Introduction to the work
The wind comes from the cracks in the wall, and so do I.
In 1998, I was left at the door of the orphanage, ranked seventeenth, and I was called Seventeen from then on. The night in Datongpu was very long, so I just stared at the bird with missing wings on the ceiling in a daze. All I owned was a peeled-off tin candy box, hidden in a crack between piles of coal and bricks, containing half a pencil, an uncovered book, and a few sheets of paper with circles drawn on them.
Zhang Guiying is an old lady in the hospital. She has a broken leg and reading glasses wrapped with tape. She stitches the soles of her shoes one stitch at a time until her fingertips bleed. She gave me an extra spoonful of thick porridge, put the meat into my bowl, and squatted by the stove to drink the remaining soup. She picked up a piece of grass from a crack in the cement and planted it in a broken enamel pot. I would lean on the window sill to watch it every day and save water to water it. I secretly put the candies I had saved up for half a month under her pillow, without daring to say thank you.
When I was six years old, I walked into Poxia Elementary School without anyone protecting me. I was hit by bricks and pushed through snowballs, but I just said nothing. On that snowy night when I was fourteen, I cleaned the candy box and placed it at her door, then pushed open the door with two pieces of old clothes on my back and left. The wind and snow fell all over my head, but I didn't look back. The last bit of warmth in my palm is still there, enough for me to walk a long way.
Purpose: Using the growth of a low-class orphan as an incision to write about the self-preservation and emotional attachment of abandoned people in the harsh reality. The work does not exaggerate suffering or sell pity, but shows how a child saves meager warmth in poverty, and how he learns independence and strength from loss again and again.