The room is very quiet.
The tall man was cleaning the stains on the floor with a rag.
Jiaobai stood up by holding the edge of the bed and took two steps. He held his head and took a few breaths. He felt dizzy and all he could see were white spots. He felt so dizzy.
A hand held him steady.
Jiaobai grabbed the mask on the other person's face and pulled it down.
A pale and thin face appeared in the sunlight, with deeply sunken cheeks, a hollow nose, rough lips and a grayish complexion, and the facial features barely showed some traces of the former handsomeness.
He was different at this moment from when he appeared in Lan Mo Mansion last year.
The spark of hatred did not burn in his eyes. It was not extinguished, but hidden by him, waiting for an opportunity to release it.
The air is filled with a sour and fishy smell.
If it is healthy, it should smell like chestnut blossom.
Jiaobai smelled the odor of Liangdong's rotting life. He didn't ask any questions immediately, nor did he stand in the sun to accuse him of his depravity. He just said, "I want to pee."
Liang Dong probably didn't expect Jiao Bai to say such a thing. It took him a long time to come back to his senses and he carried him to the toilet.
Jiaobai is 179cm tall and Liang Dong is at least 185cm tall, so it is very difficult for him to be carried on his back.
Last time he was able to deal with two gangsters, but this time he feels so weak. It may be because he just finished exercising.
The toilet was so small that it was difficult for two people to stand there. The toilet bowl was very dirty, the kind that couldn't be cleaned off, with circles of brown and yellow.
Jiaobai didn't care. He had even been through the small dark room, so this was really nothing.
After taking care of his physiological needs, Jiaobai said, "Tell me about it."
Liang Dong scooped water from the big white bucket to wash the water chestnuts: "This is where I found Lao Pan."
He is back.
Because he needs drugs.
Jiaobai took the towel given by Liang Dong and wiped the water off his hands, leaving his hands covered with hair.
Liang Dong wanted to wash him again, but he said nonchalantly, "No need, go on, start from when you left Lanmo Mansion, or jump to Changmin Island, whatever you want."
"There's nothing much to say. You can definitely guess it." Liang Dong put the towel back on the rusty shelf. "The Cen family's wedding was held, and all the rich people went. The piece of fat meat was huge, and it attracted the attention of many bandit dens. They reached a cooperation."
The so-called cooperation is fake, everyone is just looking for an opportunity to take all the benefits for themselves.
Liang Dong mentioned a man, Brother Cheng. He said that he was the other party's younger brother, and if he performed well, he might be able to get some drugs.
Drug addiction requires a lot of money. Without money, one can only sell his broken life. Fortunately, he was lucky.
Jiaobai could see that Liang Dong had been more seriously harmed by drugs than last year, and he accepted this wound in his fate.
"I was there the entire time during the operation on the island that day." Liang Dong didn't want to recall the riot at that time, so he said briefly, "The Siming Courtyard was blown up, and Cheng Ge's people found the escape route of the Cen family. When we went there, it was already a ruin. The unconscious Zhang Zhen was holding you who was also unconscious, and other people were also buried under the ruins."
He added, "I told Brother Cheng your value, so Brother Cheng sent someone to pull you out of the rubble and take you away."
Hate me.
Liang Dong looked at Jiao Bai, but didn't see the reaction he thought he would. He paused and said, "Brother Cheng has a brother who is a doctor. He said you have a mental illness and there is no medicine to cure it. You can only leave it to fate."
"That prince has a bad temper and is not a normal person. He deliberately let us onto the island. Maybe he is bored and wants to watch the fun." Liang Dong wanted to carry茭白, but was rejected. He thought it was because he smelled bad, so he tactfully lowered his hands and stepped back.
Jiaobai didn't notice Liang Dong's little details. He was thinking that Liang Dong really understood Cen Jingmo's mentality.
"How long has it been since the incident?" Jiaobai asked.
"Almost ten days." Liang Dong said.
Jiaobai leaned against the wall and moved out. Liang Dong's voice sounded behind him, "This is the border. It's not easy for the Qi family to find us."
"Where are my cell phone and Buddha amulets?" Jiaobai turned around.
"Cheng's men will check your entire body, and everything on you will be thrown into the sea." Liang Dong looked at the tufts of hair on the back of his head. "I think the amulet is very important to you, so I buried it secretly on the island, together with your phone."
Jiaobai breathed a sigh of relief. It was good to bury them. Zhang Zhen would be able to find the two things based on the tracking signal, so they wouldn't be damaged or lost. That was good.
"Brother Cheng put me here with you to test you. He still doesn't trust you and thinks you have ulterior motives." Jiaobai pressed his fingers on the rough and uneven concrete wall and scratched it twice.
"I have already tried it many times, and Brother Cheng believes me." Liang Dong's tone was very calm, "You are here because I took the initiative to ask for it. I told Brother Cheng that we were classmates and said that I was afraid that you would be upset, so I wanted to eat and live with you so that I could keep an eye on you."
Wild rice: “…”
Liang Dong grabbed Jiao Bai's arm and helped him back to the room: "The two people from the past few days will not come again. Brother Cheng has already killed them."
"You are a distinguished guest." Liang Dong helped Jiaobai onto the bed and turned on the electric fan to blow it sideways towards him, not daring to face it directly, for fear that he would catch a cold.
"Brother Cheng is recovering from his injuries. You can go back when he recovers." Liang Dong flattened the mat for Jiaobai.
Jiaobai said slowly: "Your brother Cheng wants to use me to exchange for money, you must have other plans in mind."
Liang Dong froze.
"You plan to wait until Brother Cheng is ready to trade, and see if you can find an opportunity to take me away, and secretly play a substitution game with Shen Er'an. You want to exchange me for Tan Jun." Jiaobai said bluntly.
Liang Dong maintained the posture of patting the mat and did not move for a long time.
After a long while, Liang Dong uttered three words dryly: "I'm sorry."
This is acknowledged.
Jiaobai had no expression: "Liang Dong, don't do that." I don't want to eat that disgusting dog-blood stuff, please.
"You are afraid that Shen Eran will choose Tan Jun." Liang Dong sneered.
The wild rice was silent.
Liang Dong laughed out loud, and his laughter sounded harsh: "He will, Jiaobai, he will!"
"He has changed. He is no longer the Shen Er'an we know. He is the young patriarch of the Shen family." There was corruption in Liang Dong's breath.
"Since you already know the answer, why do you still ask him to choose between the two? Aren't you just going to make him hesitate and then watch me die?" Jiaobai said coldly.
Liang Dong's expression changed. He seemed to want to explain, but he couldn't speak. He just stared at Jiaobai with his two cloudy and lifeless eyes.
"I told you not to do that because I just found out that Shen Er'an had a car accident two years ago and there are fragments in his brain. He had several operations." Jiao Bai said, "One of the fragments could not be removed. He has been receiving conservative treatment abroad during this period. There is still a big stall waiting for him in China. It depends on how he can endure it."
"Tan Jun regards him as his only support and hope. If his health cannot be cured, Tan Jun will not survive either." Jiaobai's spirit is failing and his consciousness is sinking.
Liang Dong kept pressing the lighter but it wouldn't light up, so he threw the lighter on the ground and stepped on it.
"He said he would compensate me with two lives and told me to wait. I don't know how long I will have to wait. What will happen if I wait? My family's reputation, my parents' injustice, my life..."
I couldn't hear what Liang Dong said next and he gradually lost consciousness.
I didn't know Liang Dong was squatting beside the bed, crying and holding his head.
After that conversation, Jiaobai never saw Liang Dong again. He stayed in the small house from morning till night, and checked whether his friends were alive or dead through their profile pictures.
Jiaobai ate all the food in the room. When he was extremely hungry, Liang Dong came back and brought him some food.
Liang Dong smelled of blood, he was injured. Jiaobai wanted to ask a few questions, but the other party didn't give him a chance, he ate a little and left.
This summer was hotter than in previous years. It was only June, but the wild rice had already gone sour. No one was there to help him, so he wiped it himself. Fortunately, the wound on his back healed well. Although the medicine Liang Dong had left behind didn't even have a name, it was surprisingly effective.
When the short boy broke in through the door, Jiaobai was eating an apple.
"The apples were bought by our gang, and he gave you all the good and big ones!" The boy spat and cursed, "You have no shame!"
Jiaobai ignored him.
The boy didn't leave even though he was ignored. He came to Jiaobai to ask about Liang Dong's past life.
After Jiaobai finished the last few bites of the apple, he felt a little better, and he talked about Liang Dong in high school.
The boy was so thin that his eyes looked huge and scary. He couldn't believe it after hearing it: "A rich second generation, I can't tell."
"Luckily he's not, otherwise I wouldn't have met him." The young man muttered, and raised his middle finger to the茭白 staring at him, "Don't even think about buying me off. Dream on. I'm counting on you to make a lot of money, so I can buy him and me cocaine, so much that I can't finish it in a lifetime."
Jiaobai clicked his tongue: "Is it not good to quit?"
The boy reacted emotionally, as if whoever advised him to quit drugs was his sworn enemy: "Why should I quit? I can only live well if I have it! You don't understand anything!"
"It can make people forget everything and feel so happy." The boy's body swayed under his empty clothes and he walked away muttering.
But it was poison. Jiaobai faced the gauze curtain and closed his eyes and fell asleep.
The earth-shaking noise brought Jiaobai back to reality. It was already dark, and the lights were off in the room. Only a little light from the window came in, illuminating the anxious and irritable figure.
"Bang--"
Liang Dong grabbed the small table and smashed it against the wall.
Daily necessities fell to the ground with a bang, and broken pieces of wood were scattered everywhere. One piece flew towards the bed, but Jiaobai narrowly avoided it.
Jiaobai's heart sank. Liang Dong was... addicted to drugs.
Liang Dong hadn't slept for several days and was in an extremely manic state. Jiao Bai climbed out of bed and looked for a place to hide. He was in poor health and could not help here and would only get hurt.
"Fuck your mother!"
Liang Dong grabbed Jiao Bai who was about to go to the toilet and yelled at him with a scary look on his face, "Where are you going? Do you want to run away?"
Jiaobai was thrown away by Liang Dong.
"Ah!" Liang Dong smashed everything he could. He huddled in the corner, twitching all over and vomiting continuously.
This was the second time Jiaobai witnessed a drug addict having an attack. The person involved was Liang Dong, and his symptoms were many times more severe than last year.
At this time, Liang Dong only had drugs in his eyes and mind, and persuasion was useless. Jiao Bai hid himself in the darkness and watched Liang Dong bang his head against the wall again and again, gnawing at the iron sheet with his teeth until his mouth was full of blood.
It was horrible. Jiaobai closed his eyes uncomfortably.
"Ouch..." Liang Dong crawled out in pain, his skinny body pressing down on the mess on the ground, a longing gasp coming from his throat. Helplessly but urgently, he pried the door open, dug his ten fingers into the ground, and continued crawling with blood all over his body.
"I got it!"
The young man limped to the door, and the paper bag in his hand was frantically snatched away by Liang Dong. His fingers were scratched and hurt, and were stained with blood.
"Slow down, slow down." The young man had torn clothes and was covered with scars. He squatted beside the woman, breathing greedily, and spasming to avoid snatching the paper bag.
The room suddenly lit up.
A small part of the light escaped and covered the two living skeletons by the door. It was a world that was messed up by drugs.
"He is rotten, and so am I. We are both rotten people, a perfect match." The boy walked in and showed off to Jiaobai.
Jiaobai looked at him.
"Do you want to try it?" The boy took out another paper bag and rolled his tongue a little.
Jiaobai glanced at it and said, "This is flour, right?"
These words stimulated the young man for some reason. He threw the small bag of flour at the茭白 and dragged his aching body back to Liang Dong.
Jiaobai wiped his face and looked down at the powder on his fingertips. This time it was flour, but he didn't know if it would be next time. He was even more afraid that the food might be poisoned. This place was too unsafe.
The torture brought by drugs has dealt a severe blow to Jiaobai's senses. He must leave as soon as possible, the sooner the better. He can't wait for the Qi family to come find him, nor does he want to recuperate first. He has to leave and find his own way out.
Jiaobai's eyes swept towards Liang Dong, calculating something.
Liang Dong didn't mention anything about what happened that night afterwards, and he started to come back every day again.
But after Jiaobai gave him psychological counseling classes for several days in a row, he got annoyed, and once he couldn't control his emotions, he threw a washbasin at Jiaobai.
The basin was made of plastic and had been used for quite a long time. It cracked when it hit the water chestnut head. The crack scratched the end of his left eye, leaving a long bloody wound.
Liang Dong stood there in a daze.
The corners of Jiaobai's eyes were moving downwards, and the bloodstains were like his tears. His pale face twitched and turned cold.
"Yes, I'm sorry," Liang Dong apologized hesitantly, his eyes full of shame.
Jiaobai took the opportunity to say, "Liang Dong, I'm not a saint. I won't lend a hand to a poor person just because I see one. I will only follow my heart. Now I want to help you."
"Help me?" Liang Dong's eyes flashed with a strange look, "Then cooperate with me and let Shen Er'an hand over Tan Jun to me for disposal."
Jiao Bai didn't wipe the blood from the corner of his eye, just let it flow down: "Shen Eran was trapped in a vicious circle of hatred, and I pulled him out."
"Let me ask you, do you still want to quit drugs?" Jiaobai stared at Liang Dong, "Do you want to, or not?"
Liang Dong watched the bright red blood streak across his cheek, tremblingly gather on his thin and pointed chin, and then drip onto the bed with a "pop".
"No," he said.
The next day, Jiaobai met Cheng Ge, the leader who had held Cen Jingmo hostage at that time. His injuries had not healed yet and he was still full of banditry.
Cheng Ge asked Jiao Bai how he was living here, and asked him to tell him if he needed anything. The conditions here were limited, and they would satisfy him in any way they could. Cheng Ge also asked him not to treat himself as an outsider.
Jiaobai witnessed how Cheng Ge and Liang Dong got along with each other, and realized that he treated him as his confidant.
In the evening, a heavy rain hit the border mountains. When Jiao Bai was lying on the bed thinking about things, Liang Dong came back, and his whole body was dripping with water.
Jiaobai noticed that Liang Dong was not in the right state: "Someone is trying to sow discord between you and Brother Cheng and frame you?"
Liang Dong raised his wet head, and there were streaks of water on his pale face. It was hard to tell whether it was rain, sweat, or something else.
A guess popped up in Jiaobai's mind, and he asked tentatively: "That child..."
"Dead." Liang Dong said numbly, "Drug overdose."
Jiaobai stopped talking.
"boom"
A bolt of lightning struck the window, and the white light was like a sharp blade, instantly cutting through Liang Dong's shell. At the same time, suppressed sobbing sounds were heard in the room.
"Are you crying because he died at a young age, or are you crying because you saw how you would die in him?" Jiaobai took the towel and threw it on Liang Dong's head.
Liang Dong didn't touch the towel and let it fall to the ground.
Jiaobai found a small mirror. He grabbed his clothes and wiped the mirror clean, then pointed the mirror at Liang Dong: "You have avenged yourself and are going to the underworld. Are you going to meet your parents like this?"
Liang Dong hasn't looked in the mirror since he started taking drugs, and this one was found for Jiaobai.
Now he looked at himself in the mirror, feeling strange and dazed.
"Quit drugs," said Jiaobai.
Liang Dong was indifferent. It was easy to say, but it was a road with no end in sight, and perseverance and expectation were both indispensable. No one had any expectations for him.
"I'll supervise you."
A calm voice sounded in his ears. Liang Dong raised his head dully and turned to the left, tears still in his red eyes.
Jiaobai hugged him and glanced out the window. No matter how heavy the rain was, it would stop and the sky would clear up.
Liang Dong knew that Jiaobai was going to escape, and wanted to drag him along, and he was sure that he would agree.
He actually agreed.
Liang Dong told Jiao Bai the cruel reality that there was no signal here and he could not get in touch with the outside world.
Jiaobai was not discouraged, he said, let's leave here first.
Liang Dong was infected by Jiao Bai's determination and decisiveness. He entered the other party's channel and began to think about it. First of all, he needed a car.
Jiaobai and Liang Dong made a plan, eliminating changes one by one, and waited for the opportunity.
At three or four in the early morning of the month, extremely faint light shone through the sky. The people in the hideout were snoring. A car drove out of the woods and headed for the entrance.
All the guards there were knocked unconscious.
The person driving the car was Jiaobai. He was driving without a license, which was illegal, but the situation was special, so he had no choice but to do this for now.
Wait until Liang Dong's hands stop shaking, then let him replace Jiaobai.
The car drove out smoothly from the entrance. Jiaobai grabbed a T-shirt to wipe the sweat on his face and neck. Liang Dong, who was sitting on the passenger seat, gasped in surprise: "Jiaobai, I forgot to bring something."
"What?" Jiaobai was stunned.
Liang Dong didn't answer. He opened the car door and got out: "Wait for me here."
After saying that, Liang Dong didn't leave. He reached in and ruffled Jiaobai's hair, "Xiaochaorou, if you are discovered, don't wait. Just go on your way and don't worry about me."
The fragments of light in the sky were growing stronger. Jiaobai turned off the car, leaned over the steering wheel, a cigarette between his teeth, his eyes fixed on the dark road ahead through the car window, his other senses paying attention to his surroundings.
The cigarette was two-thirds burned, and Jiaobai's lips were stuck to the cigarette butt. He put the cigarette away, and his palms were covered with slippery cold sweat.
There was a new figure in the rearview mirror, it was Liang Dong.
Jiao Bai was blocked before he could even exhale. He cut off his cigarette and threw it away, shouting to Liang Dong who was being chased by a group of people: "Hurry up!"
Liang Dong stopped while running. He stopped three or five steps away from the car, panting heavily and looking at the茭白. I'm going back. You are stuck between me and Shen Er'an. What should I do
There were gunshots and those people opened fire.
Jiaobai's chest hit the car door. He lay there and stretched out his hand: "What the hell are you still hesitating about! Let's go!"
Liang Dong held tightly to the boy's family photo, which were his parents and family members whom he would never be able to find until his death.
Jiaobai, I'm sorry, I want to be selfish for once. Regardless of your difficulties, I just want to grab your hand and climb up.
Liang Dong took big steps with his sore legs, ran to the car, and tightly grasped Jiaobai's hand.
As the gunshots approached, Liang Dong rushed into the car.
Jiaobai stepped on the accelerator, and he rushed forward bravely into the dawn, carrying a body infected with drugs.