Chapter 34
Zhou Yue looked out the window. Too many fireworks were set off on New Year's Eve. Even though it was so dark, the sky looked gray and not a single star could be seen.
The person who brought the food came in. He was wearing black suit pants and a white shirt. He was younger than Xiao Yuan, no more than sixteen or seventeen years old. At first glance, he looked like a teahouse errand boy. He took the lunch boxes out of the bag one by one, opened the lids one by one, and whispered the names of the dishes: "Bowl of Shark's Fin, Fengsha Chicken, Rice Noodle Rolls..."
After reporting, he bowed respectfully, his young face expressionless, his eyes lowered as he said, "Mr. Jiang, Miss Zhou, please try the dish."
Zhou Yue had been sitting in a chair staring at the sky. She only stirred when the little boy said he was tasting the food. She blinked, turned around, looked up at him, then glanced at Jiang Huai, who was sitting across from her smoking. She rubbed her frozen hands against her knees to warm them up a bit, and then she was able to move again. She picked up her chopsticks, but before she could even reach into the bowl, she saw the other boy also unpack a pair of chopsticks and expertly shove a piece of chicken into his mouth. Then, a piece of rice noodle roll, a spoonful of chicken wings...
Zhou Yue held her chopsticks in the air, staring blankly at him as he stuffed his mouth with food. She took a step back and began to chew. After chewing, she swallowed. She glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall, staring at the blank tiles, and whispered expressionlessly as if reciting a text: "It's 9:38 now. Mr. Jiang and Miss Zhou can eat at 9:58."
Zhou Yue looked at him with her chopsticks suspended in the air. Her frightened eyes gradually became indifferent and finally dim. She then looked down at the table full of dishes and burst out laughing.
Jiang Huai turned to look at her when he heard the voice. She smiled and nodded, "I'm such a country bumpkin. This is what I meant by trying out the food for so long."
Jiang Huai didn't say anything or smile, he just watched her smile.
After she finished laughing and stood up, her hair was stuck to her face. She said softly with a cold face: "Fifty-eight points? It's already cold." After that, she picked up a rice roll with chopsticks and stuffed it into her mouth without hesitation. She put down the chopsticks and took the spoon, scooped a full spoonful of bowl of chicken feet and stuffed it into her mouth.
The little boy raised his head when he heard her laugh. Seeing her like this, he was so scared that his breathing stopped and he looked at Jiang Huai in a panic.
Jiang Huai crossed his legs, a cigarette in his mouth, watching her eat. He smiled as he watched, blowing a large puff of smoke toward the ceiling. "Miss Zhou is such a kind person!" He stubbed out his cigarette on the plate filled with cigarette butts and fished out a wad of US dollars from his trouser pocket. He raised his hand toward the child, his eyes crescent-shaped. "It's New Year, buy your mom and sister some goodies."
"Thank you, Mr. Jiang. Happy New Year, Mr. Jiang and Miss Zhou." The little boy bowed ninety degrees, took the money with both hands, said some auspicious words, and left silently.
Zhou Yue buried her head in her food, eating in a mess. Her hair, sweat, and dried tears all went into her mouth and were swallowed into her stomach. One of her hands was clutching her skirt under the table until it turned white and her nails dug into her flesh.
Later, she thought back to the years she had spent with Jiang Huai. That New Year's Eve was probably the first time she had a clear and strong desire to kill. It jumped into her mind like black and white, but Jiang Huai didn't notice it.
Jiang Huai was indeed abnormal that day. He was absent-minded and didn't notice anything. He was excited for a while after receiving the text message from Xiao Yuan that she had woken up. Then he sat on a chair, smoking a cigarette and looking out the window. He didn't even look at Zhou Yue or say a word. When Zhou Yue got up from the table, he raised his hand to turn off the kitchen light, his expression as usual.
She couldn't stand up straight, so she had to kneel in the dark, picking up the clothes on the ground one by one with the help of the fireworks that flickered, and walked around him to the bathroom with the clothes in her arms. He didn't say a word.
There was no one in this building, or even in this community, except Zhou Yue, and there were no children setting off firecrackers downstairs. Fireworks were distant and short-lived, and it started to rain around nine o'clock. The red and blue fireworks were eventually extinguished, but some people were unwilling to give up and continued to set off fireworks. As soon as they reached the sky, they immediately curled up in a bleak ball and went out before dawn. The ashes fell into the night sky and were swallowed by the darkness before they could even hit the ground.
After the little boy left, Jiang Huai stood up, picked up the plate covered with a thick layer of cigarette ash, and threw it into the trash can. He came back, sat down, unpacked his chopsticks, and silently picked up a piece of wind sand chicken, put it in his mouth to chew, spit out the bone, and said, "Not bad."
Zhou Yue didn't respond, and he didn't care. He supported Zhuo Yan with one hand, the Patek Philippe dial on his wrist emitting a soft blue light. After eating for a while, he put a piece of rice noodle roll in her bowl. She still didn't say anything, so he gave it to her and she ate it. The two of them finished the New Year's Eve dinner together in silence.
Finally, he put down his chopsticks and wiped his mouth with a tissue from the pile on the lunch box. Those were the tissues the restaurant had put out there, a thick stack as if to prevent customers from not wiping their mouths clean. He took a few and placed them next to Zhou Yue's bowl, saying,
"After you finish eating, pack your things and I'll pick you up to move tomorrow."
Zhou Yue finally put down her chopsticks and looked at the greasy bottom of the bowl. "Where are you going?"
"Go where you should go." Jiang Huai leaned back in his chair and looked at the leftovers on the table. They had all eaten a lot that night and were almost done.
He lowered his head and folded the napkin in his hand, then folded it again. After a long while, he spoke: "After you pick it up, go see your mother first." After a pause, a smile spread across the corners of his mouth. When he looked up, his eyes were playful: "Go see Xiao Yuan again. He is so cute and knows how to please you. Let him spend more time with you in the future!"
He picked up the salty lemon seven, rested his elbows on the table, drank it, and smiled ambiguously with his eyelashes drooping. His half-lidded eyes stared at her face without blinking. "But be careful, he's a male dog after all."
He didn't stay any longer after that, nor did he take a shower. When he left, Zhou Yue called out, "Mr. Jiang." He paused in putting on his windbreaker, but didn't look back.
She stood in the living room with her hands behind her back, her wet hair loose and tangled in strands under her sweater collar. The red spots on her neck were rubbed redder and redder with hot water until they turned purple. She said, "Medicine."
Jiang Huai still didn't look back. He buttoned his windbreaker facing the door, lowered his head to change his shoes and said, "I forgot, buy it yourself."
"good."
The next day, Zhou Yue went out to buy medicine. The nearest pharmacy was far away from where she lived. After walking out of the community and for a long time, she slowly came across a morning tea shop and an auto repair shop. However, it was already nine o'clock and there was no one in these two shops.
Walking further, she saw a pharmacy. The pharmacy seemed to be the end of the barrier. Across the street was the downtown area. There was also a morning tea shop. The shop across the street was crowded, and the proprietress had to set up a shed at the door and put a few plastic tables. Further ahead was a small supermarket. Four people were sitting at a card table at the door. The sound of mahjong and obscene laughter and scolding could be heard from a long distance away.
Zhou Yue looked at it from a distance across the road for a while, then turned back.
When Zhou Yue came back, she took a closer look at the place for the first time. There was really no one there. It looked like props in a Monopoly game. In Shenzhen, a city with such good green areas, the windows of a building were covered with dust. It was a deserted place. In addition, due to the continuous rain in the past few months, the walls were soaked and mottled with rain. Moss and vines covered the walls, and small mushrooms grew in the cracks. She got goose bumps at the sight of it.
A little white rabbit appeared out of nowhere and hopped to her feet. She bent down and touched its fur and ears. Finally, she poked its furry butt with her fingertips and said, "Run away."
Zhou Yue had very little luggage. After thinking for a long time, she decided to take the locked cell phone and put it in the innermost pocket of the suitcase. She bought this suitcase because of this small pocket, which could be used to hide things.
When she stood up and walked home, she saw Jianghuai's car, a very conspicuous Rolls-Royce, parked downstairs. In the daytime, it was so tall, so big, so square and majestic, with a bloody mouth and a silver emblem standing on the front of the car, as elegant as a red-crowned crane.
Someone got out of the car. She might have seen him once or twice before, but she couldn't remember exactly. He walked up to her and said respectfully, "Miss Zhou, the things are here..."
"Oh, it's upstairs." She wanted to go upstairs with him, but this was obviously embarrassing for him. He bent down even deeper and spoke in a lower voice, "Miss Zhou, I'll get it."
"……good."
Zhou Yue looked down at her own face reflected in the black car window. After a while, the window rolled down and she saw a light blue silk shirt and white trousers. The person in the car had a pale face, and his long eyelashes hid most of his eyes, casting a shadow on his face. He didn't look at her, but moved to the side, completely immersed in the shadow, meaning that he wanted her to get in the car.
The two of them were silent along the way. He looked out the window, and she looked too, but they couldn't see anything clearly because the car window was dark. He held her hand and rubbed it on his knee, looking out the window and sighing, "Are you still angry?"
Zhou Yue turned her head to look at him, only seeing half of his profile. His curled eyelashes blinked, and his eyeballs slowly moved with the scenery passing by outside the black car window, but he seemed not to see these dark shadows.
"I'm not angry."
"Yeah." He smiled, his Adam's apple rolling, but didn't say anything.
Arriving at the hospital, Zhou Yue saw Dai Yan again, lying alone in a huge ward. There were no wailing patients or little kids running around, no indifferent family members carrying spittoons and walking back and forth behind the chair where she was staying with the patient. There was nothing but a huge machine with a cold and intimidating light, countless buttons and switches on it, connected to countless tubes, like the torture instruments in a torture chamber.
Zhou Yue looked back at Jiang Huai awkwardly. He was standing behind her, with his hands behind his back, smiling at her encouragingly and nodding for her to come over.
Dai Yan stared at the ceiling with her eyes open but lifeless, not blinking once in the glaring white light. Her false eyelashes stood up stiffly, and she was as stiff as a plastic flower. If it weren't for her heaving chest and the faint white mist in the oxygen mask, she would have looked even deader than before.
"Mom?" Zhou Yue leaned over and called out in her ear, then called out again, "Mom?" There was no response after several calls.
She stood up and looked at her mother. She finally got what she wanted. She no longer aged, no longer frowned or glared, no longer was filled with anger, and the lines on her forehead became lighter.
Zhou Yue just looked at her in a trance. When she saw a tear fall from the corner of her wrinkled eye, she felt numb and thought she must have seen it wrong.
"Are you happy?" Jiang Huai and Zhou Yue walked together in the hospital corridor when they came out. Zhou Yue didn't answer. She didn't know whether that could be considered happy or not. It was like she had a dream and couldn't wake up. Zhou Yue also felt that the hospital was a dream. There was no one there, only doctors and nurses passing by, and rows of floor-to-ceiling windows were covered with green shade.
Jiang Huai walked in front, the mottled shadows of the trees flowing on his aqua blue shirt, as if he was wearing a rippling blue lake.
He walked for a while and then stopped, turned his back to her and stretched out his hand. Zhou Yue stood there, one second, two seconds, and then the third second, she walked over and held his hand.
"I like blue, too," he said, shaking her hand. The blue luster of the dial was as soft as satin in the sunlight.
"Yeah." She had nothing to say. After thinking for a long time, she looked up and smiled at him. His eyebrows were slender and long, too feminine, and easily looked sad. The shadows on his eyelashes were like the continuous rain in the south.
He was too far from the light and too close to the darkness, but at that moment Zhou Yue truly saw the warm sunshine in his eyes.
It's a pity that it was a rainy day. They went downstairs and a dark cloud passed by when they turned the corner. The bright sunshine of the last second faded the next second, and became gloomy as if mixed with water. He was still smiling, but that smile was different.
The layout downstairs was the same as upstairs, except that the light was dim. When they went downstairs, they were at the end of the corridor. The blinds were drawn, and there was not a trace of sunlight. There was a ward in the shadows.
Standing in the shadows, his smile turned cold, his pale face curved into a smile, and his eyes were like broken ice, shrewd as scimitars.
Zhou Yue lowered her head, her legs stiff. The dark ward was filled with the strong smell of medicine and iodine, but none of these smells could cover the smell of blood.
There was a man standing at the door, holding a bouquet of flowers in front of his black suit, which looked very incongruous.
"Mr. Jiang, Miss Zhou." He had been looking straight ahead, but at this moment he turned around as if he had sensed something, bowed to Jiang Huai and Zhou Yue, and presented the flowers in his hand.
Jiang Huai held Zhou Yue's hand with one hand and took the flowers with the other. He walked in carefully and lightly, "Xiao Yuan?" His voice was also very low, for fear of disturbing the patient.
"Boss Jiang, I won't..."
Zhou Yue wanted to say no, but he grabbed her hand and pulled her in. He pressed her shoulders and pushed her to the bed, saying softly and concernedly, "Xiao Yuan, your sister-in-law and I came to see you. How are you? Are you feeling better?"
The lights in the ward were also dim, with only the sunlight from outside the window shining in through the gaps in the leaves. I could vaguely see the person on the bed. The exposed body below the collarbone was wrapped tightly in bandages, and the quilt covered the lower part and could not be seen.
Zhou Yue was pressed by Jiang Huai in front of the hospital bed, her head almost hanging to the ground. She only dared to look at the pile of quilts and blankets at the end of the bed. The pile of things moved slightly, and she caught a glimpse of the bloody bandage out of the corner of her eye, and it shrank back in an instant.
"Boss Jiang, I'm fine..." He struggled to get up, his voice too hoarse to make any sound, and he could only speak in a whisper. Jiang Huai took the initiative and gently placed his hand on his shoulder, motioning him not to move, and said sadly: "Just focus on healing and don't worry about anything. Don't worry, I will definitely make you better."
When he looked back at Zhou Yue, a doting smile appeared on his face again. "Your sister-in-law is waiting for you to accompany her to buy books."
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