Chapter 73
"Are you planning to go to land?" The next day, at daybreak, An Xingmin stared sharply at An Jing. He was rummaging through the miscellaneous items in his son's luggage bag and said with amusement, "Going to Xia Country? How are you going to live? How much money do you have left in your account to support yourself?"
"I..." An Jing seemed weak.
"An Jing, let's have a good talk." An Xingmin sat down calmly, his posture as if he was going to hold a struggle session against him. He said, "Can you tell me directly? Dad won't scold you! What are you worried about? This obsession of yours must have a basis, a root, right?"
"I know I'm not poor." An Jing laughed, then covered his eyelids, as if he couldn't express the unfounded worry.
"First of all, all the money in the house is given by you. Everything I get easily seems effortless to me. It's given by you. I don't have any sense of accomplishment. Of course, I don't like everything you arrange for me."
An Jing continued, "I'm grateful I was born in Blue Continent. No, I escaped here. While miasma permeates the land and fluorescent disease sweeps the globe, I'm unaffected in the underwater base. While people on land must wear gas masks to survive, I can live freely and unrestrainedly. I'm grateful to Blue Continent and honored to be a part of the base, but..."
"I can also see the lives of people on land. They don't live as well as I do. They even have a hard time. I just feel disconnected, haha... I don't know why I'm bothered by this, because it's all on the internet. I don't know if it's true or not. I just..."
Be compassionate to the world and sympathize with the weak.
An Xingmin saw An Jing's true thoughts.
Before he finished speaking, he looked up at An Xingmin, and it seemed as if his heart was touched by his true feelings.
"What else?" An Xingmin looked at him softly.
"Dad—" An Jing sighed deeply, questioning, "Didn't you say we came to Blue Continent just to escape disaster? If your starting point is all for yourself, why do you need to be the leader? Don't you want to run away? Do you want to spend the rest of your life in Blue Continent?"
"..." An Xingmin, always eloquent, fell into a rare silence. Born on the border of Xia State, he had smuggled himself out of the country, married an An State woman, and had a mixed-race son. These things didn't really give him much ground to speak of.
Once you become a leader, you must take a stand and even lead by example.
Even if Blue Island is just an underwater base, it still provides food for over 100,000 people. If you, An Xingmin, want to escape by then, I'm afraid you won't dare to do that.
An Xingmin: "The Blue Island Base is very close to Xia Country, so we can be considered neighbors. However, because the source of the fluorescent disease was Xia Country, this incident caused Xia Country to go downhill. The government handled it so poorly that it lost the support of the people..."
"And the Blue Continent base was a makeshift shed built by some wealthy, brainiac for filming a movie. Who knew that when the fluorescent disease broke out, the wealthy wanted to flee, so they used this base as a refuge. The construction of this place involved the combined efforts of many parties, and it was also approved by the Global Council Act." An Xingmin muttered to himself, his eyes suddenly reddening, and his voice trembling, "Fuck... am I jumping into a fire pit?"
The main reason why people who come to Blue Continent are all opportunists who are not willing to do anything without profit. They are all half-blooded Celestial Dragons and fence-sitters!
"Dad. Dad?" An Jing waved his hand to shake his dazed gaze, as if testing him, and said, "Let's not get involved in politics anymore, okay? For a family like ours, just having money is enough. Why bother?"
"The problem is..." An Xingmin blinked his eyes and found that his interests were completely tied to the interests of all parties and he couldn't run away even if he wanted to.
When people have nothing, they are often fearless.
——But the more you have, the more afraid you are of losing it.
Only then did An Xingmin realize that he was wrong, or perhaps he was too old. He had lost his insight at such an important juncture. This was tantamount to burying his own and An Jing's future at the Blue Continent Base.
They must be completely blue continent people.
"It's okay, it's okay." An Xingmin lit a cigarette, as if using nicotine to relieve his overthinking. After a long pause, he said, "Just do it. I, your dad, am almost sixty anyway, and I don't have the energy to travel around with my family."
"What's wrong with you?" An Xingmin's eyes flashed, as if demanding a response: "You don't want to shoulder social responsibilities, so you bought a ticket before me and wanted to run away?"
At the same time, he slapped An Jing on the back of the head with such force that An Jing's expression changed.
"I..." An Jing finally nodded. He said in a low voice, "As you can see, Dad, I hate Lanzhou. I hate even more all those who have abandoned their homeland. I can't find any sense of belonging here. I would rather, I only recognize you. You are a Xia countryman, so the blood flowing in my body is only that of the Xia country."
"I finally got out to sea, and you actually want to go back." An Xingmin almost collapsed onto his stool, muttering to himself, "God, how could I be so stupid? If I had known that Chief Deng Zhengming was from the Xia Kingdom, I wouldn't have spent all day trying to act like a grandson. The problem now is, who knows how much longer the Blue Island Base can hold out, hahahaha."
"I'm really angry..." An Xingmin covered his face in pain and said, "Son, tell me, why are they so optimistic about me? Is it just because I'm tempted, or do these other snobs who came to Blue Continent think I'm a sucker?"
"Dad, come on, I believe you can do it." This was the first time he saw his father being humiliated. An Jing held back his laughter and finally imitated his father's mature behavior and patted his father's shoulder.
"Good night, Dad." An Jing was about to go back to his room to sleep, but then the sky in front of him suddenly became bright, like the rising sun, and the seabed was sparkling. A new tomorrow had arrived.
The An family father and son seemed to realize it only later that even the time of the Blue Continent base followed that of the Xia Kingdom.
-
An Jing couldn't leave in the end.
As for his father, An Xingmin, after leader Deng Zhengming was assassinated, he stayed at home honestly for almost half a month, which was considered to have cleared him of suspicion, allowing the outside world to change and heroes to rise.
Furthermore, he was accompanying An Jing, whose mental state was worrying.
An Jing discovered that his father often stood in the study on the second floor and looked out the window. His eyes were calm, but he was staring at the ocean above his head and the creatures separated by the light-hardened wall.
Originally a speculator, he was now forced to take on responsibilities. To be honest, An Jing was really curious about what his father was thinking.
"Your mother died in childbirth." An Xing seemed to have heard An Jing's footsteps, turned around, and put the bracelet on the table.
Kodak invented a completely transparent, silicone bracelet. It's like a mobile phone, but it's bendable and foldable. The product's sole advantage is its low repair cost if it breaks. Data can be directly imported into a new model, unlike a broken phone that requires replacing the screen.
"Why?" An Jing walked over quickly and saw that it was an unfamiliar number. He guessed that it was probably his mother's current husband.
"Let's go to the hospital together." An Xingmin rubbed his eyebrows. He didn't cry, but looked tired. His complicated expression seemed to imply that he knew everything.
An Jing was stunned. One thing after another was pushing his mental endurance beyond his capacity. He put on his coat and followed his father into the car.
"It was a chaotic day, as you know. Your mother had a miscarriage, so I called an ambulance and asked her husband to stay with her. I heard she had a heavy hemorrhage that night, and rescue efforts were ineffective." An Xingmin spoke calmly, even covering his mouth. "Her husband called me no less than twenty times, blaming me for not taking them to the hospital myself and missing the best time."
"So why didn't you go and see her off in person?" An Jing's tears began to fall again. She trembled, "And, and you actually waited so many days... Mom's dead, and you're only telling me now."
"You haven't been in a good mental state lately." An Xingmin stomped on the accelerator irritably and replied, "And An Jing, she's no longer my wife. She got pregnant with another man's child without my knowledge. On that day, one of us was injured, affecting my career, and the other was your mother, who was also my ex-wife—"
An Xingmin's voice rose. "What do you want me to choose? Why should I personally send a woman who cheated on me away? Am I a saint? I clearly called an ambulance! It's their responsibility!"
An Jing was speechless.
This is his father, this is An Xingmin, the same familiar taste as always, the means that leave people speechless, proving his ability and hypocrisy in an extremely clever way.
"You're right." An Jing swallowed his saliva as if in fear, then subconsciously shook his head as if in resistance. Finally, he mustered up the courage and asked, "But how could you be so heartless?"
"She's your mother!" An Xingmin was extremely annoyed. He felt that it was difficult for an honest judge to judge family affairs. He shouted, "But I'm your father!"
An Jing fell silent, holding back her tears, feeling that the parent-child relationship that had just been improved between them was wiped out again by this incident.
"Besides, the hospital will need my signature later, hahaha. I think that Li guy is incompetent. He's been complaining to me for days, blaming me a bunch of things, and yet the body hasn't even been cremated!" An Xingmin slammed the steering wheel hard, tears welling up in his eyes. "This is your mother's vision, your mother's... choice."
An Jing: "Why was the birth difficult, Mom? Isn't Caesarean section technology very advanced now?"
"They said your mother passed out mid-birth, and the baby had no heartbeat when she was taken out. I don't know, I wasn't there." An Xingmin would become impatient and even irritable whenever family matters were mentioned. He said, "You know, since I came to Lanzhou, I've never gone to the hospital. I always go to doctors I truly trust."
"Dad..." An Jing's pupils trembled and he looked at him in horror. He even wondered if he did it on purpose. After all, An Xingmin could have called a private doctor to save his mother.
"I really don't know!" An Xingmin said, "My personal doctor is a man, not an obstetrician and gynecologist! An Jing, don't ask... Your father is not a wishing well, nor is he the king of heaven or a god who has descended to earth. I can't handle everything."
He doesn't want to.
An Jing guessed that it was this subtle malice that made An Xingmin less determined to save Tao Yunzhou, so he acted in a proper manner and could not be faulted.
——But, I don’t have the conscience to fight death.
An Jing scoffed at the thought and looked out the window, feeling both sad and desolate. He even thought to himself, "Why should I even try to guess? For some things, isn't it better to just play dumb? I'm so smart, but who am I showing it to?"
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