63 Chapter 63
The next day, Tao Xi didn't let Lin Qinhe accompany him. He went to Hannan Hospital alone in the cold wind. Like last time, he bought some fruits and went straight to Guo Ping's ward. Tao Jian was not there, and only Guo Ping was in the ward.
Tao Xi almost didn't recognize the woman on the bed with tubes all over her body. Her face was so swollen that she didn't look like she used to. When she heard the sound of the door, she looked towards the door very slowly, as if she had used a lot of effort to recognize who was coming.
Guo Ping's yellow and swollen face had no expression. She opened her mouth with effort and called out "Tao Xi".
Tao Xi walked towards the bed without saying anything.
They actually had nothing to talk about, or rather, he had hardly spoken to Guo Ping since he knew the truth, and Guo Ping had become more and more silent towards him since then, only occasionally looking at him with a pair of sad eyes, and he hated this look extremely.
Now, he saw a little smile in Guo Ping's more cloudy eyes. She said, "You came to see me."
"I'm here for Tao Le." Tao Xi said in a calm tone and put the fruit in his hand on the bedside table.
Guo Ping nodded slightly when she heard this and said, "Tao Le is at her grandmother's house. She wanted to come to Wenhua City with me to see you, but I didn't let her come. I told her to study hard at school."
"I will let her transfer here to study." Tao Xi said. Yang Zhengming agreed to help him and would find a good junior high school and let Tao Le transfer here next semester.
Guo Ping was silent for a long time after hearing this. When she spoke again, her voice was much lower: "She is lucky to have a brother like you."
After she finished speaking, she raised the hand with the needle stuck in it, pointed to the drawer of the bedside table with some difficulty, and said, "There is a wooden box in the first drawer. Take it out and have a look."
Tao Xi took out the narrow wooden box, which was as long as a palm, from the drawer. The wooden box was probably made with scraps, and it looked rough and old.
He opened the wooden box, and inside was a peace knot woven with a red rope. The hands that had woven it were obviously a bit clumsy, and the peace knot was not very smooth or pretty.
Tao Xi stared at the peace knot for a few seconds, then suddenly looked up at Guo Ping.
"Your mother has long and slender hands. She is so good at drawing, but I don't know why she is so slow in learning to weave ropes. I taught her for a long time before she was able to weave this peace knot."
Guo Ping looked at the peace knot in Tao Xi's hand and seemed to be lost in memory: "The first time I saw her, I wondered how there could be such a beautiful person, with a pair of eyes that were always full of water and spoke in a gentle voice."
"She came to my house and asked me if she could stay there. I saw that she was pregnant and I thought that I was pregnant too, so we could keep each other company, so I agreed. She wasn't worried at all and gave me a large sum of money right after she moved in, not thinking about what if I cheated her out of the money."
"At that time, the wives of other families in the village envied me and said that I was lucky to meet a noble person from a big city. I thought so too. I have lived in Taoxi Bay all my life and have never seen the world. Your mother is the most powerful person I know. I dare not even think of the word friend, but she really treats me as a friend..."
Tao Xi felt a little breathless when he heard the word "friend". He couldn't listen any more and asked the question he wanted to ask the most in a cold voice:
"She treats you as a friend, why do you still do that?"
She trusted you so much, but you kept the child she gave her life for and handed your own child to her relatives.
Guo Ping fell silent, her eyes slowly moved away from the peace knot, and she looked unfocused at the potion hanging on the bedside. She lowered her voice and continued weakly:
"I haven't been well-educated, so there are many things about your mother that I don't understand. Sometimes I don't quite understand what she says or what she draws. The only thing I understand about her is her love for you."
"She gave you a nice name, drew pictures for you, wrote letters to you, and said that she would take you to many places and teach you to paint. At that time, I suddenly thought, what can I give to my own children? I had never thought about this kind of question before. The children in our place were born and raised in the village. They didn't go to school. Just like me, they got married and had children when they grew up, and it was passed down like this from generation to generation..."
"Your mother made me realize that parents have to consider so much for their children... I thought I should leave something for my child, but that day they said my child was weak and wouldn't live long. I was unwilling to accept that. How could I accept that? I haven't even thought about what to give him in the future..."
"Maybe it was because of this unwillingness that your father and his friends came to Taoxi Bay to pick you and your child up that day. I gave my child to them. At that time, I thought that this was the only thing I could give him, along with the red string I had woven myself..."
"Is that your thing?" Tao Xi interrupted and asked, feeling that there was no need to listen any further. There was no hidden secret as he had imagined. Everything was just a selfish so-called maternal love, giving the fate of others as a gift to her own children.
He stood up from the chair and wanted to turn around and leave. He saw Guo Ping struggling to reach out to him, her voice completely weak:
"Tao Xi, I'm sorry. I stole the things your mother gave you. I know you hate me and won't forgive me. I'm going to hell soon and I won't be able to see your mother even after I die. If you go to see her in the future, can you tell her that I'm sorry for me..."
Tao Xi looked indifferently at the hand with the needle stuck in it that was stretched out to him. He had longed countless times for that hand to hold his hand and take him home from school like it did with Tao Le.
He did not move, but asked indifferently: "You know I won't forgive you, so why do you expect my mother to forgive you?"
Guo Ping's hands gradually dropped down, her eyes were half closed, and she moved her lips as if she said something, but no one could hear it clearly except herself.
Tao Xi lowered his eyes and looked at the woman on the hospital bed, the "mother" whom he once hoped to be loved by but later hated and detested. In the end, he did not say any sharp words, but only left one sentence: "You take good care of yourself, Tao Le is waiting for you at home." Then he clutched the peace knot and turned around and walked out of the ward.
He originally wanted to ask Guo Ping why she hadn't been a little nicer to him over the years out of guilt, but there was no point in asking anymore.
He came to see Guo Ping just to put an end to the "mother-son relationship" of more than ten years. From now on, they will have no relationship at all, whether in life or after death.
Tao Xi walked out of the high-rise building of the inpatient department. It was a little after ten o'clock in the morning, the last sunny day before the cold wave came. The sun was shining from the southeast. He raised his hand to shield his eyes. The green light on the street outside the hospital came on, and he followed the crowd to the other side of the street.
The cold wave in Wenhua City is coming with great force. The weather forecast said that there would be heavy snow tomorrow, but in fact, snowflakes started falling in the middle of the night. The whole city was covered with snow overnight, just waiting for people to wake up and sigh in surprise.
The next day, after waking up, Tao Xi learned from Lin Qinhe that Guo Ping had jumped off the building.
Guo Ping jumped from the high building of the inpatient department in the early morning. She must have spent a lot of effort to pull out the tubes and needles on her body. Tao Jian was sleeping soundly on the camp bed nearby and did not notice.
Although the ground was covered with snow, there was no chance of survival if you jumped from that height.
Every year, hospitals cannot avoid patients jumping off buildings to their deaths. After all, not everyone can endure the pain and torture of illness, so some people choose to end it all once and for all.
Tao Xi knew that Guo Ping chose to die not because of pain. She came to Wenhua City not for medical treatment, but just wanted to see her children before she died.
But Yang Duole never went to see Guo Ping from beginning to end.
Guo Ping gave Yang Duole birth and changed his fate for someone else, and now she gave Yang Duole the only thing she had, her death.
Lin Qinhe lowered his head to look at the expression on Tao Xi's face, but in fact, except for the surprise when Tao Xi first found out, his expression had been very calm since then, as if he was not surprised or sad.
He didn't say anything. He walked to the wool carpet by the window and sat down, quietly watching the heavy snow outside the floor-to-ceiling window.
Seventeen years ago, two children born on a snowy night were replaced, and their lives and destinies were reversed from then on. Seventeen years later, everything returned to normal, and the man who stole his fate ended his life in the same heavy snow.
Others would mostly sigh and say it is karma, but the wrong love, regret, pain, remorse, unwillingness during these seventeen years of fate-changing events... cannot be fully described by just one sentence of karma.
And those who are still alive will have to mend their own cracks after this farce of fate ends.
Tao Xi seemed to have thought a lot, but also seemed to have thought of nothing. Most of the memories of these seventeen years were about Guo Ping. After all, she was the person he had called mother for fifteen years. But when he recalled her in the end, there didn't seem to be much. The longing he once had and the disgust he felt later all seemed to have vanished in the heavy snow before his eyes.
The last image in my mind was neither Guo Ping nor myself.
Lin Qinhe walked over to Tao Xi and sat down, holding his hand and found that it was cold.
After a long time, Tao Xi turned to look at him and said softly:
"My sister doesn't have a mother anymore either."
Lin Qinhe raised his hand and wiped Tao Xi's eyes with his thumb, then held him in his arms, warmed his hands with his palms, and said to him, "She has two brothers."
Tao Xi did not participate in Guo Ping's funeral. After cremation in Wenhua City, Tao Jian took away a box of ashes. Later, Tao Xi heard that Tao Jian had found Yang Duole somewhere, and there was a big conflict between father and son. Yang Duole was probably beaten badly by Tao Jian, so he followed Tao Jian back to Taoxi Bay.
After Fang Zuqing and Ye Yurong learned about Guo Ping's situation, they could only sigh and say it was a sin. At first, the two old people hated her so much that they wanted to sue Guo Ping, but after learning about Guo Ping's illness, they temporarily gave up. Now that she is dead, no matter how much hatred they have, there is no place to pursue it.
Tao Xi asked a junior high school teacher in Qingshui County for help and called Tao Le. The little girl was crying on the other end of the phone. She had to accept her mother's suicide and that her brother was not her biological brother overnight. It was too cruel for a girl of this age.
"Brother, you won't come back in the future?" Tao Le asked helplessly while crying. After a pause, he said, "I saw that person. He hates me and I hate him too. I don't want to recognize him as my brother."
Tao Xi couldn't imagine how Yang Duole would get along with Tao Le. He said to Tao Le: "I won't come back, but I'm still your brother and you're still my sister."
When Tao Le heard this, he cried for a long time again.
Tao Xi comforted Tao Le for a long time, explained to her clearly the matter of transferring to the next school next semester, and reminded her several times about taking medicine before hanging up the phone.
After dealing with these things, Tao Xi and Lin Qinhe went to Fang Sui's tomb together. He tied the peace knot that Fang Sui had personally woven for him seventeen years ago on his wrist, together with the turquoise string that Lin Qinhe had given him.
These are the blessings given to him by the two most important people in his life.
On the way down the mountain after sweeping the grave, Tao Xi leaned in front of Lin Qinhe, stared into his eyes and asked, "Did you whisper something to my mother just now?"
When he was clearing the remaining snow beside the tombstone, he saw Lin Qinhe looking at Fang Sui's tombstone seriously and solemnly for a long time.
Lin Qinhe raised his hand and put on the white fur hat on Taoxi's white down jacket, and said, "You told her so much about me, of course I have to express my gratitude."
Tao Xi's head was covered by the hat. He was stunned for a moment, thinking of the words he said as if he was bringing his boyfriend home. He suddenly felt embarrassed, so he grabbed Lin Qinhe's arm and asked, "What did you say? Did you say anything bad about me?"
Lin Qinhe looked at Tao Xi's face surrounded by a circle of white fluff, raised his eyebrows and said, "What bad things can I say about you?"
Tao Xi felt that the white fur made his face itchy, so he threw the hat behind him and nodded in agreement: "Yeah, I don't know what my shortcomings are."
After he finished speaking, he saw Lin Qinhe's smile and realized that Lin Qinhe was changing the subject, so he quickly pulled it back and asked, "So what did you say?"
Lin Qinhe put the hat back on and said, "I didn't say anything, just thank your mother for giving birth to you."
"Oh, thank you." Tao Xi followed Lin Qinhe and continued to walk down the mountain. When the wind blew the circle of white hair onto his face, he realized that the hat was on his head again.
"Do you like this hat so much?"
“It looks cute.”
"Oh." Tao Xi felt a little embarrassed again and jumped forward a few steps, but did not take off his hat.
Lin Qinhe looked back. The stepped cemetery was silent amid the lingering snow on the green hills. Fang Sui's grave could no longer be seen clearly, but it seemed to still be looking at them tenderly.
The author has something to say:
Lin Qinhe has complicated feelings towards Fang Sui
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