When they arrived ho, no usual gentle voice greeted them. The only thing left was an eerie silence, as if foreshadowing the gloominess that soon would spread in the house.
"Mom, we are ho!" Dai Shenqiang jumped off of his brother's back and ran excitedly inside. However, due to how small their house was, it wasn't long for him to notice that the person he was looking for was nowhere to be found.
"Mom? Where are you?" Dai Shenqiang checked on the bathroom and their parent's room, but their mother was nowhere to be seen.
anwhile, Dai Zhiqiang sat on the sofa while trying to check for injuries on his body. He got a few scratches and swelling here and there.
The most apparent scratch was on his forehead and on his knees. He probably wouldn't get scolded if he moved fast and treated it before his mother ca ho.
Thinking like that, Dai Zhiqiang rose up and was about to fetch his towel from the laundry hung on the back veranda. He walked past the kitchen, glanced to the side, and noticed that the faucet wasn't shut off properly and dripped water droplets.
That was when he also glimpsed an envelope on top of the dining table. It was put in such an inconspicuous spot that one would easily miss it if they just passed by.
However, for so reason, that envelope caught his attention almost imdiately.
Her mother's absence and a mysterious letter with no na indicating its sender.
Dai Zhiqiang already had an awful premonition then. Despite the nagging uncomfortable feeling in his gut, he still reached out to check on the content.
The envelope was unsealed as if the sender did it deliberately so anyone who found it could read it. Inside, there was a letter containing a few lines describing a woman's unhappiness and also her heartfelt apology for not being able to continue acting anymore.
Because her happiness lay elsewhere. Sowhere else, that wasn't their small house.
Dai Zhiqiang stared down at it with confusion and shock on his face. It didn't take a minute for him to finish reading the letter, yet he sohow couldn't comprehend the aning even after the fourth or fifth ti reading it.
A kind and gentle woman who always smiled at them was no longer here.
As a kid familiar with letters and numbers, Dai Zhiqiang knew her mother's handwriting very well.
Everything written in that letter was his mother's genuine feeling towards the Dai family.
"What is this?" Dai Zhiqiang mumbled softly to no one, still having yet to overco the shock that rendered his body frozen in place.
"Big brother, Mom isn't here. Do you think she got too imrsed in shopping again? She always cos ho late these days."
His little brother's voice sounded so distant, but he still could catch the crucial information.
Co to think of it, their mother had indeed been coming ho late. Wouldn't it an that she had planned on doing this since a few days ago?
The realization hit him like a truck. He couldn't think of anything, but his body reacted first.
"Huh? Big brother, where are you going?!"
The older boy paid no heed to his brother's call and barged out of the room in haste. If his hunch was correct, it shouldn't be too late now.
"Mom is clumsy, so she always forgets to shut off the faucet completely. The area around the sink is still wet. She should still be around here!"
Even he didn't know why he could think of that when his heart pumping blood so fast to his head.
He just desperately wanted to et his mother and ask her to return. By the ti he realized what he was doing, he had run so fast, shocking and bumping into a few other pedestrians. So scolded him for being an unruly kid, but he only had his mind on one thing, which was to get his mother back.
His childish heart still believed that there must be a mistake in all of this. If there was such a mistake, he would do anything he could to fix it.
Dai Zhiqiang's legs throbbed so hard. The injury on his knee and calves were still fresh, yet he couldn't stop now. Each second was precious.
Only then did he realize a genuine fear. The fear of being abandoned.
He panted hard when he finally reached the subway station. Many people were there, and he wasn't sure if he had even co to the right place. He just knew that this was the place where they used to wait for his father to co ho.
At that ti, why didn't he notice it? His mother's deanor changed whenever their father waved their hand and walked over from the station.
She always asked them if they wanted to wait in front of the station for their father's arrival with a bright face, yet that smile faded when his father actually ca.
When he thought about one suspicious behavior from his mother, the rest ca into his head like a series of photos. It etched into his mind as sothing strange he couldn't cast aside, yet he didn't understand the aning until today.
The more he understood, the more scared he beca.
"Mom, you aren't really leaving us, right?" Dai Zhiqiang muttered as he darted around to search for his mother's figure.
He searched for quite a while, even threatening to barge through the station gate without money and causing a bit of commotion.
"You brat! Where the hell did you co from? Where are your parents?" One of the station staff pulled him by the collar and yelled.
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"Kiddo, you shouldn't barge in like that. It's dangerous!"
"I know! But if I'm not in a hurry, I will lose her!" Dai Zhiqiang yelled back in a slightly cracked voice, causing the two officers who held him back to exchange helpless glances.
The commotion also attracted a lot of passerby's attention. Most of them looked at the boy sympathetically, and it made the two staff feel conflicted about whether or not they should chase the boy away.
In the end, one of them relented and said, "Fine, we'll let you in and search for your mother, but you can't run as you please!"
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