vrcanaries Chapter 559 Er'er's roughness is heartbreaking.
Chapter 559 Er'er's roughness is heartbreaking.
The inner room was steaming hot, and the water in the bathtub was still emitting white steam.
Er'er sat in the bucket, with only her head sticking out.
"Oh, this feels so good, big sister. I haven't had such a pleasant bath in ages."
The little girl let out a sigh.
Xu Yiyi stood behind her, clutching a wooden comb in her hand, looking at her messy hair with concern.
The hair, though soaked in water, was still knotted in layers, like a crumpled hemp rope.
Xu Yi poured a small half bowl of the shampoo she had made herself into her palm, carefully applied it, rubbed it to create some lather, and then tried to comb it downwards with a comb.
The comb got stuck halfway and couldn't be moved.
She added some water, applied some ointment, and tried it again.
I still can't comb it out.
"No," Xu Yi said, placing the comb on the rim of the bucket and shaking the water off her hands. "This knot is tied too tightly; it'll hurt if we pull on it any further. How about... we cut it?"
Er'er listened, lifted her wet hand out of the water, and waved it at her indifferently.
"No need to cut it."
As she spoke, she took the wooden comb from Xu Yiyi's hand, grabbed the large clump of hair with one hand, and used the comb in the other to forcefully comb it from the ends of the hair in little by little.
The comb got stuck, but she didn't stop. She just kept pulling it down with all her might, without even frowning.
"Hiss..." Xu Yiyi felt pain just looking at Er'er's movements and turned her face away.
Er'er's hands didn't stop, and she said, "When my master and I were out there, sometimes we couldn't find a place to stay, so we would spend the night in the wild. Back then, as long as we could fill our stomachs, we were fine. We didn't care about anything else. It was hot there too. Sometimes we wouldn't be able to take a shower for several days. We didn't even take care of our hair. That's how these knots accumulated little by little."
As she spoke, she gave it another hard tug, and the tangled clump of hair finally came loose.
She quickly combed through the rest of her hair, shook her wet long hair, and turned back to grin at Xu Yiyi.
Xu Yiyi didn't laugh.
She herself wasn't a particularly particular person, but hearing the young girl speak so casually, she still felt sorry for her.
She reached out and touched Er'er's face.
Her face looked much rougher than when she left home; there was some peeling skin on her cheekbones, and her chin was sharper.
Looking further down, her shoulders and arms, visible above the water, were a glossy black, making her look completely different from the fair-skinned girl she used to be.
“They’re all rough,” Xu Yiyi said in a muffled voice, “and incredibly dark.”
Er'er was confused. She tilted her head and looked at her, then, just like when she was a child, she rubbed her face against Xu Yiyi's palm and grinned.
They seem carefree and thoughtless.
"It's alright! Big sister will give us a haircut on New Year's Eve."
As she spoke, she pointed to her hair and then to the faint sounds of laughter and conversation coming from outside.
"We usually get our hair cut on New Year's Eve, just once a year. Big sister, you'd better give me a nice haircut then."
Xu Yi smiled and stayed inside with Er'er for a while before coming out.
"Great-grandfather and great-grandmother!"
Er'er got dressed and affectionately approached the two elderly people to talk.
Grandma grabbed her hand and touched her face with her other hand.
He touched it once, then again, his brow furrowing deeper and deeper.
"You've lost weight," Auntie said with concern. "This trip must have been tiring. Your face used to be a bit chubby when you were recuperating at home, but now it's all sunken."
She touched Er'er's hand again, turned it over to look at her palm, and clicked her tongue, saying, "It's so rough, how much hardship did you suffer out there?"
Er'er chuckled and didn't dodge, letting her great-grandmother touch her.
The old man sat to the side, saying nothing, just looking at her with heartache in his eyes.
Just then, Xu Anyang ran in from outside, panting, and said, "Grandma, the chicken! The chicken is here!"
As he spoke, he was holding a plump old hen in his hand, which was still flapping its wings loudly.