He wore clothes and shoes several sizes too big. His face was dirty, and his clear eyes were full of surprise. Hiding behind the old man's clothes, the child revealed half his face.
"Can you hear me?" Chen Ge set down his backpack and gently held out both hands toward the child. "Don't be afraid. I won't hurt you."
The child hiding behind the clothes in the closet looked timidly at Chen Ge. He stared at Chen Ge's hands and hesitated for a long time before slowly reaching out his own.
The child's icy little hand rested in Chen Ge's palm. The warmth he hadn't felt in so long made the boy's eyes widen.
"Have you been here all along?" Chen Ge pointed at the floor. He wanted to ask if the little boy had been stuck behind the door this whole time, but the boy misunderstood him. He waved his hands and frantically tried to explain.
It took Chen Ge a while to understand. The child had been playing a game with his friends. They were playing hide-and-seek, and he'd hidden here to keep the others from finding him.
Watching the little boy struggle to explain, Chen Ge shook his head gently. Those children had never planned to look for him. They were only playing a cruel trick on him.
He had hidden in the closet in all seriousness. In the end, the person who opened the closet door wouldn't be one of those children, but the homeowner, calling him out to eat.
"Have you ever thought about making more friends? Have you ever thought about opening the window and seeing the world outside?" Chen Ge had found the key figure in the World Behind the Door—Jiang Ming—but he couldn't figure out how this Jiang Ming was connected to