Chapter 7
Mother loves father. Every time father appears within mother's sight, her ability to perceive the surrounding things decreases to almost nothing.
When I was younger, I saw my mother lose her temper like this.
*
By then I had been able to walk a few steps, and my mother carried me to the corridor to let me bask in the sun - or perhaps it was just to let me bask in the sun.
My father's voice reached our ears through a tree. He seemed to be chatting with a guest. It was all very boring stuff. It must have been his usual topics, like "war", "business" or showing off something.
The adults were so bored that they didn't even notice that a cute little sparrow with gray and white feathers had just landed at their feet!
The moment my father and the guests left, the little bird flapped its wings and flew away from these boring adults. I sighed with regret.
As my father's voice got closer, my mother's hands, which were combing my hair, paused noticeably, and even her breathing became so light that it was almost inaudible.
I turned my head slightly in confusion, but I could only see the faint trace of her earlobe under her black hair, which looked like it was about to drip with blood - Mother, do you have a fever?
My father led the guest past us, and my mother took me to greet him. However, my father was talking to the guest excitedly and had no time to pay attention to us.
The mother didn't mind her father's ignoring her at all. She was like a robot and didn't straighten up until her father left completely.
My waist was already very tired because she had been pressing on it.
I pinched the soft flesh on both sides of my belly with my little hands in distress, then looked up at my mother, only to find that her eyes were flashing with a light that made my eyes hurt.
I'm scared of her looking like this.
And from the servant's mouth, I understand that it is "love"
It was the first time I saw what her lover looked like.
*
My mother used to be a lady from another family, and it was her father who married her into our family.
Although it was a family on the verge of decline, the mother still had everything she needed: courtesy and reason.
I don’t know what my mother must have been like when she was my age, because there is definitely no trace of a child in her now.
I once speculated that when my mother was little, she must have been a cute child like a white dough.
It's just that she was put into a fixed mold, pressed into a stiff shape, and others used pigmented makeup to make her look "beautiful".
My mother was considered one of the best cakes by her father and was given to my father.
And my father accepted it.
They used a large dough to make a small dough like me, and wanted to use the mold they were used to using to press out a small cake, but a fire broke out outside the house and the fire burned the wooden mold.
They were helpless and wanted to make a new mold, using their ridicule, their cold eyes, and those soft but tight clothes...
*
I don’t know why my mother loved someone like my father. Her love seemed to focus all her ideals and hopes for the world on my father.
This feeling made me, a bystander, feel uncomfortable and extremely depressed.
She was like a calm and bold gambler, making a bet that was doomed to lose everything, with a kind of desperate madness.
She is also a fool who is caught up in her own self-satisfaction and wraps herself in a web of her own making.
For a period of time, my father was obsessed with Western things, while my mother was only good at the old ways taught by her family.
She learned to weave a scarf using Western methods and asked the shopping maid to prepare bright yellow wool for her.
Bright yellow is the color of sunshine and the color that many people imagine when they think of the word hope.
——In my little room, I repeatedly put beautiful words on this scarf, all the words I could imagine, about beauty, sunshine, and flowers.
I imagined the sunlight of the same color as this scarf shining on the fine fur on her face, and the gentle expression that my mother unconsciously revealed when she was knitting this scarf...
Of course I knew who my mother prepared the scarf for.
I look forward to understanding many things, but this is the only thing that the more I don't want to think clearly, the more it keeps drilling into my head.
This scarf is so big that I only need half of it to completely cover my face, and the remaining half will trip me up no matter how I put it.
In the end, the mother did not give the scarf away because when she was about to give it away, the father was already wearing a more exquisite scarf with a more suitable color around his neck.
My mother gave me the scarf.
The scarf won't get longer, I will grow older, and one day, I will be able to wear this scarf without tripping myself.
*
The days of the Tsushima family were like an ancient well; it remained peaceful year after year, but now, someone threw a stone into it.
Who is it?
It's you, Tsushima Shuji.
I looked at Tsushima Shuji hanging on the tree in silence, then looked at the wind on my wrist that seemed to be a physical object. "Didn't you always want to strangle him?"
Tsushima Shuji's style is nothing like him, it doesn't seem smart at all, and it doesn't understand what I say.
It just pulled me anxiously again, wanting me to rescue Tsushima Shuji as soon as possible.
I gave Shuji Tsushima a little strength under his feet so that he could slide his head off the rope. Of course, I couldn't catch Shuji Tsushima, so when he started to fall freely, I let go and just caught him from behind.
I didn't know whether I should let him lie on his side or flat after rescuing him, or whether I should support him a little. Anyway, I had already rescued the man from the tree, and his whole body was still pressing on me, so I simply sat down in this position.
After a while, Tsushima Shuji seemed to come back to life and started coughing violently.
I have to say it wasn't a good experience. If I hadn't dodged quickly, this guy would have hit me on the chin.
I looked at him - or to be more precise, at the wind around his neck - and felt speechless.
The one who wanted me to save him the most was this Xi Feng, and the one who wanted to kill him the most was also this Xi Feng.
What, does this Xifeng still have some strange obsession with Tsushima Shuji that "I must be the one to kill him"?
Shuji Tsushima finally caught his breath and leaned weakly against me.
Normally we would never be this close to each other, and I certainly don't think there is any reason for us to be so close.
I leaned forward, too, transferring some of my weight to him.
"You have to tell me why you do this."
His voice was a little hoarse, like the sound of two pieces of sandpaper rubbing against each other. "...Do you really think there is a meaning to life?"
His eyes were focused on the flowers in the distance.
Every place he chose for his suicide seemed beautiful - is this what adults call romance?
I realized that even suicide requires romance.
Just kidding, Tsushima Shuji seemed both casual and serious about suicide. This contradictory attitude made me feel confused and tired.
In that he makes me feel the same emotions as him, Tsushima Shuji and his style are rare in their unity.
Tsushima Shuji turned his head and looked at me.
No way, does anyone really think that a child can know the answer to such a question?
I answered him honestly, "I don't know." He turned his eyes away nonchalantly.
It was obvious that he didn't expect an answer from me either.
But I said to him again, "I still want to know why you hanged yourself today?"
"There are a lot." His face was expressionless - it could be called indifferent.
"Long, there are many things in this world that disgust me. I don't understand how you can turn a blind eye to them. Your mother doesn't love you at all, and your brothers and sisters exclude you... What reasons do you have to support you to live?"
He sounded like the world's most curious apprentice.
He said the truth, and because it was the truth, I couldn't refute it.
And because I had clearly recognized this fact before, his words were like tearing open the wounds I had carefully concealed.
——It was so painful that I couldn’t breathe, and I even felt a suffocating darkness in front of my eyes.
*
I have been learning to be a good kid for a long time. I have done well in etiquette classes. I have learned to be a quiet person like my mother. I have tried to get straight A's in my subjects - although I failed. I have learned to train myself not to be tempted by desserts...
Since I was young, I have been learning how to please others. I long for, ah, even just an ordinary smile, even just a smile - a smile that blooms at me, can make me full of hope for the whole day.
But, but...
Something hot fell from my face onto Tsushima Shuji's head.
"Hey hey hey! Don't cry!" Tsushima Shuji jumped up from me.
Am I crying again? It's useless. I know this very well, don't I?
Why can't I stand it when someone points it out?
——Tsushima Suzuki suffered a great defeat.
Tsushima Shuji is not good at comforting people, he stood beside me at a loss.
I reached out and pushed him a little further away. I wanted to let myself cry for a while, but it wouldn't be for long.
Tsushima Suzu pushed Tsushima Shuji a little further away. Because she was crying, she used very light force. Although it was very light, Tsushima Shuji reacted quickly and he stood a little further away according to her force.
Tsushima Ebi cried very seriously - perhaps she was trying hard to control her facial expression.
She stared at somewhere expressionlessly, tears falling like beads from a broken string.
There is something strangely discordant about this scene. Although Tsushima Shuji feels guilty, it is really hard to hold back laughter...
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
