But I never thought of facing the fear of death. Maybe the moment of death is not terrible, but the terrible thing is to wait for that moment to come. I don't want to die, I don't want to die, even though I know that the nurse is imprisoned here because of me, even though I know that the guards don't like me, I still don't think I'm going to die.

Contradictory, right? Ridiculous, right? It's obviously my own decision, I know that this will make everyone happy, but I hesitate in front of the fate I expect, I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I'm afraid of leaving alone like this. The nurse, the uncle who brought us food on time every day, and the owner of the baked cake stall, even though I could feel the coldness in his eyes, even if I didn't know if he liked me or not, I still wanted to live, yes, like an ordinary child outside that low wall.

Maybe my mind flew back in that moment, or maybe it was just a dream that had just begun. I dreamed of not my mother, but a nurse who didn't even know her name, there was a small courtyard, in the narrow courtyard there was a pear tree that would fall like snow every year, when the naughty me no longer wanted to walk on the bluestone paved ground, its shortest branch was just enough to bear my weight. So I wondered how I could climb up. The low branches of the tree did seem a little out of reach for a young child, and maybe I should have put a bench under that tree, or maybe I should have gone find a few thick bricks first.

But I didn't find any tools at home that would allow me to climb the branch smoothly, there were no benches, no bricks, everything seemed so clean in the clean courtyard, even the small flowers and grass growing in the cracks of the bluestone seemed to be spotless under the careful care of the owner. Of course, all of this is due to the nurse, although I have been with her since I was a child, but the beautiful and delicate nurse is still a mystery to me with countless halos. If it weren't for the word "nurse" who I didn't know when, I think I would have regarded her as my own mother.

When I finally knew the difference between the two words in reading and writing, I felt a little lost in my heart. She is just my nurse, and there is a person closer to me in this world than her, but where is the mother who should be by my side like her and take care of me meticulously? I don't know, and I don't want to know, that the fantasy of the mother I have never met is also forgotten little by little in the nurse's careful care of me. Only in my heart, I still have a little hope, my mother was originally made up by those bad people, and the nurse is my real mother. Whenever I couldn't sleep at night, lying in the crook of the nurse's arm, I secretly looked at the delicate face of the person who always coaxed me to sleep with one novel story after another, and I always had a feeling that she would suddenly disappear from front of me, I was afraid of my own feelings, I was afraid that she would really leave me alone, I was afraid that my premonition would one day become a reality.

As if sensing something, the nurse gently lifted the quilt that I had suddenly grabbed and covered my face, and scratched my ears or scratched my armpits like a cat trying to please her master, and she tried to remove the quilt from my head by any means imaginable, as if she were a naughty child of my size.

I could even imagine her worried eyes, and I could even guess the confusion in her heart. The darkness that besieged me seemed to be a hand firmly grasping me, hovering around the darkness where there was no light in sight, devouring the fear and uneasiness in my heart like a greedy beast. I was afraid that she would leave suddenly, I was afraid that once I lifted the quilt, the nurse would suddenly come out of front of me, I was afraid of the voice in my heart that had been laughing, I was afraid that she would leave me forever one day. Probably this boundless darkness is my friend, just grabbing the corner of the quilt in my hand, wet and full of cold sweat, I am afraid that the voice in my heart will become a reality, I am afraid that the prophecy will instantly change my world, take away the nurse who has always been smiling at me softly, leaving me with a world of nothing.

"Li'er, are you scared?" The nurse's voice was as soft as ever. Even in the dark, frightened eyes widened in the quilt, I could see the smile she left on her lips, I could feel her holding me, I could feel the warmth in her arms, I could even see her staring at me with wide eyes.

A slender hand lightly covered my hand, which slightly exposed four small fingers, as if wiping the cold sweat between my fingers as softly, dry as if there was still a trace of the smoked smell of the nurse's body, and the silk scarf seeped in from my tightly clutched hand. I opened my eyes slowly, the gap was as fragile and tiny as an eggshell sprouting life, I nervously let go of a hand, and covered my eyes with the back of my hand like a chick unwilling to leave the warm eggshell too early: "Nanny, you won't leave me alone, right?" ”

The nurse was stunned for a moment, and the hand stopped at the edge of the quilt all of a sudden, I could hear the hesitation and struggle in her heart, I could even see the smile on her face freeze suddenly, I stretched the quilt out a little more, and cautiously stretched out a hand and asked again: "Nurse, you will definitely not leave me here alone, right?" ”

The nurse smiled suddenly, and the warm and slender hand held my hand tightly, and I could hear her soft to me: "Silly child, how could I leave you here alone?" She pulled my little finger as if she had already seen my thoughts, "Don't believe it, let's pull the hook!" ”

I slowly poked half of my head out of the quilt, looking at the two tightly hooked little fingers close at hand, and the nightmarish voice in my heart could no longer be heard. The nurse told me that if she left here one day, she would carry me like a small pillow. But I shook my head and said that if the nurse would be with me, I would rather stay here for the rest of my life. At that moment, as if I had a new toy, I didn't even bother to look at the nurse. I often thought that if I had seen the melancholy in my nurse's eyes at that time, I probably wouldn't have wanted to keep her around.

The sunset is my favorite sight, the golden orange that seems to have burned out of the sun is like a fairy falling from the sky showing off her neon dress to the world, and I often think that if the nurse could dance in the clouds in such a dress, then people would probably think that she is a fairy who does not eat the fireworks of the world.

The view at dusk is indeed intoxicating, but I prefer to see the children who come out to play before dinner, I envy their carefree and carefree appearance, I envy the way they can play with each other, I envy that they can play outside, I envy the smile on their faces that they are not alone. Unlike me, I can only stay alone in this small courtyard.

It was only about a month before the little kids who walked by the wall finally noticed me, and I waved at them excitedly, but they all looked at me coldly and didn't give me the slightest chance.

"Hey, what's your name?" I held my hand in the shape of a trumpet and shouted at them, but the farther they retreated, as if some vicious animal stood beside me. I tried to find anything around me that was different from theirs, but I couldn't find anything. But what I did see in their eyes was a kind of fear, not of any fear I had ever seen, not even the nervousness of a child of a stranger when he saw a new neighbor, but only fear in their eyes.

Am I scary? I could clearly feel that they were afraid of me, and I could clearly feel that they were not only afraid of me, but also of this little courtyard behind me, and everything I had. I don't know what they're afraid of, maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part, they're not afraid of anything, they're just hating the way I look in fancy clothes.

The nurse could not resist my pleading, and the next day she changed me into a suit of clothes that even ordinary people would not look at, and she braided my hair into pigtails like those of other children, and I would no longer bathe in water soaked in rose petals, for I was afraid that I would hate me because of the strange smell that made them feel strange.

The nurse was curious and asked me what I was going to do. That was the first and only time I had lied to her, and I was going to tell her when I had found a friend who would talk to me, but when her eyes were as clear as autumn water, I felt that I could not hide anything from her secrets, and I felt that she knew everything. The uncle who delivered the food was delayed at the door for a long time, and when I looked out through the crack in the door that was hidden by the nurse, I could clearly see that the uncle's face had become extremely ugly, and I could clearly see that when the nurse, who had always been modest, said something to him, his face became even more ugly.

I wondered what they were talking about, and what made me even more curious was the uncle's ugly face, even though he was already ugly, and the huge, ugly scar slashed diagonally down his face, almost opening his nose, and everyone who saw it could not help but be afraid. I wondered what the nurse had said to him to make him look like that, but no matter how much I pestered the nurse to ask questions over and over again, she always smiled and picked me up without saying a word.

Cut, the nurse is so stingy, I can't help but be angry with the nurse. But when I hid behind the door again because I was afraid, nervously watching the uncle who would deliver food on time every day mysteriously handed the nurse a pocket, so the nervousness and fear all turned into curiosity about that pocket.

"What's that?" I asked, my eyes wide, not noticing that the nurse had closed the door. The pocket, which had been left in the yard, jerked in the other direction as if frightened, but became motionless as if it were immediately aware that there was no way to escape.

"Guess what?" The nurse smiled and blindfolded me, and then something with a peculiar smell crawled into my arms and jumped gently onto my shoulder.

The hand covering my eyes let go, and a cute tail swept mischievously past the tip of my nose, and I finally couldn't help but let out a big sneeze after the nurse had managed to get the white fur out of my wide open mouth. The little thing that was sitting on my shoulder combing the hair on his back also stood up all the hair on his tail as if he was startled, opened his pink mouth and screamed, and then very cleverly hid behind the nurse.

It's a cat. It's a white-colored cat, and it's a white-colored cat that only makes a very small noise with a milky voice.

It turned out to be a kitten. I smiled, remembering one day a cat suddenly came over the next door neighbor's house and wandered around the yard for a long time as if it was smelling something. I tried to sneak over and grab it, but after it had stared at me as if it were laughing at me, it easily jumped up the tree, stared at me condescendingly for a long time, scratched its tail with contempt as if laughing at my low contempt, and soon left the yard lightly like a child tired of playing the game. Although the nurse tried her best to coax me that day, the next day her plan to lure the cat over with osmanthus cake did not work at all, and every time I got up from the ground covered in dust, the bulky looking cat was always dangling on the highest branch of the tree, and no matter how much I waved below with a piece of osmanthus cake in my hand, it would not come down.

A few days later, it may have been fully familiar with my plan, and always deliberately squatted there and ate the osmanthus cake on the ground before it seemed to see me running halfway up the tree with the rest of the osmanthus cake in its mouth, and sometimes it would even wait until I was about to approach the lowest branch before scurrying upward, and one time, it jumped down with an expression that was tired of this kind of game, and stepped heavily on my face before running up the wall again.

The nurse hugged me as if she was about to cry, and with a hint of an apologetic smile, she wiped the tears from my face with her own hands, and said that she would definitely give me a kitten in the future. But when she did give it to me, I had long forgotten about it. So, it's no longer a cat, it's Tiny, and Tiny is my favorite friend.

Little always likes to snore, and after he left the basket of clean cotton cloth for which I had laid it out so restlessly, one of the most common things to do was to squeeze into my quilt and shrink her soft and warm body under my nose, and then use the trick he always used to quietly put the whole furry tail into my mouth with a wide open salivation, or to tuck my nose with the tip of the tail that I thought would be itchy. It was only after I went from a daze to a half-awake and half-asleep sneeze that it squinted and yawned like a naughty child had done some mischief, until the tip of its apricot-red nose was about to touch my lips and stopped snoring, and by then I was fully awake.

The nurse would quietly get up every day to see if I was really asleep, and every time she touched my armpits, I couldn't help but laugh secretly, and of course, both of my hands were on a stuffy thing. In this way, the little naughty became the best excuse for me not to go to bed so early, and sometimes the little one would even lie in the wet girl's quilt, and if I couldn't catch the little tail, I would always roll into the nurse's arms and rub around like the little one often did in my arms, until the nurse held me firmly with giggling.

But I never thought that day would end so early, I think, probably because of the relationship I met with that boy, I always, always wanted to forget him, but until the end of this memory I realized that I had never forgotten him. (To be continued.) )