The Rest of My Life in the Wild

My name is Liu Yuyao. My arrival was a secret, a mistake. In that particular era, my father, a teacher, sent me beyond the walls of our own home to protect his reputation and his job. The words "Mom" and "Dad" were the first things I learned to say, yet they became the secrets I found hardest to speak aloud. My childhood was stitched together from countless other people's homes. The only light in it was the occasional visit my mother managed to sneak in. It wasn't until my father died suddenly that I, the shadow no one would acknowledge, first set foot in the place called "home," at a silent funeral... Now, when life's waves knock me down again, all I can do is repeat the gesture I knew best as a child: walk alone through unfamiliar streets, and bear the weight of the whole world by myself.