Xia Rou sat quietly in the small hall, with her head and neck drooping slightly, her eyes lightly falling on the varnished solid wood coffee table.
So the coffee table from ten years ago was this color, she thought. The later one was the same style, but darker in color. Probably, it is the reason of the different wood.
She really wanted to reach out and touch it, whether the wood had a real warm feel, but at this moment, she heard the sound of sonorous footsteps.
Steady and steady, every step has a clear rhythm.
Every sound hit her heart, causing her heart to beat violently, as if trying to break out of her chest.
"Xiarou?"
An all-too-familiar voice. As low as a cello, calling her name.
Xia Rou's slender and white hands suddenly clenched into fists. After taking a deep breath, I dared to stand up and turn around...
The man in the black uniform stood in the golden light of the setting sun. The jet-black uniform was outlined with a layer of gold.
His eyebrows and facial features were also shrouded in golden brilliance.
Tall and slender, he stood not far from her, staring at her steadily.
Xia Rou also looked at him, even... a little crazy.
In the bewilderment, seeing Cao Yang's sharp eyebrows and eyes softened, he walked slowly in front of her, and said in a low voice, "My condolences."
Only then did Xia Rou realize that she had already burst into tears. He hurriedly lowered his head and gently wiped away the tears on his cheeks.
Cao Yang could see clearly just now that Xia Rou was no longer the "child" in his vague memory. Although the top of her head only reached his shoulders, Tingting was already a girl.
Short hair down to the cheeks and a pointed chin. The thin lips were pale pink, lacking in color. He squeezed tightly as if he was afraid of saying the wrong thing. Wearing a black long-sleeved dress, her cheeks, neck, and folded hands in front of her are snow-white.
Only those big dark eyes leaked countless complex emotions the moment they saw him, as if they could say a thousand words in that moment. Thousands of words rolled in those eyes, and finally rolled down the porcelain-white cheeks, but I didn't realize it yet.
Cao Yang thought of the difficult days when his mother died, and this memory softened his heart. A "sorrow" is not only polite, but also comforting.
At this moment, seeing the girl who had just reached his shoulders lowered her head, looking at the top of her black head, she felt that she was a small person. Unlike him and his brothers. It's different from the women they're used to dealing with.
She is a little girl who has lost her parents and is weak and helpless.
"I'm Cao Yang." He said.
brother...
Xia Rou raised her head, her face was still stained with tears, her lips moved, but she couldn't say the name out of her mouth.
The fifteen-year-old Xia Rou should still be unfamiliar to Cao Yang. He has not yet qualified to be called "big brother".
She finally lowered her head and called softly, "Brother Cao Yang."
When she bowed her head, her neck was beautiful. It reminded Cao Yang of Cheng Wan. Cheng Wan's soft beauty is even stronger than Xia Rou's, which is probably why her father loves her.
"Stop crying," he said.
Xia Rou gave an "um" and wiped away the tears on her face with the back of her hand.
Contrary to what Cao Yang thought, her grief was not due to the death of her mother.
The death of her mother was already ten years ago for her, and she has already walked out of that period of grief. She couldn't stop crying because she never thought that she would see Cao Yang again one day.
She clearly remembered that when her body fell from a height, the last thing that crossed her mind was the face of her elder brother Cao Yang.
At that time, remorse filled her chest, causing her pain like a sharp weapon piercing through her abdominal cavity.
When she was lying on the floor, the blood slowly soaked the floor, and life passed by little by little.
Before the final darkness, she thought, if there is an afterlife...
If there is an afterlife...
Be sure to listen to your brother...
Make sure not to make him angry again...
She remembered the last time they met, her eldest brother was so angry that she didn't dare to take a good look at his face.
When I think about it, I regret it...
With this remorse, she died.
She just didn't expect that when she opened her eyes, there would really be an afterlife!
Twenty-five-year-old Xia Rou died. But she was reborn as fifteen-year-old Xia Rou.
Seeing that her eyes were straightened, and tears rolled down the cheeks that had just been wiped, Cao Yang was slightly silent. He himself has experienced the pain of losing his mother, so he naturally knows that the grief of the loss of a loved one cannot be comforted by others.
He gave her a little time to clear up his emotions before he lowered his head and said to the girl, "Sit."
"You already know," he sat opposite her, "my father wants you to live in our house in the future."
"You are still too young, we can't rest assured if we let you go out alone. From now on, we will just treat this place as our home," he said.
After he finished speaking, he paused and looked at Xia Rou.
Xia Rou put her white hands on her knees, slowly raised her drooping eyes, looked at Cao Yang, and said softly, "Thank you..."
Thank you for containing me when I had no branches to rely on.
Thank you for allowing me to live a stable life and grow up slowly under this roof and under your protection.
Thanks.
sorry.
These are the two sentences that Xia Rou owes to the Cao family and Cao Yang.
When she sat in this small hall, those dusty memories slowly emerged. She remembered that on the first day she stepped into Cao's house, she was trapped in sadness and anxiety, and she was in a daze. Regarding the fact that the Cao family was willing to take her in, they didn't even say "thank you".
In the next ten years, she was surrounded by low self-esteem and self-esteem, tormented, hypocritical, and self-pitying, and she never had the opportunity to say "thank you".
Now, she thanked God from the bottom of her heart, not because she could live again, but because she finally had the opportunity to say "thank you" to the Cao family.
She slowly raised her eyes and looked at the tall man sitting across from her.
She summoned up her courage and looked at his eyebrows and eyes carefully.
It turns out that at this time, the elder brother... is still so young. The sharpness between the eyebrows and eyes has been condensed, but compared with ten years later, the aura that is as cold as a knife and as restrained as a mountain is still slightly lacking.
He is fourteen years older than her, at this time... he should only be twenty-nine.
Her eyes fell on the epaulettes of his uniform. Major, twenty-nine-year-old major. He was one step faster than his peers.
But she knew that he would go faster. That is, at the beginning of next year, after he disappeared for half a year and came back, he will have a first-class merit medal, and he will also be replaced with a lieutenant colonel's shoulder badge.
But what she remembers more deeply than this is the shocking bullet mark on the side of his jaw.
As long as it is tilted down a little bit, it is the weak and fatal part of the human body. Every time she saw it, she was terrified.
That scar did not damage his handsomeness, and even added a bit of might to him.
But now, Xia Rou wants to take a good look at Cao Yang's face, and wants to engrave this unscarred face in her heart.
When her gaze met Cao Yang's sharp scrutiny, she suffocated slightly, realizing her gaffe.
She lowered her eyes and lowered her head again, soft and graceful, like a really docile fifteen-year-old girl.
Cao Yang examined her.
When the girl met his gaze and said "thank you", I don't know if it was his illusion, but she seemed to be earnest almost piously. When looking at him, there were too many complicated and unspeakable emotions in those dark eyes, and there was a faint sense of infatuation. For her age, it is unavoidable that there is a subtle sense of strangeness.
But this did not prevent him from deciphering the meaning of intimacy from her eyes. It wasn't the flattery that was driven to deliberately approach for profit, but the sense of peace of mind that was relieved to see him. This made it difficult for him to feel bad for her.
Maybe it's because girls are precocious, he thought, at the age of fifteen, boys are still fooling around on the court, but girls already know everything.
This kind of precocity appears in girls who have lost their mothers and fathers, and a man like Cao Yang naturally feels a little bit of pity.
"It's not a coincidence today, everyone has something to do suddenly." He said, "It's just you and me having dinner tonight. Go and have a rest first, and I'll call you later after dinner."
"Your room... because it happened a little suddenly, it only started to be tidied up two days ago, and it will take some time before people can live in it. My fourth brother is going back to China soon, and he is redecorating his study room. Now the second floor is under construction and cannot be occupied. You Let’s live in the annex first. After everything is done, move to the second floor.” He said.
Yes, the fourth brother came back shortly after she moved into Cao's house...
Thinking of the Cao family and her closest person, Xia Rou felt warm in her heart. He had no objection to Cao Yang's arrangement of letting her live in the wing first, and nodded obediently: "Okay."
Quietly followed Lao Zhou to the wing.
Cao Yang was very satisfied.
As Cao Bin said, this is not raising cats and dogs, but raising a living person. For a few of them, it is really a big/troublesome.
He thought about it before seeing her. If she is obedient, they will raise her as a younger sister and support her to study and grow up. In the future, they will find a husband for her and be her natal family. If she is troublesome, let her live comfortably until she grows up, give her some money, and she will do what she should do. In short, allowing his father to fulfill his promise to Cheng Wan has given up his relationship with her for several years.
Fortunately, Xia Rou looks like a very well-behaved child. I hope she can be as reassuring as her mother.
Thinking of Cheng Wan, Cao Yang couldn't help but sigh slightly.
He remembered that year, when his father had acute appendicitis, he underwent surgery and recuperated at home. Although there is a full-time nurse at home to take care of him 24 hours a day, Cheng Wan still came over and stayed with him for two days.
As the eldest son closest to his father, he clearly sensed the comfort in his father's eyes during those two days. Just because the woman was by his side, reading to him, and peeling apples for him.
But Cheng Wan only stayed for two days, and then hurried home. There were still children at home, so she couldn't leave it to the nanny for too long.
He clearly felt the loss of his father again.
"Or ask Aunt Cheng to live at home." He said.
But his father closed his eyes and said, "It's not necessary."
At that time, he thought that although his father loved Cheng Wan, it was not to the extent that he needed to face her day and night. This matter was thrown away.
It wasn't until Cheng Wan passed away that his father suddenly seemed a few years older, and he realized it.
Father... guarded this home so carefully. When they were young, he protected them from growing up safely, and when they became adults, he refused to let his sons separate from him for anyone.
The young couple come to live with their companions. In order to protect this family, the price the father pays is to grow old without companions.
The third child and the fourth child are still young and have not yet realized it.
He and his second brother Cao Bin feel desolate for their father.