Story 2: BEGGAR
Genre: Adventure
A little girl lives as a beggar on the streets of Ba Sing Se. How does a person with such a background become the assistant of a wealthy genius inventor?
The Lower Ring of Ba Sing Se was home to the most unfortunate dwellers of the city. In a world where poverty, malnourishment and bitterness thrive, crime prospers. The reason behind the tragic event being thievery or something else, one day, Zhu Li's parents were gone. She was returning from school and saw the crowd gathered around their little shop. The crowd intentionally stopped Zhu Li from coming closer, but even from afar; she could see flames coloring the sky. Their little shop was made of wood. By now it was probably burned to the ground.
"Where are my mom and dad?" asked Zhu Li.
The old man who refused to let her approach what remained of the shop patted her hair and bit his lower lip. He glanced around, looked at the other people, as if they were somehow supposed to help him get through this. They all averted their eyes.
"Where are my mom and dad?" repeated Zhu Li.
A few whispers were exchanged. They reached the old man and a few people went looking for someone, as Zhu Li had understood.
"Everything's gonna be okay, child," the old man said, but his eyes were telling the contrary.
After a moment, from the crowd of people, emerged a woman whom Zhu Li recognized as the director of the orphanage where lived some of the other kids that Zhu Li knew from school.
"Come with me child," she said. "You have nobody left."
That's how Zhu Li learned that her parents, who had no family themselves, were now dead as well. The director was right. Zhu Li was alone.
For the first few days, Zhu Li was actually able to function normally. She was able to go to school, eat, even interact with other kids, as if nothing particular had happened. It was only when she woke up the fifth day, in the middle of the night, that the shock of realization really struck her: she was an orphan.
They all thought that she was sick, at first. But some understood. She would no longer eat, not want to leave her bed, and she had completely stopped talking.
However, the director and the educators didn't want to give up on her. The orphanage was too poor to afford a professional counselor or child therapist, but those who already worked their did their best to help. Zhu Li was talking again, but only when absolutely necessary. She seemed devoid of all emotion, however. On the flip side, they discovered that Zhu Li was extremely smart and interested in learning, in all its forms. She found a real passion within herself for assembling gadgets and avidly listened to stories of new discoveries that would arrive till the Lower Circle of Ba Sing Se through the mouths of merchants. Not too fond of talking too much herself, she learned to guess what people wanted or needed by their side-eyed glances, by their sighs or the way they chewed their lips, by the smaller gestures of their hands and by the overall position of their body.
But if it started to get better for a while, life could never be stable for too long in this part of the city. Due to the lack of funding, the orphanage had to close. Some kids were lucky enough to have families willing to adopt them and the educators foregoing procedures due to the situation of emergency; putting them into families as soon as possible. Some others escaped and got lost in the streets of Ba Sing Se. Some of the kids managed to get a bearable life, in a while. Some others became felons. And some others yet ended up beggars.
Stealing was out of question for Zhu Li, but it was not easy to bring yourself to put a hand in front of you and beg for food or money either. Zhu Li still had some pride left. But when hunger strikes, pride becomes obsolete.
The first few times when Zhu Li had to sit and outstretch her hand, she would hide her face behind her hat and sob weakly all the while. Some people took pity of the crying girl and tried to talk to her, but Zhu Li wouldn't answer. She couldn't find it in herself to speak.
If life taught Zhu Li one thing, it was that you can never stay miserable for too long. Even if the hardships are hitting you with all their strength, standing motionless and wishing them away wasn't likely to make them disappear. Zhu Li needed more food and energy than what she was getting through begging, and since the colder months were coming, she was going to need a thicker blanket too. So she started working. She was a fast learner and had strength that far surpassed that of an average little girl. She could do physical jobs for people and they would pay her. At the same time, she would glance at their electronic appliances, for those who had it, and think about the ways in which they were created. She imagined herself building great machines that would make the world a better place. She still slept in the street, but she promised herself that it wouldn't last forever. She had saved some money which she hoped would allow her to buy herself a few safe nights of sleep. Zhu Li was strong and it came in handy to be able to guess the intentions of people around you, but she had almost completely forgotten the feeling of complete safety. And she wanted that back.
A new announcement from the queen arrived. Inventors were to be banned from the Lower Ring. Or at least, that's what Zhu Li heard. It wouldn't be surprising coming from the queen, though... She had all the best people around her, but she wanted them to come from a certain background too. She wouldn't allow the best scientists to be out of her reach, but even worse than that would be having a scrawny scientists coming from a poor family. Therefore, she wouldn't allow such scientists to even exist. With her few miniature and poorly built machines, Zhu Li was not in danger yet, but this was like a final announcement that there was no life in this city for her. She had to get out of here, and quickly.
Zhu Li knew nothing of the world outside of Ba Sing Se. For all she could imagine, there was this same hunger and this strife for survival everywhere. So prior to the announcement, she saw no reason to try and escape. But now, getting far from this place was a question of life or death.
Luckily, Zhu Li was extremely observant. For several days, she followed the items transported through the city in order to be shipped away. She needed to reach the cargoes and to hide inside.
Being small and thin at the same time as being extremely fast allowed her to hide in a larger box that two men were transporting. They put it down to prepare the trolley on which they could put it and Zhu Li seized the opportunity to enter in the box and cover herself with a blanket. Nobody noticed.
Soon enough, she was inside a ship.
She had brought some food with her, but it was all gone very quickly. The worst were, of course, the bathroom breaks. She would need to go out of the place where cargo was held and run somewhere else, all without being noticed. This situation had lasted several days — two, three, four? — that Zhu Li had lost count of. All that she knew was that she was out of food and that this trip needed to end as soon as possible, else she would die here. But she didn't know where they were headed, how long was it going to last, and she had nobody to ask because she wasn't supposed to be here. The uncertainty was killing her. And what about her, while she was at that? What was she going to do once when they'll have reached their destination?
After a while, the boat stopped. Zhu Li hid in another box, replaced the lid, and let the workers handle it. She felt that she was put in the trolley once again and that someone was driving her, without stopping. There was no break for her to try and get out of it. After that, she felt that two people were transporting her.
"What's so heavy in it this?" asked a woman's voice.
"Stuff that you wanted me to get you!" answered a male one, grunting.
The box was put on the floor and they took the lid off, exposing Zhu Li to the light.
"Don't hurt me!" she begged, automatically covering her head and her face.
"Spirits..." whispered the woman, "What did you do?"
"I did nothing!" answered the one Zhu Li assumed to be the husband. "I didn't know she was in the box, how could... How could I even guess that?!"
"Did spirits bless us then?" said the woman, voice betraying amazement. "We have always wanted a child!"
Zhu Li raised her head and looked at the two people. They were an older couple, looking strangely happy to have her here. The man went down on his knees and looked at Zhu Li.
"Are you hungry, child?" he asked.
Zhu Li nodded.
"Where are your parents?" he asked again.
"They died," answered Zhu Li.
The man turned towards his wife. She went down on her knees to be Zhu Li's height as well.
"Do you want to stay with us?" asked the woman.
For the first time since her first days in the street, Zhu Li started crying.
Zhu Li's life had been as good as she could have imagined life to be. She lived in a modest family, but she still managed to get a good education. She didn't have many friends, but she was very effective in her work, and to her, that was what mattered the most. She worked in a team of engineers and created engines for the satomobiles. She was also interested in other areas of technological research on the side, but that, she did alone.
When she heard that a new invention was to be tested in the Southern Water Tribe, she had to go there and see it with her own eyes.
Zhu Li entered a dimly-lit room where the presentation was taking place. She took her seat and waited for the show to start. Within twenty minutes, the room was completely dark and only a beam of light was directed to the stage. A man dressed in watertribe clothes and a huge purple cape entered the scene. He took the cape off and theatrically threw it on a chair that was on the stage.
"Let the show start!" he yelled.
And the show started.
By the ways in which the man talked and acted, one would think that he was either childish or completely crazy, if it wasn't for the utter brilliance of each and every word he said. He was a genius, a mad genius, and the greatness of his mind shone through the demonstrations of his inventions. For the first time in her life, Zhu Li was impressed to the point of feeling sparkles of electricity running through her body. For the first time, she felt light-headed, and could sense blood pumping in her ears.
If this was happiness, then she was happy.
After the presentation, Varrick, as the mad scientist said that he was called, invited some of them to visit the next part of the exhibition. He climbed on the chair, looked at the audience with squinted eyes and then yelled:
"YOU!" while pointing a finger on various people in the audience. "You! And you! And you! And you! And you, and you and you and you and you! You follow me! For the rest... I bet you enjoyed this! Thanks for coming!"
Varrick made a deep bow and gestured for those that he pointed with his finger to follow him. How did he choose them, Zhu Li wondered. And why was she in the chosen group? They followed Varrick down the hall, a dozen of them, and they ended up in another room. This one looked like a mix of a richly decorated living room and a working room. It had heavy, deep red curtains and a fluffy carpet. Varrick turned towards them and looked at them with shiny eyes.
"You're in for the best day of your lives!" he said.
The audience of twelve — Zhu Li had counted them by then — seemed excited and dubious at the same time, expecting Varrick's next crazy idea.
"You're all gonna work with me tonight!" he said "I have a project to finish and you... You're gonna learn! So come!"
There were several seconds of silence. Varrick was already walking towards /something/ that he was building. The audience followed.
Varrick kneeled in front of what seemed to be the prototype of a huge suit, in which several people could enter. Zhu Li approached it with all the others, wondering what Varrick might be thinking about. On one hand, this might just be a ruse to get to finish his work earlier, with all these helping hands around him, but on the other... Varrick might be up to something else...
"Pass me the thing!" he told one man in the room.
"The... The thing, sir?" answered confusedly the young man that Varrick addressed.
"Yes, the thing the... The screwdriver," said Varrick.
The young man ran around, looking for a box of tools, but could find none.
"It's there somewhere," said Varrick, not even looking at them, gesticulating around the space where three other people have been.
With great effort (but within moments nonetheless!), they found the toolbox and ended up handing Varrick what he wanted. Or so they thought.
"Not this screwdriver!" yelled Varrick, "The other one!"
As soon as he said it, a screwdriver was handed to him. If Zhu Li had been slightly shocked by the general confusion at first, she was also impatient to see what Varrick was going to build. And even if Zhu Li was not the kind to put herself in the spotlight, since others seemed too confused by Varrick's vague indications, she took it upon herself to assist him. So she found the thing that he wanted and handed it to him. Varrick snatched it from her hand, without so much as glancing at her.
"Pass me the thing," he said once again, to another young man it seemed.
And once again, the person in question didn't know what to do. But Zhu Li did. So she passed him the thing.
This time, Varrick took a long look at her and she even thought that she had seen a shadow of a smirk on his face.
"Thank you," he said.
The machine was ready in a very short time. Zhu Li expected them to stay with Varrick for the entire evening, but they were finished in less than an hour.
"Now I need to see how this thing works!" said Varrick. "I'll do this thing here, and I need somebody to do the thing on the other side!"
Varrick moved to one side of the room and approached the lever. His eyes were sparkling with some crazy light and by this moment, the small crowd was downright afraid for their lives.
Almost automatically — or was it due to seeing that nobody else was doing it? — Zhu Li walked to the other wall. Varrick nodded his head and they pulled the two levers at the same time.
The seats inside the suit started moving. The "legs" of the suit moved too. It was a magnificent sight. Probably despite themselves, the small audience started applauding.
"It's working!" screamed Varrick with mirth, jumping in the air.
Then, turning to the audience: "Well, that's it, fellas! You have helped me building this thing! I know you enjoyed it! Hold these memories forever! Cherish them! One day, you'll be proud to transmit them to your children!"
He made another deep bow and the audience applauded once again, albeit giving him blank stares. They turned around and walked away. Before she joined the rest of the group, Varrick seized Zhu Li by the arm.
"Not you," he said. "I have an offer to make to you."
"An offer," she stated, rather than asked.
She glanced towards the door. Almost everybody already left. The last person in the group turned towards her and Varrick, probably thinking the same thing as Zhu Li now, but left almost immediately. Zhu Li turned towards Varrick.
"What kind of offer sir?" she asked.
Varrick made a huge smile and attempted to drag her towards the desk. However, he was unable to move her.
"What kind of offer, sir?" she repeated with a firmer tone.
Varrick walked towards his desk and sat behind it. He gestured to the chair in front of him.
"Take a seat!" he had, with a strange sort of jolliness in his tone.
Zhu Li was still on her guard, but she walked to the desk nonetheless. She sat on the chair on the opposite side of Varrick.
"What is your name?" Varrick asked.
"Zhu Li," said Zhu Li.
"Tell me about yourself, Zhu Li."
"There's not much to tell, sir," she lied.
"Okay then," answered Varrick. "Where do you come from?"
Zhu Li bit her lip and looked on the side. Varrick noticed the gesture. Zhu Li kept chewing her lip and took some deep breaths.
"I...I'm sorry, Zhu Li," said Varrick, slightly surprised by the way Zhu Li was acting. "If you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to."
Suddenly, Zhu Li turned towards him, giving him a hardened look without realizing it.
"I come from the Lower Ring of Ba Sing Se," she said, as if reciting a pre-recorded text. "After my parents died, I found myself in the orphanage. Then the orphanage closed and I was in the street. The life on the street is not an easy one in the Outer Layer of Ba Sing Se sir, especially not for a young girl."
Zhu Li tried to be as stern as serious as possible, to stop herself from betraying any kind of emotion. But if she was able not to feel anything, Varrick wasn't. He was listening carefully, with big shiny eyes. His eyebrows twitched several times.. He was a hilarious sight, but Zhu Li still found him attractive, in a strange way. She took another breath and continued her story.
"I escaped by hiding in a cargo when the queen put a ban on the scientists of the Lower Ring. As a kid, I knew that science was what I wanted to do. If the queen wanted us away, I'd leave. So I hid in a box which was transported away and a family found me. They adopted me and offered me a normal life."
Maybe Varrick expected her to go on, but she didn't see what else she could add. So she simply kept blankly staring at him until he found a way to answer.
"Um...I... I see..." coughed Varrick, seeming at loss for words for the first time. "I... I wanted to make you an offer and... I... I know I already said that, and..."
Varrick sighed, gulped, passed his hand through his hair and said:
"Zhu Li... Do you want to... Do the thing and work for me?"
"Work for you, sir?"
"Be my assistant!" Varrick suddenly yelled, no longer uneasy, once again full of energy.
Then he approached Zhu Li and made her stand up too, just so he could put his hands on her shoulders and bend a bit while talking to her, or so it seemed.
"If you accept, you're in for a crazy ride! You will get to see my fabulous inventions first-hand! And you'll want for nothing working with me! I'm a billionaire, you'll have all your expenses covered! You will even be able to send money to your family!"
"Are you that desperate for an assistant, sir?" she asked, keeping her deadpan tone.
"And you're funny at that!" he screamed, giving her a tap on the back which almost made her fall. "So we got ourselves a deal?"
He outstretched his hand towards her. Zhu Li eyed Varrick for a while, not really able to believe what was happening to her. She slowly approached his own hand towards Varrick's. As soon as their hands entered in contact, Varrick vigorously shook her hand.
"Excellent!" he shouted. "You're starting right now! And it's just about time for my tea!"
A/N: I always wanted to write a story of Zhu Li's origins... In my head, both her and Varrick come from modest backgrounds, but I figured out that for Zhu Li, it must have been particularly harsh... Anyway, this story was originally planned to be much shorter and I'm not exactly sure how I ended up with 3.5k+ words... If you guys like this story, I might expand it as a separate fic, with all the details and all that happened after Varrick's and Zhu Li's first meeting...
Until then, I leave you with this ^^
I hope you like it and don't hesitate to write me what you think :)