Si Teng (Rattan) – Five Years Later – Introduction

Five years later, at a Children’s Welfare Institute.

The sun was shining brightly. In the playground, children, led by young volunteers, were playing “Eagle Catches Chicken.” Yan Furui sat in the hallway, squinting his eyes as he read the newspaper, occasionally glancing at the giggling children. He remembered that this game had been popular since his childhood. What was the allure of “Eagle Catches Chicken”? Children, then and now, never tired of it.

There was the clatter of footsteps as a child ran over, calling out, “Uncle Yan, can you read? Don’t hold the newspaper upside down!”

Yan Furui shooed him away with a fierce look on his face: “Go! Go! Go!”

These little brats! He wasn’t even sixty yet; how could he be considered an old man? He had just seen the news the other day: the United Nations said that anyone under sixty was considered middle-aged!

Xiao Liu’s voice came from the side of the hallway: “Uncle Yan, come and take a look. The vegetables we delivered today aren’t fresh.”

Not fresh? This bastard profiteer—he told them last time that all this food was for the children in the orphanage. No one should suffer any loss, not the children!

Yan Furui quickly put down his newspaper: “Here I come.”

Yan Furui had come to help out at the orphanage three years ago. The director at the time was urgently looking for a canteen worker. During the interview, Yan Furui’s “dream” of opening an orphanage amused him. “Sir, in our country, you can open an orphanage or welfare home just by wanting one!”

Yan Furui sat upright in his chair, looking as embarrassed as most interviewees: “Can’t you just open one with money?”

The director gave him the simplest example. “Let me put it this way, if you could open one with money, what would happen to those child traffickers who kidnap children under the guise of an orphanage? That’s why it must be approved by the government and regulated at every level!”

Yan Furui suddenly understood. So that was how it was. The country was the country, and it had a much longer-term perspective than he thought.

Since he couldn’t become director, he decided to work in the canteen. After all, he would be there for the children.

Yan Furui stayed at the “Sunshine Orphanage.” The director proudly explained the meaning of the orphanage’s name, saying that everything grew in sunlight, and the children were like seedlings; without sunlight, they couldn’t thrive.

Yan Furui silently remarked, “But without water, nothing can grow either.”

He initially envisioned a happy life of loving and caring for the children. But reality was far from perfect. In reality, he was constantly irritated by these naughty children, often jumping around in the playground or being chased with large soup spoons. The children loved him, and even more so, teasing him. Even when he was quietly reading a newspaper, they’d run over and taunt him, saying, “Uncle Yan, can you read? Don’t hold the newspaper upside down!”

What kind of people were these?

Yan Furui hurried into the back door of the canteen. The helper, Xiao Liu, was waiting for him with a righteous look on his face. In front of him was a basket of vegetables and potatoes. The delivery boy was nonchalant, with hair dyed like a pheasant and a cigarette tucked behind his ear.

Yan Furui casually rummaged through the basket and became furious: “The leaves of the vegetables are rotten, and the potatoes have sprouted. What did I tell you last time?”

The pheasant-head boy glanced at him sideways and said nonchalantly, “Hey, old man, just boil the leaves in the soup; they will rot anyway. If they sprout, just peel them and add more seasonings. The taste will be the same. You have lowered the price so much, and you still want to import it?”

Yan Furui was furious: “This is for the kids!”

“It doesn’t matter who it’s for, Uncle Yan; don’t be so picky. There are food problems everywhere. This is to train children’s resistance. If they eat too well and too cleanly, they won’t be able to adapt to the society in the future…”

Was this what people say? Yan Furui picked up a bunch of vegetables and chased after the pheasant-head boy and smashed them.

The pheasant-head boy dodged, clutching his head. He was just a deliveryman, so why take it out on him? Besides, the orphanage’s prices were low, and the merchants were profiteering; the boss couldn’t just send the good stuff there. This wasn’t the first time he’d been hit, but thankfully the old man knew his limits and only threw vegetables at him.

He dodged while arguing, “Uncle, this dish is pretty good. Don’t you know those street vendors use even worse ingredients?”

In the past, Yan Furui would have probably used his early days selling skewers to refute him, but this time was different. As he was chasing, he suddenly collapsed against the table, crying out in pain.

What did this mean? The pheasant-head boy’s eyes widened. When the director and the nurse hurried over, he was still standing on the table, a piece of vegetable leaf on his head, raising his hands in surrender, furious. “I didn’t touch him. I know how to respect the elderly and cherish the young. I didn’t touch him, not even a finger. You can’t blackmail me!”

The director, knowledgeable and familiar with the common illnesses of the elderly his age, looked a little panicked. “Quick, quick, this might be a blood clot. Get him to the hospital immediately. He could be paralyzed.”

Chased by a group of frightened children, the ambulance hurried out of the orphanage. Shortly after turning onto the straight road, a black Tiguan came towards them. The director, who was following the car, quickly checked the rearview mirror: it had turned. Sure enough, it was heading to Sunshine Orphanage.

She quickly called the people who stayed behind, telling them to treat the inquiries well, and then she fished out Yan Furui’s phone from her bag.

There were no relatives or family members listed in the grouping column. Besides colleagues from Sunshine Orphanage, there were only “friends” and “good friends.”

Thinking that “good friends” was a step further than “friends,” the dean hesitated and clicked on it. There were two names; one was Taoist Wang Qiankun, and the other was Qin Fang.

Taoist? The Taoist priest on TV? The dean muttered to himself that this one was unreliable and decisively dialed the another number.

The call was connected, and it was a slightly low male voice: “Hello?”

Sunshine Welfare Home.

The left-behind childcare aunt patiently explained to the people who came for consultation, “You can’t just pick up a child and send him to the welfare home. This is not in compliance with the regulations. It depends on whether she has a legal guardian. If her biological parents are still alive, or if she has adoptive parents, the welfare home cannot accept her.”

The people who consulted were a couple in their early twenties. They were a little confused after listening. “We went to the mountains to play and found her while climbing. The little girl is so pitiful, only three or four years old. She doesn’t know anything when asked and can only laugh. She must have been abandoned by her parents. It’s deep in the mountains! Who will take care of her if you don’t take care of her?”

There were always encounters with such inexperienced but confident and presumptuous consultants. The childcare aunt laughed and said, “Then you should call the police first or take the child to the police station. The police will first contact the child’s parents and family. If it is confirmed that the child is an orphan or an abandoned baby, the public security departments will transfer the child to the relevant government welfare unit. How can you just send the child to an orphanage as soon as you find her? What if she was abducted or lost? The parents will be so worried.”

It sounded very reasonable. The young man scratched his head and smiled embarrassedly. His girlfriend next to him said in a coquettish tone, as if scolding him, “I told you we should call the police first, you stupid guy!”

…

In the yard, many children were chattering around the Tiguan. They were familiar with this situation. Either new friends were sent to them, or they had friends to take away. A few brave children hardly ever glued their eyes to the car windows…

In the back seat of the car sat a little girl, about three or four years old. She was wearing a newly bought white dress, with bangs and long hair that fell neatly on her chest. She was wearing a pair of patent leather shoes. Her face was very delicate, her eyes were bright, and she looked very likable.

Several children waved and greeted her enthusiastically: “Hi, hi! Hello.”

They asked her to speak in unison. The sound of the car window finally caught the little girl’s attention. She tilted her head towards them, and the children became even more excited. Just as they were about to shout at her at the top of their lungs…with a swish, the car window was rolled up.

On the glass window, the images of smiling faces suddenly turned into faces staring at each other. After a while, someone muttered in a low voice, “How unfriendly.”