Chapter 27 Wang Xiaole It has been three days since I came to the Twilight Church. The past few days have been very dull. Aunt Cheng, who is in charge of the choir, started by teaching them to read the church's gospels, and then to memorize complete hymns praising truth, goodness, beauty and other human qualities. Today, they have already started learning to read music. Life in the church is indeed much better than that of laborers in other places in Yuguang. In order to maintain cleanliness and hygiene, Levi and his colleagues are required to take a shower every day, and they eat food that ordinary laborers cannot taste. Li Wei got along well with the three boys in his dormitory. During the lunch break that day, one of the boys asked them to go to the cemetery behind the church to sweep the graves. His grandparents were buried there. His parents were usually busy at the factory and had no time to visit the grave to pay their respects. The other two boys in his dormitory agreed to go with him, but Levi didn't want to leave the church casually. In the past two days, the police department and the Yu Guang Labor Union conducted a carpet search of all blocks. Even though the church has a figure like the bishop to support it, it was still inspected twice. Although Levi and Fengzi were not caught both times, Levi would never take unnecessary risks if he could be cautious. Besides, he had never thought about getting along well with his three roommates in the dormitory. He and Fengzi would definitely make a big fuss later. The better the relationship he had with the people around him now, the more harm it would do to them.
During the lunch break, Levi did not go to look for Fengzi, leaving the lame man to find books in the church's public library. Instead, he sat on a bench in the hall, watching the boy named Wang Xiaole doing his daily cleaning work. "Who is Madam Cheng to you?" Levi asked casually. After these few days, he also found out who the relative who was taking care of Wang Xiaole was. When the boy who was sweeping the floor seriously with a broom heard this question, his body visibly tensed up. He raised his head nervously and looked at Levi, not expecting that he would suddenly ask this question. "Why do you ask that?" Levi raised his eyebrows. "I just saw her talking to you privately last night. If it's private, forget it. I'm just curious and I don't have any bad intentions." Out of a child's intuition, Wang Xiaole felt an inexplicable sense of familiarity from Levi, especially the voice, although he was sure that he did not recognize this face at all. But it was also because of this close familiarity that he believed Levi's words and felt that the other party really had no ill intentions. "Madame Cheng is my great aunt. If possible, please keep it a secret for me. She doesn't want anyone to know about my relationship with her." "Why is that? It's not like she used some backdoor to let you join the choir. What's there to hide?" Wang Xiaole put down the broom. He looked like a depressed and bullied person and sat next to Li Wei. "Mrs. Cheng doesn't like children. I really don't have any other relatives, so I can only come to the church to find her and ask her to agree to be my guardian until I am old enough to get an ID card and go to work in the factory." In Yu Guang, if you want to become a laborer and earn money in a factory, there is also an age limit. One must be 14 years old to apply for an ID card, but the application for an ID card must be signed by a guardian, otherwise he will become an illegal resident if he cannot get an ID card. That is why Wang Xiaole had to find a legal guardian for himself after his parents died. "Where are your other relatives?" "My father died of illness when I was very young, and my mother worked alone in the factory to raise me. But the foremen kept looking for her. They came to my house, tied my hands with a rope, and tied them to the door to prevent me from running around. Then they closed the door and bullied my mother." Wang Xiaole's voice was very calm, as if he had long been accustomed to it and did not feel how sad the matter was.
"There was something wrong with my mother's brain. Sometimes she would suddenly hug me and say that she saw my father, who was leading a dog and biting all the bad guys to death, and then took us to live a good life. The neighbor's grandmother said she was crazy, but my mother always said that she was not crazy, but everyone else was crazy." "I was very scared and wanted her to come to the church to see the pastor, but she didn't dare to ask for leave because she thought the factory would fire her. Then last month, she died in the coal mine. I heard she died of exhaustion." "After my mother died, I didn't know if I had any other relatives except Aunt Cheng. She also helped arrange my mother's grave in the church. I came to her with the remaining money in the family. I can give her all the money as long as she promises to support me and not let me become an illegal resident in the future." "My mother was very afraid that I would become an illegal immigrant, because it is much harder for illegal immigrants to survive than normal laborers. She was also afraid that my body would be disabled. She believed in Twilight and always felt that if my body was damaged, it would not be complete even if I entered Twilight." It seemed like he had finally found someone to talk to. A simple question from Levi made him open up and tell him all his experiences. But it was obvious that Wang Xiaole also knew what to say and what not to say. For example, the "leftover money at home" was most likely the compensation that Li Wei had asked for him and other workers' families. He had always kept his mouth shut about this. After listening to him, Levi suddenly didn't know what to say. He was just a little bit curious. At first, the boy got the compensation from him, and then he wondered whether a child like him could keep the money in such a harsh environment as Yu Guang. Unexpectedly, he never thought of keeping the money for himself at the beginning, but used it to find a chance to survive in this broken society. From the contact over the past two days, Li Wei could see that Nanny Cheng was obviously a profit-seeking character. She would take special care of some children because they had received money from their families. Wang Xiaole asked her to be his guardian, so he would have to give away at least half of the 21,000 yuan in compensation. In the end, Levi could only speak in a tone that was unclear whether it was comforting or persuasive. "Now that you have come to church, your life will be better." The boy tightened his grip on the broom, laughed and nodded vigorously. "Of course!" Just as Levi stood up and prepared to end the slightly depressing chat during lunch break, a burst of hurried footsteps suddenly came from the back of the church. He turned around and saw his three roommates who were going to the cemetery on the back hill to visit the graves. They looked pale and nervous as they were surrounded by a group of faculty members and taken to the hall. "Tell me clearly! How did you find out that all the graves in the cemetery were empty?" (End of this chapter)