After Lily left, Helen and I came out of the inner room. The people swarmed over to divide the candy.
They had no other food; they survived each day solely on the energy from these sweets, barely clinging to life.
Helen stomped her foot in anger. "She fooled us all back then. She''s just as wicked as Princess Harriet. If Princess Harriet were still around, the two of them could at least keep each other in check."
I didn''t continue the topic. Instead, I said, "We need to find a way to get some real food."
"Mr. Hilton ising to see you tonight,"
Helen whispered in my ear. For some reason, the teasing tone in her voice made my face flush instantly.
"Didn''t he say it was too dangerous?" Ever since I parted ways with Max and watched him walk away, my stomach had been in knots.
His responsibilities were far heavier than mine, yet he never gave up orined that he couldn''t handle it.
Instead, he always provided me with the greatest sense of security.
"Mr. Hilton must be head over heels in love," Helen said, looking at me with a smile. My face turned even redder.
"He''s probably just worried about you," Helen added, returning to a serious tone.
I nodded slightly. "Tell him to bring some rice."
My words earned a loud burst ofughter from Helen. "ire, how can you be so cute? That''s the man you love! He''s risking everything toe see you, and all you can think about is asking him to bring rice?"
I rubbed the back of my hand and sat down on a low mud wall. "I''ll just wait right here for him to bring some food."
Helen smiled helplessly, waving at me as she went to make secret preparations to wee Max.
Sitting there, I looked out toward the opposite riverbank. In a daze, it felt as if everything had changed in an instant.
I used to think ude would change for the better in this lifetime, as long as I tried hard to avoid getting romantically involved with him. But I was wrong.
Carrying the memories and hatred of two lifetimes, he hurt me time and time again.
A famous quote suddenly crossed
my mind: Never hold out hope for someone who has hurt you. A dog that has bitten someone will bit again because it remembers taste of blood. A person who has betrayed you will only take advantage of your kindness and be even worse.
I lowered my eyes slightly.
Running through everyone I knew here, Max was the only one who had never hurt
me.
Even though he could be overly scheming and kept his thoughts buried too deep for
me to guess, he had never caused me pain.
Or perhaps, the reason I once
thought could make ude better
in this life was because I was conflicted by lingering feelings from
our childhood and my first taste of love.
Thinking about it now, there was no need to agonize over whether to cut ties, nor did
I need to struggle so hard. It was all destined.
Someone who was evil in a past life wouldn''t be much better in this one.
By the time I figured things out, the sky had grown dark.
The little girl''s mother, seeing that I had been sitting there for a long time, approached with a chipped ceramic bowl filled with sugar water and carefully handed it to me.
After I took it, she stealthily pulled a rock-hard bun from her coat and shoved it into my hands, using gestures tomunicate.
She was telling me to eat it.
I handed the bun back to her and drank the bowl of sugar water. It tasted of nothing but cloying sweetness.
As the liquid hit my empty stomach, a sharp cramp reminded me that I hadn''t eaten anything all day either.
Going out into the world to make a mark sounded easy until I realized had no money to connections, and
LOreal power. That was probably
the foolish arrogance of youth.
I handed the bowl back to the girl''s mother. She looked at me with aching pity, her
wrinkled face full of sorrow.
"Thank you foring."
She managed to say in broken English, trying her best tomunicate. I replied in equally broken Bravend, "Trust me. I will help you."