Chapter 72 The truth about the past If only I could have met you earlier...

The system has never seen Ye Man like this. This is something it has never seen before in all the time we have known each other.

It had seen him pretending to be good and acting pitiful; it had seen him gritting his teeth in secret; it had seen him panic-stricken and lonely, it had seen him crying silently, it had seen him rejoice...but it had never seen him so panic-stricken.

Even when he first found out that he was a vicious cannon fodder and was about to die, he had never been so scared.

Xu Huaiting had never seen it either.

No one had ever seen him like this.

He would also be terrified during nightmares, but at that time he would struggle and cry. But now his face was pale, his eyes were drooping quietly, he didn't speak, didn't make a sound, his brows were weakly furrowed, and he seemed to be breathing with difficulty.

On the 49th day, he looked as if he had just been pulled out of the water, with sweat dripping down his forehead.

The sweat was terribly cold.

She leaned against Xu Huaiting's body and trembled uncontrollably.

He probably felt his throat was tight, so he tried to cough, but it was still uncomfortable, so he subconsciously raised his hands and held his neck.

Xu Huaiting felt his heart was about to stop.

He grabbed his hands as quickly as possible, "Xiao Man, let go."

"Please, let go."

Xu Huaiting coaxed him to loosen his clenched fingers a little.

Ye Man didn't realize what he had done until he felt a tight pain on his wrist. Xu Huaiting called out "Xiao Man" in fear.

He raised his head blankly and suddenly shuddered.

Recalling that Xu Huaiting had asked him before, whether he knew that he would pinch his own neck when he fell asleep, Ye Man felt very puzzled at the time and asked Brother Tong, who also said that he had never seen it. But now such a thing happened.

Ye Man panicked, and after waking up, he regained his breath and voice. When Xu Huaiting loosened his grip on him, Ye Man grabbed Xu Huaiting's clothes eagerly: "I don't know, I really don't know what's going on, I don't think like this, I don't want to die, I just feel uncomfortable, so..." He was choked up and couldn't make a sound at the end.

Xu Huaiting hugged him tightly: "It's okay, Xiaoman, calm down, I'm by your side, nothing will happen to you, you won't die." He touched Ye Man's hair and told him: "I will always be with you, do you remember, we agreed that I will protect you, so you will definitely be fine."

With a trembling breath, he comforted him again and again, telling him not to be afraid and that he would protect him.

A foreign language that Ye Man had never understood but now made him feel extremely at ease was whispered in his ear.

He hugged him so tightly that Ye Man even felt a little pain in his bones, but he didn't want to struggle at all. Instead, he buried himself even harder in the other's arms.

Chi Yan and Chi Jue comforted the elders at home and followed them out.

Seeing Ye Man being held in Xu Huaiting's arms, Chi Yan wanted to say something, but when she met Xu Huaiting's eyes, she stopped talking and stopped Chi Jue at the same time.

Chi Jue was puzzled and asked in a low voice: "Brother?"

Xu Huaiting held Ye Man motionlessly, silently staring at everyone who tried to approach.

The other person's look made Chi Yan stunned for a moment.

The man held his brother tightly in his arms in an obviously defensive posture, alerting anyone who came forward.

Chi Yan met those extremely suppressed gray eyes and looked at the other person scrutinizingly.

The two men exchanged something in silence, and Chi Yan suddenly said in a normal tone: "Xiao Man, it's cold outside. Grandma has made some soup. Come back early. You are tired. You can rest early after dinner."

Chi Yan's voice became softer. "It's getting late. It's late after dinner. Why don't you stay here tonight? Xiaoman, you have a good relationship with Mr. Xu. How about letting Mr. Xu sleep with you tonight?"

There was a long silence in response to him.

Chi Yan waited with bated breath, and finally, the person in the man's arms nodded his head slightly.

This made him suddenly relieved.

He nodded seriously to Xu Huaiting and dragged Chi Jue, who also looked a little solemn, back.

After the two of them left, no one came to disturb them again. Xu Huaiting touched Ye Man's hair and hugged her silently for a long time.

The person in his arms' breathing became noticeably calmer.

Xu Huaiting said softly to the person in his arms: "Xiaoman, let's go back."

Ye Man sniffed.

He didn't want to cry, but his tone was so gentle that he couldn't help but feel a lump in his throat.

Ye Man: "Aren't you going to ask me?"

Xu Huaiting kissed his hair and asked him, "Do you believe me?"

Ye Man could not see the pain in Xu Huaiting's eyes at this moment, he only heard Xu Huaiting ask again: "Can I make you believe it?"

Ye Man was silent for a moment.

Reason told him that human hearts are fickle and this thing is unreliable.

What if the other party says one thing and does another? What if he changes his mind later? What if...

The safe approach is to immediately change the subject by saying something else, to joke about the real pain, not allowing anyone to pry open the shell, not giving anyone the opportunity to pierce the soft flesh with a knife. He wants to show everyone how strong he is, in order to scare away all those with evil intentions, to let them know that he is invincible, that he will not feel pain, has no weaknesses, does not care about anything, and will not be hurt.

The image of the faint but warm fire in the Longyearbyen tower at night reappeared in my mind.

He suppressed his tears and said, "I'm...scared."

Ye Man knew the safest answer for him.

He had an endless supply of flowery phrases to dress up his answers.

In the end, all he uttered were a few simple and plain words.

"I really want to believe you, and I want to be honest," he said with red eyes, "but I'm afraid."

"I'm afraid that my life will be ruined, that I'll mess everything up, and that you'll leave me."

"Ricardo, why do people have so many things to be afraid of?" He was so aggrieved that he could hardly speak.

Xu Huaiting's heart was instantly stabbed.

My heart was twitching and the pain was unbearable.

Every minute and every second that I get closer to this person, my heart breaks more and more for him.

Xu Huaiting caressed his face lovingly, but couldn't help but blushing, "Xiaoman..."

The distressed and pitiful tone made Ye Man shiver as if he was scalded.

The next second, he arched his thin back in pain.

Pale fingers tugged at Xu Huaiting's collar. Ye Man bit her lips hard, tears welled up in her eyes. She sobbed slowly and finally cried out as if she had admitted defeat.

He had suppressed his emotions for too long, and now he finally cried out without caring about anything else: "That prisoner... is my father!"

......

One evening many years ago.

At that time, Ye's mother was still alive, but she had been bedridden for more than half a year. Ye Guowen gambled outside and took away the family savings early on. He would not return home for several months at a time.

Even if you eat frugally, the food at home is still consumed day by day.

With no money and no food, and the door of the neighbor's house was not closed, the twelve-year-old Ye Man set his eyes on the burger on the table.

That burger smells so good.

Ye Man's stomach was growling with hunger, and he couldn't help but have some evil thoughts.

If you steal once, there will be a second time, a third time...

He was not in school at that time. Ye's mother was too ill to eat, so there had to be someone at home.

That day, Ye Man sneaked to the neighbor's house to steal burgers as usual. When he ran back home, he found that Ye Guowen had returned home, which was a rare achievement.

Ye Man didn't care about that. He was about to rush over to grab the man and ask him to give back the money he had taken, but he heard the voices of Ye Guowen talking to his mother in the bedroom:

"I saw that the old lady took out at least 50,000 yuan... I found out that there is only one old person and one young person in the family. The old one has some kind of dementia and his memory is sometimes good and sometimes bad... No need to wait, just break in... If it doesn't work, just go all out and set it on fire... I'll watch and then say it was their own carelessness..."

The bedroom door was half open, and Ye Guowen could vaguely be seen standing beside the bed, talking to someone.

At first Ye Man was happy that his mother had gotten better. Usually at this time of day, she was in a coma and would only wake up for a while at night. But the more he listened, the more he felt something was wrong.

After realizing what Ye Guowen said, Ye Man's blood froze and his heart beat so fast that it seemed like it was about to jump out of his throat.

His mind went blank, and he didn't know how to react. The person in the bedroom seemed to have noticed something and suddenly asked in confusion, "Where did that little bastard go?"

Ye Man subconsciously wanted to run out, but Ye Guowen had already walked out of the bedroom with Ye's mother's mobile phone in his hand, perhaps intending to sell it for money.

Seeing Ye Man, he immediately grabbed him back, dragged him and threw him into his room, warning him: "Stay here quietly, or I'll beat you to death!"

He picked up a stool and smashed it on the ground, threatening him: "Don't come out, do you hear me?"

Seeing Ye Man nod with a pale face, he took the house key from Ye Man's hand and left.

Young Ye Man huddled in the corner of the floor of her room, her mind full of confusion as she listened to Ye Guowen's footsteps as he walked into the bedroom and then walked out.

Ye Guowen left and locked the door.

Ye Man stared blankly at the deformed burger in his hand. The heat from the burger burned his palm. He suddenly wiped his eyes hard, gritted his teeth and climbed up.

I tried the door handle and found it was locked.

There was no mobile phone at home, and no other means of communicating with the outside world. Ye Man had an idea and ran to look through the drawers.

He glanced at the watch and calculated the time. It would be a while before Lu Junxing would be sent back by the teacher of the special class.

The car would stop at the intersection, and Lu Junxing would skip home in her floral dress. Time was running out, so he had to hurry.

"Where, where..." he recalled as he searched.

His family had two keys. Once, Ye Guowen lost his key and couldn't find it, so he took Ye's mother's key and got a new one.

Later, Ye's mother became seriously ill, and Ye Man used the key that originally belonged to Ye's mother, which was the key that Ye Guowen had just taken away. Ye Guowen must have thought that if he took away two keys and locked Ye Man in the house, he would never be able to get out.

But he didn't expect that when Ye Man was cleaning the bathroom, he found the key that he had lost and couldn't find in the corner.

Ye Guowen was not at home at the time, so Ye Man just threw it into the drawer and then forgot about it until now.

After dumping out a pile of debris, Ye Man finally found the key under the drawer, sweating profusely.

He grabbed the key, held his breath, carefully opened the locked door and looked at the door opposite.

The door of Lu's house was open, and sporadic noises of rummaging could be heard from inside.

Ye Man looked over there, tiptoed down the next flight of stairs, and then rushed downstairs as fast as he could.

He ran very quickly and saw a familiar figure at the door of the unit.

When Lu Junxing saw Ye Man, he was about to greet him happily, but Ye Man grabbed his arm with a pale face.

He tried to open his mouth several times, but his lips were shaking so much that no sound came out.

"Call the police... Call the police quickly..."

Lu Junxing looked at him suspiciously, "Master?"

"Your teacher's car should still be parked. Go find your teacher. She has a cell phone. Tell her to call the police and tell them that bad guys have broken into your house. They want to rob and kill people. Don't tell them that I told you to do that. Don't—"

"Call the police!"

The last sentence was almost shouted.

Ye Man pushed Lu Junxing out with force.

At this time, there was a strange noise coming from upstairs. Ye Man and Lu Junxing looked up at the same time. Realizing something, Lu Junxing turned pale and ran out.

Ye Man stood there, gritted his teeth, and rushed upstairs in two steps.

When we arrived at the door of Lu's house, we could hear an old man's painful groans and a man's cursing from inside the house.

Ye Man was so panicked that his mind went blank. He was scared for a second and wanted to hide back home and pretend that he knew nothing. But when he remembered the seven burgers he had stolen, he suddenly smashed the iron handrail on the downstairs.

Even though he was not very strong, the hollow armrest was hit so hard that it immediately made a loud noise.

Ye Man heard the cursing in the room and then fell silent for a moment.

Without thinking, he deliberately stepped loudly and rushed downstairs.

Someone rushed out of the house and chased him closely.

Ye Man ran for a long time, his mind was blank the whole time. He exerted all his strength, ran out of the unit, hid behind a car, and held his breath.

Just as that footstep was getting closer.

A siren sounded in the distance.

The man swore something under his breath and left.

Ye Manhun sat on the ground exhausted.

midnight.

Many people gathered outside the unit.

The ambulance took Grandma Lu, who was pushed to the ground and injured by the gangster, to the hospital.

A police car was parked not far away.

Ye Man stood at the door of the unit where the street light had been broken for who knows how many years, looking towards the police car.

It was obvious that Lu Junxing hadn't reacted until now, so the Lu couple rushed over and hugged her.

The voice came faintly:

"The police were called promptly... The criminals spent a lot of time searching for valuables... They had the intention of silencing us..."

"For some unknown reason, the criminals left midway, otherwise the consequences would be more serious than they are now..."

They said that because of her illness and injuries, Grandma Lu could not accurately describe the criminal's specific appearance, and Lu Junxing had no idea.

No one knows who the criminal is.

But Ye Man knew.

He stood at the door of the unit, looking at the red, blue and blue lights, and a strong impulse prompted him to take a step in that direction.

But in the next second, someone hugged him tightly from behind.

The body that had been lingering on the sickbed for a long time covered Ye Man's mouth from behind and blocked his eyes.

He heard his mother pleading with tears in his ears: "Don't go."

"Xiao Man, you can't go."

She was so ill that her body was no longer strong enough to support her getting out of bed and moving around. She was drowsy for seventeen or eighteen hours a day, and sometimes it was difficult for her to even speak, with only some weak sounds coming out.

She was dying. She knew it.

The old building was not soundproof, and she was startled by all kinds of noises. The house was in chaos. Ye Guowen came back and looked at the small room converted from the kitchen with an ugly face. After that, she used up her last bit of strength to get up from the bed and found Ye Man.

Ye Man asked in confusion: "Why? Wouldn't it be better to let him be arrested?"

The woman behind him was crying, she was almost dying while hugging him.

"You don't understand, Xiaoman. If you go and tell him, your life will be ruined! You can't have a father in prison. You are so young and I am gone. What will you do then? Who else will care about you? He... is your biological father after all... He won't completely ignore you, right..."

"Xiao Man, just consider it as a plea from mom. Don't say anything. Aren't they fine? You've done enough," the woman coughed painfully. "You... promised mom that you knew nothing and saw nothing—"

"Promise me!"

......

Ye Man let out a breath.

Let the woman, hunched over with her frail body, pull him and drag him away from that red and blue world.

Soon, the woman left him completely.

......

"Don't...don't dislike me..."

On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the nineteen-year-old Ye Man grabbed Xu Huaiting and cried inconsolably, as if she was about to collapse, and spoke nonsense incoherently.

Several years after his mother's death, Xu Huaiting once again felt heartbroken.

He hugged the boy tightly, who was holding on to him as if he were holding on to his last straw, and was about to be broken into countless pieces from the inside.

"I'm sorry," his voice trembled uncontrollably, "I wish I had met you earlier."