After getting off the bus, they walked for about fifteen minutes, turned three corners, and arrived at the end of their journey.
Zhang Heng looked at the small shop called Zangyuan Seafood in front of him and asked, "Does your father live here?"
"Yeah. It smells awful inside. You can wait for me outside." The closer they got, the more nervous Ameko became, but she was still considerate.
"Since we're already here, let's go in together." Zhang Heng did not hesitate. The two of them walked past the tents and abandoned old freezers outside the shop and entered the seafood shop. A unique smell of the sea immediately assaulted their nostrils. As far as their eyes could see, there were fish, shrimp, and shellfish everywhere. However, there was no one in the shop, save for a conger eel scurrying around in a foam box.
"Father! Father!" Ameko called out twice, but there was no response.
"Did he really go to the hospital?" The girl mumbled. After a moment of hesitation, she walked upstairs. Zhang Heng followed behind her. The wooden stairs had not been repaired for who knew how long. There were cracks in many places, and they creaked noisily as they stepped on them, as if they could break at any moment.
Zhang Heng thought the first floor was already packed to the brim, but he didn't expect the second floor to be the worst. Dirty clothes, beer cans, and pornographic magazines were strewn all over the place. A half-naked man with a stubbly face was snoring away on the floor.
"I'm such an idiot. How could I believe the same lies over and over again?" Ameko said, her hand resting on her forehead.
"In a way, this is a good thing. At least it's better than lying in the hospital."
"No, this is terrible. How can there be a man in this world who would lie to his own daughter?"
That being said, Ameko still grabbed the man's hands and tried to drag him to a stack of mattresses.
"Let me do it." Zhang Heng saw that Ameko was struggling and volunteered to help.
In the process, something fell out of the man's trouser pocket. Ameko picked it up and saw that it was a broken brown wallet. When she picked it up, she froze, not knowing what to think. Suddenly, the man on the mattresses sat up, roared, and lunged at Ameko.
The situation was urgent, and there was no time for Zhang Heng to think. He subconsciously used the little self-defense trick that Bell taught him, throwing the man to the ground. The man's eyes rolled back, and this time, he fainted.
Only then did Ameko say "No!"
"Ah, is he dead?!" The girl was shocked by the movement just now.
"Uh, no, but he'll probably wake up after a while. What did he yell at you just now?"
"Give me back my wallet …" Ameko muttered.
"…"
"I will continue to study Japanese when I go back." Zhang Heng was speechless. After that, the two of them worked together to move the unconscious man back onto the stack.
Zhang Heng looked at the broken wallet in Ameko's hand and asked, "Why? Is there a huge sum of money in there?"
Ameko shook her head. "No, this wallet was a birthday gift from Mom twelve years ago. I didn't expect him to still have it with him." The girl opened the wallet as she spoke. On the left side of the wallet was an old, yellowed photo of a family of three.
Ameko pointed at the one-year-old baby in her arms. "That should be me. Behind me are Daddy and Mommy. Mommy said that Daddy was not addicted to gambling yet, and our family was still very happy." "That's right.
Zhang Heng's eyes fell on the cool-looking Nissan behind the man, and his expression changed. "You didn't tell me that your father used to tinker with cars."
"Modify cars? No, no, how could that be? Don't look at him now. When I was young, he was a role model. When the seafood shop first opened, business wasn't good. He couldn't compete with the local competitors. In order to increase sales, he started practicing English to look for foreign customers, calling them one by one. He would even pay them a visit. At the peak of his business, he would sell his seafood to London, Los Angeles, and even Peru. Such a serious person would never mix with those bikers. "
"… And for as long as I can remember, he never drove. The family seafood shop usually hired people to deliver the goods," Ameko recalled, looking at the photo again. Ameko recalled and looked at the photo again. "This car was probably parked there when the photo was taken."
"Is that so …" Zhang Heng did not pursue the matter. "I'm quite interested in cars. This car is probably an antique now. Can I take a picture of it?"
"Sure, but don't take a picture of me. I was super ugly when I was young." Ameko used her finger to block her one-year-old self for Zhang Heng to take.
After that, the girl rinsed two teacups and used the electric kettle on the table to boil some water. Then, she took out a packet of black tea leaves from the cabinet.
"This … is probably oolong tea," Ameko said uncertainly as she sniffed it.
The two chatted as they sipped their tea, but it was mostly Ameko talking about her childhood. After about half an hour, the stubbled man finally opened his eyes, rubbing his sore shoulders and looking at Zhang Heng warily.
Ameko quickly explained, probably explaining the relationship between the two of them.
Only then did the stubbled man's gaze soften a little, turning from hostile to dismissive. The two of them were talking quickly in Japanese.
Finally, Ameko took out 15,000 yen from her bag and placed it on the table. However, the stubbled man did not look satisfied. The more he spoke, the more agitated he became, and he stood up from the pile of blankets.
Zhang Heng frowned and stood in front of Ameko. His recent bodybuilding had been quite effective. Although he did not have a lot of muscles, his body was not bulky at all. On top of that, he had just given the man a shoulder throw. The stubbled man's aura was visibly weaker when he saw Zhang Heng.
Ameko also stood up from the floor. Her mood was very low, and her eyes were red. "Let's go."
On the train back, the girl stared out the window in a daze. Zhang Heng did not disturb her. After a while, he took out a box of mixed flavored chewing gum from his pocket and said in broken Japanese, "I'm not eating it. I'll just eat strawberries."
"If you don't eat it, I'll eat all the strawberry flavored ones," Ameko corrected him. She took the chewing gum, and at the same time, her brows relaxed. "I'm sorry, Zhang-san. I made you see something unhappy."
"It's not like that. You've always been helping me. It feels good to have me help you once in a while. So, what happened? Did you two make up in the end?"
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