Good Child

Xia Liang had always remembered one saying: only good children were loved.

It came from when she was young, when her parents still loved each other and life was still happy. Her mother had told her, "Is our Little Puppy being good? Only good children are loved. Mommy likes good children too."

"Little Puppy" had been her nickname back then. Whenever she got angry, she liked to bite people, so whenever she opened her mouth, her parents would laugh and say, "Little Puppy is biting people again."

Xia Liang thought she was not a puppy, and that she could be very good. From then on, she rarely bit people when she got angry.

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

At home, she was obedient and knew how to act cute. Her sweet smile made her parents dote on her; in social settings, she was sensible and gracious, and relatives and elders never stopped praising her; at school, she was obedient and diligent, a model her teachers held up for her classmates.

The harder she worked to become obedient and sensible, the happier and more fulfilling her life became. Xia Liang gradually grew used to it. But several years later, everything changed.

She did not know whether it began with her father saying he would "find another job," or her mother saying she had "been cheated out of a huge sum of money." In any case, from then on, she rarely saw smiles on her parents' faces.

Her father always came home with a worried expression, while her mother was constantly sighing. She also grew angry more often.

Whenever that happened, Xia Liang would step forward and try to cheer them up, to make them smile.

At first, this method helped somewhat. Whenever Xia Liang acted obedient and adorable, her parents would always force themselves to smile along with her. But as time passed, no matter how hard Xia Liang tried, it no longer made any difference.

She found it strange. Was it because she was not obedient enough that she could not make her parents happy?

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

Her mother said she could make money, but aside from the first few times, when she brought money back, none of the money she took ever returned.

Her father began coming home less and less. Even when he did return, he only argued with her mother. He shouted that she was "gambling the family into ruin," while her mother accused him of "having an affair even after losing his job."

Xia Liang had still been too young to fully understand those words. She knew gambling and affairs were bad things, but she had never imagined they would happen in her own home.

She gathered her courage and, for the first time, decided not to be a good child. She chose to oppose her parents. She wanted to persuade them not to fight, because constant fighting would damage their relationship.

But the attempt failed. Her parents ignored her and merely snapped, "Go away."

So Xia Liang became a good child again. No matter how fiercely her parents argued, she no longer tried to stop them. She only kept showing them her smile.

She continued studying diligently at school and brought home many certificates, hoping her good performance would make her parents a little happier. But those certificates were ultimately tossed onto the table like scraps of waste paper.

One day, her parents' argument escalated into a violent fight. The certificates were knocked over and soaked by spilled boiling water, and the words on them could no longer be seen.

Later, her father began hitting her mother, all while demanding a divorce.

He said he had had enough of a woman like her. He had found new love, and he wanted to choose his own happiness.

Her mother naturally refused. She had yet to prove that she was the backbone of the family. She had yet to earn back the money they had temporarily lost. In her eyes, her father bore equal responsibility for it.

The things in their home were sold off, and her parents' conflict grew fiercer and fiercer. Xia Liang could only hide behind the crack in the door and watch them argue, then return to continue doing her homework.

—She had to be a good child, because only good children were liked.

Then one night, she heard her father roaring.

He said, "Why did you touch my private money? I'll beat you to death, you bitch!"

Her mother was screaming too. She said, "Then go ahead and try it!"

Then they really did fight. Amid dull impacts, hoarse roars, and screams, Xia Liang cautiously peered out through the doorway. All she could see was her mother standing there, covered in blood and clutching a knife, while her father lay at her feet, never to move again.

"Come here."

That was the first thing her mother said after seeing Xia Liang.

Xia Liang was afraid. When her mother spoke, there was not a trace of warmth in her voice, and she gripped the knife tightly in her hand.

But she was a good child. Her mother liked good children, so she had to obey.

She walked over.

Her mother stabbed her.

It hurt terribly. It was unbearable. Yet Xia Liang remembered that she had to be a good child, so although she cried out in pain, she held back her tears.

The police who broke through the door took her mother away, along with Xia Liang, who had nearly been killed.

At the very end, as she watched her mother being taken away, she struggled and gave her the same ingratiating smile she had always worn.

—"Stop smiling like that, you idiot."

Her mother said, "It makes me sick."

At that moment, something inside Xia Liang seemed to shatter, leaving behind only a pitch-black, bottomless void.

Just like that, she lost her parents.

No relatives were willing to raise her. At some point, the relatives who had once often visited their home had already cut off contact with the family.

Xia Liang became a child nobody wanted.

She did not want to leave her home, but no one was willing to take her in. So she lived alone in that house, surviving on subsidies from the city government.

At school, the classmates who had already disliked and excluded her for being the "perfect child everyone compared their own children to" somehow learned the rumors. They all shouted that her mother was a murderer, even turning it into a rhyme that they chanted whenever they saw Xia Liang.

The teachers were helpless as well. No matter how much they scolded the children in class, they could not control what they did in private. On the day elementary school ended and the children all graduated, one teacher finally said to Xia Liang in a tone of disappointed frustration:

"They're all like this, so why can you still smile, you foolish child?"

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

Or rather, was she still smiling?

There was clearly no one left for her to show her smile to. No matter how obedient or cute she acted, it no longer meant anything. Yet she still did it instinctively.

After entering middle school, the rumors from elementary school meant that no one was still willing to be friends with her.

No matter how Xia Liang catered to them or tried to please them, everyone only avoided her in fear.

The only ones willing to accept her were the "gyarus" and "delinquents" everyone else talked about. They thought the fact that Xia Liang's mother had gone to prison for murder sounded cool.

"But you look way too plain."

That was how they judged her. "If you want to join us, you'd better give yourself a proper makeover first."

So Xia Liang learned how to wear makeup.

If dressing up properly would make them accept her, then she dressed up; if speaking and acting frivolously matched their values, then she imitated them; if money was needed to make them take her seriously, then she gave it to them.

She wanted to be accepted, to receive care, to hear comfort, to have close relationships with others, to have "love."

The void in her heart could not be filled. Like a dying person clutching at a straw, she followed these "friends" closely, asking only that they turn around and look at her once.

Until she reached the edge of a mire and saw her friends standing within it, waving at her.

She began wanting to refuse, to step back, but she was already firmly entangled. Some unknown force pushed her, trying to shove her into it.

There was no way back.

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

Then someone grabbed her wrist and pulled her out of the boundless darkness into an azure sky.

That beautiful blue was the color of the sky, as clear and pure as the eyes before her.

She asked her this:

"Do you want to become a magical girl?"

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