"I'm sorry, Li Xunli's family, we did our best."
...
"Qingqing! Go back quickly! Your house is leaking gas!"
"Your parents are both at home and haven't come out!"
...
“Ms. Shen Qingqing, these are the ashes of your father, Shen Rongzhou, and your mother, Li Xunli. Please keep them safe.”
...
"Sister...we have no home anymore..."
...
"Bang—"
"sister!!!"
...
The sounds faded away, leaving only a black and white image: Shen Qingqing lay in a pool of blood in the middle of the road, clutching two urns tightly, her eyes vacant. Shen Yangyang and Shen Hong knelt before her, their faces filled with terror, sobbing uncontrollably on the phone.
The image slowly darkened and shrank, shrinking and shrinking until it was just a dot, then suddenly disappeared.
Shen Qingqing, however, remained lying in the same spot, clutching two urns, trapped in complete darkness, unable to move.
"Click".
The heavy sound of the lock being released was like a small hole being punched open in Shen Qingqing's pitch-black world, letting in a faint ray of light.
"Things don't seem to be going well at the factory this year; we've been leaving early for the past seven days in a row..."
Li Xunli's clear and powerful voice suddenly rang out in Shen Qingqing's pitch-black world.
"Things will get better once this period passes. If we leave work early, we can buy some spare ribs for Qingqing and Yangyang to stew! Yangyang, don't you think so?"
Shen Rongzhou's tone was cheerful, completely devoid of the fatigue and hoarseness I remembered.
"Yes! Eat meat!" Shen Yangyang's clear and loud voice rang out.
The familiar footsteps sounded like hammer blows cracking open many light-transmitting fissures in the darkness.
"Rongzhou, go to the kitchen to prepare the meal. I'll go check if Qingqing is back yet."
"Okay, Yangyang, you can play by yourself in the living room!"
"good!"
The footsteps grew closer, and as the door creaked open, Shen Qingqing finally opened her eyes from the cold darkness.
The orange glow of the setting sun streamed into the room through the side window. Shen Qingqing saw Li Xunli, wearing a white shirt and jeans with her hair in a low ponytail, push the door open and enter. She was taken aback at first, then burst out laughing: "Hahahaha, Rongzhou, come and see Qingqing! She came home from school and slept on the table, leaving a bunch of marks on her face!"
"Let me see!" Shen Rongzhou grabbed the half-washed rice and came over, standing behind his wife and looking into the room. Within seconds, he and his wife were laughing so hard they were doubled over.
Shen Yangyang, who was playing in the living room, was attracted by the couple's laughter. She ran over with her short legs, squeezed through the gaps into the room, and rushed directly into Shen Qingqing's arms like a little cannonball.
Shen Yangyang, with her two little pigtails, looked up from Shen Qingqing's arms and exclaimed in surprise when she saw Shen Qingqing's appearance: "Sister has turned into Spider!"
The 2003 version of The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber starring Alec Su became a nationwide sensation upon its release, and even in 2006, it was still being rebroadcast by television stations.
Shen Yangyang has been enjoying watching this show since she came home from kindergarten, and the plot has recently reached the point where the disfigured Zhu'er reappears.
So when Shen Yangyang saw the crisscrossing red marks on Shen Qingqing's face, she immediately made the connection.
Shen Qingqing's icy body gradually warmed up when her younger sister, Shen Yangyang, pounced into her soft, squishy body.
Looking at her vibrant parents, her mischievous little sister in her arms, and the first-grade textbooks on her desk, she finally realized that this was not a dream.
She really went back to when she was just starting elementary school in 2006!
Her parents will also be laid off from the garment factory a year later, and then experience a period of no stable employment for twenty years.
Thinking of her mother's suicide in her past life after she was diagnosed with cancer and could no longer afford treatment, and how she and her father ended up committing suicide by setting the gas on their home, Shen Qingqing hugged her younger sister tighter and tighter.
Now that she's been given another chance, she'll never let the Shen family repeat the same mistakes!
After Li Xunli finished laughing, she said to Shen Qingqing, "Qingqing, Mom and Dad are going to cook. You can play with Yangyang for a while, or you can do your homework and let Yangyang play in your room by herself. After we finish eating, we'll go to your grandma's house to pick up Xiaohong."
After listening, Shen Qingqing suddenly realized, "Yes, no wonder I didn't see my younger brother, Shen Hong."
When Shen Hong was born, his maternal grandmother took him away, saying that neither her family nor her uncle's family had a son, and she wanted to hold her grandson.
Shen Qingqing didn't feel much about this, after all, she had grown up with her maternal grandparents before she started elementary school and then moved back to live with her own family.
On the contrary, Yangyang was raised by her parents from a young age.
However, her mother, Li Xunli, was not happy. Li Xunli was a local of Chaocheng, but Shen Rongzhou was not. He came from out of town to work and met Li Xunli. Later, he settled in Chaocheng and won about 200,000 yuan in the lottery. He bought an 80-square-meter two-bedroom, one-living room, one-kitchen, and one-bathroom apartment.
The preference for sons over daughters is very strong in Chaocheng. Li Xunli grew up without much regard for her mother.
So you can imagine what kind of personality the youngest son developed growing up with his mother.
After arguing their case, they finally agreed that during the day, the couple would go to work and the child would stay at the maternal grandmother's house. In the evening, after the couple finished get off work and had dinner, they would pick the child up.
The couple closed Shen Qingqing's bedroom door and went to cook.
Looking at Shen Yangyang, who was still nestled in her arms, Shen Qingqing couldn't help but recall how she gritted her teeth and worked overtime until the early hours of the morning twenty years later, just to earn a few hundred yuan more in overtime pay to pay for her mother's treatment.
It was because she was both willful and incompetent that her younger siblings had to shoulder the heavy burden.
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