Past
There are 63 children in Liancheng Orphanage. This number fluctuates every few months or even years. The boy named Jinnan is not the first, nor the last.
Children over the age of 12 can have the dean handle the procedures and move into the boarding school. Before that, the children will live in a dormitory of six and be cared for by several teachers.
Jinnan was the only healthy boy who was not adopted.
He doesn't like making friends with people. He sits by the window every day, waiting for the outside world to come.
The person who sponsored his schooling was a Mr. Lin, whose name was written on the list in Xu Zhiyuan's folder, with the number "3" at the end.
3 means that he funded the support of three children, and the children needed to write thank-you letters, prepare performances, and receive an unexpected "big shot".
The envelope containing the thank-you letter was particularly thick. Jin Nan saw with his own eyes that his letter was opened and thrown on the ground.
Jin Nan thought the thank-you letter he wrote word by word by looking up the dictionary was precious. He wanted to understand why the adults threw away the letter paper.
He heard the reason, but he only remembered hearing it, but he had forgotten the details.
Jin Nan only remembered that his fragmented memories of that year were filled with the smell of disinfectant, the dripping sound of machines, plaster, IV bottles, and the warm smell in the microwave room that sounded like milk powder or walnut powder.
The boy in the bed next to me who broke his leg while playing skateboarding drinks three cups of milk a day. His mother brings it to him every morning. It doesn't need to be brewed with hot water and tastes especially delicious.
Jin Nan fell silent even more. The only time he rebelled was when he asked Teacher Li, the only one who came to take care of him, why no one brought him milk.
Teacher Li said that milk powder would be enough and that it could also provide calcium. The next day, the teacher brought him a box of milk that didn't need to be soaked, but forgot to remove the label. The box cost three yuan.
Three yuan worth of milk powder is enough for him to drink for many days.
By the time Jin Nan learned what calcium supplementation meant, Teacher Li had already been transferred. He never drank the milk powder again, which Teacher Li had bought specifically for him.
Jinnan began to feel hungry.
The meal he was given was always the smallest, without oil, just some bland vegetables and a bowl of rice. He drank bowl after bowl of radish soup, which was almost entirely water, to fill himself up.
His clothes were always torn. He had learned how to mend clothes from his teacher, but the cloth could be patched, but the cotton inside was gone.
In winter, he had a runny nose from the cold; in summer, he got prickly heat and chicken pox. When he was sick and on the verge of fainting, it was his school teacher and the monitor, who was not much older than him, who took him to the hospital and gave him medicine like it was candy. The illness did not kill him.
Jin Nan is finally 12 years old and can leave "home".
He attended classes during the day, helped people with homework at night, and delivered three meals a day. Many times, Jin Nan was caught by the teacher climbing over the wall. When he came back late and the dormitory door was closed, he would lean against the wall with his broken schoolbag and sleep all night without wind or rain.
He didn't know what studying was for, he only knew that he could help the rich second generation with their homework for fifty yuan a day, one hundred yuan for passing on exam answers, and two hundred yuan for each summer homework assignment.
Summer vacation, summer vacation is so good, I can go out to work. I can hand out flyers on the street, serve food and wash dishes in the kitchen. As long as I don't get caught and say I'm a relative of the boss, I can make 1,800 yuan a month.
However, Jin Nan's plan to pass on the answers was eventually discovered. He and a group of colorful students were called into the teacher's office, criticized, withdrew all the remaining money, and received a beating.
The good news was that his teacher helped him get an orphan subsidy of about a thousand yuan a month, enough for him to have enough food to eat.
Jin Nan still helps people with their homework, is still short and thin, and still can't get a sink so he has to wash clothes in the middle of the night.
He no longer returned to the orphanage and moved into a single room in a tube-shaped building for 300 yuan a month. He fabricated the story, "I signed for my father," because a landlord who recognized money wouldn't bother a half-grown child.
After years of living alone, he slowly grew up and when he was about to open the door and lower his hand, a Rolls-Royce stopped downstairs of the tube building and a strange man who looked 80% similar to him appeared.
"Little boy, what's your name and where do you go to school?"
"……Who are you?"
"Don't worry, Da...Uncle is not a bad person. Tell me your name and I'll give you this hundred yuan, okay?"
The money was stuffed into the boy's hands, which were wrapped in Band-Aids. The man had at least three rings on his fingers, which were magnificent.
"My name is Jin Nan, and I go to...Liancheng No. 1 Middle School." His name is not that valuable.
More than ten years ago, in February, a teacher from the orphanage brought home a baby in a cold night. The note was blown away by the wind and splashed with rain and snow.
"What a little boy! He looks healthy too. Is his mother really young? Is there a name for him?"
"Jinnan, it seems to be this, but the light is too dim to see clearly."
"Jinnan? Jin's Jin?" The man held his hand. "No, it should be today's Jin."
Today's south.
"Jinnan." Xu Zhiyuan tapped the back of his hand. "If you don't say anything, I'll pick some radish juice for you."
Jinnan came back to his senses and saw the flight attendant distributing drinks. He had been waiting with the bottles in his hands for a while.
"Just plain water will do, thank you."
The water was placed in front of him, along with a jasmine-flavored cold brew tea bag.
The stranger walked away, and Xu Zhiyuan moved closer: "Are you having a nightmare?"
Jinnan didn't get enough sleep last night. He fell asleep soon after getting on the car. He woke up just a few minutes later and was as sleepy as a puff pastry with eyes closed.
Jinnan opened his eyes and looked out the window. The train quickly passed a vast expanse of rice paddies, and the hills in the distance were hidden in the mist. Liancheng was very mountainous, and the drilling hadn't started yet, which meant they still had at least half an hour to go.
The bright sunlight and the warm light inside the car brought Jinnan back to reality. The dust from the past gloomy days was lifted up and then fell lightly.
Jinnan felt a little cold and moved closer to Xu Zhiyuan. Xu Zhiyuan didn't shy away, but stayed quietly, giving Jinnan a sense of security. His shoulders were broad and his muscles were soft, making it a comfortable place for his head to rest.
Mr. Xu is always reliable. If it was a block of unmelted ice before, it's now an active volcano. There's no telling when it'll erupt, but it's perfect for boiling hot spring eggs.
"Hello, Mr. Xu." Jinnan called him in broken Cantonese.
Xu Zhiyuan nodded lightly and took off his glasses.
Jinnan stared at his hands. There were no scars on them now. They were white and slender, with only some calluses from the brush and a ring of teeth marks left by Xu Zhiyuan biting them.
"I want to eat meat."
"OK."
"I want to live to be a hundred years old."
"Is one hundred enough?"
"Two hundred years then."
The key to the small room lay quietly in Xu Zhiyuan's pocket. A long time had passed.
*
Liancheng was cold, and the spring rain continued to fall until night. The two arrived at the former tractor factory. The tube-shaped buildings were still there, and the lights were dotted.
Climbing up the steep slope, the cement steps under the rusty railings were half broken, and a thick layer of moss grew except for the places where people often stepped.
There was a lot of green, and there were a lot of mosquitoes. Before he'd even taken a few steps, Xu Zhiyuan was bitten. Jin Nan slapped him on the arm with a bloody slap. Mr. Xu frowned slightly, and Jin Nan made a face at him.
"You said you wanted to experience life, don't complain."
"I don't mind."
He really didn't dislike it. Xu Zhiyuan was very familiar with the dark and narrow staircases and corridors in the tube building, as if he had quietly visited this place countless times.
I inserted the key and opened the door. There was no dust as I had imagined. Everything seemed light and pale because of its oldness.
Xu Zhiyuan entered first, leaving a trail of rain-soaked footprints.
Next to Jinnan's little bed, the school uniform from his old school was still hanging on the rack. It was clean and seemed to have been washed not long ago.
"Often?"
"Occasionally." Xu Zhiyuan was very frank. He took out a thin quilt from Jinnan's closet as if he knew the place well. There was no other pillow. Fortunately, Jinnan didn't take away his old clothes, so a folded sweater could make up the number.
He worked while Jinnan sat and watched. He still didn't understand where Xu Zhiyuan's compensatory mentality towards him came from. Wouldn't a normal child feel like something was robbed?
Although love often makes you feel indebted, you can't always love from the beginning, right?
He is so small that the smallest size of boys' school uniform is oversized on him. He works outside every day and is tanned. His hair is also the most sloppy and cheapest crew cut.
Jinnan sometimes even felt embarrassed that Xu Zhiyuan had seen such an ugly side of him. He thought how much better it would have been if Xu Zhiyuan had seen him in his handsome and glorious state when he first met him.
But if that were the case... he probably wouldn't have grown up safely in the Jin family, and he wouldn't be what he is now. He would have been more gloomy, less likable, and more cynical.
We are all thankful for Xu Zhiyuan’s motherly kindness. It is because of his kindness that Jinnan is what it is today.
"Xu Zhiyuan."
Mr. Xu didn't turn around, only a faint "hmm" escaped from his nose, his hands still busy changing the quilt cover.
Jinnan wanted to laugh when he saw this, but he didn't help. He just gave a few pointers occasionally. Unconsciously, the topic turned to "my past".
In the past, Jinnan was registered thinly in a student file. Everything that was once considered tall has become small. A bed that one person can stretch out to sleep on now requires hugging tightly to fall asleep.
In the past, I thought the school uniform was too small and felt like a tight-fitting garment when I put it on. Jinnan said this and gestured, showing him the small signature on the inside of the hem.
"I was very happy when I got this set of clothes. It cost just over 70 yuan and included both the top and pants. The quality is pretty good and I can wear them for three years."
"It's a pity they don't give out shoes. I only wear a pair of slippers, and they cost about a dozen yuan. About a dozen yuan?"
"Do you think I'm poor and pathetic? I'll tell you in secret, I've actually saved up a lot of money. I've prepared everything. When I finish high school and apply to a university out of town, I'll bring all my belongings with me."
"Without Teacher Chen, I definitely wouldn't have been able to get into Li University, but... getting into a regular university shouldn't be that difficult, right? Actually, a junior college is fine, as long as you have the education."
"I want to go out and see the world. Anywhere is fine, but Lido is definitely better."
"Maybe in a world where I haven't returned to the Jin family, we can still meet in Lido, do you believe it? But I wouldn't dare chase you then. I would definitely stay away from you."
"It's not that I'm afraid I can't catch up, it's just that, um... your standard of living is high, and I'm worried I can't support you. I still have a little bit of male chauvinism."
"Just a little."
Xu Zhiyuan listened to him mutter, his eyes nearly closing, but he still answered each sentence, mostly simple replies, a few asking guiding questions.
There was no need to ask, as he already knew everything about Jin Nan. Perhaps Jin Nan himself didn't remember it any better than he did.
How does Jinnan face each and every one of them and how does he act tough?
Xu Zhiyuan is not a saint. There are thousands of people in the world who are more pitiful than Jinnan. If he were to treat them all as pitiful, even a hundred of them would not be enough for him.
He is special to Jinnan only because he owes Jinnan the only thing he owes.
Indebtedness, pity, recognition, appreciation, if your eyes stay on a person for too long, the emotional strings will become tense, chirping, and out of tune.
Now he loved her, but how much, how much? Xu Zhiyuan didn't dare to care. He could only bury himself in the suffering that had already been experienced and could not be changed, seeking a trace of comfort from Jinnan.
"We'll meet."
Jinnan said so.
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