Chapter 24
"You can't see it, you have to use a camera to take a picture!" The girl stood next to Zhou Yue. It was sunny and windy at the Nansha Port Terminal today, and the visibility was very high, but all Zhou Yue could see was the vast Pearl River, which had no end. She only vaguely felt that there was something on the opposite side, as illusory as a mirage.
"Oh..." Zhou Yue squinted her eyes and tucked her hair that was messed up by the wind behind her ears, but the wind was too strong and it got messed up again in a short while. The sun was scorching and her eyes became sore after looking at it for a while.
"Does anyone have family in Shenzhen?" The girl looked at her curiously, making a face with her hands.
"No..." Zhou Yue retracted her gaze and smiled, "I was just looking around. I heard from them that Guangzhou and Shenzhen are very close and can be seen with the naked eye."
"Oh, no, no!" The girl was a typical Guangzhou native, wearing flip-flops and a wide T-shirt. She was very warm and casual. In the blink of an eye, she plopped down on the ground, tanned, looked up at the plane flying overhead, and pointed upwards, "Aerial photography is required!"
This year, she took Zhou Yue to many places in Guangzhou, wearing her beloved flip-flops and gnawing on a toothpick like the owner, with a bunch of keys clattering in her hands. She is quite smart, but she is very biased in her studies and snores too loudly in class. Apart from that, she is a perfect girl.
There are three roommates, one from Guangzhou, one from Chaoshan, and the other from Shanghai. I rarely see the Chaoshan girl throughout the year. She said she was running between Guangzhou and Shenzhen dealing in mobile phones. When the first iPhone came out in 2007, she smelled the business opportunity in mobile phones. She was the chosen boss and even the counselor couldn't do anything about her.
The Shanghai girl is very beautiful, but she has nothing to do with the refined petite bourgeoisie in the rumors. She is a homebody and only likes to play League of Legends, and likes to play with Zhou Yue. She said that Zhou Yue is her last disciple (as for how many senior brothers and sisters there were before her, Zhou Yue didn't know), but Zhou Yue is indeed very good at playing assassin heroes and often uses Evelynn.
However, Zhou Yue has never been addicted to games. She only plays a few games with her roommates during breaks from studying. She spends most of her time in the library and study room. She also likes to travel around Guangzhou with Guangzhou girl Xian Jiayi and tell stories about Hong Kong gangs.
"Which boss isn't connected to the mafia?" Xian Jiayi bit a toothpick, leaning against the greasy white tile wall of Yuan Ji Rice Noodle Rolls. One foot on a plastic stool, she pushed her portion of rice noodle rolls toward Zhou Yue, doused it with chili sauce, and raised her chin toward the outside of the shop. "People from the mainland are even more ruthless!"
As for what kind of "wolf" method it was, Zhou Yue asked, but she just closed her eyes and shook her head meaningfully. Zhou Yue thought this must be a secret that could not be told. She looked back at the overcast sky in Guangzhou. It was extremely hot and stuffy, and the humming fans in the store could not dispel the depression.
"Boyfriend?" Xian Jiayi watched Zhou Yue take out her Nokia phone from time to time to check text messages and calls. She would gnaw on a toothpick while glancing down at the small screen. After looking at it for a long time, there was only one number. So she smiled mysteriously, "You're so beautiful, and you only have one boyfriend?"
"Oh no," Zhou Yue scratched his face, feeling hot, "My brother."
"The one who came to see you during the New Year?"
"Well, yes."
"Oh..." Xian Jiayi nodded in understanding, then felt strange and asked with a puzzled look, "So he came to see you, and you lived with him?"
There's no way to explain this. Kang Xingxing came to see her on New Year's Eve that year and said he didn't want her to squeeze into the Spring Festival travel rush, so he came to see her. Xian Jiayi thought the boyfriend her family introduced to her was too ugly, so she refused to go back and stayed at school. They met when Kang Xingxing came.
"Wow, what a handsome guy! Just a bit cold..." This was Xian Jiayi's first impression of Kang Xingxing.
Zhou Yue still took Kang Xingxing to the cheapest hotel near the school and stayed there for seven days. During these seven days, Zhou Yue did not return to the dormitory for a single day. She and Kang Xingxing stayed together tightly together. Both of them had been away from home for a long time and had not even left the room. When they went to the bathroom to take a shower, they agreed to be quiet for a while, but in the shower, they applied shower gel to each other and washed their bodies, and it was inevitable that they would accidentally shoot each other while whispering in each other's ears.
"Yueyue, be gentler." His voice trembled as he whispered in her ear, "You be gentler too!" Zhou Yue's tailbone hit the tile wall behind her again and again, causing her to feel numb and her skin to be rubbed off.
But no one can be careless, they both want each other so much, if only they could become one, flesh, bones and blood merged into one, never to be separated how wonderful it would be.
In the end, Kang Xingxing couldn't bear it anymore. Zhou Yue was unhappy and grabbed his hair and scolded him: "Why are you so weak? I only reached orgasm once!" He buried his head in her chest and groaned, saying that she was hotter and stronger than the water jet from the shower head hitting their backs. No man could bear it if she poured over their heads.
Kang Xingxing deposited all the money into Zhou Yue's bank card. Zhou Yue refused to take it back, but he still said that it was an account for both of them and they could use it together.
At night, he hugged Zhou Yueguang's bare shoulders, his sandpaper-like palms roaming between her waist and hips, causing a shudder. "If we have a baby, who will it look like?"
"Looks like you," Zhou Yue was tickled by him, one leg hooked around his, her knee rubbing against his, "I like girls, girls all look like daddy."
"Then I like boys," Kang Xingxing smiled, "sons all look like their mothers."
The two people were wandering in the vision of happiness, but this vision was as fleeting as the fireworks outside the window on New Year's Eve, turning into ashes and falling into the night, and then turning into vast silence and sinking to the bottom of the sea.
"It doesn't matter if we don't have a baby," Zhou Yue said, resting her hand on his chest. "We can just adopt one when the time comes. Aren't you adopted by my dad? But we will give her the best of everything and won't let her suffer. We'll buy her a house in Guangzhou or Shenzhen so she can afford to get married."
"It looks like we'll have a lot of money in the future." Kang Xingxing laughed so hard that her chest heaved. After a while, the corners of her mouth slowly lowered. "Do you think it's too hard to follow me? In fact, you can find someone better than me and live a better life."
He hesitated. "A better life than the average girl."
"What nonsense are you talking about?" Zhou Yue frowned in the dark, and her voice became much higher. Not only was she angry, but she was also aggrieved. He simply didn't understand how much she loved him. How could her life be better without him?
Seeing that she turned her back and ignored him again without saying a word, he hugged her and kissed her from her hair to the soles of her feet. Her kisses made her feel itchy and her anger subsided. She performed for him her newly learned poor Cantonese, which made him roll over on the bed and laugh wildly.
After laughing enough, they both felt sleepy. Half asleep, they heard Kang Xingxing say, "Lin Peng's father went to Shenzhen for business and lost money again. People there can't stand spicy food, so he came back. He ran into me that day and told me..."
He held her face and rubbed it, "He said he met Aunt Dai Yan in Shenzhen."
Zhou Yue opened her eyes and looked at the darkness.
"She said she was alone, acting crazy, her clothes torn, and she was lying in the green belt looking for something. She didn't recognize him when she saw him, so she said she couldn't find Yueyue. Lin Peng's father tried to talk to her for a long time, wanting to take her back, but it was no use. She got mad and started beating people up, saying Lin Peng's father was a liar, saying Yueyue was just born in Guangzhou, and she went all the way to Shenzhen to find her. Then she said Lin Peng's father was a human trafficker and sold her daughter."
"Hmph," Zhou Yue blinked, smiled, and swallowed several times, enduring the pain in her throat. She could only say "Hmm."
Since then, Zhou Yue has always gone to Nansha Port to see the "invisible" Shenzhen. Xian Jiayi even teased her, "Your boyfriend is in Shenzhen? You're going to become a husband-waiting rock! It's easy to get there, too. It's the Guangzhou-Shenzhen high-speed railway! It only takes an hour to get to Shenzhen North Station!"
But Zhou Yue always refused to go, keeping her mouth tightly shut and shaking her head. Once, Xian Jiayi took her to the station, and then she turned around and went back to school.
The first time she went to Shenzhen was when she was called there.
The first call other than Kang Xingxing's that the pink Nokia phone received was from a hospital in Shenzhen. Zhou Yue took the Guangzhou-Shenzhen Expressway for the first time, but she was not in the mood to appreciate the scenery along the way.
Seeing her mother again after such a long time, she finally stopped being sarcastic and mean. She could no longer poke her forehead and scold her with a frown, "Stay away from your brother!"
She was very quiet. She herself didn't realize how beautiful she was when she was quiet. The wrinkles between her eyebrows disappeared, and her forehead was smooth and flat. She looked glowing white under the pale light of the ward. The wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and lips were not hideous at all. She looked like she was sleeping, but even when she was sleeping, she was not so peaceful and quiet.
Time never defeats beauty. She is beautiful even when covered with a white sheet and wearing a blue and white striped hospital gown. It seems that she has never roared or kicked a pregnant woman, never instigated her daughter to kill her husband with her own hands, and never waved a broom to beat a silent and submissive six-year-old boy.
Zhou Yue sat in front of the hospital bed. The person next to her kept fanning her, and her mouth was as non-stop as the fan.
"If you ask me, your mother was ruined by your father!" You don't need to ask the name of the woman who is speaking to know that she is together with Dai Yan. From the dress to the speech and behavior, they are not exactly the same, but they are from the same school. She is cunning and impatient, and she calculates eight hundred crooked ideas in a second, but her brain is just like that. The abacus beads are about to fall on your face, but she thinks you can't see it. She looks like she is heartbroken and cares about you, but in the end she is just deceiving herself.
"Your mom was quite nice before she got together with your dad. She was warm and kind-hearted, and she was carefree and would call everyone brother or sister when she met them. She was really nice! But your dad ruined her! In this life, there is only Zhou Tiancheng and Zhou Tiancheng..." She paused waving her fan, gently tapped Zhou Yue's shoulder with it, and whispered in a weird voice: "Hey, don't you think it's weird? How can there be someone who looks so much like him? Ah? And your mom ran into him! Ouch..."
She pursed her lips and shook her head repeatedly, fanning herself so hard that a shadow was almost left behind. "If you ask me, this is fate!"
"When she asked me for the abortion pills, she told me she'd break up with that bastard after taking them! But there's nothing I can do... Women can't bear to leave their children in the end." She lowered her head and adjusted the red tassel on the handle of her round fan, her eyes instantly red. "Once a woman has a child, she can't run away anymore."
After she finished speaking, her eyes rolled and she stroked Zhou Yue's shoulder. "Auntie, your mother and I have been together for so many years. We came to Shenzhen to do business together. We shared the profits, but who can blame us for not having the ability? I lost money. I did find a new buyer, but your mother always clings to that pretty boy named Lin and refuses to let go. That pretty boy eats and drinks her food and drinks, and even looks for other girls. That's what drove your mother crazy. You say in this situation... there's nothing I can do, right?"
"I didn't touch a single cent of your mother's belongings!" She bent over and approached Zhou Yue, her almond-shaped eyes widening. She waved her fan, and the red tassels flew everywhere. "That Lin guy took them all away! Your mother even told me he was from Shanxi and knew how to do business. What kind of business could he do? Your mother is business!"
"Anyway, I lost all that money..." She smoothed her curly hair. "Hey! Just think of it as a waste of money! After all, we women are born to be floating duckweed. We need to find a reliable man to help and trust!"
Only then did she reveal her true nature. She looked Zhou Yue up and down with a smile on her face. "Yueyue is so beautiful. It won't take her long to find a man she likes and has money." She patted Zhou Yue's knee and said, "Sprinkle some water!" Then she suddenly remembered and said, "Look at my memory! Don't you have a brother?"
"I've met your brother too. He looks honest and reliable! He's not married yet, right? He doesn't have a girlfriend? That's good!"
The woman's hand, painted with bright red nail polish, placed on the back of Zhou Yue's hand and pressed it hard. "I can help you. Take care of your mother."
"Heh." Zhou Yue, who had been silent by the bed, suddenly laughed, leaving the woman baffled. She finally stopped talking and looked at Zhou Yue in surprise. After she finished laughing, Zhou Yue lowered her head. Her voice was hoarse from not speaking for so long. She cleared her throat and said, "Aunt Zhao, I understand. You go ahead and do your thing. You can take my mom there, and that's all."
Later, the woman surnamed Zhao said something else, but Zhou Yue didn't hear a word she said. She only saw the sun moving inch by inch on the windowsill of the ward. Every inch it moved, the sky became darker. The sunlight seemed to be diluted by water, or diluted by ice water. It froze her bones and she couldn't move. She just wanted to sit like this until she died, without having to let him down or herself down. She forgot her love for her mother and that evening that belonged to the handsome boss.
But the more she tried to forget, the clearer the past became. During those days in her hometown, the air pollution was serious. The sun was so dim and the sky was so dark in the evening, but the TV at home was on, the theme song of "Sailor Moon" was playing, and the aroma of cooking in the kitchen filled her nose. Kang Xingxing didn't dare to sit on the sofa, so she moved a small stool and sat next to the sofa. It was so small that she couldn't see him while lying on the sofa, so she forgot he existed.
He laughed out of the blue, and she didn't know what was so funny, which scared her. "What are you laughing at? Idiot!" She scolded him, but he laughed even more happily, and his furry eyelashes curved with laughter.
She was also naughty. She deliberately changed the animal world he wanted to watch, deliberately watching him take a deep breath, his eyes brightened, then lowered his head in disappointment. After a while, she ran to the water dispenser with a smile, tremblingly brought a glass of water, and said hoarsely: "Yueyue, it's hot, you should drink more water."
Shenzhen was shaded by green trees, and a kite floated slowly up into the azure sky. When she was a child, her mother also took her to fly kites, and the kites flew high like this. Because Dai Yan ran so fast, even the wind couldn't catch up with her. As she ran, she turned back and smiled at Zhou Yue: "Yueyue, look! Look! Is the kite flying high?"
Zhou Yue also smiled. It was already dark at this time. Her pale face was reflected in the ward window. It was empty with only two black holes.
"My brother?" She seemed to have just heard the words of the woman surnamed Zhao. "My brother again." She smiled and lowered her head, looking at the star-moon ring on her hand that had oxidized black. "How much will my brother sacrifice for me before it's over?"
She looked up at the person on the bed and brushed away the loose hair from her forehead. "Mom, do you remember? When the gorilla first came to our house, he was not even as tall as the table. He could not even be seen when he sat next to the sofa. He was just a little meat ball. His mother must have loved him so much. She must have taken him flying kites, bought him a freezer full of popsicles, and he was the only one watching TV at home. He also had a lot of toys..."
Zhou Yue took off the ring and gripped it tightly. The sharp edge cut her palm, and the warm liquid dripped silently onto the ground. "Sometimes I wonder, if his mother knew that her baby had been working like a slave in our family for over a decade, couldn't find a wife, and had no children, and that he had grades that could get him into Fudan University or Shanghai Jiao Tong University, but in the end he couldn't even go to college, and that he would have to be sucked dry by a hapless blood-sucking worm like me for the rest of his life, would she be sad?"
"We conspired to kill my father, and we deserve retribution. But you are my mother, and I will do my best. The day I can no longer do anything, I will pull out your oxygen mask and jump into the Pearl River to feed the fish. The retribution for the two Zhou family members must be borne by the Zhou family themselves."
She looked towards the door, where people were passing by in a hurry. "But he is different. He will have a new life. He will marry the best girl in the world and have his own children. He is so smart, he will definitely live a good life."
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