Unsurprisingly, when Yingying got home, her aunt gave her a long scolding and confiscated the things Zhang Xin and Mrs. Zhang had bought for her.
She was also made to stand still for an hour as punishment.
At eleven p.m., the house was quiet.
Yingying lay in her small bedroom, unable to fall asleep.
Images of her father and mother flashed through her mind. Most children might have forgotten after so many years, but she never could.
She had seen her father and mother carried away, seen them cremated.
Her relatives, afraid she would be traumatized, wouldn't let her see her parents one last time. But they didn't know she had secretly watched, which was why she could never forget.
If Yingying had been an adult, she would likely have understood that it was PTSD.
But she was just a child. She didn't understand any of that. All she knew was that she wanted to see her mom and dad, to be with them.
The more she thought about it, the wider awake she became.
