Chapter 42
"LeLe, can you come out and have some food?"
Luo Zhengyin knocked on the door of the audio-visual room again, but only the sound of a movie could be heard from inside. Yang Duole remained silent, and he had locked the door. He had been inside for more than six hours from afternoon to evening without coming out.
Luo Zhengyin sighed, stood quietly at the door for a while, and then sent another WeChat message to Lin Qinhe.
Yang Duole had been staying at his grandparents' house for the past few days. He suddenly came over at around 1:00 p.m. today. Luo Zhengyin saw that Yang Duole was pale and walked unsteadily, so she thought he had health problems again. She was so anxious that she almost called for emergency services, but Yang Duole stopped her.
Luo Zhengyin asked anxiously for a long time, but Yang Duole remained silent, his face pale. After a while, he suddenly asked her:
"Mother Luo, where did my mother give birth to me?"
Luo Zhengyin didn't expect Yang Duole to ask this question. The birth of Yang Duole more than 16 years ago was a memory that she and the two elders of the Fang family were reluctant to mention. At that time, she had just given birth and fell into postpartum depression. She was unable to go to the place where Fang Sui lived for the last time with the two elders of the Fang family and Yang Zhengming.
Luo Zhengyin thought Yang Duole was thinking about her mother, and she had been thinking about her mother all these years, so she said with red eyes: "At that time, your grandparents received the call and went to Qingshui County to pick you up. It was only later that I heard from Uncle Fang that I knew Ah Sui had been living there. Uncle Fang never told me where exactly, I only knew that a kind-hearted farmer in Qingshui County took her in."
Fang Zuqing is a conservative person. His daughter's matter is not only a grief to him, but also a secret that cannot be told to anyone. He has not told the family about it for all these years, and she does not dare to go to that sad place.
"Qingshui County..." Yang Duole murmured with empty eyes.
"Le Le, what's wrong with you?" Luo Zhengyin looked at Yang Duole worriedly. She had never seen her most beloved child looking so desperate.
Yang Duole did not answer her and locked himself in the room. She tried to persuade him several times outside the door but to no avail. She had no choice but to call Lin Qinhe. In the past, when Yang Duole was angry, it was Lin Qinhe who was most helpful.
Luo Zhengyin went down the stairs and saw Lin Qinhe coming in from the door. He hurried over and said, "Qinhe, go check on Lele. I don't know what's wrong with him today. He doesn't talk or eat. No matter how much I try to persuade him, it's useless."
Lin Qinhe frowned and walked upstairs in silence.
He stood outside the door and knocked on it, raising his voice and saying, "Le Le."
Lin Qinhe thought he would have to urge him for a while, but unexpectedly, Yang Duole opened the door very quickly. The lights were not on in the room, only the faint light from the movie. Yang Duole looked at him straight without saying a word, his pupils dull.
Lin Qinhe walked straight inside and glanced at the movie on the projection screen. It was a very depressing movie at first glance, and not the type that Yang Duole liked to watch before.
He watched Yang Duole return to the sofa and curl up to sit down, and asked directly: "What's going on?"
He has never been as patient as Luo Zhengyin in coaxing people.
Yang Duole hugged his legs, staring at the movie, still not saying a word.
Lin Qinhe watched the movie again. In the picture was a boy of about seventeen or eighteen years old, sleeping on a dark green bed. He seemed to be having a nightmare, with his brows furrowed, clutching the quilt and mumbling in his sleep. The soundtrack made people feel a little uneasy.
Lin Qinhe turned on the light, paused the movie with the remote control, walked to the sofa and sat down, tore open a bag of Yang Duole's favorite potato chips and placed it in front of him, and softened his tone:
"If you feel uncomfortable, you can tell me. Didn't you always feel this way before?"
Yang Duole was not used to the bright light and raised his hand to cover his eyes. After a while, he asked in a hoarse voice:
"Brother Qinhe, you are nice to me. It has nothing to do with my mother. It's not because I am her son."
Lin Qinhe frowned upon hearing this, and after a moment of silence, he said, "It doesn't matter." He paused and asked again, "Why do you ask this question?"
Yang Duole put down his hand that was covering his eyes and used the remote control to start the movie again. He did not answer Lin Qinhe's question, but whispered to himself:
"If one day someone deliberately wants to steal your things, what will you do?"
The boy in the movie suddenly woke up from a nightmare, gasping for breath, and opened his bloodshot eyes amid heavy sound effects.
Lin Qinhe frowned and looked at Yang Duole's lifeless eyes. This question was a bit absurd when asked by Yang Duole. He replied indifferently:
"If something is yours, no one else can take it away. If something is not yours, it will be returned to you sooner or later."
Yang Duole suddenly looked towards Lin Qinhe, anger and hatred flashing in his dark eyes. He opened his mouth to say something, but finally held it back.
He leaned towards Lin Qinhe on the sofa, pulled his arm, as if seeking some support, and asked without thinking:
"Brother Qinhe, will you always stand by me? No matter what I do, no matter who I am."
Lin Qinhe threw the bag of potato chips back on the table. He suppressed his annoyance and thought that this question was childish, just like this person who would always be willful. He said with his remaining little patience:
"Le Le, you are not a child anymore. There are many things in the world that have right and wrong. It is meaningless to ask others to take sides."
After Lin Qinhe finished speaking, the phone in his pocket vibrated. He quickly took it out and saw that it was a WeChat message from Su Yun.
Before he could open the WeChat box, Yang Duole beside him suddenly stood up and said loudly:
"Did Tao Xi send it to you?!"
His tone was filled with strong hostility. Yang Duole's eyes were red, he clenched his fists and slightly hunched his back, like a frightened bird, with a defensive and fearful posture.
Lin Qinhe turned off the screen of his mobile phone and slowly stood up. His brows were deeply knitted, his face darkened, and he stared at the man in front of him who was obviously in an abnormal mental state, without saying a word.
Yang Duole was subconsciously afraid of Lin Qinhe. He took a step back, raised his hand to wipe his tears, and made a vague sob in his throat, trying to use crying to get Lin Qinhe to give in like he did when he was a child:
"Brother Qinhe, I clearly told you that I don't like him, why do you still want to get so close to him? We grew up together, can't all these years of affection be compared to the few months you have known him?"
He had long noticed that Lin Qinhe and Tao Xi's relationship was getting closer and closer, so close that it was a little abnormal. He had just felt uncomfortable before, but he realized it today.
That person deliberately came to Wenhua No. 1 Middle School and approached him and Lin Qinhe, just to take away everything from him step by step!
He was unwilling to believe the vulgar man who claimed to be his father, but the facts seemed to force him to believe it. The nightmare that had accompanied him since childhood was waking up.
She is from Qingshui Town, looks very similar to Fang Sui, has the same talent for painting, and more importantly.
The strong hostility shown towards him when I first met him!
He must be here to take revenge on me and take away everything from me, he must be.
Luo Zhengyin, who had been standing outside the door, couldn't help but walk in when he heard Yang Duole's hysterical voice. Seeing Yang Duole's face full of tears and his chest heaving violently, he hurried over and patted him on the back gently, saying a few words to comfort him softly, while winking at Lin Qinhe.
But Lin Qinhe ignored it. He seemed to have been offended. His brows were furrowed. His usually indifferent eyes suppressed his anger. After enduring for a long time, he said to Yang Duole in a deep voice:
"Yang Duole, not everyone has to revolve around you. Who you hate has nothing to do with me."
The tone was almost grim.
"Qinhe!" Luo Zhengyin looked at Lin Qinhe with dissatisfaction in his eyes, "Don't talk to Lele like that, you know he's in a bad mood."
Yang Duole buried his head in Luo Zhengyin's shoulder and cried bitterly. Luo Zhengyin quickly turned around to comfort him.
Lin Qinhe looked at the two people in front of him, took a deep breath, turned around and walked towards the door, as if he wanted to escape from some confined space that was suffocating him.
While helping Yang Duole calm down, Luo Zhengyin wiped the tears from his face and said softly, "Okay, stop crying. You'll stay at Mother Luo's place for the next few days. Do you want to go out and play tomorrow?"
Yang Duole just cried without saying anything. Luo Zhengyin heard Yang Duole's phone ringing, so she coaxed him, "Look who's calling you? Are your grandparents asking? They definitely don't want you to cry again."
"I don't want to answer it." Yang Duole choked.
"Okay, okay, don't answer it. I'll hang up for you." Luo Zhengyin took the phone and saw that it was not a call from the two elders of the Fang family, but Guan Fanyun, Yang Zhengming's lover.
She frowned, hung up the phone, and told Yang Duole: "If that woman surnamed Guan contacts you again in the future, just ignore her."
Yang Zhengming has had countless lovers over the years, but Guan Fanyun is the only one who has been relatively stable in the past two years. Last time, it was because she went directly to the school to give Yang Duole a gift, and Yang Duole was so angry that he asked for leave and went home without even eating.
Luo Zhengyin thought that it was this woman again who made Yang Duole in an abnormal mood today. She thought about finding an opportunity to talk to Yang Zhengming and ask Guan Fanyun to stop harassing Yang Duole.
Lin Qinhe walked back to his room, without turning on the light, and sat down on the lounge chair on the open-air balcony. After a moment of silence, he took out his phone and found that Tao Xi had sent him several WeChat messages half an hour ago:
"Just now, Senior Qiao told me that another painting of mine was sold at the exhibition for 20,000!"
"I'll treat you to a delicious meal this weekend. It doesn't matter how expensive it is. I'm a rich man now."
Followed by a series of animal emoticons, including cats, dogs, chickens, ducks and geese that are jumping around happily and look very proud.
Lin Qinhe looked at the animated pictures and smiled. He checked the time and it was just after the second evening self-study get out of class, so he called directly.
"Wait for me, I'll be out of the classroom soon." After the phone was connected, Tao Xi's hurried voice was heard from the other end of the phone, as well as footsteps and the noise of the classroom gradually fading away.
"Okay, we can talk now. Have you sorted out your family issues?"
Lin Qinhe looked at the shadows of the trees outside the balcony, which seemed to be a huge fog enveloping the villa. He said, "It's solved. When did you participate in the exhibition again? Why didn't you tell me?"
"I just gave a painting to my teacher, and he helped me to enter the exhibition. I didn't know it could be sold and sold for so much money!"
Tao Xi couldn't hide her excitement and continued, "I'm thinking about selling more paintings in the future and making a lot of money. I want to buy a big house, preferably one with a yard. We can plant some flowers and plants in the yard. Oh, no, you're allergic to pollen, so we can get a cat and a dog... Wait, you're not allergic to cat or dog hair, are you?"
Lin Qinhe said with a smile: "Not allergic."
Tao Xi seemed to be relieved and continued to speak freely: "That's good, then we will travel to a place every year, you take pictures and I will paint beside you, and when we come back I can hold an art exhibition, and I can also hold a photography exhibition for you..."
Lin Qinhe lay back leisurely on the recliner, looking at the moon with a furry edge in the sky, and listening to Tao Xi planning their future.
He found that Tao Xi almost never mentioned his family and past, except for his sick sister. In Tao Xi's heart, there seemed to be only a bright future and him.
"What do you think of my plan?" Tao Xi paused and asked nervously.
Lin Qinhe asked, "Do you only go to one place a year?"
"If you have time, of course you can go to more places, but I think you may be very busy with work by then," said Tao Xi.
The two chatted aimlessly about the future for a few minutes until Tao Xi urged, "It's time for class. I'm going to hang up."
Lin Qinhe said before hanging up the phone: "You haven't given me today's comics yet."
Tao Xi said, "You left too suddenly today. I will definitely make it up to you tomorrow!" He walked towards the classroom and muttered quietly,
"I'm not going to draw cartoons for you for the rest of my life, am I?"
Lin Qinhe heard it, laughed, and said firmly: "Of course."
After hanging up the phone, Lin Qinhe opened WeChat again and remembered that Su Yun had sent him a message before. It was Su Yun's resend of the information about applying to the school.
He forwarded all the information to Tao Xi, and then opened Su Yun's dialog box. He originally wanted Su Yun to help him buy back the painting that Tao Xi had just sold, but after thinking about it, he gave up.
In the future, there will be many people like him who will buy Tao Xi’s collection of paintings.
Lin Qinhe got up from the recliner, went back to the room, turned on the light, opened the locked box in the bookcase, and took out a book from it.
These are all the comics that Tao Xi has drawn for him so far, and they have been carefully bound by date.
He opened the comic book as if he was opening a copy of "One Thousand and One Nights" that belonged only to him.
In fact, he had no interest in stories and comics since he was a child, but he remembered that when he was very young, he also looked forward to Luo Zhengyin telling him bedtime stories, just like she told him stories in Yang Duole's room every night.
Lin Qinhe looked down at the first page of the comic book, the first comic that Tao Xi drew for him.
Moon: "Are you a star?"
Small meteorite: "I am just a small meteorite now, but one day I will become a shining small star."
Moon: "Why do you want to become a star?"
Little Meteorite: "Because then I can illuminate you in the universe like the sun."
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