Chapter 119 The Price of Growth is Powerless
The cool breeze blew back and forth under the overpass, dispelling the foul smell in the air.
Xiao Yanshi looked at the homeless man who was beaten to the ground, crawled over carefully, and poked the other's dirty finger.
The man didn't move. After a long time, he slowly got up and reached out to grab Xiao Yanshi's hand.
"You sleep..."
With bruises all over his face, the homeless man tidied up the waste paper box next to him and pushed Xiao Yanshi's shoulder.
"You sleep."
Repeated.
The fool's eyes are very bright. He is not good-looking, but there is something extremely sincere hidden deep in his pupils.
He left the space on the waste paper box for Xiaoyan and sat aside, playing with his hands.
From that day on, Xiao Yanshi lived with a homeless person.
That time was so difficult that it has left a very deep mark in my mind.
Fools are undoubtedly at the bottom of the food chain among homeless people, and they are never allowed to enter areas frequented by those domineering homeless people.
Isn't that ridiculous?
Even the lives of the scum at the bottom of society are divided into different levels.
But even the fool living at the bottom of society would always give the food he got first to Xiao Yanshi.
He would rummage through trash cans, pick up clothes that others had thrown away, and take them to the lake in the park to wash them and give them to Xiao Yanshi to wear.
Before dawn, he would take Xiao Yanshi to the top of a nearby mountain to see the entire city and the golden sun rising from the other side of the mountain.
Two dirty, outcasts hoping for some light to fall upon them.
Two months after they started working together, the fool died.
Xiao Yanshi no longer waited under the overpass for the fool who was smiling and humming a song. The other homeless people laughed at him, saying that the fool didn't want him anymore and that the fool thought he was a burden.
But Xiao Yanshi knew that everyone would want him, but not a fool.
There is always a saying that the suffering that God brings upon your shoulders is often something you can bear. You will solve it, you will overcome it, and you will become strong.
But God never considered what would happen if one’s will was weak? What if one could no longer bear it and no longer wanted to live?
When I was little, I saw the drowned fool by the lake in the park.
There were a lot of people gathered there, and he might have passed by there several times until he heard someone say that someone had drowned there.
Police cars and policemen in uniform surrounded the river, but no one cared to investigate the cause of death of a homeless man.
No one would investigate the cause of death of a fool.
The fool has no relatives, no one will put pressure on the police, and no one will ask for any explanation.
His death seemed... meaningless.
Xiao Yanshi tried hard to push his way through the crowd, but he couldn't. He was grabbed from behind by several dirty big hands, and his mouth and nose were covered with a foul smell. Xiao Yanshi smelled a bloody smell.
It emanates from the bones.
He was dragged away from the crowd and taken under the overpass, where a few dirty homeless people pulled his ears and slapped him, spewing vicious words.
"…What do you want to do?"
"Do you want to kill us all?"
"Do you think you can save him?"
"Just take care of yourself first!"
"If you really feel uncomfortable, find a river to jump into..."
Xiao Yanshi glared fiercely at the people in front of him. He gritted his teeth, and when one of them reached out his hand, he bit the other's arm without any hesitation.
He used all his strength, almost tearing the flesh off the man's arm.
In a panic, he ran away from under the overpass.
There are countless overpasses in a city.
The first survival skill that Xiao Yanshi learned during his wandering days was to find a bridge that could shelter him from the wind, and then find a few cardboard boxes so that he could perhaps piece together a bed.
Relying on the little survival skills taught by the fool, Xiao Yanshi settled down under an overpass in another commercial district.
The next day, he ran to the nearby park alone and buried the fool's favorite broken toy cell phone in the soil under a very big tree.
I picked two flowers from the side, one yellow and one pink, and stuck them on the small slope.
Xiao Yan was lying on the ground crying alone.
After wandering alone for half a year, I have seen so many dark sides of the world. It is amazing that the environment can have such a great influence on a child.
It will also plant the darkest seeds in a child's heart and lead him astray.
Just when Xiao Yanshi was facing the first fork in his life, he was instigated by other homeless people to steal money.
The owner of the stall he was aiming at went out to greet customers. There was only an old woman in tattered clothes sitting at the table next to him, with an open cash box.
Xiao Yan's heart was beating like a drum. He appeared next to the stall calmly. He kept observing whether the attention of the customers in front of the stall was on him.
My fingers were shaking badly.
But the feeling of hunger almost wiped out his will. He stretched out his hand, and when his fingers were about to touch a hundred-dollar bill, his wrist was grabbed.
"My dear... this kind of thing is not allowed."
The old man's voice sounded in my ears, very kind and gentle.
Xiao Yanshi instinctively wanted to struggle and escape, but the other party grabbed his hand and pulled him to sit at the dining table next to them.
The old man didn't say anything else, but just silently pushed the powder in front of him to Xiao Yanshi.
"Eat it."
"Are you starving?"
She had endured so much malice in the past year, and just because of the bowl of steaming noodles in front of her, Xiao Yanshi could no longer hold back her tears, which fell into the bowl in front of her.
He didn't hesitate and even wolfed down the food, drinking up all the soup. When he came back to his senses, he finally felt extremely guilty about what he had just done.
"I'm...I'm sorry..."
The old man didn't answer him, but just smiled and suddenly reached out to touch Xiao Yanshi's hair.
"Where are your parents?"
Xiao Yanshi's eyes were red. He sniffed and turned his head away from the old man's face. He bit his lip and didn't answer, with some stubbornness.
The surroundings were noisy and lively, and dense laughter could be heard in the distance. Everyone was very happy, but I didn't know what they were happy about.
And at this moment when the noise was so annoying that it made people extremely annoyed, Xiao Yanshi heard the old man's voice again.
"From today on, you will follow grandma."
The old woman was obviously not tall, and she was even a little hunched over, and her clothes were full of wrinkles.
But it was such a sloppy person, like the fool under the overpass, who looked at him with extremely clean and clear eyes.
Said she would take care of him in the future.
From that day on, the child curled up under a certain overpass was never seen again. The child who was standing at the crossroads of life and about to make a choice, with one foot already on the wrong path, was pulled back by an old hand.
This was the second dazzling light in Zhu Yanshi’s life.
The old woman's name is Wang Qiuju. She rides a tricycle and collects waste through the streets and alleys. She lives a little far from the city center, in a low wooden house in the suburbs.
Life is difficult, but fortunately we don’t have to wander around.
Wang Qiuju is a very lonely person. None of her three sons and one daughter are willing to take care of her in her old age. Until now, they have not even been in contact with each other.
But under such circumstances, she still took on the task of taking care of Zhu Yanshi without hesitation.
She said she needed companionship, she didn't even need that much money or to live a wealthy life, she just wanted to have hope for days like this.
The displaced Xiao Yanshi became her only hope in her later years.
The adoption procedures were very difficult, and the enrollment procedures also required asking people for help everywhere. An old scrap collector with no connections relied on his own old hands to support Zhu Yanshi's life.
Wang Qiuju was uneducated and could not teach Zhu Yanshi any textbook knowledge. She could only keep repeating some life lessons.
"Do your job conscientiously and be a down-to-earth person."
"People must live with dignity and still have hope for life."
“We must believe that light will fall upon us, and that life is full of surprises.”
"Grow up happily."
Zhu Yanshi was a very smart child. He was loved by his teachers at school, got full marks in all his subjects, and his neighbors also took good care of him.
When he thought his life had finally returned to peace and he could live like this until old age, he ignored the speed at which Wang Qiuju aged...
The elderly no longer have as much energy and strong physique as before, and diseases begin to devour their old bodies.
But Wang Qiuju didn't want her physical condition to affect Zhu Yanshi, so at the end of each week of boarding on campus, she would force herself to be alert and not let the other party see any flaws.
But the truth will eventually come to light. By the time Zhu Yanshi learned that Wang Qiuju was ill, everything was already irreversible.
It was a summer one year, Zhu Yanshi was only 13 years old, and he was alone outside the intensive care unit, clutching his schoolbag.
On the way here, my hair and clothes were soaked by the rain.
He looked helplessly at the old man's pale face through the transparent glass outside the ward.
The emergency doctor used a defibrillator. Every time the old man was shocked, his body trembled at a high frequency. His wrists, hidden under his hospital gown, had become thin.
The time spent waiting outside passed far too slowly, so hard that even breathing became harsh.
The doctor came out with the bill, his eyes swept around the empty corridor, and then fell on Zhu Yanshi with great pity.
"Where are your parents?"
“You need to pay first.”
Zhu Yanshi stared numbly at the list in the doctor's hand. Later, he borrowed the doctor's cell phone to call Wang Qiuju's children.
The call was very short and the tone on the other end was extremely impatient.
"What does her death have to do with me?"
"…You're annoying! Isn't anyone else coming out?"
"Why should I go out?"
"She raised you up, are you trying to find a way to raise money for her?"
"There's no other way but to die..."
"Consider it my loan to you."
Zhu Yanshi cried out, "Please, consider it as something I owe you. I can write you an IOU. When I grow up, I will pay you back tenfold or a hundredfold!"
"Please! I'll do anything you ask me to do. I can kneel down before you, I can kowtow to you... Please save grandma..."
"She's your mother too!"
The childish voice echoed in the corridor, and the person on the other end of the phone sounded like they were hearing a huge joke.
"You borrowed money? You're going to pay me back tenfold or a hundredfold? You're going to go and scam other people, okay?"
"You take me for a fool!"
"My mom? She can't give me a good life, so why should I…"
After hearing a string of curse words, the phone call was hung up, and the hospital corridor returned to peace again.
The time on the clock on the wall is very clear, tick-tick-tick...
Zhu Yanshi's hand holding the phone drooped weakly. He tilted his head and looked at the ICU as if he had sensed something.
Wang Qiuju, who had originally closed her eyes and was unconscious, suddenly opened her eyes slowly.
She turned her head with great difficulty...with great difficulty, and glanced at Zhu Yanshi with her extremely loving eyes.
It seems to be saying——
Be good, we don’t ask them.
Honey, I'm sorry.
Good boy, you must grow up healthy.
Good boy...
Close your eyes.
Wang Qiuju, who was terminally ill, was so worried about dragging down her beloved that she hurriedly passed away at 4:33 in the morning...
But Zhu Yanshi is always powerless.
As a newly born boy, he was powerless to change his fate of being abandoned.
At the age of three, he was powerless to change his fate of being abandoned again.
Picked up by a fool, he was powerless to change the fool's fate.
At the age of thirteen, he was still powerless to change Wang Qiuju's fate.
Life is like a play, and all the sufferings have befallen him at the age when he is most powerless. God wants to break his bones, make him independent, and give him a new life.
After he loses everything, I tell him that this is the price of growing up...
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