coward

She was young and hot-headed at that time. As a teenager, she always had an inexplicable anger in her heart. After being sent to the nursing home, she hated everyone indiscriminately. She hated her parents who sent her to the nursing home, hated the nurses who said they were doing it for her own good but were actually just supervising her, hated the disgusting food, and hated the "prisoners" there who did not know how to resist.

"Coward." She overturned the plate again, spilling the soup all over the floor. The medical staff next to her knew that she had 'mania' and stood aside, guarding against her as if facing a great enemy, with a tranquilizer needle in their hand that flashed with a cold light.

She looked at the people around her provocatively. At the outermost edge of the crowd stood a tall and thin boy with his face wrapped in circles of white bandages. Only his calm eyes and slightly cracked lips were exposed. He stood there like a silent and introverted tree. In such a noisy environment, he was the only one who remained silent. He was a deaf-mute.

The car accident on the highway took away his parents, as well as his hearing and voice. The doctor said that this was the psychological trauma after the car accident. He was too sad and unwilling to face the fact of his parents' death, so he closed his heart and refused to communicate with anyone. He was even afraid of other people's eyes and wrapped his face with circles of bandages.

He and Song Yu are neighbors, and their wards are next to each other, one in 304 and the other in 305. Song Yu has seen him spit all his food into the trash can, but he never changes his expression and doesn't know how to resist every time he eats. What a loser.

Song Yu walked through the crowd, came in front of him, and uttered a few words, "Do you dare?"

The person in front of him still had her eyes downcast and looked calm. He couldn't hear anything and didn't know why the girl suddenly stood in front of him.

Song Yu's eyes slowly surveyed the bandages wrapped around the boy's face, and finally met his calm eyes. The corners of his mouth curled up with undisguised malice, "You're playing dumb, aren't you?"

You are noisy, be quiet. She still remembers the content of the note.

Even though the expression on his face was blocked by the bandage, Song Yu could still see his pupils shrink instantly. She chuckled, then ignored the messy hall and went straight back to her room.

Song Yu had seen real mutes before, so she could tell at a glance whether someone was pretending or not. Not long after, Song Yu heard footsteps lingering in front of her door, and then they left.

She turned over without any emotion, hoping to gain sympathy in this way, pretending to be dumb. But when she becomes dumb one day, she will know how painful it is.

This sanatorium is not a mental hospital, but a place called a sanatorium in name. In fact, it provides a place to discipline children who their parents find difficult to tame. Unpalatable food is also a part of the taming process.

They are allowed visiting time once a week, and other than that, everyone has to follow the nursing home's schedule. The pain is unbearable, so much so that during the visiting period, Song Yu has seen people crying and begging for mercy in front of their parents more than once.

She had a thin figure and pale cheeks. Xie Yunchao's eyes turned red when he saw her.

"Don't be like this, I'm not dead yet."

“How long will I be imprisoned?”

"I don't know." Song Yu joked, "Maybe they'll let me go in the next second, or maybe I'll be locked up for ten or eight years."

Xie Yunchao stood up suddenly and said, "I'll go sue them."

"Sit down!" the supervisor next to him immediately shouted.

Song Yu glanced at the supervisor and said, "He's not a prisoner sent here for you to discipline." Then he stood up and took Xie Yunchao's hand. "It's okay. I'm still their daughter after all. It won't be long."

“…”

The visiting hours were over, and Xie Yunchao walked out of the sanatorium gate. His clenched fist slowly unfolded. It was a crumpled piece of paper. It was not written in Song Yu's handwriting. There were only three words written on the paper: recorder.

Song Yu was stared at by the supervisor and returned to the room. She sat on a chair in the room and then quickly stood up, "I need to go to the bathroom."

"It's not time for you to go to the toilet yet." The supervisor blocked the door with his body.

Song Yu folded his arms across his chest and said, "I told you I need to go to the bathroom, or I'll poop in the room, and you come and clean it up for me."

As if he really thought she was capable of doing such a thing, the supervisor paused for a moment, then let her go to the bathroom, but he followed her the whole time.

On the way to the toilet, I passed by the main entrance. There were several men in suits standing there. In the center of the circle was the young man with the straight shoulders that were unique to him. A man was standing in front of him and patted his shoulders lightly. The boy lowered his head slightly and just stood there unconsciously without any reaction.

As if he noticed something, he tilted his head slightly and glanced over here. Song Yu was startled and dodged back a bit, accidentally stepping on the foot of the supervisor behind him, "What are you doing? Stand still!"

"There's a bug, sister. I didn't mean it." Song Yu retorted, then glanced in the boy's direction inadvertently again. Although his face was covered, Song Yu always felt that he was smiling.

What's so funny? Be careful or she won't find a recorder for him.

Two days ago, a piece of paper like this appeared inexplicably on the floor of her room. At first, Song Yu didn't intend to pay attention to it. She was afraid of being discovered, so she hid the small piece of paper on herself every day.

Until yesterday during reading time, Song Yu put a book on her face and slept in a corner while the supervisor was not looking. Not long after she fell asleep, she felt someone gently touching her clothes.

She opened her eyes impatiently, and after seeing who it was, she sat up and subconsciously glanced at the camera above her head.

"This is a blind spot, please don't talk."

Song Yuteng sat up suddenly. He actually knew sign language. Then he thought, how could he pretend to be mute and not learn sign language? He probably used sign language to communicate with her because he saw her making signs by herself.

She lay back down and covered her face with the book again. She didn't bother to pay attention to the man.

The book on his face was taken away, Song Yu frowned, what was he doing?

The boy squatted beside her, looked at her and gestured, "Recorder."

Song Yu stared at him for a long time. The boy squatted quietly beside her, his glass-like, crystal-clear pupils staring at her without blinking, "I know you can help me."

Song Yu sat up by leaning against the cabinet and glanced towards the door of the reading room. "What are you doing?"

The boy lowered his head and then raised it again, his dry lips trembling slightly. 'They paid for me to stay here for two years. When the term is up, what awaits me is the next two years, and then the next two years.'

Song Yu didn't move for a long time, "What if I don't help you?"

The boy twitched his lips slightly, "I don't have parents anymore, so death doesn't matter to me, but I just feel a little bit unwilling."

Her brows moved slightly, and her face instantly became a little ugly. "If you want to die, then go die. Don't tell me, and don't threaten me with this matter."

"I didn't mean that." The boy blinked slightly, as if to express his innocence.

The two of them were deadlocked in this small corner. Song Yu was reading a book, and the boy was looking at her. After a while, Song Yu raised her head impatiently and said, "It may not succeed."

The boy nodded immediately, then reached out and pulled down the book she was pretending to read, "Why are you locked up here?"

There were busy footsteps at the door. Their figures had not been seen on the surveillance camera for a long time. The supervisors were already starting to open the door and rush in. Song Yu stood up and left. She had no obligation to answer his questions.

After that day, Song Yu had been waiting for the next visit. She was very curious about how this person would use this recorder to get her out.

"Why are you here?" Song Yu sat in the visiting room with a cold expression, "Where's Xie Yunchao?"

"You are our daughter, of course we have to come and see you." There was an indescribable emotion on Ye Yuping's face. If Song Yu's personality was not too strong, they would not have sent her to such a place.

Her messy long hair was casually tied behind her head. She was wearing the striped short-sleeved hospital gown issued by the sanatorium. The bones on her wrists were so sharp that they seemed to pierce through the thin flesh in the next second. She had a thin chin and a pale face covered with only a layer of skin. When she had no expression on her face, she looked like a beast covered with spikes rushing around.

"If you really treat me as your daughter, why would you send me here?" Song Yu tilted his head and looked at the two people in front of him with straight eyes.

"Shut up and be polite to your parents!" The supervisor on the side immediately warned.

"......" Song Yu didn't want to talk anymore. This behavior seemed to make Ye Yuping and Song Qixing feel that this sanatorium was really useful. The expressions on their faces were actually a little proud.

"Just stay in there and study hard." Song Qixing said in a deep voice, "When you learn to respect and understand your parents, we will take you out."

"Oh, respect your parents and be considerate of them." Song Yu sneered, then turned to the supervisor standing next to him with a playful look on his face, "Hey, let me ask you, you are so polite, but when you saw your father and his mistress making love in your bed at home, how did you react?"

The man was stunned by her question, and then he didn't say anything for a long time as if he didn't know how to answer. It was obvious that the other two people present had very ugly expressions.

Ye Yuping rushed to the table excitedly and repeated, "I told you, it was just a misunderstanding."

Song Yu looked at her coldly as she deceived herself, "Don't be so stupid, do you believe it yourself?"

"We don't have people like you in our family! If you don't even trust your own parents, who else can you trust?!" Song Qixing stood up angrily, "I've already told you, it was a misunderstanding, how else do you want me to explain it?"

"Yuping, let's go. She's sick, has such a bad temper, and terrible behavior. She doesn't look like our daughter at all. We should have sent her here to fend for herself long ago." Song Qixing looked at Ye Yuping with uncontrollable anger. "Just stay here! We'll pretend you were never born."

The visiting hours were over, and Song Yu sat there expressionlessly, his face cut by the light projected from behind, half hidden in the darkness.

"If it were me, I would probably never forgive such parents in my entire life." When Song Yu was taken back to the room by the supervisor, he heard these soft words from the side of his ear.

Song Yu looked over and saw only the slightly immature face of the supervisor. She was a newcomer who had just arrived this week, and the number on her chest was 73.

"Can you do me a favor?" Song Yu turned around and took the book he brought back from the reading room from his desk. "Could you please give this book to Room 305 for me? He wants to read it today, and I borrowed it first."

No. 73 took the book and nodded.

That night, Song Yu and 305 were both dragged away and put in solitary confinement on the pretext of having a secret relationship.