Chapter 114 I was blind to begin with. You're not only blind in your eyes, you're blind in your heart too...
There were still a few dishes to cook, so after giving the children some meat, An Fusheng chased them all out of the kitchen.
The children came out of the kitchen and saw a dirty figure pasted on their front door from afar. The figure had its eyes closed and looked like a salted fish drying on the iron bars of their house. The children cried out in surprise, "Grandpa! Grandpa! Grandpa!"
The continuous calls of "Grandpa" brought Grandpa to his senses and also woke Ji Fengnian. His eyes were a little blurry when he opened them after keeping them closed for so long in the sun. When Ji Fengnian's vision focused, an old man and a group of boys had already walked up to him.
An Shisi looked up curiously and asked, "Why are you hanging on my door?"
The aroma of meat suddenly became even stronger. Ji Fengnian sniffed and glanced down to see a large chunk of yellowish-red cured meat! For a moment, he thought he was hallucinating. After a couple of seconds, he realized it was real meat, the meat that the silly kid standing in front of him who had asked him why it was stuck on the door was holding in a bowl.
As Ji Fengnian aimed, his hand swiftly reached for the lump of flesh.
An Shisi felt a blur before his eyes, and the bowl in his hand suddenly became lighter. When he looked closely, the bowl was empty. When he looked up again, he saw a dark hand reaching out from not far above the bowl, and that hand was holding his flesh.
Ji Fengnian stared in shock at his bound hands, his gaze slowly moving upwards from the hand that was holding him, until he saw that it was the old man who had grabbed him.
An Shisi: "Grandpa, he stole my meat! Grandpa, catch him!"
The other children chimed in, "Grandpa caught him! Grandpa, don't let him go! He's a bad guy! He'll run away!"
Ji Fengnian: Damn it, it's not only bad guys who run away!
His wrist was throbbing with pain. Ji Fengnian tried to pull his hand away, but couldn't budge it at all. He suspected that the bones in his wrist had been crushed, but he still gritted his teeth and held onto the warm flesh tightly.
Grandpa realized that this was a homeless child who must have been starving and had grabbed the food. He wasn't necessarily a bad person, but his eyes and hands were faster than his brain. Before his brain could react, his hand was already being grabbed. Now the children were all blaming the bad guy, and he didn't know whether to let go or not, so he quietly loosened his grip a little.
An Fusheng heard people outside shouting about meat and thought that the large chunk of meat wasn't cooked properly. He was worried that he shouldn't eat undercooked meat, or he would get a stomachache during the Lunar New Year. So he quickly went out to ask, and when he came out, he saw a familiar face: "Holy crap!"
An Fusheng took a few steps over and tightened his grip on that bony hand. Just as Ji Fengnian felt the hand holding him loosen a little, it was immediately clamped down again by a strong force.
Ji Fengnian: "..."
An Fusheng: "You actually came here to provoke us?"
Ji Fengnian had no way to express his bitterness; it seems that enemies really do meet on a narrow road!
An Fusheng opened the door and dragged the person inside: "Where do you think you're going to run now?"
Grandma and the mothers came over when they heard the commotion.
When Grandma saw An Fusheng dragging a dirty child in, she asked, "Where did this child come from? What happened?"
An Fusheng said, "He robbed me and even hit me!"
Ji Fengnian had been starving for days and no longer had the strength to struggle. He was unwilling to accept that the meat he had in his hands was not in his mouth, so he shouted, "Let me go!"
An Fusheng certainly couldn't let him go. He knew that some homeless people were pitiful because they had no food or shelter, but the person in front of him looked quite old, with all four limbs intact and was eloquent. He could easily find a job and wouldn't be homeless. Of course, he couldn't control whether someone was homeless or not, but he shouldn't have taken the child's things and hit him.
Grandma, unaware of all this, saw the child before her, so thin and ragged, wearing only a sweatshirt in the dead of winter, and his pants were too short. She felt sorry for him and said, "Let him go. He only took a piece of meat. He's hungry. It's the New Year. Give him a piece of meat."
Seeing that someone was pitying him, Ji Fengnian thought to himself, "A real man can bend and stretch," and then began to act: "Grandma, I haven't eaten for three days. I really couldn't bear it. Please, have mercy on me and let me go. I'll never dare to do it again."
As he spoke, tears streamed down his face. But the tears weren't entirely fake. The meat was right in front of him, even in his hands, yet he couldn't eat it. The more Ji Fengnian thought about it, the sadder he became.
Ji Fengnian's tears successfully evoked everyone's sympathy, even An Shisi said, "Brother, I don't want the meat anymore, let him eat it, he's crying from hunger."
An Fusheng said, "He stole Xiaoya's trash and even hit her. Aren't you going to take revenge?"
"Huh?" An Shisi propped himself up on his knees, tilted his head and leaned closer to look at the person rolling on the ground, and suddenly realized, "Yes! It's him, he's wearing this hat!" The hat was dirty, and he almost didn't notice.
Upon hearing An Shisi's words, everyone turned their attention to Ji Fengnian's hat.
Upon closer inspection, Wen Min discovered that the hat was exactly the same as the one she had bought for Wen Xinghe, and the scarf was also a matching set. However, Wen Xinghe had lost both his scarf and hat, so he seemed to be a repeat offender.
"Take him to the police station," Wen Min said.
These teenage homeless children are different from homeless elderly people. Homeless elderly people can live peacefully as long as they have food to eat, but these teenage boys are restless, reckless, and may even be cynical. They might do anything if they are in a bad mood, not to mention that he has a long criminal record. The best solution now is to send him to the police station. If he has a home and parents, the police station will send him back. If he is an orphan, there are places he can go.
Upon hearing that he was to be taken to the police station, Ji Fengnian panicked and struggled, shouting, "I won't go! I won't go!"
He struggled wildly on the ground, and An Fusheng couldn't drag him away, so he waited for him to run out of strength.
Wen Xinghe groped her way down from upstairs, and Wen Min saw her and carried her over.
In his struggle, Ji Fengnian caught sight of Wen Xinghe and, in desperation, cried out, "Little blind man, please save me!"
Wen Xinghe: "..."
Seeing that Wen Xinghe remained silent, he continued, "Little blind man, I saved you but you didn't save me. You are ungrateful!"
Everyone immediately turned their attention to Wen Xinghe.
Even though Wen Xinghe was blind, he felt uneasy and whispered in protest, "You...you shouldn't talk nonsense."
"How could I say such nonsense? Who helped you get your cane back when the fat guy snatched it? Who picked up the banana peel he threw in front of you? Who saved you when the fat guy pinned you down in the bushes? It was me! I picked up your cane, I picked up the banana peel, and I even helped you beat up the fat guy and get revenge for you. And now you're not even helping me? You...you're not loyal!"
Then Ji Fengnian was released, and he finally got to eat the meat in his hand. The meat had been torn to shreds and was covered in dust from rolling on the ground, but he still felt that it was the best meat he had ever eaten in his life.
"Explain clearly how Xinghe was bullied at school?" Wen Min asked very seriously.
Having swallowed a chunk of meat without feeling anything, Ji Fengnian seized the opportunity to act arrogantly: "I'm hungry. I need to eat something to have the energy to talk."
"Go and get him some food," Wen Min said.
"I want meat!"
When Ji Fengnian saw someone enter the kitchen, he quickly added a sentence.
The meat he just ate was so delicious that he didn't even want to swallow his saliva, afraid of wiping away the lingering aroma in his mouth.
An Fusheng called Wen Yue back, went to the kitchen, and ladled out a bowl of radish chunks with soup.
Ji Fengnian wasn't averse to radishes; he was starving and would eat anything. But this person was clearly doing it on purpose, and he protested, "I want meat!"
"Eat it or leave it." An Fusheng turned and left.
Ji Fengnian glanced at Wen Min, but Wen Min didn't respond, so he had no choice but to compromise: "I'll eat! I'll eat!"
An Fusheng reluctantly brought the radish back.
The soup was freshly ladled from the pot by An Fusheng and was still quite soupy. Ji Fengnian didn't care. As soon as the bowl was in his hands, he picked it up and gulped down the soup. After finishing the soup, he quickly ate all the radishes. Only after finishing did he smack his lips and realize that the radishes seemed quite delicious.
"Is there any more?" After a bowl of hot soup, Ji Fengnian seemed to melt from the heat. He changed his arrogant and exasperated attitude from before and asked An Fusheng gently and expectantly.
An Fusheng said coldly, "No more."
An Fusheng said it was gone, and it really was gone. Ji Feng's sulking was useless, so he had no choice but to embellish the scene he saw Wen Xinghe being bullied at the special school, and emphasize how he bravely stepped forward to save him.
The worst fears didn't come true, and Wen Min breathed a sigh of relief, but still asked Wen Xinghe in a serious tone, "Why didn't you tell the teacher or your mother when you were bullied?"
Wen Xinghe shrank back. She had thought about telling her mother, but she was worried that her mother would not let her go to school because she was worried about her. Besides, the matter was not as serious as Ji Fengnian had said.
"The fat boy he mentioned is a child with intellectual disabilities. He plays on the playground every day. When the visually impaired students practice walking on the tactile paving, he often tries to snatch their canes. The teachers have criticized him. The time he threw the banana peel was when he was eating a banana. He didn't know that trash should be thrown in the trash can, so he just threw it on the ground. It wasn't specifically targeting me. Other students picked up the cane and banana peel for me, not him. He's not a student and can't even get into the school."
Ji Fengnian was thick-skinned and refused to admit it even after being exposed. "I asked someone else to pick them up. Tell me, wasn't the classmate who helped you pick up your cane and banana peel named Ren Liangliang? He's my little brother. I'm telling you, I asked him to pick them up."
Wen Xinghe fell silent. The classmate who helped her pick up her crutches and banana peels was indeed named Ren Liangliang.
"Also, wasn't it me who saved you when the fat guy pinned you down in the bushes?" Ji Fengnian asked.
Wen Xinghe answered honestly, "Yes."
But to thank him, she brought him food from home every day.
"I saved you when you were bullied, but you stood by and watched me die when I was bullied!" Ji Fengnian said, then remembered that Wen Xinghe was blind and couldn't see anything. He snorted angrily, but he still couldn't just stand by and watch him die.
Wen Xinghe argued, "My older brother would never bully anyone."
Ji Fengnian was already angry, and now he was so angry that his mind went blank. "Are you blind? Isn't what he did considered bullying?"
An Fusheng kicked him: "Shut up if you can't talk!"
Wen Xinghe whispered, "I've always been blind."
Ji Fengnian, afraid of being kicked again, kept his mouth tightly shut, but thought angrily to himself: You're not only blind, you're blind in your heart too!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com