Yin Xiu stared silently at the woman's mournful face, then walked in expressionlessly.
Several children who usually bullied him stood on both sides of the orphanage corridor. Normally, they would come up to him with smiles and pick fights, but today they stood there silently for some reason.
Yin Xiu ignored them and walked down the corridor, step by step, toward the living room where they usually played and gathered.
"Yin Xiu." The woman behind him, who was crying, couldn't help but call out to Yin Xiu before he went in. Her face was full of hesitation. "Why don't you go find her later?"
Yin Xiu glanced at the woman out of the corner of his eye, but didn't say anything and stepped inside.
The first thing he saw upon entering the room was a small human figure lying on the ground, covered by a white cloth that concealed its entire body, with the hem of a skirt that Yin Xiu was familiar with peeking out from a corner of the cloth.
Yin Xiu stood there blankly, staring at the white cloth. "Is Xiaoxiao sleeping?"
The woman hesitated and did not respond.
Yin Xiu then stepped forward and lifted the white cloth himself.
Beneath the white cloth was a face he knew all too well, a face he most wanted to see smiling, but the face was ashen and bloodless, its brows and eyes tightly closed, devoid of any life.
Yin Xiu slowly reached out and touched her face, wiping away the dirt. He then gazed at her silently for a long time.
The room was completely silent. The people at the door dared not even breathe. Yin Xiu's silence was like the calm before a storm. The more suppressed he was, the more terrifying he became. No one knew how turbulent his emotions were beneath his silent exterior.
After a moment of silence, he slowly reached out and picked Xiaoxiao up from the ground. He murmured as he turned to leave, saying, "How could you sleep on the ground? You must be exhausted. Let me take you back inside."
His eyes were lifeless, and his voice was light and weightless, as if the body was still alive but just an empty shell.
The woman quickly stopped him, her voice choked with emotion, "She...she went to work at a place where they conduct experiments on children today...there's a certain degree of danger there, but none of it has ever happened before, and nobody expected her to have a rejection reaction..."
"Of all the children, only she had an accident."
"So Yin Xiu... Xiaoxiao has already..."
The woman's throat tightened, and she managed to utter with difficulty, "She's gone."
The few words of explanation were incredibly difficult to utter. She held her breath, observing Yin Xiu's reaction, fearing that this silent man might break down at any moment.
The people at the orphanage could see how hard Yin Xiu had worked for his sister; they had relied on each other to get to where they are today.
Now that Xiaoxiao is dead, Yin Xiu has not shown much reaction from beginning to end. He is calm, silent, and even a little quiet.
He carried Xiaoxiao silently past the woman, walked through the corridor, and returned to the dilapidated little room where the two of them lived.
The door closed, shutting out the woman's cries from outside, leaving only silence in the room.
The person who was smiling and waving at him this morning, waiting for his return, can no longer show any smile.
Yin Xiu's mind went blank, unable to think of anything. He sat on the edge of the bed with his head down, staring at the person on the bed. He tentatively used his finger to push the corner of Xiao Xiao's mouth, making a smile appear on her pale face.
The brief arc made her look as if she had come back to life, instantly returning to the past.
But as soon as he loosened his grip, his pale face returned to its deathly stillness.
Yin Xiu couldn't discern his current emotions. He only felt a commotion in his head, as if something was breaking down and collapsing, just as his life could never be pieced back together to its former state.
He didn't know what to do, so he could only sit by the bed hoping that his sister was just sleeping for a while, and that when she woke up she would open her eyes and act cute towards him like before.
The woman outside the window kept crying. She kept pulling and nagging at the director. She was the one who took care of almost all the children in the orphanage. Of all the children, Xiaoxiao was the most obedient and well-behaved.
On that bitterly cold day, she was the one who greeted the two shivering little ones at the door, taught them to read and grow, and was considered one of the gentler people to Yin Xiu and the others.
Now that Xiaoxiao is gone, she is just as devastated.
But in the entire orphanage, only she broke down, only her crying and shouting could be heard. The other children were either quiet or laughing. Apart from the woman's crying, it was as if Xiaoxiao's incident had never happened. Even the director was only uneasy for a while before calming down.
"Burning him or burying him is fine. He's just a little kid. Why make such a fuss? Anyway, he has no parents and we don't know where he came from. He doesn't even have a household registration. Let him die if he's dead." The dean's voice sounded more terrifying than the cold wind that could kill.
The children playing in the corner of the yard began to whisper among themselves, "How come only she died? Everyone else is fine?"
"So what if she's dead? With her gone, no one's going to steal my candy."
"But her brother has become so scary, he didn't even cry."
"Her brother was already a monster, but now that his sister is dead, he's even more of a monster."
"Won't he go crazy and beat us up?"
"If anyone's going to fight, it should be that guy... Didn't he say before that he wanted his sister to die, to teach him a lesson? Do you think it might be him..."
"Shh, stop talking, don't let anyone hear."
"I didn't expect that he would remember this incident after his tooth was pulled, and that he would actually take action against it."
"If we don't tell anyone, no one will know."
hushed whispers drifted in through the broken glass windows. The soundproofing of each room was indeed quite good, but only Yin Xiu's room was very dilapidated, barely blocking out any outside noise, something they had never known before.
Because they were the last children to arrive and the most ostracized, they ended up in a dilapidated house that no one wanted to live in—a house that leaked rain, let in drafts, and offered no protection from the cold or heat—things the other children were unaware of.
Even so, Xiaoxiao never complained and was as enthusiastic as the rising sun every day.
Silently sitting on the bed, Yin Xiu slowly raised his eyes and looked out the window, meeting the gazes of the panicked children.
The children were frightened by the lifeless look in his eyes and hurriedly dispersed from the yard.
Half an hour later, the woman stopped crying. She probably knew that crying was useless, so she tidied up and went to cook. The whole orphanage depended on her to run, and it couldn't function without her.
After all the sounds gradually faded away, it was as if no one remembered Xiaoxiao's story except for Yin Xiu.
Only he lost what was most important to him, only he could no longer live, while all the culprits remained unharmed.
The director received a large sum of compensation, and the children's lives became more prosperous. Everyone was moving towards a better life, except for his sister, who was destined to rot in the ground and never see the flowers of spring again.
Yin Xiu's eyes were as gloomy as the sky outside the window, which was gradually darkening.
Laughter filled the kitchen, while the house remained completely silent.
His chaotic and incoherent mind gradually descended into madness as it collapsed.