The Healing Sunshine (一厘米的阳光)

Chapter 11.1 - The Reason to be Strong (1)

In a severe voice that spoke from the standpoint and authority of justice and fairness, Wang Xingyu's father emphasized over and over, "This matter must be pursued to the very end, especially against the perpetrator who gathered the group and initiated this fight!"

He continued speaking about how this matter would be pursued and how restitution should be made. Jǐ Yi heard a great, great deal of words, but only one number stayed with her: 400,000 [RMB]. When she heard this sum, all of her felt as if it had been emptied, like she had been pushed to the edge of a cliff and her feet were dangling. She dared not use any force, dared not ponder—she dared not think about anything.

All her experience in life was wholly incapable of handling this sort of situation, be it the beating and rebuking from the victim's parents, or the series of calls for answers and pursual of this matter, or this shocking stipulation and demand.

The only thing she could do was to continue listening. Behind her, her two hands wrung together like mad as she forced herself not to cry.

Nuannuan had said that the financial situation of Fu Xiaoning's family was not good, and his parents frequently were not at home. This time, it was entirely for her that he was in custody in the police station and also had to pay compensation.

Mechanically, she dug at her own hands with her fingernails. Anything else that the other party spoke, she did not listen to anymore.

It was not until Wang Xingyu's parents had left and Zhao Xiaoying's mother was pulling her away to leave that Zhao Xiaoying finally rushed over to Jǐ Yi, grabbing her hand and wanting to say something. Before any words would come forth, however, she had already broken into sobs. Zhao Xiaoying wanted to apologize, but she did not have the courage to say anything right in front of her mother. She merely looked at Jǐ Yi and wept until her mother at last took her away.

Jǐ Yi's gaze took in her family members who were sitting in the dining room, spectating everything. Without a word, she left the living room and returned to her own bedroom.

She locked the door.

Before long, she could hear Third Aunt complaining outside the door. "Four hundred thousand is enough to buy a house in a slightly further area. They sure had the gall to open their mouths and make their demands."

"It's not like you're the one forking out the money. Why do you have so much to say about it? Be careful Dad doesn't get angry again." Third Uncle's tone was displeased.

"I'm telling you, this whole matter is still going to drag and cause trouble for a while. They already said just now, none of the kids in that group are even twenty years old yet. You think the Wang family is going to ask for 400,000 from that hooligan? Where's he going to get the money? When the time comes, the hooligan's parents are going to find their way here, too. You just wait. Goodness, such a big thing happened, but Xixi's dad and mom aren't even coming back!"

Second Aunt could not hold herself back, either. "It's not like we're anyone to them anyway, eh? It's New Year's, and here we spent the whole night bowing and scraping. Such a darned run of luck. Hurry and call Dad out. Let's eat. I'll go reheat the food."

"It's expected that they're not coming back. Do you know what her mom said when she answered the phone? It sent the old man into a rage." Third Aunt began to mimick those words. "Her mom didn't even think about coming back to take care of things after such a big incident and even said on that end, 'Back when Xixi was born, a lot of people said her eight characters of birth time [birthdate, down to the hour] are detrimental to her parents. It turns out that in the end, we still weren't able to escape that!' "

"That's right, they can't escape it. She just turned sixteen. They think they can walk away from their duty? They've got to wait another couple of years for that."