Chapter 3: Disease and Cure
Sometimes, dreams can be given up.
Sometimes, hopes can be crushed.
The crowd rushed. Seeming to be in a hurry to get their next train. What was all this? Why was it even necessary? Why did he even come here? Didn't he know that it was impossible?
Xu Feng looked up, trying to stop the tears leaving his eyes. There was no way he could do it. No way he could save her.
Rejected! Rejected! Rejected...he unbelieving repeated in his thoughts. Again and again he tried to tell himself, that it wasn't over yet, but he had no idea how it should work. No idea how curing would be possible.
He looked at the picture in his hand. It showed a little girl smiling happily in the camera. Her dark long hair lay open on her shoulders. How lively she had been. How incredibly cute she had been, before it was taken away. The liveliness had been replaced with loneliness and the happy smile with a grimace distorted by the disease and pain.
Rejected! Rejected! How could they? She was still a child. How could they just leave her on her own. Leaving her to die.
This world sure was cruel, but Feng had known that. Survival of the fittest. That was what this world was about. There was no place for those who were weak. That was what he had learned just a few minutes ago. Now he sat here, not knowing what to do. He just couldn't look into her eyes like this.
So he sat here. In the middle of the crowd running from one rail to another. Not missing their chances. In the middle of the rush he quietly waited for something to cheer him up, knowing that nothing would come. But what should he do? Where should he go?
He slowly rose. Kept his head down, trying to not look in the eyes of the people walking around him, not willing to show them his weakness. He put away the picture of his daughter and started walking towards the exit of the station. He heard the trains arriving and departing. Heard the people talking, the children crying. He knew it happened around him, but he didn't care. Didn't look out. Didn't look around. Just walked straight to the big doors leading outside.
Life in City had been tiring. The people, the noise, the pollution. Cramped in a tiny apartment, living in the same house as over hundred other people, all unknown to each other. It never had been an enjoyable life. Being a nobody to everyone, Xu Feng had moved away, half a year after his wife died. Suddenly people had come to express their sympathy. People he had never noticed, that he never had talked to. When it happened, he suddenly was known to everyone, but the fame didn't last long. He had been forgotten within a few weeks, returning to be a nobody. Until he left in silence. He no more lived alone with his daughter, had moved in with someone living in the village he went to.
Now he stood in front of the door, hesitating to open it.
He took a deep breath and came in.
“I'm back!”, he shouted, waiting to get a response. Slow footsteps were to be heard from the kitchen. Feng took off his shoes and waited for his daughter to come around the corner. As he saw her, he almost couldn't keep back his tears.
She looked worse than when he left. The girl was incredibly thin and had to always keep one hand at the wall not to fall over. She slowly took one step after another and even though she smiled at him. Feng knew that it was a pain for her to walk around like this. Her eyes were almost closed, as if she was really tired. The long black hair that fell over her shoulder contrasted her pale skin.
The girl slowly came nearer, trying tor reach out for him with the hand not being placed at the wall. She stumbled. Fell onto her knees.
Feng quickly ran to her, hugging the thin body.
“Are you okay?”, he asked caring.
“I'm fine Dad.”, his daughter's weak voice answered.
She looked at him. Forced her muscles to form a smile again.
Rejected, his thoughts returned.
He closed his arms around her, fearing to break the little body. Buried his head in her chest and started to cry. Silently his daughter patted his head, then lied her own onto his shoulder. Feng could feel her long hair touching his bare neck.
“They won't help me, will they?”, she asked without the slightest bit of sadness.
He shook his head, unable to say anything.
“Am I going to die now?”
He shook his head again.
“That is nice.”
He looked into her eyes. They seemed empty. Feng knew she understood that he lied.
The tears had stopped by now.
“You should rest a little more”, he advised her, rose and carried her into the living room, where she had been lying for the last few months.
“Where's your aunt?”, he asked.
“Garden”, his daughter muttered.
“And your uncle?”
“Shopping”
Feng nodded. “Rest well!” He looked down at her and kissed her head. Then he left the room.
He went outside and looked for the woman he was staying with.
He passed something, that looked more like a jungle, than a garden. The few plants that existed in here had grown huge, due to the space they had. The aunt loved flowers , but didn't really have much time to work in the garden. Most of the time she had, she spend housekeeping and look after his daughter, while Feng was at work.
“Yuki?”, he called for her.
“Over here.”, the answer came from the field of flowers in the back of the garden. He followed the stone way, that led there and found her sitting in front of a small tree, cutting it's branches. Her gray hair was bound together in a ponytail. She was over 70 already, but still seemed to be as active as if she was only 40. In her hands, she held a little knife, which didn't seem to be made for cutting the wood of the tree.
“Wanna help me a bit?”, Yuki asked grabbing another knife and held it in his direction. Feng took it and pressed a little button located at the grip. The blade started to rotate and slowly got faster and faster until it was fast enough to cut the branches into the right form with ease.
“What should I cut?”, he asked before beginning.
“Just cut those that are longer than the others. That will do for now.”
He nodded and raised the knife to one of the branches that stood out. He touched it with the rotating blade and the knife cut right through it. The part that had overlapped, fell into the grass. Feng went on with the next out sticking part he found.
“Say”, Yuki started hesitantly. “How was your trip?”
“Well let's say the drive wasn't too bad.”
He didn't really want to talk about it right now.
“They rejected. I knew it.”, she continued without bothering him. “They still have no idea what it is right?”
Feng nodded, cutting one more branch and followed it's way down to the bottom with his gaze. Then he raised his hands again to trim more parts of the little tree.
“They said they have seen symptoms like hers before, but still have no idea how to categorize it. It's difficult for them to give her some kind of treatment too since she lives quite far away.”, Feng paused briefly. “I have no idea what I should do.” He looked down at the cut branches, lying on the ground. “I guess if I'd lose her it would be even worse than with Lin.”
Yuki stayed quite. She carefully listened to what he told her.
More branches fell. Some of them still carrying green leaves.
A brief silence, only disrupted by the rustling of the tree when the wind came by and the gentle buzzing of the rotating blades.
“What do you think is going to happen now?”, the aunt asked.
She knew it already. Of course she did. She had taken care of Mei for the last few months. There was no way, she didn't realize it.
“I don't think she will do much longer.”, Feng answered. “She looked a lot thinner than when I went away.”
“Oh, so you saw her already?”
He nodded, barely managed to keep his tears back again, but still he went on cutting the branches.
“I'm sorry I can't do anything!”
Feng managed to show off a brief smile. Japanese politeness.
Yuki and her husband originally both lived in Tokyo. They moved to China when the company they had led for about 8 years went bankrupt due to the Asian economic crisis around 2040. They lived in China for almost 30 years now. The village they had stayed in for all this time, was neither big nor rich. The back of China was poor in total, even though they said it was a lot better than some decades ago, many people still barely had enough money to take care of themselves.
“How's uncle doing?”, Feng interrupted the silence, trying to build a conversation.
“He's fine as always. He should be coming home soon.”, she didn't seem to be too interested in a conversation, so they both just went on doing there work in silence. They tried to make the tree look as close to a ball as possible, but it was too hard to get to the branches at the top, so they ended up just modeling the lower part.
“Any more work?”
Yuki nodded. “Plenty!”, she grinned at him. “We need to twitch the pest plants. I didn't have a lot of time recently, since I had to take care of Mei.”
Feng sighed. “I guess I'll help you. At least I'm getting a bit distraction from her state.”
The aunt smiled. Then they walked over to the flowerbed. All kinds and colors of plants were placed in the ground, some looked gorgeous and some just weird. Feng looked for the green pest plants and started to rip them out of the soil. Then he looked for the next one.
They were almost done, when a man came out of the house.
“Ah, you're back already?”, he greeted.
Feng looked up and saw Yuki's husband Kaito standing in front of him. He smiled at him.
“Should I help you guys out a bit?”
“Do so if you want”, the aunt piped up without looking at him.
The man sat down and started to look around for pest plants. There weren't many anymore.
“How was your trip?”, the uncle asked seemingly out of nowhere.
Feng didn't say anything. That should be enough to show him he didn't want to talk about it. Kaito understood and just kept quite. That's how they kept working, unable to build a real conversation.
After a while, Feng rose. He down at the other two sitting next to him and yawned. “I'm gonna leave the rest to you, I need to take a nap, still tired of the trip.”
He turned around and slowly walked towards the house again, he just heard the uncle's voice shouting for him.
“Hey boy! Can you come over to my room later when you wake up? I need to talk a bit to you!”
Feng raised his hand to signal that he understood and slowly got in into his room.
Kaito looked at the large screen in front of him. It showed three girls drawn in an old-school Anime Style. One of them dressed in a ridiculous costume, her blonde hair tied back in twin-tails. She fought a somewhat hillarious looking puppet. Two other girls stood in the back, both dressed in school uniforms, that were used back then in Japan. One of them had pink her, bound together by two ribbons having the same color, the other having her shorter blue hair open. Next to them a little cat-like creature was sitting, smiling as if it was anticipating something. Even though the Anime had been released before Kaito was born, this still was one of his favourites. Of course he knew what was going to happen next, he had watched it often enough earlier.
The uncle though, wasn't entirely dedicated to the show but rather wondered how the boy would react to what he was about to tell him. It wasn't easy to accept after all. He didn't know if Feng had ever heard about the things Kaito would talk to him about.
In the Anime the cute little creature seemed to speak to the two girls in the back now, advising them. “Hurry, you need to...”
“No need!”, another girl interrupted roughly. She had incredibly long hair and wore a costume too, though it wasn't as colorful as the blonde's one.
The door next to the little couch Kaito sat on opened and Yuki sneaked in.
“You'll never change about these things.”, she commented.
“Of course not. You knew you were going to marry an Otaku, don't say you thought it would be getting better one day.”
“I didn't even dream of it. You mind if I join a bit?”
“Why should I?”
Yuki sat down now starting to look at the screen too. An explosion just concluded the fight between the dark haired girl and something that was reminiscent of a worm. The world faded around the girls and left two of them sitting depressed on the ground.
“I wonder what he will say”, the aunt interrupted the dialog of the Anime characters.
“We will see.”
“What are you going to tell him?”
“Everything. I don't know if he knows something already though. I hope he does, it would make things a lot easier.”
“What if he doesn't believe you? The whole thing about the Holy Grail War and magic will sound pretty ridiculous to him.”
“He will believe me. I have ways to make him do that.” He smiled at her and with this the conversation ended and both concentrated on the show again.
