Chapter 387: The Girl’s Story

2022-05-20

“Do you really think that girl is happy?” Hu Ningning suddenly burst out laughing. “Is she truly happy though?”

I caught a hint of sadness in Hu Ningning’s eyes.

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes for a moment, and as if letting out a heavy sigh, looked out at the rain pouring down the window. “Alright, let me tell you a little girl’s story.”

I shrugged. “I’m all ears.”

Hu Ningning began slowly, “There was a little girl. From as early as she could remember, her mom and dad had to leave the village to work in the city. She was only a few years old, and like most kids that age, she was incredibly clingy. She tried all kinds of tricks to keep her parents from leaving. She cried, she made a fuss, but it was all pointless.”

“Your parents only left so you could have a better life,” I said.

Hu Ningning pouted and nodded, agreeing without hesitation. “Exactly. But back then, I was too little to understand what my parents were going through. Now, of course, I get it. It’s normal for parents to leave and work hard to provide for their families. But it’s just as normal for a child to want their parents by their side.”

“So whose fault is it then?” Hu Ningning stared at me, her gaze serious.

I spread my hands. “No one’s at fault. That’s just life. There are lots of little girls like you, but they don’t lie, don’t bully others, don’t play both sides. Never mind murder.”

She shook her head, a sly smile on her lips. “That’s just because they’re too gullible. Do you watch TV, big brother?”

“TV?” I asked, puzzled. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

Hu Ningning explained, “Have you ever heard them say life is like playing poker? Some people are dealt a royal flush and seem to win no matter how they play. Some of us, though, are stuck with nothing but bad cards. It all depends on how you play your hand. That’s the difference between me and everyone else—I know how to play a bad hand well.”

“Some people never take risks. They get those lousy cards and just accept them as their fate. They’re not hoping to win, they just don’t want to lose everything. But I’m not like them. I’ve got a bad hand and I just can’t accept it.”

A nine-year-old girl speaking of life as if she’d seen more than some grownups. I couldn’t figure out how she came to those conclusions at her age.

“If you want something, you have to fight for it,” Hu Ningning went on, turning her gaze back out the window. “It doesn’t really matter what you do to get it, only whether or not you succeed. When I was little, my family was dirt poor. So poor we didn’t even have a TV or a radio. We had nothing at all.”

It sounded odd, hearing a nine-year-old talk about ‘when I was little.’

But Hu Ningning kept going. “You can’t imagine what it’s like to be laughed at by everyone. At New Year’s, other kids’ families would have dumplings to eat, but mine never did. Know why? Because after I was born, my mom fell gravely ill and didn’t recover until I was old enough to understand.”

“I knew from a young age that every bit of money we had went to pay my mom’s medical bills. Thankfully she got better, but we ran out of money. Once upon a time, we had it all. But after I was born, everything was gone. People whispered behind my back that I was bad luck, and even fortune-tellers claimed my fate was cursed, that I’d only bring tragedy.”

Hu Ningning smiled lightly, like she was telling someone else’s story, not her own—her face free of emotion. “By the time I was three, my mom decided to leave and work in the city with my dad. We owed a pile of debt. Even my grandpa planned to go work too, but my parents stopped him.”

“Kids always want to go out and play. Do you know what it’s like when all the villagers look at you like they’re just waiting to see you fail? At New Year’s, I couldn’t even have a single dumpling. When I visited people during the holiday, they’d say, ‘If you can bark like a dog, we’ll give you some meat.'”

I frowned as I listened to Hu Ningning talk about her past.

“They’d actually give me meat if I barked like a dog. Most of those kids teasing me weren’t much older than I was. But where did they learn that? Their parents sat nearby, acting like it was just kids horsing around, not caring at all. I wanted dumplings, I wanted meat, so I barked like a dog for them and kept at it until I was five.”

Hu Ningning grinned. “When I turned five, the debts were finally paid off. Life started looking up, and we could finally afford to eat meat. But that’s when I realized adults never actually pay attention to what kids do. Like those older kids who made me beg for food like a puppy—everyone brushed it off as child’s play.”

“But you know what really stuck with me? People say girls should be raised in comfort or else they’ll fall for any temptation. They’re not wrong. Just to taste a bite of meat, I was willing to bark like a dog. What happens after that?”

Suddenly it struck me—this is how adults talk about every child, as if kids never really know anything.

Hu Ningning continued, “When I was five, I visited Dongxing City for the first time. The place was huge—you know what I mean. I just couldn’t understand why, when we lived so close, Dongxing City was so wealthy and our village so poor. I ate KFC for the first time, and it was amazing. Even though I’ve eaten it many times since, nothing ever tasted as good as that first bite.”

“Really?” I asked awkwardly.

She nodded, still showing no hint of emotion. “Yes. My mom told me, ‘Remember what KFC tastes like. Now you can tell everyone you’ve eaten it, you’re no less than anyone in our village. You can say you went to Dongxing City and had KFC.'”

Suddenly a determined light sparked in her eyes. She said, “I was five that year, and I’ve never forgotten what my mom told me: I’d eaten KFC, too. The more they looked down on me, the more I wanted to be the best at everything.”

She scoffed, “When I was home, I taught myself all of first-grade by the time I started school. Luckily, our lives kept getting better. At five, I went to kindergarten and always came out on top. Suddenly, people said I was a prodigy who’d go on to university—the only hope in the village.”

Hu Ningning laughed out loud. “Funny, isn’t it? They seem to forget how they talked about me just a year before. You have to understand, when you’re a kid, no matter what you do, adults don’t care. As long as your grades are good, and you look like you might get into university one day, everyone’s on your side.”

“So your grades have always been the best,” I said.

She shrugged. “If you want to play a bad hand well, brains alone won’t cut it. You have to work like mad so people start calling you a genius. I love watching TV; you can learn so much from it. Intelligence is mostly genetic, but if you want to reach the peak, a bit of smarts and double the effort can get you into the top twenty percent.”

“Pay attention, and there’s nothing you can’t get. My family’s doing better now, but there are plenty of kids at school richer than me. I wanted toys and good food, but I didn’t want to spend our money. I learned barking like a dog wasn’t the answer, so was there a way to make those kids give me things on their own?”

I stared at her. “So you started using all sorts of tricks to get what you wanted?”

“Of course.” Hu Ningning stood up and asked, “If I can be friends with someone, then we’ll be friends. But if they won’t share, I’ll just use a little leverage.”

“Like how you formed your own group?” I pressed.

Hu Ningning smiled. “It’s simple. You just have to figure out what people want. Once you know what they need, it’s easy to steer them.”

“So you used these bullies to get what you wanted. Whether it was something you liked, or dealing with someone you hated, they’d handle it for you. Even when you told Zhang Zijun and Guo Limin who was bullying their child, the only reason they believed you was because you knew exactly what was going on. All because you let it happen in the first place.”

Hu Ningning gave me a look like I was missing the obvious. “Even if I wasn’t their ringleader, do you really think they’d stop bullying others? Even if I didn’t do all this, would they magically turn into good kids? I’m just making use of the cards I’ve been dealt. They were always like this—I can’t change that.”

“What kind of person you become is your own choice. That’s out of my hands. I just do what’s needed to deal with whoever’s in front of me.”

“Are you really that scared of being poor?” I asked quietly, staring at this nine-year-old. “You’re only nine. Is it really worth it?”

“Nine years old?” Hu Ningning shot back. “Look at you, over twenty and still working a job that pays barely a few thousand a month. Do you know how much the world’s most expensive sports car costs? Or what a real Western meal sets you back? Don’t you want those things? Don’t you want to eat well?”

“But what about everyone else? What about Gu Hui? Why did you kill Gu Hui? Was it just to keep her from revealing your secret?”

“No.”

Hu Ningning turned to me, a faint smile tugging at her lips.

“I did it purely for my own happiness.”