Chapter 355 God-given Gift
The savings were small. After the funeral, Richard calculated that there was no need to pay tuition for public schools. The saved money would be enough for him to survive the four years of high school. And he can also work part-time to save money for college.
But something unexpected happened. One day when he came home from school, he found that his home had been burglarized and the money left by his adoptive parents had been stolen. He immediately called the police and contacted the bank, but the money was never recovered.
The adoptive parents probably expected that such a day would come, so they had already left a will and gave the ownership of the property to Richard. During the previous funeral, a lawyer came over and suggested that he sell or rent it out, and that he would find a cheap place to rent a house, so that he would not have to live too hard.
Richard is unwilling.
His adoptive parents loved him very much, and the house was the only thing they left behind. It was full of beautiful memories of family and love, and he couldn't bear to part with it.
When I was in the second grade, a man who claimed to be my adoptive father's cousin suddenly came to my door and took away the house using "legal and compliant" means.
Richard's part-time income is not much, so he can only rent a very cheap place. The conditions in this kind of place are poor and there are problems with public security, but he can't help it.
The residence is dilapidated, with frequent water and electricity cuts, especially when the weather is hot, and there is no way to take a shower. Even though Richard knows how to flush in public toilets, sometimes he still goes to school smelling bad.
His original friends gradually stayed away from him after his adoptive parents passed away. This situation now gave some bad boys a reason to bully him.
Richard didn't want to cause trouble at first because his adoptive parents raised him so well that he hated those behaviors and didn't want to become like that himself. He just wants to work and study in peace, finish high school, and then go to college. When he gets rich, he can take back his adoptive parents' house.
But his forbearance only made these people worse. Bullying him in school was a common occurrence. They even went to the place where he worked part-time and disrupted his work.
After that, every time Richard got a part-time job, they went to make trouble. In the end, no store near the community was willing to hire him.
Richard was cut off from his financial resources. After spending all the money, he went to the community rescue center to receive free food and queued up with a group of homeless people. However, this kind of free food is not available every day. A homeless man told him that he can also go through the trash can behind the restaurant. There will be a lot of food that the customers can't finish or the restaurant has disposed of the expired food.
Sometimes Richard would go to the back of the restaurant to try his luck after drinking cold water all day long.
To be honest, when he first went there, the shame of losing his dignity covered him from head to toe. The thought of looking for food from the garbage made him even more nauseous and wanted to vomit, but he couldn't vomit anything out. .
That time, Richard met the homeless man who told him this method, and the homeless man greeted him: "Hey, you're here!"
As he said this, he also The pizza in his hand was handed to Richard: "This packaging box is clean. I just heard the clerk say that the customer only tasted one bite and didn't think it tasted good, so he didn't want it."
Richard couldn't stretch out his hand.
"Take it, this is a gift from God." The homeless man put the pizza box into Richard's hand, turned around and went to dig through the trash can, and found a bottle of Coke that had just expired. He was dancing with joy, " Come on, let’s find a place to sit. We’ll have something to eat and drink. It’s such a lucky and perfect day.”
After finishing "dinner", Richard thanked the homeless man and said he was going back to the rental house. The homeless man held the remaining half bottle of Coke "Tontonton" and took a few big sips. He waved to him and looked up at the street lamp. His tone was either sad or resigned, and he said: "When I first came to the lower world, Just like you. But living is more important, just get used to it.”
Richard doesn’t go through the trash cans often, but he encounters this homeless man almost every time. Sometimes you can still see him feeding stray cats with food.
The homeless man saw Richard with obvious injuries almost every time.
There seems to be a tacit understanding between the two of them. They don’t ask about each other’s past, nor talk about you and me now, let alone their respective futures. When they meet, they will dig through the trash cans together, and they will work for a share at the same time. Laughing about “a gift from God.”
In his free time, Richard would pick up some junk and sell it for money. However, picking up rags is also divided into areas, and he will not have good luck every time.
One day at the end of the month, Richard went to sell junk after school, and was blocked by those bad boys again. He was beaten and his money was robbed. He returned to the rental house with a bruised face.
As soon as I entered the house, someone knocked on the door. It was the landlord who came to collect the rent.
Richard reached under the bed and dug out a small, flat iron box. There were only a few coins and banknotes in it, which added up to less than ten dollars, which was not enough to pay the rent. , he asked the landlord to grant him a period of grace.
The landlord had heard something about his situation. Seeing him looking like he had been beaten up again, he suddenly asked: "How are your grades in school?"
Richard didn't understand why he asked this, and replied: "All A's."
The landlord looked into his eyes and made sure he was not lying, so he pulled up an old chair and sat down: "There is nothing like this. A child like you. Most people, let alone children, would probably give up on themselves when faced with a predicament like yours. It’s really true that you can still maintain hope for the future. Very rare.”
< br>Richard said: "I want to go to college."
The landlord smiled, not mocking, but a little appreciative: "Son, going to college is not that easy, let alone just talking about it. It can be done. Alas, I will give you some grace and I will come back next month.”
Before leaving, the landlord said again: “Weak people have no choice. Survival in the wild”
"I'm not weak." Richard whispered, "I just want to live peacefully and get out of here."
The landlord pointed to his swollen eyes: "So, are you safe? In the environment you are in now, not resisting means being weak, and being weak means you can be bullied."
After that, Richard hid a knife in his body and was bullied by those bad boys. At that time, he resisted desperately, giving each of them a pat on the back, and his eyes were particularly sinister: "If you want me to die, I will drag you to hell together."
After several times , these people finally became afraid, and word of Richard's "cruelty" spread, so some people came to him and asked him to help. The money offered was quite large, but Richard refused without hesitation.
He knows very well that those things must not be touched, not even a little bit, otherwise, his life and future, as well as his entire life, will be dragged into the endless swamp until he rots in it, never to be seen again. Can't climb out.