Chapter 61
"It's off, it's off again. What's wrong with Zhang Chao? Isn't he always on his phone?"
The person pacing back and forth in the ward was getting impatient and muttering to himself. When he called back that night, the phone was still switched off.
His fingers hovered over the keyboard, biting his lower lip, he hesitated for a long time before pressing the first key, and then deleting it.
Knock knock knock.
The door opened, and the bodyguard standing outside politely said, "Young Master, we should go back now."
Minxia glanced at Mu Zhengxi, whose face had darkened. He didn't reply immediately, but after a while, he came over and returned the phone to her, instructing, "Sister Xia, if anyone from this number calls back later, tell him to call back tomorrow night after class."
Minxia received the information amidst his rapid speech, nodding and repeatedly agreeing.
Although it is unknown what happened, judging from the current situation, Mu Zhengxi is clearly under Zeng Yuan's supervision again.
Minxia grabbed his arm, "Take care, your mother is just worried about you, don't argue with her." Her tone was like coaxing a child, full of concern.
"Yes, I know, don't worry."
Mu Zhengxi patted her hand. The expression on his face was no longer the fierce, life-or-death defiance he had when they were children, but for some reason, his much more mature attitude made people even more uneasy.
On my way home, while waiting at a traffic light, I saw a roadside stall selling roasted sweet potatoes.
The car was emitting white smoke, and you could smell a sweet aroma as soon as you rolled down the window.
"Hot! Hot! Hot! Jiang Jiawei!"
"Is it hot? I'm so sorry."
"Now? Touch it with your lips first."
"Pull over to the side of the road."
The passenger in the passenger seat turned around, his eyes asking why.
Mu Zhengxi: "I want to buy a roasted sweet potato."
The bodyguard nodded to the driver to indicate his permission.
Mu Zhengxi held out his hand, "Give me some money, and I'll ask your General Manager Zeng for reimbursement when I get back."
A banknote was placed in his hand.
He got out of the car, and his bodyguard followed him out.
While waiting for the old man to pack his sweet potatoes, the other person thoughtfully pointed to the roasted chestnuts next to him and asked, "Would you like some roasted chestnuts?"
This is treating him like a child.
Mu Zhengxi gave the other party a cold look.
"Hello, could you weigh out half a jin of these chestnuts for me?"
"Okay."
Mu Zhengxi, carrying hot roasted sweet potatoes and chestnuts into the house, attracted attention with his own aroma. Zeng Yuan, sitting in the living room, watched him guard the food in his arms, then go upstairs to his room without looking at him, treating her as if she were invisible.
Mu Zhengting leaned back on the sofa, spread his hands, and watched his younger brother's back with great interest.
Peeling a chestnut with a cross-shaped cut isn't actually that difficult. Mu Zhengxi found the trick and has gone from being unskilled at the beginning to being able to peel a whole chestnut completely.
The doorknob, which was locked from the inside, was pressed down a few times before falling silent.
After a while, the sound of a key being inserted into the spool was heard.
Only Mu Zhengting would behave so rudely.
Without looking up, Mu Zhengxi said to the person at the door, "Get out."
Mu Zhengting watched as the person intently peeled chestnuts at the desk as if conducting an experiment, ignored the innocuous warning, and strode over.
Mu Zhengxi raised his eyes. "Can't you understand human language?"
Mu Zhengting reached out and casually picked up a chestnut, stuffing it into his mouth.
As the chestnut shell flew towards him, he dodged to the side a second in anticipation. Mu Zhengting tossed two things onto the table. "Hide them well." He leaned down slightly, his tone flippant. "Enjoy these memories while you're at it. Don't say your brother didn't help you."
Seeing that the other person was trying their best to suppress their emotions, they deliberately added fuel to the fire.
He curled his lip and said provocatively, "You have really bad taste, Mu Zhengxi."
Mu Zhengxi stared at the face in front of him, then suddenly lowered his head and laughed. If he had to rank the things he regretted most in his life so far, it would be trying to be a good younger brother who would please his older brother when he was young and ignorant.
Mu Zhengxi picked up the photo on the table and said softly, "Thank you, brother."
"You're too kind, little brother," said the person who patted his head. "After all, we're brothers."
Mu Zhengxi carefully placed the photo into the drawer and slowly stood up.
"elder brother."
The person who turned around just happened to dodge the lamp that was being thrown at him head-on, and it landed squarely on his shoulder, thus providing a good reason for the fight to begin.
When Zeng Yuan heard the noise, the scene that greeted her was two people who were related by blood, now turned into enemies who were strangling each other and determined to kill each other.
Nothing could be more horrifying for a mother than this scene.
He took a half-step back, but someone helped him up.
"Go and pull them apart!"
The two people, who were stuck together so tightly, were torn apart as if a piece of bloody, dead skin had been ripped off their skin, and each of them was covered in blood.
Mu Zhengting wiped his mouth, his panting sneer like a snake's forked tongue, "Mu Zhengxi, you shouldn't have been born."
Mu Zhengxi blurted out a retort: "Is that so? That sea should have drowned you back then too." But the next second after he finished speaking, he regretted it. When he saw Mu Zhengting's fist swinging towards him, he did not dodge.
"Zhengting!!!"
Zeng Yuan, who was standing in front of Mu Zhengxi, managed to stop the fist that was just centimeters away from hitting his face.
The man who had lowered his fist stared at her coldly for a few seconds, a smirk playing on his lips. "Oh right, I almost forgot this is my younger brother. Thanks for reminding me." He called out mockingly, "Mom."
She tilted her head and looked at Mu Zhengxi, who was being shielded by Zeng Yuan, "How come you're always so lucky, little brother? Mom always sides with you."
Before Mu Zhengxi could speak, Zeng Yuan, her face darkening, spoke first, her voice hoarse as she snapped, "Enough!"
It's fairly substantial.
Mu Zhengting stopped smiling, glanced at her, and strode out.
Mu Zhengxi leaned against the wall behind him, and the servant who had been restraining him began to squat down and clean up the mess of broken pieces on the ground.
Zeng Yuan, turning her head to the side, asked, "Why were you fighting?"
Mu Zhengxi said calmly, "He came to my room. You should ask him."
The sound of an engine starting could be heard from downstairs.
Mu Zhengxi sighed inwardly, "It's so good to be an adult!" and stepped into the bathroom.
The warm water reached above her feet, and the water level in the bathtub rose inch by inch. Her hands, hanging by her sides, were clenched into fists, and her thumbs dug deep crescent-shaped marks into the base of her index fingers.
A terrifying feeling of suffocation, like steam, enveloped and invaded my mind, yet the warm water temperature eerily made me want to drown.
It is said that when people encounter danger, their instinctive reaction is not to call for help, but to call for their mother.
Mu Zhengxi verified that this was indeed the case.
Zeng Yuan, who had been holding his hand, pulled him into her arms and they floated to the surface. "Zhengxi, Zhengxi, Zhengxi, Mom is here, it's Mom."
Oh, it's his mother, it's his mother.
With her eyes closed, the image of the waves crashing against her kept replaying in her mind. Zeng Yuan covered her face, her hands trembling as she took the water Mu Shaoqing handed her and swallowed the medicine.
How can I explain this? It's because her younger brother was closer, so she grabbed his hand first. It's because she was too weak to hold onto just one brother. Both her older and younger brothers are indispensable to her.
But in fact, she may have messed everything up from the very beginning. Her mother never gave her the answers to the lesson of motherhood, and now she is gradually becoming the very thing she hated most, following the example of how her aunt raised her.
"Go out, leave me alone for a while."
Upon hearing this, Mu Shaoqing placed the water beside the bed and closed the door.
In the study.
The two people kneeling on the ground remained silent, adopting an attitude of complete submission. Their tacit understanding was that neither of them would discuss the reason for the fight. Mu Shaoqing stood by the window, looking down at the swimming pool that had been filled in and turned into a greenhouse, his tightly furrowed brows never relaxing.
Mu Zhengting was kicked hard in the back and fell forward. Mu Zhengxi glanced over and saw that he had already been kicked first. It was fair that each of them took one kick.
What made him feel so desperate yet also like laughing in this atmosphere was that Mu Zhengting, whom he had envied just a second ago, appeared in the study with a single phone call, still wearing the dog leash, at most allowing him a slightly longer range of movement.
"If I hear anyone talking to your mother like that again, I'll show you both what death means."
"Go apologize to her tomorrow morning!"
Paradoxically, although Mu Shaoqing and Zeng Yuan's relationship had broken down to the point of near irreparable damage, he was always the first to step up in upholding her status and authority as a mother.
Mu Shaoqing went out, but didn't tell them to get up.
That means they have to kneel for a whole night.
The scratches on my neck are still burning painful.
Mu Zhengxi, with his eyes closed, asked, "Where did the photos come from?"
Mu Zhengting twisted his neck, then answered irrelevantly, "Your mother donated a sum of money to Changqing Third Middle School in your Buddhist name, probably because she was afraid you'd really be cursed to death by this love tribulation." He propped himself up and slumped onto the sofa beside him.
Mu Zhengxi sat down on the spot, propped up one leg, and said nothing. The snow outside the window was falling heavier and heavier. He touched the pendant hanging on his chest and slowly lay back.
It's actually quite normal for Mu Zhengting to hate him.
His arrival not only reduced everything Mu Zhengting previously possessed to half, but also caused his incompatible fate with his family to erode their once happy and fulfilling home, leaving only an empty shell.
Mu Zhengxi said, "I'm sorry for what I said last night."
This apology was sincere.
Mu Zhengting, who was looking up at the ceiling, did not respond.
However, Mu Zhengxi didn't really care. He just said what he wanted to say. Whether Mu Zhengting forgave him or not was none of his business. He put his hands behind his head, and the faint sandalwood scent in the study created a very pleasant environment for falling asleep.
But the consequence of sleeping on the hard floor all night was that when he woke up the next morning, his whole body ached. The sky was just beginning to lighten, but the person on the sofa was no longer there. Mu Zhengxi struggled to get up, rubbed his throbbing temples with the heel of his hand, and felt as if he had pressed something with his other hand. He picked it up and saw that it was a tube of ointment.
Giving someone a knife and then offering them a treat—at this moment, Mu Zhengxi deeply realized that this kind of emotional rift seemed to be a characteristic of their family.
Mu Zhengxi got up.
On the desk in the study are several photo frames: Zeng Yuan in her wedding dress, Mu Zhengting on his first day of kindergarten, and a family photo of the four of them at Spruce Temple when Mu Zhengxi turned one year old.
Mu Zhengxi pushed open the door and walked back to his room with slightly awkward legs.
There was a white piece of paper under a transparent vase placed outside the door. Zeng Yuan reached out and picked it up. It said "I'm sorry" and was signed Mu Zhengxi.
When the two brothers were little, they would fight and be disciplined by Mu Shaoqing. Mu Zhengxi would always cry the most and be the quickest to admit his mistake, sobbing and hugging her leg, saying, "Mom, I was wrong, I'm sorry, I'll never do it again." Then he would tearfully try to justify himself, saying, "But it was my brother who didn't share his toys with me first." Later, around third grade, he would still cry when he was punished by kneeling or being hit, standing in front of her wiping away tears and bowing his head, saying, "I'm sorry, Mom, I was wrong." Then, in middle school, his apologies became writing notes, which he would slip under a vase of her favorite blue-purple irises, writing, "I'm sorry, Mom, I was wrong," and signing it Zhengxi.
Minxia always felt a strange unease when she saw Zeng Yuan. Part of it was due to the tense relationship between Zeng Yuan and Jiang Wenqing, and another part was Zeng Yuan's own temperament, which was just as sharp as her aunt, the chief prosecutor who raised her. When she was not smiling, she was even more oppressive.
But today, Zeng Yuan, with her hair down and no makeup, looked haggard. Her simple gray sportswear made her look even more pale. She stood outside the ward, seemingly having stood there for a long time. Minxia felt that she was also a child who was enduring the pain of losing her mother but pretending not to express it.
She nodded slightly and greeted Minxia, "Auntie."
"Hey, I just washed your mom's face. She seems to be in good spirits right now. Go in and keep her company for a while. I'm going to get some breakfast."
Zeng Yuan doesn't visit the ward often, maybe once a week.
But the hospital visits two or three times a week.
"Okay, thank you for your hard work."
"What are you saying?"
The bright red roses on the coffee table in front of the sofa in the ward caught Zeng Yuan's eye for a few seconds.
Standing beside the hospital bed, even though she knew the person lying there could no longer feel anything, she still felt a little awkward and subconsciously moved. She sat down on the accompanying chair next to her.
They remained silent for a long time.
He clasped his hands together, covering his tightly pressed lips, and turned his head to see the bright sunlight falling on his silver hair. His lifeless pupils were also brightened. His fingers twitched reflexively and touched his clothes, making a very faint sound.
The white sheets were smudged in a small circle by the tears that had fallen.
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