Chapter 5 Thirst During an Illness
The program proposal detailed the program flow. "Not Entering One's Family" is a program focusing on sibling relationships. Siblings are often the closest of relationships, but during their growth, they are also competitors for limited family resources. The program focuses on the fluctuating closeness of family bonds, highlighting that the people we love most are also the ones most likely to hurt us. I hate that you threw my stuffed animals, I hold a grudge when you complained to Mom and Dad, and I can't forget how you always ate all the strawberries, leaving my plate empty. But I also love you and will always stand firmly in front of me.
Now in its eighth season, the show has explored all the well-known siblings in the industry. Having exhausted all other avenues, it's finally time to focus on cousins. As a program that primarily observes relationships, the basic format is simple, focusing on everyday life and games.
Perhaps it was Zong Linhan's always considerate smile that easily softened his fear, which made Chen Pingping relax and subconsciously think that they were from the same world.
Chen Pingping: "Actually, the other show, 'Acting Observation Room,' is better. You can be a guest commentator in a recording studio without being exposed to the wind and sun, and the pay is higher. Why would you choose this show for your first variety show appearance? — If it involves confidential information, then just pretend I didn't ask!"
Chen Pingping was speaking when he suddenly remembered where he was. The bloodstains downstairs rushed into his memory, and he jumped up in a panic, knocking over a potted plant with the back of his hand.
Zong Linhan raised his hand to catch it, then he sensed something was wrong and frowned.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, so sorry!" Chen Pingping apologized hastily, his face flushed red. Seeing Zong Linhan put the potted plant back on the table with a serious expression, he panicked, "What's wrong?"
Zong Linhan slowly wiped the mud off his fingertips with a tissue. “I participated in this program mainly because it has a simple schedule and short duration. As you know, my mother has always hoped that I would devote more attention to my acting career. In the past two years, I have turned down some projects, and my public exposure has been very low, which she is very dissatisfied with.”
Chen Pingping knew about this matter. Unlike Zong Linhan's euphemistic explanation, to put it bluntly, Zong Linhan's mother hoped to use the exposure to bind him, forcing him to leave people and things related to superpowers and to withdraw from the Supernatural Investigation Bureau.
After completing all the necessary handovers and signing all the required contracts, Chen Pingping breathed a sigh of relief. Before leaving, he hesitated for a moment, carefully considering his own abilities, and turned back at the door.
He pushed a contract in front of Zong Linhan, "This is your sister's contract..."
The signature area for Party B was blank. Zong Linhan didn't even look at it and picked up a pen to forge it on the spot.
"Wait, wait a minute!"
Having witnessed the siblings' violent fight, and out of a little sympathy for the equally weak force, Chen Pingping mustered her courage and whispered, "Why don't we have a proper discussion with your sister?"
Zong Linhan was not keen on arguing with Zong Yue, so he paused and gave Chen Pingping a face.
He smiled and said, "Yes, I'll have a good talk with her."
-
Meng Run pushed open the office door, which was filled with smoke, making him choke and quickly push open the window. "Why are you only putting on an act in front of your agent?"
“If I don’t act, he’ll have to take a detour next time he sees me.” Zong Linhan sat by the window, one leg propped up, the other half dangling in the air.
He tossed the potted plant in his hand to Meng Run.
"I'll take the hidden weapon!" Meng Run reached out and caught it, spilling soil all over the floor and staining a large patch of the expensive carpet. He examined the potted plant but couldn't figure out what was wrong. "What happened to this little thing?"
Zong Linhan stubbed out his cigarette. "Is it heavy?"
"Heavy? You mean this?" Meng Run weighed it in his hand. "It's very light. What's wrong?"
Zong Linhan jumped off the windowsill and took the potted plant back from Meng Run. "I think it's very heavy."
Meng Run's eyes widened, and he almost dropped the cigarette from his mouth. He quickly realized a possibility, "You're not really going to believe that driver's nonsense, are you? Didn't they find nothing wrong?"
Zong Linhan sat back in his swivel chair, tossing the ceramic basin up and down. "I don't know. Maybe I really have been marked by some untraceable species."
"Let's observe a little longer, don't jump to conclusions." Meng Run broke the silence, flipping open the contract to find a topic of conversation. "Oh, you didn't even forge your sister's signature? The two of you made up before the show even aired, that's really strange—Meilan Island?"
Meng Run suddenly looked up, "You didn't tell me you were going to Meilan Island!"
Zong Linhan casually covered his ears, "Why don't you just go to Central Street and shout, so my mom can hear you?"
Meng Run glanced at the closed door subconsciously and lowered his voice, "Captain! Why are you still looking for your brother? It's been forbidden!"
Seeing that Zong Linhan remained unmoved and calmly tossed the ceramic pot around, Meng Run grew anxious: "Captain!"
"How can we give up until we see the person?" Zong Linhan frowned. "We need to see the person, whether alive or dead. People can't just vanish from the world for no reason."
Meng Run: "It's been almost ten years..."
"I know." The earthenware basin landed steadily in his palm, each toss and fall heavier than the last, like a cruel reality. Zong Linhan's tone was calm, "Do you think I'm cursed with bad luck? A girlfriend, a brother, they both left a letter and disappeared."
Perhaps only Zong Linhan in this world still insists that the letter represents running away from home, not a suicide note.
He was backlit, his expression relaxed, and he sat casually in the chair. But when he talked about his brother, he always avoided looking at people, as if he didn't want to see the expressions of others who had already given up.
Meng Run couldn't bear to expose the truth, so he just sighed and said, "Then you'd better hide well, Captain, and don't let the higher-ups find out that you're still investigating."
Contracts and documents were scattered on the table, and a photo on the corner caught Meng Run's attention; it was a photo that had been torn in half.
In the remaining half of the photo, the boy gets out of a black car. His black hair is as soft as silk, and his features are delicate and beautiful. Even the angle of the candid shot does not diminish his temperament. He is wearing a light gray shirt, which is thin. A dark black coat is draped over another person, who is holding the child's hand. The two hold hands tightly, carefully and tenderly, as if afraid that the other will fall.
Unfortunately, the child's part was torn off, so we can't see the whole picture.
Meng Run: "Is this his photo?"
Zong Linhan lowered his eyes and said, "Mm."
Zong Linhan's older brother, Zong Linyang, was hailed as a child prodigy. His coming-of-age gift was outrageously extravagant—a biochemical laboratory was given to him by his family. He was 22 years old when he disappeared, in his fifth year of managing the laboratory.
Zong Linyang has been Zong Linhan's role model and object of imitation since childhood, an insurmountable mountain, and the person he admires most in the world. In addition to his success in his career and his impeccable words and deeds, it is also because no matter how great the joy or sorrow, or how cold or hot the weather, he is always cold and calm.
The only time he ever saw his brother lose control was on the day the lab exploded. It was the first time he saw fear and panic in his brother's eyes, but it only lasted a moment. This perpetually calm and indifferent man closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, there was no emotion in them, only calmness, composure, and a cruel rationality.
Shortly after the laboratory explosion, Zong Linyang left a letter and disappeared without a trace.
Meng Run, with his sharp eyes, spotted a white dress fluttering past, halfway through the film. "Is that a little girl next to her?"
Meng Run exclaimed excitedly, "Wow, Captain, you actually wear women's clothes sometimes! Hey, is there a complete photo of this?!"
Zong Linhan glared at him. "Are you blind? This isn't me."
Meng Run asked with considerable regret, "Is that your cousin?"
Zong Linhan picked up the photo. "He's probably a kid from an orphanage. His parents set up a charity fund in his name a long time ago to support some children."
Across the years, Zong Linhan gazed at the handsome young man in the photograph. He should have been the most honored member of the family, yet he callously abandoned his family and vanished without a trace.
Zong Linhan looked down for a while, "Two years after he disappeared, my mother finally agreed to have someone clean his room. That afternoon, I finally had the courage to go in and take a look. I thought I would see a lot of memories, and then cry my heart out and accept that he would never come back."
"But his room was empty, with nothing left behind, or rather, there was nothing related to the house from the beginning, as if he had never had any connection with this house."
“He never even kept a single photo of me. Isn’t that incredibly heartless?” Zong Linhan said with a self-deprecating tone. “But even though he treated me like this, I still want to find him.”
-
That evening, Wen Zhiling had a rare dinner with her colleague Xiaomeng.
She got along well with her colleagues, but they didn't interact much in their lives, so she was still very happy to be invited by the young girl, who blushed.
Xiao Meng was harassed by an old rogue today, and she stepped in to save her.
While ordering food, the old rogue talked and pointed at the cat toy, the small feather at the tip brushing against the bow on Xiaomeng's chest.
After being subtly reminded by Xiaomeng twice, he still had the nerve to complain, shouting, "Your store has a cat ear theme, so I brought a cat toy to cooperate with you, isn't that? Hey, little girl, if you keep trembling like that, people will think I'm bullying you."
Xiao Meng is gentle by nature and has never encountered such a rotten person before. She was so angry that her eyes turned red, but she couldn't utter any curses.
Wen Zhiling happened to be passing by and, seeing injustice, decided to act. She pressed down on the cat toy with her index finger, and the feathers shot straight at the hooligan's face, hitting his glasses. She tossed and turned it around several times like she was teasing a cat.
The customer was stunned at first, then his face turned ashen. Enraged, he snatched the cat toy and smashed the ashtray on the table with a loud bang. Just then, the background music stopped playing, and everyone around turned to look, including the store manager at the cashier.
Ten minutes later, in the warehouse-cum-office, Wen Zhiling bowed her head and explained what had happened to the esteemed person in charge of wages. The store manager had a blank face, sweat beading on his forehead from anger. The quiet of the warehouse amplified the crying girl's voice. He glared at her with displeasure, which only intensified the girl's grievances, and she could barely suppress her sobs.
Everyone knows that the store manager hates people who cry. Wen Zhiling remembered that this girl had just started college and was quite short of money, so she subtly deflected the question and whispered, "Your bow is crooked. Go to the back and fix it."
The result of her helpfulness was that she had half a day's wages deducted. Although Wen Zhiling was upset, she did not regret it.
When she got off work, Xiaomeng offered to treat her to dinner and a movie as a thank you.
Tonight was going to be a very pleasant evening before the movie.
When Wen Zhiling arrived at the movie theater, her smile vanished. The movie was none other than "The Fallen City," starring Zong Linhan. She had managed to avoid the store manager's invitation to the premiere, but she couldn't resist the young girl's enthusiastic invitation.
Wen Zhiling forced herself to watch the movie. The movie tells the story of a sickly artist, played by Zong Linhan, who waits for the end of his life in a remote mountain hospital, but maintains a positive and optimistic attitude towards life, which moves the protagonist who pretends to be seriously ill and want to die.
The film's composition is refreshing, with beautiful shots of greenery and rain. The artist, dressed in a blue and white striped hospital gown, has a snow-white profile and gazes out the window day after day, his breathing weak, as if he could be taken away by the disease at any moment.
But he was very strong and showed an optimistic side to the protagonist. He gave the protagonist origami cranes, took the protagonist out of the ward in the middle of the night to buy candy, and when the protagonist was unhappy, he secretly took him fishing. The two of them were wearing hospital gowns and splashing water by the stream.
The film reaches its climax as water splashes, soaking his hospital gown. The artist smiles, his eyes clear and bright, his brows crinkling with laughter. Dappled sunlight falls on his forehead and nose, like leaping sprites. In that frozen moment, it seems as if the pain and the hopeless future are laid bare under the sunlight, evaporating completely.
The movie theater was filled with sobs. Xiao Meng had cried through a whole pack of tissues, while Wen Zhiling fidgeted, constantly drinking water. Her gaze lingered on the artist's fair neck, the smooth lines of his shoulders and neck. She repeatedly forced herself to look away from the frame, to look at the flowers, the grass, the air. But that fleeting glimpse of radiant white skin felt like a feather tickling her heart, pushing a person trying to quit drinking into a brewery.
As the movie neared its end, Wen Zhiling finally couldn't resist leaving early, heading straight to the restroom and splashing water on her face. The icy water slid down her cheeks, sending a shiver down her spine.
Looking at the trembling person in the mirror, Wen Zhiling calculated the time. There were three more days, and she would be free in three more days.
-
That evening, on the other side of the city, a deliveryman stood on the west side of Central Avenue, outside the police cordon.
He looked up at the hexagonal, sharply defined building, covered with a thick layer of anti-interference textured material that could effectively withstand attacks from energy weapons and intrusions from detection aircraft. From the main building to the outermost perimeter, a detection line was stretched every twenty meters, and high-power sensors on the watchtowers operated 24 hours a day, triggering an alarm immediately for any unauthorized approach.
"Who goes there!" The patrolman immediately stopped him, shining his flashlight in the deliveryman's face. "This isn't usually you. Show me your ID!"
"I...I...I'm helping out. He...he went to get married. I...I only delivered this order. I didn't know anything about it," the deliveryman said, trembling as he handed over his ID card, work permit, driver's license, and whatever was in his wallet, all in a panicked mess.
After receiving the document bag, the patrolman let the courier go. He then looked through the bag and saw that it was for Deputy Team Leader Meng Run.
All documents arriving at the Bureau of Surveillance's office undergo three checks, and this document was no exception. If it hadn't been so dark at night, the inspector might have noticed a red and black dot on the document, like a bead of blood, which mysteriously disappeared when placed in the detector.
A note from the author:
----------------------
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
