Two things happened on the day my father was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s.

The first was the diagnosis itself, and the second was that Lin Chaoxi learned that the campus man she had secretly loved for many years was about to go abroad for further studies.

Lin Chaoxi had actually had a premonition about her father's Alzheimer's disease. She and her father had tried all the reliable and unreliable testing methods on the Internet. So when the doctor made the verdict, neither of them felt shocked, they just felt -

Everything in the world can happen to anyone, it's no big deal.

With this sentence, the second thing is really no big deal. Lin Chaoxi has always been very clear about the distance between herself and her male god.

Before she said this, she and her father were sitting in a noodle shop near the hospital. Her father was secretly raising his hand to ask the waiter for another fried pork chop.

It was noon, the air was filled with moisture due to the rain, and the noodle shop was filled with steam.

Lin Chaoxi bit his chopsticks and asked sharply, "Accountant Lin, does your fatty liver allow you to eat again?"

To change the subject, the old man looked at the golden pork chop in front of her and said in a sad tone: "Dad wants to remember the aroma of pork chop."

The tone was very pretentious, he was just teasing her. Lin Chaoxi was both angry and amused, how could anyone make fun of someone who had Alzheimer's disease?

Thinking of this, her eyes suddenly turned red and she quickly lowered her head to sniff, pretending that the noodle soup was too spicy.

Outside the window is the bustling street near the hospital, with cars and pedestrians shuttling back and forth under the rain curtains. French plane trees stand silently, with water drops falling from their leaves one after another. Everything is hazy, like a very light-colored impressionist oil painting.

Lin Chaoxi looked at the bowl of noodles in front of him.

She looked at the snow-white noodles submerged in red oil, topped with emerald green onions, for a while, and then heard her father say that.

——Everything in the world can happen to anyone. It’s no big deal.

This statement is very true, but this situation is still uncomfortable.

"Then what should I do?" Lin Chaoxi pondered for a moment and asked.

"Your father has raised you until you graduate from college. You have to endure the test of society on your own."

“I haven’t graduated yet.”

"We have millions in savings, plus five apartments!" Mr. Lin was afraid she might misunderstand him, so he quickly added, "Of course, all of these are mine."

Lin Zhaoxi: “…”

“Look, mine is mine, and yours is yours. My face is my face, and your face is your face.

Mr. Lao Lin took out a long chopstick from the chopstick bucket and tapped the edge of the bowl. After a crisp ding sound, he continued to persuade, "Then my illness is my illness, and your life is your life. These things are relatively independent and don't affect each other too much."

Hearing this, Lin Chaoxi looked up at his father in disbelief.

Old Lin wore an old man's sweatshirt today, and spoke with a calm and indifferent air. But thinking of the days when they had depended on each other for so many years, Lin Chaoxi suspected that there was something wrong with his ears.

"Your illness is your illness, and my life is my life?"

“Doesn’t that make sense?”

Mr. Lin was very proud of this sentence, but Lin Chaoxi couldn't help but interrupt him: "But isn't your life messed up because of me?"

This is something that can be explained in one sentence, but it has troubled Lin Chaoxi for many years.

She is 22 years old.

When she was born 22 years ago, the old man sitting in front of her, Mr. Lin, gave up his plan to study mathematics abroad for her and chose to be her father, raising her alone.

If it was the evening of six hours later, she would have known that her idol Pei Zhi was going to study abroad, and the school was the one his father had given up. She would have been sighing at this subtle contrast in her life.

But now, she was just choked by Lao Lin's next words and couldn't eat her fried pork chops.

"What can I do? The national law requires me to support you," said Mr. Lin.

That’s enough.

Over the years, from the time she was in her second year of high school with tears in her eyes to now when she asked casually, she had no idea how many times she had asked the same question, but the answers she got were always so simple and straightforward.

Although there are still many problems here, such as why her mother was so cruel to abandon her, why her father couldn't take her abroad with him, and why her grandparents didn't help?

But to be honest, none of this matters, because for the past 22 years, they have been dependent on each other, and that is the reality of the world.

For this reality, the father and daughter raised their Cokes and clinked glasses at the same time.

Mr. Lin took a sip of his Coke like he was drinking tea, put down the can, and asked, "Do you hate your father for being sick?"

Lin Chaoxi gulped down half a can, looked at the energetic middle-aged man in front of him, and burped: "How is it possible?"

"Well, it's no big deal then, really."

After saying that, Mr. Lin picked up the fried pork chop she ordered with chopsticks and took a big bite.

Lin Chaoxi could only watch helplessly.

It is obviously a huge matter, but it is made as simple as having no rice at home and having to go to the small supermarket downstairs to buy two more kilograms.

People who have seen the real world probably don't care about these things.

The author has something to say:

It is probably a fast-travel story that goes back and forth between reality and the past many times, and there will be no immediate rebirth.