The boy dreamt of red.
A fiery hellscape was all his eyes could see.
He laid there helplessly, spreading his stubby arms out frantically amongst the rising smog and collapsing wooden structures. Wailing loudly, the boy tried his best to make out what had happened. The salty air made him sniff and sneeze. The aforementioned smoke choked his airways. The heat is concentrating within. It was a boiling furnace.
Suddenly, a series of explosions erupted in the background. He heard the screams of men and the room shook violently. The ongoing horrors caused the boy to cry even louder. His voice coarsened by the minute and soon dwindled in strength as he grew lethargic on his calls for help. Unbeknownst to the boy, the roof’s support beams finally gave in to the continuous impacts from the outside, cracking the planks into splinters as they descended upon him.
Unfortunately, regarding what had happened afterwards, the boy was only able to recall the presence of an incoming whiff of distinguishable perfume and a deep man’s voice calling out to him.
---
“Wahh!”
The boy jerked his torso forward and opened his eyes wide in fright.
“Hah, hah…hah…Another…hah, nightmare, huh…”
He took deep, rapid breaths as he tried his best to calm down. Large amounts of sweat dripped heavily off his newly worn robe.
‘What?’
Shoving his blanket aside, the boy took a detailed look at his body. Besides the mysterious robe coloured blue and white, his limbs were covered in thick wraps of rubber cloth. Throughout his chest and lower abdomen, square shaped bandages were plastered over a coating of some concoction applied to his bruised skin. He even felt one long bandage behind him, running down his spine as he touched it.
‘What’s…going on?’
Shaking off the fear he had after witnessing what he had just dreamt off, the boy started to set his mind up to speed and took close alert as he scanned his surroundings.
The boy was sitting on a makeshift bed in an empty room that was just as wide and long as the main operating hall. His bed was placed at the far corner of the vast space and behind him; the boy felt the vibrations and muffled noises of the patients and the respective doctors.
Near to his left faced a wide overarching window that took up most of the outer wall of the room which looked out into the main slum districts below.
‘I-I’m still in the temple, aren’t I?”
Within this dark chamber, only the natural light, from the arched window, illuminated the long expanse, partitioned by the dark shadows of the deteriorating metal window frames and the reflections from shattered glass. The light rays reached the other far end, just plentiful for the boy to realize that the door was left open.
‘Sun’s settin’...How long have I been out for? I gotta go bac--Ackk!’
A sharp, stinging pain jolted up behind him along his vertebrae as soon as he tried to get up from bed. He scrunched his face tight in discomfort as he endured the agony, causing the boy to promptly lose strength in his back muscles and ended in him, quickly lying down upon the rough bed sheets to recover. Kicking his legs with frustration, the boy once again took several deep breaths as he gazed up slowly at the ceiling. All that he saw was black, layered with shadows and swarmed with many scattered clumps of bright small dust and shiny, interweaving cobble webs, both being reflected off from the natural lighting of this room.
He grabbed the blanket that he pushed aside earlier and used it as additional cushioning for his backside.
‘Well, at least this is better than the ones at home--’
“Oh, you’re awake already?”
The boy skipped a beat in shock and jerked his head around to the direction of the voice, which originated from across the room, over at the door. It came from a young boy, covered in numerous bandages like himself and was around his age, while holding a small tray consisting of a cup of medicinal broth and a bowl of rice and meat. And behind him, was a middle-aged man wearing a pair of spectacles. The two of them looked exhausted but determined nonetheless. The boy strided towards him, carefully trying not to spill the broth. The middle-aged man followed steadily behind.
“Wait…who are y-” the boy muttered.
That was when he made the connection.
“HOLD, hold on a minute! Are you the one who stopped ‘Master’ Tai-”
Realizing what he was saying, the boy clapped his mouth shut in silence, feeling a wave of embarrassment; and this was not because he spoke out of hand nor due to how he addressed the assailants that bullied him relentlessly. It was another problem…and the other boy and the man took notice of that as well.
‘Bollocks, I was careless…’
“Whoa…Mr Xu, what is this language? I think I've heard of it before but I can’t seem to pinpoint when,” the boy asked in curiosity and awe.
“It’s as what I had expected but…how…how did a foreigner’s kid like you get so far inland from ShanWei?”
Sensing the hesitation in Mr Xu’s voice, ReZhui questioned how this revelation could be such a huge deal for his mentor but by itself, he could guess why that is so. He thought back to those bastards' answers. They all expressed that the boy in front of him right now is a strange one. And, even ReZhui cannot deny it, he is the odd one out. In all his life, ReZhui has never seen anyone with such colorful hair and eyes. Currently, after XinLi was instructed to scrub down the excess soot on the boy’s hair since Mr Xu deemed it harmful to the hair; while most of the black sludge has been washed off, there are some gray areas throughout. Even so, the other blond areas shone brilliantly in the setting sunlight, bringing out some incredible beauty from within the boy. With that said, ReZhui’s curiosity had grown much larger about the world beyond this city, especially that port city, ShanWei, who both Mr Sun and Mr Xu referred to, with such importance.
‘I wonder if there will be more of his ‘people’ if I go to do business there someday.’
“ReZhui?”
“Yes, Mr Xu?”
“The medicine.”
ReZhui looked down on the tray and realized his mistake.
“Oh, sorry for the delay.”
Carefully placing the tray onto the lap of the boy, ReZhui handed out a spoon to him.
“Here.”
The other kid slowly picked himself up from his pillow and reached out his hand for it.
“thank you,” the boy muttered as he excitedly dug the spoon into the bowl and started to gobble it up quickly, taking large gulps of the broth as he continued.
ReZhui watched as he sat on a wooden chair which was pulled up in front of the bed with the backrest facing forwards. Placing his arms on the top rail, ReZhui slouched tiredly on it while he watched Mr Xu do some minor checkups on his condition. However, that did not stop the boy from eating since he switched to his left hand to hold the spoon, with the right being held within Mr Xu’s hands to check the blood pressure.
Dissatisfied with the silence of this room, besides the loud munching of food from the boy in the background, ReZhui decided to start a conversation with the boy but before he could utter a single word, he halted himself. A worried thought came into his mind that said he would be interrupting the boy’s cherished meal, considering his malnourished body. Thus, ReZhui switched to Mr Xu instead.
“Mr Xu, what was the language he spoke to us just now?”
Still doing his checkups, Mr Xu replied naturally with no pauses in the moving of his hands.
“I didn’t answer you back then, didn’t I? To put it simply, it’s called English.”
“English…?”
“Yes, it is very different to our Mandarin in terms of writing and speaking, and it is spoken mainly by people who do services to the foreigners and the foreigners themselves. Famous merchants and travelers would even dare say English is the language for international business and trade.”
“I-International?”
“Everywhere, in every country that resides in this world. However, within the Middle Kingdom, the main communication we use is Mandarin. It’s called the local language, belonging to only our country.”
“Whoa, in that case, does this mean foreigners are in DongBu village as well?”
“That’s the problem, I am not sure about that and this is why I came here as well.”
“Understood.”
Knowing Mr Xu’s intentions, ReZhui kept his silence and turned his attention to the boy with blonde hair, who just so happened to have finished his meal on time as well.
“Boy, do you understand me?” Mr Xu asked gently, meeting his eyes with the boy.
“Yes,” he replied hesitantly.
“What’s your name?”
“...” the boy averted his gaze.
“Listen, I am the doctor who runs this place. My name is Xu YaoMing, one of the council members of the village. I hope that this assures you. We can help take you back to your family shortly after today’s session is over. But to do so, I need to know your name.”
With some contemplation on his end, the boy finally gave in.
“Eddison…Eddison He is my name.”
ReZhui remained flabbergasted at the oddity of his name.
‘Ei, de, shun’
He tried reciting the name by himself but was left bewildered at its pronunciation. Moreover, ReZhui found his surname to certainly be Mandarin.
‘What’s the deal with having your first name in English when your surname is not? Ah! This is confusing as well!’ he thought to himself.
On the other hand, Mr Xu was left unfazed by this. He, however, had several doubts regarding Eddison’s background.
“Well, Eddison, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“...Good…night…” Eddison replied shyly.
A sudden pause.
ReZhui watched as Mr Xu didn’t respond back and kept silent for several moments.
After a deep sigh, he continued the conversation, but this time, there was observable dread within his eyes.
“Eddison, are you lost here?”
“No…”
“Eddison, were you kidnapped for ransom?”
“...No.”
“Are you still hungry?”
“...Yes…small, correct.”
Another pause for Mr Xu before he resumed.
“Tell me then, why is your surname very different?”
“...”
Mr Xu pushed onward, “I myself am pretty well-informed with the official names of the foreign merchant families and none of them were the ‘He’ surname. Moreover, I know that the workers and sailors these families employ from those lands do not have surnames as well. So that means, you might be biracial since ‘He’ is a Mandarin surname. No, you must be if you are telling the truth that that’s your true name. No lies between us, correct?”
“I…I, Yes.”
“Then, what are you doing out here living in the slums?”
“I…I, Mom. Dad, no…sniff…go…sniff…”
Eddison’s voice began to soften as he quietly sobbed at the recollection. He tried to run away from it but this situation forced his thoughts towards the unfortunate past. In the end, Eddison remained unresponsive.
“...”
Mr Xu realized that this was the boy’s limit and concluded his session right here. Getting up from the stool at the bedside, the doctor took a glance back at the boy, who was frantically wiping his tears away, before turning back to ReZhui’s direction. ReZhui had already straightened his back and was seated firmly on the chair, showing no signs of getting up.
“Not coming with me, ReZhui? You still have your duty left unfinished and there are still a lot of unresolved patients.”
“Mr Xu, could you temporarily assign that job to someone else for now? I want to stay back and keep him company.”
“ReZhui, I think it’s better if you le-”
“Please, Mr Xu. I want to help E-Eddi-sonn, Eddison.”
Seeing the determination in the boy’s eyes, Mr Xu gave in to his student’s demands.
“Alright, ReZhui. Let me know immediately if anything wrong happens to him, understand?”
“Yes, Mr Xu.”
“Also remember this, ReZhui. Eddison is currently having receptive multilingualism.”
“What does that mean?”
“He can understand Mandarin which certainly includes listening. But, for his case, I am not sure if he can read or write. However, he can only speak very basic vocabulary as you had seen earlier with my questions. So, prepare yourself for the language barrier.”
“I will. But just to make sure, he will understand everything I will say right?”
“Yes.”
“Ok, that’s good.”
“One more thing, ReZhui and this applies to you.”
“Is it regarding the bullies?”
“Yes, I had already healed their injuries and planned out the settlement with their guardians so there are no problems regarding that. However, I am more curious with what you did to them, especially the eldest kid.”
‘Oh no,’ ReZhui panicked internally.
“That attack to the liver. It is a fatal attack since it is a vital organ in the body. How did you come to know of that? I reckon you wouldn’t even be able to pinpoint that exact spot unless you attended a martial arts school.”
“I…I read it in one of your books on anatomy at your study. I just happened to get a lucky shot, hahah…” ReZhui childishly excused.
“...Is that so?”
“Yes, yes, it is.”
“Well, at least you didn’t get seriously injured. Don’t get into fights like that ever again, especially under my watch. I am still a doctor after all, so naturally, I disapprove the use of violence.”
“I got it, Mr Xu.”
“Good, I will be leaving now.”
ReZhui watched as Mr Xu exited the room, carrying the empty tray along. His walking steps echoed throughout with slight reverb when he made his way out through the door, leaving out a small opening.
---
Again another silence.
Eddison was tucked between his legs, sulking about as his eyes wandered aimlessly.
Facing back towards the sobbing boy, ReZhui put up a bright smile and waved his hand up in polite gesture.
“I guess I haven’t introduced myself, have I? The name’s Zhang ReZhui. But, you could just call me ReZhui. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“...”
No response but Eddison did make a short glance at him.
‘I…I can do this.’
ReZhui cheered himself on as he tried to open up to Eddison.
“H-how was that meal you just had? It was Assistant's XinLi who cooked that dish. If you are not familiar with her, she’s the lady who treated you back then before you passed out. But personally, I think her-”
“No.”
Eddison interrupted.
‘Did…did I upset him?’
Feeling mixed thoughts about that, ReZhui tried to inquire more.
“Wait…could you try detailing more on what you-”
“No.”
Eddison was insistent and ReZhui’s first attempt failed.
‘NO! I got to think this through.’
However, ReZhui persisted.
---
For a short while, ReZhui kept his quietude while Eddison remained in his slump against his legs.
He sighed, thin vapor could be seen exiting his mouth.
Eddison slowly drifted his dilated pupils towards the window with melancholy.
‘In the end, I failed to get the aid Mom needs. I got distracted from those memories that doctor brought up. No…it’s better to say I was traumatized by it. And as a result, I didn’t get the chance to tell that gentleman that Mom is in serious danger. Actually, should I even care at this point? It’s obvious she is hopeless already. And…what’s the point?
Argh…I am such a scrote. Maybe those boys were right after all. If only I… ‘
A slight whimper before a hesitant confirmation.
‘Yes, that may make everyone happy in the end.’
The boy continued to shift his body towards the edge of the window, looking out to the dark streets and forestry below. But as he did so…
“Be careful.”
A sudden hand grabbed onto Eddison’s shoulder, preventing any further advancement en route to the window edge. Eddison looked back to see ReZhui with one knee forward on the bed sheets. His eyes were dead serious unlike before and it scared Eddison at first sight.
‘Is…is what the boy looked like within ‘Master’ Tai’s eyes?’
Filling up a hint of frustration, Eddison tried to shrug it off but the resistance caused ReZhui’s grip to tighten instead. The frustration started rising to the point where Eddison lashed out in anger, attempting to shove ReZhui aside.
“Hands off me, moron!”
Unfortunately, his feeble figure made no budge in ReZhui’s overwhelming strength and ReZhui moved him further away from the edge; pulling him over to the other side of the bed, closest to the wooden chair.
Further resistance was futile as Eddison laid exhausted on the mattress, having exerted all his strength earlier.
Moving the chair closer to the edge of the bedside, ReZhui sat down and extended his palm outward.
“...”
Eddison looked back in confusion while he weakly got up.
“I want the both of us to fully understand what the other person is saying,” he explained, “Therefore, if you wish to say anything, you can just write the Mandarin characters on my palm for myself to fully know what you’re talking about. I hope that you can write other than just listening, can’t you?”
“...”
Eddison considered his proposal for quite some time; until finally, he reached out his frail, bony index finger and began to write out the strokes.
‘It’s cold to the touch. Very cold,’ ReZhui thought to himself, ‘But, seeing Eddison currently in the middle of writing, it looks so much better when he’s concentrating.’
After Eddison completed what he wanted to say, ReZhui read it out to the best of his memory.
“Why are you doing so much just for someone like me?”
“...What do you mean by that, Eddison?” ReZhui asked curtly.
In response, Eddison proceeded to write on his palm.
“From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for standing up for me against those bullies but I do not want to be in your debt any longer. It’s better for you to spend your time and effort on something more productive elsewhere, compared to a worthless child like me.”
“...”
ReZhui began to notice his slowly shaking fingers as Eddison continued to write on his palm.
“If you think that I could potentially be a useful tool to garner favor with the rich foreign merchant families, you are mistaken. I am just the bastard son of an unemployed former prostitute and a passing merchant who was disowned by his family outside the Middle Kingdom. There is no hope for me. Everyone that my mom and I encountered and knew rejected us and labeled us as outcasts, even in her hometown, we are still judged unforgivingly over here. You saw it firsthand, didn’t you? I am of no value…”
Eddison stopped.
Flashes of his horrid experiences flooded his mind on repeat. His hand started to shake violently in fear and in between his deep pants, groans of pain and denial were heard as he held tight onto his severe and patched up bruises, digging into them until they bled again.
“no, no, no, NO! STOP IT-aurgh!!!”
A hard punch landed squarely on the side of his cheek.
ReZhui sent Eddison rolling off to the opposite side where Eddison hit the window frame hard on impact. The creaking of the metal structure croaked loudly as shattered glass bits fell near him, barely missing his unstable body.
“That’s enough, Eddison. Snap out of this deprecating state! It’s not healthy for you.”
Having heard ReZhui’s words, Eddison grunted back in annoyance.
Digging his fingers deeper into the blood and skin, Eddison began to write out his words in red upon the roughed up bed covers. ReZhui could only watch in shock as he did so.
It wrote:
I deserve it.
I am the cause of my parents' tragedy.
I am hated by Mother!
I am hated by everyone!
My father is nowhere to be found!
My mother is near her end!
I HAVE NOTHING!
LET ME DIE HERE FOR THEIR SAKE AT LEAST!
“...”
ReZhui was at a loss for words.
“Re-Zhui, I, monster…Go, Yes”
Eddison pointed at himself as he said those words.
‘No, this wasn’t supposed to reach this end. I-I need to be more forefront!,’
ReZhui was not giving up yet.
“LISTEN UP, EDDISON! YOU ARE NOT ALONE!”
And, Eddison stopped in his tracks at his outburst. He looked up at ReZhui, widened eyed and filled with an indescribable emotion.
“I once crossed paths with a mother and son. They were both so dearly in love as a family. But one day, someone decided to ruin their lives for fun’s sake! In the end, the son didn’t survive but the mother could have…
However…Unfortunately, she rejected Mr Xu’s treatment.”
“...”
“The misery of living alone and poor was something she couldn’t bear to hold and ultimately, she passed away along with her dead son.”
“I…I’m sorry…” Eddison muttered in condolences.
“Eddison, my point here is that I despise that kind of ending. I learnt that the hard way when I once went against her wishes for death but in reality, her case left no leeway for my naive ideals to make sense. But, I still am quite stubborn with rejecting that notion aside, in place for my mentor’s, Mr Xu’s, mentality. And that starts with you.”
ReZhui gave out a hand to Eddison who was still partially laid on the bed, compared to ReZhui who leaned over him, sitting on his knees.
“I wish to save you from your past. I wish to change your outlook on life. And I wish, no…I want to be your friend.”
“...”
“I hope we can have a fruitful relationship.”
Speechless as he was, Eddison felt a resonance within his heart.
“A…A longing for understanding…and acceptance, isn’t it?” he questioned quietly to himself.
“Huh?”
A heavy tug was soon felt on ReZhui’s arm.
“Yes…”
Eddison held on and brought himself up to ReZhui’s level.
“Yes, ReZhui, yes and thank you, very much,” Eddison smiled softly.
“Likewise…I’m glad to hear that.”
ReZhui continued to tighten his grasp with Eddison’s bloodied hand, affirming their wholehearted handshake while he smiled radiantly back at his new companion.
---
The setting sun was dyed a deep crimson red as it shone brightly upon the two young boys; their long dark silhouettes grandly emerged upon the dusty, tiled floor of the naturally-lit hall room.