(Part 5)
Lim Bun’s face became pale and without anymore talking he then left the pawnhouse with a staggering step. Along the way he hardly thought. Should he pawn his sweet granddaughter, Siauw Kim? Should he sacrifice his granddaughter’s feelings and honor to help his family? Ah, no, no! It shouldn’t be! Even though he was poor, he still had the pride to not doing that and had to face deadly starving. He did not want his granddaughter to be a guarantee because this would undermine her good name as a girl.
However, his arrogance immediately dispersed when he arrived at his hut. He was greeted with slashing-heart cries. It turns out that his youngest grandson, who suffered from heat illness, had now died.
Their hearts were broken, yet Siauw Kim and her daughter reminded that they still needed for money to bury this little boy’s body and also to buy food for other children who had starved since yesterday.
“How is the matter, dad? Have you managed to find loans in that pawnhouse?” asked his daughter in a sobbing voice.
Lim Bun dropped on the ground, unbearablely cried. While crying he then told the matter happened in the pawnhouse.
Hearing how the pawnhouse asked her daughter as a guarantee, the lady was crying sadly.
“How cruel!” she said hugging her daughter crying sadly as well.
“Mother, let it be … let me go there, let me be a guarantee, because kong-kong must definitely get money to redeem me back again and so that my little siblings can eat …” Siauw Kim said bravely.
“No, no … what if we can’t redeem you again?” said her mother while Lim Bun could not say anything else like someone lost his mind.
“Sure you can, mom! Most of the loan money can later be used to buy rice-seeds? The rainy season begins and our rice-field will certainly produce rice!”
Hearing this his granddaughter’s words, touchedly Lim Bun then stood up and held on Siauw Kim’s shoulders, “My good granddaughter, indeed you are the only one now who can help the lives of our whole family. Believe me, Thian is the fairest to bring blessings to our rice-field so that it can produce enough to be used to redeem you back later.”
******************