Chapter 304 Returning to the World and Regaining the Ability to Walk
A bright moon hangs high in the sky, and the neon-lit streets are bustling with traffic, creating halos of light and dazzling the eyes.
"We just sent you here," He whispered.
The street lights were bright, and the noisy voices were isolated in the dim alley.
Jiang Suian was in a trance, his breathing became lighter as he stared at the asphalt road. His feet were already on the ground, but his whole body felt light and without any sense of reality.
"Can you find your way home by yourself?" Qingzhu asked worriedly.
She opened her mouth and squeezed out a very thin voice: "Yes."
She suddenly regained some of her thoughts: "Thank you."
"As for what happened to you outside, we will use some unusual means to help you cover it up, so don't worry."
"From now on, live a life that truly belongs to you."
All the words were stuck in Jiang Suian's throat and she couldn't utter them. The moisture in her eyes moistened her eyelashes.
"Go," they said.
She still remembers the road, if her family hadn't moved all these years.
Fortunately, nothing around her had changed much. As long as she stepped into the place covered with a layer of fog in her memory, she would know which path to take.
It's just that it's both strange and familiar.
Jiang Suian was lucky enough not to meet many people along the way. Under the moonlight, her heart almost jumped out of her chest.
Is she ready to meet her family?
She doesn't know.
My legs kept moving forward, my mind was blank for the first time in a long time, and many questions floated through my mind from time to time, just like white clouds covering the blue sky.
It was not until she stood in front of that familiar door that her breathing brought her back to her senses. She stared at the door, motionless. It was very quiet inside, without any sound.
She was like a statue that had stood there for years, until it was covered with moss and vines entangled her. Before she was so broken that she couldn't even raise her hands, she knocked on the door.
As I approached my doorstep, thoughts kept popping up in my head.
Do Mom and Dad still live here? Who will open the door? Will they not recognize me? Have they had a hard time these years? Will they...will they...
She had waited for a long time, and now this little wait was obviously nothing, but she still felt that time was sawing at her heart that was about to burst through her chest, sharp, piercing, rough, and painful.
Her heart told her to be nervous, her brain told her to be afraid, and she felt like retreating and couldn't help but step back.
The door opened.
She looked up subconsciously.
A person gradually appeared from the crack of the door, and his calm eyes moved from the door handle to the person who came.
Another pair of eyes and brows that were very similar to hers suddenly widened. The next second after the tears started flowing, while she was still stunned, he staggered on the spot, hugged her tightly in his arms, and trembled all over.
The two pairs of eyes hidden in the dark finally left with peace of mind.
──
It was not easy for Jiang Suian to return to his original life.
The first thing was how to explain her disappearance to her family. There were two people in the outside world who helped cover it up, but now she was facing her family. Should she tell them about her experience in the other world, probably everyone would think she was mentally ill.
She wanted to tell a lie, but it was difficult to deceive because many years in the other world had buried many things into her habits, and she could not explain her changes.
Finally, she tentatively spoke of her seventeenth life, appropriately deleting some details and appropriately changing some details.
Of course she wouldn't tell them everything. Was it because she didn't trust them? No.
On the night when he returned and his brother was the only one at home, he was trembling and couldn't utter a complete sentence when he called his mother who was preparing for classes at the university. His mother came back and hugged him and cried, and his father on the other end of the phone was also crying. She knew that her family had never given up on her.
Her persistence has been meaningful.
Just because of the seventeenth life, which can be called the best, my mother almost fainted from crying.
They believed her, believed her experience, which sounded bizarre and almost insane.
Every time she said something, her family members became more distrustful of her words, and their hearts ached for her.
She had already prepared herself to change her story temporarily if she found out they didn't believe her.
In the tearful eyes of her family, Jiang Suian was extremely grateful that she had persisted and that she had not given up.
She originally thought this step would be the most troublesome, but unexpectedly it was the easiest. What really affected her was not the doubts her family might have about her, but her daily habits.
She didn't know how to use chopsticks. No, perhaps "unskilled" was a better word. The use of chopsticks was related to the habit of holding a pen. She often held a pen in the other world, but when she returned home and faced the sumptuous dinner to celebrate her return home, the chopsticks in her hand that picked up the food shook like an old man with a dying candle.
When night falls, she will subconsciously look for candles; when she writes with a ballpoint pen, she will look for ink everywhere on the desk; even playing with a mobile phone, turning on the TV, turning on the water heater, going to the supermarket to buy things, knocking on the door and hearing the doorbell... have become unfamiliar to her.
Some of the habits I still remember are actions that I could do without hesitation in the past, but now I need to pause and think before I can move on to the next step.
If that was all, she would just practice more, but she greatly underestimated the impact those days would have on her.
Her mother was very worried about her and often had to look at her several times before going to bed before she could fall asleep peacefully.
It would be fine if she hadn't rested when they entered the house, but once she rested, her body would return to the state it was in before in the other world.
That time, her mother was frightened by her wary and murderous eyes. She even instinctively attacked her when she entered the house and wanted to touch her. Fortunately, her mother reacted in time and was not injured.
After returning to her hometown, Jiang Suian almost collapsed for the first time. She collapsed in front of her mother's loving eyes and in the face of her family's understanding.
She knew that the habits of the other world would affect her, but she didn't expect it to make her attack her mother. How could she... How could she...
Yes, she killed people.
She was a lunatic, and even though Isidore, Osha, Arnold, Kaharun and Vifiya came to her and made her condition better, she was still a hidden lunatic.
In this world, she becomes a dangerous person who may harm her family.
She wouldn't die casually, but she wouldn't really value life either.
Life in the other world has reshaped her. Jiang Suian is deeply aware of this. She needs to learn again, reintegrate into modern life, and relearn the rules of society.
That night, two gods came into her dream and asked her if she needed to seal or erase part of her memory, or if she needed their help in other ways?
She didn't want anything.
She is a cowardly person, but she also understands that problems must be solved, and that shrinking and escaping will not change any reality.
She has returned home, fulfilling a long-cherished wish.
Did she regret coming back because of this little difficulty? No, she didn't want to make her family wait in vain. They loved her so much, they had been waiting for her, looking for her. If it weren't for their trust, she would have been sent to a mental hospital in her current state.
One day, at the dinner table, her parents and brother tactfully mentioned whether she needed to find a reliable psychologist. They repeatedly emphasized that they were just worried about her and did not doubt everything she said. They would stay with her and help her adapt to life again.
Jiang Suian did not doubt the truthfulness of their words. She could discern a single word of truth among countless lies. Her family's concerns were genuine. They had been thinking about her all the time since she came back.
But sooner or later she will tire them out.
They were right, she needed a therapist.
But she still refused.
She doesn't trust psychologists and is very averse to them. She is unwilling to open her heart to strangers because it is too dangerous.
It’s too dangerous. The reason why secrets are secrets is that it is safest only when you know everything about them yourself.
This was an important habit she had in the other world. She was very clear about it and was not prepared to change it all now.
She had other secrets, at least secrets that she couldn't tell, and her defenses wouldn't open to strangers.
Whether her family believed that she had really gone to another world, or that she was mentally ill, had a split personality, and had memories that did not belong to her, their support and trust were enough for her.
She assured her family that she would be able to adjust and she was confident.
Of course, she had gotten through such difficult times before, so how could she be so easily defeated now? She still had her family who trusted her by her side.
With the company of his family, Jiang Suian began to study again.
Thankfully, her brain wasn't rusty.
How could it possibly rust? Ever since entering the other world, she had been thinking the most. She had never stopped learning. Thinking and learning had become what she excelled at.
Just like a vegetative person who has been dormant for many years practicing walking again, Jiang Suian is also trying to regain the same ability, the ability to walk in the world.
Changing habits doesn't happen overnight, and instincts ingrained in one's bones can't be changed at will. There are some things she doesn't need to change, like her composure in the face of adversity, her sharpness, and her instinctive avoidance of danger...
She is happy to let her family see her changes, see every change in her, see her slowly adapt and gain new confidence.
It wouldn't be difficult to adapt to everything here as long as she found the right method. What's more, this world was her hometown, and everything about her was shaped by it. Learning to walk again was just a process of getting closer to herself and touching her original self.
“Knock knock.”
There was a gentle knock on the door. Jiang Suian was sitting at the desk. She turned around and saw her twin brother push the door open.
"elder brother."
Jiang Yuqing closed the door and sat down next to her.
Her brother had also changed. During the time she was away, he was no longer as lively as she remembered and had become much more calm.
His gaze moved from his sister's face to the schedule on the desk. The handwriting on the schedule was not as round and neat as before, but now it had an unignorable sharpness. The content was well-reasoned and clearly organized.
She is achieving her goals step by step according to the plan, and even doing better.
Jiang Suian followed his gaze. She was not yet used to recording her plans on her phone, so writing was still her first choice.
“You’ve become a better person,” he said.
In a blink of an eye, she saw a proud smile on her brother's face.
"It's not a bad thing to be vigilant," he continued. "There are dangers everywhere. Mom and Dad want you to stay away from home."
When their eyes met, she understood what Jiang Yuqing meant.
At her academic level, it was only a matter of time before she adapted to life in her hometown. Her parents were worried about her and wanted to see her more often, and her brother...
"I had the same idea as them before," Jiang Yuqing admitted frankly, "Once you can adapt, it means you have the ability to live independently, even better than anyone else."
He could see that his sister no longer needed protection: "I will persuade them well."
From her every move after she came back, it seemed that she was not living a good life, and was having a hard time. She was full of transformation brought about by setbacks.
He touched her head. In the past, she would have avoided it nine times out of ten. Perhaps to comfort him, Jiang Suian let him do it.
"But if anything happens, I hope you can discuss it with us, or tell us," he said, glancing at the window of the room casually, his heart pounding. "I've always wanted to decorate your room, please don't refuse."
Afraid she might suspect something, he added, "A new life, a new look, starts in your room!"
He could not forget the dream he had that day, the dream of his sister jumping out of the room. It was too real, so real that every night when he thought of Sui Xiaoan sleeping here, he was afraid that she would suddenly not be able to bear the pressure and jump down.
If he asked her to change rooms, she would definitely become suspicious, so he had to tighten the windows, tighten them very tight.
Jiang Suian couldn't hide the subtle changes in her brother's mood. She glanced at the window calmly, concealing her thoughtful eyes. After a moment, she raised her head and said, "Okay, but I guess you'll need to help me with this yourself."
Jiang Yuqing naturally agreed happily and took out his mobile phone to show her what he was going to order, including the renovations for her room and the gifts he bought her. He also gave her a big red envelope so that she could buy something she liked.
Seeing his excited look, the past and present overlapped, and she was suddenly in a trance for a while, as if she had returned to the beginning when she had not yet experienced everything in the other world, and the daily quarrels with this brother who was born at the same minute as her. She couldn't help but curl her lips and had a teasing thought: "Shouldn't you buy it secretly and surprise me at the critical moment?"
Jiang Yuqing was stunned. Ah, he really wanted to give her a surprise, but he was too happy. He was so happy that he wanted to talk to his sister for a few more words. As time went by, his hand naturally reached for his cell phone to show her all the things he had carefully selected in advance.
Somehow, he really wanted to see his sister smile.
Well, now that I’ve seen it, it’s not a loss.
He put his phone down seriously and put it back in his pocket: "It doesn't matter. An early surprise is still a surprise."
Suddenly realizing something, he stared at Jiang Suian with wide eyes and blurted out, "Sui Xiaoan! Are you kidding me?"
She was finally joking with him again! Just like before.
Now it was her turn to be stunned.
Realizing that he had overreacted, Jiang Yuqing looked around awkwardly and soon gave a relaxed smile.
For a moment, it seemed like I was back in time.
His face was filled with memories, and he said, "When I opened the door that day, I almost thought I saw a ghost."
Seeing his sister's puzzled expression, he said, "That day was the Ghost Festival."
The same silly look on his face that Jiang Suian remembered: "It's okay, it was warm when I hugged you."
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