Chapter 22 Was their arrival a mistake? I feel that every...

"Thank you, Aunt Lou."

An Fusheng happily accepted the clothes handed to him by Lou Lan. He flipped them over and found three shirts and two pairs of pants. He had finally achieved freedom of clothing!

"Can you take Fourteen and Xinglin with you when you take a shower? They can shower by themselves. You just need to help them put on and take off their clothes and keep an eye on them so they don't fall," Lou Lan asked.

“No problem,” An Fusheng said.

An Fusheng took An Shisi and Wen Xinglin to the bathroom to take a bath.

The orphanage's bathrooms were not private bathrooms in the rooms, but rather a communal bathhouse, about ten square meters in size, divided into three separate cubicles by partitions.

It just so happens that the three of them each have a room.

An Fusheng helped them adjust the water to the right temperature.

"Do you need me to help you wash?" Although Lou's mother said they could wash themselves, An Fusheng still asked them.

“We can do it ourselves,” Wen Xinglin said.

“I can do it too.” An Shisi raised his hands high and said, “Big brother, just help me take off my clothes.”

An Fusheng grabbed An Shisi's T-shirt from the bottom and pulled it up, "You're so young and you can take a bath by yourself, that's amazing."

An Shisi poked his head out from under his clothes, squinted at An Fusheng and smiled, revealing two big dimples. He patted his ears with his palm: "And this too."

An Fusheng then helped him take off his hearing aid.

An Shisi ran naked to the showerhead.

The showerhead was specially made for the child and hung very low. An Fusheng saw that An Shisi could reach the showerhead by himself, so he stopped paying attention to him.

Unexpectedly, just as An Fusheng finished taking off his clothes, An Shisi ran over from next door, hugged his leg, and looked up at him.

"What's wrong?" An Fusheng asked, looking down.

An Shisi said, "I'm done washing."

"So soon, are you just giving yourself some water to drink?" An Fusheng asked.

An Shisi couldn't hear An Fusheng speaking, and seeing that An Fusheng didn't move, he continued, "Big brother, help me get dressed."

"Wearing what?" An Fusheng gently rubbed his wet neck, pulling out a long trail of mud. "Is this all washed up?"

"Wash him again!" An Fusheng picked up his showerhead and sprayed it on An Shisi's chest.

An Shisi laughed and dodged away.

“Wash it again.” An Fusheng grabbed his little arm to prevent him from escaping.

Although An Shisi couldn't hear what his older brother was saying, he guessed that An Fusheng was going to give him a bath, so he stood still obediently.

An Fusheng applied shower gel to An Shisi and carefully scrubbed him clean. An Shisi was ticklish and giggled as he tried to hide.

It took An Fusheng quite a while to finally clean him up. He took his bath towel and dried his hair for him, then threw the towel at him and said, "Alright, go dry yourself."

An Shisi grabbed a bath towel and went outside to dry himself.

An Fusheng didn't have a bath towel, so he came out wet after taking a shower, figuring the water would dry off naturally in a little while.

An Fusheng dried his hands with the small towel Grandma Ao had given him, put the hearing aid on An Shisi, then took his pajamas, pulled open the collar, and said, "Come in."

An Shisi obediently tucked his head into his collar, but when his head popped out of his clothes, he saw a large penis swaying in front of him. An Shisi grabbed it and asked, "Why is your penis so big, big brother?"

"Holy crap!" An Fusheng exclaimed, staggering back two steps as he snatched Juju from An Shisi's grasp. He quickly covered Juju with his hand, looking at An Shisi with lingering shock: "You can't just grab her like that!"

An Shisi looked at An Fusheng innocently. He was just asking a question, so why was his older brother so agitated?

An Fusheng quickly pulled up his pants. "Don't grab other people's clothes, understand?"

"Why?" An Shisi asked.

Wen Xinglin came out of the cubicle and said leisurely, "I know that you can't grab other people's pets, and you can't let others grab your own pets either. Teacher Lin taught me that in first grade."

An Fusheng: "Yes!"

Everyone knew, except for An Shisi. An Shisi was a little disappointed, "But I haven't started first grade yet, I'm only in the second year of middle school."

Seeing his pouting lips and a wronged look, An Fusheng asked, "So, do you understand now?"

An Shisi nodded.

An Fusheng quickly coaxed, "Wow, you're amazing! You know things that you only learn in first grade before you even graduate from kindergarten."

An Shisi: "Yes!"

An Fusheng inspected Wen Xinglin and found that he was fairly clean, so he passed the inspection.

The seven children in the orphanage slept in three rooms: Bai Miaomiao and Bai Mangmang in one room, Wen Xinghe and Wen Xingmou in another, and the three boys in the third. The three rooms were arranged in a row from left to right. Wen Min, Lou Lan, and An Fusheng slept in the three rooms opposite each other.

After they got dressed, the bathroom was slippery, and Anfu was afraid they would fall, so he simply tucked one child under each armpit and rushed out of the bathroom and into the room.

The children screamed with excitement.

Lou Lan was dressing Wen Xingrui in the room when she heard the children screaming. She asked, "What's wrong?"

An Fusheng slammed on the brakes: "Aunt Lou, we're playing."

"Be careful not to fall," Lou Lan said.

"No, I know what I'm doing." An Fusheng tossed Wen Xinglin and An Shisi onto their respective beds.

The two obediently crawled into the covers and lay down.

Wen Xingrui's bed was next to the entrance. An Fusheng finally saw the legendary cage that Wen Xingrui had been living in. It was indeed a complete cage, with even the top sealed off.

There was a door on one side of the bed, and it was open at the moment. Lou Lan was standing by the bed helping Wen Xingrui get dressed.

After getting dressed, An Fusheng noticed that Wen Xingrui's outer garment had two straps extending from the waist on both sides. The straps were tied to the edges of the bed on both sides. When he put on the garment, Wen Xingrui was stuck right in the middle of the bed. The straps were pulled tight, so he could only lie down or sit.

Lou Lan closed the cage door. Wen Xingrui watched Lou Lan and An Fusheng with a grin. He was performing sitting up and lying down on the bed, showing off his impressive waist strength. Lou Lan left, and he didn't cry.

An Fusheng looked at Wen Xingrui and asked Lou Lan, "Why isn't he crying?"

In An Fusheng's memory, children like to howl to get attention, but he hadn't seen Wen Xingrui cry all day.

“When he cries, no one wants to play with him anymore,” Lou Lan said.

"He knows all this?" An Fusheng asked in surprise.

“Very shrewd,” Lou Lan said.

Lou Lan turned off the main light in the room, turned on a dim nightlight, told the other two children to go to sleep quietly and not talk, and then left the room with An Fusheng.

An Fusheng asked worriedly, "Is this okay?"

"It's alright," Lou Lan said. "It's still early, shall we chat?"

An Fusheng: "Okay."

An Fusheng followed Lou Lan to the function room on the second floor.

The function room is actually a living room, with a sofa, a TV, and various toys and books for children.

Lou Lan gestured for An Fusheng to sit down on the sofa. She poured herself two glasses of water, handed one to An Fusheng, and took the other one to sit down on another single sofa.

"I heard you have amnesia?" Lou Lan asked.

“Yes,” An Fusheng said.

"When did this happen? Are you doing alright outside?"

“Just a few days ago, a very kind family took me in. Later, my former boss contacted me and asked me to come back to work. But when I got to work, I found that I didn’t know how to do those jobs. The security guard helped me find another job, so I came here.”

"That's good, at least you didn't suffer outside." Lou Lan finally felt relieved. "The day before yesterday, Mang Mang and the others said they saw you selling wolf tooth potatoes, but I didn't believe it."

“It was Grandma Ao who was selling wolf tooth potatoes; I was just helping out,” An Fusheng added. “Grandma Ao is the same grandma who took me in.”

Lou Lan nodded.

"I saw them, but I didn't recognize them at the time..."

“It’s not your fault,” Lou Lan said. “When the children said they saw you, you acted like you didn’t recognize them. I thought you were deliberately ignoring them. I never expected you to have amnesia.”

"Why?" An Fusheng asked.

“The children in the orphanage have been forced to endure too many strange looks as they grow up. Perhaps most of those looks are well-intentioned, such as pity or sympathy, but that is not what they want. They only yearn to be ordinary people who blend into the crowd. So when they grow up and finally leave the orphanage to become ordinary people, they are afraid that if they contact the people in the orphanage, others will discover their past and they will have to endure endless strange looks again.”

"Why care so much about what others think?" An Fusheng didn't understand.

"I'm relieved that you think that way," Lou Lan said. "You really are different now."

An Fusheng remained silent.

“I’m much closer to my younger siblings now than before,” Lou Lan said. “Actually, I want to remind you that if you’re not planning to stay here long-term, don’t get too close to them.”

An Fusheng: "Why?"

Lou Lan: "Because they crave intimacy, the closer you are to them, the more dependent they will become on you. If you leave one day, they will be very sad."

“I can cook here all the time,” An Fusheng said.

"What if you regain your memory one day?" Lou Lan asked. "Would you be content to just cook here forever?"

An Fusheng said in a low voice, "I don't know how."

He is no longer the original owner. Apart from the vague impression in the dream, he has no more memories, let alone the knowledge and abilities of the original owner.

They depend on themselves, but in this unfamiliar world, don't we also depend on them? Since we depend on each other, let's stick together for warmth.

“I will continue to cook here, if I can,” An Fusheng said.

Lou Lan thought that a head injury might not be easy to heal. She had only seen those who lost their memory and recovered quickly in TV dramas. In reality, most injuries were lifelong. The children were obviously happy when An Fusheng came back. She decided to take it one day at a time and didn't want to think that far ahead.

Lou Lan said, "Okay."

"Aunt Lou, how did you come to the welfare home?" An Fusheng asked.

It had been a long time since anyone had asked her this question. Lou Lan recalled, "The first time I came to the orphanage was when I was in college, I came with my classmates to do volunteer work. When we were leaving, a little girl hugged my leg and asked me if I would come again. I didn't think twice and said I would. Once a promise is made, it's like water spilled. From then on, I often came to the orphanage until I graduated from college. The last time I came to the orphanage, when I was leaving, I told that little girl that I was going back to my hometown to work and wouldn't come again. The little girl quietly asked me if she could call me 'Mom'. She said she had never called me 'Mom' before and wanted to know what it felt like."

Lou Lan picked up the quilt and took a sip of water. The water was warm and felt very comfortable as it flowed down her throat.

She continued, "I said of course, and she softly called me 'Mom,' so softly that I could barely hear her. But my heart was stirred up at that moment. I went straight to ask the director at the time if the welfare home needed any staff. The director was more than happy to help, so I stayed."

An Fusheng lowered his eyes and remained silent.

Lou Lan laughed and said, "I only realized that I didn't know anything when I actually started working. I didn't know how to change diapers, make formula, or what to do when the baby cried. There were many children in the orphanage, and several of them had health problems, making them very difficult to take care of. For a long time, I dreamed of the baby crying at night."

“Aunt Lou, was their coming into this world a mistake?” An Fusheng suddenly asked.

Lou Lan paused for a moment, then smiled and said, "On the contrary, over the years, watching one life after another grow from a tiny little dumpling into a big child, and then fly into the sky like a bird, I feel that every life is incredibly precious."