Holding his umbrella,
He took a vehicle to the Hanjiang Welfare Institute. Although visiting hours had long passed, Chen Ge happened to know the gatekeeper, and was also on familiar terms with one of the caretakers who looked after
After waiting outside for a few minutes, Chen Ge was brought into the welfare institute by that caretaker.
"Are you here to pick up Fan Yu? The boy has gotten much better lately. I'm not sure what happened, but he's stopped locking himself in that little room. He's started trying to interact with other people, and his drawings aren't so frightening anymore. Besides black and red, he's begun using other colors too." The caretaker was quite happy and kept praising Fan Yu.
Chen Ge wasn't sure whether Fan Yu's transformation had anything to do with the painter from the Psychic Ghost School. Maybe his knot had been untied, or perhaps the painter had secretly slipped out after leaving the Psychic Ghost School and paid Fan Yu a visit.
Anything was possible — the painter was an existence no one could figure out.
"I'm here about something else." Chen Ge followed the caretaker inside. He folded his umbrella and pulled a photograph from his backpack. "Could you take me to see the director? I have something very important to ask him."
"The director has already gone home for the day. You can ask me instead — there's nothing going on in this welfare institute that I don't know about."
"What I want to know is about something from ten years ago, when this welfare institute was still a private orphanage. You were probably still in school back then?"
"Ten years ago?" The caretaker thought for a moment. "Why don't you ask the gatekeeper? He's been here the longest of all our staff. He was already manning the gate back when it was a private orphanage."
"All right." Chen Ge invited the old gatekeeper into the room and handed him the photograph. "Do you recognize this boy?"
"There's not even a face on it — how am I supposed to tell?" The gatekeeper held the photo up to his eyes, his wrinkles bunching together. "Who can remember things from ten years ago clearly?"
"Think carefully. Was there a girl with a very poor memory at the orphanage back then? This boy should have been her best friend."
Hearing Chen Ge's words, the wrinkles on the gatekeeper's face deepened further. He thought for a long while, then suddenly slapped Chen Ge's arm. "There was such a girl! Let me see that photo again!"
The gatekeeper held the photograph in both hands and stared at it for a long time. "I still can't recall this boy, but I do remember the girl you mentioned. She was abandoned by her parents when she was very young. The reason, apparently, was that she had a congenital brain deficiency — her memory was terrible, she was always losing things, and she was quite slow."
"Congenital brain deficiency?" That was a new term for Chen Ge. It was the first time he'd heard it.
"I only heard about it from others. The girl was pretty-looking and well-behaved, but she was always forgetting things. Many children got adopted, but she was the one who stayed at the orphanage the whole time." The gatekeeper slowly recalled more and more. "From the age of two or three all the way to her teens, she lived in the orphanage for over ten years. Maybe because the window for treatment had been missed, the girl's condition kept getting worse."
"At first, she could still remember the names of her friends and teachers. With the caretakers' help, she not only managed basic self-care but could even pitch in with some chores. Even though her memory was poor, she was especially diligent. When she was bullied, she never talked back, so the orphanage quietly let her stay and help out."
"But then her condition deteriorated to the point where she couldn't even recognize people's faces. She retained only the most basic survival abilities and couldn't handle anything remotely complicated."
"She was already too old to be of any help, and she needed others to look after her. Gradually, the way people treated her changed."
"The children in this private orphanage were all quite young, so she stood out. Later, I don't know what the leadership was thinking — knowing full well the girl had a bad memory, they still had her watch the gate with me."
"They said it was to give her something to do, so she wouldn't become a useless person. But I always felt their real intention was to give up on her — they even hoped she'd get lost." At this point, the gatekeeper sighed.
"Hoped she'd get lost? What made you think the orphanage had that in mind?" If that was truly the case, then the whole nature of things changed entirely. Chen Ge felt that Fang Yu's transformation might well have begun at that point.
"They kept assigning me far-off delivery errands, sending me running all over, leaving her alone at the gate. One time, when I came back, the girl wasn't at the door or inside the building. I searched everywhere around the orphanage and finally found her under a big tree on the hill behind the building."
"I was furious. I asked her why she'd wandered off, and she said a kite had been flying really high."
"I was genuinely frightened. Fortunately, the kite eventually got caught in a tree and didn't fly away." Even after so many years, the old man still felt a shudder recalling it. That girl had left a deep impression on him.
"Sir, while she was watching the gate with you, did any boy ever come to keep her company? Maybe someone who was especially enthusiastic toward her?"
"No. She was always alone."
"That makes things difficult." Chen Ge looked at the photograph in his hand, turning over their conversation in his mind, trying to find any clue he might have missed. "Sir, you said the first time Fang Yu got lost was because she saw a kite and chased after it. Given her personality, she shouldn't have been the type to run around. So why did she chase after it the moment she saw the kite? Was she fond of kites? Could the kite have been some kind of signal?"