Chapter 38 – The Ending of Kaka (3)

When he got the text, he was already downstairs of his own building.

He heard the notification for a text, had an idea of it, and fished out his phone.

Lin Xiuping never sent him texts. She had always called.

He fished out his cellphone and saw the text from Su Tian. He read the one sentence from her over and over again before finally responding with an “Okay”. Then silently he clicked on “Save Contact” and entered the name “Tiantian”.

He knew that’s how Wang Haoxue called her.

When he arrived at the front door, he put away his cellphone and his smile. He fished out his keys to open the door. Lin Xiuping waited for him with a cold look by the door. His father was in the living room, watching television.

“Where did you go? You were home 23 minutes later than usual, “asked Lin Xiuping.

Liu Kaiyan lowered his head and changed out of his shoes as he responded nonchalantly, “I finished some schoolwork at school and left later than usual.”

“Why didn’t you answer my calls?”

“I didn’t feel like it.”

Having said that, he picked up his stuff and walked inside his own room.

He did not look at his parents at all the entire time.

See that he was about to walk inside his own room, Liu Xiuping suppressed her anger and said, “No locking the door!”

Liu Kaiyan closed the door silently and left it unlocked.

He has no right to lock his room door at home because locking one’s door implied secrets. Lin Xiuping checked his room randomly daily.

Oh, would he have something like that?

Sure enough, Lin Xiuping immediately followed him into his room and searched through his backpack for any “contrabands” before telling him to not stay up too late.

Liu Kaiyan set his phone on vibrate for 2 AM before he went to bed. That night, after he woke up, he left the house quietly and retrieve a notebook outside the hallway window held down by a rock.

He brought it back into his room quietly, turned on his cellphone and, under it’s faint light, he lay in bed, flipped to the last page and started drawing.

Kaka returned to the city, this was his cage, and his home.

In the dark, he kept on walking forward….

Finally, he walked to where the sun rose and a pair of snowy-white and tender arms reaching out toward him.

Underneath them was a basketball.

—

A week went by quickly, and Su Tian finally didn’t need to be on cleaning duty anymore.

It was the end of August, and even grade school’s summer vacation was close to its end.

Tis was a weekend day, and Su Tian was helping our He Qingwan in the shop. Xi Yun was doing other kids’ homework on one of the tables.

Su Tian, “How come Uncle Zhao’s shop isn’t opened for business today?”

Uncle Zhao was a very hard worker. Out of the 365 days a year, he was only closed on New Year’s eve and New Year’s day. Otherwise, regardless of whether it was raining cats and dogs or deep summer or winter, his shop was always open.

He Qingwan, “I am not sure. It was opened yesterday.”

It wasn’t long before they found what had happened.

That night, Uncle Zhao came and posted a flyer up, his toy shop was now looking for a cashier and a stocker.

As it turned out, Uncle Zhao’s wife slipped and broke her leg accidentally. And since all of Uncle Zhao’s children were overseas, he had to take care of her himself. But, each day his store was not open for business was a day of rent lost, so he had no choice but to hire someone to take his place temporarily.

It wasn’t long before Su Tian saw the new cashier that Uncle Zhao hired. She was quite an attractive girl wearing all designer brand clothing items.