You and I
There was deathly silence in the room.
Shi Guang stood behind his mother, watching her trembling figure. He then glanced at Lu Yu, who stood across from him with an equally solemn expression. His heart ached so much that he could barely breathe. He was afraid—terrified that his mother would give up, that Lu Yu would retreat because of the criticism.
Lu Yu walked in front of Shi Guang’s mother and squatted down.
"Auntie, please raise your head and look at me."
"You're not wrong. The one who's wrong is the one who hit you, and the ones who are confusing right and wrong are wrong! Your only mistake is that you've endured it for too long!"
"Can the eyes of others protect you from being punched? Can the reputation of your relatives pay off your gambling debts? When you and Shi Guang were being beaten, did any of those rumors speak up for you?"
"So, what you need to do now is not to doubt yourself, but to be more determined than all of them! The more they want you to retreat, the more you must move forward! We must continue this battle!"
He looked at her, and also at the time behind her, with a flame burning in his eyes.
"Not only for freedom, but also to regain your dignity that has been trampled upon for twenty years!"
Lu Yu acted decisively and made an extremely tough decision.
"Auntie, Shi Guang, let's pack up and move immediately. This place is no longer safe."
He took them in a taxi and drove straight across most of the county to a newly opened business hotel farthest from the old town. This hotel had stricter security and was mostly occupied by business people from outside the city who didn't know each other, minimizing the possibility of being seen by acquaintances and the spread of gossip.
His prediction was accurate. The next morning, Uncle Shiguang Chen Jianjun called as expected.
"Shi Guang! What do you mean? Huh?! Why did you sneak around and change places without even telling me? Do you still have me, your uncle, in your eyes? I'm telling you, I don't agree with your mother's divorce! Our Chen family can't afford to lose this person! Let that kid named Lu answer the phone. I want to ask him why an outsider is interfering in our family affairs like this!"
The phone was on speakerphone, and the roaring voice was particularly harsh in the quiet hotel room.
Shi Guang's face turned pale in an instant, and he subconsciously wanted to hang up the call.
Lu Yu reached out and held his hand. He took the phone from Shi Guang and calmly placed it to his ear. There was no emotion in his voice, but it was as cold as ice.
"Hello, Mr. Chen, I'm Lu Yu."
The person on the other end of the phone was obviously stunned for a moment, as if he didn't expect him to dare to take the challenge head-on.
"First," Lu Yu spoke slowly, but each word was as cold as a stone. "This isn't your family matter. This is a criminal offense that's been going on for twenty years. Second, I'm preventing the continuation of this crime and helping the victims protect their basic human rights through legal means."
He paused, his tone sharpening. "Finally, let me tell you clearly that there is no room for negotiation on the matter of divorce. If you're calling to continue to pressure the victims mentally and persuade them to give up pursuing the abuser, then I'm sorry, we have nothing to discuss."
Afterwards, he blacklisted the contact information of Chen Jianjun and all relatives of the Chen family who might know their old numbers.
After forcibly cutting off outside interference, Lu Yu and Lawyer Wang quickly adjusted their strategy. Since the path of witness testimony was blocked, they had to focus all their energy on physical evidence and official evidence.
Lawyer Wang was extremely efficient. In just two days, an official record that shocked everyone was presented to them.
In the past five years, just based on the records, 110 received as many as seven calls about □□'s domestic violence!
Each call to the police corresponded to a beating, a cry, a desperate plea for help. These seven police dispatch receipts, stamped with bright red official seals, like seven bloody scars, formed an irrefutable chain of evidence of violence.
However, Lu Yu felt that this was not enough. He needed more evidence.
After obtaining the consent of Shi Guang's mother, he made a bold decision to accompany Shi Guang back to the ruined home.
"We're going back not to beg for help, but to search," Lu Yu said to Shi Guang. "It's impossible that Auntie left no trace at all after all these years. There must be something hidden in a corner we don't know about."
The room still maintained the mess left by the earthquake. Lu Yu didn't rush to act, but encouraged Shi Guang: "You know this place better than I do. Close your eyes and think about it. Is there any place where Mom often stays alone or hides things?"
Finally, Shi Guang's gaze fell on the old, paint-chipped bookcase in his room.
He recalled that when he was very young, there were times when he saw his mother hiding in his room alone in the middle of the night, staring blankly at the corner of the bookcase.
He walked forward, moving aside the heavy piles of old textbooks and review materials. In the bookcase's inner compartment, he felt a cold, hard object. He pulled it out with force. It was a tin mooncake box, its edges rusted from moisture.
The box was heavy and covered with thick dust.
Shi Guang's heart began to beat violently and uncontrollably. He had a strong premonition that what they were looking for was inside.
He opened the tight lid of the box with trembling hands.
When the contents of the box were exposed to the air, even the usually calm Lu Yu couldn't help but gasp.
There was no money or jewelry in the box, only a bunch of things carefully wrapped in a plastic bag.
At the top were several old, severely yellowed photos. They showed Shi Guang's mother in her youth. Her face still retained the delicate beauty of a young girl, but within it, shocking bruises and swelling covered her face. The corners of her eyes were cracked, and blood flowed from the corners of her mouth. Several photos also showed her bare arms, covered in dark brown scars from cigarette burns.
Beneath the photo was a piece of paper, brittle from repeated folding. Unfolding it revealed a letter of guarantee written in ____'s crooked handwriting, dated over a decade ago. It clearly read: "I, ____, have borrowed money from loan sharks and gambled away a large sum. I hereby guarantee that if I gamble again or assault my wife and children, I will be struck by lightning and kicked out of the house."
At the end of the letter of guarantee, there were his scribbled fingerprints.
Photos, guarantee letter.
Witnesses and physical evidence.
All the evidence is complete.
These evidences of crimes, hidden in the deepest part of her son's room by a desperate woman, finally waited for the day when all the sins would be nailed to the judgment seat after lying dormant for more than ten years.
The excitement of collecting key evidence did not last long.
That evening, the weather in Anhe County suddenly changed without warning. By dusk, the sky was shrouded in thick, dark clouds. The oppressive low pressure enveloped the entire city, plunging it into an irritating silence. As night fell, large raindrops began to pound against the windows. Then, a pale flash of lightning flashed, followed by a deafening roar of thunder.
The rainstorm is coming.
Lu Yu's heart sank the moment the thunder exploded. He immediately rushed out of his room and knocked on Shi Guang's door.
No one answered.
He increased his strength, almost slamming the door: "Time! Time! Open the door! It's me!"
There was still no response from the room.
Without giving it any more thought, he turned and rushed to the floor service desk to get the spare room card.
He opened the door, the lights in the room were on, and the bed was empty. Lu Yu's eyes quickly scanned the room, finally settling on the closed bathroom door.
He rushed over and turned the doorknob hard, but it didn't budge. The door was locked from the inside.
"Time!" He put his ear to the cold door panel and caught a faint strange sound from the sound of rain and thunder.
Lu Yu forced himself to take a deep breath, and then another. He suppressed the worry and anxiety that was surging in his heart and moved a chair from the room service cart next to him.
He just stood outside the bathroom door.
Outside the window, there were lightning, thunder, wind and rain.
"Shi Guang, it's raining outside, really hard. But the hotel windows are very thick, so I can't hear clearly. Do you remember the last time it rained in Jiangcheng, neither of us brought an umbrella, and we ran back to the dormitory in the rain. Fatty Jiang even laughed at us for being soaked."
"Lawyer Wang called today. She said the lawsuit has been written and the evidence chain is very complete. She said we will definitely win. After the lawsuit is over, we will return to Jiangcheng..."
"By the way, I really miss the Lanzhou Ramen restaurant at the east gate of the school, especially their spicy beef. When you get back, let's go there again, okay?"
Time passed by minute by minute amid the sound of heavy rain outside the window and Lu Yu's steady narration.
I don't know how much time passed, maybe ten minutes, maybe an hour. Lu Yu's voice had become a little hoarse from the long speech.
The suppressed panting sound behind the door, like that of a trapped animal, gradually underwent a slight change.
I don’t know how long it was after, but just as a huge flash of lightning appeared outside the window, illuminating the entire room as bright as day, there was a sudden click from the bathroom door lock.
The door is unlocked.
Lu Yu quickly stepped forward and pushed open the door.
Time curled up on the cold tiles. He took off his shoes and was barefoot. The thin T-shirt on his body was soaked with cold sweat and tears that had flowed from him at some point in time. It stuck tightly to his body, outlining the outline of his back that looked particularly thin due to the violent trembling.
Lu Yu took a step forward, bent down, and held the cold and trembling body tightly in his arms.
Shi Guang stretched out his hands, which were still shaking uncontrollably, and grabbed Lu Yu's clothes on the back tightly.
Then she buried her hot face deeply in Lu Yu's neck.
The next second, the grievances and helplessness that had been pent up for eighteen years finally found an outlet to fully vent. He dropped all the pretense of strength and silence, and like a child who had been lost for too long and finally found his way home, he burst into tears in Lu Yu's arms.
Lu Yu tightened his arms and hugged the man in his arms even tighter, as if he wanted to rub him into his bones and blood. He used the warmth of his palms to gently caress his violently trembling back again and again.
He whispered in his ear repeatedly in a low voice, like an oath:
"It's okay...it's all over..."
"Look, time..."
"I caught you on this thunderstorm night."
That belated collapse and crying, like the profuse sweat after a high fever, completely expelled all the black toxins about the thunderstorm night that had accumulated over time.
Lu Yu sat all night without closing his eyes.
He watched the violent storm outside the window, how it gradually subsided, and how the thick night was gently infected by the faint fish belly white that quietly emerged on the distant skyline, and finally tore open a hole leading to the dawn.
Lu Yu watched the scene quietly.
Looking at this boy who was crying heart-wrenchingly in his arms, but now sleeping like a child.
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