Translator: Dragon Boat Translation Editor: Dragon Boat Translation
Shuran really liked Ye Xing.
She was a very sensible little girl who never argued with other children.
The room she slept in was the worst of all the rooms.
The lighting was not good and the power was often cut off. Even after many repairs, it was not fixed.
The clothes she wore were already very old.
But every time there was a donation of clothes, she let the other children choose first.
Even if she did not get any, she would never complain.
Every day, other than doing her own things, she would also help the other children.
She would even help the adults do things that she did not need to do.
For Shuran, she knew that this was just a job.
But for Ye Xing, it had become an instinct to please the staff.
The moment Ye Xing could remember things, she knew that she was different from the other children in the welfare institute.
Everyone else had parents, but they did not.
Perhaps they did before, but for various reasons, they did not at the moment.
Even though she did not say it, she knew it in her heart.
For as long as she could remember, she had grown up in the welfare institute.
Therefore, she was not obsessed about having parents.
After all, Mother Chen was very good to her, and the others were also very good to her.
This was her home.
However, after so many years, there were always some voices in her ears.
For example, “This child has no parents, how pitiful.”
“If the child is smart and sensible, perhaps she will be adopted by a kind person in the future.”
Those kinds of words.
After hearing them often enough, Ye Xing had her own worries.
One day, she saw a child on the television being carried by her father and placed on his neck.
Being carried high up, the child smiled happily.
At home, the child did not have to do anything. Her parents would cook the food she liked.
Her room was large enough to fit dozens of her beds.
However, in such a huge room, there was only one child.
The bed was filled with beautiful dolls. When she slept, she could hug the dolls to sleep.
At night, her parents would sneak into her room to see if she was asleep.
They would cover her with a blanket and kiss her forehead secretly.
That was the moment when Ye Xing realized the difference between her and these “normal” children.
No matter how good Mother Chen and Sister Shuran were to her, they were still not her parents.
They had too many people to take care of.
Then, one day, she chatted with a young lady who came to volunteer. She asked her what her home was like and what her parents did for a living.
And why did they come to this welfare institute to volunteer.
It was also at that moment that Ye Xing realized that these people were really, really different from others.
As for Mother Chen and Sister Shuran, taking care of them was only a form of work.
She then asked, was it also a form of work for parents to take care of their children?
The volunteer smiled exaggeratedly and pinched her face. How could that be a form of work? They were the parents of the child.
She did not quite understand that sentence and the meaning behind the sister’s smile.
That night, she had a dream that she had a family.
She had a father and a mother at home, and they would ask her what she wanted to eat, play with her, teach her to read, and read to her before going to bed, just as they did on TV.
When she woke up, her pillow was wet from crying.
Uncle Hu was very nice, but he wouldn’t ask what every child liked to eat. Everyone ate the same thing.
Mom and dad would buy new clothes and shoes for their children.
But their shoes and clothes were donated by some kind-hearted people.
And some kind-hearted people would come to the welfare institute. Every time that happened, some people who were called reporters would follow them.
Then the children would go up and take pictures with them. They would smile very happily and show their teeth.
Sometimes, she could even see her little friends on TV.
She had been very envious of the little friends who could go up on stage and take pictures with the “good people”, until one day, she saw the person who had smiled very happily with the children a second ago walked to the side and wiped her hands right after the picture was taken.
As she wiped her hands, she said impatiently that these children were really dirty. They deserved to have no parents.