Chapter 375 The Orphanage's Lies: The Handsome Flower Boy 75
He was leaning on a cane—a cane provided by the hospital—and quietly ran away.
At three in the morning, there wasn't a soul in the corridor, and the nurses on duty at the nurses' station were asleep at their desks.
Zhou Weimin, leaning on his crutches, slowly made his way to the stairs.
Walking up the stairs was the most tiring part. Every step was excruciatingly painful. I had to put down my crutches first, then support myself with my right leg, and then slowly drag my left leg down. It took me almost half an hour to walk up three flights of stairs.
If he wasn't worried about making too much noise and waking up the people in the hospital, he would have rolled down the stairs already, and even faster.
It was still dark when I walked out of the inpatient building.
A cold wind swept over him, and Zhou Weimin shivered.
He glanced back at the hospital building; the lights were still on inside. It was so cold outside, but he couldn't go back to the hospital.
After thinking it over carefully, where else could he go now?
As dawn broke, Zhou Weimin moved to the entrance of the Ministry of Education's residential compound.
This route, which usually takes only twenty minutes by bike, took him nearly three hours to complete.
The pain in my left leg has gone from being sharp and unbearable at first, to now being numb and aching. Every step I take feels like a dull ache, as if a bone is dislocated.
Old Zhao, the gatekeeper, was shoveling snow when he saw him. He paused for a moment, thinking he had gotten up too early and was seeing a ghost.
"Zhou, Deputy Section Chief Zhou? What are you doing here?"
Zhou Weimin forced a smile, but it looked more like a grimace.
"Old Zhao, I've come back to get some things."
Old Zhao's expression became even stranger.
"You didn't know? Your family has already moved out. The house has been taken back, and the locks have been changed."
Zhou Weimin's smile froze. He had only heard about such an important matter from other people; the Wang family had completely abandoned him.
"Where did it go? Where did it go?" he asked anxiously.
Old Zhao shook his head.
"How would I know? We moved it around the 20th of the twelfth lunar month. We loaded a cart with stuff and headed west."
What happened to your leg?
Zhou Weimin did not answer. He looked up at the familiar red brick building. The window of room 201 on the third floor was closed, and the two cacti on the windowsill were gone.
It's clearly deserted!
A huge sense of panic washed over him. They had all moved away, but no one had come to tell him that they had abandoned him in the hospital and left him to fend for himself.
"Can I go up and take a look?"
His voice trembled as he asked, "Everything has changed in such a short time."
Old Zhao hesitated for a moment, then took out his keys.
"It's not allowed according to the rules, but since you're like this, well, let's go up and take a look anyway."
This once-prosperous family has now fallen into this state, with some injured and others scratched. He couldn't bear to see them like this, considering they were all acquaintances before.
Zhou Weimin, leaning on his crutches, slowly climbed up to the third floor, a process that took a great deal of effort.
The door to room 201 was sealed with tape, and the lock had been replaced.
He peeked through the crack in the door and saw that the living room was empty, with only some broken cardboard boxes and trash remaining.
The television was gone, the radio was gone, even the curtains had been torn away; the room was completely empty.
Nothing was left behind.
He leaned against the wall and slowly slid down to the ground. The sharp pain in his left leg struck again, but he couldn't care less about the pain.
The thing that had been barely keeping me going inside completely collapsed.
"Comrade Zhou, are you alright?" Old Zhao followed and felt a pang of sympathy upon seeing him like this.
"How about I call you a car?"
Zhou Weimin shook his head, leaned against the wall to stand up, and realized he had no money for the fare.
"No need, thank you."
He didn't know how he got downstairs; he only remembered that when he walked out of the yard, the sunlight was blinding, and the snow reflected the light, making him dizzy.
Now, he only has one place to go.
Zhou Weimin's parents lived in the old cotton mill residential area in the east of the city, about seven or eight miles away from the Ministry of Education's residential compound.
Normally it takes him forty minutes to cycle, but now he's on crutches, dragging his useless leg, and the distance seems terribly long.
He would walk for a while, then rest for a while, and when he couldn't walk anymore, he would sit on the curb to catch his breath.
He walked from night until dawn. Passersby hurried past, their eyes filled with curiosity and pity, but no one stopped.
In this day and age, everyone is struggling to make ends meet, and not many people have the extra kindness to help others, especially strangers like this.
Around noon, he passed a state-run restaurant, where the aroma of stewed meat wafted out.
Zhou Weimin stood at the door, looking at the price list hanging in the shop window: a serving of braised pork was 80 cents, and rice was 24 cents.
He searched all his pockets but couldn't even find enough money for a meal. He was hungry, in pain, and exhausted.
The restaurant waiter frowned when he saw him; the man was filthy and looked like a beggar.
"Comrade, are you eating? If you're not eating, don't block the door."
Zhou Weimin lowered his head and slowly walked away, leaning on his cane.
He recalled how, in the past, when he and Wang Xiuying went to restaurants, they would order a table full of dishes that they couldn't finish, and they wouldn't even bother to pack them up; they would simply leave them behind.
I took it for granted back then, but now I deeply regret it.
At three o'clock in the afternoon, he finally slowly made his way to the cotton mill's residential area.
This is a red brick tenement building. The exterior walls, built in the 1950s, have long been mottled. The corridors are filled with clutter, and the air is filled with a mixture of coal smoke and the smell of toilets.
He didn't like living in this terrible place, so he moved to his parents-in-law's house after getting married.
Zhou Weimin's parents live on the third floor of Unit 2, Building 3.
He stood downstairs, looking up at that familiar window, but suddenly lost the courage to go up.
Over the years, since marrying into the Wang family, he has returned to this home very few times.
Every time he came back, his parents would talk about the child who had been abandoned, saying that he shouldn't have tried to climb the social ladder and that he had forgotten his roots.
He was annoyed, so he came back less and less. The last time was last Mid-Autumn Festival, when he stayed for less than half an hour before leaving.
But now, he has no choice but to return to this home he hates, and in such a humble manner.
"Weimin?"
An old voice came from behind him. Zhou Weimin turned around and saw his mother standing not far away with a vegetable basket in her hand, her eyes wide open.
She thought she had misread it.
"mom."
He had barely opened his mouth when tears began to fall.
Seeing her biological mother at that moment, she felt as if she had a thousand grievances hidden in her heart.
The basket in Zhou's mother's hand clattered to the ground, scattering cabbages and radishes all over the place. She rushed over, wanting to help but not daring to touch them.
After all, since this son married into a wealthy family, he hasn't liked to have much contact with his elderly parents. He rarely comes back for holidays and has almost forgotten that he has parents.
"What happened to you? What happened to your leg? Huh?"
"Mom, I..."
Zhou Weimin couldn't speak, he just shed tears. He wasn't a person who could endure hardship, otherwise he wouldn't have married into the family so many times.
The physical pain and the grievances in his heart brought him to tears.
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