Chapter 162 Sister Ahe
Qu He was completely dumbfounded.
It took me quite a while to understand what he was saying.
Before this, she had imagined countless scenarios that they might encounter.
School, shopping mall—but who would have thought that he would be the handsome young man in a wheelchair whom they had met at the City Park ten years ago?
Her gaze involuntarily shifted downwards, and she hesitated, as if she wanted to speak, but then asked, "What about your leg?"
Zhuang Bieyan noticed her gaze and touched his leg. "The situation was special at the time, so I was in a wheelchair for a while."
He spoke very seriously, and his explanations were concise and clear, with no longer any attempt to hide anything.
Even so, Qu He still found it absurd.
"How can you prove it?"
Zhuang Bieyan seemed to have expected this, "Wait for me a moment."
He got up and went upstairs to the second floor. When he came back, his fists were clenched tightly.
Zhuang Bieyan walked up to her and leaned down slightly. "Do you remember this?"
As he spoke, he loosened his fingers, and a keychain dangled down, swaying gently between his fingers.
It was a small lotus flower carved from jade, with its petals outstretched and a crescent moon inlaid in the very center of its heart.
The two blend together seamlessly.
And this is the keychain she gave away ten years ago to celebrate the birthday of the boy in the wheelchair.
Qu He was impressed by this keychain because of its unique design.
The combination of the cool moon and the ethereal lotus perfectly resembled the seemingly lonely young man that night.
She hesitated for a long time before giving away the keychain.
Qu He took the keychain and gently stroked the jade lotus flower on it with her fingertips.
Its surface is smooth and glossy to the touch, without a single scratch or blemish, a testament to the care its owner has taken over the years.
She instinctively gripped the keychain tightly; the hard edge pressed against her palm, and the tingling pain reminded her that this was not a dream.
Now that things have come to this, she has no choice but to believe it.
Ten years ago, at the City Park, fireworks lit up his birthday.
A guess gradually became clear in my mind.
She asked, "Sister Liuyue said that since you turned eighteen, you've set off fireworks for yourself every year on your birthday. Is that why?"
Zhuang Bieyan did not answer directly, but slowly half-squatted in front of her, looking up at her with a silent devotion.
"I was very lucky to see the two most beautiful fireworks displays of my life on my eighteenth birthday and my thirtieth birthday, and both were because of the same girl."
When he said this, his eyes were bright, as if sparks were dancing in them.
In a daze, Qu He seemed to see that night ten years ago again, and the magnificent fireworks were now blooming grandly in his eyes.
Zhuang Bieyan stared at her intently, his gaze burning with passion and focus.
Qu He felt her ears burning from his gaze and reached out to pull him up.
Zhuang Bieyan sat down next to her in a chair.
Qu He's mind was still a bit confused; there was too much information in his last sentence.
She tried to sort out her thoughts, "Then, what does this have to do with the things in the safe? And why are there photos of me from when I first entered university on your phone?"
Zhuang Bieyan had already anticipated her question and placed a photograph in her outstretched palm.
It was the Polaroid camera that he took from her photo album on the table last time he went back to Yujia Ferry, in order to collect payment.
Qu He frowned slightly. "What do you mean?"
Zhuang Bieyan lightly touched the photo with his fingertip. "You've already guessed it, haven't you?"
Qu He thought of the dream about her childhood that she had repeatedly had.
In that dream, there was always a little boy with a blurry face sitting in a wheelchair. Every time I tried to see his face clearly, I would wake up.
My heart started racing uncontrollably, and my entire chest and breathing area felt hot.
“In my dreams, I often see a little boy in a wheelchair,”
Her voice trembled slightly as she spoke, but more than that, it was firm: "Was that you?"
Zhuang Bieyan stared at her intently, but did not give an answer immediately.
He pulled her hand, which was clenched into a fist due to nervousness, and patiently pried open her fingers one by one, then interlocked his fingers with hers.
"Come with me."
They walked from the first floor to the second floor.
Every step up the stairs felt like walking through a time tunnel.
Every layout of the second-floor room was so familiar—the window at the end of the corridor, the rotating bookshelf in the corner, even the missing corner at the bottom of the escalator—everything was exactly the same as the scene in her mind.
When Qu He walked to the room with two windows, she stopped abruptly.
His gaze fell directly into the room.
This one glance seemed to traverse countless mountains and rivers.
It was already evening, and the sky was tinged with a pale blue hue.
The gauze window was half-open, and the evening breeze stirred a corner of the curtain, causing it to sway gently.
Below the window was a brown wooden table, exactly the same table where she had taken a Polaroid photo while sleeping.
A small desktop bookshelf sits in the upper left corner of the table, with a picture frame on the top shelf.
Qu He took a few steps closer and saw the photo inside. The little girl in the photo was sleeping soundly on the table.
It was herself.
She looked at the photo and compared it to the one in her hand; they were exactly the same.
How can there be two identical Polaroid photos?
Qu He had a lot of questions on her mind.
But Zhuang Bieyan quickly led her downstairs to the backyard.
The backyard wall was built very high, and outside the wall, a tall tree stretched out its branches, its green shade covering a corner of the backyard.
"What is this?" Qu He looked at the tree, feeling as if she had seen it before.
"Waxberry tree".
Zhuang Bieyan answered for her, his voice filled with nostalgia.
Back in the living room, the answer was obvious.
Zhuang Bieyan handed her his phone; the screen displayed a survey document, and the person being surveyed was named Yan Shu.
He pointed to the date of birth field in the document.
Qu He's eyes widened upon seeing those words.
October 18th?
But Mingming Yanshu said her birthday is June 16th, and that's the date on the search software.
Five years ago, Yan Shu changed her publicly known birthday to June 16th through various channels.
Zhuang Bieyan's voice rang calmly in her ears, dispelling her doubts, "Ahe, everything in the safe, the password, has nothing to do with Yan Shu. June 16th was the day we first met."
His gaze seemed to pierce through time, passing over the living room window and landing on the tall bayberry tree in the yard, lost in distant memories.
"During my summer vacation when I was seven, on my fifth day in Yujia Ferry, it was very hot. A little girl with pigtails accidentally fell from a tree while trying to pick bayberries..."
He turned his head, his gaze returning to her, his smile gentle. "She fell right into my arms. That little girl was very enthusiastic and also very mischievous. From then on, she would come to me almost every day with a basket of bayberries, claiming it was to apologize."
“She would lie on the table next to me and look at the books I couldn’t understand at all, and she would draw strange little swallows on the blank pages of her exercise books. She said the character ‘宴’ (banquet) was too difficult to write, so drawing a swallow would represent me.”
"Later, I was taken back to the farm, and we gradually lost contact. It wasn't until ten years later, at the Ring City Amusement Park, that we met again."
Zhuang Bieyan sighed softly and held her hand even tighter.
He looked at her with clear and honest eyes, as if he wanted to lay his whole heart out for her to see. "The swallows in the picture book were drawn by you, the ceramic swallows were a farewell gift you gave me, and everything in the safe is related to you. This is what you want to know, everything about my past."
My past has been filled with your name from the very beginning.
It has been proven that the human brain has a limited capacity.
Qu He just watched his mouth open and close, every word entered her ears, but her mind went blank.
It's like there's a machine inside my brain that's overloaded and has stopped thinking.
Zhuang Bieyan looked at her confused and unfocused eyes, knowing that she needed time to process it, so he got up and poured her a glass of water.
Qu He only came to her senses when the cool ceramic cup touched her palm.
She watched the ripples in the glass, and her mind was stirred by these ripples, slowly restarting.
Zhuang Bieyan began to speak, one word at a time, which was then rearranged into a sentence.
They had known each other for over twenty years.
Her lips were indeed a little dry, so she picked up a glass of water and moistened them.
Once her senses returned, another question surfaced in her mind. She looked up and asked, "Why do I have absolutely no recollection of these memories?"
Qu He has no memory of what happened when she was five years old.
At home, even Director Lian and Teacher Qu rarely mention things from their childhood, and even the family photo album is blank for that year.
Even the dream I had before, everything seemed to be veiled, hazy and illusory.
She once thought it was all fake, just imagined childhood fragments.
To this day, the Zhuang farewell banquet proves that that past event truly existed.
But why can't she remember any of it?
The harder she tried to think about it, the more she felt a sharp pain deep in her head, as if some kind of self-protection mechanism was preventing her from continuing to recall.
This reaction occurs every time she tries to touch that memory.
Zhuang Bieyan noticed that something was wrong with her, took the water glass and placed it on the table, then put his arm around her and let her lean on his shoulder.
"Perhaps it's been too long," he comforted, but his voice betrayed his underlying tension.
If Qu He were to look up at this moment, she might catch a glimpse of the fleeting sense of relief in Zhuang Bieyan's eyes.
But at this moment, she is overwhelmed by the blank memories she cannot find, and is powerless to explore the deeper secrets in his eyes.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
