On The Run

Part 9

"Do you think you can find the location?" he asked Tianhe.

Tianhe puckered his lips as he tracked down the number.

"Is it really only his father who knows this number?" Qian Feng asked.

"He said so..." Yibo shrugged.

"Sooo..." Tianhe finally said after some time hacking, "the number was registered in the name of He Biyu."

"His mother...?" Qian Feng raised his eyebrows. "Do you think his mother is trying to track him?"

"Maybe yes... maybe no..." Tianhe replied. "It's just her name, but it doesn't guarantee that the one called was his mother, right?"

"This is getting serious..." Qian Feng muttered.

"You keep the phone," Yibo said to Tianhe. "Any number calls, track it down."

"No problem."

Yibo went upstairs and sat on the couch at the book corner. Should he call Han-ge and asked for the truth?

Yibo noticed that The Little Prince book was still on the table. It's been a few days since the last time Xiao Zhan sat here and read before that incident.

Yibo took the book and opened it, as expected that the last page read was still the same. The night was still young and because he had nothing else to do, Yibo decided to read from the resumed page.

But it happened that after walking for a long time through sand, and rocks, and snow, the little prince at last came upon a road. And all roads lead to the abodes of men.

"Good morning," he said.

He was standing before a garden, all a-bloom with roses.

"Good morning," said the roses.

The little prince gazed at them. They all looked like his flower.

"Who are you?" he demanded, thunderstruck.

"We are roses," the roses said.

And he was overcome with sadness. His flower had told him that she was the only one of her kind in all the universe. And here were five thousand of them, all alike, in one single garden!

"She would be very much annoyed," he said to himself, "if she should see that... she would cough most dreadfully, and she would pretend that she was dying, to avoid being laughed at. And I should be obliged to pretend that I was nursing her back to life—for if I did not do that, to humble myself also, she would really allow herself to die..."

Then he went on with his reflection: "I thought that I was rich, with a flower that was unique in all the world; and all I had was a common rose. A common rose, and three volcanoes that come up to my knees—and one of them perhaps extinct forever... that doesn't make me a very great prince..."

And he lay down in the grass and cried.

It was then that the fox appeared.

"Good morning," said the fox.

"Good morning," the little prince responded politely, although when he turned around he saw nothing.

"I am right here," the voice said, "under the apple tree."

"Who are you?" asked the little prince, and added, "You are very pretty to look at."

"I am a fox," said the fox.