Wanqiu's longest and most monotonous memories were mostly spent in that narrow space.
It's dark; you can reach the edge with your arms outstretched.
He once thought that was the size of the world.
It was a fairly large, albeit cramped, space. I remember when he was little, he could lie down there and sleep peacefully.
But he grew up.
His body was growing, his body was stretching, and the world was getting smaller and smaller, so he could only curl up there.
The body has become accustomed to being curled up, and the body is deformed; the legs and limbs are unable to open at all.
He was in constant physical pain, and his skin, constantly under pressure, developed sores. Endurance was his daily routine.
He had parents back then.
It's just that he seems to have many fathers.
Many, many people.
But you only have one mother.
All his activities took place within that narrow space.
His mother would occasionally let him out to clean up the pungent, foul-smelling, rotten things that came from his body.
Cleaning is the only thing he knows how to do.
Occasionally, Mom would bring some people along.
Those people would cause him different kinds of pain, even more pain than usual.
But his mother is happy when he gets hit.
The person who hit him will also be very happy.
If he shouts loudly, the others will be even happier.
He didn't know why, but over time, he vaguely understood that it seemed to be related to something called money.
Suddenly, Wanqiu seemed to understand what money was.
He already had a concept of money.
Money is for buying food and for surviving.
As long as he gets beaten, he and his mother can survive on money.
"What is this thing? Is it even human? This thing could be a subject of a bizarre reality show, right? This is so disgusting, hahaha."
“You’re a big client, you can do whatever you want with him. Don’t worry, hardly anyone knows he exists.”
"You're so ugly, do you know how ugly you are? I'll kill you to free you, okay?"
"Is he about to die? He's not moving at all. That person went too far!"
"Brother, can you find a car to transport him out and dump him in some remote mountain forest? It would be too disgusting for him to die here."
dad?
Mother?
Wan Qiu remembered these two sentences.
Wanqiu suddenly understood that these two sentences meant he should be abandoned.
For the first time, Wanqiu realized that there was a much wider, boundless world beyond his own and his parents' world.
He was placed in an even smaller space, where he would curl up and have no room to move around.
It has a strange smell.
Wan Qiu remembered: it was a car, the trunk of a car, and it smelled of gasoline.
When Wanqiu was thrown away, the feeling of her body hitting the ground wasn't actually very painful; it was even quite soft.
The snow was soft, and he was thrown into it.
The cool snow would make his burning pain feel a little better.
Lying in the snowdrift, Wanqiu used his aching body to try to free himself from the sack binding him.
That was the first time he had ever seen the starry sky.
It's not a dark and narrow place; it's enormous.
This was the first time he had ever seen such a beautiful place.
Even though it was the same color black, the sky was absolutely beautiful.
The final feeling, Wanqiu now knows, is called cold.
He couldn't stand the cold.
His limbs, curled up and unable to straighten, could not retain any warmth.
His body heat was gradually eroded by the heavy snow.
He didn't know when he lost consciousness.
Wan Qiu suddenly realized what was happening.
He used to be.
I've died once.
He was abandoned by his parents.
They froze to death in the snow.
"Mom, don't do this to me."
"I love you mom."
"Mom, don't abandon me."
Wanqiu, who couldn't speak back then, suddenly had these words clearly appear in his mind.
As those dark, unbearable memories of the past came to be understood little by little, he truly understood the reason why he had been avoiding looking back.
Wan Qiu was suddenly awakened by a loud slamming of the door. He looked up, his eyes filled with terror.
"Mom? Mom?" Wan Qiu knocked on the bedroom door and kept calling Ning Qiaozhen, but received no response.
Has Mom left?
Did Mom...abandon him?
Is his recollection of being abandoned a sign that he will be abandoned again?
Will he die this time if he is abandoned?
Like his grandmother abandoning him and dying, stiff, motionless, and then buried in the ground.
It's okay, it's okay, Mom will come back.
The mother used to come back, but now the mother gives him a place to live, a bed to lie down in, and lets him go to school. She is the best mother.
She will definitely come back.
Even if he can't do anything, at least he can be hit without it hurting. He's not afraid of pain; he's used to it.
Wan Qiu stood up, took off his already somewhat dry trousers, and threw them aside.
Find the draft paper and wipe your body.
He wants everything to be clean and tidy.
Mom hates dirty children.
He wanted to be clean and tidy before his mother came back.
——
Ning Qiaozhen is on the verge of a breakdown.
No one helped her; one by one, her friends stopped answering her calls.
Ning Qiaozhen has no family. She had severed ties with her family when she eloped with Ning Hai. She even believes that she deleted all her relatives' contact information in pursuit of her own life.
Even her mentally ill mother is long gone.
She thought that since she had given so much, at least Ning Hai wouldn't betray her.
But everyone in this world will kick her when she's down.
Ning Qiaozhen was crying on the table when she heard Wan Qiu knocking on the door, crying and saying he needed to use the restroom. Ning Qiaozhen suddenly felt a surge of pleasure.
No one in this world can help her, and neither can Wanqiu.
No one will help Wanqiu.
No matter how much Wanqiu pleaded and cried, Ning Qiaozhen heard Wanqiu's fragile voice, and the twisted sense of relief allowed her to find some relief from her pain.
At least she's not alone.
She wouldn't be the only one who suffered the most.
Look, without her, Wanqiu has no freedom at all.
Everyone can do whatever they want to her, and she can do whatever she wants to Wanqiu.
Time passed second by second, from late at night to the sky turning white.
Ning Qiaozhen was in a daze, half-asleep and half-awake.
She didn't know what she was doing or what she could do.
Suddenly, my phone, which had been silent, received a call.
Ning Qiaozhen was surprised to receive a call. The unfamiliar phone number on the broken phone screen made her heart race, and she wondered if it was Ning Hai who had changed his number to answer her call.
"Hello?" However, when the call was connected, an unfamiliar female voice came from the other end, causing Ning Qiaozhen's heart to plummet instantly.
Was it a salesperson? A scam call? These thoughts flashed through Ning Qiaozhen's mind. She was about to hang up when a sentence from the phone suddenly made her pause.
“I am Wanqiu’s biological mother. Hello, Ning Qiaozhen. Let’s talk.”
Wanqiu's biological mother?
The unexpected and mysterious phone call aroused Ning Qiaozhen's suspicion, but she still replied, "What is it?"
"Do you want money?" The woman opposite Ning Qiaozhen directly exposed her predicament.
"What do you mean?" This question immediately triggered Ning Qiaozhen's sensitive nerves when she needed money the most.
"Come out here, let's meet. I need you to do something, and I'll give you a million dollars as a reward."
One million?!
At that moment, Ning Qiaozhen suddenly stood up, her heart filled with excitement.
What's going on? Did a million dollars fall from the sky?
"I'll send you my current address. If you're interested, come over as soon as possible."
The other party hung up the phone immediately after speaking, and Ning Qiaozhen then received a friend request.
After checking the address, Ning Qiaozhen confirmed that it was a shop in the nearest bustling area, so there was no chance of a kidnapping.
Ning Qiaozhen could hear her heart pounding wildly. Wan Qiu's biological mother?
He quickly got dressed again, opened the door, and went to the address.
Ning Qiaozhen quickly arrived at the location and was led into a secluded private room by a man in a black suit who was waiting at the door.
She saw a woman.
The woman was exquisitely beautiful to the extreme. Every part of her was luxurious. In Ning Qiaozhen's eyes, her haute couture clothes, designer jewelry, and bags made her look like a woman who wore money on her body.
Even though she didn't look well and wasn't wearing makeup, she was still bright and dazzling.
"You are... Wanqiu's biological mother?" Ning Qiaozhen's voice trembled.
Ning Qiaozhen never expected that the mentally challenged child she had taken in from her mentally ill mother would one day bring her such a surprise.
Wanqiu's birth mother was clearly the kind of person who was extremely wealthy. The clothes she wore were worth more than she could sell herself, so there was really no need to lie to her.
"You...you just said you'd give me a million?" Ning Qiaozhen got straight to the point. What she needed most right now was money; she had no interest in getting entangled with anyone else.
Yang Xiaoyu gestured to the man who had been standing next to her, and the man immediately placed a small box in front of Ning Qiaozhen.
Ning Qiaozhen watched as the man in the suit opened the suitcase in front of her, revealing thick stacks of cash inside.
Ning Qiaozhen's eyes widened as she picked up the money inside and examined it. She selected several stacks of money to count, and found that they were all genuine. She was overjoyed.
"Only 500,000?" Ning Qiaozhen's voice trembled as she counted the bills, but even 500,000 was enough to make her incredibly excited.
“After it’s all done, that box is yours too.” Yang Xiaoyu pointed her slender, beautiful fingers at another box on the man in the suit. The man respectfully opened it for her to see, then immediately closed it again.
"What do you want me to do?" Ning Qiaozhen asked impatiently.
Yang Xiaoyu faced Ning Qiaozhen, whose haggard face made her greedy eyes appear even more terrifying.
“I want you to tell Wanqiu that you don’t love him and that you want to abandon him.”
Yang Xiaoyu's voice was completely flat, as if she were reading a popular science article without any emotion.
"Be decisive and don't drag things out. I'll arrange a vehicle for you. When the time comes, just take Wanqiu with you and leave him where you park."
Ning Qiaozhen was taken aback: "It's that simple?"
Yang Xiaoyu's sunglasses concealed her gloomy eyes: "So simple? Abandoning Wanqiu is a very simple thing for you? Isn't that your child?"
“What kind of child is he? He wasn’t born of me, he wasn’t raised by me, and he’s a…” Ning Qiaozhen showed no reluctance or affection for Wan Qiu, but stopped when she mentioned that Wan Qiu was a fool.
If this woman finds out that Wanqiu is an idiot and doesn't want him anymore, then wouldn't she lose her money?
"After raising it for three years, even a dog would develop feelings for it." Yang Xiaoyu's tone was full of coldness, sarcasm, and a barely perceptible anger that seemed to be crushing something.
"That would have to be a dog, even a dog is better than him."
Yang Xiaoyu tightened her fingers on her lap, her nails digging deep into her palms.
"Oh, I'm sorry, isn't that your son?" Ning Qiaozhen belatedly realized that the person in front of her was Wanqiu's biological mother. "My mother raised him for so long, and I've also raised him with great difficulty for three years."
"That's why I'm giving you this million," Yang Xiaoyu said coldly.
Ning Qiaozhen's mind started working. With so much money, being able to give money so easily, it seems she values Wan Qiu very much.
"One million isn't enough, is it?" Ning Qiaozhen asked tentatively.
“Your mother abducted my child back then.” However, Yang Xiaoyu said, “If we used conventional methods, he would still come back to me. Letting you lose him is just saving some time. Or do you want to simply not take the money?”
Ning Qiaozhen remained silent for two seconds. If Wan Qiu managed to get involved with the wealthy parents, she might be able to have a long-term relationship with Wan Qiu later.
But we need to get that million first.
“Okay, no problem.” Ning Qiaozhen readily agreed.
“He’ll be watching you. If you succeed, he’ll give you the money.” Yang Xiaoyu gestured to the man in the suit next to her. “You’d better do a good job and not get any crooked ideas.”
Ning Qiaozhen's steps were light, and her heavy expression seemed to have been washed away by the box full of money, turning from cloudy to sunny, and she was very happy.
"Why did you bring Wanqiu back to raise him in the first place?" She shouldn't have asked that question, even though Yang Xiaoyu knew she probably wouldn't get a good answer, she couldn't help but care.
Ning Qiaozhen was stunned for a moment: "It was the villagers who told me to take him away. They all thought he was my child, otherwise they would sue me. Ning Hai and I can't have children, so I thought I would just raise one."
Yang Xiaoyu silently looked out the window. In the cold private room, she heard complete indifference from Ning Qiaozhen's words, not ice and snow, not a wildfire, but an endless desert.
Wanqiu struggled to survive in the desert, yet he was grateful that the desert had given him a foothold.
"Is that so?" Yang Xiaoyu's sigh was as faint as nothingness.
"Wan Qiu is quite the actor, pretending to be so normal. I only found out he was mentally challenged three months after adopting him. What use is a mentally challenged person? Can he earn money to support me in the future? If I had found out earlier, I would have..."
However, Ning Qiaozhen suddenly realized that she had actually said "idiot" out loud, and instantly fell silent.
"Do you have any questions for me about Wanqiu?" Yang Xiaoyu asked, not even knowing why she would bother asking such a question.
"No." Ning Qiaozhen had nothing to ask.
"Go now, and hurry up and fulfill your promise." Yang Xiaoyu closed her eyes, not wanting to hear any more.
Yang Xiaoyu turned on her phone, which displayed the surveillance footage of Wan Qiu from the building opposite hers.
Through the blurry glass, you could vaguely see a thin child pressed against the door, leaning against the closest spot to the outside.
Wanqiu said she was very happy.
That child never experienced the feeling of being cherished.
But they thought they were very happy.
Ning Qiaozhen left, she left very quickly, and she looked extremely happy.
She was devastated when she suddenly received a windfall, not to mention that she had never received a million dollars at once before.
Ning Qiaozhen couldn't wait to grab the money box and go home to "carry out her mission" so she could quickly get the remaining 500,000 yuan.
Yang Xiaoyu, however, remained seated and took off her sunglasses.
Chu Jianshu pushed open the door and came in, only to see a dejected Yang Xiaoyu.
“She has no love for Wan Qiu whatsoever.” Yang Xiaoyu saw Ning Qiaozhen’s unwavering and impatient manner and realized Ning Qiaozhen’s indifference towards Wan Qiu.
Ning Qiaozhen didn't even doubt why she asked her to abandon Wanqiu.
Ning Qiaozhen didn't care about Wanqiu at all, nor did she consider Wanqiu's feelings, much less the reasons why they did what they did.
Her child, her beloved Wanqiu, gave all her love to someone who didn't deserve it.
Even at the very end, Yang Xiaoyu didn't miss a single detail of the scheming in Ning Qiaozhen's eyes.
She will come again.
She hugged a money tree named Wanqiu.
Chu Jianshu held his wife in his arms and comforted her, "Wanqiu will come home with us tonight."
“We will hurt him.” Yang Xiaoyu closed her eyes.
She was such an incompetent and despicable mother, Yang Xiaoyu thought, always hurting each of her children.
"This is the last time, it will never happen again." Chu Jianshu gently patted Yang Xiaoyu's arm, rhythmically soothing his wife's emotions.
Wanqiu's most important people are Ning Qiaozhen and Ning Hai.
Ninghai ran away.
He abandoned Wanqiu through his actions.
It was even more decisive than they had planned.
Only Ning Qiaozhen remained.
If Ning Qiaozhen weren't in such a desperate situation, she would definitely continue to cause trouble and make unreasonable demands in various ways after learning that they were rich.
However, now that she is desperate and has no other options, abandoned by Ning Hai, blocked by her friends, and penniless and eager to get money, Ning Qiaozhen will not spend more time considering this.
They single-handedly pushed Wanqiu into a situation where he was completely abandoned.
They will use dirty means and abilities to block all the filth around Wanqiu.
The process of exhuming malignant tumors is bound to be painful, but it is essential to dig them out completely.
They severed the dark thoughts that were connected to Wanqiu, and cleansed them of their filth with their own hands.
Afterwards, they will help the child rebuild a healthy, loving connection.
——
When Ning Qiaozhen returned to the door, Wan Qiu had already been locked in the room for a day and a night.
"Wait here for a moment, I'll go get him."
Ning Qiaozhen said to the man in the suit who had followed her.
After all, she could very well become a cash cow in the future, and she couldn't let people think she was mistreating Wanqiu.
"I need to hear your entire conversation," the man in the suit said coldly.
Ning Qiaozhen thought about the money, gritted her teeth, and thought, "So what if he's locked up? What family hasn't punished their child by putting him in solitary confinement?"
"Alright, come in."
Ning Qiaozhen was actually somewhat relieved that Wan Qiu had cleaned the room; otherwise, her current predicament might have been discovered directly.
The strange man followed her in. Ning Qiaozhen entered the room and walked two steps to Wan Qiu's door. She used the key in the lock to open the bedroom door.
Ning Qiaozhen observed the man's expression intentionally or unintentionally. The man remained unmoved, seemingly unconcerned about her locking Wan Qiu up.
The bedroom door was opened, and a strong, fishy smell suddenly wafted out, causing Ning Qiaozhen's expression to change.
Wan Qiu was kneeling on the ground, looking up at her. Her face was pale, half of her face was swollen, her lips were dry and chapped, her cheeks were sunken, and she looked dazed. She was a thin, frail figure, as if she had been abandoned by her spirit and vitality.
Ning Qiaozhen's first glance was at the traces of dried urine on the ground.
"You idiot..." Ning Qiaozhen subconsciously wanted to raise her voice to curse this damn fool for actually urinating in the house, but before the words could leave her mouth, she swallowed them back.
The man also looked at Wan Qiu, frowning.
He glanced at Ning Qiaozhen, but Ning Qiaozhen didn't want to think about what that glance meant.
"Go to the bathroom and wash up right now. Can't you just say so if you can't hold it in? I told you to put me in solitary confinement, not that you can't go to the toilet. Are you protesting against me?"
Ning Qiaozhen's words shifted all the blame for Wan Qiu's current situation onto Wan Qiu.
"All you ever do is argue with me. If you weren't so stubborn, would I have locked you up in solitary confinement?"
Wan Qiu looked up at Ning Qiaozhen, who was rambling on and on. All her angry words poured out like beans, too quickly for Wan Qiu to understand.
Wan Qiu knew that Ning Qiaozhen was unhappy.
But the moment he saw Ning Qiaozhen, all his fear vanished.
Wan Qiu knelt on the ground, and Ning Qiaozhen, who came back to open the door for him, seemed to be bathed in light.
He was not abandoned by his mother.
Mom will come back.
His mother has always been good to him; she won't abandon him.
"Mom." Wan Qiu involuntarily reached out, his slender fingers tugging at the hem of Ning Qiaozhen's clothes. The boy, who was not good at expressing his emotions, had a bright light in his clear eyes that shone with the expectation that his wish had been fulfilled. "I'm sorry, I was wrong."
Wan Qiu couldn't understand why Ning Qiaozhen was unhappy.
But it was all his fault.
"Go take a shower and find some nice clothes to change into." Ning Qiaozhen immediately instructed Wan Qiu to pull her clothes back.
Wan Qiu immediately got up from the ground, found some clean clothes in the wardrobe, and ran to the bathroom to take a shower.
The man peeked into Wan Qiu's wardrobe. There were hardly any clothes inside, and they all looked dull and old, but each piece was neatly folded.
If these clothes are just piled up haphazardly, they look more like a pile of garbage than a pile of clothes.
Ning Qiaozhen immediately closed the bedroom door, shutting out the smell inside.
Wanqiu stood in the water, tilted his head back and opened his mouth, allowing the warm water from the showerhead to enter his thirsty mouth more quickly.
The prolonged lack of water had left him nearly exhausted. The water entering his mouth cleared his muddled mind considerably.
Although the water temperature was not high, Wanqiu felt the persistent chill gradually fading from his body.
The fact that her mother was still alive brought Wanqiu immense peace of mind.
When I go out later, I need to apologize to my mother again properly.
Then he can tell his mother that he will help her and that she shouldn't worry.
Wanqiu carefully washed her legs with the pleasant-smelling shower gel, wiping away all the unpleasant odor from her body.
Because his mother said he needed to find a nice outfit to wear, Wanqiu took the hoodie that his mother had given him, which he cherished the most, even though it was very hot.
Scent, warm water, clean clothes.
And there's my mother outside the door.
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