64 Chapter 64
The end of this semester came quickly. Sitting in the examination room of Wenhua No. 1 Middle School again, Tao Xi felt that he was more stable than in the last midterm exam, with both his heart and hands steady.
After the exam, Yang Zhengming took him back to his grandfather's house. His grandmother prepared a table full of dishes, and the family gathered together to celebrate his completion of the final exams and the start of the winter vacation.
The results came out on the third day after the exam. Tao Xi improved from 42nd place in the midterm exam to 21st place. Except for Lin Qinhe, who was unshakably the first place, this result greatly stimulated the whole class of students. After all, a student who had only transferred from Qingshui County half a year ago almost made it into the top 20. If given more time, wouldn't he be on par with Lin Qinhe?
Tao Xi was quite satisfied with the result, but before he had time to celebrate with Lin Qinhe, he was taken back to his grandparents' house by Yang Zhengming. His grandmother prepared a bigger table of dishes to celebrate his great improvement in the final exam. During the meal, the three adults also presented him with gifts as rewards for the final exam. Tao Xi accepted them all without much hesitation and stayed at his grandparents' house for one night.
He understood that his relatives were trying hard to create a home for him, and perhaps family affection was accumulated like sand piles into a tower through every meal and vegetable, dish and dish.
The next day, Tao Xi returned to his and Lin Qinhe's home with a bunch of gifts. The two old people didn't say anything about the fact that he and Lin Qinhe lived together. It might be that Yang Zhengming had already told them in advance, but they didn't know how he said it.
When he returned home, Lin Qinhe had just returned from visiting Luo Zhengyin in the sanatorium.
"Is Aunt Luo feeling better?" Tao Xi sat cross-legged on the carpet, holding a gift box, and asked Lin Qinhe who was sitting on the sofa.
Lin Qinhe handed the scissors on the coffee table to Tao Xi and said, "I feel better now. You can be discharged from the hospital tomorrow."
Tao Xi breathed a sigh of relief when he heard this. He took a pair of scissors and cut the ribbon on the gift box. Suddenly, he heard Lin Qinhe say, "My mother wants to see you tomorrow."
"Okay, I plan to visit your mother too." Tao Xi put down the scissors and looked at Lin Qinhe. Lin Qinhe looked calm, but he saw the hesitation in Lin Qinhe's eyes.
Tao Xi moved closer to Lin Qinhe, rested his chin on Lin Qinhe's knees, looked up and asked, "Are you worried about something?"
Lin Qinhe lowered his eyes to look into Tao Xi's eyes, stroked the eyelashes at the end of his eyes with his thumb, and whispered, "Nothing."
Tao Xi felt a little itchy at the corner of her eyes and blinked quickly a few times. The tail of her eyelashes brushed against Lin Qinhe's fingertips, and the finger quickly moved away.
In fact, he knew what Lin Qinhe was worried about. He wanted to meet Luo Zhengyin to confirm his guess and say something to Luo Zhengyin.
The next day, Tao Xi bought some gifts for the visit and followed Lin Qinhe into the villa where Luo Zhengyin lived. This was also where Lin Qinhe and Yang Duole once lived.
The interior decoration of the villa is full of artistic atmosphere, but it also looks very deserted. The first thing Tao Xi saw was an oil painting hanging on the wall on one side of the living room. The painting showed a girl in a white dress. She was sitting in a field of purple flowers, and her smiling eyes were innocent and affectionate.
Tao Xi recognized that this was a self-portrait of her mother Fang Sui.
The nurse who was taking care of Luo Zhengyin came down and said to Tao Xi, "Madam has just woken up. Please go up."
Lin Qinhe said to Tao Xi, "I'll wait for you in the living room." He knew that Luo Zhengyin wanted to talk to Tao Xi alone.
Tao Xi nodded and was about to turn around and leave when Lin Qinhe grabbed his wrist and told him, "If she's not in good condition, you can call me up."
Tao Xi agreed and followed the nurse up to the second floor. On the way, he discovered that there were not only the painting in the living room, but also many traces of Fang Sui in the entire villa, such as photos, oil paintings, or other relics of Fang Sui.
The door opened, and before Tao Xi walked in, she smelled a faint smell of medicine.
The heavy blackout curtains were not opened, and only a floor lamp was on in the corner of the room. In the dim light, Tao Xi saw Luo Zhengyin leaning against the head of the bed and almost did not recognize that she was the elegant female pianist.
Luo Zhengyin looked very weak, with a pale face that looked sickly. Her dull eyes brightened a little when she saw him come in. She smiled with some difficulty and said, "Tao Xi, come and sit down."
Tao Xi politely called out "Auntie Luo" and sat down on the chair next to Luo Zhengyin's bed.
Luo Zhengyin didn't say anything else. She just stared quietly at the young man in front of her. Her eyes seemed empty, yet seemed filled with something.
Tao Xi felt a little uncomfortable being stared at by Luo Zhengyin. He wanted to say something to break the silence, but he saw Luo Zhengyin suddenly start to cry, silently and painfully.
He hurriedly got Luo Zhengyin a tissue, but Luo Zhengyin didn't take it. She covered her face with her hands and cried quietly, as if her tears could never stop. After a long time, she said to him, "I'm sorry, my illness is not completely healed yet, and sometimes I can't control my emotions."
Tao Xi said it was okay. He knew Luo Zhengyin’s depression was very serious, but he didn’t know how to comfort her.
After crying, Luo Zhengyin seemed to calm down a little. She raised her head and looked at Tao Xi again. After staring at her for a long time, she smiled and said, "You really look like Ah Sui."
Tao Xi carefully followed her words and asked, "What kind of person is my mother?"
Luo Zhengyin's eyes were still on his face, as if she was looking through him and onto a person from long ago. She said a lot intermittently, mostly about the times when Fang Sui and she grew up together. Those times must have been very happy, because there was always a faint smile on Luo Zhengyin's face when she spoke.
Tao Xi listened carefully and confirmed his guess that Luo Zhengyin really liked Fang Hui, just like him and Lin Qinhe.
However, when Luo Zhengyin talked about Fang Hui being pregnant, her emotions suddenly broke down again. She covered her face and cried again, tears streaming through her fingers, like a confessor prostrating herself on the ground.
Tao Xi tried to comfort him helplessly, but Luo Zhengyin suddenly grabbed his hand, like a drowning person holding onto a wooden board, and kept saying "I'm sorry" over and over again.
"Aunt Luo, you haven't done anything wrong to me." Tao Xi frowned, his hand was a little painful from being grabbed.
Luo Zhengyin shook her head, still holding Tao Xi's hand tightly, crying incoherently, "No, I'm sorry for A Sui, I'm sorry for A Sui's child, it's my fault, Tao Xi, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."
Tao Xi looked at Luo Zhengyin who was immersed in pain and felt very uncomfortable. After waiting for her to calm down a little, he planned to talk about other topics to divert Luo Zhengyin's attention, but Luo Zhengyin suddenly looked up at him again, and light suddenly appeared in her tearful eyes, as if she had finally found a way to redeem herself. She said excitedly:
"Tao Xi, I will make it up to you. I will make up for what I owe you over the past decade. You can treat me as your mother, okay? Okay?"
She looked at Tao Xi almost pleadingly, as if she would collapse if Tao Xi didn't agree to him.
There was only a deep sigh left in Tao Xi's heart. For Luo Zhengyin, the only one who could redeem him from despair and guilt was Fang Sui's child, once it was Yang Duole, and now it is him.
He shook his head and did not agree to Luo Zhengyin. Instead, he tried to speak to Luo Zhengyin in a gentle tone:
"Aunt Luo, I know you feel you owe me something because of my mother." He paused and continued, "But you don't owe me, and I'm not your child."
Luo Zhengyin didn't seem to understand what he meant, and said anxiously: "It doesn't matter, I will treat you as my own child. A Sui's child is my child."
She didn't know what she suddenly thought of, and she held Tao Xi's hand tighter, begging bitterly: "Tao Xi, please move in, you and Qin He can live here together, you can treat him as your brother, we are all your relatives, he will take care of you with me, okay?"
Tao Xi looked at the pale and sickly woman in front of him, and suddenly a wave of sadness surged up. He did not answer Luo Zhengyin's question, but only asked softly:
"Aunt Luo, what is Qinhe to you?"
Luo Zhengyin stared at him blankly, as if she didn't understand what he said.
Tao Xi took a deep breath, hesitated for a moment, and said what he wanted to say to Luo Zhengyin:
"Qin He is your child, just like I am my mother's child. He is not the continuation of your feelings for my mother, nor is he the foil you use to make up for me. The one you need to make up for in the past ten years has never been me, but Qin He. Do you know that?"
He stared at Luo Zhengyin, but Luo Zhengyin fell silent under his gaze. The hand holding his suddenly trembled and shrank back as if it had touched something sharp.
Tao Xi knew that Luo Zhengyin was avoiding this question. He held Luo Zhengyin's cold hand, gave her the warmth of his palm, looked into Luo Zhengyin's eyes, and said in a slow tone:
"You are my mother's best friend. My mother in heaven would not want to see you live your whole life feeling guilty about her. She would want you to have a happy family and live a happy life for yourself, just like when you were with her before."
Hearing this, Luo Zhengyin's throat choked violently, and he lowered his head, with tears falling one by one onto the quilt.
She choked and said, "But I can't help it..."
There is no way to break free from despair, and one can only live in regret day after day.
Tao Xi sighed softly.
"Mother Luo."
Luo Zhengyin suddenly raised her head, her eyes blurred. She blinked hard and saw the young man in front of her smiling at her and said to her:
"Thank you for being my mother, but I hope that Qin He and I can have a healthy and happy mother, okay?"
The floor lamp cast a warm yellow light, dimly illuminating the corner of the bed. After Luo Zhengyin cried for a long time, Tao Xi finally heard her answer, "Okay."
He held Luo Zhengyin's hand until she fell asleep again, then he walked out of the room.
Tao Xi stood alone in the corridor, leaning against the wall, looking at the photo of Fang Sui on the wall.
Lin Qinhe has lived in an environment where people miss Fang Sui everywhere. Faced with a mother whose heart and eyes are full of other people's children, would he also hate Fang Sui and her children?
But in the end, by some strange coincidence, she ended up being with Fang Sui's real child.
He couldn't tell what he felt, he just remembered what the old man at the wonton stall said to him that day.
That night, under the canopy of the wonton stall, Tao Xi took the opportunity when Lin Qinhe went out to buy barbecue to ask Old Sun about Lin Qinhe's experience of running away from home when he was six years old. Old Sun seemed to trust him very much and told him every detail.
One evening more than ten years ago, a good-looking child was hanging around Lao Sun’s stall. Lao Sun felt sorry for the child, so he asked the child to sit on a simple wooden bench and cooked a bowl of wontons for the child.
The child was obviously very hungry, but he ate very slowly. While eating, he looked across the intersection, as if he was waiting for someone.
Old Sun had no business to do, so he crossed his legs and asked the child why he ran out alone and whether he had had an argument with his parents.
The child shook his head, buried his head and drank the soup mouthful by mouthful without saying a word.
Old Sun has seen many little brats who quarreled with their parents and threatened to run away from home. Most of them went back crying before they even walked two miles. He would comfort them: "Mom and Dad scold and beat you occasionally, it's all for your own good, but they definitely love you the most."
The child was silent for a while, and then said in a very calm tone: "My mother doesn't like me."
He looked serious and sad when he spoke. Old Sun was stunned for a moment, smacked his lips and said, "What mother doesn't like her own child? Don't think so, kid. Your mother can't find you now. I don't know how worried she is."
The child stopped talking, so Old Sun wondered whether he should call the police. Just as he was about to make the call, he saw his niece running towards him with an anxious look on her face. When she saw the child eating wontons at the wooden table, she breathed a sigh of relief and immediately hugged the child and wiped her tears.
It turned out that Lao Sun's niece was working as a nanny in the university staff building, and the child was the son of that family. Lao Sun couldn't help but ask his niece what had happened out of curiosity.
Perhaps because she had been holding a grudge for a long time and finally got the chance to express it, my niece kept talking for nearly twenty minutes.
She said that the child's mother was a pianist. She gave up her nice villa and moved her child to the university professor's building where she lived when she was a child, and hired her niece who lived nearby as a nanny.
The professor's building was already old. When my niece went out to buy something that afternoon, a circuit in a downstairs house caught fire and the fire spread directly upstairs. Fortunately, it happened during the day and the few residents in the building were quickly evacuated.
When the niece came back, the fire truck and ambulance had just arrived. She anxiously looked for her employer and her son. She heard from neighbors that the lady had come down with her son, but had fainted due to nervousness.
She soon found the unconscious young lady in the ambulance, clutching a painting in her hand, and a crying little boy sitting next to her who was being comforted by a nurse.
The niece had just breathed a sigh of relief when she suddenly realized that the boy was not the hostess's own child, but a child named Lele who often came to play. Her heart instantly rose to her throat. Without time to ask, she hurried to tell the firefighters that there might be a boy who had not come down from the household on the fourth floor.
The firefighter quickly came down carrying a little boy with a face covered in black dust. She saw the child crying and shouting to the firefighter, "My mother and brother are still upstairs, hurry up and save my mother." She turned her face away, unable to hold back her tears which instantly fell.
"He was taking a nap in the room alone. He was woken up by the smoke and went to look for his mother. He thought his mother and brother were locked in the room, so he desperately knocked on the door and called for his mother. But he didn't know that his mother had already gone downstairs with someone else's child, and took a useless painting with her. She had simply forgotten her own son!"
The niece didn't dare to let the child hear it again, so she complained to Old Sun in a low voice with red eyes, "I don't understand what she is thinking. She doesn't treat the child with affection on weekdays and treats other people's sons as treasures. I heard that she has some kind of depression, but even if she is mentally ill, even if her son has only been with her for a short time, she shouldn't treat her own child like this!"
Old Sun listened with a complicated expression and just sighed. It was not right for him to comment on other people's affairs. He glanced at the child in the corner who was drinking soup from the bowl with both hands, walked over and asked the child: "Do you want to eat more? Grandpa will make you another bowl of wontons."
The child shook his head and said politely, "Thank you, Grandpa, but that's okay."
Old Sun half squatted down, touched the child's head, thought for a while, and said to him kindly: "When people are sick, they will forget some things. Your mother is sick, and she may forget you occasionally, but it doesn't mean she doesn't like you."
The child drooped his long eyelashes and said nothing.
Old Sun also knew that the reason he found was too far-fetched. After all, the mother had not forgotten the other child. He felt sad seeing the child like this, and after thinking for a while he continued,
"Besides, there will be many other people who like you besides your mother."
The child then looked up at him and asked seriously, "Will you love me the most, just like mom loves my brother?"
He emphasized the word "most" somewhat, and it was obvious that he longed for this word very much. Like all children, he always wanted the best, the biggest, and the most.
Old Sun was stunned for a moment, then realized that this younger brother was probably the child that his mother had brought down. He couldn't help but ask, "Your mother likes your younger brother, so do you hate your younger brother?"
The niece was winking at him, as if she was dissatisfied with the cruel question asked by Old Sun.
The child was silent for a while, then slowly shook his head: "My younger brother can make me happy, so I like him the most."
Old Sun felt mixed emotions. He sighed softly, picked up the child from the stool, lifted him above his head, and said to the child with a smile and in an exaggerated tone:
"It's okay, kid. In the future there will be someone who loves you the most in the whole world!"
The child's amber eyes lit up and he asked softly, "When will it appear?"
"You'll have it when you grow up." Old Sun said with a smile. He has grandchildren of his own and usually likes to play with children.
The niece at the side couldn't help but complain: "Uncle, he is still young, don't say these things."
But the child was obviously amused by Old Sun.
Finally, Old Sun watched his niece walk away holding the child’s hand.
After that, the child's family moved out of the university professors' building, and my niece no longer worked as a nanny for the hostess. She just occasionally mentioned the beautiful child when she came over, worried that he was being wronged at home.
What Old Sun didn't expect was that after that, the child would actually come along the way to eat a bowl of wontons. He no longer asked those childish questions, always kept to himself, and occasionally would bring two bowls of wontons back.
When Tao Xi heard what Lao Sun said, his eyes suddenly turned red.
He had always been aware of Luo Zhengyin's excessive regard for Yang Duole and her politeness and indifference towards Lin Qinhe, but he had never thought that Lin Qinhe had been treated like this since he was a child with Luo Zhengyin.
He knew that Luo Zhengyin was sick, but he still couldn't understand it.
I also dare not imagine that if he had lived with Lin Qinhe since he was a child, would he have completely taken away Lin Qinhe's maternal love?
Faced with the doting of his relatives, wouldn't he become like Yang Duole?
Tao Xi didn't dare to think about these questions at all. He patted his face with his hands, put on his expression, and walked downstairs with mixed feelings. On the stairs, he saw Lin Qinhe waiting for him alone in the living room. When he heard his footsteps, he looked up at him and gave him a very gentle smile.
At that moment, Tao Xi seemed to see the child who was waiting for his mother to come and find him at the wonton stall many years ago. His nose suddenly felt sore. He walked quickly to Lin Qinhe, held his hand, and held it tightly.
Lin Qinhe noticed Tao Xi's emotions, lowered his head slightly, looked into his eyes and asked softly: "What's wrong? Did my mother say anything to you?"
Tao Xi didn't say anything, but just leaned his forehead on Lin Qinhe's shoulder, rubbed his neck, and asked a puzzling question: "Do you know who I am?"
Lin Qinhe was stunned for a moment, and subconsciously gave a boring answer: "You are Tao Xi."
Tao Xi shook her head.
Lin Qinhe came to his senses and thought Tao Xi was flirting with him, so he smiled and said, "It's my baby."
Tao Xi couldn't help laughing. He stood on tiptoe, leaned close to Lin Qinhe's ear, and whispered solemnly:
"Little friend Lin Qinhe, I am the person who loves you the most in the whole world."
After Tao Xi finished speaking, he saw that Lin Qinhe did not respond. He just stared at him, as if he was completely stunned. His amber pupils reflected the figure in front of him, like a deep pool reflecting the moon.
He reached out and poked Lin Qinhe's waist and asked, "Are you unlucky..."
Before he could finish his question, Lin Qinhe suddenly turned his head and kissed him. Their lips and tongues intertwined, from gentle and affectionate to scorching and passionate. The person kissing him had an almost pious expression, as if he was a person who had walked in the desert for days kissing Crescent Lake, eagerly seeking something.
“I’m honored.”
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