Chapter 41
Li Ying'an was twelve years old that year. Due to the incomplete basic education facilities in the village, he was forced to stop studying after the sixth grade.
The days he spent studying were his most leisurely time. He was even glad he wasn't a girl. In this village, women were not allowed to study. They were abandoned from birth, becoming commodities with a fixed price. When they reached the right age, they would be betrothed to other families as wives, or they would be chosen by their favorite men at a very young age and become child brides.
He knew that after graduation, he would also do farm work with his family elders, and then when he reached the right age, or found a suitable family, he would follow tradition to get married and have children.
But he didn't really want that.
It was not because he had read books or knew a few words that he had such great insights, nor was it because he missed his school days so much, although he had heard his teacher praise him many times, saying that he was the smartest student among the children in the village and the most educated, and that he must have inherited his mother's good brains.
I heard that Li Rui is a graduate student.
People will become arrogant when they are praised countless times, not to mention that he has a father who always belittles him and opposes him in everything.
He clearly remembered that year when the man was scratched by his cat once, and the cat died at his hands, just because he went crazy for no reason after drinking and the cat was irritated.
It was also because of this incident that he was crying under a tree while holding the kitten's body, and was seen by the woman who influenced his life.
He didn't remember what she looked like, only that she had a terrifying face that could make a child cry even from a distance. Her face was disfigured. It was said that a few years ago, unable to tolerate domestic violence, she took advantage of a dark and windy night and set fire to her parents-in-law's house, leaving nothing behind. Her face was damaged in that incident, and she had never been the same since. She had been mad ever since.
He knew that this woman must be a poor person bought from outside the village. Even if she was crazy, she still had a temperament that did not belong here. Even if she was crazy, she would still be remarried to someone else as a wife.
How terrible.
Fortunately, her current husband is a truly honest man in the village. He is a loner and still does his own thing even after marrying a wife. The two of them are just nominal husband and wife.
Ever since that encounter, the woman came to see him every day like his mother. She watched him while he worked, watched him while he played, and even when he climbed up a tree and was in a daze, he could still see the woman standing not far away, looking up at him with a smile.
At first he felt uncomfortable and even scared, but gradually he got used to it because women would give him candy every now and then, and his favorite thing in his life was sickeningly sweet candy.
For a whole year, the woman had been following him like a shadow. One day, he couldn't help it anymore. He ran to the woman with doubts in his heart and asked her why.
The woman did not directly answer why, she simply asked him if he still wanted to study.
He could never forget how bright his eyes were at that time, a brightness he would never have again in his life.
It was also from that moment that he knew that the woman was not crazy, she was pretending to be crazy. Only in this way could she live like a human being here.
No one dares to provoke a madman who sets fires and kills people.
In the days that followed, the two agreed that he would help the woman keep the secret, and the woman would teach him poetry, literature and etiquette. Although he could not learn as detailed as in a regular school, the principles and stories that the woman spoke eloquently were things he had never come across or even heard of in his life. He was very grateful to her, so he privately regarded her as an important mentor in his life.
His ambition grew as she spoke. For the first time, he confirmed that he was really a frog in a well, and it was also the first time he realized that the world outside the well was so big and prosperous.
He had to get out.
He must leave this cannibalistic place, go to see his second hometown which he has never met, and never come back.
If you want to come back, this village must disappear.
In this way, he used his spare time to accompany the woman for nearly ten years. Finally one day, he got the chance to leave here, and he took his mother out of the gate of hell.
I listened quietly to this heavy past, and when Li Ying'an's words came to an abrupt end, I was confused: What about her?
"She never thought of leaving there," Li Ying'an said, a bitter smile rising from his lips. "Do you know why she was so obsessed with observing me? Because she felt I was different from the other people in the village. She said that from the moment I cried while holding the kitten, she knew I was a kind person who understood pity and the weak, so she observed me for a while, pulled me out of the mud, and led me onto a dignified path. But in fact, her power was very small, so weak that she couldn't protect herself, so weak that it took her ten years to straighten a seedling. But her power was also very great, so great that I will never forget her. She is the best person I have ever met."
I roughly understood what he meant: so she chose to stay there and observe, and cultivate more good bamboo shoots like you.
Li Ying'an's smile was uglier than crying. "I always heard her say to me that good bamboo shoots grow out of bad bamboo, and I always felt that I couldn't bear it. Now I have come out with her strength. Even if I can't bear it, I have to take it. Even if I don't think about other innocent people, I must save her. On the way to escape, I tossed and turned all night and couldn't fall asleep. I think I will encounter many bad things in the future. I will be immersed in these things and unable to let go, like a withered seedling. But no matter what, I must now have the perseverance and courage to defeat setbacks. Only in this way can I bite like a mad dog and keep gnawing at this matter, engraving it in my bones, thinking about it all the time, until there is no way to forget it."
"She gave me a good life, and I can't forget it."
Li Ying'an has always believed that good deeds deserve to be remembered, and that bad deeds should be recorded in history and infamous forever. Good people are good, bad people are bad, and ordinary people are ordinary. Why should someone who could become a saint live like an ordinary person?
Even now she doesn't live like an ordinary person!
Good people should not be forgotten, heroes should be remembered.
I was overwhelmed with emotion, and everything I wanted to say was melted by the boiling emotions. I couldn't understand from beginning to end why such a gentle and kind person had to go through all this pain?
I walked up to him and held his hand. After pondering for a moment, I looked up and said: Li Ying'an, we don't want to be ordinary, okay?
Do what you want to do, help those who need help, don’t live in a muddle-headed way, don’t indulge in self-degradation, be like a sunflower, and grow towards the light.
Li Ying'an agreed with what I said and agreed with me.
After this episode, I felt a deep sense of regret, not only because I understood the cruelty of the past, but also because I felt guilty for wasting Li Ying'an's precious time. If Li Ying'an didn't want to go hungry during work, he would have to speed up breakfast or wolf it down, otherwise the remaining time would not be enough.
I was just about to say that I would turn back into a cat and eat cat food so that he could take away my share of breakfast, but he brought it to the table the next second.
Looking at the steaming egg fried rice, I turned back to look at my snack area, but found that it was empty.
I walked around in disbelief, opened every cabinet in the house, and looked everywhere, but I couldn't find any snacks. I returned to my seat, picked up my chopsticks, and poked Li Ying'an, who had just sat down and hadn't had time to catch his breath: "Where's the cat food?"
He looked up and smiled, "I gave them all to Huang Huang."
Li Ying'an had already determined in his heart that I was a cat. It happened that Li Lan was busy changing jobs and did not go home that day, so Huang Huang was short of food. Li Lan's mother came to the house and hoped that Li Ying'an would help her choose a cat food. So Li Ying'an sent my food out without saying much, and also gave it some snacks.
I puffed my cheeks out like I was sulking: You’re quite a nice person…
But why did Li Lan change jobs?
Li Ying'an didn't know this, and even Li Lan's mother didn't understand why her daughter, who was doing well in the special education school, wanted to change jobs, and transfer to a welfare home to be a teacher. It was obvious that the salaries of the two were similar, and the welfare home was not as close to home as the school.
"One more thing," Li Ying'an picked out a few decent pieces of egg and placed them in my bowl, "The results of the paternity test submitted by Uncle Song came out a few days ago."
Because I wasn't hungry, I pretended to eat the rice in the bowl. When I heard the news, I immediately became excited: How is it?
Li Ying'an stopped chewing and after swallowing the last mouthful of rice, he looked at me seriously and said, "It's not his grandson."
Sui Yusheng and Old Man Song are not grandfather and grandson. The identification results clearly indicate that the genetic markers of the appraiser and the person being identified do not conform to the genetic laws of kinship and do not support kinship.
I couldn't understand the results of this appraisal. From my understanding, the bracelet Sui Yusheng was wearing was 100% from Old Man Song's youngest daughter. Of course, it's possible someone else might buy the same bracelet, but it's absolutely impossible for someone to have the same name as the daughter, and for that name to be engraved on the same bracelet.
Since Sui Yusheng wasn't Old Man Song's grandson, how did he get the bracelet? He kept saying it was left to him by his mother. Could it be that he wasn't Old Man Song's youngest daughter's biological son, but an adopted child?
If that's the case, then it makes sense.
How did Sui Yusheng end up in the orphanage? This is a question I've always had, unspoken. If his mother sent him there, then Old Man Song's youngest daughter, Song Suichang, should have known to return home. Why has she disappeared for so many years? If she wasn't the one who sent him there, then who put Sui Yusheng there? Did he run away on his own?
Based on Sui Yusheng's previous statement, if it was her parents giving her compensation, then the bracelet must have been left behind before they parted ways. Therefore, there was an 80% chance that Song Suichang had been there before Sui Yusheng was abandoned by her family in the orphanage.
Then why did Song Suichang disappear without a trace again? It was as if she had evaporated from the face of the earth and never went to look for her family again?
I always feel that Sui Yusheng must be hiding something.
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