I still remember that day vividly. Perhaps because everyone told me it was better to forget, a deep-seated rebelliousness made it even more impossible to let go. Then again, could anyone really forget the sight of their only parent hanging limp from the ceiling? Is that the kind of trivial episode one can just erase because of a single piece of advice?

I was taken in by the manager who came to my mother's funeral. Whether my mother had tipped her off or she saw me as her own child because she loved my mother like one, she let me live in her house without saying much. A small six-year-old child, having witnessed her mother's body and suddenly living in the house of a stranger, naturally became invisible and started becoming an expert at reading the room. By the time I turned 11, the young girl was searching YouTube for how to fold laundry herself, and after folding all the clothes of the woman who was now an acquaintance she greeted in passing, she sat on the sofa waiting for her. The woman, flustered, poured out reflexive questions like 'Did you do this yourself?' and 'Why did you do this?' rather than seeking actual answers, before eventually mumbling a thank you out of exhaustion and going into her room. From then on, the 11-year-old girl would look up household chores on YouTube one by one after school and start tending to the house. I don't know if that single word of thanks from the woman who volunteered to be my guardian was so precious to a girl who had no money for academies and no friends to play with.

By the time I turned 20, I received an envelope from the woman, with whom I now shared only brief, dry sentences. She added, 'This is what your mother left for you,' and left the room. My mother had sealed it with an old-fashioned burgundy sealing wax so others couldn't read it, and wrote a small note in the corner of the envelope: 'To my daughter.'

The letter inside said that all her assets were safely kept in my account, and that after reading this, I should go to the bank to check if the amount below was well-preserved. It also told me not to impose on the manager's house anymore and to go find him. She wrote that he would surely take me in, so not to worry. Feeling a slight thickness remaining in the envelope, I picked up a business card inside. The card had a name and a workplace written on it. Seeing that he was a policeman, I just assumed he was an officer connected to the orphanage.