CHAPTER 264: CHAPTER 264; SHE’S SCARED

Tang Fei tried to move things away; behind a stack of folded mats, curled into a tight ball with her arms wrapped around her knees, she was a little girl, no older than nine years, who looked lost.

Her eyes were wide, rimmed with fear, and her face was smeared with old dirt and bruises. She flinched when the light touched her trying to hide away into the darkness where no one was gonna see her.

Tang Fei knelt, keeping her voice low and calm trying to lure her out of there. "It’s okay, sweetheart. I’m not here to hurt you. I just want to greet and say hi to you."

The girl didn’t immediately answer this foreign person. Her trembling only grew intense as her body flinched while she moved backward, trying to hide, her big eyes darting all over the place, searching for safety.

Behind Tang Fei, the administrator who had gotten over gasped, covering her mouth in surprise. "That’s Qingqing... she doesn’t speak. Not since she was found. I thought she ran away from the orphanage as I hadn’t seen her since two days ago." She didn’t mingle with other kids and since their place was open with no safeguarding wall, it was easy for kids to run away from the facility. And it was harder to track them down.

Tang Fei’s eyes softened as she took in the child’s tiny frame, the bruises faintly visible on her skin, like faded shadows of a darker past.

Her lip trembled, and no word came out of them; she reached for something in her sweet pants pocket, a small plush rabbit Minghao had dropped earlier on the pavement.

She extended it slowly over to her; it had these beautiful and attractive colors that kids found attractive. "This was looking for someone to take care of it, look at how soft it is. I think... maybe it was meant for you. Seee.... It’s waiting for you." She gently squeezed it while showing her, stretching her hand to get closer to her.

Qingqing didn’t move at first, but her gaze was fixed on the toy, and you could see the desire to get hold of them.

They could only be patient with her and wait for her to react.

But after what had felt like forever, suddenly her fingers twitched and she reached out to it, slightly hesitant, barely touching the rabbit’s ear. She was still trembling all over.

Tang Fei smiled warmly, "See? It likes you too. Take it..."

Behind her, Xu Xie crouched closely, silent but soft. " She seems to be too scared to move! What could have happened to such a tiny little girl?" Xu Xie’s heart ached for her to see her like that. She was so tiny to be traumatized.

"She’s scared," Tang Fei whispered back. "She has been traumatized. It’s the normal reaction of kids who have gone through torture of all manners, you can see it on those new and faded bruises." In the assassin camp, she had seen this behavior. They would start like this and then get used to seeing blood. And with the fresh bruises overlapping with old bruises could show what she had gone through.

How could such a young kid go through such a traumatic experience and not be traumatized? She was just a kid.

Only Twilight could understand what she meant; they had been there together and seen kids getting broken mentally, emotionally, and even physically. These conditions were what they had seen.

Tang Fei turned to the administrator worried, her face scrunching up. "Has she seen a doctor? Perhaps a therapist to check up on her?" She needed serious counseling, for her mental health.

"We don’t have one. We... we tried our best to talk to her, but she didn’t say anything, she didn’t get closer to anyone, and she barely ate to know the kind of mannerisms she had. She doesn’t let anyone touch her. Sometimes, she cries in her sleep, but only when she thinks no one can hear her. We were left with no choices at all apart from letting her be and letting time heal her wounds." Such kind of cases were harder to handle and they needed a psychologist. They needed a lot of money, and with the current condition of the orphanage, they couldn’t manage it.

Tang Fei pitied her and wondered if she had run away from the assassin camp! That place was easy to ruin kids and not a single psychologist would be able to set them straight and fix that mess. "She’s coming with us. I’m passing by the hospital, and she can have a check-up along the way." She understood that the orphanage didn’t have any capabilities to handle such cases, and these were the sole reasons she would wish doctors to drop by the facility every other weekend and check up on them.

"I will stay with her for a while before we can see what else to do!" The kid needed proper emotional support and care and a lot of counseling and time to get back to herself.

The woman blinked worried. "But, Mrs. Huo, that’s..."

"I will sort out the necessary paperwork that would be needed, you don’t have to worry about that." Huo Ting Cheng interjected smoothly. "Our legal team will handle it. She will be fine, we will notify you just in case of anything." He knew his wife wouldn’t be at peace leaving her there. She would think about her every minute if they left her at the orphanage and this wouldn’t settle well with him.

Tang Fei knelt again, holding out her hand. "Qingqing? Would it be okay... if you came with me? Just to visit first. We won’t make you stay if you don’t want to and we won’t make you do anything if you aren’t okay with it." She didn’t mind having one more kid under her wings. She seemed to be at the age where she could go to school and adapt to life, and she would get busy with her life soon.