ISBH - Chapter 7
Chapter 7: Little Girl
As if pulled by an invisible force, Han Tian found herself drifting behind the little girl, following her as she ran little by little across the ruins and deep into the slum...
At first Han Tian was not used to the pull and tumbled along the way like a ball. Later Professor Han felt that floating upside down in midair was unsightly, and after gradually adapting to the force, she worked out the pattern and finally managed to drift upright.
She thought about it for a long time but still could not figure out why she was following this little girl.
Still, it was good to be able to leave that garbage dump.
Han Tian drifted to the little girl's side and looked at the messy top of her hair. She sighed and reached out to pat the girl's head, and sure enough her hand fell right through the hair.
Unlike the nothingness of passing through trash, when Han Tian touched the top of the girl's head she felt as if a faint electric current brushed past her fingertips...
But before Han Tian could react, the little girl had already run far ahead again.
Han Tian shook her head.
It must have been an illusion!
As the little girl ran farther and farther ahead, Han Tian was lifted into the air and drifted after her once more.
Under these circumstances Han Tian decided to let herself go. After all, she might have to spend ten years alone, so the first thing was to learn how to amuse herself.
Looking at her fluttering skirt around her, Professor Han struck a pose with flowing robes like the ones often seen in xianxia dramas on television. After drifting like that for a while, she could not help laughing at herself. "This feels really embarrassing."
"Who cares! No one can see me anyway."
"I feel like a big kite floating in the sky."
A huge moon hung in the sky. The houses in the slum were low, and dim yellow lights glimmered here and there from the shacks. The night crouched in the darkness like a giant beast, and the little girl ran nimbly and swiftly through it like a startled fawn fleeing through the woods.
Han. Big Kite. Tian followed behind the little girl, drifting all the way to the innermost part of the slum.
It was a brick house with two floors, with broken tiles on the roof and a tattered door that looked as if it could keep out neither wind nor rain.
There was a loud bang as the door slammed shut right in front of Han Tian!
Han Tian stood outside the door, blinking.
Should she follow her inside?
Han Tian was now in an insubstantial state, and this door could not stop her at all.
She thought it over but still could not get past her own scruples about trespassing into someone's home. Lifting her skirt, she decided to sit down by the doorframe...
She did not know if it was from drifting for so long or something else, but after following all this way, Han Tian felt as if the strength inside her had lessened a little more.
Lost in thought, Han Tian leaned back against the door without thinking. Before she realized what was happening, her whole body passed through the wooden panel and toppled inside...
Huh?
What had happened?
Half an hour ago she had still been able to lean against a tree!
Han Tian fell backward, and the upper half of her body tumbled into the house!
Han Tian stared with wide eyes, looking up from below at the little girl in front of her.
By the dim light of a candle, she finally saw what the little girl looked like.
The girl's face was covered in dust so her features were hard to make out. Her lower lip was dry and peeling. She was so thin that her face had lost its shape and looked smaller than a palm, which made her clear black and white eyes look especially large...
Han Tian blinked. Had she just met the little girl's eyes?
That couldn't be possible, could it?
According to the Spacetime Rules, no one should be able to see her.
Still, this little girl somehow gave her a faintly familiar feeling.
Yet when she looked again the next instant, the little girl had already looked away. Holding the candle, the girl walked to the bed, spread open a wrinkled book, sat down on the floor with her legs crossed, and began to do her homework by the yellowish light.
Only a short stub of the candle remained, and it probably would not last much longer.
Han Tian yawned and felt a little bored. For some reason, the strength in her body seemed to have recovered a little at that moment.
Had her colleagues at the Research Institute ten years later already started trying to rescue her? Was that why all these strange changes were happening to her?
Imitating the little girl, Han Tian gathered her skirt and sat down on the edge of the bed. She tentatively touched the bedframe... Sure enough, she could touch the bed!
Han Tian simply propped her elbows and sat facing the little girl, head tilted.
The distance was really too close, so close that Han Tian could see the girl's long and thick eyelashes...
The girl's lashes trembled and hid her gaze. Han Tian looked down and found, to her surprise, that the girl's handwriting was very neat.
The accuracy was quite high too. Looking through it, Han Tian saw the little girl had only gotten two problems wrong.
"This one is wrong! You should use the square root formula..." Han Tian muttered to herself.
"And this one can be simplified one step further..."
The candle slowly burned down to a short stub. Drowsiness washed over her again. Han Tian yawned and lay back. Feeling something solid beneath her, she felt a little more at ease and fell asleep with her head resting against the bed.
In her sleep her body felt faintly tingly, as if tiny electric currents were running through it. Pillowed against the bed, Han Tian turned over, unwilling to wake from her dream.
In the dream was Mo Sang, dazzling on the stage, her smile as bright as ever. "Han Tian, I climbed up from the very bottom step by step to get where I am today. I defeated myself little by little. Han Tian, you have to believe in yourself. You can definitely defeat loneliness too..."
The next day, when Han Tian woke up, she found herself on the floor again.
She tried to touch the edge of the bed, and just as she had expected, her hand passed through it again...
This really made no sense!
Shouldn't she have restored her energy after a night's sleep and grown stronger?
Why did it feel as if she was back to square one overnight?
The little girl was not in the house at the moment. She had probably gone to school.
Han Tian tried to walk out of the house.
But just as before by the garbage dump, it was as if an invisible chain bound her. Her movements were limited to a circle ten meters across centered on the house, and she could not go far at all.
Han Tian rubbed her head. She kept feeling as if she had overlooked something, but for the moment she could not recall what it was.
In the end Han Tian decided to give up on that flash of insight. What she lacked least now was time, and she would have plenty of time to think about this problem later...
In the daylight Han Tian could see the layout of the house more clearly.
In Han Tian's eyes the house was practically bare, with nothing but empty walls.
On the first floor there was only a bed, a shabby wardrobe, and a crooked table. On the table sat half a steamed bun, probably left over by the little girl. In the corner was piled a heap of glass bottles and discarded cardboard boxes.
The second floor was covered in dust. There was a huge cabinet and some abandoned odds and ends. The cabinet was locked, and its material looked strange, neither metal nor wood.
A dusty clock hung on the wall. Han Tian lay on the floor watching the second hand turn little by little. In the afternoon, just as she was beginning to feel drowsy, she heard noises from outside.
They were the voices of the migrant workers she had heard yesterday at the garbage dump.
"The door is shut. I told you that girl isn't home..."
"She probably went to school. I heard that girl got excellent grades before her father's accident..."
"Since we're already here, let's leave the fruit by the door..."
Then Han Tian heard the rustle of a plastic bag, followed by the sound of footsteps walking away.
So this little girl was the poor girl those workers had been talking about?
When Han Tian had heard those workers talking, she had been shocked by the time travel to ten years ago, but in order to get more information she had not missed a word of their discussion about this little girl.
The little girl's family had once been very wealthy, but while her mother was pregnant with her, her father had suddenly become obsessed with doing some kind of research. He quit his job with good pay and stayed home every day scribbling and drawing...
When the little girl was three, her mother could no longer stand her husband's idleness and ran off with someone else.
In order to get what he called "research funds," the little girl's father borrowed from every relative until, in the end, all the relatives cut ties with their family.
When the little girl was eight, this unfit father suddenly repented and started going out to earn money to support himself and his daughter and pay off his debts. Life visibly began to improve day by day, but when the girl was nine, her father was hit by a car and killed in the middle of the main road...
The compensation money was all divided up by the relatives he had owed money to. Because they had heard news of the coming demolition in this district, those scheming relatives thought of adopting the little girl to obtain the demolition compensation, but the girl refused to be adopted no matter what. No one knew what her father had instilled in her, but she firmly believed her father would come back in the future.
After that the little girl began living alone in this house, surviving on a small relief allowance and the money she made selling scrap, always waiting for her father to return.
By now, the little girl had been waiting for four years.
So this was the little girl's story?
She really was a stubborn little girl!
Remembering the girl's sharply protruding shoulder blades on her back, Han Tian pressed her lips together and suddenly felt a pang in her heart.
Time slipped by with the ticking sound of the clock. Han Tian felt no sleepiness at all. Staying in this silent space, she found the days especially hard to endure.
Whenever she thought that such days would continue for ten years, Han Tian could not help feeling anxious...
Yet for some reason, the little girl did not return for a long time.
It was not until about nine in the evening that, with a creak, the shabby door opened again and the little girl walked in with her head lowered and her schoolbag on her back.
The little girl carried a bag with several apples and a few bananas inside.
These must have been left by the door by those workers.
After staying alone in the room for so long, Han Tian felt a little happy the moment she saw the little girl and could not help drifting behind her and chattering, "Those workers brought these!"
"They seem to really like you, you stubborn little girl..."
"Hey! These apples haven't been washed..."
The little girl's lashes trembled lightly. She took out an apple and bit into it without washing it.
She ate the apple fiercely and fast, as if afraid someone would snatch it away!
"Eat slower or you'll choke," Han Tian sighed. "You have to take good care of yourself! Your father definitely wouldn't want to see you like this when he comes back..."
Han Tian did not know if it was her imagination, but the little girl hesitated for a moment and seemed to slow down.
After finishing the apple, the little girl took out her textbooks and started doing her homework again...
Han Tian crouched beside her and brushed against the edge of the bed without thinking, only to realize she seemed able to touch objects again...
Han Tian glanced at the little girl's exercise book and saw that the two problems she had gotten wrong last night had been corrected at some point.
"You're really smart to check your work and find your own mistakes..."
The little girl kept her head down over her homework without looking up. She seemed a little tired tonight, and as she wrote, her head drooped onto the edge of the bed...
Seeing the exercise book about to fall, Han Tian swiftly reached out and caught it.
In the very center of the shabby cover, two characters were written neatly, "Mo Sheng."
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