Huh?
It was raining so hard...
Just as hard as it had that day.
The hazy yellow streetlights grew dimmer and dimmer, but the memories deep in my mind grew clearer and clearer.
My name was Xu Yi.
Xu as in "perhaps," Yi as in "nothing at all."
Like my name, my life seemed to hold more perhapses than other people's, more randomness.
I often wondered, if I hadn't cried and insisted on going to the amusement park when I was six, would my life have turned out differently?
Then Mom wouldn't have taken time off especially for it, Dad wouldn't have rented a car especially for it, and that day... there wouldn't have been an accident.
I watched Dad's head slump limply to one side in the driver's seat. I watched Mom gasp for breath in the passenger seat, blood pouring from her torn throat, impossible to hold back even with her hands pressed over it.
Rain fell, the car smoked, passersby screamed...
I lost consciousness. When I woke again, I was somewhere else.
The rain had stopped. I curled up at the head of the bed, trembling. When I remembered what had happened, I burst into sobs.
That day, at six years old, I realized... I had become an orphan.
After I was sent to the Orphanage, I grew quiet.
The children here were orphans like me, but they were different from me, too. They could smile.
I didn't fit in. I was always alone.
But I had something I liked, too. I liked candy.
The Orphanage gave out candy, but only once a week, and only one or two pieces at a time.
Perhaps they worried that too much would give the children cavities, but I didn't care.
On candy day, I stole it.
I didn't fit