"You are very nervous, Anna." Tuba, who is only 60 centimeters tall, looked up at the girl in front of him who was holding her chin in deep thought.
Anna grabbed the bottle from the seat next to her and stuffed it directly into his mouth, then ignored him.
She looked at the scenery passing by outside the window, and only she knew what was in her mind.
The car slowly stopped in front of a vegetable market, where there was a constant stream of vegetable vendors and deliverymen.
Seeing Anna stand up and walk towards the bus door, the other people on the bus also stood up.
"Everyone sit down, I can go alone." Anna said and walked down.
Don't expect the floor of the vegetable market to be very clean. Anna's shoes soon had stains on them.
But she ignored it and continued walking inside. Through a small door in the vegetable area, Anna came to the back of the vegetable market.
Behind the vegetable market is a railway track, and a green train is clanging past.
As the last car passed, she saw a group of people gathered near the garbage station opposite.
They are of different ages, and their toe-revealing Liberation shoes, ill-fitting tattered clothes, and black collars all reveal their identities: a group of homeless people.
At this time, they were gathered around an aluminum pot, picking up food from the pot with chopsticks while smoking the cigarette butts in their hands.
As Anna got closer, their voices reached her ears. "Of course the Scud missiles are powerful! The Scud missiles can dive into the submarine and blow it up."
Faced with this ridiculous question, the homeless people discussed it very seriously.
As Anna approached, their chatter died down, and they whispered to each other as they looked at the brightly dressed beauty in front of them.
Just as Anna was checking their faces one by one, a man who looked to be in his twenties stood up with chopsticks in his hand.
Facing Anna's gaze, the man subconsciously avoided her gaze. He wiped the chopsticks in his hand on his legs a little stiffly, "Who are you looking for?"
Facing Anna, who had a delicate face and bright clothes, he did not have any evil thoughts in his heart at this moment, but only felt uncomfortable from the inside out.
The other party was like a mirror, reflecting him, who was previously full of enthusiasm when discussing national affairs, into the dirt.
As a man, it is a deep insult to him for the other party to just stand there and do nothing.
Anna didn't look at him and walked past him, her eyes scanning the face of the smaller homeless boy.
After a careful examination, she did not find Charles among these dark faces.
"Do you know this person?" Anna took out a portrait of Charles as a child and faced the man who was frozen in place.
A group of homeless people gathered around and examined it carefully.
"Is this Goubuli? Are you looking for him? He went to pick up junk and hasn't come back yet. He probably won't be back until the evening."
"Well, who are you to him? Do you have money?"
"Goubuli is my little brother. I usually take care of him."
"Why don't you sit here for a while, he should be back soon."
In response to Anna's questions, they seemed very enthusiastic, as if it was an honor to be able to talk to her.
When she returned to the bustling vegetable market, she lowered her body slightly and moved closer to the homeless people.
At this point their topic had turned to Anna, and some of the older ones even started telling dirty jokes.
Anna closed her eyes and waited quietly, listening to everything above.
Time passed by minute by minute, and Anna had never felt that waiting would be so long.
"What are you talking about! I begged for three steamed buns, do you want to eat them?" When Anna heard the cheerful voice coming from above, she suddenly opened her eyes.
Faced with his friends who suddenly became enthusiastic towards him, Goubuli was obviously a little scared.
"It's no use for you all to come around me. I only got three steamed buns and picked up dozens of plastic bottles."
Just when he was being surrounded, Goubuli saw a girl in white in the distance. The moment he saw her, he even thought he saw a fairy, she was so beautiful.
Anna came up to the boy who looked only seven or eight years old and stared at him with slightly trembling pupils.
After such a long separation, Charles finally came to her again, but he was different from the paranoid captain of Earthsea.
Charles on the surface is so small and thin that he looks like a bean sprout.
He wore a pair of bad sandals that didn't fit him, and a torn cotton jacket with the cotton showing through. His clothes were tattered and his hair was unkempt, but the only bright spot was his pair of clear eyes.
Charles looked like he had been beaten, with a black eye on his right eye, but that still couldn't hide his clear eyes that even Charles from the Earth and the Sea didn't have.
When she actually saw the child, Anna was finally sure that this was Charles. At the same moment, the anger and hatred towards Charles in her heart gradually dissipated.
Anna slowly squatted down, opened her arms and hugged him. Her thin body was so skinny that it felt so light when she held him. So light that it made people feel distressed.
"Let me go, I'm dirty, I stained your clothes and I can't afford to pay for it." Charles struggled hard, he was very panicked now. But the more he struggled, the tighter Anna hugged him.
Her eyes couldn't help but turn red, "Gao Zhiming, why are you so miserable? You are too miserable."
The home that Charles had tried so hard to find in Earthsea did not exist at all. He had no home, no mother, and no father. There was nothing on the surface that he was attached to, and everything he did in Earthsea was meaningless.
Anna held Charles in her arms and walked onto the bus. She didn't let go until they reached their residence and just held him tightly.
After arriving at the residence, Anna gave him a good bath as soon as possible. After confirming the moles on his body again, Anna was sure that he was Charles. Only she could remember these moles in hidden locations so clearly.
Anna held Charles' hair with a white towel and rubbed it gently. She, who had always been like a hedgehog, now had tenderness in her eyes.
After washing off the dirt on his body, Charles became much more lovable.
Charles looked carefully at the decoration of the houses around him, feeling very nervous.
But before he could finish worrying, the aroma of delicious food that was delivered immediately caught his attention. You know, he hadn't eaten yet today. Those were two bowls of fragrant fish soup noodles.
"Let's eat." Anna put a bowl of noodles in front of him.
Smelling the delicious noodles, Charles swallowed his saliva, but he did not eat them directly. Instead, he waited until he saw Anna pick up the chopsticks before he started to eat.
(End of this chapter)