A bowl of noodles grew cold and stiff.
Rong Xianning sat on the sofa, staring blankly for an entire afternoon as dusk quietly descended.
The room remained unlit, the boundless darkness devouring everything within it.
Only a faint, desolate moonbeam cloaked the solitary figure on the sofa.
The phone on the floor illuminated and darkened, over and over in an endless cycle.
Eventually, the phone ran out of battery and succumbed to silence in the night.
He curled up on the sofa, hugging himself, sinking into an endless abyss of darkness.
It seemed like he dreamt—a vivid, bizarre dream—of a happy childhood spent with his grandmother. But it all abruptly ended in that devastating fire.
He finally saw his parents, but there wasn't a single word of concern for his injuries, not a single tear shed for his grandmother who died a tragic death. Instead, they were fixated on extracting an exorbitant compensation from the government, their greedy faces exposed without an ounce of shame.
