Twelve-year-old Zhang Tianshuai lost his mother in the autumn.
Dad has been silent since then, the house is empty, and the world is as quiet as a faded painting. He doesn't like to talk and doesn't make friends. He just goes to school, goes home and goes to bed mechanically every day. Until one day, he saw a gray rabbit under the old locust tree beside the playground.
The rabbit squatted next to the root of the tree and looked up at him - not an animal's alertness, but a kind of quiet, long wait. Then the rabbit spoke: "There you are. It's a pity that you can't use it anymore."
Following the rabbit, Zhang Tianshuai passed through the gap in the wall and got into an inconspicuous hole at the foot of the mountain. He fell for a long time and fell into a purple sky - there was a huge garden there, with blue leaves growing on the silver tree trunks, and the golden river water was like molten metal. When the wind blew, the leaves made a bell-like sound.
This place is called "Wonderland".
But he soon discovered that Wonderland was not as beautiful as its name. Fox Chi told him that no one could stay here - every child brought down by the rabbit would eventually leave. Gray Tail, the squirrel, said that Rabbit had sent seventy-two children down, and none of them had ever stayed. It said it was tired and left.
There is a line of words engraved on the wall: "Fairyland will not cross those who have a family."
Only those who feel they have no home can come here. But once you find your home, you have to go back.
Chi has no home—hunters took away her family. Gray Tail has no home—the eagle has taken away his relatives. The leader of the flock, an white sheep with the word "handsome" engraved on its horn, told him: Those children who left had forgotten this place. No one remembers those who have come and gone.
Only the "wishing tree" is still alive. It looked dead, with cracked trunks and curled leaves, but when Zhang Tianshuai put his hand on it, he felt the heartbeat - very slow but steady, like his mother's heartbeat.
Everyone advised him to go back. But after returning, my father still didn't speak, the house was still empty, and my mother was still gone.
So he made a decision.
He stayed.
Not because he wasn't sad, but because he finally found a place where he was needed - here, he wanted to remember everyone who had come and everyone who had left. Rabbits, red tails, gray tails, sheep, gardens, rivers, bridges, trees... They are all waiting. Waiting for someone who is willing to stay and remember them.
This is a story about loss, loneliness and being needed.
Wonderland is not a place to escape reality, but a place to learn to live with sadness.
Twelve-year-old Zhang Tianshuai gave this quiet world a heartbeat with his stay.
Intention: There is no sadness I want