Chapter 1
Zhou Yue heard the baby crying. It must have been very loud, but she didn't know because it was too far away. The nurse said, "Congratulations, Mrs. Jiang, it's a son!"
When did the nurses become so gentle? In her memory, the nurses ignored her. They wore white hats and white shoes, and walked silently in the cold corridors of the hospital like the White Impermanence.
But it is warm here and not pale. The walls are pink and painted with colorful children's paintings, which help to ease the mood of the mother. Here, nothing is more important than the mood of the mother.
Who was Madam Jiang? Her last name was Zhou, and Kang Xingxing's last name was Kang. So, if we were to talk about her, we should probably say Madam Kang. Haha, Madam Kang, then Kang Xingxing must be Mr. Kang? She found Kang Xingxing's silent, dark face laughable. Like a migrant worker, Mr. Kang?
She walked on the bridge, lying on the bridge pier and looking down like she did when she was a child, her head almost falling down, but she was not afraid. Kang Xingxing would come over and hug her, and then carry her down from behind silently. He would not let her fall, never.
But she wouldn't look back at him! She would just look at her reflection on the water. When a black face appeared next to her white face, grinning at her with big white teeth, that was him.
But today she waited and waited, but nothing came of it. How dare he make her wait? She would curse him to death!
She looked at the water. It was a cloudy day and a sandstorm was about to come. The sky was yellow and the water was turbid and dirty, so dirty that she couldn't see the bottom.
A gust of wind blew, ruffling the surface of the water. When it calmed down again, her face had changed. The round face of five or six years old had turned into a melon-shaped face with fox eyes like her mother.
They all said "I love you" to her, but did they really love her? I don't know, but Kang Xingxing definitely didn't love her because he never watched her grow up and never said "I love you" once.
People always hate those who are different from them, so when he died, he would no longer smile at her with his big white teeth, nor would he carry her down from the bridge again.
She opened her eyes and saw pink walls. There were four golden balloons hanging from the ceiling, spelling out "baby". Looking down, she saw countless toys and flowers piled up all over the wall.
"Awake?" A man's voice came from not far away from her, but not in her ear. He yawned and said weakly, "I thought you were in a hurry to die too."
Zhou Yue turned to look at him. The man was sitting on the sofa with his legs crossed. He was wearing loose linen casual clothes and white pants, with a swaddling cloth on his legs. He lifted the cover cloth to take a look inside and burst out laughing.
He chuckled and looked up at the man standing behind him, "Are your sister-in-law and I so ugly?"
But the man didn't dare to laugh at all. After he had laughed enough, he adjusted his glasses and stood up, then staggered over with the baby in his arms.
"Oh..." He patted the child in his arms lovingly, his willow-shaped eyes naturally smiling, and he looked at everyone with tenderness. "Guess who he looks like? You or me?"
"Hold it away."
He was not annoyed at all. He looked at her face, then lifted the swaddling clothes and tilted his head to admire the child's face, "Well, looks like you." His mouth was wide open and his face was pale. When he was excited, the corners of his eyes turned red, as red as the cinnabar mole between his eyebrows.
"But you can't be like your mother. She's not humorous at all." He whispered to the little guy, walked to the window, and smiled at the sunlight. Apart from him, there was no sound of anyone breathing in the room.
The window was half-open, the white curtains fluttering in the wind. He stood by the window and looked out, "Look, Shenzhen is so beautiful."
The swaddling clothes moved as if sensing something, and made a soft humming sound like a kitten.
The man seemed to have just realized that the thing in his arms was alive. The smile on his face froze for a moment, and his dark eyes stared down. He waited until the little thing's twisting movements calmed down before smiling lovingly again, coaxing:
"Oh, really? Your mom is so annoying! You finally came here, and you gave her the face to call her mom, but she doesn't even look at you. Let's go, let's ignore her!"
After saying this, he glanced at Zhou Yue again, then started walking. The man standing in the corner followed him, stopped at the door, turned around, bowed respectfully to Zhou Yue, stood up and said:
"Mr. Jiang didn't ask you to die, so please don't mention it again. Mr. Jiang is actually in a good mood today. Considering that your mother is still alive, Madam, please don't make things worse." After saying that, he left.
This man is new and Zhou Yue doesn’t know him. Now the people around Jiang Huai are replaced every once in a while and she doesn’t recognize any of them.
She wanted to say that she actually didn't want her mother to "breathe" anymore.
My mother has been lying in bed for so many years and has completely become a "bad person" in the true sense of the word, but she loves beauty too much. If she wakes up one day and sees herself like a barnacle, she will probably not want to live anymore. The remaining 20% is the probability of her waking up.
But she was too lazy to talk. Her life was now in disarray, and she kept thinking about her childhood, especially when she was five or six years old and Kang Xingxing first came to her house.
Zhou Yue first met Kang Xingxing when she was five years old. Kang Xingxing was one year older than her, at six years old.
Zhou Yue always thought that Kang Xingxing was his nickname, because it was so appropriate. "Orangutan", he was as black as an orangutan, and when he walked towards you at night, he was like a piece of clothing floating towards you, and he smiled at you silently with his big white teeth bared, which was so scary.
It was a long time before she found out that Kang Xingxing was her real name, and it was not Kang Xingxing, but Kang Xingxing, the "Xing" in "Xingchen". At that time, Kang Xingxing had already lived in her house for almost a year.
Of course, Kang Xingxing has no relationship with the Zhou family. He was brought back by Zhou Yue's father. When Zhou Yue's father was young, he ran his own business. He had some money and a bit of a temper. He never asked his family for permission before doing anything. Sometimes when they called him after dinner was ready, he was already on a train to another place.
But going to another place and bringing back a child are two different things after all. Zhou's father is rich and handsome, and he had a lot of gossip in his early years. When he opened the door, he was dragging a suitcase in his left hand and holding a little black kid in his right hand. It's no wonder that people had a lot of imagination.
So, on the night of August 28, 1995, the biggest battle in history broke out in this already disharmonious family of three.
That day was Zhou Yue’s fifth birthday.
"Zhou Tiancheng! Explain clearly! Where did this child come from? Ah? Which wild woman gave birth to you?"
Zhou's mother was called Dai Yan. When she was young, she was also a famous firecracker in the surrounding area. In their era, "follow" was the norm. Dai Yan "followed" Zhou Tiancheng at the age of sixteen and got married at the age of twenty-three. In seven years, she fought with countless beautiful women and finally got the right result. She relied not only on her good looks, but also on her ruthless and violent methods, as well as the child in her belly.
So in her opinion, this black egg was probably a means for some woman to get to the top. There were many pretty girls with dark complexion in Guangzhou, all with deep eyes and sharp cheeks. Zhang Ailing once used "sweet and sour spare ribs" to describe them.
Dai Yan was not pregnant and gave birth to a girl, but "Sweet and Sour Pork Ribs" gave birth to a son. Can she still hold on to her position as the queen?
"Shut up and eat." But Zhou Tiancheng refused to respond to his wife's words and was silenter than usual. He just kept drinking with a gloomy face. Xiao Heidan sat next to him, holding the bowl and drank three bowls of rice in a row, plus a whole plate of shredded potatoes.
The little birthday girl Zhou Yue had the worst birthday of her life (although she has only lived for five years so far). Her little golden crown was tilted on her head, and the Holiland cake she had been longing for was used as a weapon by her mother and smashed against the wall and the ground. The black egg also emitted a foul odor that filled the entire living room. It was hard to imagine that it came from a human body.
But what made Zhou Yue most sad was her mother.
"I've followed you for twelve years! Twelve years!" Dai Yan's voice was the only one in the living room. She howled at the top of her lungs, her face covered with tears and snot.
"What did you tell me before my birthday? Huh? What did you say? You said you'd stop messing around with those women out there and live a good life with me. Have you done that? Say it yourself! Have you ever been quiet in these past few years? For the sake of this family, I turned a blind eye and swallowed my anger! But what about you?"
She pointed at the little black egg sitting next to her husband, who was drinking the oily soup of green pepper and shredded potato from a plate.
"Bring me a wild..."
There was a loud bang, no one could hear what was happening, but they saw that the table was upside down, the glass top shattered, the plates, bowls, and chopsticks were all thrown out, the oil splattered all over the wall, and the food was stuck to it, and it was dripping down.
"Just try it if you dare!" Zhou Tiancheng pointed at Dai Yan who had been knocked to the ground and cursed. The noise was so loud that no one heard the crisp sound of the slap. When everyone reacted, Dai Yan was already lying on the ground, covering her bleeding mouth. She was so frightened that she forgot to even cry.
"If you dare, let me hear these two words again," Zhou Tiancheng panted heavily.
Fortunately, although Dai Yan had a bad temper and poor character, she was a flexible person. She turned around and got up from the ground, silently cleaned up the mess, took the broom and dustpan from the balcony, bent down to sweep the broken glass and vegetables on the ground, and her big wavy hair just covered her swollen face and mouth.
She didn't look at her daughter, but just raised her chin towards the bathroom and said incoherently, "Take him to take a bath."
"He" of course refers to Xiao Heidan. The table and food were gone, so he sat blankly on the chair, hugging his legs and looking at the ground. His eyelashes, which were darker than his face, covered his eyes like a fan.
Therefore, young Zhou Yue never got an answer to the question of whether Kang Xingxing was her half-brother.
But she didn't think too much about it. She was still young and didn't understand the pain of a woman loving a man. What she cared about was that this little black egg caused her mother to lie at home for several days. The slap caused inflammation, and her mother's face was swollen like a pig's head, and her forehead was so hot that you could fry an egg in it.
She wanted revenge, and the first time was when she was bathing Kang Xingxing.
"How old are you?" she asked sternly. Instead of answering, he just sat in the water with his legs folded.
This is good, Xiao Zhouyue thought viciously, and rubbed his hair a little more roughly. Her sharp nails, which had just taken shape, dug into his scalp with all her strength, but he seemed not to feel the pain, and let her pull his matted hair and pull his whole head back.
"Your hair is so dirty, I'll cut it off for you!" she threatened.
“…”
"Are you mute?"
“…”
"Why do you still stink?"
Five-year-old Zhou Yue can only barely bathe herself. Dai Yan doesn't pay much attention to her. She just follows Dai Yan's instructions and applies shampoo and shower gel on her body and she smells good. But this black egg wasted so much, why is it still emitting a foul smell?
"Get up!" She rolled up her sleeves, imitated Dai Yan's commanding tone, and ordered Kang Xingxing in a baby voice.
He still hugged his legs, his eyes lowered, and looked as calm as a gorilla in a hot spring.
I can't even understand this!
But just when Zhou Yue was about to attack again, he moved, stood up by holding the edge of the bathtub, bent over, and covered his key parts with one hand.
"Oh my god..." Zhou Yue looked at him with disgust. He was very thin, and if the scratches and bruises on his body were put together, they would probably be wider than those on other people's bodies.
But these things don't stink...
"Turn around!" she ordered.
Little Heidan was still very calm, with his thick black eyebrows stretched out flat, but he just didn't look at her, as if she was giving instructions through the radio. He covered his lower body, hesitated for a moment, and then turned away.
A second later, Zhou Yue let out the loudest scream in her life, like an air raid sirens piercing the sky, lighting up the sensor lights in the building opposite one after another.
The explosion quickly alarmed Zhou Tiancheng and Dai Yan, "What are you shouting about?" Zhou Tiancheng, with a cigarette in his mouth, slammed the door open. The wooden door slammed against the tile wall and bounced back. Dai Yan's face was swollen and shiny, and her two eyes, one big and one small, were filled with fear.
There was a big boil on his back, about the size of a winter jujube, with a hole in it, like an eye on his back. A moment after he stood up, a bunch of pus and blood came out, yellow and green mixed with red, flowing down, which was particularly terrifying on his small body. August was the hottest time of the year, and this boil was probably caused by not taking a bath or changing clothes. He was oozing pus when he was wolfing down the rice, and now the pus had run out and started to bleed.
"Tsk, why don't you say anything?" Zhou Tiancheng flicked the cigarette butt out of the window in annoyance, picked up the clothes he had taken off on the small stool, and couldn't see anything from the outside, but when he turned the inside out, he saw a large pool of pus.
It was obvious that Little Black Egg didn't want to talk to him and didn't respond. Did they not speak at all during that day and night on the train? It was unknown. Zhou Tiancheng's attitude towards Kang Xingxing had always been subtle. He didn't have the kindness of a father, nor was he strict. He just showered him with goodies like an offering.
It was the same today. Little Heidan didn't say anything, and he didn't yell or curse at anyone. He just said to Dai Yan, "Clean him up, apply some gentian violet, and have him take half a Forsythia detoxifying tablet." His tone was stiff and cold, and he left after he finished speaking.
Little Zhou Yue was very happy to get rid of this dirty thing. She didn't eat the cake and ran to the kitchen to break off half a steamed bun. When she came out, she ran into Zhou Tiancheng smoking on the balcony. There was no wind at night, and his skin was shiny with heat. He wore a gold watch on his wrist which was tucked into his trouser pocket. He was wearing the most fashionable jeans of that era and a blue and white striped navy shirt. The white smoke lingered for a long time in the still night, lingering around him, making him look even paler than usual. Zhou Yue could still recall that scene for many years afterwards.
"Hungry?"
"Um."
"Yeah." He flicked the cigarette ash outside the window and didn't let her go play by herself as usual. Zhou Yue just stood there and didn't leave.
"I'm sorry, Yueyue. It's my birthday today and I didn't even get to eat the cake." He turned to look at her, and he smiled beautifully.
Zhou Yue wanted to say "It's okay", as this was a rare moment of closeness between her and her father, but she couldn't say it. She could only lower her head and flatten the steamed bun with her little hands.
"When you find a boyfriend in the future, don't look for someone like Dad." He smiled and took the last puff of his cigarette, flicking the butt away. Zhou Yue didn't know why her father said this to her. Usually, if she was caught watching "The Legend of the White-Haired Witch" by Zhou Tiancheng, she would be scolded, including Dai Yan. "How old is she? You let her watch this? Trash!"
Zhou Tiancheng said that people who fall in love, regardless of gender, are all losers. Zhou Yue knew from watching TV that a boyfriend is part of love and romance, so she naturally didn't want to be a loser. So why would she look for a boyfriend?
"Go ahead," Zhou Tiancheng didn't continue the topic. "Be nice to Brother Xingxing and don't bully him."
"good."
It’s strange that it’s good!
That night was Kang Xingxing's first day living in the Zhou family. Zhou Tiancheng asked Kang Xingxing and Zhou Yue to sleep in the same bed, "Yueyue is a girl." Dai Yan protested softly, and wanted to frown, but her swollen face became even more distorted.
"What does it matter if they're children? Don't they sleep together in kindergarten?" Zhou Tiancheng said this and went to sleep in the master bedroom. Before leaving, he pinched Dai Yan's waist and said, "Hurry up."
At night, Zhou Tiancheng bullied Dai Yan as usual, but Zhou Yue felt that the way her father bullied her mother at night was different from the way he bullied her during the day. To sum up, her mother's crying was different from that during the day. It was very thin and soft, like a cat's, intermittent, and came through the wall.
So Zhou Yue bullied Kang Xingxing cruelly.
"You stink! Go away!" She kicked Kang Xingxing hard through the quilt. The kick landed firmly on his wound. He had just applied gentian violet, and his skin would probably be torn apart again. But it should be said that he was a really ruthless man. Zhou Yue admired him. He didn't say a word. In the darkness, only his small breathing became rapid, as if he was gasping for cold air.
"Don't you feel any pain?" she said proudly.
“…”
Zhou Yue punched the cotton, her teeth itching with hatred. She waved her hand and hit him on the shoulder again. He had already hidden at the edge of the bed. This slap was not as strong as the kick just now. Only the fingertips brushed against him, scratching his flesh fiercely the moment they brushed against him. He was still silent.
He kicked and hit her, and Zhou Yue herself was sweating in the scorching heat. She faced him breathlessly and silently. The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. She lowered her voice and shouted angrily, "Turn around!"
He turned around. Zhou Yue wanted to hit him again, but hitting him too much was like hitting a cotton ball, which was boring. She thought, what if he was mute? She was not a bad child at heart, and she knew not to bully the disabled. So she asked in a bad mood, "What's your name?"
"Kang Xingxing." His voice was a little hoarse, and he spoke each word clearly. His voice was softer than his appearance.
"Oh, he can talk." Zhou Yue saw that he was well-behaved. She had already vented a lot of anger by beating him up. Now her hands were aching, and she thought that he must be in more pain than her. She felt a little sorry for him. Then she remembered her father's instructions. What if he complained? Who cares? Let him be obedient first! Wouldn't there be plenty of opportunities to deal with him later?
"Kang Xingxing... a chimpanzee?"
“…”
"Call me sister from now on, okay?"
"younger sister."
This time he answered the phone very quickly, and his reaction was so quick that Zhou Yue was stunned for a long time. She knew that she should call him brother, but whether they were siblings or brother and sister was a matter of status. He was not ambiguous about this aspect, right?
"You have to call me sister!"
He stopped talking. He had not looked at anyone before, but now he put his hands under his face and looked at Zhou Yue, his round eyes shining brightly in the dark night.
In this way, on the first day Kang Xingxing came to Zhou's house, he only explained two things: his name was Kang Xingxing, and Zhou Yue was his sister.
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