Tomorrow is Chinese new year. People were preparing for tomorrow with excitement and anticipation. Everywhere you looked had a festive atmosphere.
"Mom, I want to eat that." A small chubby-looking boy points toward a delicious-looking strawberry cake, which was being displayed in the store window, and shouts with excitement towards his mother.
The boy's mother, who looks to be in her 30s, wore a warm smile on her face and looked at her son, who was dragging her towards the cake shop.
"Alright, stop dragging me. I'll buy it for you, but you cannot eat more than one piece, or you will have a toothache and keep crying all day tomorrow."
"Thank you, Mom!" The chubby boy was happy hearing his mother's words and stopped dragging her.
The road was bustling with crowds. People of different age groups with different fashion could be seen everywhere. Some were young and energetic, who had just reached adulthood, coming out with their peers to have fun; they seemed curious about everything around them.
While some were in their 30s, but looked way older and exhausted due to the work pressure, they had dark circles around their eyes due to the lack of proper sleep for a long time.
Everyone was busy in their own world, and no one paid attention to the thin and messy figure by the roadside who was looking at the loving pair of mother and son.
The young man looked to be about 16 to 17 years old, but his actual age was 21 years. He wore a thin t-shirt and a black jeans despite the cold winter; it's not because he wasn't afraid of catching a cold. It's because he doesn't have any warm clothes at home.
Xie Fang stared at the cake shop's door, which has been closed for a while, with his dark and bottomless pair of eyes like a statue.
His thin figure looked as if it would be blown away by a strong wind. "-Don't you understand !" Suddenly, an angry voice caught Xie Fang's attention.
The voice was coming from his left side; an old man was standing there, staring at him with an angry face.
The old man continued, "Are you deaf? I'm telling you to move aside, can't you hear?!"
Xie Fang looked at the old man, but didn't say anything. People were staring at them while passing by and whispering among themselves.
"Sorry," the old man was angry with this young but insensible child who didn't know how to acknowledge his mistake and was about to say something when he heard a hoarse voice.
Xie Fang moved to the side to give way for the old man to pass by and bowed, "I'm sorry."
The old man was left speechless from the sudden apology but quickly came back to his senses and said, "Um, just look at where you are standing next time."
After saying that, the old man walked away. Xie Fang walked around the bustling road of E city for a while. After he got tired, he walked towards his home.
He walked for a long time, from an area once lively and bright to one where hardly any person could be seen. The road was dark without any streetlights on. After walking for an hour, he finally returned to his old and moldy home.
The area where he stays right now was supposed to be destroyed and reconstructed into a gambling place for rich people.
Many people who lived here before had already left this place after getting money, but in the end it became an abandoned area due to some unknown reason.
The people who had left also never returned, and this place became a house or hideout for beggars and criminals. He found this place when he got kicked out of his 3rd job and moved here since then.
As for Xie Fang's parents, he never got to know who his parents were, or why they left him, and he didn't try to look for them either because life was already hard and he didn't want to add more drama and tension.
Since he was little, he was a quiet child. He didn't talk to other kids when he was in the orphanage, and even if someone came to talk with him, he would just stare at them.
It made others around him feel uncomfortable. So they start to call him an "abnormal boy" behind his back.
After he got older, he left the orphanage and found a part-time job where he had to work hard for a little bit of money due to not having an university degree.
He worked hard but never stayed long in any job due to his non-socializing behaviour with customers and the staff members.
Today was the same; he got kicked out of his nth part-time job. Tomorrow he has to get up early to look for part-time job, or he will have to stay hungry till he finds one.
Xie Fang opened the door of his "house" which looked rusty. It produced an irritating sound, but he didn't care and went inside.
There was a weird smell in the air that filled the whole house. The house was dark with no lights on, but the faint moonlight coming from the window made it possible for people to see a little bit but not clearly.
The wall of the house looked moldy; the paint was peeling off. It didn't look like a place for people to stay at all. The whole house was empty with no basic facilities like a table or even the carpet on the floor.
Xie Fang went to his room, where there was a single bed at the corner and a closet to keep his torn and old clothes.
The bed makes a creaking sound when Xie Fang lies on it as if it's going to break at any moment.
There was faint moonlight as a source of light in the dark room. The time was moving slowly, silence filled the room, and everything was still as if someone had clicked a pause button.
"Haa..." Xie Fang took a long and heavy breath with a painful expression. He felt like thousands of ants were crawling all over his body, but he knew it wasn't.
This was some other abnormal "thing" that was sucking energy from his body. He felt numbness and pain all over his body, like he was going to die, but he knew he wouldn't.
He knew this abnormal "thing" wanted to torture him physically and mentally, making him feel like he was going to die, before letting go with satisfaction.
He felt like a prey who knows that the hunter is right behind him but can't run away because he knows that he wouldn't be able to run away from it; he knows that this hunter will chase him to every corner of the world. Him running away will only make the hunter more excited.
Long ago, he had tried to get rid of this "thing" but he couldn't. So, he had hoped for someone to come and save him from this misery.
He had prayed to God; he had asked for help from others, but the god didn't listen, and other people looked at him like he was some kind of lunatic.
At some moment he had also thought to himself if he was really a lunatic... but the pain all over his body couldn't be fake, right?
Xie Fang was curling on his old bed, groaning in pain, trying to suppress it, when a blue ball of light appeared in front of his eyes, making the once dark and cold room bright and warm.
The blue ball of light looked at the tiny human being in front of him with heartache and said in an inaudible voice, "I finally found you..."