The gentle voice, with recognition and comfort, brought Tang Xili back to reality.
She sobbed and slowly raised her head, and saw the man with tears in his eyes, hugging her carefully.
His warm right hand cupped her cheek.
It was as if he was holding a fragile porcelain doll, and every movement was filled with endless care and was extremely gentle.
Tang Xili's throat choked, and the tears hanging on her eyelashes fell down and landed between the man's fingers.
Yong Zhixu's heart ached at the pain caused by her tears.
He lowered his eyes and stared at the girl's tearful eyes without blinking.
Since I met her, the little girl has always been indifferent, and even when she smiles, it doesn't show in her eyes.
Apart from that time when she was drunk, this was the second time he saw her so bruised.
"Yangyang is really amazing..." As if he didn't want to disturb her, the man spoke each word in a low voice. "Ms. Tang Xiyun will definitely be proud of you."
"Woo..." A cry escaped from Tang Xili's throat. Would her mother really be proud of her?
She lowered her head, looked at the woman in her arms who was crying loudly after being rescued by her, and slowly let go of her hand.
The firefighters not far away immediately stepped forward, surrounded the thin and frail woman, comforted and counseled her, and then left in a group.
Tang Xili looked at the woman's white back and burst into tears, "If... if I could have saved her then..."
The self-blaming words were like a knife, piercing into Yong Zhixu's heart. He tightened his arms and held the broken girl in his arms.
"Ms. Tangxi, please stop feeling guilty, okay? Perhaps this is the dawn you didn't wait for when you were seven years old..."
Tang Xili's body trembled, tears rolling down her eyes, "Could it be?"
The man said very firmly: "It must be! It must be that your aunt couldn't bear you blaming yourself anymore, so she used this method to return your dawn to you."
"My Dawn..." Tang Xili raised her hands and looked at her hands that saved the woman.
In a trance, she returned to that cold and desperate snowy night.
Her mother, covered in blood, gently stroked her face. Despite the pain, she still smiled at her and said, "Yangyang, be strong in the future. Mom will be watching over you in heaven."
So, did she see it?
Was it her arrangement?
Tang Xili looked up, as if being pulled by something, and gazed towards the horizon with tearful eyes.
Between light and shadow, she had an illusion and saw her mother's voice, appearance and smile.
In fact, there is not much image of her mother in her memory.
After she was born, she was given to Gu Yuqing by Mrs. An. It was not until she was four years old and was bullied by An Qian and An Youxuan that she realized that she was not Gu Yuqing's biological daughter.
I saw my mother on a quiet afternoon. She was being chased and beaten by An Qian, so she went into the basement through the basement window.
After entering, she found a beautiful woman locked in the dim room, with her ankles tightly locked to the bed with iron chains.
Her hair was disheveled, her skin was a sickly pale color, and she was as beautiful as a white rose that was about to wither.
The woman recognized her as soon as she saw the four-year-old.
She was very happy and picked her up with passion and affection, kissing her forehead and caressing her.
At that time, her mother's mental state was still normal. She often secretly ran to see her and left all the delicious food she stole for her.
Every time, her mother would not let her stay longer, as if she was hiding some unspeakable secret.
Then one day, she saw with her own eyes her mother being raped by those beasts... She hid in the dark, listening to her mother's desperate cries, and covered her mouth tightly to avoid being discovered...
Saving her mother became her belief.
Later, my mother's mental state gradually deteriorated. Sometimes when I went to see her, the calm woman would suddenly go crazy and throw everything at her, injuring her.
But she didn't hate him, nor was she afraid. She overheard from An Minghe that he had injected her mother with psychiatric drugs.
At that age, she understood one thing: she had to be patient and keep calm in order to save her mother.
When she was 7 years old, it was the Spring Festival and she saved her mother once. That day, the An family went to worship their ancestors. She took the opportunity to take her mother out of the basement, stuffed all the money she had stolen into her hands, and told her to go as far away as possible.
Unexpectedly, her mother came back for her.
After suffering for nearly a year, my mother could no longer bear it and chose to end her life in that way.
In fact, she had thought about dying with her mother, but before her mother died, she quietly told her that she actually had a twin sister and asked her to find her sister.
But before she could find her sister, she was sent abroad by the An family...
That night, it was my mother who jumped off the building, and it was she who died.
"Yangyang, Mom has never blamed you, just let yourself go..." Mom's voice brushed past my ears, as if I was hallucinating.
Tang Xili's eyelashes trembled, and after a while, she softly responded, "Okay..."
She thought she knew why they met.
It was her mother who asked her to save An Wuyang from sixteen years ago and Tang Xili for the rest of her life.
The imprisoned soul found an outlet at this moment.
As the light of day shone down, the world-weary flower that had withered in the snowy night of midwinter saw a glimpse of spring at the end of the darkness.
Tang Xili raised her hand and wiped away her tears with her sleeve, returning to her usual cool self.
"Thank you, Mr. Yong."
(Thank you for being the lamp that illuminates my sky.)
Yong Zhixu let her go, held her thin shoulders with both hands, and looked down at her tear-red eyes, unsure whether she had been redeemed.
"Ms. Tangxi, please look forward from now on and don't look back, okay?"
"Okay." Tang Xili's dry lips moved.
She raised her eyes to look at the sky. Her eyes, having been cleansed, contained a different brilliance than before, like a butterfly reborn from its cocoon, full of vitality.
Yong Zhixu's heartstrings relaxed and a smile appeared in his eyes.
He knew that the seven-year-old An Wuyang finally welcomed her eighth birthday at the age of 23.
The long winter night has passed...
——
Downstairs, a woman in a white dress was crying while hugging Xiao Yuanyuan.
She was glad that she met the grown-up 'Yuanyuan' when she was on the verge of death. Without her, she might have died in front of her daughter.
The crowd watching, seeing the woman being rescued, burst into warm applause, praising the immortality of life.
When Tang Xili and Yong Zhixu came down, the woman in white dress had calmed down.
She spotted Tang Xili with her sharp eyes, picked up Xiao Yuanyuan, pushed through the crowd, and quickly caught up with her.
"Yuanyuan..." the woman called softly. She didn't know her name, but that didn't stop her from treating her as her own child, even though she might not be much older than her.
"Thank you..." The woman's eyes were full of love.
Although the words on the rooftop were distracting, she had a hunch that they were all true.
"It must have been very difficult for you these years."
Tangxi Limou's heart moved, and she stared deeply into the woman's eyes. Was it her mother who said this through Yuanyuan's mother?
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