaotu’s mother asked nonchalantly as she continued to eat her food.
“What is a love letter?”
“A love letter…?” Zhou Ling stopped eating, lifted her head to glance at her daughter, and then began laughing. “Where did you even learn about this sort of thing? A love letter…well, it’s basically a letter where someone writes to someone else who they have a crush on to let them know how they feel about them. This is what is called a love letter.”
“Oh…” Xiaotu nodded with some degree of understanding.
“Why are you asking me this? Don’t tell me that you’ve already received love letters from boys in your preschool?” Xiaotu’s mother stared at her in amusement.
“That’s not it at all.” Xiaotu shook her head, hopped down from her chair, and ran to her room. Then, somewhat mysteriously, she walked back into where her mother was sitting with an envelope in her hand. “Brother Wind says that this is a love letter someone addressed to Brother Orange Juice.”
Xiaotu’s mother glanced down at the envelope in Xiaotu’s hand. Yep, she had no idea where her little rascal had gotten it, and although due to the water on it the handwriting was barely legible, she could still make out the characters that spelled Cheng Zhiyan, which were written on it.
“Xiaotu, it’s considered very bad manners to take someone else’s things without their permission.” Zhou Ling frowned as she sternly rebuked her. “We have to hurry up and return the letter to Brother Orange Juice.”
“But he threw it away into the trash bin.” Xiaotu eyed her mother anxiously as she said this.
“Then why did you pick it up and bring it back here?”
“I simply wanted to know what a love letter is.”
“Even if the envelope was thrown away unopened, you still cannot open it.” Zhou Ling took the envelope from Xiaotu’s hands and tore it into pieces right in front of her. As she threw it into the trash, she said, “This is someone else’s privacy, and you must respect it.”
“What is privacy?”
“It means secret.”
“But…”
“There are no buts.” Xiaotu’s mother stooped down, gripped Xiaotu’s shoulders with both of her hands, and looked into her eyes earnestly as she said, “You, and Brother Orange Juice are still very young. There are a lot of things that you two still don’t understand, as you simply imitate adult behavior. However, no matter what, you can never take other people’s things, even if they throw them away.”
“Oh…” Xiaotu nodded her head in a somewhat disgruntled manner.
“Behave yourself.” Xiaotu’s mother caressed her fluffy head and then sat back down at the table to continue eating her meal.
Xiaotu wandered around for a bit, and finally she shuffled up to her mother and asked her, with hope shining in her eyes, “Then, Mommy, I want to write a love letter to Brother Orange Juice. Can I?”
“You?” Zhou Ling gazed at her in amusement and couldn’t help but ask, “Do you know how to write?”