A Good Child

Young Xia Liang always kept one phrase engraved in her heart: Only good children are loved.

That stemmed from what her mother told her in her early childhood, back when her parents were still happily married and life was still blissful: "Is our Little Puppy a good child? Only good children are loved, and Mommy loves good children too."

"Little Puppy" was her nickname back then, because whenever she got angry she liked to bite people, so the moment she opened her mouth, her parents would laugh and call her "Little Puppy biting people again."

Xia Liang did not feel she was a little puppy, and she knew she could be very good. Ever since then, she rarely bit people when she got angry.

She became a good child in the eyes of her parents, family, and friends.

At home she was obedient and knew how to act spoiled, her sweet smile drawing boundless affection from her parents; in social settings she was sensible and poised, earning constant praise from relatives and elders; at school she was attentive and diligent, serving as the role model teachers told other students to emulate.

The harder she tried to make herself well-behaved and sensible, the more fulfilling and happy her life became, and Xia Liang gradually grew accustomed to it. However, everything changed years later.

She did not know if the catalyst was what her Dad called "finding another job" or what her Mom called "getting scammed out of a huge sum of money," but in any case, it seemed that ever since then, she rarely saw smiles on her parents' faces.

Dad always wore a gloomy expression when he came home, Mom constantly sighed, and the frequency of their anger escalated.

Whenever those moments arrived, Xia Liang would step forward, trying to cheer them up and make them smile.

That method worked to some extent at first; whenever Xia Liang put on an obedient and cute appearance, her parents would always muster up their spirits and smile along with her. Later on, however, as time passed, no matter how hard Xia Liang tried, it was of no use.

She felt very strange. Was it because she was not good enough, and therefore unable to make her parents happy?

Then one day, she discovered that her mother had started taking money out of the house.

Mom said she could earn money, but apart from the first few times when she brought cash back, the money she took out later never returned.

Dad, meanwhile, began coming home less and less, and even when he did return, he would be arguing with Mom, loudly cursing her for "gambling away the family fortune" while Mom accused him of "losing his job and finding an affair."

At that time, Xia Liang was still quite clueless about those words. She knew that gambling and affairs were bad things, but she never imagined they would happen in her own home.

She mustered up her courage and decided not to be a good child for the first time, because she resolved to oppose her parents; she wanted to persuade them to stop fighting, since constantly quarreling would make their relationship bad.

Yet that attempt failed. Her parents ignored her, merely scolding her to "go play elsewhere."

Thus, Xia Liang turned back into a good child. No matter how much her parents argued, she no longer tried to stop them; she simply kept displaying her smile to them.

She continued to study diligently at school, bringing home numerous award certificates in the hope that her good performance would make her parents a little happier. In the end, however, those certificates were treated like scrap paper and tossed casually on the table.

As her parents' arguments escalated one day into physical violence, the award certificates were soaked by overturned boiling water, and the handwriting on them could no longer be made out.

Later still, Dad began hitting Mom, and then clamored for a divorce.

He said he had endured enough of a woman like Mom, that he had a new love, and that he was going to choose his own happiness.

Mom undoubtedly disagreed, because she had yet to prove that she was the backbone of this family, she had yet to earn back the money temporarily lost, and she believed Dad bore equal responsibility for that.

The things in the house were sold off, and her parents' disputes grew increasingly fierce. Xia Liang could only hide behind the crack of the door, watching them argue, and then return to continue writing her homework.

--She had to be a good child, because good children were liked by others.

Later on, there came one particular night when she heard Dad roaring.

He said: "Why did you touch my private money? I'm going to beat you to death, you b-tch!"

Mom was screaming too, saying: "If you've got the guts, try laying a hand on me!"

Then, they really did resort to violence. Amidst dull thuds, roars, and screams, when Xia Liang cautiously peeked out through the door, all she saw was Mom standing there with a knife in her hand, covered in blood, while Dad lay at her feet and would never move again.

"Come here."

That was the first thing Mom said after seeing Xia Liang.

Xia Liang felt frightened. Because when Mom said those words, her voice lacked a single trace of warmth, and the knife in her hand was gripped tightly.

Yet she was a good child, and Mom liked good children, so she had to obey.

She walked over.

Mom stabbed her with the knife.

That feeling hurt terribly and was extremely distressing, but Xia Liang still kept firmly in mind that she had to be a good child, so even though she cried out in pain, she held back and did not shed tears.

The police who broke down the door took Mom away, and also took the nearly murdered Xia Liang.

In the end, gazing at the mother being led away, she struggled and flashed her customary ingratiating smile toward her maternal figure.

--"Stop smiling like that, you little fool."

That was what Mom had said: "It's so sickening."

At that moment, it felt as though something shattered inside Xia Liang's heart, leaving behind only a pitch-black, bottomless void.

Just like that, she lost her parents.

No relatives were willing to raise her. From some point onward, the relatives who used to frequently visit her home no longer maintained contact with this household.

Xia Liang became an unwanted child.

She was unwilling to leave the house, but no one was willing to raise her either, so she lived alone in this apartment, surviving on subsidies from the municipal government.

At school, the classmates who already disliked and ostracized her because she was the "good child of someone else's family" learned rumors from goodness knows where. They shouted that Xia Liang's mother was a murderer, turned the matter into a chant, and started singing it whenever they saw Xia Liang.

The school teachers were quite helpless against this; no matter how they scolded the students in class, they could not rein in the children's private behavior. It was not until elementary school studies concluded and the children graduated that the teacher finally spoke to Xia Liang with a tone of frustrated disappointment:

"With them acting like this, why can you still smile, you silly child?"

Why could she still smile? Xia Liang herself did not know the answer to that question.

Or rather, was she actually still smiling?

Clearly, there was no longer any object for her to display her smiles to, and no matter how she paraded her obedience it was meaningless, yet she would still do so subconsciously.

Thus, after entering middle school, because of the rumors from elementary school, still no one was willing to be friends with her.

No matter how Xia Liang fawned or tried to please others, everyone simply avoided her in fear.

The only ones willing to accept her were the "gyarus" and "delinquents" that other people talked about. They felt that the fact Xia Liang's mother had murdered someone and gone to prison sounded really cool.

"But your style is too lame."

That was how they evaluated her: "Want to join us? Go give yourself a proper makeover first!"

And so Xia Liang learned to put on makeup.

If dressing up nicely would make them accept her, she would dress up; if frivolous speech and behavior matched their values, she would imitate it; if money was required to make them take her seriously, then she would give it to them.

She wanted to be accepted, wanted to receive care, wanted to hear words of comfort, wanted intimate relationships with people, wanted "love."

The void within her heart was impossible to fill. Clinging like a dying person grasping at a straw, she followed closely in the footsteps of these "friends," begging only for them to look back at her.

Until she walked to the edge of a quagmire, watching her friends stand within it and wave to her.

She began wanting to refuse, wanting to retreat, but she was already firmly entangled, and some unknown force was pushing her, trying to shove her into the mire.

There was no way out anymore.

Just as she had given up and decided to calmly accept that future, yet another force grabbed her firmly from behind.

Then, someone caught her wrist and pulled her out of the boundless darkness and up into the azure sky.

That brilliant blue was the color of the sky, as limpid as the pair of eyes mirroring her own.

She asked herself this question:

"Would you like to be a Magical Girl?"

Thanks to book friends Sword God Chengzi, chrys, Book Friend 20220514114639532, Book Friend 150616234813713, Link Kong Linkin, Ibuki Mahiro, Book Friend 20190708175443593, Book Reader A, Divine Horse Meteor, Fish Plate 19881, Let Jun Not Laugh, Book Friend 20190313160324533, Flying Cute's Sky, Aolubiya, blackwings, Fierce Waves zwz, Book Friend 20190312231649122, STR, Xiao xxz Xiang, Book Friend 20220804084716481, Shang Yin Fu, Muzi Muxin, Book Friend 20170901134628737, Book Friend 20220508162322646, Cat Lantern Bone Fish, Primordial Quench, Call Me Lord Mipha, Fallen Leaf Z, Bubble Clan, Book Friend 20220825144838496, Screen-Peeping Monster QMQ, Sorrow of Feng Shuang, Peak Over Fire Mountain, More Water Add Noodles More Noodles Add Water, Luo Xiangchen, Autumn Leaf Clear Frost, Dust, Carnot, Storing the Past, rr4r-chan for their tips. Thank you for your support.