Autumn Comes When You're Not Yet Done

Chapter 1

I am staring at the cabinets of my kitchen, thinking. Thinking or a beautiful woman. She was slim with long brown hair. I knew her a few thousand years ago. Guizhong, the God of Dust. I loved her but unfortunately she had died all those years ago. I still think of her from time to time but I have learned to let go.

I suddenly hear a crash and snap out of my thoughts. As I glance around the room searching for the source of the crash, the realization strikes me that I am a half an hour late for my shift at Wangsheng Funeral Parlor. I hurriedly look for what had crashed, I see a broken cup on the floor and stoop down to pick it up. I take all of the pieces of my ceramic cup and put them in my hand, as I begin to stand I hit my head against the table. What wonderful luck I have, I've broken my (expensive) ceramic teacup, I have tea on my floor from breaking the cup, and I am nearly an hour late for work. I throw the pieces of my cup on the table and take out a cloth to clean up the spilled tea on my floor. I begin to wipe up the tea when I hear a knock at the door. I quickly put the cloth on the table and walk (almost running) to the door. When I open the door, there is a young looking man standing outside dressed in filthy clothing.

"Hello good sir! Would you be interested in buying some freshly picked radishes?" the man says cheerfully, almost too cheerfully.

"Well I am low on food at the moment so I think I will but you will have to wait until I am off work, I'm already an hour late." I quickly reply.

"That simply cannot do, the radishes will all be gone by mid afternoon and I'm sure a stunning man like yourself must work quite late at a large company with high pay!" This man is starting to get on my nerves. I in fact do not work late, at a large company, or get paid much. And I surely am not stunning.

"Alright I guess I will buy some now, but I must do so quickly so I can get to work." 

"Thank you sir! The money you will pay with will be going to those who cannot afford high quality housing in Qingce Village." The man smiled boldly, it is quite annoying.

"That's nice. I think I will have five radishes, how much will that be?" I ask, pulling out my wallet.

"I'm sorry sir but you must buy the whole package, we cannot split it in two." I want this man to walk away from my house.

"Fine, fine. How much is the package of radishes?" 

"That'll be 2500 mora." Shit. That's everything I have in my wallet. I smile and slowly pull out my wallet. I give the man the money and in return receive the large package of radishes I have just purchased. After setting the package in my kitchen, I head off to work, now nearly two hours late.

As I walk, I hear the rustling of tree leaves. I turn towards the tree and see what seems to be a small person in the tree, the small person then jumped down right behind a little girl. The small person was Tao.

"BOO!!" Tao yells as she lasts next to the other little girl. Tao is now 6 years old, I find it quite hard to believe that she's already that old. After finding out about her grandfather's business, she gained a habit of scaring the other children of Liyue Harbor.

"AHH! Stop Tao or I'm gonna tell my mom that you keep scaring me!" The little girl cried out. Tao just simply laughed, pleased after successfully scaring one of her 'friends'. None of the children in Liyue Harbor particularly like Tao. In fact, they tend to avoid her. That will prove to be a great problem later in her life, I'm quite sure of that.

I keep walking, Tao didn't see me and that's probably a good thing. Whenever she sees me she asks so many question and tries to scare me, of course she never succeeds. 

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As I finish up my shift, I hear the voice of Lan, Tao's mother. I can't quite make out what she is saying but she doesn't sound happy. I silently follow her voice to where I see Lan and Zhang talking to Hu with frustration on their faces.

"I cannot deal with that child! She frightens all of the other children and sometimes they even get injured because of her antics! Of course then their parents demand that WE pay the medical bill since it was Tao's fault that the child got hurt in the first place!" Lan is practically fuming. Her face betrays her rage.

"I'm sure with time Tao will become less... problematic." Hu stated calmly, attempting to defend his granddaughter.

"No, I'm done. I can't do this anymore, Zhang and I are moving to Qingce Village and leave you to take care of Tao since you love defending her so much!" Lan almost yelled with Zhang nodding in agreement.

And with that, Lan and Zhang left Liyue Harbor. They had already packed their bags and they dropped Tao off with Hu. The girl was confused at first, after three days Hu and I told her that her parents had left, and weren't coming back. I could see it in her eyes, sadness and guilt. Sadness that her parents had left, and guilt for driving them away. Hu felt awfully bad for her. After all, her parents had given her up because they thought she was annoying and hated how she messed with other children. I hate Lan and Zhang. I hate that they had just left their daughter instead of explaining to her why was she was doing was bad. I was mad because they had left without saying goodbye. Tao was only a child.