The sudden thanks made Xia Xiqing's ears warm. He had a lot to say, but he didn't know where to start.
Zhou Ziheng grabbed his shoulders, pushed him over, and hugged him from behind, with his chest against his back, pushing him forward little by little, "Media Asia Group... So our brother Xi Qing is the eldest son. If I had known you were so rich, I would have let you support me."
Every time Zhou Ziheng called him brother, it was always in a teasing tone. Xia Xiqing nudged him in the stomach with his elbow and said, "I can't afford to support you, Young Master Zhou."
"I can afford it." Zhou Ziheng kissed the back of Xia Xiqing's head from behind, "Sleeping with me doesn't cost money, can't I pay for it?"
Xia Xiqing turned his head and raised his eyebrows at him, "If you let me have sex with you, I'll give you money."
Zhou Ziheng held his face and kissed him on the lips awkwardly, "Then I'll be the one to pay for it." After saying that, he pushed Xia Xiqing's shoulder and walked forward, trying to quickly change the subject.
I don't know when he will give up this idea.
The villa was not small, and the furniture inside was covered with white cloth, which showed that no one had lived there for a long time. This scene reminded Zhou Ziheng of the first time he and Xia Xiqing recorded "Escape Plan", which also had many pieces of furniture covered with white cloth and gorgeous yet deserted decorations.
"I'll take you upstairs for a walk." Xia Xiqing spoke without much emotion, which made Zhou Ziheng a little worried. He already knew Xia Xiqing well enough. The less emotion he had, the deeper he hid.
But all Zhou Ziheng could do was to hold his hand tightly and stay with him.
The living room on the first floor was raised, about four meters high, so the staircase was also very long, with a handrail on the right and a wall-high bookcase on the left, filled with all kinds of books. Xia Xiqing dragged Zhou Ziheng's hand and walked up step by step. Seeing that he was always looking at the bookshelf next to him, he said, "When I was a child, I often sat on this staircase to read. Sometimes I would fall asleep here when I was tired of reading."
When he imagined that scene, Zhou Ziheng's mouth corners curled up unconsciously.
I really want to see him when he was a child. He must have been the best-looking and cutest kid in the class.
Zhou Ziheng was dragged by Xia Xiqing to the second floor, where there was a deep corridor that looked very much like an art gallery in an art museum. It was dark beige in color, with ten paintings hung on the opposite walls in order. There was a room in the middle, and Xia Xiqing tried to open the door, but it was not locked. He was a little surprised and turned on the light at the door of the room.
"This is my mother's collection room." Xia Xiqing opened the door and stood by it. Zhou Ziheng took a look. It was a very large room. When he went in, he found that there was another room inside. Inside were various picture frames covered with cloth, some of which were almost as tall as a person.
"Are these all paintings?"
"Yes." Xia Xiqing nodded, thinking of what Xi Hui had told him last time about the opening of the art museum. Xia Yunkai did not take these collections away, so they were probably left to him. However, he was not so careful that he did not even hire someone to keep them, and just left them in the old house.
Yes, he hated his mother and himself so much that when he saw these paintings, he probably wanted to burn them all.
"My mother comes from an artistic family. My grandfather was a famous sculptor when he was young, and my grandmother was a famous oil painter. Born in such a family, my mother naturally became an art connoisseur and collector."
Xia Xiqing casually lifted the dust cloth covering a painting. "She regretted her whole life that she could not become a painter. No," Xia Xiqing smiled bitterly. "It's better to say it's resentment than regret. She had no talent for painting and had been mediocre for many years. But she could tell the quality of a painting at a glance and discovered many painters who were not yet famous at the time."
As the story continued to develop like this, Zhou Ziheng could already guess what would happen next. "So, your mother discovered your talent after giving birth to you."
Xia Xiqing's fingers gently rubbed the picture frame. "She just found a life-saving straw."
A deadly poison was also discovered.
He clapped his hands and turned to another painting. "She thought I inherited my grandparents' talent, so she forced me to learn painting since I was a child. At that time, I was only four or five years old and knew nothing. I was locked in a small room every day with only brushes and paints."
It looks colorful, but it is actually gray.
"I didn't want to learn and kept crying, so she scolded me and said things I couldn't understand at the time. At that time, her relationship with Xia Yunkai became worse and worse. They quarreled every day and even fought."
He still couldn't call this so-called father and could only use his name instead.
There was an awkward dressing table in the collection room. Xia Xiqing paced to the mirror and stared at herself in the mirror in a trance.
In Zhou Ziheng's eyes, Xia Xiqing always has a unique temperament, a delicate sense of fragility. When he is quiet, he is like a flawless white porcelain, beautiful and fragile. But as he himself said, a work of art is still a work of art even if it is broken, and every broken edge of his work sparkles with beauty.
"Why are they getting married?" Zhou Ziheng leaned against the door frame, "Marriage?"
The marriage between the art world and the business world is not uncommon in this circle. Although people in the art world are often aloof and cannot see through the money-grubbing businessmen, the economic base determines the superstructure, and the art world, which burns a lot of money, cannot do without the support of capital.
"No, my grandpa didn't like Xia Yunkai at that time." Xia Xiqing looked down at the dressing table. There were no cosmetics on it, but there were many delicate palm-sized ornaments. They should have been placed symmetrically, but now they were messed up. Xia Xiqing arranged them one by one. "I heard that my mother was determined to marry Xia Yunkai. Her discerning eyes are only applicable to works of art. She is very bad at judging people."
After he finished speaking, he turned around, propped up his hand on the dressing table and looked at Zhou Ziheng, "Just think about it, she is a proud girl in the art world, she doesn't care about anyone, her heart is devoted to a man, and she almost broke up with her family. As a result," Xia Xiqing smiled, "I watched him find women one after another outside, and each one was not as good as me."
For those who are naturally arrogant, it is tantamount to death by slow slicing.
"When I was pregnant, my mother went back to her parents' home. When she came back, she accidentally caught Xia Yunkai having sex with a wild woman outside in their bedroom." Xia Xiqing shrugged, "She probably hated me as well as me in her belly at the time."
He always said these words in such a relaxed tone, and Zhou Ziheng couldn't do anything about him.
"So...what happened next?"
"Later?" Xia Xiqing breathed a sigh of relief, "Later... she suffered from postpartum depression, and her whole personality changed. But when she was outside, she had to pretend to be as dignified and generous as before. After returning home, she beat and smashed things. Sometimes she and Xia Yunkai had a big fight, sometimes she hugged me and cried, and sometimes she beat me like Xia Yunkai did." He smiled and pointed upwards, "There were also several times when she hugged me and stood outside the railing on the top floor, saying that she would take me with her to die."
Seeing him smile like that, Zhou Ziheng's heart felt like it was stabbed by something.
He walked forward, walked in front of Xia Xiqing, and stretched out his hand to touch his face, but Xia Xiqing dodged, which made Zhou Ziheng feel even more uncomfortable. But the next second, Xia Xiqing rested his head on Zhou Ziheng's shoulder and sighed almost inaudibly.
Zhou Ziheng touched the back of his head and kissed the top of Xia Xiqing's head. He was born in a happy family and could hardly imagine what Xia Xiqing had experienced. People always say that you should put yourself in other people's shoes, but in Zhou Ziheng's eyes, these are just empty words. Without personal experience, the so-called empathy is just a nice word to numb his kind nerves.
"Are you starting to feel sorry for me now?" Xia Xiqing leaned against him, her voice cold, like a thin layer of ice, "This is just the tip of the iceberg."
Xia Xiqing was like a radical child, constantly tearing his wounds in front of Zhou Ziheng. While tearing them ruthlessly, he smiled and said to him, "Look, does this look good?"
Is this completely rotten
Is this scary
Zhou Ziheng gently pinched the back of his neck, "It would be a lie to say I don't feel sorry for you." His fingers had a soothing warmth, "I like you so much, even if you were scratched by a small branch I would feel pity for you and feel pain for you. It's because of my temper that I will sympathize with those I don't like." He hugged Xia Xiqing, "You are my favorite person, tell me if I feel sorry for you."
"Anyway, you are a genius in logic." Xia Xiqing was too lazy to argue with him.
But when he heard Zhou Ziheng say this, he suddenly didn't want to continue talking. Telling him those things was too cruel for Zhou Ziheng.
"I'm quite curious. You must look a lot like your mother." Zhou Ziheng reached out and pinched his chin, lifted his face up, and gently kissed the tip of his nose.
This time, Xia Xiqing didn't scold him. She just came out of his arms and led him to a suite inside. There was a cabinet in the suite. Xia Xiqing opened the third drawer and took out a photo from it.
Zhou Ziheng originally thought that this was a photo of Xia Xiqing's mother, but when he handed it over, he found that the photo was actually an oil painting, which seemed to have been taken at an art exhibition.
The painting showed a woman sitting upright. She had long black hair pulled to one side, a pretty face, a dignified demeanor, and a string of sparkling pearls on her fair neck. What Zhou Ziheng didn't expect was that the person in the painting was more similar to Xia Xiqing than he had imagined.
"If you put a mole on the tip of your nose and say it's you, I'll believe it." Zhou Ziheng felt familiar, but he also felt that of course he should be familiar, as she looked exactly like Xia Xiqing. He put his arm around Xia Xiqing's shoulders and touched his ears, "A woman like this has every reason to be proud of herself."
Just like you have a right to be proud.
Zhou Ziheng took the photo from him, squinted his eyes and looked at it carefully, and found a small label under the painting with a name written on it. He couldn't help but show a look of surprise on his face, "Did you draw this?"
"Yeah." Xia Xiqing stared at the painting in the photo. "This was painted when I was fifteen, and it was also my first painting to be auctioned. She had been gone for five years at that time, and I painted it entirely from memory."
Even if he didn't understand art, Zhou Ziheng could see the tenderness and love hidden between the brushstrokes. Although this mother had done so many things to hurt him, in Xia Xiqing's eyes, she was always his mother.
"Why a photo?" Zhou Ziheng asked, "Where is this painting now?"
Xia Xiqing shook his head. "I don't know. This painting was bought from my mother's gallery. I asked someone and it seemed to be an ordinary collector. Later, it was sold overseas and I couldn't find it anymore."
As a competent storyteller, Xia Xiqing raised his head and asked, "Do you want to know how my mother died?"
Zhou Ziheng was stunned for a moment, and his eyes softened.
Xia Xiqing put her arms around his neck, her lips curled up slightly, "It's nothing, just say it if you want to."
"Have you told anyone about these things?"
"I'm not the kind of scumbag who uses his so-called tragic experience to gain sympathy from others." He smiled and shook his head, "Okay, I am a scumbag, but I am a scumbag with my own ability."
After saying this, Xia Xiqing was poked on the forehead by Zhou Ziheng's finger. He smiled, held Zhou Ziheng's finger, put it to his mouth and kissed it.
He really didn't want to say it. But the other party was Zhou Ziheng, and he didn't want to hide it. After all, he had such an experience, so he needed to be honest so that Zhou Ziheng would have room for choice.
After listening to it, consider whether you want to accept such an incomplete person.
"Xu Qichen doesn't know. He only knows that I was often beaten by Xia Yunkai. There's no way to hide this. He was my deskmate." He curled his lips. "Xia Yunkai never hit me in the face for the sake of his own reputation. He would just hit me hard on the back with that thin and long golf club. He would tie me up and beat me, otherwise I would run away."
He described it vividly, his eyes stubborn, "After I was able to get out of bed, I still had to go to class. During lunch break, Xu Qichen suddenly pushed me awake." He suddenly laughed, "You know, he usually has no expression, but I can still remember his eyes wide open and his face full of panic," Xia Xiqing imitated Xu Qichen's appearance at that time, "Your back was bleeding and your school uniform was stained."
"Then I couldn't hide it anymore. He's a smart man. Most people wouldn't be beaten like that in a fight." Xia Xiqing sighed, "But I still couldn't tell him anything else. Otherwise, it would be too hard for two poor people to live together every day." After saying that, Xia Xiqing laughed, put the photo back in the drawer, and walked out of the collection room with Zhou Ziheng, passing through the long gallery.
"My mother died of drug abuse." Xia Xiqing said these words without any burden, "Postpartum depression continued to worsen, and she relied on drugs every day to maintain her dignity in front of outsiders. To put it bluntly, she was like an angel when she was outside, and turned into a lunatic when she returned home. After switching between the two for a long time, she couldn't change her role freely in the end." At this point, he suddenly stopped and looked at Zhou Ziheng's profile very seriously and asked, "Do you think my acting ability is also due to genetics?"
After saying that, he chuckled and continued walking upstairs holding the handrail.
Zhou Ziheng's hands were cold.
For the first time, he felt that his own warmth was so small and insignificant. He wondered if he could warm Xia Xiqing's heart even if he emptied himself of it.
He wasn't sure.
"She put a lot of thought into building an art gallery and named it after me as my tenth birthday present. She specially invited a French cake chef to make my cake into the shape of a sculpture, imitating Majuhan Mohe's famous sculpture "Mother's Love." Everything was very decent." After walking up the last step, Xia Xiqing stopped, as if waiting for Zhou Ziheng.
"And then, the art museum..."
"Then she died on the day the art gallery opened." Xia Xiqing continued to walk forward, her voice calm, "She convulsed all over and fell in front of me and my cake."
Zhou Ziheng took a step forward and held his hand. His fingertips were cold, which was out of place in this humid and warm midsummer night.
"I didn't feel anything at all at the time. Everyone was so panicked, and I said, 'It's okay, Mom is always like this at home, she will be fine in a while.'" Xia Xiqing laughed, "Then she never got better."
Xia Xiqing paused and stopped in front of a dark blue door, remaining silent for half a minute.
"I didn't even eat a single bite of that cake. What a pity! No one will ever make such a beautiful cake for me again."
In fact, it wasn’t for me, but for herself.
His hand gripped the door handle, his fingers tightened, and he suddenly hesitated at the moment of opening it.
Zhou Ziheng felt the change in his emotions almost instantly. His shoulders were shaking more and more violently, like a patient with some serious illness. His body began to lose control.
"What's wrong?" He hugged Xia Xiqing, his tone a little hesitant, "What is this... What room is this?"
Xia Xiqing lowered his head and clenched his back teeth tightly to stop himself from shaking so violently. He thought he could face the past easily, thinking that the past was over and no longer a nightmare that would torment him.
Pandora's box will eventually be opened.
"This is my room." Xia Xiqing tried hard to overcome the coldness. The moment she tried to turn the doorknob, a warm and dry hand covered hers. Zhou Ziheng's voice was also warm, like a pool of young, soft spring water, slowly flowing over and covering the fragile ice layer.
"If you really can't overcome it, it's okay." Zhou Ziheng's thumb rubbed the back of his hand as gently as always, "I can't bear to let go."
I couldn't bear to watch him suffer so much, it was really torment for him.
Xia Xiqing took a breath silently and pursed her lips.
"No, I need you." He raised his eyes to look at Zhou Ziheng, "If you weren't here, I would never dare to step in. Since you have the courage to collapse the superposition state." He curled his lips, "I can do it too."
After saying that, Xia Xiqing opened the door.
It was pitch black inside and nothing could be seen. The deep darkness swallowed everything completely, but those memories swept in like a tsunami, destroying the world.
Xia Xiqing pretended to be calm and turned on the light. The room finally lit up. It was actually an ordinary children's room, with dark blue wallpaper and ceiling, a small desk, and a lonely single bed. The only difference was that the walls were covered with paintings Xia Xiqing had drawn when he was a child.
Zhou Ziheng noticed that all his windows and balconies were equipped with iron railings.
It looked like a small prison.
"I remember you asked me why I was afraid of the dark during the truth or dare game." Xia Xiqing's voice was deep, like a stone that was gently placed on the lake, falling heavily and silently.
"As far as I can remember, I would cry every time they quarreled. Maybe that affected them, so I was thrown into my little room, locked, and the lights were turned off, so that I could reflect on myself in the dark. But I didn't understand anything at that time, I was just afraid."
He slowly walked to the balcony railing, grabbed it with his fingers and shook it twice, "It's still very solid."
"Another time, we had guests at home. They had just finished a quarrel and I was crying non-stop, so naturally I was locked up. But I was so scared, so I ran to the balcony and cried loudly. The guests seemed to hear me." Xia Xiqing sat on the floor with his back against the railing. "In order to prevent such a shameful thing from happening again, they locked the balcony once and for all."
Zhou Ziheng could hardly imagine what kind of deformed family Xia Xiqing spent his childhood in.
"Oh, I almost forgot." Xia Xi took off his shirt with one hand, lowered his head and pointed at the old scar on his waist, "You have seen this, right?"
"My mother went crazy at home once, and told me that it was because of my birth that her life became unhappy." Xia Xiqing's eyes suddenly became wet, "I wish I didn't exist." His hands were clenched, as if holding a sharp blade, stabbing into his body all of a sudden, "She stabbed me in with her own hands, pulled it out, and then locked me here."
"She once hugged me and said that I was the only work of art she had ever created in her life. But later she accused me so painfully, saying that I was the culprit of her miserable life and she had to destroy me."
"But I," Xia Xiqing finally broke down in tears, "I just want to be her child."
Zhou Ziheng almost collapsed. He walked forward and hugged Xia Xiqing tightly. This person finally merged with the person who cried silently in his arms. They were equally naked and in pain.
"I was so young at that time, only five years old. Behind that door, I covered my wounds with blood on my hands, screaming for my parents, but no one came to save me."
"The room was so dark, there was no sound, and I was alone, just me." Xia Xiqing was trembling all over, tears falling like beads from a broken string, "If only someone had come to save me at that time."
I used to long for love.
I tried my best to show my shining points and learn to be a child who would not embarrass them.
But later I realized that what I needed was not a luxury like love.
I just need someone to open this door for me when I'm scared.
The author has something to say: The time when Xi Qing most hoped that someone would come to rescue him was when he was hurt by his mother at the age of five.
That year, Zhou Ziheng was born.