Chapter 35
The refugee Little Watermelon
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“Protect me”.
There’s no a “please” word put in the front, it seemed to be pretty unreasonable, but it came out in a little girl’s voice, that seemed to be full of incomparable trusty and the childish like naive straightness. The white pajamas on the little girl seemed to be very delicate in the star light, Sheilor was visibly moved to watch this scene, didn’t know why, his heart felt softly for no reason, grasped his fist tightly, and walked slowly to the metal cabin. His motion was very slow, seemed to be afraid that once his motion was too big, it would bring the panic to this poor as a little bird little girl.
The little girl hung her head down, seemed to not dare to look at Sheilor’s face directly, two drops of tears fell down from the long eyelash, incomparably pitiful, the lilac-like tender lips opened and closed nervously, the voice was so low that it’s hardly to be heard, “please protect me.”
Sheilor squat down carefully, looked at the little that very pretty little face, that pair of slightly lowered but still couldn’t hide away as black as ink pupils, the two small artful lips, he felt somewhat absent-minded for a moment, felt the little girl gave him a kind of very conversant feeling, so that he didn’t pay attention that the little girl added a word in the second sentence.
“Little sister, what’s your name?” Sheilor blinked his eyes subconsciously, had a sip on his lips, he didn’t want his glazy look to make the little to have some bad thoughts, his eyes finally broke away from the face of this little girl, noticed that the hair of this little girl was very characteristic, the pure black hair hung down straightly on the sides of the face, the middle part was cut into a straight line very trimly, just right over the eyebrows, covering the forehead, it looked like… A watermelon peel?
“I… My name is Chung… Firework.” The little girl still embraced the doll in her bosom tightly, raised her head bravely and took a look at Sheilor, perhaps because Sheilor that honest face gave her the courage, or perhaps Sheilor that pair straight like knife eyebrows gave the little girl the confidence, she spoke her name out haltingly.
“The name… is too bad.” Sheilor muttered the words in his heart, didn’t know what this little girl’s parents did, would actually take a name which could easily generate the ambiguity, he had a scratch on his head and said, “simply, I will just call you Little Watermelon.”
The called Firework Chung little girl opened her big eyes, felt the infinite doubts, she inclined her head to one side lovely and asked, “uncle, why do you call me the name Little Watermelon?”
Sheilor stretched out his index finger and skidded over the hair line of the little girl’s forehead, said with a smile, “because your hair is like a piece of beautiful… Watermelon peel?”
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Although Sheilor didn’t know this commercial spacecraft belong to the Antique Bell company, and the shadow of the Fourth Military Region of the West Forest was hiding behind the Antique Bell company, but he could get the judgment based on the logic, in a severely guarded spacecraft like this, in the splendor of the First Charter, in the universe edge far away from the Empire borderline, there should be nothing threaten this lovely little girl, he didn’t even think that this called Firework Chung or Little Watermelon little girl needed any protection, in the spacecraft, this little girl always should have the accompanied family members.
But no matter how he asked, the Little Watermelon always refused to tell him exactly what happened, and also was not willing to tell where her family was. Sheilor thought for a while distressfully, decided to see the staffs of the spacecraft, after all, the little girl was an alive and kicking people, he didn’t dare to bear this responsibility.
Sheilor’s room was in the area 32, it’s the most remote and the worst facilities in the whole spacecraft, but it’s also the quietest area, besides time to time the noises of the waste transportation came from the pipes behind the wall, in the talking process between one big and one small two people, there nobody came to here at all. Sheilor held the little girl’s hand and walked to the outside, and comforted her to say, “Little Watermelon, after found your family, you wouldn’t be afraid any more.”
“Uncle, I’m scared.” Little Watermelon was a very sensible child, probably also knew it clearly that she would bring great distress to this strange uncle, when Sheilor took her hand and walked to the outside, she didn’t struggle mischievously, just holding the doll with one hand, lowered her head and said, “there are bad guys… Wanted to kidnapped Little Watermelon, let little Watermelon can’t see my father and mother again.”
Sheilor stopped his steps, he turned his body, looked at the side of the face of this little girl carefully, seemed to tell whether this horrible story just the mischievous excuse of the kid, or there were really some inside story of a plot hiding behind the light. Just in this glance, he saw the dust and dirt behind the little girl’s white pajamas, and also noticed the stain on the doll…
There had been no one in the clean zone of area 32, in a such huge spacecraft, how did this little girl come to here all by herself? Where were those people watching her? Could it be said that this little girl climbed out from those piping tunnels? Otherwise how come she would get this dirty? It should be what kind of horrible thing, then let this just five or six years old girl to climb into those dark tunnels?
Sheilor looked at her for a while seriously, even uncle Fengyu admired his ability of seeing people very much, but he still couldn’t tell any trace of lying of this little girl. He didn’t think for too long, Sheilor turned around and took the girl’s hand and walked back, was ready to go back to his own room and think it over again, handed the little girl to the hands of the spacecraft staffs blindly like this, he surely would somewhat feel worried about it, at least… she would be safe to be with him, he would make the decision after he inquired the news about it.
The little girl slightly stared blankly for a moment, and then understood what the meaning of this turn was, walked quickly in quick short steps, in order to catch with Sheilor’s steps, the motion seemed to be very cute, the tears were still not dry on her little face yet, then she had already began to laugh, she laughed particularly happy, the big black eyes narrowed together, just like the crescent over the West Forest’s night sky.
“Thank you, uncle.”
“Call me brother later on… Little Watermelon.” Sheilor always was a person who came straight to the point without the slightest, once he made a decision on something, then he would do it exactly to the end. Holding the lovely little girl’s hand, his mood was also abnormally good, that made people trusted eyes were also narrowed, just like those half lakes in the natural conservation greenbelt of the East Forest.
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The Antique Bell spacecraft was still in the process of the logistics energy supply for the last time, the time to leave the East Forest Region planet territory was set on six o’clock standard time of the day after. At the same time, Sheilor stayed in his own room with Little Watermelon all the time, perhaps because the budget of the Ministry of National Defense was really too stingy, the place for him this nominal retired soldier was really a forgotten corner, there seemed to be no any monitoring equipments in this room neither.
But even so, Sheilor still paid attention to the movements outside of the room carefully. Through the chatting of this period of time, gradually he had the complete trust of the little girl and then knew about some things, the little girl was a West Forest people, didn’t know for what reason, left her home, brought to the Antique Bell spacecraft by some people, in the return trip, she would be sent to the Capital planet. She would be six years old in two more months, the most adept things were piano and painting, the most dislike things were also piano and painting; the thing she liked the most was playing the mud, but playing the less was also exactly the mud.
Maybe because she Sheldon had the chance to talk with people so relaxed like this, the six-year-old little girl jabbered on and on like a little bird, often got choked because of talking too rapidly, the little face was suffocated to all red, the straight black hair on her forehead swung and swung in the air.
Sheilor had a wry smile while he was listening to her, because the contents of the little girl were too trifling, there were not information what he wanted to know, and the more he heard, the more he felt it strange, he wondered whether the little girl misunderstood something, so it led himself also to misunderstand something… But since he had already promised Little Watermelon, of course he would just let it go on, people always should have the integrity, even if it’s just facing a six years old little girl, Sheilor decided before he inquired the exact news, he would just let this little girl hide in his room temporarily.
When it’s time for dinner, Sheilor told the little girl not to run wild. He ran to the restaurant of the spacecraft, ordered a meal, didn’t have too much words with the spacecraft staffs, but he still kept his eyes open a bit, found out that nobody heard about any visiting official lost a child in the ship, the thing alerted him was, the expression of those soldiers around the restaurant responsible for the safety work were obviously more serious than they were hours before, a share of depressive air was embracing all around.
Could it be said that it was because of Little Watermelon? Sheilor left the restaurant quietly, he was an extremely not eye-catching role himself, he didn’t cause any attentions even he was carrying a meal to leave, even most of the people in the spacecraft didn’t know, the rest room of the cleaning zone of the area 32 was arranged in a retired East Forest Region soldier who was the hitch hiker.
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Little watermelon lowered her head and forked a piece of beef up, put it into her mouth and tried hard to chew it, but the expression on her face revealed that this little girl was not really like the taste of the beef stew rice, but she seemed to not let Sheilor embarrassed, just kept eating earnestly. Sheilor looked at the expression on the little face, couldn’t help laughing out and said, “if you don’t like it, then don’t eat it. I heard the next meal should be very good.”
“I have already had the beef for one and half month.” Little Watermelon heaved a sigh like an adult and said, “brother Sheilor, I’m afraid that the next meal still would be the beef.”
Sheilor added an extra scoop of rice in this meal especially, he was taking the fork to scratch Little Watermelon’s left over rice, when he heard this words, he couldn’t help to have his body frozen. Influenced by his boss for these many years, he also became extremely picky for the requirement of the food, he had the bitter on his face and said, “the synthetic beef has only one same taste, you could have it for one and half months unexpectedly? You are very good.”
After the sigh, Sheilor lowered his head and had the food again, he didn’t have the habit to waste food, his mouth was full of the beef, he said vaguely, “once we have the opportunity in the future, brother I would kill a buffalo, let you try the real beef.”
The black hair was straight down on the little girl’s forehead, she looked at Sheilor smiling and nodded her head seriously. Although when she was in the West Forest, she had a lot of wild cooked foods which were grabbed back from the Empire with her father, but she still felt grateful for brother Sheilor’s words, she thought that brother was really a good man in her heart.