Past
The next morning, Qi Wuchen sat on the sofa, looking down at his phone for a long while. Suddenly, when Ling Jianghan was about to go out, he said, "Ling Jianghan, take me with you to see her."
Jiang Han's hand, which was busy tying his shoelaces, paused.
After a long while, he stood up, looked at Qi Wuchen and asked, "Aren't you going back to school?"
"I can't go back," Qi Wuchen stood up and walked towards the entrance: "My sister asked for three days of leave for me."
"Why did she ask you for so much leave?"
"Do ideological work." Qi Wuchen answered casually.
Jiang Han was silent for a while, and he instinctively felt that he could not ask any further questions about this matter.
"Let's go."
Zhou Yuyi doesn't have many friends, most of whom are people Jiang Han has met before. Those he hasn't met are basically Gu Yinglian's best friends during her lifetime.
When the two arrived, Zhou Yuyi's mother was answering the phone, so Jiang Han took Qi Wuchen to find a place to sit down first.
Not long after they sat down, a middle-aged woman in a black coat and a white chrysanthemum brooch walked slowly towards them.
"Aunt Cheng." Ling Jianghan stood up and greeted her politely.
"Didn't I tell you to study hard?" Cheng Yan smiled at him tiredly, without a hint of blame in her tone: "Why aren't you listening?"
"I want to take a few days off." Ling Jianghan just said.
Cheng Yan didn't say anything else, her eyes fell on Qi Wuchen beside him.
"This is my classmate. I've had the opportunity to meet Sister Yu Yi a few times before." Ling Jianghan turned around and introduced Qi Wuchen, "This is Aunt Cheng."
"Hello Aunt Cheng, I'm Qi Wuchen."
"Hello," Cheng Yan looked at him kindly, "This is the first time I see you."
"We just met not long ago." Ling Jianghan explained.
Qi Wuchen glanced at him and suddenly laughed for no reason.
A moment of surprise flashed across Cheng Yan's face, but she quickly returned to normal.
No one noticed the brief change in her expression.
Qi Wuchen didn't stay long before returning to his home, so Jiang Han chose to stay until the day of cremation.
In the living room, Qi Wuchen, who was sitting on the sofa playing games, asked without raising his eyes: "Qi Chiyue, what excuse did you use to ask for leave?"
Qi Chiyue was trying on the lipstick Qi Wuchen had bought for her in the mirror. After a while, she replied, "I said there was an emergency at home. Your teacher saw how panicked I was and gave you three days off without hesitation."
Qi Wuchen: “…”
"I was worried that three days wouldn't be enough," Qi Chiyue asked again, "so why were you in such a hurry to ask for leave yesterday?"
Qi Wuchen raised his eyes and stared at her for a moment, and finally replied concisely: "Something happened."
"Oh." Qi Chiyue thought to himself, you are just hiding a little secret in your heart that no one knows about, how big a deal can it be.
I don't know what Qi Wuchen saw from her face, but he actually asked her, "What's that expression on your face?"
"Me?" Qi Chiyue looked at him innocently: "I don't have any expression."
-
Jiang Han and Chuyi were not at home for the next few days, so Qi Wuchen simply did not go back.
Qi Chiyue sent him back to class the next day, and Ling Jianghan was not around for several days.
On the fourth day, after they finished their morning exercises and returned to the classroom, Qi Wuchen saw his deskmate reading with his head down.
After he returned to his seat, he could feel that Ling Jianghan's mood was no longer so low, and he would take the initiative to talk and joke with him from time to time.
Qi Wuchen remembered that when the late emperor and Queen Wenhui both passed away in the previous life, Jiang Han was also sad for a day or two, but soon recovered as usual and began to actively talk to him about the good things about the late emperor and Queen Wenhui.
It seems that it won’t be long before Qi Wuchen will hear Ling Jianghan take the initiative to talk about Zhou Yuyi’s past.
After many years, Ling Jianghan still seems to be the same Ling Jianghan who can see life and death very clearly.
At least that's what Qi Wuchen thought.
He was lost in thought when he suddenly felt someone touch his elbow. When he came to his senses, he heard Ling Jianghan say to him, "Qi Wuchen, I won't live at your house anymore."
"Hmm?" Qi Wuchen didn't expect Jiang Han to change his mind so suddenly. After a brief pause, he asked, "Why? Are you thinking of moving?"
"No." Ling Jianghan said, "I want to ask Aunt Cheng to come live with me."
"What then?" Qi Wuchen asked, "Where are you planning to live?"
When Jiang Han didn't respond, Qi Wuchen immediately understood: "Aren't you worried that Aunt Cheng might run into them one day?"
"I don't want to leave her alone." Ling Jianghan said.
"Then come live together," Qi Wuchen said in a voice that left no room for doubt. "Just pay me a little more rent under the existing conditions."
Before Ling Jianghan could say anything, Qi Wuchen said, "You can tell her that this house is yours. I'm just renting it from you for a few months to prepare for the exam."
After he finished speaking, he did not urge Jiang Han to make a decision quickly. He just lazily supported his chin and waited for Jiang Han to give him an answer.
Ling Jianghan didn't hesitate for long. After weighing the pros and cons, he asked, "How much rent do you want?"
Qi Wuchen casually reported a number, and Jiang Han readily agreed.
Uncle Wang had moved all the things Ling Jianghan needed a few days ago, so Ling Jianghan only needed to go back and pick up Chuyi after school in the evening.
After Qi Wuchen came out of school, he waited for Cheng Yan at the gate of the community. Jiang Han had already sent a message to Cheng Yan in the afternoon to discuss this matter.
Ling Jianghan, who was on the other side, had just opened the door when he saw Chuyi lying on the doorstep. He bent down to hold the cat in his arms, and as he closed the door and was about to leave, he bumped into Ling Shengyi who had just returned from taking out the trash.
They were both stunned for a moment, and finally Ling Shengyi broke the silence with a sneer: "What? Are you going to move and sleep on the streets with your cat?"
Ling Jianghan ignored him and chose to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear with a cold face.
This time, Ling Shengyi did not get angry because of Ling Jianghan's ignoring him. Instead, he looked at the other party calmly as he walked past him.
As they passed by, Ling Shengyi glanced at the cat in Ling Jianghan's arms calmly.
After Ling Jianghan walked farther and farther away with Chuyi in his arms, Ling Shengyi took out the key and prepared to open the door before turning around and staring at his back.
It is said that Qi Wuchen downstairs started yawning and feeling sleepy as soon as he got home. After washing up, he went into the bedroom and went to sleep without stopping.
So when Ling Jianghan came back with the cat, Cheng Yan was the only one left in the living room. After he put the cat on the ground, he started chatting with Cheng Yan. Chuyi walked to the door of Qi Wuchen's bedroom, wagging his tail, and lay down to take a nap.
Neither the man nor the cat knew that Qi Wuchen was sitting on the floor with his legs bent and his back against the door.
He looked up at the ceiling, and there was clearly no trace of sleepiness in his narrow and beautiful eyes.
The fingertips of his hands supporting himself on the ground were slightly curled. Qi Wuchen remembered what Cheng Yan said downstairs, and the strength of his hands increased a bit, as if he wanted to lift the floor up.
"Jiang Han..." Cheng Yan sighed after pondering for a moment, "It's not easy to survive, and it's even harder to survive like this."
"His parents divorced when he was two years old. His father still had some conscience at the time and gave them a living allowance every month, but his mother was a ruthless person at the time and would spend every penny of the money every month."
After listening to this, Qi Wuchen said, "I know his parents divorced a long time ago, but I've never heard him mention anything about what happened after that. What did that woman do with the money?"
"Smoking, playing cards, buying new clothes." Cheng Yan said: "She dresses herself up beautifully, but doesn't care about her children's lives at all. If she wins at cards, she buys herself new clothes, and if she loses, she goes home and scolds her children."
"At the time, I was thinking, what's the difference between her doing that and strangling Jiang Han to death? But then I realized that she kept Jiang Han just to make use of the money that Ling Yiyan sent her every now and then, so that she could live a relatively carefree life."
"A year later, Ling Yiyan remarried, and Jiang Han's grandfather learned that his grandson had been abandoned. The old couple wanted to take their grandson to raise him in their own home, but the child's custody was with his mother, and that woman was unwilling to let him go for money. Jiang Han's mother also said that if they handed him over to them, the child would only recognize them and not his mother when he became successful in the future."
Qi Wuchen was silent for a moment after listening to Cheng Yan's words before continuing, "After that, his father was sent to prison by his grandfather, and his mother married a wealthy man?"
Cheng Yan nodded and continued, "His mother remarried when he was four years old. But she neither took him away nor handed him over to Lao Ling. Instead, she let Jiang Han continue to stay in the countryside with his grandparents. The old couple only wanted to live a comfortable life in the city and felt that Jiang Han had trapped them in the countryside. During those years, they beat and scolded Jiang Han and never felt sorry for him. I don't know why Lao Ling came to pick him up two years later, but my old man said it was probably his mother's fault."
Qi Wuchen couldn't describe his feelings for a moment, and only felt that his voice was vaguely unstable: "Then how do you know all this?"
"How could I not know?" Cheng Yan shook her head and said with a smile, "We used to be from the same village as his grandmother. Yu Yi felt sorry for him and took good care of him over the years. He almost took him home to raise as his younger brother."
"That's why you said it's not easy for him to live like this."
"At least it wasn't easy for me," Cheng Yan said. "I always thought he was a good kid who deserved our sympathy, so I always hoped he would get better and better."
"Yes," Qi Wuchen lowered his head and looked at the ground, his voice low but firm: "He will get better and better in the future."
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