Chapter 5: QianLing Park

It was morning by the time she left the alley back the way she came with an aching body. By now, the street food vendors are up and about making food for the business workers and students early in the morning. The kids who walk to school two hours away are already up and walking to school in their uniform. While walking across the urban road and slinking through different alleyways until she found what she was looking for.

It was another park this time, but different from the last that had been as small as an entire residential street. instead, mountains covered the sceneries much like those in calligraphy pictures. Bridges and lakes also helped form the picturesque view from the front. Yes, this park is the QianLing Park.

She recalled her maternal grandmother from her previous life bringing her here early in the morning since she was young to hike and exercise. However, after having the stomach flu once, she ended up breaking that habit for a short time. Her mother from her previous life did the same when she was also young.

According to her, it was the main reason why she was able to slim down twenty pounds in a month years ago. One of the tales she'd been told over and over again as a child.

The entrance was still closed, but she didn't believe there wouldn't be a way for her to pass through without an ID card. Even if she were to want to enter the park, it wasn't so simple as the park was one of the popular attractions of the province. One would require an ID card to enter. However...

After driving into the park, the tall and lanky man hummed a tune as he made his way to one of the small shops stationed next to the lake. Unbeknownst to him, a young woman silently slid out from the back of the trunk. She sighed, "Well, that wasn't easy..."

As much as she'd like to say it was, getting a serious worker to get distracted by a runaway monkey certainly wasn't simple. She had to catch a monkey making its way down from a jutting tree branch over the wall to have it do her bidding. Yup, this was one of the reasons why she loved the park so much. Her grandparents from her previous life live in this province, thus she had many fond memories of her time here.

This body is fortunate to know the ups and downs of this province or it'd have a difficult time moving on from such circumstances. She recall the trouble the park had with run away monkeys too, since the monkeys needed to be in the park where it was safe for them to live without the threat of humans hunting for them. She had been an animal lover for as long as she could remember, but China was a place where they try to survive by eating whatever they could find as long as it wasn't themselves.

From dogs and cats, to pigeons and horses, they'd do whatever they could to keep proteins on their table and diet, especially during the winter when food becomes more limited with the harsh winter. She began to understand why her parents said that most people would have dog as a last resort during the winter. The reason and the result of the cycle really pained her. She wondered if she was like the dog. Being loyal to humans till the moment they had their lives ended in their stomachs? At least, nobody had benefited from her death.

After walking around in her sandals, she finally came by a lake where she found the path that she used to use to hike up the mountains with her grandmother. It was obviously still too early for visitors to walk about or they were the perfectionist that lined up outside the entrance and slowly filed in one by one.

Though it pained her, she was feeling rather fortunate that her grandmother wasn't around at the moment or she'd tear up as soon as she see her after all these years. She turned to one stand after another before deciding to hurry up the mountains. The large lake was filled with koi fishes and carps as she had remembered and the monkeys were still snoozing away somewhere unseen with their group, presumably, unless they were attempting escape too.

Following up the river that flowed downstream to the lake from latter, it was then that Willow noticed the large populations of homeless citizens at the edge of the dirt road. It was more than she had remembered as a child. The previous long line of beggars has already evolved into that of groups now hogging at most half of the road's space leaving the majority of those better off either handing them money or giving them pitiful gazes as they hurry by pretending not to see.

She had recall those people since she was once one of them staring down upon the people in deep confusion. Because her previous father disliked the government and the sly and lying people, he often talked negatively about his homeland and how poor their family had been without electronics during the majority of his childhood despite her grandfather having been a veterinarian treating numerous cattle and livestock with a small name for himself in their local rural town he used to live in.

Because of this, she only became further confused when she began to imagine the country itself being similar to that of slums country-wide. It was just the imagination of a child not even reaching her preteens, but it only left her dumbfounded to find how little she knew of her origins. For one, her place of origin definitely isn't completely as bad as her father had described it to be and that she was behind the times due to the family history of being poor once, but, second, it still did not mean there was a shortage of homeless people.

They wander the sides of the streets from time to time in frayed or dirty clothing with their small or large bags of belongings begging and struggling to have something in their stomach or try to keep their children fit enough to work.

Some were uneducated and some were handicapped. It was the first time that she saw the reality that homeless people live in and that experience nearly scarred her when she imagined herself in their shoes. So much so, that, when her grandmother had her go to give one of them some money, she stumbled and the money fell out of her hands embarrassingly in front of so many people that she made a fool of herself in a poor attempt to help someone.

That morning, she was beaten on the hand with a chopstick until it was red whilst being scolded for her behavior that could've been seen to have been the opposite of her intentions. That was the day that she first felt genuine fear of not knowing what the future held for her as she felt that that would've been her in the future if she didn't work hard for her own survival and, thus, prompted her to work harder on her own behalf as well.

Recalling the pitiful experience with nostalgia, she continued her way up the mountains collecting long strands of grass and twigs on her way up. By the time she reached a small building with a veranda, she instantly recognized the place. It now wore a new layer of white paint unlike the former blue, but she recognized the pool tables and the sound of beer cans clank against each other followed by the boisterous volume and the sound of another game continuing on.

Willow pondered about the place for a bit before choosing to go a little further from the site. Though it would be a good place to sell some small figurines, it'd be best to consider her safety as well, considering that she was in a place mostly occupied by men at the moment. Once it reaches dark, she'd also have to find a place to hide from security for the night.

There were a lot of tall trees around too. So, it won't really provide enough shelter, but compared to the streets outside, it was already better than anything else.

That morning, she spent the entire time braiding out figurines of animals with the grass and twigs, rather than napping. It had been something she learned to from her days in college to earn small cash albeit it wasn't much. She had initially wanted to become a designer and applied for arts, but she quickly learned that it wasn't all that simple, even with money, and she wasn't in the position that would help her. In the end, she had to strongly persuade her advisors to switch her over to medicine, which was a big leap education-wise.

Even her roommate had a hard time believing that she succeeded and Willow did too, at first. Since then, she used a little bit of her arts and craft skills to earn small bits of cash.

By the time she finished a few animal figurines the length of her arm, the sun was already high in the sky. She set the grass figures to the side and brought out the few stick figures. By now, students and younger visitors have come across and watched her make her crafts on the ground.

Though many left after she was done, some who looked to be tourists bought a couple from her. She was surprised to see that there would still be someone willing to travel overseas during this kind of situation. As she continued to bind more figurines, she began to notice some of the visitors began to talk about the catastrophe rather than their day.

Her fingers continued to move swiftly creating new works as the words entered her ears. She had done the same back when she was in college and visiting other families since gossip always held some truth in the words spewed out by others. Piecing together the rumors, she was able to come to an understanding of the situation.

Since her death in Beijing, a couple of days had passed. During those two days, the medical support time she was apart of in Beijing was completely annihilated by the recent birth of a new volcano in the region which she recalled occurring just before her death.

The government has already begun setting up forces to fight the coming flow of lava that has yet to diminish. The plague she was fighting against and caught before her death seems have started to diminish when a new disease appeared in Hongkong.

Many say that these disease migrated from foreign countries and so the government partially cut off migration with other countries and have begun to rely on whatever they have to support themselves for a while. Not only that, but the commotion that started at the UN conference in New York has left a really bad impression on the company and country.

Many spoke ill of the type of person America had produced from their populations and many found fault in them for their recent sufferings. What she found stupid was how everything was so out of control that not many even thought that it was all orchestrated by the company. However, it would make sense if they didn't want to come into conflict with Elijah for fear that he'd target them next to keep them silent.

Willow hadn't witnessed it, but she wondered just how many he had taken the lives of just to keep his plot a secret. Did he really believe that the medical company would have enough resources to support the entire world?

Resources like these don't just appear out of thin air. Even if he were to wring the country dry of its blood and flesh, it just wouldn't be enough to support everyone, but it would be another if it were only for those who could afford it.

As for the part of the demigods, she quickly learned that people began to comment about the theatrics played in the video while some question the existence of celestial beings once more. It would seem that it was all a what-if and maybe-so type of situation amongst the people. As the crowd began to thin out, Willow began to close up shop and snuggled her handmade wares in the branches of a bush while hugging a figure of her masterpiece, a horse, with her as she stuffed her money inside her pocket and made her way down the mountain before the sun could set across the mountain.

She arrived at the shops and used the money she earned to buy sweet cartwheel cakes before using others to purchase a roll of newspaper with the best mandarin speech as she could. She can't exactly read the language well but the paper had other uses.