Rebirth
The sound of rain outside the window coincided with the sound in his dream, like a spell, giving him a splitting headache.
More than ten years ago, heavy rain knocked off the banana leaves, and when the rain stopped, a young man got out of a car.
"Hey, what are you doing squatting here?"
The person stared at this dot for a long time.
It rains a lot in the tropics, and the forest is hot and humid. The land has not yet dried up completely, and the children's shoes have long been soaked by rain and stained with mud, and their original color cannot be seen.
"I'm talking to you, dumb?"
The boy squatted down, and his equally thin body covered the child tightly.
Seeing that he didn't reply for a long time, the boy continued to tease, "You are really dumb. Godfather said you were an unwanted child. Hey, are you really that? Don't you have foster parents? Didn't they take you back?"
"Oh~ they don't want you anymore." The young man grinned and kept spitting out sarcastic words, "I know, they don't want you anymore when they have their own children. After all, there is a difference between biological children and non-biological children. What's more, you are a trouble. It's understandable, it's understandable." He patted the child's shoulder as if pretending to comfort him.
Suddenly, he was pushed to the ground.
The child gritted his teeth and pinned Nan Jiaxu to the ground, beating him. His small fists had little flesh on them, and they were all bone. Nan Jiaxu was in pain, and so was he.
Nan Jiaxu didn't fight back, and they were pulled apart soon.
The housekeeper checked Nan Jiaxu's condition and saw that the skin at the corner of his eye was broken and bleeding. He was so frightened that he almost fell to his knees. He said in panic, "Oh my young master, you... you are so disfigured, how can I explain this to the master!"
Nan Jiaxu waved his hand indifferently, stood up and stood in front of him. At this time, he had been restrained and had no ability to resist.
Nan Jiaxu raised his hand, and the child subconsciously closed his eyes, the pain not subsiding. When he opened them again, the somewhat seductive-looking man came closer and said with a smile, "You have the guts to hit me, young master. What's your name? I'll condescend to be your friend."
There was an arena, an iron fence, and a mud pool. More than a dozen children were thrown in like dumplings. The water in the pool was very dirty. He would walk a few steps barefoot and red blood would flow out of the pool.
There was everything in the mud pool, including blades, hemp ropes, broken glass, and even human bones. No one knew how many people had died here. The exquisite tiles that covered up the dirt were covered with dried blood and flesh. He had gone from being an ordinary person who went to school and lived a normal life to a livestock for people to watch.
He watched numbly as the faces that had sneered at him stood alone in the siege of free slaughter until a boy much older than him joined in. They shared the last drop of water, killed the last person, and successfully stood out from the hunt. On the day of their separation, he said to Nan Jia, "Call me Xiaoyu."
Dreams always shatter coherent memories, accurately finding the most frightening scenes and delivering a devastating blow.
"No. 208, Quliu Street, Chentangshan."
This set of brand numbers has been engraved in his mind since he can remember.
Xiaoyu, carrying her schoolbag, walked through the shade of the willow trees and into a small Western-style building. She pushed open the door with great joy, but before she could shout, she saw a newborn baby in the living room. A woman in a pure white dress was holding a rattle in her hand and smiling brightly. A man brought a bowl of rice porridge from the kitchen and went straight to the stroller. He stood outside the door and witnessed the happiness of the family of three.
The sky suddenly changed, and a man with a cane walked up to him, bent down and said to him, "They already have their own baby, they don't need you anymore, go home with your father."
"No……"
"I don't want to go with you!"
Xiaoyu took a step back and turned to run away, but was stopped by the housekeeper who had been waiting outside.
The noise outside startled the happy people in the house. His parents came out, looked at him with an apologetic look, and said cruelly, "Go home."
His adoptive parents picked him up and then abandoned him again, his biological father took him away just to increase his chances of winning, like a little fish in a stream wandering around with no place to settle down.
He had never seen his mother, and only heard about her from those who hated his father. She was a woman of beauty and talent.
His father never mentioned her. He didn't see her photo for the first time until he was twelve years old. He had no feelings for the woman in the photo. Apart from the similar appearance, he couldn't even imagine what she would look like if she were still alive.
At this moment, the woman in the photo turned into another person who was extremely similar to her. The face evolved again and slowly twisted into the boy who was murdered in the woods. His eyes were wide open, and there was a rare fear in his pupils.
The person in the photo frame seemed to be trying to escape, and stretched out a bloody hand to grab him. He wanted to throw the photo frame to the ground, but it seemed to be stuck in his hand and could not be shaken off no matter how hard he tried. Then he spoke.
"Brother...why didn't you save me?"
"I'm not your brother!"
Xiaoyu panicked and denied it hastily.
"Brother...I fell in the woods and it hurts."
Jiang Li's voice is always sad and ethereal.
Xiaoyu stared at the person in the photo frame and tried to calm down. "That's not my fault. Don't come to me!"
"Brother...you are so heartless."
The little fish defended himself: "It's hard for me too. I have nothing and I don't want anything."
"No…you have what you want."
Jiang Li stopped crying, and the two pairs of similar eyes looked at each other strangely.
"You had something you wanted, so you took my name, my life, because of that man?"
Xiaoyu frowned and avoided answering.
"How pitiful, brother... Do you believe that you will be worse off than me?"
The bloodstains on Jiang Li's face had disappeared, and his entire face was white and clean, just like the person outside the frame looking in a mirror.
The two looked at each other in silence for a long time.
After a while, Jiang Li seemed to give up and smiled with relief, "Forget it, use my name to live the life you want."
Then he woke up.
I woke up with a start, covered in cold sweat. The room was pitch black, with only the light coming through the window from the bright moon after the rain had stopped outside.
He looked up at the man who was holding him in his arms. He couldn't see clearly because the light was shining from behind him. Only the protruding Adam's apple in front of him was within his reach.
He had seen Chen An smoking. His Adam's apple rolled up and down while he smoked, which made him look extremely erotic with his abstinent expression.
Although that was in a dream.
His mind is not at peace.
He put the horrific scenes in the dream behind him, and his eyes could only see things that were close to him. Suddenly, he reached out and touched the raised part, but it didn't move, and the owner didn't wake up.
The next second after his fingertips lingered on his Adam's apple for a long time, he was given a deeper hug and a deep voice was right next to his ear.
"Having a nightmare?"
She asked while patting his back rhythmically.
He tilted his head and rubbed Chen An's neck, vaguely covering up the bloody past and blaming everything on dreams.
"Don't be afraid, don't be afraid."
The big hands patted him gently, and Chen An said, "When I was in the orphanage, the nun mother coaxed me like this."
"nun?"
Chen An nodded. "Yes, it's the Puxili Welfare Home. They believe in Christianity, and we were all taken care of by the nuns. I was practically raised by the director. It's a pity she passed away two years ago, otherwise I could have taken you to see it."
“What is the welfare home like?”
Chen An thought for a while and described the architecture of the Puxili Welfare Home in detail. It had white walls and black tiles, and was extremely plain. There were no facilities inside, and there were no entertainment activities except a group of people playing in the mud together. However, there were many old trees with thick branches outside Puxili, and the nuns made swings for the children to hang on them. When Chen An was a child, he played on the swing most often. The swing hung on the tree could swing without being pushed.
Every summer the welfare home receives donations from the society, small amounts of money and useless old clothes.
Chen An said: "The orphanage was founded by a foreign Chinese couple. They provided a lot of financial support to the orphanage when they were still in China. Later, they seemed to have immigrated abroad and gradually lost contact with them."
"Was your childhood happy?"
"My childhood..."
His childhood was too far away from him, and it seemed a bit embarrassing to ask a man who was about to turn thirty to suddenly recall his childhood.
After a moment, Chen An smiled and said, "Are you testing my memory?"
"I guess so. Oh, come on, tell me."
"Not happy, but not unhappy either." Chen An suppressed his smile and said seriously, "To be honest, my childhood was gray. I've been in an orphanage for as long as I can remember. I don't know anything about my parents, not even the nun who picked me up. I didn't have many friends in the orphanage. The director said that when I was little, I always stood aside and watched them, but never joined in. That's why you rarely see a smile on my face."
"It's actually quite good to be in the welfare home. I have food, drink, and a place to stay. I'm protected from the wind and rain. But I often feel lost. I don't know what I want to do or what I can do."
"This state continued until I was admitted to the police academy."
It started raining outside again, and the room suddenly became dark, even the last bit of moonlight disappeared.
Chen An lit the desk lamp, looked down at his serious face, and continued his narration.
"My application to the police academy was a fluke. My grades were average, but after the scores came out, I looked through the application forms one by one, and for some reason I ended up applying to a police academy. But becoming a police officer wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision. After entering the academy, I met a teacher who taught me a lot and would invite us to his home for dinner every holiday. His wife is a great cook, especially hard dishes."
"Where is he working now? Can I meet him?"
He was curious about everything about Chen An, and squeezing into his life became his new goal.
Chen An's expression suddenly froze. "He...sacrificed himself."
Even after so long, he still couldn't remain calm when Qiao Qingfeng was mentioned.
"I'm sorry, I..."
Chen An touched his head, interrupted what he was about to say, and checked to see if he still had a fever.
After a night, his fever had gone away. The electronic clock on the table showed it was five o'clock. Chen An asked him if he wanted to sleep. He was not sleepy at all, but nodded and said he was sleepy.
He just stayed awake and waited, and only opened his eyes when the people around him fell asleep.
When Jiang Li questioned him in the dream, he did have a moment of madness. He wanted to take the person he saw when he opened his eyes completely for himself, no matter what means he used. But after calming down, he clearly understood that Chen An would not give in. He was not like those spineless people in the organization who were servile and submissive. He would not accept any coercion.
People are happiest when they are infinitely close to happiness, and are closest to you when they are infinitely close to you.
If I keep this distance, I can always stay by your side, so why not?
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