Invisible shadow
Song Shuang picked up a potato with chopsticks and said, "Hmm?"
Jiang Qing pointed at an acquaintance she met in the restaurant and walked over to greet him. Song Qing was far away from them, chatting with someone else with a smile on his face.
"Your brother."
Song Shuang paused for a moment while eating, then shrugged, "It's okay, he'll be here soon."
"That's not what I'm talking about." Jiang Qing thought for a moment and continued, "Actually, I've wanted to say this for a long time, but I never asked."
"Every time you come home a little late, Brother Song Qing will come to pick you up. I originally thought it was because you and your brother had a good relationship and he was worried about you."
But thinking of all the signs before, she still had some doubts. Jiang Qing hesitated and said, "It happens too often, so I always feel that the reason between you two is not what I think it is."
"Yeah." Song Shuang lowered her eyes. She accidentally ate a peppercorn, and her entire mouth felt numb and had no other feeling.
She swallowed the tiny pill whole, rinsed her mouth with a glass of orange juice, and looked up. "I was lost when I was a kid."
"To be more precise," she said, facing the surprised gazes of Jiang Qing and Lin Nanyan, "she was abducted."
"When I was a kid, my brother took me out to play. It was right at the entrance of the community, less than 200 meters from home."
"No one expected that even the doorstep of our home would be unsafe. The moment he turned around, I was taken away."
Song Shuang's gaze passed through the crowd and fell on Song Qing, who looked very normal in the distance.
"Even though I was lucky enough to be found in the end, he always felt that he was the one who lost me."
"He later went to the police academy and seemed to have shaken off that shadow and had a bright future."
Song Shuang looked at Jiang Qing. She smiled, a smile that was different from her usual cheerfulness. It was a little bitter. "I know he was traumatized."
"If I didn't come home at the scheduled time, he would rush to pick me up, no matter where I was, what time it was, or what he was doing."
"But I didn't even dare to ask if he enrolled in the police academy for me."
The girl's face showed a confusion that had been hidden deep down. "Jiang Jiang, am I particularly selfish?"
"I know I should understand him, but I can't help but lose my temper. Every time I accidentally exceed the time, every time I'm happily playing with others, every time I have to set an alarm for myself in my mind, I always lose control when I see him."
"No!" Jiang Qing was very sure. "If I had a brother who strictly controlled me, I would be very annoyed too."
It was at this moment that she suddenly understood why Song Shuang had such a sad expression when she told him that day that she had a subtle desire to control Wang Huaqiang.
Song Qing looks like a normal person, but he actually has emotional trauma in his heart. Song Shuang, who was infected by him, unknowingly imposes this desire for control on others.
This abnormal infection should not continue.
"Have you discussed your ideas with Brother Song Qing?" Jiang Qing asked.
Song Shuang shook his head in frustration. "I don't know how much longer I can endure this. Can you understand? It's obviously time for him to go to school, but he's taking a leave of absence."
"Just because my phone ran out of battery one day and I didn't receive his call, he actually took the high-speed train in the middle of the night and showed up outside our house."
"You don't know how much I wanted to have a big fight with him that day."
"I want to tell him that I'm seventeen years old, I'm almost an adult, and I'm no longer that little kid who knows nothing."
"But I can't say it." Song Shuang seemed to have no strength left, and her shoulders slumped down an inch. "I can't say it."
"Looking at him rushing over here, exhausted, his face full of worry, the bloodshot eyes, I couldn't explain it."
She could only clumsily use eye rolls, rejection, and dissatisfaction to try to make her brother, who was full of guilt and seemed to be stuck in the past, understand her resistance.
"I always feel that I was found that year, along with my brother's share."
"From now on, I will live two lives."
"But no matter how difficult it is, you have to tell me." Jiang Qing reached out and held Song Shuang's hand. She had never thought that the situation had become so serious. "Brother Song Qing has reached the point where he has to drop out of school. What about the future?"
"You're going to college, so does he have to move there with you?"
Song Shuang stammered, "I've thought about...going to college locally."
Jiang Qing said seriously, "You are fed up now. It is inevitable that quarrels will break out between you two in the future."
"While it's not too serious now, while his life hasn't been ruined, your life hasn't been hampered, and your relationship with your siblings hasn't deteriorated."
"Song Shuang, you can't beat around the bush anymore, and you can't evade anymore."
"For him, and for you."
Song Shuang's eyes were filled with tears. She was frightened by the terrifying future Jiang Qing described. "What I want to say is that I haven't found the right opportunity."
She had always wanted to communicate with Song Qing honestly, and she had always planned to do so, but every time she saw him, her courage would fade the moment she opened her mouth, and she couldn't help but think, next time, definitely next time.
Then tomorrow and tomorrow, there are so many tomorrows, and I have been hesitating until now.
"Okay, then let's do it now." Seeing Song Shuang's hesitation, Jiang Qing glanced at Song Qing who had just finished greeting his acquaintances and was walking over. "Brother Song Qing, Song Shuang has something to tell you."
"Hmm?" Song Qing sat next to Song Shuang and filled the empty glass with orange juice. He pushed it over and asked, "What do you want to say?"
He turned to look at the two people opposite him and said, "Is the food not to your liking? Why don't you eat it? How about I ask the waiter to bring two more dishes?" As he said this, he was about to wave his hand.
"No, no, no need," Jiang Qing quickly stopped her. She picked up the bean sprouts and stuffed them into her mouth. She also picked up a piece of lotus root slices for Lin Nanyan with her chopsticks. "It's delicious."
As she spoke, she kept making faces at Song Shuang, but unfortunately the other party had his head down and the signal reception failed.
Song Shuang took the orange juice but didn't drink it. She hung her head for a long time and blurted out something without thinking: "You should go back to school."
Song Qing picked up the oil-absorbing paper and wiped the dining table without pausing. His voice was steady: "We are on vacation."
"You're not on vacation, you're on leave from school."
Song Qing was stunned and looked at Song Shuang in surprise.
"Song Qing, I don't think I've told you before that I'm very tired." Song Shuang didn't dare look at his face, for fear that her pressure would be lost. Her eyes fell vaguely behind him, "I always feel that my life is a burden."
"You're taking a leave of absence because of me, I know."
"But I don't need it."
"I just feel tired, very tired. I don't want to run into you every time I'm happily out with friends. I don't want to live a life where I receive eight hundred calls a day as if I were a debt collector. I don't want to be so upset but suppress my anger just because I don't want to hurt you."
She finally looked at Song Qing and pleaded sincerely, "Brother, I also want to be free, I also want to breathe, do you understand?"
Following her words, Song Qing fell silent, like a sculpture gradually frozen. After a long while, he said, "You should have told me earlier." He pulled the corner of his mouth, "I won't do it next time, Xiaoman."
Song Shuang clenched the cup in his hand and suddenly said, "I want to drink watermelon juice."
"Okay," Song Qing stood up as usual, "I'll go buy it for you. Do you want some?"
There was no watermelon juice on the menu, so he needed to go to a drink shop outside to buy it.
Jiang Qing raised her hand, trying to liven up the atmosphere. "Two cups, on the rocks, please. Thank you so much."
Lin Nanyan followed closely: "Thank you, Brother Song Qing."
Watching Song Qing leave, Jiang Qing slumped in her chair and breathed a sigh of relief. "The atmosphere just now, tsk tsk, I didn't dare to say anything."
She took the meat that Lin Nanyan had just grilled, dipped it in the sauce, wrapped it with lettuce, stuffed it into her mouth, chewed it, and thought, "Hmm, it's delicious."
"Fortunately, it's already open. You'll be free from now on."
"Another piece of meat."
The meat slices sizzled with oil under high temperature. As time went on, the surface of the meat slices turned golden yellow. Lin Nanyan picked up the tools, turned it over, and spread honey on it.
The aroma of meat mixed with the sweetness of honey is very tempting.
Song Shuang looked at the beef in the bowl, and she suddenly slumped down in the soft chair in frustration.
"Did you hear what he called me?"
Jiang Qing and Lin Nanyan, who were eating and grilling food respectively, stopped in mid-air because of this strange question.
"What did he yell?"
Song Shuang wanted to cry but had no tears. "He called me Xiaoman, it was Xiaoman."
Jiang Qing's head was full of questions: "What's going on?"
In her impression, Brother Song Qing always calls her Song Shuang Xiaoman whenever they meet. Is there anything wrong with that?
She and Lin Nanyan looked at each other. Lin Nanyan shook his head and quickly picked up the beef that was about to burn and put it in her bowl.
Jiang Qing picked up the beef dipping sauce and the next step was to put it in her mouth.
Song Shuang poked the meat in the bowl and said bitterly, "So he won't change. He will just follow secretly to avoid being discovered by me."
Baji——
The meat slices fell back into the bowl.
Jiang Qing was shocked: This is even possible?!
Song Shuang: "I understand him."
That's why she was so helpless.
"You've said it so harshly, can't you?" Song Shuang's words were actually very hurtful. Even Jiang Qing, an audience member, couldn't help but hold her breath for fear of being affected. She didn't expect that Song Qingge's heart was so strong.
"He would. That's just the kind of guy he is."
"Compared to putting himself in a difficult position, he couldn't tolerate even the slightest possibility of losing his sister."
“He’s better at being hard on himself.”
"What I said was not only useless, but it will only increase his pain," Song Shuang regretted. "From now on, he will only be my invisible shadow."
Hearing this, Jiang Qing fell silent. She had never thought that the communication artifact that had always been so helpful to her would one day turn into a double-edged sword that would hurt people, stabbing him and her as well.
It turns out there are things in this world that can't be solved even with honest communication. It's not because we don't understand or don't want to listen, but because we understand too well.
Love makes honesty a sharp weapon.
Jiang Qing, who had never experienced such a predicament, fell into a state of self-blame. She shouldn't have given such advice or pushed Song Shuang. Wouldn't it be better to just let things take their own course? Perhaps one day, things would finally turn around.
"Go learn martial arts." Lin Nanyan's clear and calm voice suddenly rang out in the silence, and the two girls looked over at once.
The boy lowered his eyes and carefully rolled the roasted beef in the lettuce. He placed the green food neatly on the plate and pushed it to the center of the table.
He picked up a tissue beside him, wiped his white, moist fingertips, and looked up. "You were taken away in the first place, partly because Brother Song Qing didn't think highly of you, and partly because you were weak."
"In his eyes, you are always the person who never grew up, who was forced, and who needed him to save you."
Lin Nanyan's voice was clear, like the sound of flowing water, touching the heart. His steady and convincing voice said, "Go learn martial arts. If one day you can beat him, Song Qing will realize that his sister has grown up and no longer needs his excessive protection."
Jiang Qing's eyes brightened as she listened. "Yes, we should solve the problem from the root."
"But this will be hard for you, Shuang."
"As long as he can return to normal, I'm willing to endure any hardship." Song Shuang couldn't help but get excited.
"Lin Nanyan, how did you come up with such a good idea?" Jiang Qing couldn't help but marvel once again, wondering how a person could be so smart.
Lin Nanyan smiled and said that invisible shadows cannot see the light.
Jiang Qing picked up the wrapped barbecue and opened her mouth to take a bite, but stopped. She suddenly remembered something, "Brother Song Qing is from the police academy. How much training do you need to have to defeat him?"
Looking at Song Shuang with her thin arms and legs opposite her, she felt a toothache for her best friend's future.
Song Shuang's mouth, which was chewing sweetly, suddenly stopped. What should he do if he couldn't swallow it?
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