It would seem that they have yet to hear what happened to her afterward, which sounded all right at the moment. Knowing them, they'd probably faint and tear up in despair upon hearing of her death with her uncle raging over how it could've happened while wanting to put the blame on someone who's already dead for taking the life of his precious niece.
Between her paternal and maternal grandparents, her maternal grandmother and uncle often spoiled her at her house and would bring her to her great aunt and uncle's place for dinner almost every night. While her paternal grandmother and aunt were strict with her education but still loves her all the same, her maternal family were rather competitive when it comes to spoiling her rotten, especially between her maternal grandmother and maternal grandfather.
Yet, despite having a conflict and divorce, they would put those aside and meet up to take her to their homes for her and her mother's sake. It was good to see that they were well and healthy.
Yes, it was best that it was all good at the moment. As long as the disaster doesn't spread too far and reached here. After all, this place will always be home in her soul.
After the long chat with the women, she finally felt that it would be time and said a sad farewell to the three with a warm smile biting back the tears that had wanted to spill. Leaving the warm neighborhood she hadn't seen for a long time was bittersweet for her. Who knows when she'll see this scene again?
Yet, she worries for her Grand Aunt's health seeing that she had become so old these past decade. It was a wonder she still ran the stand as she did now. However, she can't stay around and help her. Now, she has to fix up the situation in the east side of China starting with Beijing, the money it requires to get there and understand the situation.
Willow had thought about using Li Fei's bank account, but she also knew that it could also be used to trace her movement and who knows what connections those so-called children of Hades have at their disposal.
Knowing this, she decided to leave that idea out of her mind for the moment. Her old account from her previous life might not be a good idea either at the moment. If it was known that she suddenly opened her account from America to China, it wouldn't be long before someone tries to look into the situation only to trace it back to a random woman in China.
Right now, she wants to cover her tracks as much as she could. So, she plans to travel around for a bit and see if she could earn some little bits of cash here and there. After much planning, she finally decided to go on her money-gathering trip. Using not even a dollar worth of her hard-earned money, Willow took a bus to Chengdu after much walking to a bus stop.
The drive was about two or three hours before she arrived at the capital city of Sichuan, Cheng du. The air wasn't as dense and humid as it was in GuiYang and the place was thriving with the livelihood of the business and shops. Yet, despite the humidity, the air was almost starting cold.
Still, she had to struggle on with sandals, dress, and her bag of cold cartwheel cake. Having finished the remainder of her cakes as she searched for a job, she then went ahead to one of the shops and bought a scallion pancake before looking through the spice markets and arcade building.
After much searching through the bustling city with her scallion pancakes in hand, she found a small job right back at the scallion pancake shop she bought the pancakes from. Let's just say that she wasn't too successful in finding a better job and went in many circles before the shop owner and his wife took pity on her noting how young she was and her obvious injured leg.
So, they offered to hire her and hearing her say that she was looking for a job with her made-on-the-spot background. In exchange for her work, she would be able to live in their abandoned storage room for a week after hearing that she was a traveler that just had her luggage stolen.
The couple was kind and she would get free pancakes in the morning and night in exchange for babysitting their children who were only toddlers but had surprisingly daring personalities catching beetles with their bare hands and often tested her patience, much like her younger siblings in her previous life.
Under the wife's tuition and the family's goodwill, she was brought before a local doctor who treated her injuries and learned how simple it was to make scallion pancakes and the tradition behind the Sichuan dishes. Many of which were spicy.
It was that night that she realized something was off when she entered their small closet bathroom. Obviously, there was no toilet seat since most bathrooms have squat toilet, and most bathrooms use a shower and drain in the room as their shower place rather than separately, but when she looked into the mirror she finally saw it.
On her forehead between her brow and under all that dirt and grime was a red color flower the size of the top of her thumb. It was clearly like that of red cherry flower used back in Japan. She scolded as the first figure came into her mind. That idiot father of hers plastered a stupid flower between her brow!
By god, what was she?!
His pet?
An item that needs his name on?!
She scowled angrily as she washed away the mud on her forehead. No wonder those customers stared at her back in the park! She have a stupid flower inked into her forehead!
Willow wanted to stomp her feet and curse at him out loud, but he was a god and she definitely doesn't want to be scorched to death for insulting him. She's already lost her life once, not twice.
Instead, she had to forcefully distinguish that anger in her as she thought of excuses to cover it up the situation around this stupid tattoo/birthmark. She sighed as the showerhead continued going off. Was she supposed to be on a mission or be an actor?
Willow scowled the entire time she bathed before changing into a clean bundle of clothing of a shirt, turtle neck sweater, and jeans. That night, she learned that the city would soon be in a lockdown thanks to a new disease plaguing the country, which surprised Willow as she believed that the plague that ate away the citizens in Beijing have already died away with the quarantine and new volcano back in that city. Their words of the situation now brought a sense of suspicion into her chest as she soon learned that it wasn't just Sichuan, but all of China being in quarantine!
Realizing the unusual situation, Willow thought of this for a bit before she finally decided to sit back or examine the situation carefully. What was more important now isn't to jump in and help indiscriminately, but to gather as much information as she can before making her move. After all, it was no doubt those children's doing.
For the hospitality of the strangers, she shared the culture of America and the English language to them, especially to their young generation who were taking the English course as their second language at school. With her constant visits to the doctor and having shared conversations regarding the medical field of the current problem with the illness, Willow taught the less educated people, especially the elderly people, how to protect themselves and their wares just as the quarantine order was quickly washing over the country and the police forces and social workers began to enter the city.
When she left, they handed her an old bag they used a long time ago, which was a simple blue duffle bag filled with a few old clothes the wife used to wear as a college student, and recommended a local spice shop to her through their connection.
Once again, she did the same for a week. Live in a run-down room and take care of the family chores, then she would leave and work in another place. She made the right decision to have come to Chengdu in Sichuan as her place of work.
Willow had thought about it when her mother in America once told her how the city of Chengdu much like that of a spice city in the parts of China. In fact, the majority of their food was typically bold and spicy, and, according to her mother, it was because spice was one of the ways to warm up the body during the cold winter seasons.
Not sure if that was true, but it certainly was for her parents of her previous life who lived through the harsh winter back in Guiyang. What she does know was that, when it comes to spice, Chengdu was the place to go for chili paste and peppercorn making the spice a necessity among the locals and money for the merchants.
The fact that Sichuan was also known as the heavenly country due to the abundance of food and resources in the area only puts the province on a higher level of popularity with numerous types of Sichuan cuisine. Growing up, Willow's previous family were a fan of spicy food. Every day, there would be dishes of spicy food on the table, so much so that they had to tone it down when health problems began to appear on her parents who were growing older and more susceptible to health problems.
Not only were there a good variety of cuisines, but the people were also kind and warm often having light arguments over trivial matters and laughing it all off almost immediately afterward. Not making small matters into big scuffles.
Even better, the moment she left the more rural parts of Guizhou province, the alleys began to decrease as they entered and pass the urban parts of the Guizhou and Sichuan province. Everyone was still kind and humble on the streets with their shops and stalls. With the help of the citizens, she also learned who to trust and how to keep an eye out for shady people.
For the majority of the time, the people knew each other well and were either friends, partners or rivals in the line of business. Like that four weeks passed when she earned a little over a hundred or two dollars together, mostly from the kindness or pity of the people. It was as they say, since there are so many Chinese people, they better have good food.
To the people running such businesses, it was only logic and their shops were their livelihood or even pride. Even when their children move to other cities to work, there would always be an inheritor to their shop or their recipe.
However, despite her good fortunes, she wished she could say the same for her poor arms. Her arms had nearly been splashed with hot oil once or twice, her palms had been burnt or bruised a couple of times by the hot plates and pounding of the chili paste, and her fingers had nearly been charred to brown from the pans. Apparently, being the daughter of a Pheonix didn't grant her immunity to being burnt.