Chapter 23 Scars "Someone will love your deaf ears"...
Feng Yue has rarely taken photos since she was a child. Her mobile phone is an old flip phone that her parents discarded. She doesn't even take it out at school because it's too embarrassing.
On her birthday, Cheng Shiyun specially took her to a boutique to take a set of headshots.
Thirty yuan for a set of eight.
She clearly threw them all away...
Xie Shijin handed it to her: "It fell out of your wallet when you were counting money just now."
Feng Yue looked away, and after a while, she said, "...It's just trash, you can throw it away."
Xie Shijin lowered his hand and held the photo booth picture in his palm: "Why did you transfer schools in your second year of high school?"
"What's it to you? I told you, don't bother me." The girl reverted to her fierce demeanor, glared at them, and turned to get into a taxi parked by the roadside.
Ni Jiaqi was furious: "Cheng Shiyun still considers this kind of person her best friend?"
"Anyone who didn't know better would think we were enemies."
yes.
The little tabby cat drooped its head and pouted.
She also wanted to know why Feng Yue had become like this. She really considered Feng Yue her best friend. Although people may grow distant after a breakup, she shouldn't have treated Feng Yue like an ice pop.
The two walked toward the bus stop.
Ni Jiaqi asked Xie Shijin, "Hey, she just said you were bothering her, what did you do?"
Xie Shijin said, "Tell her to repay the money."
"She owes you money?" Ni Jiaqi pressed. "How much?"
Xie Shijin glanced at him sideways, then turned back: "She owes Cheng Shiyun three hundred."
"oh……"
Ni Jiaqi responded subconsciously, but when he realized what was happening, it felt like he had been hit on the head with a club.
Is Cheng Shiyun missing?
Why didn't Cheng Shiyun tell him this?
The bus arrived, Xie Shijin boarded, paid the fare, and said to Ni Jiaqi, "Let's go, go back early."
"Wait!" Ni Jiaqi snapped out of his daze. "When did Cheng Shiyun tell you? Xie Shijin, come down here!"
The car door slammed shut with a hiss, the engine started, and it slowly moved forward.
There were no empty seats on the bus, so Xie Shijin walked to the back door, gripped the handrail, and looked out the window.
"Xie Shijin, get out of the car!"
"When did Cheng Shiyun tell you that? You better explain yourself clearly!"
Ni Jiaqi chased after the car for a couple of steps, inhaled a mouthful of exhaust fumes, and cursed loudly in the direction the car had gone.
Xie Shijin's phone vibrated in his pocket. He took it out and saw that Ni Jiaqi had sent several text messages.
Every single one of them was questioning him.
He didn't reply to a single one.
“No wonder Feng Yue is so afraid of you.” Cheng Shiyun suddenly remembered, “...I never told anyone that she owed me money. She told me to keep it a secret.”
Xie Shijin was also taken aback, and whispered, "Ni Jiaqi didn't have it either?"
Cheng Shiyun raised her voice: "Do you think he looks like that?"
She was a very trustworthy person who valued promises. She had accidentally seen Feng Yue's notebook and already knew that Feng Yue had borrowed three hundred yuan from her to pay for tuition, so she couldn't tell anyone else.
A teenager's pride is paramount.
"Young man, there are seats in the back."
At this station, someone got off the train, leaving a few empty seats. A kind-looking old lady called out to Xie Shijin.
"Xie Shijin?" Cheng Shiyun was also calling him.
Xie Shijin didn't hear, his mind wandering as he stared out the window at the trees flashing by.
She and Ni Jiaqi weren't childhood sweethearts, but they had a particularly good relationship.
But she didn't even tell Ni Jiaqi.
I only told him.
Only he knew that Cheng Shiyun had turned into a cat.
Even besides her parents, the first person she sought out after her rebirth was him.
"Young man?" The old lady patted him on the shoulder and reminded him, "Don't stand there, there are seats in the back."
Xie Shijin turned around: "Thank you."
He sat down in an empty seat in the back row, looking like he was in a good mood.
...
"Xiao Xie is back."
Xie Shijin went upstairs and ran into the father and son from apartment 602.
The little boy, carrying his schoolbag, happily called out, "Brother Xiao Xie!"
Xie Shijin nodded, noticing the two large bags the man was carrying: "Uncle Lin, are you going out?"
“Yes, take him to his grandma’s for a couple of days.” The middle-aged man said to his son, “Did you put the blood pressure monitor you bought for your grandma in there?”
The boy exclaimed in frustration, "I forgot!"
The man patted the back of his head, then turned and went back into the house.
Xie Shijin took out his key and opened the door.
The boy stood at the door, looked at him, and whispered, "Brother Xiao Xie, you look just like your mother."
Xie Shijin frowned: "What?"
Before he could even insert the key into the lock, the door suddenly clicked open from the inside.
"Xiao Jin".
Xie Shijin suddenly looked up, her mind going completely blank.
A middle-aged woman was standing inside the room.
Cheng Shiyun was also stunned.
Is this woman Xie Shijin's mother?
It really does look like it. Especially the nose and lips.
Cheng Shiyun had also met Xie Shijin's father, and their eyes were strikingly similar. Xie Shijin seemed to have inherited the best traits from both her parents.
But upon closer inspection, Cheng Shiyun felt that Xie Shijin was different from them.
I can't quite put my finger on what's different, but they're just completely different.
The woman was older and hadn't taken much care of herself, but she had a great temperament. She wore a silk printed long dress and looked very gentle.
Xie Shijin looked up at the unexpected guest, her face pale, and demanded, "Where did you get the key?"
He Sumei smiled and said, "Haven't we changed the locks at home all this time?"
It's been over ten years.
The moment she turned the key, she couldn't believe it herself.
"Did you go play with your classmates this afternoon?" He Sumei opened the door and stepped aside. "Come in and wash your hands. Dinner is almost ready. Mom remembers you love crabs, so I went to the market this afternoon to buy some female crabs."
“The one who likes to eat crabs is Xie Pingxue,” Xie Shijin interrupted her impatiently. “I’m allergic to seafood.”
His tone was impolite and cold, and you could feel the oppressive atmosphere, as if the woman in front of him was not his mother, but a complete stranger.
He Sumei's smile froze for a moment, then she recovered and smiled again, saying, "It's okay, Mom made other dishes, which are also your favorites from when you were little."
"What are you acting now?"
Xie Shijin looked at her with cold, unfamiliar eyes.
"A loving mother and filial son?"
He hadn't been back for ten years, and when he returned, he acted so warmly and familiarly, as if he had never left.
In fact, she had been gone for so long that Xie Shijin didn't recognize her at first glance.
Ten years is enough to bring about many changes in a person's appearance, but it will basically not change a person's voice.
At this moment, the woman's gentle voice echoed the hysterical arguments and cold, harsh accusations that haunted my childhood.
The familiar voice was like a rusty iron hook, pulling out the pain he had desperately swallowed, making him feel nauseous.
A brief, suffocating silence suddenly fell between the two of them.
“Xiao Jin…”
He Sumei understood all his resentment.
He left without saying goodbye ten years ago, and now he's back uninvited ten years later.
Xie Shijin's resentment and hatred towards her were entirely justified.
At this moment, the father and son who had finished picking out gifts in apartment 602 next door came out again. Seeing the mother and son confronting each other, they sensed that something was wrong and didn't want to rush over to ask.
He Sumei nodded to them in greeting, and said to Xie Shijin, "You come in first, so the neighbors won't laugh at us."
The door was wide open, and there were two bowls and a table full of dishes on the dining table in the living room.
A few wisps of smoke floated in the air. Xie Shijin looked at the shrine, where three sticks of incense were inserted into the incense burner in front of the old man's portrait.
The boy's expression was filled with astonishment and anger: "Who told you to offer incense to her?"
“She is your maternal grandmother, and also my mother,” He Sumei said softly.
They share an unbreakable blood relationship, just like she and Xie Shijin.
Xie Shijin closed his eyes, clenched his fists, and, suppressing his nausea, questioned her: "You weren't even back when she died, so what right do you have to offer incense for her now?"
My grandmother died suddenly from a stroke caused by overwork.
Faced with death once again, he was still just as helpless.
He knew nothing about the procedures for cleaning the body, dressing the deceased in burial clothes, keeping vigil, and cremation after death, yet he was expected to do all of them.
He was alone from beginning to end.
“I can explain,” He Sumei quickly said. “I was abroad at the time and couldn’t get away to come back. I also called your maternal grandmother’s relatives and friends and asked them to help you—”
Xie Shijin twitched the corner of his mouth and scoffed coldly.
Help him?
Shouldn't she be the one doing these things?
The sarcasm on his face was so glaring that He Sumei felt a sting. She suddenly realized that her explanation was not only weak but also hypocritical, and that no matter what she said, Xie Shijin would not believe her.
“Grandma has already… let’s not argue about this anymore, okay?” He Sumei softened her stance.
Xie Shijin's voice was cold: "Grandma is dead, Xie Pingxue is in jail, I assume you're dead too, so why did you come back?"
"I'll take you away."
Xie Shijin was stunned for a moment.
"Xie Pingxue is about to be released from prison." He Sumei ignored his disrespectful words to her parents, took a few deep breaths and said, "I came here today to take you away, away from Yichuan, and go abroad with me. Mom has money now."
She sent Xie Shijin to live with her maternal grandmother for money, she divorced Xie Pingxue for money, and she left Yichuan for money.
“But Xiaojin, Mom had her reasons for leaving back then. You were too young and didn’t understand. Even if I explained things to you, you wouldn’t understand. I know I’ve wronged you so much over the past ten years.” Her voice was urgent and even trembled slightly. “So now I’m back to make it up to you. We’re going abroad to study at a better university and live a better life.”
He Sumei still remembers that when he was a child, he said he wanted to be a pilot, and his room was full of airplane models that he had built himself. Now, scar removal surgery abroad is very advanced, and a few surgeries can remove all the scars on his body.
"And your ears..." He Sumei looked at him with heartache, "Xie Pingxue is a beast, he's not human!"
In his third year of junior high school, Xie Pingxue lost money gambling and wanted to sell his grandmother's house to pay off his debts. Xie Shijin refused and was beaten until her eardrum was perforated. She only found out about it much later.
When Xie Shijin's maternal grandmother called her, she was working in another province, living in a dormitory with more than a dozen people, eating boxed lunches that cost five yuan a bowl, and didn't even have money to buy clothes. She managed to scrape together a thousand yuan and send it home.
Things are different now. She has made money in business and is able to give her son a better life. She can't let that scumbag Xie Pingxue hurt him anymore.
With tears in her eyes and her words sincere, He Sumei resembled a mother who deeply regretted her past actions.
But Xie Shijin vividly remembers how he got the scar on his arm; the feeling of boiling water being poured on him is still fresh in his memory.
He Sumei said he was young and didn't understand many things.
That's right, he was quite young at the time and had a high fever at school. Knowing that his parents were busy with work and wouldn't pick him up, he endured it until school was over before going home.
His eyes were burning and he couldn't see clearly, and his hearing was also impaired, but he could vaguely hear a man's voice in the bedroom.
Immediately afterwards, Xie Pingxue returned and kicked open the bedroom door.
He couldn't quite remember what happened in the bedroom, whether it was because so much time had passed or because his brain was deliberately avoiding those images. He only remembered that after a chaotic scene, a shirtless man came out of the bedroom, looking very flustered, and fled his house as if he were running away, bumping into him in the process.
Before he could even feel the pain, Xie Pingxue and He Sumei started fighting. The fight went from the bedroom all the way to the kitchen, and at one point they even used knives.
He tried to stop them, but he wasn't much taller than the stove at the time. Someone bumped into the kettle, and with a crash, the freshly boiled water was poured over him.
He was in so much pain, it really hurt. Even now, thinking about it makes his arms and legs ache.
When he woke up in pain, Xie Pingxue and He Sumei had finally stopped fighting. The room was a mess and empty. He was cold and in pain.
Not long after, Xie Pingxue and He Sumei divorced. Xie Pingxue continued gambling, while He Sumei found a new boyfriend and never contacted him again.
Five years later, he was in the first year of junior high school. He Sumei was on a date with her new boyfriend at a hotel when they were arrested by the police who were cracking down on prostitution. Across the street, in front of all his classmates, He Sumei shouted his name.
Xie Shijin still doesn't understand why He Sumei called him back then.
Perhaps she wanted to explain to him that it was just a misunderstanding, and that she wasn't that kind of person. Maybe so.
Now he doesn't want to know anymore.
"You can leave now, don't come again." Xie Shijin was a little tired. Recalling the past had exhausted him, and he had no time to deal with the woman in front of him.
He Sumei's face was bitter. Xie Shijin probably thought she was acting no matter what she said, so she could only try her best to make her words sound sincere: "Xiao Jin, Mom really wants to make it up to you..."
Xie Shijin found it somewhat ridiculous. Leaving without a care, then returning silently, turning his life upside down, and then trying to make it up to him—wasn't that contradictory?
It's too contradictory. So it only makes people think she has ulterior motives and malicious intentions.
"Xiao Jin, come with Mom." He Sumei tried to take his hand.
"Meow—!"
A sharp meow came from between them, as the cat tried to pounce forward.
He Sumei was startled and almost got scratched by the cat, so she had to withdraw her hand.
Xie Shijin held down the cat, which was bristling with fur, and gently soothed it.
He Sumei was surprised to only then notice that he was holding a cat. "You have a cat? Cats are great, they're very well-behaved. We can keep many cats over there, as many as you want..."
Seeing that Xie Shijin didn't object, she leaned down slightly, seemingly unafraid of being scratched by the cat, and tentatively reached out to touch the cat in his arms.
The next second, the boy in front of her widened his eyes, suddenly became very angry, slapped her hand away, and roared, "Don't touch her! Get out, get out now."
He Sumei: "Okay, okay, I won't touch it. Xiao Jin, calm down—"
She hadn't finished speaking.
With a bang.
Xie Shijin closed the door.
He stood in the stairwell for two seconds, then turned around and walked downstairs step by step.
It took Cheng Shiyun quite a while to figure out what was going on.
Xie Shijin's mother, who hadn't been home for ten years, returned and wanted to take him away.
She looked up, wanting to see Xie Shijin's expression, but it was already dark, and the world was shrouded in twilight. It seemed that Xie Shijin, too, had lost his color in this twilight.
Xie Shijin didn't understand why she had to leave.
Even though he was the one who was abandoned, He Sumei still shamelessly came back to him, yet he was the one who ran away from her.
He walked a long way, without a destination, just walking forward, not knowing where else he could go but home.
When Xie Pingxue was six or seven years old, he became addicted to gambling, sold his family's house, and owed a lot of money. His family was like hermit crabs, always hiding.
At the age of eight, Xie Pingxue and He Sumei divorced. He was fostered at his maternal grandmother's house, thousands of miles away. He moved from the place where he grew up to another place, where he could not understand the local dialect and could not get used to the local food.
He was like a discarded burden; for ten whole years, neither of them ever truly came to see him. He didn't even know when He Sumei left Yichuan.
When I was eighteen, my grandmother also died.
He has nothing left.
Even if he dies, no one in this world will mourn for him.
He is the one who truly has no home.
He wandered aimlessly.
The sweltering summer breeze brushed against his cheeks, but Xie Shijin's hands, which were holding the cat, were trembling slightly. He wasn't cold, but his mood hadn't calmed down yet; he felt terrible.
To make matters worse, Cheng Shiyun saw him in his disheveled state.
He never intended to hide those embarrassing, muddy memories he didn't want to recall, but he also never imagined they would be exposed so suddenly.
He wanted to run away as fast as he could, to leave that place, not wanting her to see his scars.
But Cheng Shiyun had already seen it and was very upset.
Xie Shijin's calm, aloof, mature, and composed demeanor greatly reinforced people's misconceptions about him, to the point that those around him often forgot that he was actually only eighteen years old. A tender, youthful age.
Eighteen-year-old Cheng Shiyun still fantasizes about one day becoming human again and being able to act spoiled with her parents, while eighteen-year-old Xie Shijin no longer has anyone to act spoiled with.
Her heart ached, and it took Cheng Shiyun a while to understand exactly what this discomfort was.
It's not sympathy, it's not pity.
It's heartbreaking.
She felt a pang of sympathy for Xie Shijin, for the scars on his body, and for the pain of his scabs being torn open again, bleeding profusely.
Physical injuries can heal on their own, but how can we make up for the more than three thousand days and nights that were devoured by pain?
It took him ten years to accept the fact that his parents didn't love him, and he had a better life with his grandmother. Now, many years later, he's repeating the same mistakes, experiencing it all over again. Isn't that a bit too cruel?
Cheng Shiyun had witnessed Xie Shijin arguing with his father outside the school gate and vaguely guessed that Xie Shijin's family situation was not good.
But Xie Shijin's life was even less happy than she had imagined.
His scarred arms and deaf ears were just the tip of the iceberg she glimpsed.
But she also felt that Xie Shijin shouldn't be like this.
It is said that good people are rewarded.
Xie Shijin was such a good person; he deserved to be even happier.
...
Xie Shijin bought a bottle of water at the convenience store and then sat there.
Nine o'clock.
10 o'clock.
11 o'clock.
As darkness fell, my mind became increasingly chaotic and I couldn't calm down.
At 11:30, a small truck arrived outside the convenience store, and two employees went out and brought in several boxes of goods.
The shelves they needed to stock were behind Xie Shijin's seat.
"Um... excuse me." The convenience store clerk approached and greeted us quietly, "We're restocking, could you please move aside?"
The boy stood up.
The shop assistant brought in two large boxes. The shelves were too high, the boxes were too heavy, and the shop assistant wasn't strong enough to push them down.
Xie Shijin raised his hand to shield her, and then pushed the box upstairs.
"Thank you—ah!"
His sleeves fell to his elbows as he raised his arms, and the shop assistant couldn't help but gasp when she saw the centipede-like scars covering his arms.
Everyone in the store looked over.
The other two employees ran over and asked, "What's wrong?"
"What happened? Are you alright?"
"It's alright!" The shop assistant seemed to realize that she had overreacted and apologized repeatedly, "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry..."
His presence, which he had long been accustomed to, would still frighten people into screaming when it was accidentally revealed.
Xie Shijin silently pulled down his sleeve to cover the ugly, hideous scars, then picked up the cat and left.
Yichuan has a vibrant nightlife, remaining lively even in the middle of the night, with bustling traffic and crowds on the streets.
There were people selling magnolia bracelets on the street. It's a type of white magnolia flower, not a very fragrant one, but there were many people selling them, and a faint, sweet fragrance floated in the air.
Amidst the fragrance of the flowers, Cheng Shiyun became extremely drowsy.
This drowsiness was beyond her control; it was physiological and couldn't be forced back on.
The tabby cat's eyes narrowed into slits as Xie Shijin carried the cat home.
He Sumei might not have left yet, but he couldn't figure out how to deal with her and kick her out.
She lived in that house for twenty years, longer than he did.
Cheng Shiyun was really sleepy and dozed off while hugging Xie Shijin's arm.
As they passed a pedestrian bridge, Cheng Shiyun suddenly said, "Xie Shijin, look at the moon in the sky."
"Today is the sixteenth!" Little Tabby Cat meowed. "The moon is roundest on the sixteenth, just as it was on the fifteenth. It's really big and round."
Many people were taking pictures on the overpass.
Suddenly, a dark cloud drifted by and obscured half the moon. Everyone on the bridge immediately put down their phones; some hurried on their way, others chatted.
Cheng Shiyun said, "There's one more person."
Holding up the phone, I repeatedly focused it.
Xie Shijin glanced at it and said, "He's waiting for the clouds to disperse."
No one would intentionally take a picture of the obscured, imperfect moon.
Cheng Shiyun disagreed: "Not necessarily. The dark clouds obscuring the moon create a very poetic scene."
"If only I still had my phone, it would have been great. It has lots of pictures of the moon. Have you ever seen the moon in the countryside? It's so much brighter than in the city."
“When my grandma was still alive, my parents would take me back to our hometown in the countryside every summer vacation. I especially loved sitting in the yard with my grandma and looking at the moon in the sky.”
"The full moon is beautiful."
"A crescent moon is beautiful, and a moon obscured by clouds is also beautiful; each has its own charm."
She closed her eyes, nestled in the boy's arms, inhaling his light and pleasant scent, and spoke to herself.
"Just like Xie Shijin at eight years old, very good."
"Xie Shijin at eighteen was also very good."
The girl's soft voice easily stirred up a ripple.
Xie Shijin suddenly stopped, lowered her eyelashes, and for a moment her eyes were blank.
It seemed as if something indescribable had filled the void in his heart. The kitten's slightly elevated body temperature continued to rise, like someone finally starting to supply oxygen to a dying fish tank.
The sound in his ear was indistinct; he couldn't tell if it was the wind or his own heartbeat.
In a daze, he saw the girl's beautiful face again.
After a long silence, he finally asked in a hoarse voice, "Where is it good?"
"Anywhere is fine..."
Cheng Shiyun didn't open her eyes; she was already a little sleepy.
It was probably just something he said casually to comfort him.
Xie Shijin carried the little tabby cat down the overpass.
The steps were bumpy, and Cheng Shiyun thought he was trembling again, so she hugged his arm tightly with both hands and gently rubbed against it: "Xie Shijin, don't be sad..."
"What?"
Her voice was too soft.
He lowered his head, pressing his ear to the kitten's heartbeat and breathing, trying to hear it more clearly.
“I said.”
Under the overpass, cars drove by, honking their horns in a chaotic rush. Little Tabby reached out her tiny hand and gently touched his mutilated ear.
"...There will be someone who loves your deaf ears and your scars."
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Author's note: Thank you for your support [pity]
The suspense is secondary; the main focus is on the romance between two bittersweet characters!
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