Chapter I
I was born the cursed child. Mrs. Li, that's what everyone calls my mother, died of childbed fever only days after I was brought upon this wretched world. My father, he sent me to live with my widowed aunt Aihua and her two children.
I can still remember it like yesterday. It was a rainy Thursday afternoon; I was playing with Juliet, my neighbour's 5 year old darling daughter, when a woman dressed in baggy blouse, old black skirt, faded red shawl came to pick me up from the nursery. She signed some paper and toke me with her onto a train leaving for Shanghai; little do I know that I won't be able to return for a long time. But for the time being, I just thought of it as a great adventure, a break from my old, boring life in the nursery.
It was well into the night when we stepped down from the vehicle and onto a filthy station piled with people. The woman toke my hands and led me swiftly through the crowd and into an equally filthy waiting room. 'Now stay here, dearest niece. I will be back in a few minutes,' that's what all I was instructed before she sharply turned around and stalk away to the next room, which I later figured out, was a basement with no light or doors.
I looked around the new environment around me. Hardly scenery to a four year old child- the room was dimly lit by the few gasoline-powered lamps; the floor was littered by juice cartons, food containers and some slimy plastic wrappers, which later I too, recognised.
The woman who toke me here stumped towards my tiny figure and swoop me over her arm, and without another word, she toke me outside. The Shanghai night was busy and bustling like daytime in Nanjing where I once lived. I yawned drowsily in her arm, and fell into a deep, dreamless slumber.
It was some time before I came out of my temporary coma caused by the hours of train ride. I woke up in a small bedroom; the walls are a simple white, the bed sheets were lush crimson. I sat up, noticing that I was in a periwinkle blue nightgown. I tiptoed over to the door, making sure to keep quiet, and opened the heavy oak door, a little at the time. I crept along the dark corridor. 'I see you have awaken, dearest niece,' a voice behind me made me stop harshly upon the cold marble floor.
'Where is my father?' I asked, careful not to step on the gown as I make way to the voice.
'The irresponsible man you called father have abandoned you to meet your poor mother on the other side, my dear child,' the woman replied in a neutral tone, but it cannot hide the cold and dominance in her voice.
I froze. My father, abandoned me? No! Never! Of course, being a girl of age four, I wouldn't understand what this woman meant by meeting my mother on the other side; I just thought of it as a sick, sick joke, something to test me. 'Return me to my father this instance!' I commanded harshly through chokes of tears.
The woman smiled warmly. Though even through the beaming mask which she put on so suddenly, I can still sense cold, anger, and even hatred. 'Well, you'll get use to this fact that your father has leaved you alone in my care. Now I haven't properly introduced myself, now have I?' She grinned. 'I'm your aunt Aihua, sister of your diseased mother, and I will be taking care of you until you came to the age of 18.'
She led me along the darkened corridor; my feet shuffled upon the floor. There was light at the very end of this small journey; she escorted me through it, and inside, I saw two children about my age- one girl with shoulder length pink hair tied in a neat ponytail behind her head by a peach color ribbon; she was dressed in a white blouse neatly tucked into her pink trimmed silk Capri. The other one was a boy of long black hair dressed in a white shirt and blue cargo pants. Aunt Aihua spoke again in her clear, slightly squeaky voice, 'This is your cousin Mariah,' she nodded to the pink haired girl who was playing with a wobbly pink top. 'And that's Rei,' the boy smiled pleasantly, almost too pleasantly, at me.
It was from that moment on; I've decided that I mustn't trust anyone in this household. And it may be from that point on; that I have to live my life in distrust, doubt, and constant fear of poison slipping into my food and drink my deceitful, pink-haired cousin, Mariah.
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shifty eyes
Well, this chapter took a long time, so my estimate of my next update would probably be between 5 – 10 days sorry for the inconvenience.
Smiles broadly
TS signing off