Two thousand years ago, communication was not well-developed, and many rumors became terrifying as they spread. Xia Xiaoxiao and his peers at this age had often heard parents and teachers talk about stories of child traffickers.
As a standard well-behaved girl, Xia Xiaoxiao had never slipped out to the streets without adult company.
"Xu Qingfan, let's go back," Xia Xiaoxiao said weakly as she tightly clutched Xu Qingfan's hand on the sidewalk.
"Relax, see that person wearing blue clothes? That's a police officer; there aren't that many traffickers around." Xu Qingfan chuckled as he led Xia Xiaoxiao by the hand, pointing at a security guard in a uniform to reassure her.
"Look over there, another police officer!" He pointed to another security booth a few steps ahead.
The little girl was indeed no longer anxious and began to look around curiously.
"Didn't you say we were going to Lin Wanning's place? Why come to Gualv Square?"
Xu Qingfan thought to himself silently.
[Little Missy, Wanning's house is four or five kilometers from here; with our short legs, we won't make it even by nightfall!]
"Not going anymore."
Xia Xiaoxiao was delighted at heart, but then she heard Xu Qingfan say, "Let's first see what's fun at Gualv Square, I'll bring Lin Wanning here to play next time."
Xia Xiaoxiao: ???
If they weren't in public, the little girl would have bitten Xu Qingfan out of annoyance.
But she quickly came to her senses; no parent would dare let their five or six-year-old child go out alone to play!
"You think everyone is like you, daring to come out to play without parents?"
Xu Qingfan felt awkward; he had gotten addicted to talking back to his mom at lunch, almost forgetting he was still a little kid in kindergarten.
Gualv Square had only recently been built. As the district's first large shopping mall, it was bustling with visitors.
Xia Xiaoxiao had been to this place many times, but this was her first time without her parents, which gave the little girl a sense of adventure as if she were exploring unknown territory.
Hand in hand, they stepped through the automatic glass doors, greeted by the strong blast of air conditioning.
It wasn't until the year 2010 that an air conditioner was installed at home. Xu Qingfan, in his previous life as a child, had often come to Gualv Square to enjoy the cool air, so he knew each floor like the back of his hand.
Upon arriving at a crowded spot, Xia Xiaoxiao's timid heart was overtaken by novelty, and she let go of Xu Qingfan's hand to pull him toward the elevator.
The second floor was divided into hundreds of small shops selling all sorts of goods. Xu Qingfan remembered there used to be a store selling Taiwanese bubble tea here, which included octopus balls, wheel cakes, and egg waffles as part of the Taiwanese snacks offered.
When he was little, having one of those was as blissful as celebrating the New Year. But when he grew up and had money to return, the store had closed down.
Xu Qingfan once heard someone say, what you can't have when you're young will haunt you for life.
What was his unattainable desire? Was it Xia Xiaoxiao's departure or the octopus balls he never had?
Thinking about this was too pointless; at least now he had money in his pocket and could eat whatever he wanted. Xia Xiaoxiao was still by his side—that was more important than anything else.
"I'll treat you to bubble tea." Xu Qingfan said.
"You don't have to; I brought money!"
"Then you treat me."
"I only brought five yuan; is that enough?" Xia Xiaoxiao didn't object but instead asked about the price.
In 2002, a large cup of bubble tea cost only one yuan, so five yuan was certainly enough.
"If it's not enough, I..."
Xia Xiaoxiao wanted to say she had another twenty yuan, but that was for buying other things.
"It's enough, bubble tea is very cheap."
"Then I'll treat you!" The little girl took out a five-yuan bill from her purse and handed it to Xu Qingfan.
"Thank you, boss."
They walked shoulder to shoulder into the bubble tea shop, and the two adorable human cubs instantly attracted everyone's attention.
"Kids, where are your parents?" asked a twenty-something waitress as she knelt down.
"My mom is next door getting her nails done; she told us to come here and eat something," Xu Qingfan lied without hesitation.
"I see, then take a look and see what you'd like to eat!" The waitress handed over the menu at the counter to Xu Qingfan.
"One red bean milk tea and one pudding milk tea, large size, and add a deluxe serving of octopus balls." Xu Qingfan didn't take the menu but ordered straight away, at the same time passing over Xia Xiaoxiao's five yuan to her.
"Oh… okay, please wait a moment," the waitress took the money.
They found a spot to sit down face to face, and Xu Qingfan suddenly clutched his stomach and said to Xia Xiaoxiao, "I have a stomachache, I'll go to the restroom and be right back, don't wander off."
He didn't wait for Xia Xiaoxiao to respond and rushed off holding his stomach.
Xia Xiaoxiao opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something, but Xu Qingfan had already run off, disappearing from sight.
Of course, he didn't really have a stomachache; he slipped off to buy lottery tickets.
The lottery shop was on the third floor, run by a middle-aged woman.
There were three or four middle-aged individuals, wearing flip-flops, shorts, and tank tops, peering at the charts on the wall, occasionally jotting something down.
"Aunty, I'm buying lottery tickets for my dad!" Xu Qingfan handed over the slip of paper he had prepared in advance to the shop owner.
"Buy it just like it says on the paper!"
The aunty, evidently used to doing business with kids, showed no surprise and took the paper from Xu Qingfan.
"How much are you buying for?"
"My dad said to buy ten of each listed here! That's a hundred and forty yuan in total, right?"
"Right." The shop owner's face showed contempt, clearly judging Xu Qingfan's father as a lazy loafer.
[A hundred and forty yuan, that's enough for this old lady to buy a month's worth of vegetables. Who knows which wastrel of a husband that is!]
"Here!"
The store owner operated the machine skillfully and handed Xu Qingfan seventy small cards the size of an ID card, made from a material similar to the recharge cards used for gaming.
Back in 2002, lottery tickets weren't issued in the form of receipts yet; such cards would still be collected by enthusiasts who'd pay good money for them twenty years later.
Xu Qingfan asked the store owner for two rubber bands, bundled the big stack of lottery tickets together, and rushed back to the milk tea shop without delay.
Xiaxiaoxiao was still sitting in the same spot, and Xu Qingfan finally breathed a sigh of relief.
If he'd lost Xiaoxiao, aside from facing a doubles match of scolding from their parents, his own conscience would've been stricken with guilt.
"Does your stomach still hurt? I got you a hot one," Xiaxiaoxiao pointed to his cup of milk tea and said.
Xu Qingfan: ...
[Drinking hot milk tea in thirty-something-degree weather, that's tough to handle!]
"Thanks a lot, ha."
Soon, the takoyaki was served, and concerned Xiaxiaoxiao might burn herself, Xu Qingfan asked the server for two disposable bowls and chopsticks.
He once saw a news report about a college student who burnt their mouth eating takoyaki and developed a blister instantly.
The young girl struggled to breathe, but luckily she was taken to the hospital in time. The doctor punctured the blister, saving her life.
There were similar stories like someone chewing on fingernails eventually requiring amputation, or dying from an infected wound caused by popping pimples.
It just goes to show that many safety issues, no matter how trivial they seem, could indeed be life-threatening.
"Be careful, it's hot inside," Xu Qingfan warned while he placed a takoyaki ball into Xiaxiaoxiao's bowl with a bamboo skewer.
"What's this?" Xiaxiaoxiao had never eaten such junk food before since her family kept a tight rein on her diet.
In her parents' words, it was "Hot air, it'll sore your throat to death!"
"Takoyaki, I've seen it on TV."
"Roar~"
Xiaxiaoxiao ended up burning her mouth after all and put the half-bitten takoyaki back into the bowl.
"Told you it was hot."
"It's yummy!" Xiaxiaoxiao declared, indistinctly, with a mouthful of milk tea.
"Tasty, right?" Xu Qingfan reached for his own milk tea out of habit and noticed what looked like dirt on the straw.
They were all disposable straws, so it couldn't be that the shop owner hadn't cleaned them properly; it must've been the girl opposite who sneaked a sip.
"Did you sneak a drink of my milk tea?" Xu Qingfan asked.
Xiaxiaoxiao's eyes darted guiltily, "I was just testing the temperature for you, I'll let you try mine too!"
Xu Qingfan didn't hesitate, leaned in, and sucked a big gulp through the straw.
"Ah, why'd you drink so much!" Xiaxiaoxiao stared at him in embarrassed annoyance.
"Heh, giving it back to you," Xu Qingfan pushed his own cup forward.
"Hmph!"
The two bickered and played around.
"You can have the last one." Takoyaki is good, but it can get cloying, and three was Xiaxiaoxiao's limit; she couldn't eat the last one no matter what.
"I'm full too, let's pack it up and feed it to a dog," Xu Qingfan suggested.
"Yeah."
They walked out of the milk tea shop; Xu Qingfan had already finished buying the lottery tickets, and with more than twenty bucks still in his pocket, he thought of heading to the children's playground on the fourth floor to spend the rest.
When they reached a stall, Xiaxiaoxiao suddenly said, "Wait for me a sec!"
They stopped in front of a stationery shop. Xu Qingfan had always held the belief that bad students have more stationery, so he had no intention of going in.
A few minutes later, Xiaxiaoxiao came out carrying a bag.
"This is for you!" She handed the bag to him.
"Huh?"
"Thanks... thanks." Xu Qingfan scratched his head in confusion and took the plastic bag.
"Throw away your plastic bottle as soon as you get home. My mom says it's poisonous. I bought you a new water cup!" Xiaxiaoxiao explained.
"Yeah." Xu Qingfan felt a warmth in his heart and reached out to ruffle the little girl's hair.
"Don't touch my head, my mom says it'll make me stop growing!" Xiaxiaoxiao glared at him.
There it was, the little tsundere Xiaoxiao! Xu Qingfan exhaled.
As long as she hadn't been body-snatched, that was a relief.
"Come on, I'll take you to play something fun!" He took Xiaxiaoxiao's hand and they both ran up to the fourth floor.
In his previous life, the first time Xu Qingfan and Xiaxiaoxiao came here alone was in middle school; they needed calculators for the math portion of their high school entrance exams and had asked their families for money to buy them.
He remembered there was a gaming booth that offered a prize if you could write from 1 to 1000 without making a mistake. Every hundred marks you could choose to stop and get an increasingly better prize.
That was the only time he had ever beaten Xiaxiaoxiao. He spent more than thirty minutes to reach a thousand, while Xiaxiaoxiao only made it to two hundred before she quit the challenge.
In the end, he gifted Xiaxiaoxiao a meter-and-a-half-tall teddy bear.
Thinking about it, Xu Qingfan couldn't help but shake his head again. In his past life, he and Xiaxiaoxiao got along quite well, so how did things escalate to the point where they no longer kept in contact with one another?
He felt there must have been some misunderstanding.