Du An remained silent.
From the wall, the ninety-six faces in the photographs gazed quietly down at him.
Sarah stepped forward, gently opened her arms, and embraced him.
"Don't pull away," she said softly, letting go and looking into his eyes. "Feel it, see it, walk alongside this city. In time, you'll come to understand what Liverpool is, what Anfield means, and what it truly means when they say You'll Never Walk Alone."
Du An froze in place, a faint scent lingering at the tip of his nose.
In all his years growing up, aside from his grandmother and Ethan, he had rarely experienced such close, tender contact.
Scrapping and tumbling with classmates didn't count.
There was no pity in this embrace; it was more like acceptance.
It felt as though the city had reached out a hand to Du An, seeking to pull him out of his pain and move forward together.
At three in the afternoon, Dunn emerged from the back office and told Du An, "Kenny called just now. Said he's almost here, waiting by the curb."
Du An nodded, said goodbye to Dunn and Sarah, and pushed open the glass door to step outside.
The brass bell above jingled.
The moment he reached the pavement, he saw a postman pull up outside the shop on a bicycle, pull a stack of letters from his bag, and deftly slip them into the postbox on the exterior wall.
After finishing, the postman pushed open the door and leaned halfway inside, calling out, "Sarah, another batch of letters has arrived!"
"Got it, thank you!" Sarah's clear voice rang out from within.
A car horn sounded.
Du An turned to look. Dalglish's car was parked not far away, with the rear window rolled down. Ethan was leaning halfway out, waving vigorously the moment he spotted him. "Du An!"
Du An drew back his gaze, walked over, opened the passenger door, and climbed in.
As soon as he settled into his seat, Ethan leaned forward and began chattering away without pause: "Was the shop fun? What did you do? Did you see the memorial badges? I just went to a nearby pitch to kick a ball around with Paul—he taught me loads of football tricks!"
"Nothing much, just sorted some wristbands and badges, neatened the shelves. Simple work," Du An answered briefly.
Dalglish glanced over at him with a smile and asked, "Well? You've spent most of the day there—how did it feel?"
Du An replied in earnest, "Thank you, Mr. Dalglish."
He paused, speaking from the heart: "I saw a great deal, and it moved me deeply. Before, my grandmother always kept herself shut away, refusing to touch anything related to football. I always thought pain had to be like that. But seeing Sarah today, seeing Mr. Dunn, and all the people in the shop, I realized that maybe you don't have to keep yourself locked up forever. Carrying those memories forward like Sarah does is another way."
Hearing this, Dalglish smiled. "You're more mature than I imagined, Du An. You're a good lad—I've always known that. But you must remember, Mason isn't at fault. She's a victim too. Everyone processes grief differently. She simply chose the way that best protected her, and no one has the right to blame her."
The car rolled away from the neighborhood.
Dalglish reflected for a moment before bringing up the HJC. "Do you know why Dunn and the others have fought for over a decade, insisting on pushing the authorities to make the truth public?"
Du An shook his head. He had a vague impression, but nothing concrete.
He hadn't lived through it.
Dalglish explained, "To the city of Liverpool, an official acknowledgment of the truth is of utmost importance. Heysel, Hillsborough... we suffered far too much injustice. Take Hillsborough—while the government chose to cover up the truth, The Sun did something utterly infamous. I'll never forget the name Kelvin MacKenzie, the editor of The Sun. He ran a front-page story under the headline 'The Truth.' It slandered our supporters, claiming they picked the pockets of the dead and urinated on the bodies of victims, shifting all the blame onto the fans who had lost their lives. The day that story came out, all of Liverpool erupted. Fans rushed to newsagents to burn the papers, gathered outside their offices to protest, and countless shops pulled The Sun from their shelves, refusing to ever sell it again. MacKenzie panicked. He phoned the club, asking for me by name. Reception put the call through, and the moment he spoke, he said, 'Kenny, there might be a bit of a misunderstanding between us.' I just gave him a cold hum and said nothing. He went on to ask what they could do to clear the air. I told him: however large you printed 'THE TRUTH' across your front page that day, tomorrow you print a headline in the exact same size: 'WE LIED, WE'RE SORRY.' He said, 'Kenny, I can't do that.' I replied, 'Then I can't help you.' And I hung up."
Du An listened quietly.
Ethan's eyes lit up, and he brandished his fist with a joyful laugh. "Brilliant! Mr. Dalglish! That's exactly what he deserved!"
Dalglish merely shook his head with a wry smile and said no more.
The car turned into a familiar neighborhood.
They were home.
When the three walked inside, Paul and Marina were chatting in the living room; both stood up to greet them as they entered.
Du An and Ethan greeted them in return.
No sooner had they sat down than Dalglish's voice sounded again, continuing what he had been telling Du An in the car. "A man like MacKenzie will never understand the enormity of what he did to a city already brokenhearted."
He sighed. "The day after the report came out, not long after I hung up on him, the governor of Walton Prison called. He said the inmates had read the paper and were beside themselves with fury, on the verge of rioting, and begged me to come down and say a few words to them. I agreed, because I had to go. Liverpool was simmering, on the brink of turmoil everywhere, and I needed to do everything I could to calm people down and give them a glimmer of hope."
Even from those few words, Du An could already sense the sheer unrest that had gripped the city back then.
At the same time, he had known only that Dalglish was a Liverpool legend, "The King," but only now did he truly feel why. The title had never been just about how many trophies he had won or how many goals he had scored.
It was because when the entire city was plunged into darkness, he had been willing to step forward.
"I went to the prison chapel and sat down with the inmates," Dalglish continued. "I told them that everyone at the club was working day and night, helping the families of the victims and gathering evidence. I told them that 'The Truth' was a lie from start to finish. And I told them that Anfield had become a sanctuary, where all the fallen supporters could rest in peace."
He turned abruptly, looking intently into Du An's eyes. "Do you understand now? Why we fight tooth and nail to make the government release the truth? Because what happened at Walton Prison showed us plainly: repeat a lie a thousand times, and people will believe it's true. If we don't fight, if we don't drag the truth into the light, then in ten or twenty years' time, all anyone will remember will be the filth written in The Sun. Everyone will think Liverpool fans killed their own. And when that happens, those ninety-six victims will bear that disgrace forever, and the injustice suffered by this city will never be washed clean!"
Looking at the gray hair at Dalglish's temples, Du An suddenly understood so much.
Football was never just football.
The songs echoing around Anfield, the badges in the HJC shop, the banners boycotting The Sun along the streets, Sarah's serene gaze, Dunn's heated phone calls...
All of it woven together was what made Liverpool.
Du An felt a surge swelling within his chest. Without hesitation, he spoke out: "Mr. Dalglish, I want to join the HJC!"
Yet Dalglish shook his head. "No. You cannot."
Chapter 35