Good girl's demeanor
That year, spring came hesitantly, and it was still cold when the new semester started.
In the morning, I walked to school holding the hot milk my mother gave me.
When passing by Ye Zhixia's house, their door was unexpectedly open.
This is very unusual.
Aunt Fang is a mysophobe and hates the dust raised by people coming and going every day.
Similarly, we kids were not very welcome to play at home.
I slowed down and looked inside the house, just in time to see Aunt Fang and Ye Zhixia coming out of the inner room holding something.
"...Hello Aunt Fang, I'm waiting for Xia Xia to go to school together." I greeted her a little awkwardly.
"It's Nian Nian, come in quickly, it's cold outside!" Contrary to her usual behavior, Aunt Fang invited me in with a happy face, and even the fine lines at the corners of her eyes smoothed out.
“...Ah...Okay,” I responded blankly, tiptoeing carefully over the threshold.
The room looked different.
There was a white crib in the corner of the living room, and the sofa was piled with various small clothes, as well as all kinds of strange-shaped bottles and jars that I couldn't name.
Ye Zhixia stood in the corner, holding a stuffed teddy bear in her arms.
She was stroking the bear's ears mechanically.
As if she felt my gaze, she looked up, and when our eyes met, she quickly turned away.
It's strange, I can't understand the look in her eyes.
"Come, Nian Nian, try this cookie," Aunt Fang said, smiling as she handed me a packet of cookies with foreign language writing on them. "This has no preservatives, so it's good for children."
The tenderness in his tone was almost overflowing, but I always felt that the tenderness was not because of me.
"Thank you, Aunt Fang."
I took it and took a small bite. It had a light sweetness, but inexplicably felt a bit choking.
On the way to school, we usually chatter about cartoons, but this is the first time we walked so quietly.
I secretly counted my steps. When I took the hundredth step, a drop of water suddenly hit the Velcro of Ye Zhixia's sneakers. It was quickly absorbed by the fabric without leaving any trace.
"Niannian," Ye Zhixia suddenly said, "Do you think Mom will still love me after I have a younger brother?"
I was just a teenager at that time, how could I know how to comfort others?
Instead, I felt panicked by her question.
A childish desire to appear mature and knowledgeable came to mind.
I thought of my grandmother’s preference for my cousin and my parents’ discussion about “preferring sons to daughters” at night.
I deliberately used a condescending tone, imitating the tone of adults and said, "All adults are like this, they all have the old idea of favoring boys over girls."
Ye Zhixia lowered her head and stopped talking.
————
The accident happened on an ordinary afternoon.
I'm curled up on the sofa at home watching SpongeBob SquarePants.
"I'm ready, I'm ready..."
The yellow sponge's antics had me rolling on the floor with laughter.
The phone suddenly rang, and I impatiently stretched my arm to grab the receiver on the coffee table, "Hello?"
"Nian Nian!"
My mother's voice was hurried and hoarse, "Go call Xia Xia! Your Aunt Fang fell down the stairs, the ambulance will be here soon, the situation is not good, little brother may not be able to be saved..."
The receiver slipped from my fingers, and SpongeBob's laughter suddenly became shrill.
"Xia Xia! Ye Zhi Xia!"
"Xia Xia! Ye Zhixia!" I knocked hard on Ye Zhixia's door, and the sound echoed in the empty corridor.
"Nian Nian! What's wrong?"
Jiang Yuanzhou from next door poked his head out to look at me, his eyes a little sleepy, as if I had woken him up from his nap.
"Jiang Yuanzhou! Have you seen Xia Xia?"
Jiang Yuanzhou shook his head in confusion.
"Ye Zhixia!"
"Ye Zhixia!"
......
Lulu, Jiang Yuanzhou, and I, who had rushed over after hearing the news, ran to the sandpit, the canteen, the edge of the playground...all the places she often went, but we didn't see a single person.
I actually worked up a sweat while running in the early spring weather.
Finally, I rushed into Lu Xingye's studio, which was usually one of our secret bases, out of breath.
There was no one in the studio, only the smell of paint from an unfinished painting.
I was so hot that I sat down on the ground and fanned myself with a piece of sketch paper that was either from Aunt Chen or Lu Xingye.
A rustling sound came from the storage room behind the studio where miscellaneous items were stored.
I walked around the erected easel and saw that the door of the storage room behind the studio where miscellaneous items were stored was ajar, with light coming through.
"Ye Zhixia! Why are you here!?"
Pushing open the half-open door, Ye Zhixia was huddled beside a paint bucket in the dim light, with rice paper piled on the ground.
Her expression when she turned back was full of fear, and I couldn't see clearly what she quickly hid behind her.
"Hurry to the hospital! Your mother is in the hospital, and your brother may be gone too."
I shouted anxiously.
Her expression instantly lost all color, and something fell to the ground with a thud.
I leaned over to take a look and saw that the rice paper that Lu Xingye had thrown to me that day had been made into the shape of the little man that the art teacher had taught in class.
But it is not the cute one with red lips and white teeth. This little man is lying on the ground with dense needles stuck in his body. The note on it reads "brother".
"Then go find a Taoist priest and get rid of your brother."
Lu Xingye's heartless joke suddenly rang in my ears.
Ye Zhixia's lips were trembling, and she stared at me, as if waiting for me to scream and run away.
I remember her lips, which were bitten white.
I remember her curled up body in the hospital corridor filled with the smell of disinfectant, so small and so thin.
Aunt Fang’s heart-wrenching cry in the ward left a deep impression in my memory.
So she really hated having such a brother?
Are you so hateful that you would think of using such a vicious method to get rid of him?
Even though I was so shocked by this strange scene that my hands and feet were cold, I still didn't tell anyone and kept this secret for her.
Just because a person dies is enough, let alone it is just an embryo, why hurt a living person?
But I didn’t expect that some knots in the heart cannot be resolved overnight.
Once buried, it will take root and sprout quietly.
Perhaps the seeds of her alienation from me were sown at that time.
When I saw Ye Zhixia at school the next day, she still had a faint smile on her face and behaved appropriately, showing all the demeanor of a good girl.
I don’t know if it’s my prejudice or my illusion, but I always feel that her expression of complete dependence is gone.
That smile was like a mask on his face, replaced by a faint barrier that was untouchable and intangible.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
