Chapter 34 The Boy Who Left Without Saying Goodbye【VIP】
I didn't wait for the gentle fluttering of a butterfly's wings, but instead waited for a tsunami of youth.
——"Chronological Diary"
After revisiting that night in the peach forest, Zhen Hao and Shi Xu didn't see each other again for the entire summer vacation.
Zhen Hao doesn't have a mobile phone and no access to the Internet, so she is almost cut off from the outside world.
Under the arrangement of her family, she and Zhen Mei were sent to her aunt's home in Meiyuan Town to do some simple handicrafts to supplement the family income.
This is not the first time Zhen Hao has visited his aunt's house.
No one knew her inner resistance, which made her experience once again the childhood of being abandoned by her family.
In order to have a son, Zhen Hao followed her grandmother Zhen and wandered all over the mountains and plains when she was six years old. She stayed at Wang's house tonight and Li's house tomorrow night. Finally, she was sent directly to her aunt's house.
She stayed there for half a year until she was old enough to go to school, and then she was taken back to Citong Village.
But he didn't take her back to the Zhen family.
At that time, the Zhen family was still in a state of being deserted. The Zhen family members fled, hid, and scattered all over the country, just to ensure that Zhen Dongcheng would have "successors."
This time, Zhen Hao was sent to his uncle's house, which was also the home of Grandma Zhen's younger brother.
My uncle's family treats Zhen very well, but after all, living under someone else's roof is never as comfortable as being at home.
After experiencing the life of a hostel owner for seven years, she became insecure and taciturn, and the smile on her face faded day by day...
Perhaps due to her frail body or perhaps her anxiety, Zhen Hao would occasionally wet the bed before she was eight. She will always remember the look of disdain her aunt gave her, and the sarcastic words she said, "You're such a grown-up girl, and you still wet the bed. You have no respect for cleanliness at all."
She wanted to cry, but she could only shed tears silently.
She wanted to run away from home, but she had nowhere to go and was trapped in this small mountain village, gradually withering away.
Finally, the lively and cheerful girl disappeared completely.
When Zhen Hao set foot in Meiyuan Town again, he was so scared that he couldn't sleep that night.
My aunt’s house is very big, with five floors.
In Min City, it was common to see people building their own small Western-style houses. My aunt's family was a well-known figure in the area, at least on the surface, they had everything they needed – a Western-style house and a factory.
The aunt arranged for the two sisters to live in a master bedroom on the second floor, which was much better than the Zhen family's simple living environment.
This was clearly the modern residence that Zhen Hao had always dreamed of, but she just couldn't be happy.
Childhood memories replayed in her mind, making it difficult for her to breathe.
She turned her head to look at Zhen Mei who was already fast asleep, and suddenly she felt a little stronger and more at ease in her heart.
At least with my younger sister by my side, this summer vacation shouldn't be too bad.
She was thinking aimlessly, and suddenly a face more beautiful than the moonlight appeared in her mind.
In the peach grove where the fragrance of peaches wafted through the night sky, on the path where the mountain breeze gently brushed past my ears, as the stars twinkled at the couple on earth, the young man's voice was so soft that it seemed to be scattered in the wind: "Love can also be romantic and long-lasting."
This is Shixu’s response to her statement that “friendship is the longest-lasting relationship.”
She didn't know why she suddenly thought of Shixu that night at this moment. She only knew that Shixu's face, which was sad but determined, was deeply imprinted in her mind.
Just like the peach fragrance of her childhood, it never faded in the long river of her life from now on, and even became stronger over time.
The next day, the Zhen Hao sisters got up early.
Before coming, Grandma Zhen warned me: "When you go to your aunt's house, you have to be diligent, okay? Don't be like your mother who sleeps in. You have to be active, so that adults will like you..."
Even if Grandma Zhen didn't say it, the two sisters already understood this truth.
But, what they didn't expect was——
"Dad, why are you here?" Zhen Hao was surprised when he saw Zhen Dongcheng appear in the work area on the first floor.
"Let me supervise you two little guys while they work." Zhen Dongcheng joked.
Zhen Mei was overjoyed when she heard this: "That's great! I can finally eat the food that Dad cooked!"
"You, you only know how to eat, you little greedy cat." Zhen Dongcheng gently poked Zhen Mei's forehead, his eyes full of pampering.
He came here for two reasons. First, Zhen Hao needed to drink Chinese herbal medicine for a month straight to improve his health, and he was uneasy about having an outsider prepare the medicine. Second, he had no business recently, so he came here to help out and earn some money to support his family.
Of course, he would not tell the children this.
With Zhen Dongcheng by their side, the Zhen Hao sisters felt the warmth of family for a rare time at their aunt's house.
Zhen Dongcheng is a good cook, so my aunt asked him to be responsible for preparing two meals a day for more than a dozen people. He also drives and delivers goods on weekdays, which is quite an easy job.
In the early summer of 2006, the Zhen Hao sisters first came into contact with the Japanese manga "Detective Conan" and fell in love with it.
After work every day, they would stay in the living room on the second floor, sitting on the floor leaning against the sofa, happily analyzing and arguing about who the murderer was and what the murder method was.
Happy times always fly by. After studying Chinese medicine, Zhen Dongcheng is going to leave Meiyuan Town and look for business opportunities again.
Although it was a happy thing that Ma Yan swallowed the Chinese medicine, what Zhen Hao was even more reluctant to let go of was the fact that his father was leaving.
During dinner, Zhen Hao sneaked into the kitchen during work.
The kitchen is a separate bungalow, which is about 10 minutes’ walk from the five-story building.
It was the mango season at that time, and every time I walked on that path, I had to be careful not to get hit on the head by the ripe mangoes.
Mangoes are fragrant and sweet, and you can smell the special mango fragrance without peeling the skin. It is one of the favorite fruits of Zhen Hao and her sister.
To be precise, it is one of their favorite fruits among all the fruits they can eat.
This time, Zhen Hao was not in the mood to care whether the fallen mangoes were sweet or not, and he trotted all the way to the kitchen door.
As soon as she stood still, she heard a "hiss" sound from Zhen Dongcheng, and then some of the medicine in the casserole spilled out because he didn't hold it firmly.
Some of the boiling hot soup got onto his hand. He had already had his hand scalded by the casserole, so he quickly retracted his hand reflexively and touched the tip of his ear.
"Dad!" Zhen Hao saw this scene and took two steps forward anxiously, "Are you okay?"
"Okay?" Zhen Dongcheng smiled gently when he saw her. "Why are you here?"
Zhen Hao didn't answer, but took his hand and put it under the faucet to rinse with cold water.
After this rinse, she discovered that her father's hands were covered with calluses of various sizes and some small blisters that looked like they had just been burned.
The water flowed gently and slowly on Zhen Dongcheng's scarred hands, and it seemed to have washed out a small hole in Zhen Hao's heart. His eyes hurt so much that he felt sore after taking a breath.
"Dad, are these all burns from making medicine for me?" Zhen Hao lowered his head, his voice muffled.
"Silly child, it's just a minor injury." Zhen Dongcheng didn't take the minor burn seriously. "Besides, it's inevitable that you'll get splashed with oil when cooking, right?"
Zhen Hao choked up and said nothing.
She could still tell the difference between being splashed with oil and being scalded by soup.
In July of 2006, Zhen Hao had an unforgettable summer.
The summer vacation came to an end in the blink of an eye. The Zhen Hao sisters quickly finished their working life and returned to Citong Village to prepare for school.
However, in just less than two months, Zhen Hao had the illusion that "there is no sun or moon in the mountains and a thousand years have passed in the world."
A lot of things happened in the new semester when she entered the second year of junior high school.
The biggest and most frustrating thing among them is that Shixu's mother got married.
She didn't know what had happened that summer that had caused the adults to make such a sudden decision. But she had a vague idea of why that night had been so sad, and she also understood where the boy's helpless feeling, as if he had been abandoned by the whole world, came from.
When Zhen Hao returned to Citong Village, Shi An and his mother had already moved away.
She pieced all of this together from the adults.
It doesn’t matter. They didn’t belong here in the first place, so it’s better for them to leave.
Zhen Hao comforted himself in this way.
But the inexplicable bitterness deep in her heart still pulled her down heavily, making her absent-minded in everything she did.
Where did Shixu and his mother move to?
Will she be able to see time again?
Could it be that Shixu is transferring schools?
One question after another circled in her mind, each without an answer.
On the first day of school, 7 changed from a two-person team to a two-person team on the way to school, and Shixu withdrew from the bicycle team.
Zhou Chunrui had naturally heard about his story, and along the way, he kept sharing what he had seen and heard with Zhen Hao: "Hao Hao, you didn't know that a few days before Aunt Shi moved out, she distributed huge bags of wedding candy to the villagers. Many of them were imported items I'd never seen before. Shi Xu's new father must be very rich to be able to afford so much expensive candy..."
She rambled on a lot, but Zhen Hao only caught the two words "new dad".
The timing must be very strange, right?
Will he hide away and cry secretly?
…………
Because of Zhou Chunrui's words, Zhen Hao7 thought a lot.
Seeing that she didn't respond, Zhou Chunrui couldn't help but ask her: "Why don't you speak?"
After she asked, 7 quickly responded: "Oh, okay, are you reluctant to part with that guy Shixu?"
Zhen Hao's face flushed suddenly after being suddenly exposed, but he still insisted: "No, I'm just a little...uncomfortable."
"If you can't bear to leave, then so be it. What are you saying you're not used to it? It's not shameful to admit you can't bear to leave someone." Zhou Chunrui said frankly, "I can't bear to leave that kid Shixu..."
"It's good that they moved away." Zhen Hao said somewhat dejectedly.
"What do you mean?" Zhou Chunrui disagreed. "We've lost a friend since they moved away. We had Yunyun before, and then there was Shixu. Now it seems like both of them have slowly withdrawn from our lives. It's a pretty uncomfortable feeling..."
It was rare to hear Zhou Chunrui say such words, and Zhen Hao couldn't help but look sideways at her.
She is right.
This feeling is really uncomfortable.
But some facts cannot be changed and can only be accepted.
"From the day the Shixu family moved in, I felt they didn't belong here." Zhen Hao looked straight ahead, his voice very soft, not caring whether Zhou Chunrui heard it or not.
As they got closer to the school, Zhen Hao became more and more nervous.
Although Zhou Chunrui said, "It's not shameful to admit that you can't bear to leave someone," she still couldn't express her true feelings frankly, and could only evade the question: "Ruirui, you said Shixu's new... Dad is so rich, will he arrange for Shixu to transfer to another school?"
Hearing this, Zhou Chunrui fell into thought and did not answer immediately.
Zhen Hao didn't want to wait for her answer, and said to himself: "Do you think we will never see Shixu again..."
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