After Huilin's granny passed, her mother returned and took four-year-old Huilin to live with her and her second husband. To Huilin, this new house felt like it was built only of cold blocks and pillars, completely lacking the love and emotions that had defined Granny's home. The gaping emotional space between Huilin and her mother was vast. Huilin's mother had prepared a room for her, but Huilin only wished to return to her Granny's house, which had been built with genuine love.

Her mother showed no affection and constantly shouted

at Huilin. Huilin was sent to school with her younger siblings, but she was living a waking nightmare.

One day, Huilin's brother took his father's money and placed all the blame on Huilin. Her mother immediately sided with her son, refusing to hear Huilin's side. This betrayal was the final, crushing injustice.

From that day on, Huilin stopped talking. She was determined to keep her secrets and pain from a world that refused to listen. She convinced herself that she could not speak--that she had lost her voice-- and she even left school. She had no friends to turn to , no one who would understand her feelings. Her only true friend remained in the old house, which alone understood her emotions.

Huilin found a strange sense of peace in her silence, believing that without a voice, she wouldn't have to give any explanation about her feelings to the people who didn't want her in their lives.

She held onto her granny's final words: ''Little Huilin, you are not a burden; you are a gift from God."Her granny had told her not to lose herself, and that "once you become an adult, someone will come for you who will love you most in this world."

When Huilin remembered these things, she cried--but her tears were silent. She avoided speaking, terrified that if she spoke, she would lose the protected identity she had built in her silence. She used her voice of silence as a shield and waited for the day she would become an adult, the day her promised happiness and love would finally arrive to bring her back to the memory of her old house.