2024 Nobel Laureate Han Jiang Novel: "What kind of mood will a dog be in the evening"

What kind of mood does a dog feel like in the evening?

Han Jiang

The child thought, is that what the mother wants to say?

looked at his father, who was shaking his shoulders and crying like a child, and wanted to comfort him and say "It doesn't matter".

Maybe that's what Mom wants to say.

Is this feeling tormenting my mother all the time, so she threw it away, and also left me and my father?

1

What kind of mood does a dog feel like in the evening? In the evening, the child wanted to walk out the window towards the hazy and distant sea, and she wanted to see up close whether the foam that was stirring up by the waves licking the mudflats was white or golden.

But the child didn't do that. Whenever the sun of the dead of winter pale on the horizon, the child would fold two pillows under the window frame, step on them, put his protruding forehead against the glass, and stare at the scenery outside the window until a fiery sea was completely swallowed up by darkness. Under the glass, there were blue-gray paint marks left by the painting of the window frames a long time ago, and the child's snort formed into a white mist that gradually dispersed on the glass.

The hostel is a three-storey, flat-roofed building, and the children's rooms are at the end of the corridor on the second floor. Leaning out of the window, you can see a supermarket, a hardware store, a bakery and other bungalows across the road. Behind the low houses are covered with orange and dark green tiles, and behind the low houses are the dry fields that have been empty since the beginning of winter, and the pale peach mudflats and the sea in the distance. The road leading to the sea runs from the alley opposite the hotel through the middle of the dry fields, but for some unknown reason, the concrete road is only half paved, and from the middle it is a dirt road.

On the afternoon of the third day in this remote town, the child decided to walk alone along the ridge path to the sea. Glancing at the sleeping father with his forehead buried on the floor, the child slipped out of the hotel room and gently descended the concrete stairs.

There was a zebra crossing with no signal lights in front of the pharmacy a hundred meters from the hotel, but almost no one cared about it. People there like to cross the road, so there are no high-speed vehicles. The child was very calm, and the tip of the red sneaker kicked the cap of a Coke bottle and walked to the crosswalk. On the side of the road, the child kicked hard, and the bottle cap made a rattling sound, falling right between the two yellow midlines in the distance. The child crossed the road with her eyes ahead and reached the opposite sidewalk, when she quickly glanced back at the glittering gray bottle cap, as if she were looking at a child left on the road, and then turned her head away.

The four flat-roofed residential buildings have rough tiled roofs only on the front side of the building, and the ridge path is just a walk through it. The child walked for nearly five minutes before the concrete road was gone. There was a red dirt road ahead, and she walked for a while. There was a two-way lane road in front of me, and that road was not visible from the hotel room. It's a road paved along the coastline, and as far as you can see, near the end of the far bay line of sight, you can faintly see the excavator, which seems to be unfinished.

Jumping down that road is a mudflat, but that's the problem. At the end of the deserted dry fields, along the coastal road, there were many jagged, crumbling illegal buildings, and in the hay-covered clearing, there were five or six large unleashed dogs walking around. In an instant, a group of dogs the size of calves blocked the child's path. They barked like wild beasts and thundered so loudly that they almost burst the child's eardrums.

The child turned around and instinctively realized that he could not run. She pretended to be casual and took a step, her knees shaking. When she reached the concrete section of the ridge road, she started running, until she ran over the road where there was just no car, ran up the hotel stairs in one breath to lock the door, and easily latched the anti-theft lock.

The room was quiet, and there was a foul smell, just like when the child slipped out not long ago. Dad was still lying on the floor, arms spread out to the sides. The remaining half-shochu bottle and the bottomed sorghum bottle were still standing next to Dad's head, and there was a disposable plate next to his waist, and a third of the Chinese food was left on the plate, and some of it was spilled out of the plate. Because of the mustard taste, children hate eating this Chinese dish the most. Dad's ochre-yellow corduroy pants looked like they had been worn for hundreds of years, whether they hadn't been washed for a long time or faded.

The child sat cross-legged at his father's feet, his breathing still unsettled, his shoulders rising and falling. Under the short red and white plaid skirt, a hole the size of a Maple Leaf Chinese Restaurant is revealed in the inner thigh of the stockings. A black plastic ashtray sits on the floor, and the child bends over his elbows on his thighs and holds his chin in his hands to observe the marks of his father's cigarette butts burning like scars next to the ashtray.

There was a regular tom sound in the distance, intertwined with Dad's nasal panting. At first, the child thought it was the motor of the boat, but when he listened closely, it turned out to be the sound of nails being hammered across the road.

"Enough is enough."

The child muttered this mantra from his mother. The sound was quickly drowned out by the silence around it.

“…… Tired of it, tired of it. ”

The child imitated his mother's frowning, looked at his father's silent back, and repeated this sentence in a low voice.

That afternoon, the child saw the sunset. The red light that hung down from the distant horizon illuminated the glass windows. The child walked towards the window, with some of the frightened dog's expression on his face. Under the setting sun, the clouds are layered on top of each other, as if they do not belong to this world, and they seem so mysterious and gentle.

The child's mind conjured up a hurried glance at the mudflats stretching behind the dogs. The mud and sand contain moisture, and it is as smooth and soft as finely ground glass. The thought of the golden clouds reflected in the mudflats made the child's heart begin to stir inexplicably, and the shock he had received not long ago seemed to be gone.

She thought to herself, what was it in the sky that gave off that light? Why did it disappear so quickly?

Can you see it clearly when you walk to the beach? Where did the light come from and where did it disappear? The child is curious.

But for the next week, the child was not able to go to the beach. She just pressed her face against the cold glass window and looked out, occasionally imagining what the dog would be like in the evening.

The child met the dog at two o'clock in the afternoon. But in the evening, do the dogs also want to see the sunset reflected on the white mudflats? Will they walk with her instead of baring their fangs around her and yelling? Will they sit motionless side by side watching the sunset? At this time, the child always wants to know this.

2

For a week here, Dad curled up in his hotel room every day drinking Chinese food. But since the day before yesterday, he went out late and didn't come back, and it was the same today. When the afternoon sun shone obliquely on the dead branches of the camellia tree in front of the hotel, the father gave the child two 10,000 won, pointed to the dresser mirror covered with takeaway advertising paper, and said to the child only "lock the door", and then stuffed the plastic key tag into the pocket of his field jacket and went out.

The child remembered what his father looked like last night. He frowned, staggered into the house, and spat a large pile of pungent and disgusting stuff into the toilet. Even in his sleep, the child was disgusted with his father, muttering "Enough is enough, enough is enough" to his father's back like a woman who is dozens of years old. She thought that her mother left because of her father, and she was fed up with such a father and left.

But staying alone in such a quiet room, the child hopes that the annoying dad can be by his side, whether it is sitting there and drinking, or biting his lower lip with his teeth in the front row and muttering, "Dog man and woman, see how I clean you up".

The child opened the door halfway and looked down the stairs to make sure that the plate of pork cutlets that had been placed outside two hours earlier had not been taken away by his uncle at the snack bar. I didn't hear footsteps going upstairs, so no one should have come. The white plastic dish was wrapped in newspaper so-so. Due to the use of back-pot oil, the tonkatsu is not the right color, and the meat is difficult to bite. Whereas the macaroni is very cold, and the two thin slices of cucumber dry like pieces of paper.

With a "bang", the child closed the door.

The child would put his hands behind his back, wave his arms like a conductor, and walk around the room with his hands touching the wall. One moment she took out mineral water from the Xiaoice box to moisten her lips, and the next she lifted her only plaid skirt, took off her fluffy dark gray stockings and sat on the toilet. It was only then that she realized that she was neither thirsty nor did she want to urinate.

The sun is going down again.

The child climbed onto the pillows stacked on top of each other, resting his elbows on the window frame and holding his chin in his hands. Although it was about to get dark, the last moments before the sun disappeared were shockingly bright, as if in a dream, and the world was at its most beautiful at this moment.

The child wonders where the big dogs will be before sunset. Where do they go after dark? She couldn't help but shudder as she imagined the beast's teeth glowing white in the darkness.

3

On her first day here, after her father left her children behind, she was locked up in this strange room all day. The child ate half a bag of walnut cakes that day, which his father had bought from the highway service area the day before. She took small bites of biscuits, one moment in the shape of a crescent moon, the next into the shape of a crescent moon and a waning moon. Despite this economy, the oily paper bag was empty in less than twenty minutes. So, the child began to look out the window, and when she saw a man about the same size as her father, she pushed open the window, and sometimes couldn't help but shout "Daddy", but whenever she did, she always found out that she was wrong before those people.

Wait until it gets dark before Dad returns to the hotel. I was holding a box of whipped cream cakes that I hadn't seen on my birthday, and when I opened it, the corners of the cake had collapsed, and white cream was everywhere.

"O Tailian! Sold the car. ”

Since the evening, my father has been unable to speak clearly. He sat slumped against the wall, his mouth smelling of soju. Strangely, his eyes were not dull at all, but looked bright.

“…… The car is sold, and there is no need to go anywhere in the future. ”

Dad was talking about a small truck that was used to hold ice cream buckets, waffle molds and shaved ice machines in the summer, and chicken kebab baking sheets, sugar pie pans and crucian carp cake molds in the winter. In the past, Mom and Dad parked their cars in front of national parks or on busy streets near the subway and used the rear compartment to do small business. On weekends, children spend an afternoon alone sitting in the passenger seat doing their homework. When she was really bored, she would go to the back compartment and sit on the red plastic three-legged chair next to the liquefied gas tank, spinning in circles on her toes. When there are many customers, the children will also help with the yakitori, and sometimes raise their voices to greet the guests loudly. The over-baked crucian carp cake is always the child's portion, and when he gets tired of the sweet bean paste filling, the child pesters his mother for other snacks.

"You sold that truck?"

The child's face sank for a moment, but anyway, his stomach was too hungry, so he licked the cake with his tongue. I thought that Dad would lose his temper with the child who was licking the cream, but for some reason, he just sat there and watched.

Even though the child licked the cream with his tongue and ate it with his fingers to open his appetite for a while, he only ate a third of it. The full-bodied child rubbed his sticky fingers against his skirt before he came back to his senses and worried about getting up the truck.

Since his mother ran away from home, the child and his father have been on the road in that truck for nearly a month. Sometimes the father walks in front of the child, sometimes he takes the hand of the child who follows him, sometimes he carries the child on his back, and wanders among the countless alleys and strange houses. Dad always had a white note in his hand with a lot of addresses written on it with a black pen, and Dad crossed out one of them every time he visited. By the end, the fold of the note was worn out and rotten. For the kids, that truck was both a bedroom and a kitchen. She slept in that truck, where she ate instant noodles or bread for three meals a day. This place also came in that truck, and the father actually sold it, and the child felt a little dazed, and she thought, how will she go back to Seoul in the future?

Dad who was sitting against the wall just now and God's eyes began to become foggy. His shoulders slid down, his head drooped forward, and he fell asleep curled up against the wall.

With all his strength, the boy dragged his father's body off the wall, straightened his drooping head, made him lie flat on the floor, and pulled the quilt stacked on the side of the dresser over him. Then she was once again immersed in the worry about the truck.

The child looked at the buzzing fluorescent lamp, pulled two pillows under the window frame, put one behind his father's head, and took the other in his arms and lay down.

The child was afraid of the dark, so he turned on the light and prepared for bed. I was worried that I couldn't sleep just now, but now I may be too worried to really sleep. She began to count, but counting to two hundred was to no avail. So, she began to count again, but her mind became clearer and clearer. As soon as she thought about the truck, she deliberately tried to cover up her worries with numbers, so she tossed and turned, and didn't fall asleep until late.

4

After leaving Seoul and running on the highway for a while, the father and daughter walked up the crooked path, and the first place that the father and daughter found was an orchard, full of fruit trees with bare thin branches, which looked particularly bleak.

"Is this Grandma's house?

"Is this really where my mother lived?"

The child grabbed his father's pants and asked questions repeatedly, and the man named Grandpa stroked the child's face with his rough palm, and the old spotted hands emitted a smell of dander.

He said, "I don't know. Didn't you take her away without our consent? I didn't even get a phone call here. ”

The child fiddled with the crumpled 10,000 won that her grandfather had forced on her, and looked up at the thin fruit tree with puzzled eyes, she couldn't believe that the place her mother said was like this.

"In the spring, white pear blossoms bloom all over the ground...... Apple Blossom ...... Everything in the heavens and the earth is white, and at night it is as if the lights are on......"

Whenever the father did not come back late, the mother would drive the truck home with the child, and when she came home, the mother would brush the child's hair and tell her the story of the orchard. The child is immersed in happiness and wishes not to sleep all night. But the mother's story is like a lullaby, which always makes the child fall asleep unconsciously. By the time the child woke up, it was already dark.

Every morning like that, the child can hear the whispered quarrel at the head of the bed. At this point, she closes her eyes and pretends to be asleep. Mom's voice was sometimes clear, sometimes softly choked. Dad always likes to bite his lip when he speaks, so it's hard to hear what he's saying.

"Enough is enough...... I've really had enough. ”

From time to time, Mom interrupted Dad's inarticulate excuses and spit out.

Dad put the child in the passenger seat, slammed the door shut, and didn't even glance at Grandpa, who was standing in the distance with his hands behind his back, let alone wave. So, the child was silent, she knew that Dad was about to explode, even if she touched it lightly with a pin, Dad would explode like a balloon.

In silence, the car started. Grandpa is as tall as Mom and has a square forehead. His deep eyes kept hitting the child's heart hard. The child secretly raised his hand to his chest and waved to his grandfather.

Grandpa's figure gradually faded away, and she could no longer be seen, and the child repeatedly recalled the story her mother told her. She thought that the orchard that her mother said must be somewhere else, and if she could find that place, she would definitely see the bright sunshine and peach blossoms in the garden. She also thought that Dad didn't find Mom because he didn't find the real orchard, and Mom would sit under the pear blossom tree and stretch out her arms to her, and the smell of juice would be in her arms.

5

"My hometown is full of flowers, peach blossoms, apricot blossoms, and that little Jindalai."

"Wednesday again?"

The child slipped out of the covers. The father was still sleeping on the pillow, and the child had to put his pillow under the window, step on it, and stand on tiptoe to look out the window.

The light music "Spring of Hometown" flows in the quiet seaside town.

"Today is Renewable Waste Recycling Day, and the Recycling Truck has stopped in front of your door."

The big green truck wriggled like a snail on the side of the road and stopped in front of the bakery. A middle-aged woman walks towards the truck with a large bundle of newspapers tied to a rope. It looked very windy, and her hair and clothes were fluttering in the wind. The cleaners in orange glow-in-the-dark suits took the newspapers, and the woman, probably cold, trotted around her body with her jacket tightly wrapped around her body and disappeared into the alley.

Your child picks up the pillow and lies back in its place.

It was overcast and the room was as dark as it was at dusk. The sound of the wind came through the window, like whistling. The child leaned sideways and looked at the sleeping father's back.

The child suddenly thought: Could the door to this room be locked from the outside? Everybody forgot what was going on with me and my dad here? What if Dad never wakes up?

The child swallowed. Dad was motionless, like a dead man, and the thought of this made her shiver, so she hugged the pillow that was hot from the hot floor.

The child lay flat and looked up at the clock hanging above the dresser. I wondered, if I kept staring, would I see the black minute hand moving?

Minutes and seconds passed. The silver second hand kept moving, and as she looked at it intently, the minute hand turned around, but she still couldn't see the minute hand move.

After noon, my father woke up, but as soon as he woke up, he put on his jacket and went out, saying that he would be back as soon as he made a phone call. The child didn't believe her father's words, and she also knew that if she wanted to wait, time would pass more slowly.

Children hate cloudy days. The sky was overcast from the morning, and it was dark without even showing her the sunset. The child standing in front of the window stepped on the pillow fiercely for a while, and then pushed the pillow against the wall with his toes. The child rolls around on the floor with a pillow and then under the covers.

In the dream, she sat in a speeding truck, eating the cake and milk that her father bought for her. A slam brake, and milk spilled on the sweater.

When I woke up, I found that it was already night, and the child looked around the dark house, and the father had not returned.

The child stood up and turned on the fluorescent lamp, then lay down again, closed his eyes and could not sleep, so he sat up again. When I opened the refrigerator, it was empty. She ate the last piece of pizza she had left before sunset. She looked at the mineral water bottle on the dresser again, which was also empty.

6

"Are you sure you disappeared with that little rascal?"

The young aunt, whose hair was dyed reddish-brown, placed the coffee cup in front of her father, who was sitting cross-legged, and walked towards the kitchen with small steps. A curling mist rises from the coffee cup, and it smells good. The child thought, "Just give me a drink."

"Wait patiently. If you have children, you have to come back after all, don't you? ”

The aunt put the coffee and coffee companion box in the cabinet under the stove and said to the child:

"Does a child's brain become stupid when he drinks coffee, does he drink milk?"

Without waiting for the child to answer, the aunt took out the milk carton from the refrigerator and said as she closed the refrigerator door:

"Maybe it's just a sister-brother relationship, could it be that you blame her?"

When she made eye contact with her father, her aunt blurred the end of her words.

“…… In any case, as soon as you call, I will definitely ask you for your contact information. ”

The aunt's face was covered with freckles or small black moles.

In the silence, the adults' conversation was staccato, and the children were bored and looked around. She wanted to look away from the large bunch of bananas covered with a tablecloth on the refrigerator, but her eyes always turned involuntarily. She felt embarrassed, felt her aunt's gaze as if she was looking at herself, and lowered her head. The aunt placed the milk cup in front of the child, sat down beside her, and brushed the child's broken hair behind her ear with the cold hand that had just touched the milk carton.

"Like Dad or Like Mom?"

The aunt's expression seemed to say that the child was too pitiful, and there was a bitter smile on the corner of her mouth, and the child hated that.

"They say that the daughter looks like her father, but this child is more like her mother."

The child shrank her face back, avoiding the cold hand that caressed her face. This time the aunt moved her hand to the child's hairpin again and asked:

"Who bought this for you? Did your mom buy it for you? Your mother loves flowers so much, even the hairpins and blouses are patterned, who says it's not the daughter of the orchard? ”

The aunt smiled with her two front teeth with a large gap, and her father, who had been silent on the side, interrupted her:

"Jingxi, you know it too. I ......"

Dad was silent for a moment.

"I'm the one who took my heart because of the child's mother."

The child innocently looked at his father's face and immediately held his breath. Dad's jaw trembled slightly, and his eyes seemed to glow green. The child immediately looked at the aunt's face again, and the aunt seemed to be frightened, and the smile on her lips had long since been lost.

"Please remember, I don't have any expectations for this world, and I don't have any attachments."

That day, the father put the child in the passenger seat and was about to start the car when he suddenly stopped. He glared at the child's face and reached out to pull the hairpins off the child's ears. The hair that hadn't been combed for several days was already messy, but now it was all scattered. During the period after her mother left, she didn't even cry in the morning when her father took her hand and left the house, and she cried for the first time that day.

Tears blurred her vision, so she didn't see what Dad was doing with those hairpins. The father started the car, and the child cried and cried and cried and was tired, and before he knew it, he fell asleep.

I saw my mother in my dream. The mother's appearance became clearer and clearer, and the child's sleep became lighter and lighter, and he returned to the past in a half-dream.

It was a sunny late spring morning, and on the way to sell something at the entrance of the national park, my mother stopped her truck to pick lilac branches sticking out of the brick walls of the residential alley. At that time, the child was five years old, and she was really tired of carrying it, and she couldn't walk fast when she asked her to walk by herself, so the mother supported the child's buttocks with one hand and carried her on her back. The mother put the white flower branch in her ear and hummed a song that the child could not understand. The child lay on his mother's back, smelling his mother's fragrant sweat and listening to his mother's humming. The rich floral fragrance makes the child confused.

When the child woke up, it was already dark. Trucks are speeding down the highway. Tears in the corners of his eyes stretched the white lights of the opposite vehicle for a long, long time.

The child looked at his father's side face, expressionless and cold.

She thought to herself, how could her mother marry a man like her father?

She remembered her mother's fragrant neck, and her lilac-scented hair. She couldn't understand her mother.

“…… One day Dad cried a lot. I always thought your dad was a cold-blooded animal, but I cried so sadly that time, and I've liked your dad ever since. ”

Once, when the child asked why the mother liked the father, the mother replied. At that time, the child remembered that her knee was bleeding and crying badly the day before after she fell on the threshold, when her mother licked her knee. So, she finally came to the conclusion that there must be some connection between crying and liking.

"Hungry?"

Dad asked in a hoarse voice. How does a father who doesn't squint know that his child is awake?

The child doesn't speak, just shakes his head.

"Aren't you hungry?"

The father asked again, not seeming to see the child shaking his head. Dad was holding the steering wheel and staring ahead, his sleeves rolled up high.

Dad said that since living with Mom, he hadn't worn a short-sleeved shirt in the summer because of a cyan dragon on his right forearm. If Mom was there, she would put Daddy's sleeves down and button them up. In the summer when ice cream was sold, my mother always smiled and put it down whenever my dad put it up. The child remembers that when the mother was afraid of the father's embarrassment and squeezed her eyes and smiled at the father, the fine lines on the bridge of her nose were particularly beautiful, and the child still remembered that the mother looked at the father with a smile and affection, and the forehead was covered with beads of sweat.

"Are you hungry or not?"

The child still shook his head and did not answer, so the father's voice became louder. Dad turned his head to look at her. The child was afraid to see a green light in his eyes again, but to her surprise, she only saw a tired face, her biting lips loosened, her eyes unfocused, and her eyes cloudy.

Dad looked at the tall sign illuminated by the headlights and said stiffly, "Just rest here." ”

The father, who was about to unbuckle his seat belt, stopped his eyes on the child's messy hair and reached into his jacket pocket. The child's eyes suddenly brightened as he unfolded his thick palm, and she hesitantly reached out to the jewel-like flowering hairpin.

7

I don't know who is shaking the child awake. The night before, the child waited for her father to wait until late to sleep, and she opened her heavy eyelids with great force.

"Where is this?"

The child saw Daddy's face. Next up to the eye is the brown ceiling wallpaper. The child then knew where he was, and this was not a basement in Seoul.

"I heard there's a decafer in town, let's go there."

It's not ten o'clock yet, and my father, who usually gets up after eleven o'clock, even put on his jacket early today.

"What is the Decameron?"

The child born in Seoul asked in a voice that did not wake up. Dad didn't answer, got up and put his hands in his trouser pockets.

Although the child wanted to ask again, he still endured it. She knew that when her father stood with his head bowed like that, he couldn't understand her own words. Dad would just ask, "Oh? What", or just stand there and look at the child in a daze, that's all.

The child pushed away the quilt and thought, Dad is not qualified to be a father, not qualified to be an adult, if it is a mother, he will definitely explain it to her.

The child wears stockings that have been washed and dried on the kang after being washed the day before. The stockings were hairy, there was a hole in the thigh, and the heel was open.

"Gotta buy a pair of stockings."

The child was startled when she suddenly heard her father's stiff tone, she didn't expect her father to look at it. The child looked up at his father and couldn't believe what he was saying. Dad, who was already relatively thin, has protruding cheekbones in the past few months, plus he hasn't shaved, it looks like a different person, and it feels very strange.

The father bought the child stockings and red rain boots, and a new sweater and skirt, as well as a short coat with a hat. What's even more unexpected is that he asked her to pick a favorite toy. The child ignored the rows of skinny, white-faced dolls, and instead picked out a chubby rag doll with shaggy hair.

"Do you really want this?" Dad asked.

The child picks that rag doll for nothing else, just because that rag doll is the only one that looks like it can make him feel warm in his arms. The child held a rag doll that was almost half as tall as himself, and walked quickly after his father with some embarrassment, thinking that his father was a little strange today.

The father took the child to a Chinese restaurant and pointed to the expensive dishes on the menu and told the child to order them. The child thought to himself, does Dad want to spend all the money from the sale of the car in this kind of place? Thinking of this, the child said that he wanted to eat jajangmyeon, but when he saw that his father was holding back his anger and his face became ugly, he lowered his head. Dad ordered fried noodles and sweet and sour pork, as well as shredded pork skin.

"Cover your nose and breathe through your mouth."

According to the method taught by his father, the child exhaled with his mouth and tried to eat a mouthful, which had no taste, just spicy. The sweet and sour pork was delicious, and she ate more than half of it before she knew it, and her stomach was full. The child suddenly glanced at his father, who seemed to be about to get drunk again, holding a sorghum wine glass in his hand and drinking it all one by one. The child thought, Daddy is so annoying.

"Is it delicious? …… Anything else you'd like to eat? ”

Dad asked, realizing the child's gaze, looking up with a flushed face. The child looked at the translucent sorghum wine bottle that had bottomed out, and she hated her father's drinking like this, so she didn't answer. However, for the sake of the delicious fried noodles, and the fact that the father did not call for wine but looked at himself silently, the child's anger gradually subsided.

Coming out of the Chinese restaurant, Dad stopped next to a middle-aged man selling cotton candy. Like magic, Dad's black wallet has a steady stream of 10,000 won. The child chose a blue marshmallow. Walking to the middle of the market, the child stopped in front of a sugar pie shop. Whenever there were few guests, her mother would give her a sugar pie. Afraid that the child would be burned by the brown sugar filling, the mother always blew it first before handing it to her. Just as she wanted to reach out and ask her dad to buy it for her, her father's steps became faster, and his side face looked as if he was angry. In order to catch up with the father who was striding the meteor, the child almost ran. In front of the pharmacy, the father stopped, told the child to wait, and walked in.

"What kind of medicine to buy?

"Is Dad uncomfortable somewhere?"

In response to the child's question, Dad just nodded and casually responded.

Dad went in for a long time, and saw the back of him talking to an old pharmacist who was not wearing a white coat.

A dog tethered to an iron post in a fruit shop tent next to the pharmacy came into the child's sight. It was a small mongrel dog that had shed its hair piece by piece like a copper coin. The dog barked at the child with a loud voice, and the child unconsciously took a few steps back. After a while, the child dared to stare at the dog's brown eyes, but it was provoked to grow stronger. The child looked at the leash on which the dog was leashed, kept a safe distance, and quietly observed the dog's face. She wondered what kind of mood a dog would be in when it barked like that, how long it would bark, and how long it would pounce with its teeth bared.

The dog hissed and roared, and the corners of his eyes began to twitch slightly. The child thought it was strange and looked more closely. She thought: What kind of mood would a dog feel when making such an expression?

The barking became terrible, and the dog's shoulders shivered, and he trembled. The legs seemed to be weak, first the knees were bent, and then even the tail was hidden. The child is clearly aware of all this.

"Are you afraid of me?"

The child was amazed at the power of his gaze. She is afraid of dogs, is that dog also afraid of her?

The forgotten father came from the opposite direction of the pharmacy, holding the phone card in his right hand, and inserted the phone card into the public telephone next to the fruit store without looking at the child.

Dad was going to be on the phone again, and it was the same before he sold the truck. Whenever he was resting in the road rest area, Dad would go to the public phone booth to make a call. The child stood outside the glass door and watched his father make the call, as if he was watching a ridiculous single pantomime, and the other party could not see any movement, but he still waved his hand vigorously, sometimes raising his voice, sometimes begging bitterly. Occasionally, Dad would run his hair back roughly, and whenever she did, she could see Daddy's tired face.

Putting down the earpiece, Dad stuffed the white paper with the address in his pocket, which was already half broken in the fold. His trouser legs swayed in the wind as if they were empty inside.

"Let's go."

Dad coldly threw down a sentence and walked straight forward. As soon as the child turned around, the dog that had been lying on the ground immediately came to his senses and barked at the child's back. As soon as the child turned around, the barking immediately disappeared, and the dog flinched back in horror.

The dog, she thought, was afraid of herself.

The child followed closely behind the father, and every time the dog's barking became louder, the child looked back once, and the dog's barking became quieter at that time.

Yes, it is afraid of me.

The child thought to himself, and the corners of his mouth went up. On the red cheeks, the broken hair that was not caught by the hairpin fluttered messily.

8

"Lightning" wears a black top hat embroidered with the words "Waikiki Nightclub" embroidered with gold thread, a black scarf, black trousers and jacket, black boots, and white teeth when he smiles. At times, he scares passers-by with shrill whistles and toys with multicolored paper tongues spitting out. Sometimes, "Lightning" holds dozens of aluminum foil balloons and hands them to women passing by, shouting loudly for her sister. Sometimes, passers-by are given their own business cards with "Waikiki" and "Lightning" printed in large letters, and "Nightclub" and pager numbers in small print underneath. Pedestrians take their business cards and throw them away shortly after they take them, so the sidewalks are littered with his business cards, and passers-by trample on them at will.

Every evening, "Lightning" will do a robot dance, and after the dance, he will habitually throw up the long hair that covers half of his face. Next, the neatly dressed "Lightning" always did not forget to cough and spit on the telephone pole, and the sputum he spit out was very disgusting, which always made the child frown.

One day, when Dad went to buy sugar, "Lightning" walked up to the mold of grilled crucian carp cakes. The child was sitting in a red plastic chair, stepping on the floor of the back of the truck with his feet and playing in circles with his hands on the liquefied gas tank. When the child saw the "lightning" coming, he thought he was going to buy something, so he stopped playing. The thrill of stopping abruptly while spinning in circles is what children love the most.

"Sister!" "Lightning" shouted with a hippie smile.

"It's a free ticket to our store."

"Lightning" has two movie tickets in his hands. He had white hairs on his white face, a black mole on the right corner of his mouth, a delicate and graceful line of his nose and mouth, and dark eyes with a cynical look. Mom shook his hand and declined.

"Where do we have time to go, let's go with my girlfriend when we have a break."

Mom put Dad's baked crucian carp cake in a paper bag and handed it to him.

"Thank you, I got it."

Mom's cotton-gloved hand met Lightning's-wearing white swallow-tailed hand in mid-air, and Mom's face flushed. Maybe this is the way my mother's face looked when she worked in a flower shop when she was a girl.

Dad said he liked to see Mom blush. He said that he used to work as a kitchen assistant in a Western restaurant, and the flower shop where his mother worked was downstairs. A carnation is placed on every table in a Western restaurant, and when my father walked into the flower shop to buy a carnation, my mother immediately blushed.

My twenty-year-old mother's pregnancy was also during her work at that flower shop. I heard that my mother had pregnancy poisoning, and her whole body was swollen like tofu, and her hands were swollen as if she was wearing a pair of rubber gloves. Mother used those hands to prune the roses and carry the white iron bucket for the flowers. Twenty-seven-year-old dad somehow worked as a kitchen assistant in one Western restaurant after another, but he couldn't stay for two or three weeks each time, and at most he was kicked out for fighting in a month. For this reason, my mother's fragile heart was broken. When the two quarreled, Mom always wiped her tears and mentioned the past, but whenever this happened, Dad looked away absentmindedly and only said "enough".

"Tailian, serve a bowl of hot soup to Uncle Lightning, okay?"

Hearing the mother's soprano voice, the child stood up, put a bowl of konjac skewer seafood soup in a bean-green plastic bowl and handed it to "Lightning", and by the way, also put a spoonful of soup in his own paper cup. Children love the feeling of the heat surrounding their bodies when they hold the cup in both hands. "Lightning", of course, didn't understand such feelings, as if he didn't know how to burn, and drank all the soup in the bowl in one go. He said "Ahhhhh He put his hands in his trouser pockets, staggered his shoulders back and forth, and said:

"I wish spring would come soon."

"It's cold for you to stand outside all day, right? We were by the fire, so it was fine. ”

"Not to mention the cold weather, oh, really, there is not even a leaf on the tree, so it's not fun to live like this! When the weather gets warmer, I really want to climb Bukhansan Mountain and find a big rock to sleep on there...... When I was a child, I lived in the countryside, and at that time, I often went to play with my sister in the spring. ”

Lightning's originally fair face suddenly turned red, and even the roots of his ears turned red. What is it that makes him shy?

"But sister, do you know?"

"What?"

"Sister, you look a lot like my sister."

"Like your sister? Me? ”

Mom smiled brightly when she heard that.

"It's like when you laugh."

"Lightning" put away his smile and whispered, "It's a lot like a plum flower." He looked at his mother's face seriously, and the roots of his ears were still red.

9

Before the sun had set, the child turned on the fluorescent lamp and the incandescent lamp in the bathroom, then opened the bathroom door and sat down with his knees crossed.

Dusk is coming.

The child wonders why he feels alone at this time. She wanted to see the sea, but she hated the road and was afraid of the dogs. When I think of the puppy on a leash in front of the fruit shop, the child's mood becomes very complicated, and that mood is ultimately caused by fear. But for some reason, fear made her feel ashamed, and that feeling always haunted her.

The sun was about to set, and the remnant sun was dyeing the western sky a fiery red.

The child suddenly stood up and approached the window to draw the faded curtains. She thought that she couldn't watch the sunset up up close anyway, and she was tired of watching the sunset like she did now. So, she simply lay down in the middle of the floor and covered herself with the quilt.

In the darkness, the child saw the figure of his father sleeping. When did Daddy come back? What time is it?

Listening to the sound of father's regular breathing, the child's heart is warm. The child crawled up to Daddy like a little bug and lay gently on Daddy's arm.

It didn't take long for the father's arm to move, let out a suppressed sigh, and suddenly pushed the child's head away.

"You ...... This dog man and woman, this dog man and woman, dog man and woman ......"

Dad's head swayed from side to side, and he said something vague in his dreams.

"I'm not done with you! Bastard! ”

Dad's voice suddenly became very clear, and his body jumped up like a spring. Dad put on a field jacket with a green glow in his eyes. The child instantly lost his sleepiness, quickly leaned against the wall to observe his father's face, and then hugged his knees and hid his head. At this time, the child's biggest worry is to let his father see his eyes.

10

Mom and dad are arguing more and more often around the pillow. At first, the sound was low, but then it got louder and louder, and finally it was so big that the child could no longer pretend to be asleep.

"Honestly, how far have you gotten with that guy?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Do you think I don't have eyes? Don't you know that I grew up looking at other people's eyes? ”

"Tyrine Dad!"

"To say or not to say?"

"Tyrine Dad, are you really suspicious of me?"

"Hurry up!"

The child sat up, knowing that as soon as she woke up, their quarrels would stop. But today, they don't seem to be aware of their children's movements.

"It's ridiculous. How did I pull Tyrlian up? It's a handful of snot and a handful of tears...... It's ridiculous that you're not enough to worry me about it, and you still doubt me? To what extent? Can you talk nonsense with a long mouth? ”

Mom's voice was sharp, and she began to tremble a little in the back. Dad interrupted Mom and shouted:

"Quick! Don't say it yet! ”

The radio on the shelf fell to the ground. The child cried out with a "wow", and the mother held her in her arms. Alarm clocks and cosmetic bottles also fell one after another.

That day, Dad didn't come home after going out.

In the past, when the family of three was doing business in the back of the truck, the landlady used to buy crucian carp cakes from them on the way home in a minibus, and did not forget to say, "Ouch, it's like a pigeon's nest." But when the landlord showed up that day, my mother was busy grilling chicken skewers, pan-fried sugar pies, and rummaging back and forth with the crucian carp cake baking mold. Wearing a cotton glove that her mother had taken off for her, the child was serving konjac skewers and seafood soup to a group of uncles in military uniforms.

"The guy who went out in the early morning hasn't come back yet?"

The grandmother, who kept chatting, asked the child this time.

"Isn't it cold?"

The child pretended not to hear and reached out to take out the cooked crucian carp cake. Mom wraps chicken skewers in tin foil and hands them to a curly aunt in a fur coat.

The child turns the crucian carp cake with a skewer and when it is golden brown, he grabs the fin and takes it out. Those that haven't been baked golden brown have to be covered and baked for a while. If you want to come out, you have to hold on to the hot mold for a while, and if you don't insist, you will never be able to come out.

After taking out all the crucian carp cakes, put the mold upright. Once you tilt it to one side, that part will be heated too much, and the part will be baked after pouring in the batter and sweet batter.

The child looked intently at the crucian carp cakes lying on the barbed wire, and in the same mold, the crucian carp all wore the same smiling faces. It's not that they want to laugh, it's because their mold is a smiley face.

"Tailian is so well-behaved, and she helps her mother work."

Grandma took the 1,000 won sugar pie handed by her mother, and the child smiled dryly at Grandma, she felt like a crucian carp, and she couldn't help but laugh at herself. The grandmother looked at the child with sympathetic eyes, which made her very uncomfortable, and she hoped that the grandmother would leave soon.

11

The father took the child by the hand and walked to a public phone booth in front of the bakery, which had closed. There was no door to the phone booth, and the sound of the father talking loudly reached the ears of the child.

"Dad, it's me.

"I'm Son-in-law Kim."

"Jingxi, it's me. The woman has news......"

Every time the father put down the microphone hard, the child was frightened by a loud noise and fell back.

Dad's hand pulling out the phone card suddenly stopped, and he kept banging his fist on the phone, and then hit his head against the inner wall of the phone booth.

", you bastards."

The voice was small, but the clear voice echoed through the silent and dark street.

"I'm going to kill you...... These bastards. ”

He stared at the child with murderous eyes.

Is Dad crazy? Don't you recognize me?

The child, who wore only a yellow quilted coat over the autumn coat, looked at his father's angry face tremblingly. Dad gritted his teeth and muttered to himself in the direction where the child was standing, as if there was a person standing behind her.

"How can you do that?"

The child steps back.

“…… How can you do that to me? ”

12

Mom fell ill. Dad asked her what was wrong with her, and Mom replied that it didn't hurt anywhere, but she couldn't move. Mom didn't go out to work, didn't cook, and said she didn't even bother to go to the kitchen. The child said that she was hungry and wanted to eat, but she just pretended to get up and immediately lay back. She also said that she didn't want to move her hands.

"Dad, what's the evil disease?"

One morning, the father, who was washing rice, heard the child's question and his face froze.

"Who said that?"

"The landlord's grandmother told Cheol-hee's mother, saying that her mother seemed to be the one, saying that she was not sick and was lying all day."

Dad didn't say anything, just rubbed the rice vigorously.

"Huh? What is the evil disease? ”

As if to shut the child's mouth, the father shouted at the closed door, and the child was so frightened that he closed his mouth.

"Hey! Can't you go out today? ”

Dad slammed open the door.

"Can't go out?"

The basement room is also damp and dark during the day. Murky air filled the dark room. Mom curled up and buried in the quilt.

Daddy broke out again. Broke the dishes in the kitchen, ran to the bedroom, threw the family photo on the windowsill to the floor, and kicked the TV.

"Say!"

Dad roared, and suddenly felt like lightning and thunder in the basement.

"Because of that kid, you're pretending to be dead? Was it my fault that the boy was kicked out? ”

Dad cried out loudly, tiny white foam at the corners of his mouth, and his eyes were shaking uneasily, as if looking for something to fall.

"Son of a bitch, count him lucky that day. If the waiters hadn't persuaded him, his head would have flown long ago. Stinky Boy...... Laugh when you get beaten! ”

Dad yelled as if he was spitting. The Adam's apple throbbed up and down, and the clenched palm seemed to be able to crush even a piece of iron.

"If that's not the case, why not speak out...... Why didn't you say it! ”

“…… I can't live like this! ”

Mom got angry at that time.

In the past month, the mother, who couldn't even talk and shake her head, was able to burst out so loudly that the child couldn't believe her ears, and even shocked her more than her father's rage.

"Not a day or two, a month or two...... It's not a year or two, it's like this, how can you live this life...... It's a miracle now, you know? It's a miracle! ”

Mom's lips trembled slightly, and her messy bangs rested on her sunken eyelids.

“…… I can't live like this, how can I live so angry! I've had enough! This home has annoyed me! ”

The child curled up and curled herself up so that they wouldn't see it. But no matter how much she curled up against the wall, she couldn't get any smaller.

13

It's raining. Dad said that this place is in the south of Seoul, so it doesn't snow, it just rains. If it's like what my dad said, will there be a thick layer of snow in the yard in front of the basement where I used to live?

The rain hit the slate-tiled roof of the building in front of the hotel with a ticking sound that woke the child up. Dad was counting the money by the pillow. The morning after returning from selling the car, the envelope that my father took out of the hidden pocket of his jacket was stuffed with 10,000 won. But now, the money is gone, and the envelope is much thinner. The child, who was already depressed when he heard the sound of the rain, is now even more gloomy.

Dad said he was going to go out. I thought I would have to go home in the middle of the night after going out, but I didn't expect to come back after a while, carrying a transparent plastic bag with a lot of things such as boxed soju, peanuts and French fries. When the father took those things out of the bag, the child saw the dragon tattoo exposed under his sleeve, why couldn't the cyan ink wash off? Every time he was angry, the child stared with wary eyes at the beast that seemed to be about to burst out through the flesh.

The father did not look at the child, except for the occasional muttering of something inaudible, and occasionally pausing for a moment of contemplation. At that moment, the biscuit that was about to be unpacked fell from his hand.

Dad stared blankly at the falling biscuits, and his face darkened. At first glance, it looks like you've been exposed to the sun, but if you look closely, it's more like you haven't washed your face for a long time. How can a human face become as hard as leather? The child wondered. She held her breath to observe the face of her father, who had bitten down on the glass bottle and spit out the shards along with the blood. The child remembered the voice of his father two years ago when he was struggling to defend himself at the pillow, and he said that only then would he be considered a real man.

"That's right, why do you get drunk when you drink, huh? Husband! ”

"I'm pretty cute, isn't it? Because thanks to you...... I'm strong-blooded, what can I do? I can't help it, what do you say? ”

The child's mind conjured up the voice of his father's loud scolding.

"You know, I'm not the same as I used to be...... I'm not afraid of anything, damn it, and now I'm a coward. When passing through a construction site, you are worried that the bricks will fall and hit your head, and when the truck suddenly changes lanes from the rear, you will break out in a cold sweat on your back. You know why? It's all because of you! You know, you turned me into a coward and changed me. ”

14

Mom is back to work. As before, Dad dressed the chicken cut the night before with a wooden skewer, and Mom fried sugar pies and baked crucian carp cakes. If anything, it's that moms often get angry with their children. When the mother gets angry, she waves her hands as if she is about to hit the child or drop something.

Mom is 1.7 meters tall, with a long waist, and she is as elegant as a gymnast when she wears old clothes. Mom's skin is very white, and with a little lipstick, she will become as delicate and beautiful as a flower. But now mom doesn't wear makeup, and she's like a terrible witch when she's angry. All the child can do is curl up and make himself as small as possible.

"Enough is enough, enough is enough."

Now my mother is always annoying. When a child drops a few drops of sugar water while eating a sugar pie, or falls and soils his clothes, she will say that it is annoying.

One night, while Dad was cleaning up the chickens in the bathroom, Mom stopped smearing her lotion hand, suddenly turned to look into the child's eyes and said:

"I've had enough, my eyes are carved out of the same mold as that."

The child blinked at his mother, who pushed her shoulders away and turned away. The child's heart was hurt, and a wave of desolation welled up in his heart, and tears welled up in his eyes.

15

Dad who had drunk two bottles of boxed soju lay straight like a deflated ball. The child settled his breakfast with potato chips and curled up in the quilt to watch his father sleep. I remember last night when my dad rudely took his hand and called around like a madman. Thinking of the father's glowing green eyes glaring at him in the dark, the child closed his eyes tightly for a moment.

The child thought: It seems that Dad plans to stay in the house and drink without going out in the future. I have known for a long time that there will be such a day, and how has the money been spent during this time, which has become this point?

As soon as Dad's snoring sounded, the child in the autumn coat and pants got out of the quilt. Newly bought stockings and dresses are neatly stacked on the dresser, and children put on old sweaters, old skirts and old stockings, and wear old quilted coats over them. The pink coat that Dad bought didn't wear because it was raining outside, and she didn't have an umbrella and wanted to go out, but she didn't want to stain her new clothes.

The child walked out of the alley of the hotel with her lips closed, her hair pressed tightly to her forehead in the pouring rain.

She walked towards the crosswalk. The two children walking across from each other seemed to be a brother and sister, carrying school bags and wearing lilac raincoats. It looks like they've just come home from school, and school should have started. My child thinks it's time for him to go to school, but how can he get back to Seoul without a car?

The two children looked at her curiously, but did not talk to her. An aunt with an umbrella came out of the alley, held up the umbrella she brought to the two children, and the girl took off her raincoat and hat.

The child passed by them with his lips still closed. The aunt turned to look at the child, with a puzzled expression on her face, as if asking, "Whose child are you?" The child didn't want to be questioned by the aunt, so he stared down at his rain boots and quickened his pace.

"Where do you live?"

"Who's here to play?"

Whenever someone asks what his name is or what grade he is in, the child always shakes his head and does not answer, eager to avoid it.

After lunchtime, there were no customers at the snack bar next to the drugstore. The permed aunt is sitting in front of the TV watching a rerun of the weekend series. Seeing the child come in, the aunt handed the child a glass of water and didn't ask anything. The aunt just looked at the child carefully with curious eyes, probably remembering what the child did not answer when she asked her a few days ago.

"Come here and sit closer to the stove, right?"

"It's okay." The child muttered and hurriedly lowered his head.

It took a lot of time for the child to finish the broken eggs and instant noodles in the soup. The child came out of the snack bar and walked along the ridge path leading to the sea. After drinking the hot instant noodle soup, I felt that the rain was not as cold as it was just now. She gently stretched her shoulders, which had been curled up in the dining room.

The child knew that the sunset could not be seen in this kind of weather, and she was just curious if the dogs would still wander on the beach on a rainy day.

The brick and gravel road of the ridge path came to an end, and a dirt road appeared ahead, and the sticky dirt began to stick to the soles of the boots. The rain was getting heavier and heavier, and a big dog was wandering around in the distance.

The child turned and quickened her pace, she hated the way she looked discouraged. Purple lips trembled slightly, and his whole body was wet, along with his underwear.

16

"The thought of her eyes looking at that kid every day, just like she did at me, makes me ......"

Dad was already drunk, and said to his uncle in a low voice in a hoarse voice.

The child looked at the pork belly roasted on the gas stove, and the lard seeped into the radish on the edge of the pan.

A lot of oil came out of the pork on the baking sheet.

The child suddenly felt very nauseous. Whenever my uncle turned the meat with wooden chopsticks, the red blood stains on the pork slowly turned black. She felt sick to look at the pieces of meat. So when my aunt wrapped meat in lettuce, she always secretly spit it out, wrapped it in toilet paper and put it in the pocket of her yellow quilted coat.

"As soon as I remembered that her face was smiling at me and smiling at the kid, I ...... Eyes, the thought of those eyes, I ......"

Dad's face was flushed and he had a disheartened expression on his face. Dad picked up the bottle, and the child turned his head away, she was afraid that Dad would drop the bottle, and she didn't want to see Dad chew on broken glass like a beast.

"I'm going to kill them all, and then I'm going to die too. Taylon also kills, she also kills, and then I will die too. All of them are going to die! ”

In the early morning of the day I left my uncle's house, snow fell one by one.

"It's not dawn yet, it's still snow, can you do it? Brother-in-law, you haven't woken up yet. ”

The father gave the uncle a strange smile and took the child's hand.

The telephone pole in front of the townhouse had a red paint sign that said "No Parking", but our truck was parked there in a big way. The father ruthlessly shook off his uncle's hand, and the short uncle had to let go of his hand, and the aunt, who was shorter than his uncle and fat like a snowman, forced the money into the child's hand.

The child does not understand why the adult always gives money to the child, and does not understand why the child does not want the adult but has to give it, saying that he should not chase after him and stuff it in his pocket.

"Let's go back to Seoul."

The uncle carried the child into the truck and shouted to the father:

"You should have a good time back, shouldn't you? I have to think about Tailian, too. ”

Dad stared at his uncle, who was waiting for him to answer, but he was silent, as if he was deliberately angry with his uncle.

"Go back and give us a call."

Uncle closed the car door with an uneasy face, and Dad whispered a sentence:

“…… Where are we going back? ”

Dad activated the window wipers and a layer of snow fell like a fruit peel. I was able to see the outside world.

Snowflakes fell silently on the car windows, and then were scraped off by the wipers. Dad turned on the headlights, and the light shone on the dark path, and small snowflakes flickered in the air.

Dad didn't wear a seatbelt, and his eyes were glaring at the falling snowflakes. His eye sockets were blue, like a sick person.

"Daddy, wave your hand."

The child looked worriedly at his aunt, who was standing in front of the dilapidated gate in thin house clothes, and poked his father in the waist. Dad shook his shoulders like someone who had just woken up. Instead of waving, he nodded slightly. When the child waved goodbye, Dad started the car. My aunt rubbed her shoulders with her hands, which were exposed outside the warm vest, and stood in the snow and stamped her feet.

"Tylen ......"

When I came out of the alley of the townhouse and entered the main road, my father called out to the child. The child saw the father's melancholy side face, which was covered with a dense beard. Dad lifted his chin and looked straight ahead.

“…… Is it OK to die with Dad? ”

As if asking himself, he asked again with an "um":

"Dirty world, how about we both die together?"

17

The child washed his hair and poured some warm water on his naked body. After applying soap all over the body, I want to rinse but can't wash it clean. The child's teeth chattered from the cold. She used a towel to wipe off the water and residual soap foam from her body.

The child who came out of the bathroom hung his old soaked clothes on the hot floor and put on new clothes. There was a smell of disinfectant on the new clothes. She walked over to the dresser.

"Like her mother."

The child recalled what his mother's friend had said in Busan, and looked carefully at his face in front of the mirror. The forehead and back of the head of the person in the mirror protrude, and the seemingly stubborn face does not look like a mother or a father. She suddenly felt that her face was unfamiliar.

The child combs his hair with a coarse-toothed comb from the hotel. As you brush your hair through the ends, the cold droplets of water slide down to your shoulders. She picked up the towel that hung with her clothes and wiped her hair again.

The child tried to comb two braids, but it was not easy to comb, not as neat as the mother. Mom once said you can't braid your hair when it's wet. Anyway, it was wet hair, so she simply untied the braid that she had finally combed.

I remember that one morning my mother was in a good mood and didn't complain all day. Before going out for business in the morning, my mother took her child to the wholesale market and bought a green Sanqi school bag. Because the schoolbag I bought in the first grade is a little smaller for the children who are going to the third grade. The mother smiled and said to the child:

"I have to memorize this to school at the beginning of school."

When I got home, my father washed my feet in the bathroom, and my mother combed the child's braids.

"Aren't you going to sleep soon?"

Listening to the child's affectionate question, the mother replied, "Yes, but wouldn't it be better to sleep beautifully?" Mother dipped the water in the large bowl and combed it very carefully, and in a while she combed her long hair into a strong and beautiful braid.

The next day the child woke up with the mother gone. The child didn't cry, she didn't quite believe that her mother's departure was real, but she also didn't think that her mother would come back right away. I don't know when the child has learned to accept reality. No more fuss about what happened, she was used to suffering everything in silence.

It was dark in the house.

The child lies on the floor, far away from his father, holding a rag doll waiting to fall asleep.

When she was alone, she always slept with the light on. If you wake up from sleep and see the lights off, you know it's Daddy back. Seeing his father's back in the dark, the child was relieved. The moment when you wake up in the middle of the night and see that the fluorescent lights are still on is the saddest moment for a child. Children hate opening their eyes to see rooms that have become stranger and everything in the room is still as silent as it was before bedtime.

So for the child, it is already very fortunate and grateful for the fact that Dad does not go out in the afternoon for the first time these days. Although she hates the dark, she can tolerate it. She knew that adults and children were the opposite, when it was dark, they were not afraid and slept more soundly.

The child pulled the quilt to her head and blindfolded her, she imagined that the light was on outside the quilt, and that when the quilt was lifted, it was not gloomy darkness, but a bright fluorescent lamp, and bright sunlight shining all around.

In the dream, the child was bumping and shaking in the truck again. When I woke up and fell asleep, I found myself standing alone in the backyard of an orchard with many dead winter trees, scorched crucian carp scattered on the muddy floor. As soon as he stretched out his hand, the fish floated into the air, and they couldn't catch it even if they wanted to. They grinned, and she kept waving but couldn't catch them.

Hearing a strange sound, the child opened his eyes. I don't know who made the sound of rapid breathing. When the child lifted the quilt out of irresistible fear, he realized that it was actually his father's sobs. Dad was still lying on his side, in his bedtime position.

Perhaps because of the rain, the night was unusually dark.

Daddy's sobbing sound came and went, intermittently. The child gently pulls up the horns and plugs both ears. Daddy's sobs never seemed to stop, and the darkness never seemed to end.

The child wondered if the door to this room was locked from the outside. Have you forgotten that there is still Dad and me in this dark room? She felt the floor on which she was lying sinking into an endless abyss.

The child sat up quietly, and she looked around in the darkness and the back of her father, who had stopped sobbing and was motionless like a dead corpse.

"Is it a dream?"

The child begins to doubt what he has just heard. She chewed on her slightly salty thumb nails and carefully observed her father's back.

“…… It turned out to be a dream. ”

18

"What's wrong? What's wrong? ”

The child didn't know that she had just shaken her head and shouted loudly, and she rubbed her eyes, and her face showed an expression that was about to cry.

"I slept too deeply in the afternoon and dreamed."

Dad's deep voice was scattered on the child's forehead like shards of ice.

The rain seems to have stopped in the morning. The sun shone in and hit the wall opposite the window. Dad is sitting on the child's pillow. The smell of smoke and the cold wind hit the child's face together. Dad seemed to have gone out while the child was asleep, with oranges and bread on his right hand and a bottle of peanut butter. Dad bought those, and it seemed that the money left was only enough to buy those foods.

"Those dogs ......"

The child is talking to himself, and his voice is weak, like that of a sick person.

"What dog?"

The child sat up.

"Because those dogs ......"

Dad was still confused. The child, who didn't want to explain any more, said quietly in a voice that hadn't woken up:

"Dad, I'm hungry."

The child saw a twinkle in his father's eyes.

"Daddy, where are you going?"

Seeing his father walking towards the bathroom with bread and peanut butter, the child thought it was strange and asked. Dad glanced back at the child, squeezed out a strange smile, and the corners of his eyes twitched.

"Dad, what are you going to do?"

Dad turned his head and didn't answer.

The child slipped off the pillow on which he was sitting, sat on the floor, and peeled the orange peel. The child thought that his father's ochre-yellow corduroy pants protruding from the knees were ugly, like clothes from hundreds of years ago. As her mother used to say, she felt that she had had enough of this life and was tired of it.

19

Dad's hands trembled slightly, and his eyes were as red as sand. The child took the sandwich from his trembling hand, not knowing whether to eat it or not. Now she has no appetite at all, but her father just looks at her in such a stunned state, and it is not good not to eat.

"Where's Daddy? Doesn't Daddy eat it? ”

Dad took out a sandwich from his back and said he would wait for her to finish it later. Two slices of cornbread with peanut butter in between, a sandwich that her mother used to make for her. When the child is tired of crucian carp cakes and sugar pies and wants to eat other snacks, the mother always makes sandwiches with strawberry jam, peanut butter and grape sauce and cuts them into small triangles for her. It's just that the dad didn't know that the child didn't like peanut butter sandwiches the most before, and he always picked the strawberry butter sandwich first every time.

But now the child is hungry, and this is what her father made for her. So she held the sandwich in both hands, looked into her father's bloodshot eyes, and tried to smile at him.

Just as the child took his first bite, the father snatched the sandwich, then rudely pulled the child into the bathroom, buried the child's face in the washbasin and turned on the faucet.

"So Dad wanted to kill me."

The child's heart hung in the air, and he bit his lip in horror.

"Open your mouth! Open! ”

Pinching the child's nose, the father tried hard to subdue the rebellious child. The child opened his mouth, and the cold tap water rushed in.

"Don't swallow, spit out, spit out. You fool. Spit it out! Spit up! ”

But the child has inadvertently swallowed water.

Dad put his finger in the child's throat. The child vomited, and the orange he had eaten turned yellow and was spit out.

The child was in pain and was about to die, and he tried to run away but was pulled back after not running a few steps. Dad put his finger down her throat again. The child was so frightened that he didn't even have the strength to run away. She vomited yellow gastric juice and collapsed to the ground weakly, and the father, who was clinging to the child's shoulder, let go.

Daddy's legs were shaking, and he sat down on the toilet with his clothes on. The child saw that his father's face was wet, and he didn't know whether it was water or sweat. The shoulder, which had been grabbed by his father just now, began to hurt, and the child sat down on the tile floor and looked up at his father. She looked at her father's distorted face and heard his father's crying voice for the first time.

"I was wrong, Tylen...... It's Dad who is wrong. ”

The child no longer has the strength to cry. Listening to the terrible cry, the child wanted to die like this, and wanted to pass out and never wake up again. She wanted to be relieved forever from her uncomfortable stomach and stomach that wanted to vomit, and the smell of vomit, from the dim incandescent light of the bathroom and the hotel room in the middle of nowhere.

20

The child walked out of the hotel in a yellow quilted coat. She wiped the vomit from her sweater with her sleeve and looked up to cross the road when she suddenly stepped back again. The giant truck shook the entire road like an earthquake. The child looked around and crossed the road.

The sun is about to set, and the sky is full of colorful clouds. There was a dirt road that stretched far in the direction of the clouds, and the child walked along the road.

The clouds on the horizon reflected the glow, like a huge golden wing that could not see the whole picture. As the light changes, the huge wings seem to flapp silently. She turned around and noticed that the mountain behind the town was not quite the same as usual. The red stripes of trees on the ridge seemed to be slowly rising towards the sun, and the dry branches stretched out in the same direction, as if they were slowly approaching.

The child didn't know how long he had walked, and he didn't know when he had walked the cement road. The clouds are getting closer. The child felt the countless flowers and plants dancing, and felt the thousands of fruit trees and flowers falling.

The throat that was stabbed by my father is still aching. But the strange thing is that the child does not hate his father, but feels heartache when he thinks of him crying loudly. The unfamiliar pain made her steps heavy.

The child remembered what her mother had said, and her mother said that she liked her father because he cried very sadly. The child also remembered the endless worry and heartache reflected on his mother's face as she licked her injured knee.

The child thought, is that what the mother wants to say? looked at his father, who was shaking his shoulders and crying like a child, and wanted to comfort him and say "It doesn't matter". Maybe that's what Mom wants to say. Is this feeling tormenting my mother all the time, so she threw it away, and also left me and my father? The child thought again, maybe my father was more afraid of my mother's departure than I was, because he had been suffering in silence, so he was more lonely and afraid.

The sea breeze burrowed into the child's clothes. The child stretches his curled body as much as he can, and continues to walk. The uneven facades of illegally erected houses overlap each other in a blurred view. Now, the child is no longer curious about what the dog will be like in the evening. Because he has experienced heart-wrenching pain and has been lonely for a long time, the child is not afraid of anything at this moment.

The bitter wind swept across the child's blushing face. Messy strands of hair under flower hairpins flutter in the setting sun.