Chapter 27
He just disappeared like that. Zhou Yue never called him "Jiang", she just called him brother.
The strange thing was that when she thought about it later, he seemed to have never called her anything. Every time she turned around and met his smiling eyes first, he would say: "Sorry, I want..." or "Sorry, can I..." She had never seen such a polite person.
She no longer thought about his promise. He had saved her life that night on a whim, which was actually a repayment of his kindness. Moreover, this repayment also had a prerequisite, which was that it was not dangerous for him at the time to save a dispensable little thing, so he repaid the favor.
As for what kind of fierce competition Shenzhen and Hong Kong experienced during this period, a small figure like Zhou Yue had no chance to know.
She was just a little curious about how he communicated with his people.
But there was no answer. He suddenly turned into a puff of smoke and disappeared. Before leaving, he folded the quilt, peeled the apple, and took away the white shirt and trousers. Those were the only things belonging to Xingxing that she left with her.
She still sang her songs, with a beautiful voice. People often described her as "sweet and nasal, like a little girl."
She had a good memory and could speak and understand Cantonese after a while. She became familiar to the regular customers. People are always nicer to acquaintances. They called her "Little Moon!" in their broken Mandarin, and they gave her more tips. Rules aside, occasionally making a dirty joke and seeing her blush was also fun.
She no longer had to pay tuition, and there was still some money left after paying her medical bills every month. However, she still hid every penny like a rat digging a hole, hiding it in her and Kang Xingxing's accounts.
But every deposit was hers, every expenditure was still hers, and the pink Nokia phone made her sweat from holding it in her hands, but the number she dialed was still another number.
"Hello, Yueyue?" Lin Peng also called her Yueyue. She felt that Lin Peng was not very smart. Every time he answered the phone, he would smile foolishly, humming a few times, and the first thing he said was "Xingxing," "Xingxing is recovering well in the hospital," or "Xingxing can walk now." But in the end, the topic would always come down to "Yueyue, when are you coming back?"
"Brother Peng..." she held the phone, "My brother's subsequent medical expenses and the cost of buying nutritional supplements..." But every time she didn't have time to finish her question, the person on the other end of the phone laughed heartily, "Why do you worry about this! If it weren't for Xingxing, my stall would have closed down long ago. And there are so many brothers on the construction site. When the boss ran away with the money, it was Xingxing who led everyone to recover it... Why are you fussing with us about such a small amount of money?"
At this point he would hesitate and ask tentatively: "Yue, you haven't paid back the money you borrowed from your landlady yet, right? I...we'll pay it back together with you! The landlady is an outsider, we..."
He laughed again, "We are one family."
"No, Brother Peng, thank you." Zhou Yue held up her cell phone. She wanted to ask him many questions about the stars, but when she thought of the money and the swaying picture of a hundred birds paying homage to the phoenix, she couldn't ask anything.
In the end, she only asked Lin Peng to take good care of the stars, but he always blamed her for saying such a thing. Before hanging up, he asked her again when she would come back to see the stars, and she still said, "My classes are too tight. I can only come back during the holidays."
After that, she and Xingxing would occasionally add a small amount of money to their accounts. She would stand in front of the ATM, shaking with excitement, but a text message that followed was like a bucket of cold water poured over her head: "This is from everyone. Return it to the landlady."
She looked at the text message, her hands and feet felt cold, and she felt that the temperature in Shenzhen had suddenly dropped.
She later returned the money to Lin Peng intact, just after Kang Xingxing disappeared.
When the woman appeared at Zhou Yue's door that day, she had just returned home from get off work. The sounds of a man and a woman making love upstairs were getting more and more intense, but the woman acted as if she didn't hear anything at all. With a faint, gentle smile on her face, she walked slowly and gracefully in front of the mottled door, carrying her handbag. She was wearing a royal blue suit, and her pearl earrings lit up the darkness before dawn.
"Hello, Miss Zhou." She tried hard to speak Mandarin, but just these few words sounded quite laborious.
"Hello, may I ask who you are?"
"My boss asked me to come!" She smiled brightly, like a pearl emitting a soft yet luxurious luster in the night. She didn't say her name, nor did she say her boss's name. Zhou Yue wanted to invite her in to sit down, but she smiled even more happily. She said "Thank you" and deftly took out a card from her purse and handed it to Zhou Yue, whispering as if caring for a seriously ill patient: "The password is written on the back!"
The password was written openly on the back of the bank card, and the woman also told Zhou Yue the number on the card very frankly, which had one more zero than the number Zhou Yue told him.
"No, I can't take it! At that time, I and..." She paused, and followed her to call him boss, "The boss and I agreed that the amount is what it is."
The woman tilted her head and smiled, nodded, and waited patiently for her to finish. Then she said, "Miss Zhou, the boss said this is the price of his life."
Zhou Yue was choked by this sentence. Of course, his life was worth more than this. This was just a figure that was too huge for Zhou Yue, but not so huge that he would rather die than accept it. The woman continued without hesitation, "The boss also said, I wish your mother good health."
After saying this, her smile faded in the early morning mist. She quietly looked at Zhou Yue's stunned face and smiled, like ice swaying in icy water. Her voice was soft and gentle: "The boss is very good, but he doesn't like people who do things poorly. Could you please understand, Miss Zhou?"
Then, for the first time, she showed her helplessness, but this helplessness only made her tighten her grip on the purse, lower her head and smile helplessly: "I have to support my family too!"
She seemed to know the impact and penetrating power of the word "supporting a family" on Zhou Yue.
Whether it was Aunt Liu, Aunt Lou, Lin Peng, or even Jiang Huai, later when they talked about how he limped as a child to work as a handyman in a pharmacy in Hong Kong to support his seriously ill mother, they said that he also had a younger sister who died a few days after she was born. He was only five or six years old at the time and didn't understand. He even used a spoon to stuff rice soup into his sister's mouth. He hugged the crazy Zhou Yue and said sadly: "Yueyue, I am also a brother." When he said this, her eyes moved.
But in the end no one was willing to understand her.
"That's fine, that's fine." She sat on the edge of the bed, her legs sore from standing all night. She soaked her feet while looking over her bank card, saying to herself, "If I have money, I'll be comfortable."
She held the bank card in one hand and the mobile phone in the other. The number in the mist was right there. She had not deleted any of their text messages. Those sweet and affectionate messages that made people blush and their hearts beat fast, the red hearts, the emoticons she spelled out with symbols... She was the one who flirted with him every time, and he would call her when he couldn't resist. But he was still shy on the phone, mostly worrying about whether she was too hot, Guangzhou was too humid, and whether she was afraid of cockroaches. He told her not to step on cockroaches because they would burst with juice, which was actually insect seeds. She was so disgusted that she yelled and scolded him. But now he was laughing even happier than her when she said those mind-boggling love words.
She smiled foolishly for a long time after reading the message, but the painting of a hundred birds paying homage to the phoenix popped into her mind again, and she couldn't laugh anymore. Finally, she sent him a message, "Xingxing, are you okay?" She deleted it, looked at the thin morning light outside the window, and changed it to "Xingxing, can I call you during the day?"
From early morning till morning she tossed and turned in bed, seeming to be asleep, yet not asleep, and she kept dreaming. She dreamed that he walked to the bedside and sat down, looking at her without saying anything. She was so anxious that she woke up from the dream, jumped up, and sweated profusely, but there was no one by the bed. Her cell phone was under the pillow, vibrating and ringing.
She steadied her heartbeat and answered the phone. It was Lin Peng again, still calling her Yueyue, and still speaking stars.
"Yueyue, Xingxing... is missing. We went to see him after work, but his bed was empty. The doctors and nurses said they hadn't seen him. He didn't answer the phone. We went to your house again, but the old man at the gate of your family compound wouldn't let us in... Yueyue, why don't you come back and see if Xingxing is home?"
Zhou Yue ran home in a daze. This was her second time taking a plane. It was still evening when she got home. Under the setting sun, she looked at the mat at the door of her house. Kang Xingxing washed it once a week. The red mat would turn golden under the golden setting sun and blend in with the golden "Welcome Home" on it. But now the mat was covered with dust and was so dirty that it was black. She couldn't even see the "Welcome Home" clearly.
That day, under the big banyan tree in front of the hospital, I saw a group of old men surrounding a little girl, some squatting and some sitting, just watching her crying.
The person disappeared inexplicably, and there was no other way except to call the police. But the police were also puzzled. A 20-year-old boy walked out of the hospital with normal mental and intellectual ability. What other possibility was there except that he wanted to leave on his own!
But the case had been filed, so they told her to go back and wait. The grown men didn't know what to do. Lin Peng held his hands in the air, not daring to let them fall. He stamped his feet anxiously. This day was really tormenting for him. There were blisters all over his mouth. He was not good at speaking, and now he couldn't explain anything. "Yueyue, don't cry first. It's all my fault. I'm sorry. Let's look for it together, together."
Zhou Yue hugged her legs and cried, her tears wouldn't stop flowing and couldn't be wiped away. No matter what was said to her, she didn't respond. She couldn't tell anyone what was in her heart.
After finally coaxing the people back home, it was already dark and they were all hungry. They had worked all day and helped look for people at night. They were tired and resentful. Although they were friends, they still felt uncomfortable and started complaining while squatting by the tree pit.
"He didn't come back to look after his brother, so he asked us to look after him. Now that he can't find him, he starts crying. Tsk, a little kindness leads to a great grudge. It's really hard to be a good person!"
"That's enough," said the slightly older man squatting in the tree pit, fanning himself with his straw hat. "No one said anything to us. It's normal for a little girl to cry when she's lost her mind. Imagine how anxious she must be. Her father doesn't love her, and she's been raised by her brother all alone. She's out there trying to earn some extra money to support him."
I don't know which word in this sentence touched someone's nerve, but suddenly someone said: "Hey, are they brother and sister?"
"Look at what you're saying!" Straw Hat Brother frowned upon hearing this. "Then how can they not be brother and sister? Xingxing took his grandmother's last name, Kang. What are you thinking?"
"Oh, no... Listen to me, wasn't it my turn to keep watch that day?" the man lost in memory. "I saw Zhou Yue come back, and when Kang Ge saw her, his eyes were wrong. How can I put it? I would never look at my sister like that. My eyes were wide open! Then the brother and sister talked and I left. After she left, Kang Ge... Well, I just squatted in the corner. I couldn't stand hearing Kang Ge like that!"
The man put his hands in his folds as he spoke, squatting in the tree pit and shaking his head. Everyone was silent. In fact, it would have been fine if they had remained silent, but humans are easily shaken, especially when faced with secrets. Things that were originally intended to be hidden in their hearts now stir, and they can't hold it back.
"She left for a while before I dared to go in. I saw Kang Ge holding a ring, the same one on Zhou Yue's hand. It was black. Hey, what do you think? Whose brother and sister exchange rings?"
There was complete silence, no one knew what to say. Some were shocked, while others pondered carefully. After pondering for a long time, they actually figured out some clues. The person who had just complained about being hungry kicked Lin Peng and said, "Hey, Pengzi, do you remember when we were in junior high school, didn't we come out of the Xinhua Bookstore one time and see Xingxing, his sister, and his mother, the three of them. His mother walked in front, and the two siblings walked behind, and they walked together holding hands!"
"Ah? This..." The youngest boy mumbled and glared, "This is not a mess..." Before he could finish a word, Straw Hat Brother slapped him back, "Shut up! Are you showing off? You're the only one who talks too much!"
Lin Peng staggered after being kicked, but didn't react at all. He just stared blankly in the direction Zhou Yue had left. Everyone had almost forgotten about him, but now all eyes were on him. He was stiff all over, as dull and rigid as his personality. After a long while, he spoke: "If I hear your fucking nonsense again, don't blame me for being rude."
Everyone looked at each other in bewilderment. No one had ever seen Lin Peng, the goody-goody, act like this. Everyone was afraid of an honest man going crazy. Besides, Lin Peng was stupid and had a lot of money, so everyone liked to borrow some money from him whenever they had a problem. They had to be more restrained, so they didn't say anything. Those who had families went home for dinner, while those who were not married went to the night market in groups of three or four to drink and eat skewers.
Lin Peng stood there stupidly. It was pitch dark and there was no one around. He was the only one standing under the tree. No one who came and went noticed him. No one had noticed him since he was a child. Everyone played with him and treated him like a brother because his family had a small stall. As long as you called him "brother", or sometimes not even "brother", but just gave him a friendly pat or called him "Pengzi", he would be able to open up to people. Even if his own pocket money was not enough, he would still force himself to treat people. He loved Zhou Yue, loved her at first sight. She had long hair at that time, and she didn't need to perm or dye it like those girls to make it curly. It was chestnut in the sun, like seaweed on a mermaid, dancing and jumping in the wind when she ran, making him feel itchy.
But no one knew about his love, not Zhou Yue, not even someone as perceptive as Kang Xingxing.
He looked in the mirror over and over again. To be honest, he was not bad looking, with round black eyes, fair skin, and tall stature. The only problem was his temper. In northern dialect, he was cowardly, not presentable, and not presentable. He was a real landlord's stupid son. When he spoke in a hurry, his words became slurred, and when he smiled, he turned his eyes away and didn't look at you.
He knew in his heart that Zhou Yue looked down on him, but people always like to think of the worst case scenario. He thought that he and Kang Xingxing were so close and had such a close relationship. If he had a share of Dapeng BBQ, Kang Xingxing would have a share as well... and Zhou Yue would have a share as well.
There were three of them, two boys and one girl. After school, she'd come over to help thread the meat skewers. On holidays, she'd help with the cashier. After closing up shop, she'd help him stack the plastic stools and carry them back. Whenever he thought of these scenes, he'd laugh even more foolishly. What good was it for those men, no matter how handsome or rich they were? As the saying goes, those who are close to the water get the moon first. He still had hope, a great deal of hope.
But even this imagined hope is gone now.
All the strange things were explained. When the three of them were together, her eyes were always on Xingxing. Her fox eyes were so charming that they could not be dissolved. She stuck to Xingxing and deliberately called out loudly, "Brother! Brother?" As soon as she called Kang Xingxing, he buried his face even lower, buried it in the bowl. No matter how much she called him, he would not respond. Lin Peng was still thinking about it, why didn't he respond?
The same goes for Xingxing. Since his teenage years, he has been an icy handsome guy loved by young girls and wives. But his long and sharp eyes melted when they saw her, turning into boiling hot molten iron, boiling under the dim kerosene lamp of the barbecue stall.
This made Lin Peng look even more ridiculous. As a normal man, a male animal, he couldn't understand the look in his fellow man's eyes. Those eyes were so hot and focused that they never left Zhou Yue's face.
But he didn't think about that. He thought that the two siblings were similar to orphans, relying on each other, and it was normal that their relationship was better than that of ordinary siblings. But now everything made sense, and he saw clearly what he was. He was just a clown, a pathetic male with no competitiveness, dreaming one-sidedly, lying in bed and happily imagining her in a wedding dress, grinning from ear to ear.
Lin Peng just stood there silently, and then turned and left silently.
Zhou Yue didn't know all this. She didn't know that the secret she and Kang Xingxing had kept for more than ten years was about to no longer a secret. She floated back home like a shadow and stood on the "Welcome Home" mat. The sensor lights in the corridor flickered on and off. The aroma of greasy and spicy dishes filled the darkness, and the sound of the spatula clattering was too far away, not inside the cold security door in front of her.
She had heard him cooking before, when she was carrying her schoolbag and taking out her key to open the door. The kitchen was very close, and the sound of cooking was right next to her ears. He was never so impatient when cooking. He would stir-fry for a few times, then stop, probably pouring soy sauce, and then stir-fry again. When he was done, he turned off the heat, leaving the range hood on. He would still slowly shovel out the vegetables, scraping the bottom of the pot clean with one stroke, then shovel a spoonful of soup on top...
She took out her key, opened the door, and walked into the darkness. Ever since she was little, whenever she made a mistake, she would curl up on the sofa, not daring to move. After a long while, she finally called out, "Gorilla?"
She pricked up her ears and listened to the sudden rustling sound of trouser legs rubbing against each other in the darkness. He appeared silently and only spoke hoarsely when he was standing in front of her: "Yueyue." His little fleshy hand scratched the mosquito bite on his arm and he smiled innocently, "I'm here."
But there was only silence, no rustling sound.
Zhou Yue sat there, her legs crossed, her heart slowly growing colder. She smiled in the darkness and said, "It's still comfortable here. Shenzhen is so hot I've even got prickly heat."
Still silent, she felt an itch on her face, scratched it, and her hand became wet. She smiled and said, "Xingxing, do you remember Brother Jiang? I met him and saved his life. He gave me a lot of money. With the money, we will have more freedom and can work together to find a solution in the future... I didn't tell you that I found my mother. I want to save my mother. I still love her, but I love you too. I really love you so much... I don't want you to suffer with me anymore, but it's different now. We have money..."
She kept repeating, "We're rich now." It went on and on like a tape recorder, but she kept repeating it countless times until the machine was jammed. The darkness remained silent. She hugged her knees, already in tears, her mouth open but no sound came out. After a long time, it finally played:
"I sold myself."
There was no sound, even the cicadas outside the window had stopped chirping.
"But I can't help it. Brother Peng said you were injured, and the hospital wouldn't treat you if you didn't have money..." She wiped away her tears and smiled, "Did you hear what someone said? You also think I'm dirty."
But she looked down at her feet painted with red nail polish and shook her head, "No, you won't dislike me."
"Then you're mad at me."
"Don't be angry, I admit my mistake. As long as you can come back, you can do whatever you want."
"When will you be back?"
All questions remain unanswered.
After that, she called him again and again, but the other end of the phone kept ringing "beep-beep-beep..." and no one answered.
She searched every corner of the house. He must have returned home after leaving the hospital and took away some of his usual clothes, as well as his passbook, their photos, and Tiantian.
These were all the things that belonged to him in this house, but she thought funny enough that the passbooks and photos should be the common property of the couple, and Tiantian was also their baby, so after all, after fourteen years, the only things that belonged to him in this house were a few tattered clothes.
Oh, there is also a box of toys, which were bought for him when Zhou Tiancheng was still alive. Those years were the only years in this family when he was treated like an ordinary child and pampered. But Zhou Tiancheng was never at home, and this pampering was as light as water.
She took Black Cat Sheriff out of the box. Kang Xingxing took great care of his toys. After playing with the other toys, he would carefully put them back into the box and play with them again. He was also very careful when playing with them next time. So after so many years, and the dry weather in the north, except for the yellowing and dust on the edges and corners of the boxes, the other toys were as good as new. But Black Cat Sheriff was the one he had played with the most. With so much playing, it was inevitable that the police badge on his police hat had been worn off. One of the four wheels of the police car was missing. Zhou Tiancheng said, wouldn't it be better to buy him another one? He refused and didn't say anything, just shook his head. Zhou Tiancheng had no choice but to take the tire off another toy car and install it on the police car, but the size was not right. Black Cat Sheriff's police car drove like it was lame and was always shaking.
The following days were Zhou Yue's last extended stay in her hometown. The people of this city where she was born and raised were both tough and simple, and they valued friendship and morality. She didn't understand why she had come to this point, being despised and avoided by everyone. Starting from the police station, it was the first, and probably the last, time in her life when she had the opportunity to cry and throw a tantrum in public. She would never have the chance to do so again.
"Go find her! Go find her!" She cried and made a fuss, slamming the policeman's desk. The old policeman opposite had been getting irritated the moment she came in. "I'm warning you to be quiet!" He pointed at Zhou Yue's nose, his fingers burnt yellow by the cigarette smoke. "If you make any more noise, I'll sue you for obstructing public service!" His roar was earth-shattering, making the desk shake. Only after he finished yelling did he start to reason with her:
"How many times have I told you! We're looking for you! We're looking for you! Just wait patiently at home! What's wrong with you, little girl? You come here every day, every day. Do you think we should call the police or comfort you? Isn't this just causing trouble for us?"
"What about him? He's sleeping!" Zhou Yue had long seen a young policeman in the corner with his face covered with his police uniform, his legs propped up on the table, his shouts shaking the earth. Now he pointed with his little hand and glared with his fox eyes, his unyielding spirit very much like Dai Yan's style back then.
This finger touched a nerve in the old policeman, who jumped up and started cursing, "Young man, you haven't slept a wink since yesterday morning! Now that you've finally had a break, you're still whimpering! Are you a human being? What if it were your brother? Wouldn't you feel bad for him?"
After hearing this, Zhou Yue fell completely silent. She looked at the young policeman, then looked up at the old policeman in front of her. She lowered her head and wiped away her tears with her arm. Her whole body was shaking like a sieve, and she couldn't stop sobbing in her throat, but she didn't scream anymore.
"Okay, go back!" The old policeman saw that she was crying pitifully and couldn't bear it. In addition, his blood pressure was soaring. He covered his chest and waved his hands, and his tone softened a lot.
"Contact your brother again. He's a grown man, twenty years old, not two. I heard he's very smart. If he doesn't come back, then he doesn't want to come back! There's no one else at home. If you two have any conflicts that require you to disappear, think about it carefully. What else can you do these days? It's either a house or money!"
"Call a few more times. If you don't answer, send a text. Don't you young people love to play around? Send your brother a text! Say a few nice words, and maybe he'll come back!"
After more than a month of clamor, the people at the Audit Office's family compound discovered that the Zhou family specializes in producing Xianglin Sao. A few years ago, it was Dai Yan, and now it's the Zhou family's little girl. Previously, her husband died, and now her brother is missing. Everyone knows that the two children depend on each other for survival, so no one thinks about it that way. They just feel that the little girl is so pitiful. At first, they were really distressed. An old man named Deng even used his connections in the Municipal Public Security Bureau, but the result was still the same word: "Nothing."
"No, I can't find it." The policeman was younger than the old policeman in the police station, in his forties, but he was already sitting in a spacious office. He was wearing a police uniform on the outside and a white shirt inside. He was sitting on a black leather sofa. Behind him was a rubber tree, and its fat green leaves swayed gently as he shook his head.
"This Kang Xingxing..." Zhou Yue was startled when his eagle-like eyes suddenly looked over at her, but he didn't say anything. He just looked at her deeply, and when he looked at Mr. Deng again, he regained the helplessness of an ordinary civil servant: "I'm sorry, Uncle Deng, I really can't find it."
Later, everyone's heartache once again turned into helplessness and retreat. One reason was that they really couldn't help, and the other was that no one wanted to be immersed in suffering, let alone the suffering of others.
A girl who is always in a daze is not popular no matter how pretty she is, especially when she comes towards you with shining eyes and asks, "Auntie xx, have you met my brother?" or "Uncle xx, did you meet my brother in the hospital last time? Did he tell you anything?"
Later, whenever someone saw her in the community, they would frown at her, wave their hands, and walk around her from a distance.
On the last day, she saw Grandpa Deng again in the community. The old man was wearing a pair of sunglasses and a wide-brimmed hat. He stood with his hands behind his back and looked at her for a long time in the sun, then walked towards her.
"Hello, Yueyue." He smiled. Through his sunglasses, he couldn't see her eyes clearly, he could only see herself.
"Well, what Grandpa Deng means is, don't look for her anymore." He lowered his head and looked at her with a smile. There was no sigh, no helplessness, and no pity at all. He was just stating a fact: "Since the person has left, and left so decisively, it means there is nothing here that he misses. He wants to leave, he will leave."
"Girl, don't force anything in your life."
It was more than a month later when Zhou Yue returned to Shenzhen. She locked herself in Kang Xingxing's home and never went out again. She was like a fish swimming in water. Her oxygen was memories, every minute and every second of the past. But a phone call from the hospital drained all the oxygen.
It was a call from the hospital in Shenzhen, saying that Dai Yan was dying.
She seemed to finally feel guilty towards her two children and decided to die, but when Zhou Yue rushed to the hospital in a daze, she had just come out of the ICU and there was someone sitting beside the bed.
Zhou Yue's first impression of him was not good. Shenzhen would get cold in autumn, and it happened to be a rainy day. He was wearing a black leather jacket with the leather bursting, his jeans were sloppy, and his leather shoes were dirty with mud on the toes. What was even worse was the smell of cigarettes. Before he even entered the ward, he could smell the smoky smell of the kang.
"Who are you?" Zhou Yue was very wary and wasn't exactly polite to him, but he didn't seem to care. Or rather, he didn't care about 90% of the people and things in this world. He put one hand on the back of the chair, crossed his legs, and tilted his neck to look back at her. Without introducing himself, he said, "Hey! You're here? Zhou Yue, right?"
"Who are you..." Zhou Yue leaned against the ward door, clutching a plastic bag, her elbows tightly. This man was very tall and scoundrel-like. She was afraid, but his dark skin... Suddenly, she felt like she was struck by lightning, her eyes lighting up. "You are Xingxing Dad!"
When Kang Xingxing first came home, he told her that he had almost forgotten about his father, but he didn't mention whether he was dead or alive. With this preconceived notion, coupled with her dark skin and age of forty, she looked alike. But the man was stunned for a moment, laughed heartily, crossed his arms and said, "I wish I had a child as good as Xingxing! What a pity," he turned around and looked her in the eyes, "I don't have this blessing."
"I'm a friend of his father." He said bluntly, lowering his head to look at Dai Yan on the bed. "I was not in the country when his mother died. I met your father when I came back. He was a lively young man, handsome, and could speak well. His mouth was as sweet as honey. He smiled before talking to people. He said that he had a good wife and a daughter about the same age as Xingxing, and he would take good care of Xingxing. I thought so too. It's better for a six-year-old child to grow up in a normal family than with an old widower like me, running around all over the world and being too busy to give him a hot meal."
He spoke without pausing, and from the word "virtuous wife" on, the smile on his face turned into contempt. When he finished speaking, he turned back to look at Zhou Yue, his crow's feet squeezed together with laughter, but his black eyes were as cold as ice holes. "Now it seems that you are taking good care of me."
Zhou Yue couldn't say a word. She lowered her head and looked at the things in the plastic bag: keys, cell phone, and a thin wallet. These were all her belongings. She had no home anymore, but she couldn't say these things. No matter how she said them, she would feel guilty.
"It's okay!" The man stopped looking at her, leaned back in his chair with a smile, and rubbed the back of his head with his right hand. "It's okay, don't worry! What's a big man getting hurt?" He put away his smile and pondered for a moment, "But it's worth it."
Zhou Yue raised her head and saw that he was also looking at her with a faint smile, and he didn't think there was anything wrong with saying that she was "not worth it".
"You're crying and going to him because you've made up your mind that he won't ignore you and will serve your mother with you for the rest of your life, right? Little girl, I don't want to say anything too harsh, but don't go too far in your dealings. This is your mother, not his. Whether to save her or how to save her is your business."
As he spoke, his eyes lingered on her face, and he grinned frivolously, "Don't be angry if I'm honest, but with your face, there should be plenty of men offering you money, right? Why bother clinging to your brother? You'll be better off without him."
He paused, crossed his arms, and looked out the window of the ward. The rain had stopped, the cicadas were chirping, and Shenzhen was blue sky and white clouds again.
"Your brother is doing better too."
"Sometimes people have to believe in fate," his eyes were gray in the dazzling sunlight, as if covered with dust, "If you know you have a bad fate, don't try to harm others." But it was not known whether he was talking to Zhou Yue or to himself. After he finished speaking, he looked out the window for a while, and when he looked away, he became arrogant and rude again. He stretched, let out a long "Ouch...", then stood up with a bang, pushed the chair back a long way, and rummaged in the inner pocket of his old jacket. He took out five wrinkled banknotes and slammed them on the table. It should be 50,000 yuan.
"This is my coffin money, that's all. I won't tell Xingxing a word about your mother's affairs. I also hope you can be more self-aware and stop being so shameless."
As he walked out, he already had a cigarette between his lips and said with a vague smile, "He's still just like his dad. When he was young, he was just a decent guy and thought he was so noble. But when he saw the stars, he turned into a dog. Humph, so fucking disgusting."
"Oh, what a coincidence," he remembered as he reached the door, turned around and smiled at Zhou Yue, "My wife is also from your place. She escaped during the wave of layoffs in 1996. She finally managed to escape, but unfortunately she married me." He had already left as he spoke, waving his hand with his back to her. "Today is the anniversary of her and my daughter's death. I'm going to burn some incense for them. Goodbye."
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