Chapter 90 Winter

Waiting for him was a middle-aged woman in elegant clothes. She had a kind look and a gentle smile on her face.

Very much like Zhang Lian.

Li Ziyue was in a trance for a moment, then he lowered his eyelashes sadly and hid the thing in his hand behind his back without making a sound.

My palms are slightly sweaty.

She didn't mind Li Ziyue's simple house and found a place to sit down very naturally.

"Zhang Lian was sent to the hospital," the woman said with gentle eyes, "In order to respect your opinion, I have no intention of forcibly taking Zhang Lian home."

Li Ziyue was stunned.

He thought that the other party would be aggressive and would blame him for trapping Zhang Lian in such a cold house at dawn. Even worse, it was not impossible for him to take Zhang Lian away directly.

Li Ziyue thought of the injuries on Zhang Lian's body, and thought that Zhang Lian had been in dire straits.

He didn't expect that the day he had been waiting for with trepidation would be so gentle.

The woman looked at Li Ziyue lovingly and said, "Zhang Lian is a child that gets sick easily. It must have been very difficult for you to take care of him until now."

Li Ziyue felt a little embarrassed and didn't know where to look for a moment.

"No……"

He stopped talking suddenly.

The woman's warm palm pressed against the back of Li Ziyue's hand, which had turned red and black from the wind and frost outside.

"Kid, you're cold."

She asked someone to bring new clothes that would keep him warm, and also installed heating facilities in Li Ziyue's house.

A cup of steaming tea was placed in front of Li Ziyue.

Pure white water vapor slowly rises.

Li Ziyue felt a tingling pain in his heart, and his breathing kept rising and falling in the surging sea at night.

He was almost stunned.

Intimate greetings, warm hands... these things rarely appear in his life, so much so that he immediately feels embarrassed and wants to retreat.

The unfamiliar temperature in the room made Li Ziyue feel very uncomfortable.

The woman took from him the candy whose wrapper he had crumpled, as well as several boxes of fever medicine.

"These medicines..." The woman looked upward and just smiled, "The effect is very weak. Taking them is just for psychological comfort. Normally, Zhang Lian would not be allowed to take this kind of medicine."

Li Ziyue felt his fingertips suddenly burned.

The woman looked at Li Ziyue with a smile, and then asked someone to fetch several bags of exquisitely packaged candies from the car. "These are the candies that Zhang Lian used to get tired of. I guess he doesn't eat them anymore, so I'll give them to you."

"I just saw you warming up some porridge... Porridge has no nutrition. You and Zhang Lian are both growing up, how can you..."

"Okay," Li Ziyue slowly raised his head, and the corners of his mouth barely curled up, "Is this what you really want to say?"

The smile on the woman's face turned cold.

She looked Li Ziyue in the eye: "I am just telling the truth. If Zhang Lian follows you, he might die someday..."

"What's wrong with his injuries?" Li Ziyue interrupted her coldly.

The woman's eyes were calm. "Although the child is very strong, his body is much weaker than that of an ordinary person. If he stumbles, he will easily get hurt."

This is deceptive.

Li Ziyue carefully examined the scars on Zhang Lian's body. There were obvious scratches from a sharp weapon. Besides, Zhang Lian had been with him for more than two months and he had not seen any new scratches on Zhang Lian's body.

Li Ziyue knew that the woman in front of him could provide Zhang Lian with better material conditions, but if Zhang Lian really liked that kind of life, why would he run away?

If he was really cared for, why would he have so many wounds on his body?

Why does a woman lie?

Li Ziyue took a deep breath: "I..."

He had just begun to speak when someone came in and gave the woman a message.

The woman changed her attitude again, and looked at Li Ziyue with sympathy: "It seems that there is no need to discuss this with you. Zhang Lian chose to go back with us."

"That child is indifferent to begin with. It's a pity for your efforts," she sighed slightly and met Li Ziyue's obviously shocked eyes, "Do you think I'm lying to you?"

She handed Li Ziyue the video of Zhang Lian sitting on the hospital bed and answering quietly.

Li Ziyue didn't look at the picture, but still heard the sound.

"Are you sure you want to go back with us? Madam is not threatening you."

"Um."

Zhang Lian replied without hesitation, his tone cold.

"Did that man treat you badly?"

"I often have a fever, and he can't be with me all the time. I don't know when I will die."

Li Ziyue hid his face in the shadow, in a corner where no one could see, his fists were clenched.

Zhang Lian said that Li Ziyue could refute other reasons, except these...

It’s not that he didn’t want to stay with Zhang Lian, but if he didn’t go out, he wouldn’t be able to buy antipyretics or earn money to eat.

He...had no choice.

"That man sent me a candy."

"What?"

Li Ziyue raised his head suddenly and met the woman's gaze.

"you--"

The real sugar was still in Li Ziyue's hands, but his heart suddenly sank.

Zhang Lian was silent for half a second, as if he was looking at the candy.

These few seconds of waiting made Li Ziyue feel particularly unbearable.

The answer...he seemed to have guessed it.

Li Ziyue slowly closed his eyes and heard Zhang Lian's clear answer from the other side.

“No.”

"I've already had that candy before."

"you……"

"Throw it away."

Li Ziyue suddenly laughed.

If he was a tense hedgehog before, at this moment his whole body suddenly relaxed.

The woman looked at him calmly.

The young man in front of her, whom she thought she could see through at a glance, seemed to have undergone some changes in an instant that she could not understand.

No anger, no scolding, no repression.

There is only a moment of relief and calm.

The tea became lukewarm and the rising white mist could no longer be seen clearly.

She seemed to have just noticed how thin Li Ziyue had become.

His complexion was paler than that of most people. The hard work day and night had made him look even more haggard, and he looked like he would be blown down by the wind at any time.

But his back was still straight.

Her thoughts went back to a long time ago, when Zhang Lian had just been born and the little baby was carefully wrapped in layers of warm swaddling clothes.

A circle of people gathered around the crib to send their blessings, toys, laughter, praise... Zhang Lian's birth was a great salvation for many people at that time.

They held him high up and carefully cared for Zhang Lian, who could not speak yet, in their arms.

At this time, Li Ziyue had just turned four years old, but his shoulders were already carrying heavy firewood that was twice as tall as him.

Little Li Ziyue walked in the snow with great difficulty, wanting to sell the firewood to other poor people who needed heating in exchange for some rough but enough food to fill their stomachs.

At that time, new clean fuels had been fully promoted, and dry firewood was the lowest choice for making a fire. Li Ziyue struggled very hard in the swallowing snow, but he still often slept in a corner with an empty stomach.

Li Ziyue's past was so simple that it seemed unbelievable to her.

I have never seen my parents, was adopted by an old man for a short time, wandered alone, and my birthday wish was just to find a place warmer than a bridge hole to sleep...

How many people died painfully on the streets in winter, near dim corners, and people often kicked their frozen, white and hard corpses under the thick snow.

Li Ziyue, however, survived countless cold nights by hiding in firewood.

Having experienced too many moments of being unloved, Li Ziyue seems to be able to endure and accept all separations, or abandonment.

Because he is rarely cherished enough to expect to live with him.

Li Ziyue's eyes softened, and he bowed slightly to the woman: "Thank you for the things you sent. Would you like to stay for dinner? I can cook more than just porridge, maybe you would like to try something else?"

His eyes curved into cute crescents and his dimples were obvious.

The woman was silent for a long time and finally did not answer, but she bowed solemnly to Li Ziyue.

She spoke slowly and seriously: "Thank you for taking care of Zhang Lian during this period. He has caused you trouble."

"No trouble," Li Ziyue shook his head and handed the remaining candy in his hand to the woman naturally, "Please help me give this candy to Zhang Lian."

Leaving this candy behind would become another torture for Li Ziyue.

He would rather the other party just throw the candy away.

Li Ziyue escorted the woman out the door and said, "It's cold, and the ground is prone to ice. Be careful on the road."

After the snow was removed, the door was still difficult to open due to its old age. However, this time Li Ziyue only needed to push it lightly and the door closed automatically.

I heard the sound of a car starting outside the house, and then the sound gradually disappeared into the snow and fog.

There was already a little snow on Li Ziyue's head and shoulders.

He seemed to have frozen to death in the snow.

I don’t know how long it took, but when he returned to the house again, his face had turned pale.

The charcoal fire used for heating in the house was burning brightly, and the woman had arranged to repair the drafts that had been leaking in the past.

The room was so warm that it didn't feel like a place for him to stay. Instead, it looked more like the rooms of rich people that he often peeked into when he was a child.

Li Ziyue huddled in the corner, holding a few pieces of candy that Zhang Lian had grown tired of.

Li Ziyue has never eaten sugar.

At the beginning, the grandmother who adopted him had a hard life. The two of them usually just wanted to have simple food and clothing. Occasionally, the grandmother mentioned buying candy for Li Ziyue, but he sensibly refused.

"I don't like it." Li Ziyue, who was only a few years old, said seriously, "Sugar is sour, and I don't like sour things."

At that time, Li Ziyue thought about buying some for his mother-in-law when he had money in the future, and never thought that he would do it when he was still too old to run freely.

The old woman died.

Later, Li Ziyue's life became nothing more than wandering around with one meal a day and one meal a day hungry. The rotten vegetable leaves in the trash can and peeking at other children through the window were all the flavors of his childhood.

Li Ziyue's hands were shaking and he felt his vision was blurry. The rustling sound when he peeled off the candy wrapper seemed very harsh in the silent cold night.

But lonely.

He stretched out his tongue with difficulty and licked it nervously.

Then it quickly shrank back as if it had been scalded.

It is too sweet.

The sugar tasted too sweet, nothing like what he expected.

Sweetness mixed with bitter liquid.

He lowered his head and covered his trembling ears.

Sugar should be sour, bitter, and astringent, but never sweet.

…

26-year-old Li Ziyue has been standing on the side of the house for a long time.

The candy wrapper shrank into a small ball and was held in his palm.

That was the remaining packaging of the green apple-flavored candy that Zhang Lian had handed to him earlier.

His hands are shaking.

When 17-year-old Li Ziyue knelt down to others for his survival, he never felt embarrassed or ashamed.

But it was hard to face the woman's undisguised words.

They destroyed Li Ziyue's remaining self-esteem in an extremely cruel and severe way.

Antipyretics were cheap, and Zhang Lian was tired of sugar, but these... were the best that Li Ziyue could give Zhang Lian at that time.

But others told him that these things were readily available to him and he didn't need them at all.

Li Ziyue begged for the meaning of his survival in the needs and dependence of others, but even this was trampled underfoot.

All his struggles, all the humiliation of his dignity, all the pride in enduring hunger, pain and torture became a self-congratulatory act that made people laugh.

What right does such a person have to live?

Everything you work hard for, everything you cherish, everything you are reluctant to give up, is nothing but cheap and looked down upon by others.

Deep down in his heart, Li Ziyue always longs for companionship, so when someone comes to him, he prepares himself carefully again and again.

However, every time he thought he was no longer alone, fate would once again plunge him into the abyss of darkness.

In this empty world, he had to swallow all his fear and loneliness silently.

…

The moment he exited the necklace's memory illusion, Li Ziyue saw the long monster again in the darkness.

Its body was facing away from him, but its head was slowly turning 180 degrees.

His face was imprinted on Li Ziyue’s dark pupils.

He looks somewhat like Zhang Lian, the same as that woman.

…

When Zhang Lian found Li Ziyue, Li Ziyue was sitting alone on the frozen river bank.

The soft snow fell on his shoulders, and he looked quietly across the river, motionless, like a lifeless sculpture.

Zhang Lian had just walked in when he heard Li Ziyue mumbling.

“I lost a lot of people in the winter.”

“I lost the person who raised me when I was young.”

“I lost the only friend who cared about me as a young adult.”

“I lost my brother who depended on me as an adult.”

"Later, I lost the senior who protected me."

"Even if I lose them in the spring?" Li Ziyue turned his back to Zhang Lian, his hoarse voice hidden in the whistling snow wind, "Winter is too cold."

The warm liquid dripped onto the thick snow, melting into sunken tear dimples.

"Zhang Lian, you know what." The man's voice choked again, "Winter is too cold. I don't like winter."

"But all my good memories are in winter. I met them in winter and lost them in winter."

"Have I done anything wrong, Zhang Lian?" His thin back was ravaged by the pale snow wind, and there were countless tiny white flowers in his soft black hair. "Am I a very bad person?"