Chapter 194: Buried Memories
Fang Xinxin lifted a shovel and began digging. She quickly discovered a black plastic bag.
She placed the shovel aside and opened the bag. Inside, there was a small, square tin box. As it had been many years, the box was slightly rusty.
She applied some force to open the tin box and saw that it contained a clay doll of a little boy, a wind chime, a toy car around five centimetres wide… adding it all up there were ten different little toys.
There were also several photos she took with her brother when they were young.
On the bottom of the box was a bank card.
She picked up the doll…
It was so familiar.
She suddenly recalled that once, when she was young, she had gone shopping with her mother and bought this doll for her brother with her own pocket money.
Her thoughts drifted back to those days.
At the time, she had been around five to six years old. She had handed the toy to Fang Shaohua, who was six years older than her. “Big Brother, look, this doll looks so much like you. I bought it as a present for you.”
“Thank you, Xinxin. I really like it.” Fang Shaohua had been nearly eleven at the time, and had received the doll with an adorable smile.
“This doll was really expensive. It was a dollar and fifty cents.” Little Xinxin had lowered her head to count with her fingers. “I lost three ice creams for it. It was all the money I had…”
“Big Brother will give you eight dollars.” Fang Shaohao immediately brought out the notes for her.
“Big Brother, you’re the best!” She had jumped on the spot and ran off to buy snacks. After taking a few steps, she had turned around and stumbled back to him. She had then requested bashfully. “Eight dollars is too much. It’s better if you give me a dollar fifty. Mom says that I’m too young. If I have too much money with me, bad people will try to fool me and take it away from me.”
Fang Shaohua’s young face had been filled with warm, sunshine-like doting. “It’s all right. Big Brother trusts that Xinxin will hold onto the money well. It’ll be fine as long as you don’t tell mom.”
“Alright. Let’s cross our pinky fingers. You can’t tell mom you gave me eight dollars, ok?” She had lifted her small pinky finger.
“Okay.”
In their childhood, whenever Fang Xinxin lifted her head to look at her brother, he seemed to be very tall. She had always felt that his gaze was especially warm.
That day, she had bought him a doll and received eight dollars from him.
It was more than enough for her to buy a lot of snacks. Thus, for a period of time, whenever she was running out of pocket money, she would use a few dollars to buy little gifts for her brother.
She would then stare at him with her big eyes.
Her brother would always become happy and ended up giving her a lot of money.
By the time their mother realised this, she had already bought ten different gifts for her brother.
Their mother had reprimanded both of them firmly. She had told him that it wasn’t good to let her have too many snacks because it would affect her growth. She had also scolded Fang Xinxin for being greedy.
Since then, the obedient girl rarely bought any more gifts for her brother.
She would have never expected that her brother had cherished and saved all those gifts in this little box.
Her brother must have felt that those memories were too humourous and decided to treasure the gifts she gave him.
Fang Xinxin returned to the present and put the things back in the tin box. She only took the bank card that Fang Shaohua prepared for her.
She placed the tin box in the black plastic bag and buried it in its original place.
She covered it with soil evenly and returned it to its original appearance.
After she left, Fang Xinxin sneakily walked up to the place where she had stood.
Fang Xinxin watched Fang Manxue dig the box out to rummage through it. As expected, she didn’t find anything useful in there. Fang Manxue furrowed her brows and buried the box back in the ground.