Wayne was studying his script in the morning while waiting for Pei Li to be awake, as he had promised to bring her to visit her mother today. It was not till almost noon that he heard sounds from her room. He walked closer and heard it as though she were rummaging through her room. Feeling worried, he went to knock on her door.
"Little Cloud, are you awake?" He asked while hearing her making agitated sounds before opening the door, and tried to change to her annoyed face. He saw that her room was a mess.
"What's wrong? What are you looking for?" Wayne asked, panicking.
"My notes… I tried studying, but I think I left most of my notes in the old house…" Pei Li pouted as Wayne calmed down a little and hugged her.
"We shall head back for a while after visiting mum, alright?" He suggested.
"But then people will know and they will tell my father…" She sounded very worried as he gently patted her head and led her to his wardrobe room.
"Here, choose anything low profile and we can dress in disguise." She hugged him in tears.
"Are you sure?" She questioned guitily while looking up at him. He smiled and kissed her forehead.
"Yes.. Now, quickly choose something…" He urged as she excitedly went through the room again to pick nerd glasses and simple wigs which made a huge difference to their look cause Wayne had a rather slightly longer wig to his shoulder length while she kept hers short.
After some time wasted, they decided to head to Er Hu first for fear of stumbling upon her father later in the day. He had to park far away as she led them down a hidden path through the grass, leading back to the back of her house. He regretted not wearing long sleeves and now understood the reason Pei Li often used them.
At the end of the hidden path, he had several fine cuts, but he was not fretting cause he was learning back to basics of poor life again, which were good experiences for his drama. As she skillfully picked the lock on her house' back door with just a wire barb, he was beginning to respect Pei Li's perseverance all this while.
He ensured they closed the door back to not lure unwanted attention as they sneaked upstairs amid a messy house and a stuffy house. The smell of liquor was lingering and she knew her father must have been back every night.
He could tell how lividly Pei Li had lived in the past while trailing each inch of the house.
The old and barely making it pot, which had lost its handle, was sitting on the stove; used multiple times through the cruel years to heat up food in this household.
He wondered how many times she had sat on the shabby dining table by the stairs for a second meal at night.
He could never understand how it was to endure hunger till he began his journey as an artist. It was so unbearable for him who had grown with food abundant and it was not a pleasant experience he wanted Pei Li to experience ever again.
The creeks of the double-story wooden house by the staircase were where his old friends lived when he was young. He reached out to break the army line of bright red tiny ants with his finger, and it never failed to create chaos in the army as he flicked away some ants caught on his finger. He wondered if they had been keeping her accompanied during her bad and good times.
As he climbed to the second floor, the sight of the jungle caught his eye through the open window. At times, on dry weather at nights, he wondered if the crickets sang her lullabies.
While Pei Li packed her books in a rush, he wanted to help her pack some of her clothes, only to find a sad set of broken clothing in the cupboard.
"Where are your clothes?" He asked, a little confused.
She rushed over and packed them as well. "Just this?" He asked, feeling even more confused.
"Yes. I only had two pairs of clothes. I will need to hand wash them daily…" He regretted ever asking as her response pierced him like daggers.
As she continued to pack her books, he came across a white wrapper beside a medicine pack. He did not bother about it, thinking it was probably just normal medicine.
Instead a book by the side of it caught his attention. When he flipped open the simple brown book and read bits and pieces of the content, he realised it was a diary.
"Oh, this… It's an amazing book! Let me check…" Pei Li said as she flipped to the latest page in anticipation, only to be disappointed that the date stopped on their marriage registration date.
"Sorry, didn't know it was your diary…" He said as Pei Li shook her head and gave him the book instead.
"It's Pei Ni's. I believe she must still be alive… The pages were written by her as though telling me about her adventures when she was away all these years… Now, you can read them. I need to leave a note to tell her I have shifted to a new place." Pei Li looked for her sticky note and told Wayne to write their new address.
Wayne hugged her, wanting so much to protect her innocent self when they heard an ambush below. They knew it was her father but strangely in a blink of an eye the person left the house as quickly as the person had entered. Wayne quickly kept the sticky note in his pocket cause he knew it was not Pei Ni but Penny's diary.
He then went down after a while to scout and find that the back door was locked again. They took the chance to quickly sneak out of the house via her mother's room on the ground floor, as it led them back to the bush area again. On the way back to the car, Pei Li caught sight of the group of motorists heading for lunch, whom she used to hang out with and help out with. She halted her steps to watch them pass by from afar as she felt a bittersweet feeling of missing them and their company.
Wayne squeezed her hand tightly to comfort her before leading her to dash back to the car. He was not aware that from afar a pair of eyes was scrutinising them.
It was Wayne's younger brother, Chester, peeping at them with anguish.
Upon returning to Qi Tai, they went to visit her mother, who seemed to look a lot better. As Pei Li accompanied her, Wayne began to read Penny's diary curiously. To his surprise, he figured out what those white wrappers were next to the diary in the house earlier.
Sleeping pills.
The only person who would have access to money and medication was none other than Pei Li's mother. That meant that she knew but yet let Pei Li to be compromised. He regretted not grabbing the wrappers earlier.
He quickly checked the time and saw it was close to 4 pm. It was nearly Pei Li's nap time, which meant he would be able to get hold of Penny to question her more. He urged Pei Li to leave with him, forgetting to disguise his hostility. Pei Li was taken aback at the abrupt goodbye she had to say to her mother, but remained silent for fear she might upset him and be abandoned. Despite her worries, her heavy eyelids could not sustain her drowsiness as she slowly fell asleep in the car before Wayne had a chance to explain himself to her. He felt bad at the sight of her sleeping self recalling his actions earlier.
Remember to console her tomorrow morning… He told himself before carrying her back to his house.
Over the two hours, he was pacing anxiously as he was desperately in need to speak with Penny. He had to shrug away his urge to wake her up, as he knew there was only that much time for them each to rest in their shared time.
Instead, he went to make a simple porridge dinner and whipped up a butter cake to go with the dessert wine he had saved from the night before. He sat by the balcony to continue reading the diary. The more he read, the more heartbroken he became. It made him wonder when it all began.
From all that he had read, it seemed Penny was by Pei Li's side since he left, and he recalled Pei Li did not have this side of her before he left or when Pei Ni was around unless she was very good at disguising herself but he ruled out this because if she was good, then she should not have revealed her different sides so easily with him.
He had to pull away from the curiosity to catch his breath for a moment midway, when Penny walked up to him and squatted to check on him, zoning out too deep in his thoughts, not realising her existence. Penny frowned at the sight of her diary and knew he must have figured out more things as she gently held his hand in hers.
The gesture startled him as he quickly regained his composure when he heard her calling him "Little Freedom". He held her in his arms for a long while to relieve his worries and pity for her.