Hearing Chen Ke's words, Ding Jianguo looked at him with admiration, "As expected of my uncle, you really know my second uncle well. This is the painting my second uncle made."
As Ding Jianguo spoke, he took out a rolled-up piece of white paper from the box and slowly unfolded it. "The previous one was drawn by an artist based on my second uncle's dictation. This one is drawn by my second uncle himself."
······
The air suddenly became quiet.
Not only Chen Ke, but even Ding Qiangguo, who had come over, fell silent.
On this blank sheet of paper, a person is drawn crookedly, with two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. There are only simple and straightforward lines. If it weren't for the line of text next to it and Chen Zhuo's own signature, Chen Ke would never have believed that this was a drawing of himself by Chen Zhuo.
After a long pause, Ding Qiangguo exclaimed with a sigh, "Now we've finally found Second Grandpa's weakness: he's clumsy... Ouch! Dad, if you hit my head again, I'll draw you like this from now on!"
"What do you know, you little brat? This is called abstract painting!" Ding Jianguo tried to salvage General Chen Zhuo's reputation for painting skills.
Ding Qiangguo protested, "What abstract painting? This is just something a kindergarten kid would draw... Hey, hey, let's talk this out, don't hit me!"
In fact, Chen Ke quite agreed with Ding Qiangguo's words. This level of drawing skill is at most that of a kindergarten student.
My gaze shifted to the small characters, bold and vigorous, that seemed to penetrate the paper: "Remembering an unnamed alley at dusk in early spring, by my elder brother Chen Ke."
It refers to the time and place of his sudden disappearance.
!!
Does Chen Zhuo think he's been abandoned again?
Thinking of this, Chen Ke immediately asked Ding Jianguo, "Did your mother tell you what Chen Zhuo's reaction was after I disappeared?"
Chen Ke regretted asking the question as soon as he finished.
Because he realized that he seemed to have set himself a difficult problem. If Ding Jianguo answered that Chen Zhuo was in great pain and his personality had changed drastically, that was definitely not what he wanted to see. But if Ding Jianguo said that Chen Zhuo had no reaction and was just looking for him like an ordinary relative who had disappeared.
Actually, he also felt a little disappointed. After all, Chen Zhuo had shown so much concern for him before, but then he disappeared. This was his reaction.
Therefore, he shouldn't have asked that question!
I wonder if this is a common problem for parents: on one hand, they worry that their children are too clingy and won't be able to fly high, and on the other hand, they worry that their children don't care at all and won't fly far...
Ding Jianguo had no idea about Chen Ke's complicated thoughts. Since Chen Ke had asked him, he answered honestly: "Speaking of your disappearance without reason, my mother often lamented to me that when my second uncle woke up, he almost turned Shanghai upside down. It was only thanks to Aunt Xu and the others that he was able to get away with it."
"Wake up? Who woke up?" Chen Ke remembered that only Song Xiaowen had fainted because of grief over Aunt Liu's matter.
"Second Uncle, the day you disappeared, Second Uncle fell into a coma. He woke up in the middle of the night and acted like a madman, crying and screaming in the hospital. No one could calm him down; they could only give him sedatives. This went on and on, and even the doctors diagnosed him with a mental illness. Then one night, he suddenly regained his senses and became lucid. He started frantically searching for you everywhere..."
Upon hearing this, Chen Ke felt a heart-wrenching pain for the first time.
"It wasn't until a few months later, when my mother was born, that my second uncle stopped looking for you. He packed his things and went straight to join the army. He was gone for four years before he was sent back to Shanghai. It was around that time that my mother became close to her second brother."
My mother often said that her second brother was the best brother in the world. He bought her pretty dresses, beautiful dolls, and delicious candies. He would also take her out to play whenever he had free time, holding her and telling her your stories. So, after I was born, I grew up listening to your stories, Uncle.
Hearing this, Chen Ke suddenly lost his sadness. The story Chen Zhuo and Zhou Shuya were telling him? Could it be about how cold and heartless he was in abandoning him?
"She rarely told my mother about what my second uncle did to find you. My mother heard about it from my grandmother. But my mother said that my grandmother couldn't help but cry every time she talked about this past event, so... thinking back, that period was filled with sadness and sorrow."
Ding Jianguo's eyes reddened as he spoke, and his wrinkled face was filled with the joy of having his wish fulfilled as he looked at Chen Ke.
Chen Ke stared at Chen Zhuo's painting in silence. For him, it was only a matter of two or three minutes, but for Chen Zhuo, Song Xiaowen, and Zhou Shanhuai, the pain of losing their loved ones would last a lifetime.
"...So, Grandpa, why did you disappear?"
——
The heavy atmosphere of sadness suddenly vanished completely.
Ding Jianguo, tears still streaming down his face, looked at Chen Ke with great curiosity.
Chen Ke: "...This is a long story, and it's beyond the reach of your current science."
"Grandpa, do you understand? We can go to the national scientific research department to study it!"
······
What a good grandson of his, actually wanting to send him to a research institute!
"Cough cough cough, I'm afraid it's too late, I have to go back immediately."
"What!"
"What! You can go back?" The father and son exclaimed in unison, shocked.
"Yes, I can go back." The system had just suddenly told him that the virus had disappeared on its own, as if it had installed a suicide program. After disrupting their spacetime program, it disappeared automatically before he could find and remove them all.
This is an insult to the system! You take all the precautions, and it just comes along whenever it wants, wreaks havoc, and then, lo and behold, commits suicide right in front of you!
Hey, just kidding, I'll slap you in the face!
The system was furious, and Chen Ke couldn't bother to appease it. He could only repeat the promise of installing the biochemical brain, guaranteeing that the system would be safe after the mission, before it finally swallowed its anger in frustration.
"Grandpa, you're not kidding, are you? You're so good at time travel? Can I come with you guys? I want to go see what it's like!"
"You brat, what are you doing causing trouble here?" Ding Jianguo, who was not young but still agile, slapped his son away and smiled embarrassedly. "Uncle, this little brat doesn't get along with the elders. You should take me with you. Otherwise, the elders might get so angry when they see that their descendants are such a troublesome thing that they refuse to marry him, and he won't even have the chance to be born."
"Dad, what nonsense are you talking about? I've never even gotten along with the elders, how do you know we don't get along?"
Enraged, Ding Jianguo slapped Ding Qiangguo again, saying, "I'm going to see my mother and my grandmother. What are you doing getting involved? Your mother is still here!"
Ding Qiangguo was immediately speechless.
Chen Ke sighed and rubbed his forehead. "There's no need to argue. No one can take anyone with them, but we can pass on a few words."
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