After the meeting, I took them to KFC and ordered ice cream too—something I usually didn’t let them have much of.
“You’re so nice.”
“Thank you!”
The well-behaved children lined up in front of me, then took turns sitting down and biting into their fried chicken.
Trang Du suddenly raised his hand. “Miss, I have a question!”
I looked at the boy, not recognizing him right away, and blinked.
“I’m Tiểu Du, Miss.” The boy was used to this. He held out his small, chubby hand. “There’s a goldfish drawn on it. My art teacher drew it for me so you wouldn’t mix us up.”
“I have one too!” Another fair little hand rose. It had a kitten drawn on it, and the girl said happily, “I’m the kitty, Miss.”
“Diệu Diệu, is that you?” I asked. “Meow meow?”
“Everyone else is an animal, so I want to be one too.” Lâm Diệu Diệu waved. “Diệu Diệu is a kitty.”
The other three children also held up their hands to show me the little animals drawn on them: a bird, a lamb, and a bunny.
“So we’re an animal family, huh?”
I couldn’t help laughing. “Then am I the zookeeper?”
“You’re you, Miss,” Từ Như Đồ said earnestly. “You can be anything you want.”
Oh—
Honestly, no one could beat elementary schoolers when it came to sweet talk.
I had to admit, I was delighted, so I ordered the children another box of egg tarts.
“Miss, are we really going to the amusement park this weekend?” Trang Du asked again.
“Have I ever lied to you?” I replied. “We’re going to the new amusement park, but you have to choose the rides yourselves. I’m only responsible for going with you.”
The children weren’t very talkative, but even Trang Du and Từ Như Đồ let out little cheers.
When I first adopted them, the children weren’t as lively as they were now.
Even Lâm Diệu Diệu and Trang Du only knew to cautiously ask me if there was anything they could help with.
They were small, adorable children who made you want to protect them. Even when they fell, they didn’t make a sound. No matter what I did—even something as minor as helping them with a little task—their first response was always to look up and say, “Thank you, Miss.”
Fortunately, after half a year of raising them, the children had started to act a little more like children.
I have to say, that was quite an accomplishment.
(03)
That weekend, I drove the children to the amusement park.
As soon as I parked and got out, I saw the children lined up in front of me, each holding a different-colored tether.
Me: “?”
I’d seen these tethers before. They were safety leashes meant to keep children from getting lost.
Still, I wasn’t really worried about the children’s safety. Maybe it was because they’d grown up in an orphanage: they were very safety-conscious and usually stayed together. With all five of them together, it’d be hard for anyone to kidnap them.
So had they bought these because they were afraid of getting lost?
While I was still confused, Tống Thước, the temporary leader, stepped forward to explain. A plump little bird was drawn on her hand.
“Even though we’ll always stay close to you,” Tống Thước explained seriously, “you can’t recognize our faces. To make sure no bad person pretends to be one of us and leads you away, we prepared these.”
Me: “……”
So they were worried I’d get lost.
“But you only have two hands, and one of them has to be free for whatever you need to do,” another of the children’s leaders, Từ Như Đồ, chimed in. “So we made a schedule. From 8:00 to 10:00, I’ll hold your hand.”
Looking at the children’s earnest faces, I found it both funny and touching, but I still held out my hand. “Then, until ten, I’m in Bunny’s care.”
Từ Như Đồ nodded very seriously, then fastened the white safety tether to my hand.
A very strange thought suddenly occurred to me—
At least the children hadn’t thought to attach all five of themselves to me.
Otherwise, I really would have looked like an uncle selling balloons outside an amusement park.
Before we arrived at the amusement park, I’d given the children five maps and let them plan the route and choose the rides themselves.
I wasn’t afraid of heights, and the rides didn’t make me especially nervous, but the children clearly loved them. Even Lâm Diệu Diệu, who’d been the most hesitant about riding the roller coaster, was thrilled by the feeling of soaring through the air.
“Aaaah!”
“Miss—” Trang Du said excitedly. “I feel like I’m about to fly!”
“I-It’s okay!” Lâm Diệu Diệu’s face was flushed. “Do you like it, Miss?”
“I do.” I pinched her cheek. “What else do you want to ride?”
“Our next stop,” Tống Thước said, pointing at the map, “is the haunted house.”
This time, I was genuinely surprised.
“The haunted house?” I checked with the children. “Aren’t you scared?”
“I’m not scared.”
Trang Du said dismissively. “It’s not like they’re real ghosts. What’s there to be scared of?”
“Are you scared, Miss?” Từ Như Đồ asked me.
“I’m not scared either.” I thought for a moment, then said seriously, “I can’t tell their faces apart.”
“I knew it! You’re definitely not scared either, Miss!” Lâm Diệu Diệu sighed in relief. “Besides, I can protect you too.”
At that, Tống Thước and Từ Như Đồ both nodded like little grown-ups.
We started lining up to enter the haunted house. The children chatted excitedly, but Hà Diệc Dương didn’t say a word.
I looked back. The boy with a lamb drawn on his hand was hiding it behind his back and saying nothing. He always seemed a little quiet and a little “cool,” but at that moment I felt it wasn’t that he didn’t want to speak—he genuinely didn’t know what to say.
I didn’t ask if he was scared. I simply held out my hand in silence, gently took Hà Diệc Dương’s, and asked, “Will Little Lamb protect me too?”
The boy suddenly looked up and squeezed my hand. “Of course!”
Hà Diệc Dương asked me again, “Aren’t you scared?”
I put on a troubled expression. “Well, I’m a little…” Then I smiled at him. “But it’s okay. With Little Lamb protecting me, I won’t be scared.”
The slender little boy said nothing more. He just looked at me seriously for a while, then nodded with determination.
Inside the dark haunted house, strange background music sounded now and then, while the screams of visitors who had gone in before us echoed through the space, sending chills down my spine.
Hà Diệc Dương stayed right by my side, and the others didn’t object. They all thought he was the tallest and strongest, and would be better able to protect me.
There were no actors playing ghosts in the amusement park’s haunted house, so we made it through without any trouble.
As we stepped out of the darkness, I heard Hà Diệc Dương whisper, “Auntie, you won’t leave us, will you?”
His hand felt a little cold in mine as he mumbled, “Từ Như Đồ and I said that if we always got perfect scores, you wouldn’t leave us.”
I froze.
Was that what Bunny thought?
“Tống Thước also said that if we were always good and didn’t make you worry, we’d be able to stay.” Hà Diệc Dương looked at me expectantly. “Auntie, what they said is true, right?”
I didn’t know what to say. In the end, all I could do was pat the boy on the head.
I’d always been rather slow and absentminded, but raising children probably wasn’t as simple as I’d thought.
Our last ride was the Ferris wheel.
The six of us sat in a small gondola, looking out over the city glittering beneath the beautiful night lights.
“Auntie, I just want things to stay like this forever.” Trang Du leaned against the window, eyes shining. “The six of us, together like this forever.”
I’d comforted them like that before, too.
We can stay together forever, never be apart.
But how could that ever happen?
Even though I’d said over and over that we’d never be separated, they still kept setting “conditions” for themselves, comforting one another: “As long as we’re always good, Auntie won’t abandon us.”
Perhaps even children know that there are no promises of “forever” in this world.
I said softly, “Tiểu Ngư, things won’t stay like this forever.”
The chatter in the gondola fell silent.
Hà Diệc Dương immediately turned to look at me, and Tống Thước tightened her grip on my hand.
I thought for a moment, then said very seriously, “Even though I love you all, and you love me, people grow up. When you’re older, you’ll leave home and start new lives. You’ll get married, have children, and build families of your own.”
But that seemed too far off for them to imagine.
I continued, “Just like Meo Meo told me you’d made new friends, sooner or later you’ll all make new friends, too…”
“But I don’t want any new friends.” Lâm Diệu Diệu, the well-behaved little girl, cut me off, her eyes red-rimmed. “I only need you. I don’t want new friends. Please don’t leave me…”
I laughed. “That’s not what I meant.”
“We won’t eat much. We can go out and work, earn money, and we’ll listen to you,” Từ Như Đồ said, biting his lip. “Auntie, next time I’ll come in first in my class again.”
“You don’t have to do that.” I patted Từ Như Đồ’s head. “Even if you don’t come in first in your class or go out and earn money, and even if you eat as much as you want, that’s all right. I adopted you. You’re my responsibility. We’ll always be a family. It’s just that one day, you may have families of your own.”
Hà Diệc Dương suddenly asked, “What about you?”
I stared at him blankly. “What do you mean?”
“You’ll get married and have a baby, too,” Tống Thước said softly. “You’ll have a family of your own, too.”
The gondola fell silent, and at last I understood what they were truly afraid of.
Every one of them had been “sent back” before.
They’d been adopted once, but when their adoptive families had children of their own, they were abandoned and sent back to the orphanage.
—That was what my eldest brother had told me.
I’d always been a cold person. I’d lived at school from childhood, and my eldest brother had gone away for work when I was little, sending me money only once a month. My second brother had become a monk long ago, and I rarely saw either of them.
My eldest brother called me now and then. That was the only way we kept in touch.
When my eldest brother died, I was a little sad, but mostly I felt stunned.
Apart from my second brother, whom I’d lost touch with, my eldest brother was my only family… Even though we saw each other fewer than twice a year, at least I knew I still had family.
But now my eldest brother was gone.
I walked down the street, watching the crowds pass by. To me, their indistinct, unfamiliar faces were like blank sheets of paper. I knew they were crying or laughing, but I couldn’t remember them or tell them apart.
Just like my eldest brother.
On the day my eldest brother was taken away, I looked at him for a long time, trying to memorize his face, but I couldn’t.
When he became a small box in my hands, I thought in shock: Why couldn’t I remember my eldest brother’s face clearly anymore?
Fortunately, my eldest brother had left me five children.
I didn’t care about the male and female leads. All I knew was that they were the family my eldest brother had left me, and perhaps one day they would be the only ones who could help me find my way back to him, the only ones who would remember him.
That was enough.
My eldest brother always told me that he’d left me a large sum of money for when I grew up, and then I could find a man I loved, get married, and have a family of my own.
“Tiểu Thu, I don’t have much, but I’ve saved a lot of money for you, enough for you to live without worrying about the future,” he said. “You’ve always been alone since you were little. I just hope you won’t be lonely anymore.”
Back then, I had no idea that the “large sum of money” he mentioned would leave me so stunned.
All I knew was that if it was what he wanted, I was willing to do it.