Chapter 246 Parents' Love (1)

"ah?"

The decision came as a surprise, and Zhu Jinzhao was momentarily stunned.

"Who are you going to see?"

Shi Jing grabbed her hand, pulled her up from the sofa, and then turned and walked upstairs.

"Shi Jing, who are we going to see?" Zhu Jinzhao followed him, completely bewildered, asking as they walked, "Where is that person? Are we going now?"

"..."

Shi Jing didn't answer, and just kept her head down as she walked upstairs.

His silence made Zhu Jinzhao uneasy. She tugged at his hand and asked cautiously, "Shijing, who are we going to see? Why aren't you saying anything?"

Shi Jing went up to the second floor, then turned right, and after passing through a long corridor, stopped in front of a door in the far corner.

"I'll take you to meet my mother." Shi Jing turned to look at Zhu Jinzhao and finally spoke with a smile.

"...Your mother?" Zhu Jinzhao stared blankly at the closed door, his expression momentarily blank. "Your mother is in here?"

Shi Jing: "Yes, she has been living here for a long time."

"Huh?" Zhu Jinzhao didn't quite understand what he was saying.

He didn't explain further, but simply raised his right hand, placed the pad of his thumb on the fingerprint scanner, and opened the door in front of him.

The room inside was spacious and quiet. There was a white piano in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, and two rows of light wood bookshelves stood against the left wall. There weren't many books on the shelves, and most of them were romance novels.

Diagonally opposite the bookshelf, there was a ballet barre, and on the right side of the barre hung two exquisite and gorgeous dance dresses.

The dance dress must be quite old; its style and design are full of millennial vibes.

Zhu Jinzhao's gaze was drawn to it, and she couldn't help but take a second look.

After finishing reading, I turned my gaze to the right, only to unexpectedly stumble upon a pink altar.

Incense burned eternally on the altar, and a cold, black-and-white portrait sat in the center.

The woman in the portrait was young and beautiful, with striking features that resembled Shi Jing's.

Zhu Jinzhao stared at her with wide eyes and almost instantly guessed her identity.

“Shi Jing…” She gripped Shi Jing’s hand tightly, her eyes filled with heartache as she looked at him.

Shi Jing glanced at her, her smile gentle: "Chao Chao, this is my mother."

Zhu Jinzhao pursed her lips, forced herself to put on the same smile, and then politely greeted the woman in the portrait.

"Hello, Auntie. My name is Zhu Jinzhao, and I am Shi Jing's girlfriend."

Shi Jing raised his hand and touched her face, his eyes filled with relief as he said to his mother, "Mom, did you hear that? My girlfriend is saying hello to you."

...

The woman looked at the young couple in front of the altar with a smile, and the tenderness in her eyes made the black and white tones of the photo seem less cold.

"Shi Jing." Zhu Jinzhao spread her five fingers and domineeringly intertwined them with Shi Jing's. "How long has Auntie lived here?"

Shi Jing raised the corners of her lips, her smile unchanged, but her eyes were tinged with a hint of melancholy: "I've lived here for a full eighteen years."

"Eighteen years..." Zhu Jinzhao's heart suddenly ached.

Shi Jing is only twenty-four years old this year, but his mother has been gone for eighteen years.

This number is enough to make anyone despair.

Zhu Jinzhao looked up at Shi Jing, anxiously wanting to say something to comfort him, but no matter how many times she opened and closed her lips, she couldn't utter a single word.

In front of a child who has lost his mother, it seems that anything said would seem pale and inadequate.

"Shi Jing." Zhu Jinzhao could only hold Shi Jing's hand tightly, calling his name again and again.

"I'm fine." Shi Jing smiled at her, her expression calm. "My mother left when I was six years old. Eighteen years have passed, and I have long since accepted the fact that she is gone."

"Chaochao, do you know why she left?"

Zhu Jinzhao shook his head: "I don't know."

Shi Jing: "She passed away from illness, and she suffered a lot when she died."

"What illness?" Zhu Jinzhao asked in a low voice.

Shi Jing sighed: "Pancreatic cancer, also known as the king of cancers."

"Ha—" Zhu Jinzhao gasped in horror, his mouth slightly agape.

Shi Jing: "This portrait was taken by my dad for my mom. When it was taken, none of us knew she was already sick. She was smiling so happily. After the photo was taken, she leaned against my dad and praised him loudly, saying that his photography skills had improved a lot. She said that she would not go out to spend money to take photos anymore and would make my dad her personal photographer."

"Did your dad agree?" Zhu Jinzhao asked, her eyes red.

Shi Jing: "Of course I agreed. My dad is a well-known henpecked husband in the capital. He'll do anything to make my mom happy."

"He just didn't expect that this photo would be the last one he took of my mother."

"..." Zhu Jinzhao frowned and listened quietly as Shi Jing recounted those cruel past events.

Shi Jing's upturned lips slowly drooped, and the slightest smile disappeared from his face.

“Illness strikes like a landslide. After my mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, she quickly became emaciated. At that time, she lay in the hospital bed all day. She lost her hair and could no longer put on makeup. She disliked herself for not being pretty and refused to let my father take pictures of her.”

“My dad knew she wasn’t going to make it, so he knelt down in front of her bed and begged her to take one more picture so that he could have something to remember her by. But she just wouldn’t agree.”

Zhu Jinzhao: "Because she likes to be beautiful. She wanted to leave this world looking beautiful, and didn't want your dad to remember how disheveled she looked back then."

“Yes.” Shi Jing nodded. “That’s exactly what she thought. Back then, my dad knelt in front of her hospital bed and cried, and she sat on the bed and cried. She said she was too ugly now and she didn’t want to leave my dad with an ugly photo, so that the rest of his life would be shrouded in the ugliness of her illness.”

“She was beautiful when she met my dad, and she wanted to be beautiful when she left. One autumn day, when the leaves were falling, she asked my dad to buy her a dress. She put on that sparkly dress with her thin body, and then she left in my dad’s arms.”

“My dad broke his promise and secretly took a picture of her in a dress when she left. She must have been angry, which is why she hasn’t wanted to come to my dad’s dreams to see him for so many years.”

"Does your father regret it?" Zhu Jinzhao asked, tears welling in her eyes.

Shi Jing thought about it seriously: "I don't think I'll regret it, because my dad has told me countless times that my mom is most beautiful when she wears a dress. Even when she's lying in her coffin and ignoring everyone, she's still so beautiful that you can't take your eyes off her."

Zhu Jinzhao looked up at the portrait and nodded in agreement: "Auntie was really beautiful, no wonder your father was so obsessed with her for so many years."

“Hmph,” Shi Jing couldn’t help but laugh when she talked about her longing for her, “Chao Chao, guess how my parents got together in the first place.”