The Beauty of It, Part One: Childhood Role-Playing Games

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1. The First Act of Zoe Young’s Solo Show

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The six-year-old girl Zoe Young curled up in the corner of the bed, her face showing a sorrow far beyond her years. She was amusing herself by reenacting scenes from the cartoon Legend of the Magic Knight, playing multiple roles at once, muttering lines: “You... are you okay? You’re bleeding so much!” “Simic, take this bottle first!” “No, I won’t leave you, I don’t want to go alone!” “Hurry, hurry, there’s no time...”

Zoe Young collapsed onto the bed, her chubby, fair little hand clutching the sheet, barely propping herself up with her left arm, looking up at the imaginary, weeping Simic, putting on what she thought was a beautifully tragic and heroic smile.

Zoe Young let her head fall weakly, quietly “dying” on the war-torn battlefield. Two seconds later, she sprang up, turned around and knelt on the bed, covering her mouth with her left hand, eyes wide in disbelief. “Wake up... don’t scare me... wake up, wake up!” Now she was Simic.

Simic lay on the ground, shaking her head, tears in her eyes, crying out again and again: “I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it, you’re lying to me, you’re lying to me!”

…………

Mrs. Young was carrying a steaming cup of GaoLeGao, her hand on the door paused midair, her lips twitching for a long time before she finally sighed, turned, and left. She walked to Zoe Young’s grandmother’s room, looked at the saline bottle on the iron rack and said, “Mom, in about five minutes you can take out the needle.” Grandma nodded, “Where’s Zoe?” “She’s having one of her episodes.”

…………Simic finally emerged from her grief. She grabbed the bottle beside her with her left hand, her tear-filled eyes now full of determination as she clenched her little fist: “I swear, I will bring the holy water to them!” The so-called holy water was just tap water sealed in an old IV bottle her grandma had used, plugged with a rubber stopper. Raising the bottle high, Zoe Young pressed her right eye to the cylindrical bottle, as the early March sunlight streamed in through the window, shining through the bottle and spreading a dazzling but gentle spring light in her eyes. “I see the light,” she said with deep feeling. Outside the door, her mother tripped on the threshold at the sound.

Simic hugged the bottle tightly, looking around warily. She would crawl slowly across the bed on all fours, then leap up like a fish, pressing herself against the wall and holding her breath. In the small room, she crossed a thousand mountains and rivers of the demon world.

“SimicSimic, 米克米克 transform!” She nimbly cast a spell, turning into a little rabbit. Zoe Young bit her lower lip with her front teeth, then tried hard to curl up her upper lip, making a rabbit face, then bounced on the bed, leaping across the endless grasslands in her mind. “Finally... I’ve arrived.” She stood up straight, looking fearlessly at the fierce, grinning demon king before her. Then she turned around, put her hands on her hips, puffed out her belly, and gave a wicked grin: “Hahaha, my utterly evil scheme has been discovered by you. But it doesn’t matter, your doom has come, oh hahaha...” A demon king who called himself utterly evil, but was actually quite modest. Turning again, she picked up the bottle from the bed and hugged it to her chest: “You, you, you... go to hell!” That didn’t sound quite right. “You...” Zoe Young put down the bottle and frowned, thinking hard about what a lone hero should say at this moment. “Your days of doing whatever you want are over, prepare yourself, watch me uphold justice.” Suddenly, her mother’s voice sounded outside the door.

Zoe Young smiled, her eyes curving into pretty crescents, “Thank you, Mom.” “...You’re welcome.”

“Ha, your days of doing whatever you want are over, prepare yourself, watch me uphold justice!!” Zoe Young shouted, lifting her leg in a beautiful spinning kick, then combined with a robot, striking a driving pose, dodging, rolling, jumping, ducking...

Strange thuds echoed through the little room. At last, she jumped up and took the feather duster from the hook on the wall, gripping it with both hands like a Japanese samurai, first drawing a circle in the air with the tip, then taking a deep breath and chopping down! After finishing, she immediately turned around, covered her forehead, knelt on the bed, and shouted in disbelief: “How could this be?

How could I lose to you? I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it, I—don’t—believe—it—”

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Mom pulled out Grandma’s needle, hearing the last heavy thud from the little room. After feeding Grandma rice porridge, she picked up the bowl to wash it in the kitchen. Passing by the little room, she heard a wailing cry inside. Didn’t she just defeat the demon king? Why is she crying again? She stopped, pressed her ear to the door, and listened quietly. “Heroine, heroine, don’t die...” “I... from today on, you mustn’t fight for the position of martial alliance leader anymore. That seat is stained with blood...” Mom sighed, thinking she shouldn’t let Zoe Young watch so many TV dramas—what a mess they were. “Chief, chief!” a rough “male voice.” “Chief!” a sharp “female voice.” Zoe Young imitated four or five voices in a row, creating a scene of the whole world weeping. Wasn’t she just the heroine? How did she become the chief? Mom frowned and kept listening. “What kind of blade? A golden-ringed broadsword! What kind of sword? A moon-hiding sword! What kind of move? The move of heaven and earth! What kind of person? Someone who can leap over roofs and walls! What kind of love? A beauty who loves a hero!

“Oh hahaha...”

...The theme song of White-Browed Hero.

She couldn’t listen anymore. If she waited any longer, Zoe Young would probably act out even the commercials after the ending song. Shaking her head, Mom went to the kitchen and turned on the tap. The sound of running water drowned out Zoe Young’s little theater, and after that, nothing could be heard.

At this age, she couldn’t even go to kindergarten, nor play with other children. But there was nothing to be done.

Nothing to be done, Zoe, Mom can’t help it either, don’t blame Mom. As Mrs. Young thought this, tears fell, mixing into the sink, disappearing down the drain together with Zoe Young’s ending song, swirling away. Generation after generation, life is like a spinning top, turning round and round.

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2. The Second Act of Zoe Young’s Solo Show

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“No matter what, I will never hand over the holy egg to you!” Athena stood firm, head held high, her long hair flowing behind her.

Zoe Young’s version of Athena was now clutching the “holy egg” tightly in her arms—a white egg she had stolen from the kitchen.

It had taken her a long time to pick out a white egg from a basket of red ones. Even though there was a bit of chicken poop on it, she had carefully washed it clean. White eggs were nobler than red ones, she thought.

In Zoe Young’s dictionary, if you wanted to make something seem noble, you just had to add the word “holy” in front of its name, like holy warrior, holy water, or... holy egg.

In her mind, the handsome demon king looked at her with reluctance: “Athena, don’t force me to hurt you...” On summer nights, the crickets chirped happily outside in the grass. Mom wasn’t home yet, and Zoe Young was alone, not turning on the lights, performing her own tragicomedy in the dim room. In the script she wrote for herself, the demon king was no longer just a simple villain. The handsome demon king from the cartoon, who fell in love with Athena but couldn’t have her, and was finally forced to flood the temple and drown the goddess bit by bit—Poseidon—made her blush and her heart race without her realizing it.

She blushed at the demon king, but kept telling herself firmly: No, I love Seiya. And those holy warriors, risking their lives to protect me, isn’t it because they all love me? Zoe Young’s version of Athena cupped her face, suddenly terrified by this emotional dilemma. She had understood from a very young age that love was scary and troublesome—even if she didn’t really know what love was.

Mom had gone to take care of Grandma, leaving her in this small house on the outskirts of town. The house was a temporary rental after their own home was demolished, very simple, with only one room. The kitchen was shared by several families, and the toilet was an outdoor public one—dirty, smelly, and scary. Zoe Young never dared to go there alone.

She really wanted to live at Grandma’s house, which was in a downtown apartment, part of the university’s family housing. She liked Grandma’s little room; it was her stage, and only on that stage did she feel inspired and free.

But Grandma’s house was already home to Third Uncle’s family and Little Uncle’s family—four rooms, one living room, seven people, and no space left for her and Mom.