"After midnight, the knight will accompany the princess to patrol the streets. This sanitation worker who adopted the abandoned child seems to only go out to clean when all the shops on the commercial street have closed for the day."
Absurd nightmare fairy tales juxtapose with reality, and Han Fei continues to flip through the album.
The girl gradually grew up, and her congenital mental illness worsened. Sometimes, she couldn’t control herself and would do things incomprehensible to ordinary people. The street vendors detested her, believing this madman disrupts their business.
Everyone is just trying to make a living; others have no reason to pay any cost for an unrelated person. The sanitation worker understood this very well too. To prevent his daughter from causing trouble, he always accompanied her, just like when he first adopted the baby girl, using his not very strong body to protect his child.
The girl grew, and the sanitation worker grew older. The photos in the album became clearer, but the people in them became old and weary.
But no matter how much they cried or tired they were, when the father and daughter took photos, they always smiled. It was the gift they left for their own world.
When the girl was by the sanitation worker’s side, she was always quiet and "obedient." But once locked at home or left without the sanitation worker for too long, she’d become agitated and highly aggressive.
The debt bills in the box seemed to explain the problem: the adopted daughter didn’t want to be confined at home. She would go out looking for the sanitation worker, only to be bullied and chased by the vendors, often needing the police to take her away.
"February 19th, scared the customers waiting in line at the milk tea shop, severely affecting business, debt of three hundred yuan."
"February 25th, looked at clothes from outside a clothing store’s window, refused to leave when chased away, fought with the attendant, scratched their face, debt of eight hundred yuan, three hundred and fifteen yuan repaid."
"March 16th, tried to run away after being caught stealing leftover food from guests, severely affecting guest dining, owing the restaurant three hundred yuan."
"April 1st, suddenly rushed into the street, scared waiting guests, owing fifty yuan each to the inn, fruit shop, and milk tea shop."
There was no money at home; all the sanitation worker’s savings were spent on medicine for the adopted daughter. He couldn’t afford to pay the compensation others demanded, so he had to write IOUs.
Even in nightmares, those IOUs were still clear. The person who wrote them wasn’t planning to default; he constantly thought about repaying the money.
"The early IOUs seemed reasonable, but some of the later ones looked like the shopkeepers were teaming up to drive them away. Almost every time the sanitation worker wasn’t home, the mad daughter would leave the house. It felt like someone was deliberately enticing her out, unlocking the door, and then letting her roam the streets, only to blame all the wrongdoings on her."
Unconsciously, Han Fei reached the end of the album; many photos were destroyed by fire, and the last photo Han Fei could see was taken in a wooden shed.
The wooden shed was identical to the one on the west side of Ping’an Street, where a hunched, frail old man stood by the bed, braiding the hair of his already grown daughter.
Upon closer inspection, Han Fei noticed something about the window and door lock: "Is there a third person in the photo?"
On the windowsill of the wooden shed, half a boy’s head was visible, looking just like the little boy Han Fei had seen earlier.
However, the boy in the photo was fair and clean, with no dirt on his face. His skin looked supple, whereas the boy on the west side of the street had dry, sallow skin and a dirty face.
"Two families with starkly different statuses in one photo. Why is the little boy peering into the girl’s window? Is it possible that every time the sanitation worker wasn’t home, it was these two brothers who released the mentally ill girl out?"
"The girl that the sanitation worker adopted had mental issues, so she couldn’t communicate with the sanitation worker normally. Was she always falsely accused?"
"The two brothers claimed their family originally managed this street. Are they trying to drive the father and daughter away with such methods? Or is this just the brothers’ pure mischief?"
The vendors rent shops on Ping’an Street. Whether it’s the limping sanitation worker or the girl with mental issues, both might affect their business, so they align with the street manager.
"There are many ways to drive people away, but why was the wooden shed ultimately burned? Was it an accidental fire, or was it malicious arson?"
The most despairing aspect of this nightmare is that the fire burned away reality; death paved a new Ping’an Street.
Outside the sealed room, footsteps were heard; the other players had also entered.
"You arrived pretty fast." Han Fei closed the album and entered the deepest part of this burned room, hoping to find the princess’s "crystal shoe."
After clearing the ashes off the wall, Han Fei discovered a small compartment behind a charred bed board, filled with various girl’s shoes and clothing.
These all seemed handmade by the sanitation worker for his daughter. Some shoes were shiny, and others had cute doll faces sewn on. Each pair was filled with fatherly love.
"The princess’s wardrobe?"
Slanted words on the compartment’s wall, with one word "hat" misspelled.
Just by seeing these, Han Fei could imagine the scene in the photos: two people fearful of the outside world, hiding in this rustic wooden shed, with the daughter excitedly watching her father lovingly make beautiful clothes and shoes for her, eager to try them on with a pure smile on her face.
Flawed souls nestled together, with the dim light shining on them, making them glow.
"The princess’s crystal shoe should be here."
Inside the compartment were many shoes, ranging from baby to girl sizes, stacked together, representing all the father’s love for his daughter.
"The crystal shoe is the key to turning Cinderella into a princess. The adopted daughter’s crystal shoe by the sanitation worker must be her most important pair, the one that changed her life."
Kneeling in front of the compartment, Han Fei searched for a long time and found a pair of shoes that stood out.
This pair of shoes was bigger than any other shoes in the compartment, covered with bright fragments and all sorts of intact cartoon stickers. The rightful source is Nov3lFɪre.ɴet
The sanitation worker rarely spent money on stickers; they mainly collected ones others discarded. Hence, the stickers the adopted daughter collected were mostly ragged. The intact ones she treated as her most precious treasures, reluctant to use them. Yet, this pair of shoes was covered in complete cartoon stickers.
"The sanitation worker is unlikely to use his daughter’s treasured stickers for shoes, and besides, this pair is so big..." Han Fei picked up the large shoes: "Could these shoes have been made by the adopted daughter for the sanitation worker? Crystal shoes turned Cinderella into a princess; being adopted by the sanitation worker, enabled the mentally ill abandoned child to become Ping’an Street’s princess."
The abandoned child was the princess, and the ever-present Black Knight was the sanitation worker. The golden pumpkin carriage was the sanitation truck, and the tall, strong black horse was the black stray cat they once fed on the street corner.
The destitute adoptive father did everything to fill his daughter’s world with color.
The abandoned child’s fate was changed by the sanitation worker; her crystal shoe is her adoptive father’s love.
In this garbage shack that had been burned by the fire, that small princess wardrobe evoked feelings in Han Fei he had never felt before.