【Yumemi Miu has largely recovered her health after treatment. As long as she takes her medication on time every day, her heart condition should not recur.】
【Asano Nao let her attend an elementary school in the countryside. The school is not far from home; even at a child’s pace, it only takes fifteen minutes to get there. This elementary school is shared by several villages, with only one class per grade.】
【At first, she was worried about her daughter and asked her grandmother to pick up and drop off Yumemi Miu every day. Two years later, when Yumemi Miu entered the third grade, they felt it was no longer an issue and stopped escorting her.】
【Yori Village is a small village where the residents are very familiar with each other. Such a close-knit society is peaceful and stable, but it also makes it difficult for outsiders to integrate.】
【You were prepared. Under the temptation of your money, a family in the village accepted you as a distant relative. Using this family’s connection, you settled in the village.】
【In the first week in Yori Village, with the help of that family, you met more than half of the villagers and had pleasant conversations with the village women. This allowed you to wander around the village without being questioned by the residents.】
【You also used your connections at the agency to invite a councilman from the town where the village is located. The councilman came to the village twice to support you, earning you the villagers’ respect.】
【You bought the village’s only small shop, did some simple renovations, and made it your main business. You officially became a member of Yori Village.】
【The small shop is the only one in the village and is located next to the school. Sitting in the shop, you could see all the students coming to school, including your daughter.】
【Yumemi Miu was very interested in the newly renovated shop, but she was somewhat shy and had never visited. On a summer holiday morning, you finally found an opportunity to lure her to your house.】The memory scene unfolds.
Approaching August, the sun in the sky grew more intense. Every noon, the air seemed to be baked by the sunlight, creating a distorted shape in the vision.
Yumemi Miu woke up from the heat and opened her eyes to see complete darkness.
In the darkness, a pair of arms were holding her, and her head was resting on a soft but stuffy place.
“It’s so hot, stop leaning on me!” She pushed away her mother’s arms. The fan beside the bed whirred, but the wind it blew couldn’t stop the summer heat at all.
She sat on the edge of the bed, letting the fan blow on her for a while, waiting for the still-sleeping brain cells to wake up, then she pulled open the curtains and opened the window.
A groan came from the bed, and the strong light that shot into the room forcibly woke the woman on the bed.
Asano Nao shielded her eyes with her hand and sat up groggily.
“Mom, you closed the window again!” Yumemi Miu scolded her.
“Because it’s dangerous. How can you sleep with the window open at night? What if a wolf climbs in…”
“The Japanese wolf has been extinct for over a hundred years! And if you want to keep the windows closed, you should get someone to fix the air conditioner!”
Yumemi Miu took off her pajamas and took a light blue dress from the wardrobe to put on.
“No way. Just thinking about a stranger coming into the house makes me shiver.” Asano Nao hugged her arms, expressing her fear.
“Aren’t there more people at the hospital? You don’t have any problem going to the hospital.” Yumemi Miu couldn’t understand her mother.
She was also afraid of strangers, but compared to an air conditioner repairman, the crowd at the hospital was even scarier. Her mother took her to the hospital for check-ups every month without fear of meeting a lot of strangers, but was scared of a single repairman.
Asano Nao thought, going to the hospital is for your health. How can it be the same as getting the air conditioner fixed?
She didn’t say it out loud, fearing to pressure her daughter. She deliberately avoided mentioning her daughter’s illness.
“When is Grandma coming back?” Yumemi Miu asked again.
If Grandma were here, the air conditioner would have been fixed already.
“Grandma, well, she probably won’t be back for a few more days.” Asano Nao adjusted to the brightness. She beckoned her daughter over.
Yumemi Miu walked to her bedside. She took her daughter’s hand and looked at the girl’s cute chubby face, showing a delighted smile.
“Why do you smile at me every day? The moms on TV don’t do that. Is it because you’re useless, Mom?” Yumemi Miu said, in an innocent tone, but the words were harsh.
Despite having accepted her own uselessness, Asano Nao still felt a bit embarrassed facing her daughter’s verbal attack.
She stroked the girl’s face, her fingers brushing over her lips. “That’s right, but Miu mustn’t be like Mom. Quickly freshen up and go play with your friends!”
The mother and her daughter walked out of their room together, washed up at the sink, and went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast.
Worried that she might suddenly encounter an accident, Asano Nao had taught her daughter how to do laundry, cook, and shop online early on, making sure she could survive on her own even as a primary school student.
She had also left a contingency plan, a sealed envelope for Miu to open when she had no other options. Inside the envelope was her father’s contact information.
After breakfast, Miu was left to clean up the dishes while Asano Nao went to the second bedroom, opened the household shrine, and performed her daily prayers.
Yumemi Miu dried the dishes and placed them on the rack. She got down from the small stool, wiped the water splashed on the floor with a mop, and walked over to her mother.
With her hands clasped and eyes closed, her mother was praying. In front of her in the shrine wasn’t a memorial tablet or a photograph, but a handkerchief sealed in a plastic bag.
For a while, Yumemi Miu suspected her mother had joined some cult, worrying herself sick over it. After all, keeping a handkerchief in the shrine was just too weird.
As years passed and her mother didn’t turn into a fish person or a lizard monster, Miu finally felt relieved.
Once, she saw on TV that people would offer incense to photos or memorial tablets in their shrines. So she secretly took her grandmother’s incense burner and sticks, placed them in front of the handkerchief, and respectfully lit one.
When her mother found out, she immediately removed the incense burner and pinched Miu’s cheeks for a long time, making her write a promise never to offer incense to the handkerchief again.
Yumemi Miu couldn’t figure it out. Not only was the item in the shrine unconventional, but even the way it was worshipped was against the norm. She asked her mother many times, but her mother never answered.
Now, at the age of eight, Yumemi Miu had learned the necessity of setting aside her doubts.
She knelt beside her mother, clasped her hands together, and prayed to the handkerchief just like her mother did.
Unknown handkerchief god, please listen to my request. Crawl into my mother’s head and take away her idea of forcing me to go out and play.
Let me stay peacefully at home!
Her prayer seemed to backfire as Asano Nao opened her eyes the next second and asked, “Where are you planning to play with your friends today, Miu?”
Useless handkerchief!
It’s completely ineffective!
Yumemi Miu cursed in her heart.
She didn’t turn to her mother. She didn’t need to look; she could already imagine her mother’s hopeful expression. Her mom, who stayed at home without any friends, always wished Miu had lots of friends.
“Today, I’ll just walk around the school,” Miu said.
“Isn’t the school gate closed?”
“We can climb over the back wall. Everyone does it.”
“Amazing, that’s my girl!”
Her mother’s praise made Yumemi Miu uncomfortable. She quickly stood up, “I’m going out to play!”
Stepping out of the house and into the blazing sunlit open space, the little bit of motivation she had mustered quickly dried up, scorched, and turned to ashes.
She had lied to her mother. She didn’t have any friends.
Before she started school, her mother never allowed her to go out. Every few days, they would visit the hospital. In first grade, their hospital visits decreased, but her grandmother picked her up and dropped her off at school every day, giving her no chance to interact with other kids.
In second grade, her grandmother and mother relaxed a bit. Her grandmother brought gifts to the nearest girl’s house, asking the girl to play with Miu and promising weekly snacks as a reward.
That girl only wanted the snacks and had no intention of being friends. Miu found the girls’ games like cat’s cradle childish and uninteresting.
Thus, she and the girl developed a tacit understanding. Miu could lie about having a best friend, and the girl wouldn’t expose her. The girl could receive her grandmother’s “salary” without actually being her friend, and Miu wouldn’t expose the girl.
Since her grandmother and mother had moved to the village later on, the villagers rarely interacted with them, so they wouldn’t expose the truth either. The deception continued this way.
She wandered aimlessly along the rural paths. The sun was hot, few people were out, and water buffaloes in the fields lay resting on the ground.
Suddenly, she heard a burst of laughter as a group of children dashed past. Among them was the girl who received “payment” from her grandmother. The girl glanced at her but continued running without stopping.
Silence returned around her.
What should she tell her mother she did when she returned home?
She pondered while walking.
Unknowingly, she passed by the small shop near the school.
“Hey, little girl over there!”
A voice suddenly called out to her.
She looked around and confirmed she was the only little girl there.
Are they calling me? She looked in the direction of the voice.
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