Once she had a rough idea of the time, Shuxin didn't linger in the shop any longer. She asked the shopkeeper for directions to the police station and set off, following the path the shopkeeper had pointed out until she reached the first crossroads.
It was a bustling place. The shops lining the street were thriving, and people of all hair colors bustled back and forth. Even after watching for a while, she still couldn't quite get used to it.
"An unfamiliar city, in an unaccustomed corner, without mutual comfort or shared sighs, I wonder what kind of ending awaits."
"Who directed this play? In this lonely role, the dialogue is always a monologue, the only counterpart is memories, and no ending is in sight."
"Wrong, wrong, wrong, it's my fault. Why didn't you say so when we were head over heels?" That didn't quite fit the mood.
Humming as she walked, Shuxin felt increasingly aggrieved the more she sang. Thinking back on the past thirty years, the greatest setback she had ever experienced was failing to win a suitor's approval during a blind date, though she had always fired right back at them behind their backs.
Choosing a direction at random, Shuxin decided to walk to the right and turn left at the next intersection. Anyway, she wasn't all that hungry yet, so she could walk around a bit, take in the sights, and ponder her next move along the way.
"That is a magical heavenly road, leading us into heaven on earth."
"The road ahead is long and the rain is fine, who is waiting in lovesick longing?"
……
Humming a line here and a phrase there, Shuxin wandered haphazardly down the street until she arrived in front of a small diner.
A middle-aged couple, looking to be in their forties or fifties, sat outside the entrance. The man was reading the newspaper to the woman, and whatever amusing thing it was, it made the woman's eyes curve into happy crescents.
Perhaps it was because the sunlight was just right, or perhaps because of the gentle breeze caressing her face, but this scene made Shuxin feel as though the sky had suddenly cleared.
"Hello, baby?" Perhaps Shuxin's gaze was too fixed, for the man spoke up to ask, and the woman also raised her head, a smile still lingering on her face.
"Hello, I want to eat food, but I don't have... money."
Shuxin had originally intended to say she didn't have much money, but she tripped over the word "much."
She pulled the last three two-pence coins from her trouser pockets and held them out to the man. "That's all I have."
The woman glanced at the man. "What would you like to eat?"
"We have hamburgers, ... beef, ... tomatoes, ... potatoes and French fries."
"What can I buy?"
Shamelessly, Shuxin thought that if possible, she might just freeload off them. They could clearly see she only had six pence on her, yet they had offered her so many things to eat—they struck her every which way as kind and good-hearted people.
"Then I'll give you hamburgers and ... tomatoes?"
With that, the woman picked up one of the two-pence coins from Shuxin's hand and stood up, heading into the shop.
"Come on, baby." The man rose as well, gesturing for Shuxin to come inside and sit down. "Please sit here."
This time, Shuxin felt no embarrassment at all. She pocketed the remaining four pence, walked into the shop with an easy grace, and took a seat at a single table as the man directed.
You never know until you try; the moment she sat down, Shuxin realized her stomach was practically stuck to her backbone. Having walked for so long, the morning's bread had long since been thoroughly digested.
The bread of the hamburger was quite substantial, with a piece of some kind of meat tucked inside that she couldn't quite identify, along with a leaf of lettuce. There was also a bowl of tomato soup—let's call it soup, at any rate—which tasted quite good, lightly tart and very appetizing.
After finishing the hamburger and drinking the soup, Shuxin turned around to thank the couple. Once she finished thanking them, she didn't say she was leaving, but simply stood there in front of the two of them.
The couple didn't speak either, completely at a loss as to what the girl before them meant.
Since she was the one asking for help, Shuxin only remained silent for half a minute before introducing herself—or rather, beginning to spin a web of lies.
"My name is Shu Xin, I am Chinese."
The couple looked quite astonished, but neither spoke; instead, they gestured for Shuxin to sit down and talk.
"My father is Chinese, my mother's parents are English."
When she mentioned being of English descent, Shuxin watched the couple's reactions closely. Excellent, no reaction at all, which meant this place must indeed be England.
"When I was a child, my mother's father died, and some time ago, my mother's mother died, too."
"My mother wants to see grandma's hometown."
"My father, my mother, and me."
"On the sea." Damn it, how do you say the ship capsized?
"Sorry, my English is not good."
"We are here." Shuxin grabbed the bowl she had just eaten from, pointed to the inside of the bowl, and then turned it upside down to indicate that the boat had capsized.
"An uncle take me here."
"He gave me some money and left."
"Can you help me? I need a job."
"Baby, you really need is the police." Why did this man keep calling people "baby"? It felt rather embarrassing.
"I'm not leaving, I want to wait for my parents."
The sum total of the above was the background story Shuxin had fabricated for herself along the way.
Sometimes, the more you said, the more loopholes you created. Shuxin had considered many reasons for not returning to Hua Guo, but waiting for her parents was the only one that made sense.
How could she possibly go to the police? What if the police managed to track down the original owner's parents? Shuxin had weighed that possibility as well. Not knowing English was a fact, having no memories could be explained away as amnesia, but what excuse was there for suddenly losing the ability to speak?
In television shows and novels, people suffering from amnesia always blurted out things like "Who am I?", "Who are you?", or "Where am I?", but she had never heard of anyone who completely lost the ability to speak, opening their mouths only to go "Ah, ah, ah"—it wasn't as if their tongue had been cut out.
If they failed to find the original owner's parents and instead sent her to the embassy, that would be even worse, since no such person existed in Hua Guo.
Besides, making common-sense mistakes here wouldn't draw much scrutiny, because this was a foreign land where different living habits were entirely normal. Being a stranger from afar actually made it easier to understand everything in the local area.
"You stay here tonight, and we need to ... it."
"Thank you very much." With that, Shuxin stood up and bowed deeply.
"You can call me Mary."
"This is my husband Tom."
What was the most important task next? Helping the shopkeepers clear the bowls and chopsticks? Of course not. The most crucial task was: getting scrubbed clean!
"You're staying in this room tonight, you take a shower first, and I'll get you clean clothes."
Passing through the small diner, the back led to a small courtyard with a two-story building. Mary opened a room on the left side of the ground floor—evidently a guest room—which had been meticulously cleaned.
Shuxin thanked her once more. True to form, the sun in the sky didn't lie; these were genuinely good people.
Actually, even if they weren't good people, Shuxin had no alternative. The objective environment forced her to choose trust—just as she had trusted the uncle at the grocery store this morning, and now trusted this couple who ran the small diner.
In such a desperate plight, if she remained suspicious of everyone, the only thing waiting for her was likely starvation.
She had to take the first step, and that first step had to be finding someone she could bring herself to trust.
Shuxin had also considered the uncle at the grocery store, but in the end, she hadn't spoken up.
No matter what tomorrow brought, at least tonight she had a place to stay, and she could finally wash up.
Shuxin fished the coins out of her upper pocket and hid them in the corner of the bedside table drawer, just in case Mary offered to help wash her clothes after her shower. Still, it was better to scrub them herself; she didn't want to leave Mary with the impression that she was lazy and disliked doing laundry.