The night wind was still blowing, and it was even getting stronger, causing the towering trees on the side to sway, which made everything seem even more desolate.
Neither of them was too sensitive about life and death. After a brief moment of surprise, Sheng Min calmly looked away from the word "Li Xuan" on the tombstone and asked the person beside him softly, "What was your original name?"
Li Xuan took his hand, slid his fingertips across his palm and wrote two words. Sheng Min slowly closed his palms, looked up at him, thought for a moment and said, "I'm still used to calling you Li Xuan."
Li Xuan smiled slightly: "I don't think this is a very important matter."
Sheng Min also laughed, but it was not very successful, so he asked again: "Why did Zhao Jizhe call you Nineteen?"
"Because I am the nineteenth child adopted by the orphanage." The answer was surprisingly simple. "Children who enter the orphanage are given a new name. It may be for management purposes, or it may be to separate us from the past... It actually has no effect."
Li Xuan shrugged nonchalantly: "When it was my turn, the person who registered was too lazy and just wrote one in order."
His tone was very casual, and he gently pressed Sheng Min's slightly frowned brows and continued, "I stayed there until I was eleven, and then I ran away, as I told you before... After arriving in N City, I lived in Qingshui Lane in the south of the city for about two or three years. It's a pity that you live in the north of the city, otherwise we might have met earlier."
Qingshui Lane, although it sounds like a peaceful name, is actually the most mixed place in the city.
It was originally a village in the city. With the adjustment of the city's industrial structure, factories and workers moved there. Over time, it was occupied by various theft gangs, red-light districts and underground casinos. He ran away from the orphanage, without a household registration or identity, and did not want to be sent back. Only in such a place could he survive.
At first, Li Xuan and Zhao Jizhe slept under the bridge, but soon someone came to collect protection fees. They didn't really care about the two coins in their pockets, but bullying people who were more embarrassed than themselves was a source of pleasure.
But no one can really get that kind of fun from Li Xuan.
Li Xuan was young at that time. Although he was tall enough, he was too thin due to long-term malnutrition. He looked like a reed, but it was the hardest one to break.
Many people caused trouble for him, and he suffered a lot when he first arrived, but no one really got any benefit from him.
Soon all the thugs in Qingshui Lane knew that the new taciturn boy was a ruthless character. His vicious and cold eyes during the fight were as if the people in front of him were a group of dead people. He could take any opportunity to kick his opponent's ribs and break them even before he had spit out all the blood.
As time went by, no one bothered him anymore. Maybe they were not afraid of him, after all, he was just a teenager. But no one wanted to provoke a madman.
So Li Xuan was able to stay there, year after year.
Li Xuan has washed dishes, collected debts, and checked out casinos. He never sits at the gambling table, but he knows how to count and can accurately tell who is cheating.
…
He has done all kinds of things and has come into contact with all kinds of people, but he makes sure that he does not belong to any category.
He spent his spare time reading books in between odd jobs. He was an illegal immigrant and couldn't go to school, so he bought various textbooks by the pound at the scrap yard and taught himself. It didn't matter if he didn't get a diploma, and it didn't seem to be of any use at the moment, but in the end he learned nothing.
How many people laughed at him openly or secretly, as if he were a monster.
Li Xuan didn't care. He knew he would not rot here. Even if he had to stay in a muddy and dirty place for a while, he would dig out a way to survive that was different from others.
By the end of the second year in Qingshui Lane, Li Xuan was thirteen years old.
I moved with Zhao Jizhe for the fourth time, from an unfinished building to a house that finally stopped leaking.
Because several forces were crushing each other, in order to avoid getting involved, Li Xuan had already left the casino.
It was also in that year that the first Internet cafe opened in Qingshui Lane.
Computers were still a rare thing at that time, especially in a place like Qingshui Lane.
Many people went to join in the fun and soon became immersed in the game. Li Xuan was the fastest to learn anything, so he saw an opportunity and earned a living by playing games for others.
But soon he was no longer satisfied with this and wanted to understand the logic behind everything. Moreover, he found that those hooligans who would share a cigarette were willing to spend half a month's food money to buy equipment.
This is something that can make money, Li Xuan thought, he needs money.
So I tried every possible way to find information and found out that the things behind the game are called programs. I went a long way and bought my first programming book in a second-hand bookstore near a university and started to learn by myself.
Internet cafes are not a suitable environment for studying - of course, Li Xuan can concentrate on his studies no matter how noisy the place is. The problem is that he can't occupy a computer for a long time, and the programs he wrote will soon be deleted by the next person. He bought a USB flash drive to temporarily solve this problem and save all the programs he wrote.
But he wanted a computer of his own, and the desire grew stronger day by day.
This was certainly not a mistake, but it was a luxury for him at that time. He had to pay the rent, support him and Zhao Jizhe's daily life, and use the extra money to buy books. So he could only endure it.
That summer, the programming books that Li Xuan had learned by himself piled up higher than the table legs, and his USB flash drives were filled with more than ten files. When he went to a second-hand bookstore to buy books again, he ran into a student who was graduating from the university and was selling his second-hand computer.
Over the past few years, Li Xuan had saved some money, but it wasn't much, not enough for him to buy a computer, even if it was a used one. He was still a few hundred dollars short, and maybe he could get it if he gave him some more time, but he wasn't the only one eyeing that second-hand computer.
He asked the student to wait for him for half an hour and went to the hospital across the street.
After selling 400 milliliters of blood, it was still not enough, so he asked the nurse to draw more, but was refused. When he was at his wit's end, the nurse suddenly asked him if he was willing to cooperate in an experiment.
"It won't take long." The nurse said to him, "Three hundred dollars, is that enough?"
There was no better choice at that moment. If it was later, the computer might have been bought by someone else.
He carefully and seriously checked the nurse's credentials. The nurse told him that this was a biological experiment at a university and took the initiative to show him the relevant qualification certificates.
He had taken all the precautions he could think of, even resolutely and vigilantly refusing the anesthesia given by the nurse, and endured everything while remaining awake.
In the end, Li Xuan got the computer he had always wanted, but it was too painful. He forced himself to buy it, but he could no longer move. He lay down under the overpass with the computer in his arms until dusk, feeling dizzy.
The bookstore owner found him and felt sorry for him, so he lent him a cart. Li Xuan felt a little better and pushed the cart for two hours under the moonlight before bringing the computer back. It was too hot, even at night. His body almost had heatstroke from excessive blood loss - or maybe he had already had it, but he was very happy.
So I didn't know that the needle that day was actually the key to open Pandora's box.
"Leukemia?" Sheng Min asked softly.
A crow landed on the tombstone at some point, and when it heard the human voice, it flapped its wings and flew away.
Li Xuan shook his head: "Aplastic anemia."
"His illness... is related to Shu Xin?" Sheng Min recalled the time when she went to Li's house and Shu Xin's strange words, repeatedly saying that it was her fault.
Li Xuan paused for a moment and said, "Shu Xin used to do astrophysics research. When she was pregnant, she happened to be transferred to a physics experimental base in the northwest as a researcher... There was a radioactive material leakage accident there."
Sheng Min was startled: "Because..."
"I don't know." Li Xuan lowered his eyes. "Who can tell if there is a necessary connection? After the accident, Shu Xin resigned and returned to City N to give birth to the child. She grew up safely until she was fourteen, and suddenly one day she fell ill."
The most effective way to treat aplastic anemia is bone marrow transplantation, which requires HLA matching. Parents and children are usually half-matched, which is not a good donor. Li Mingge and Shu Xin are only children and have only this one child, so they cannot find a match among their immediate family members.
But fortunately, Li Mingge's business had already become very big at that time, and it would be easier for rich people to get whatever they want.
In order to increase the chances of finding a matching donor, after registering with the bone marrow bank, Li Mingge spent a large sum of money to bribe the doctors and nurses in the hematology departments of large and small hospitals and the central blood station in City N. In the name of medical experiments, he lobbied patients' families and blood sellers who were short of money to sell their bone marrow - these people needed money and could be better utilized.
If time goes back a little, and medicine is more advanced, perhaps it won't be so troublesome, and matching can be done by injecting blood with cell mobilization agents. Or it doesn't matter, after all, for the rich, everything of the poor, including life, can be bought and sold, including blood and bone marrow.
Theoretically, the probability of successful matching between strangers is one in tens of thousands to one in millions.
But after searching so hard for a needle in a haystack, they finally found the fish.
"They forced you?" Sheng Min couldn't help but hold Li Xuan's hand tightly, his voice as cold as ice.
"Not really..." Li Xuan was silent for a moment, "Can I have a cigarette?"
Sheng Min looked at him for a while, silently took out a lighter, and went over to light it for him.
After bringing the computer back to Qingshui Lane, Li Xuan lay in bed for two days due to the pain caused by the bone marrow puncture.
On the third day, Li Mingge's car stopped at Qingshui Lane.
Coercion, inducement, soft tactics, and hard tactics had no effect on Li Xuan. He was like a skinny lone wolf, stubbornly rejecting all strangers.
Later, Li Xuan thought that if he continued to persist, it would not be impossible for Li Mingge and Shu Xin, who were eager to save their son, to directly kidnap him.
After all, he has no father or mother and no protection. No matter how strong he is, he is just a child who is far from adulthood.
His weed-like survival abilities were so weak in the face of power that they could not withstand a single blow.
But he didn't wait until that day.
Zhao Jizhe was arrested.
Trafficking in drugs, one kilogram of heroin, and caught red-handed.
Either way, it sounds like a capital crime.
At that time, they lived under the same roof and sometimes ate together, but Li Xuan was actually not very clear about what Zhao Jizhe was doing every day.
He had too many things to do and didn't have enough energy to pay attention to Zhao Jize. He would give him some money from time to time, and if Zhao Jize said it wasn't necessary, then that was fine.
Besides that, they could barely talk to each other more than a few words a week. Maybe Zhao Jizhe wanted to say something, but Li Xuan didn't have the patience to spare him.
On the day of the accident, Li Xuan was writing programs at home. Zhao Jizhe did not come back the night before, and he did not notice this.
Until the skinny monkey came and told him that Zhao Jizhe had been arrested.
Using drug trafficking to support the lives of people is a secretive and complete industry chain in Qingshui Lane, and they are also the group of people that Li Xuan is most reluctant to contact.
There is not much difference between humans and animals whose central nervous system is controlled by drugs.
He didn't know when and how Zhao Jizhe got involved with this group of people.
He believed that Zhao Jizhe might steal, but he didn't have the courage to do so.
“Isn’t this just a ready-made set?”
"The police have been keeping an eye on them since last month. If they push someone to take the blame, the rest will be easier to deal with. The police have to have someone to report to, right?"
"You mean the batch of American watches you stole last month? Those things have long been dismantled and the parts have been circulated. Besides, how much are they? They are not worth much in total. Can you give so much for this trip?"
"In the entire Qingshui Lane, even the noodle seller wouldn't fall for this kind of trick. Everyone knows this is a scam."
Everyone knew that it didn't matter whether Zhao Jizhe knew it or not, he went there for the huge commission.
Li Xuan did not see Zhao Jizhe in the detention center. Several temporary workers teased him, saying, "Kid, you can go back and prepare an urn for your brother." Li Xuan said nothing and walked back to Qingshui Lane in silence.
It was midsummer, the sun was scorching, and the sweat made the unhealed wounds on his body hurt. He walked from one end of the alley to the other, and he saw Li Mingge's car again.
It turns out that as long as you find the right way, you can save a life from the hands of the King of Hell.
One month after Li Xuan left Qingshui Lane, the verdict of the drug trafficking case was announced. Everyone thought that the case would be sentenced to death, but it ended with a prison sentence of seven years and ten months.
In the darkness, the sparks from Li Xuan's fingertips were the only light. Sheng Min suddenly snatched his cigarette, took a deep puff, and then started coughing violently.
Li Xuan patted his back, looked at Sheng Min's cheeks which turned red due to choking, and took back the half-smoked cigarette in his hand gently but without giving room for rejection.
"Don't smoke," he said.
They looked at each other quietly in silence, and the wind passed between them.
He knew Shengmin was waiting for an explanation.
But Li Xuan didn't say anything, and Sheng Min didn't ask in the end.
After a long while, his coughing subsided, and he just asked, "And then?"
Li Mingge and his wife found Li Xuan for a bone marrow transplant, but the patient was already very weak at the time, with a long-term low-grade fever, so it was not a good time for surgery. He could only undergo a long period of recuperation until his body reached a suitable state. At the same time, due to the weakened hematopoietic function of the patient, he needed to rely on long-term blood transfusions to maintain his life.
Perhaps it can be considered a kind of good luck that the one in ten thousand people fished out of the ocean happened to be type O blood, a natural universal blood donor.
Although there is no medical theory to prove it, Li Mingge still insists that if the bone marrow is completely matched, blood transfusion will definitely have a better effect.
So before the bone marrow transplant, Li Xuan first became a blood bag. It was not until the doctor warned that if he continued to receive blood so frequently, his body would find it difficult to cooperate with bone marrow donation that he finally gave up.
It had been almost half a year since he went to the Li family, and he had good food and drink, but he still lost more than ten pounds. Sleeping became a very painful thing. No matter what position he was in, no matter how soft the bed was, when he lay down, his bones would hurt.
Fortunately, patience is something he is good at.
When he couldn't sleep, he simply stayed awake, read books, and wrote programs. He negotiated with Li Mingge and returned to school three years after leaving the orphanage, and also got a better computer.
It will end, it will end soon. Many late nights, he clicked on the first hello world he typed.
The cursor was beating, and so was his heart.
It would only be a short while before he could think of his own new world.
Summer has passed, winter is coming to an end, and it is another summer solstice. The doctor said that a bone marrow transplant can be performed.
At that time, the technology for collecting peripheral blood stem cells was not mature enough, and the most traditional bone marrow puncture was still used.
He was too thin at the time, so in order to obtain enough bone marrow fluid, the doctor collected samples from multiple locations on the posterior superior iliac spines on both sides.
Everyone says that bone marrow transplantation does not cause much harm to the donor, as the human bone marrow has a strong ability to regenerate.
But that is for healthy young adults, and Li Xuan is too young and too thin.
Perhaps it was because too much bone marrow fluid was extracted, or perhaps it was because his body was exhausted over the past year. In any case, unlike the time when he was able to walk soon after the matching bone marrow puncture, he had difficulty moving freely for more than a month after the operation.
He was so drowsy that he didn't notice when the doctor told him that the operation was successful.
On the first day he was able to get out of bed, Li Xuan dragged his still weak body, packed his things and prepared to leave the Li family. His mission had been completed, but he was stopped.
"Not enough bone marrow fluid was extracted last time. The patient may need a second operation," they told him.
Li Xuan felt something was amiss and eventually learned the truth from a kind-hearted nurse.
The so-called successful operation actually had serious complications, first infection, then hematuria. The situation took a turn for the worse, and the doctor finally confirmed that the condition had developed from aplastic anemia to AA-PNH syndrome, and hemolysis had severely damaged the kidneys, and soon, it developed to the point where a kidney transplant was needed.
No step is inevitable, but so many low-probability events are mixed together, just like overturned dominoes. All the bad luck follows one after another, and it is unknown where the collapse will end.
But why should he share the responsibility? Just because he was greedy and wanted a computer that didn't belong to him
Is desire a mistake
Li Xuan neither believed nor accepted it.
He escaped from the hospital.
After wandering for more than half a month, he was finally caught.
"This is different from what we agreed." He argued with Li Mingge.
"Of course it's the same. I saved your friend's life, and you saved my child's life. Your bone marrow and your kidneys were used to exchange for his life... Prisons are in chaos now, and you don't want the life you saved to have another accident, do you?"
This is a fallacy and sophistry, but in the face of the power brought by money, it becomes the truth.
In fact, doctors have advised that the requirements for HLA loci in organ transplantation are not that high. Compared with people who are fully matched and those who are not completely matched, the 10-year survival rate of transplanted kidneys is only about 10% different.
"Is 10% not important?" Li Mingge asked condescendingly.
Important, of course it is important, so another child’s organs should be picked as easily as an apple.
Regardless of whether Li Xuan was willing or not, and no matter how he resisted, he was forced to complete a full set of organ matching tests.
After completing each examination, he saw the results that no one had told him under the sympathetic gaze of the doctor.
In order to prevent him from escaping again, he was locked in an independent ward after the examination. Several security guards were guarding the door and the windows were sealed tightly.
Apart from the medical staff who came to deliver meals and conduct regular check-ups, they were cut off from all contact with the outside world.
He went on a hunger strike for two days and got a pen and a book in return. Li Mingge was still afraid that he would commit suicide, but he would not die, he wanted to live longer than them.
Days passed one after another, until the night before the operation, when the ward welcomed an unexpected guest.
"You don't have to look at me like that. I don't want your kidney at all." Under the cold white light, the person opposite looked like a wandering soul.
"I thought you were too sick to move." Li Xuan said coldly.
"I was, but I really wanted to talk to you, so I was able to move again." The man smiled and asked him, "Do you have any water I can drink?"
Li Xuan ignored him, and he was not embarrassed at all. He took out another bottle like a magic trick, shook it, and said with a bit of pride, "I know you are stingy, so I brought it myself," and then he started to drink slowly.
"Can I trouble you for something?" He suddenly asked after an unknown amount of time, "If I don't get off the operating table tomorrow, can you take care of my mother for me?"
Li Xuan suspected that he was having hysteria and came here specifically to talk in his sleep.
"I lied to her. I'm not the son she wanted. I'm not as smart as you. I can't inherit her ideals or complete her unfinished career. My health is also so poor... It would be better if we switched."
As he spoke, he sighed again when Li Xuan didn't respond for a long time, "You don't want to pay attention to me either? Okay, I know... I'm not likable, and my dad hates me too. Ever since I got sick, my mom has been crying for me every day, and he couldn't stand it. He didn't want to save me at all, but he didn't want to make my mom sad..."
All the words he said that night were incoherent. Li Xuan didn't know what was wrong with him. He came to tell him how much his parents loved each other in the middle of the night. He never said a word, but just lowered his eyes and looked at his program book, making some marks with a pen.
"You know what? They shouldn't have given birth to me." He drank water one mouthful after another, as if he had been thirsty for a long time. "If I live longer in my next life and meet someone I love, I don't want her to give birth to my child. Women are too fragile. How can a mother be strong? Children are an even greater weakness... My mother would be very angry if she heard me talk about my next life. She is a scientist and doesn't believe in these things. Then why do you think that my poor health is the retribution for her not protecting me well?"
"You're mentally ill, are you crazy?" He kept chattering, and Li Xuan couldn't stand it anymore and cursed.
"Shouldn't I be crazy?!" The person opposite suddenly stood up. "She cries beside my bed every day, always saying sorry to me, saying that she delayed me. I have never blamed her, and I don't want to be a physicist. Why should I bear so much guilt?! Does she love me or hate me?!"
In his excitement, the plastic bottle in his hand fell to the ground and rolled to the bottom of the bed.
"What's the point of you telling me this?" Li Xuan said coldly.
"It's no use." He was too weak to breathe after trying to vent his anger. He sat down on the windowsill exhausted. "But I can only talk to you... You are the only friend I have met in the past year or so since I got sick."
Li Xuan sneered: "You are the only one who thinks so."
"Promise me." He said as if he could not hear the sarcasm. "I don't want your kidney, but you take care of her for me, talk to her, and don't let her be too sad... She doesn't owe me anything. I ruined her life. She just doesn't want me as her son."
Li Xuan frowned, but suddenly there were two light knocks outside the ward door.
"I'm leaving." He stood up alertly and repeated to Li Xuan, "My father has been blinded by his self-righteous love. One day, this will hurt her. You are smarter and more sober than him, so you should take care of her for me. I'm too tired and I need to have a good sleep."
Li Xuan looked at him indifferently. The latter smiled vaguely and said in a weak voice: "I know this is unfair to you. You are the most innocent person, but this is how the world is... Let's put it this way. It won't take too long. I am more reasonable than my dad. Since you are here because of your friend, then wait until he is released from prison."
These were the last words Li Xuan heard that day. The next morning, he was sent to the operating room.
In the operating room next door, the person who talked in his sleep last night was lying there quietly.
If all goes well, two hours later, one of his kidneys will be removed and put into that person's body for operation.
The doctors around him moved methodically, like cold-blooded precision machines. No one paid attention to the thoughts of the boy who was not even fifteen years old on the operating table.
I hope it won't be that smooth, he thought of the empty ink bottle on the table. As long as it is not removed this time, he still has a chance to escape before the next operation...
If it fails... that's okay.
He has survived without a father or mother, and it doesn’t matter if one of his kidneys is taken away. As long as he has a breath, he can still live.
The anesthetic was slowly injected into his body, and he should have been unconscious. However, in Li Xuan's memory, he still remembered what happened that day very clearly.
The scalpel cut open the cold touch of his waist skin, and the tip of the knife pierced his flesh and he could feel the capillaries and muscle fibers breaking... He expected the doctor to find a kidney that was not in the best condition for transplantation, but everything came to an abrupt end...
"Something's happening, stop first! Stop!"
In a daze, he felt someone push open the door of the operating room, and there seemed to be hurried footsteps passing through the corridor outside the door.
He heard urgent shouts and distant cries, and then the doctors and nurses hurried away.
He lay alone on the bleeding table like a cut-open rag doll. It was unknown how long it took before someone finally came and sewed up his wounds.
He was lucky not to be infected despite such dereliction of duty. Of course, he was always lucky.
The real Li Xuan died on the operating table.
Shu Xin went crazy when she heard the news.
There seemed to be a lingering smell of blood in the air, but it disappeared when one smelled it carefully, leaving only the very faint and cold smell of pine and cypress leaves mixed with a hint of incense and candles.
"So, it's not an accident?" Sheng Min asked in a low voice, but there was not much doubt in his tone.
Li Xuan glanced at the marble tombstone next to him. Later, he found the lost bottle under the bed. After opening it, he smelled a faint smell of residual alcohol.
"But he didn't die because of you." Sheng Min said word by word, with hidden anger that he himself was not aware of.
Li Xuan knew where the anger came from, so he put his arm around Sheng Min's shoulder to comfort her and answered affirmatively, "Of course not."
Shu Xin ended her scientific research career for this child. Because she felt guilty for putting him in danger during her pregnancy, she never returned to work after giving birth.
She devoted all her energy to raising her son, doing everything herself. She was delighted to find that her child had a talent for physics and firmly believed that he would be able to inherit her unfinished career in the future.
But that is not a talent. It is just a child's deliberate cooperation to please his mother.
Perhaps his real talent was in reading people's expressions. He knew from a very young age that he could get candy by saying things like "I want to be a physicist like my mom when I grow up."
However, as he got older, pretending to be a physics genius became more and more difficult and beyond his ability. Especially when a serious illness came and brought a child who was used as a "blood bag" for him - a real genius.
The problems he couldn't solve and the principles he couldn't understand were easy for the other person. The latter didn't even have any interest in physics and just fiddled with his computer every day.
The talent he pursued desperately but could not obtain, and the sneer of others, made him see at a glance the insurmountable gap between himself and genius.
The disease forced Shu Xin to temporarily stop the pace of training him to become a physicist, but even on the sickbed, Shu Xin never forgot to comfort him by saying, "You will get better, and you will definitely become an excellent physicist in the future." This even made Shu Xin feel more guilty towards him.
He was afraid, and then he was in a constant state of anxiety. He knew that even if he recovered, he would not be able to live up to his mother's expectations. She placed all her ideals on him. This day-to-day pressure became something more suffocating than the long-term pain and torture.
But he couldn't say it, couldn't blame anyone, was it Shu Xin's fault? Of course not, he used deception to gain more attention, tolerance and love from his mother, so he could never think that this love was pressure.
He had tied himself up in knots and this was the price he should pay for the candy in his childhood.
The day before the operation, he went to see someone in the next ward.
He didn't want his organs to keep him alive, and despite his protests he couldn't convince his stubborn parents, but he had a way to end it all.
He looked at the person who could continue reading in the ward with strict supervision, and thought that this was the kind of child Shu Xin really liked and needed.
He had wished many times that they could change and Shu Xin would be satisfied, but he knew that this was impossible.
He just wanted him to take care of Shu Xin for him and accompany her during the days when he was gone. He was so smart, a real genius, he would find a way.
But fate played a trick on him and made his wish come true in another way.
He died, Shu Xin went crazy, and when she woke up, she mistook her son for her own.
For a long time, Li Xuan was thinking about why such a thing happened. All scientific reasons could not explain it. Could the prayers of a cowardly person move the heavens
He doesn't believe this nonsense.
Until one night when he woke up, Shu Xin was standing beside his bed, looking at him with infinite tenderness.
Even Li Xuan felt terrified by the calm gaze. At that moment, he suddenly understood. There were no so many supernatural things, just the most selfish love of a mother.
The two children entered the operating room together. If one of them would die, she firmly believed that the one who survived would be her son. Only by maintaining this belief could she continue to live.
Besides, in the final analysis, it doesn’t matter how things have developed to this point.
It is true that people did not die for him, but it is an indisputable fact that he benefited from it.
So when Li Mingge asked him to live under a false name, he had no choice but to walk away.
It was never because of Li Mingge's threat, let alone greed for the Li family's wealth, but because of the request that he did not actually agree to.
The Li family was not trustworthy, but he was not the same as them.
So he became Li Xuan, won various physics competition awards in his three years of high school, and became the qualified son that Shu Xin expected him to be.
Li Mingge therefore moved and replaced the servants and close subordinates at home. Originally, due to illness, the real Li Xuan had been living in seclusion for a long time. Although some people thought that the child seemed to look different from when he was young, no one knew about this farce except for a few relatives.
In terms of life, he is not treated unfairly.
Li Mingge solved his household registration problem, arranged for him to attend the best private school, provided him with a driver to pick him up and a nanny to take care of him, and sent him to learn skiing, equestrianism and all the expensive sports… In order to better control him, Li Mingge did not allow him to skip a grade and changed his college entrance examination application.
But neither glory nor torture could change him, Li Xuan always remembered clearly who he was.
He endured but refused to accept his fate. He negotiated with Li Mingge bit by bit, fought for space, wrote code day and night, took on jobs to save money, and waited for the day when Zhao Jizhe would be released from prison.
The cigarette has burned out and the story is about to end.
Too many details were hidden in this story, even the most crucial link, but Li Xuan didn't say it, and Sheng Min couldn't ask any more.
The dim environment may better suit the atmosphere at this moment, but the stars are shining brightly tonight.
"So what's going on with Shu Xin now?" Sheng Min raised his eyes coldly.
"Acute renal failure."
The knife wound Zhao Jizhe had inflicted on her did not kill her, but during the treatment, the doctor discovered that her kidneys were severely damaged. This news did not surprise Li Xuan. Shu Xin had been taking sedatives for a long time, and it was inevitable that she would have some health problems. He had long noticed that Shu Xin was not in a good condition, and had reminded Li Mingge many times, but the latter always thought it was an alarmist statement.
'His self-righteous love will hurt her'
It turned out to be a prophecy, but so what if it was predicted? No Li Xuan could stop it.
"Retribution." Sheng Min sneered.
He was very sharp tonight. Li Xuan reached out to rub his frown, but Sheng Min turned his head away.
He looked at the tombstone again, as if he saw something dirty, and turned around in disgust. He staggered a little because he had been standing there for too long, but he firmly pushed away Li Xuan's hand that was trying to support him.
"I'm tired." Sheng Min said, already walking away, "I don't want to be here."
He walked very fast, not wanting to stay any longer, his steps became faster and faster, and he even ran. The wind lifted the hem of his black coat, and his footsteps echoed in the empty cemetery. Li Xuan had to catch up with him and grab his arm.
"Sheng Min!"
In the darkness, he saw Sheng Min's thin cheeks trembling.
"Sheng Min." Li Xuan called his name again.
Qi Shengmin gritted his teeth and said nothing for a long time, finally saying, "It's okay."
His voice was shaking because of the cold. As he spoke, a faint white mist quickly dissipated. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, "Let's go back."
On the way back, Sheng Min drove.
We drove very fast along the way, as if we wanted to forget everything in the cemetery.
It was already late at night, and the Spring Festival was approaching. The branches on both sides of the road were originally hung with colorful lights, but they were all turned off because it was too late. Under the dim street lights, there was no brightness, only abruptness and cumbersomeness.
The car stopped in the garage with an emergency brake, and the tires made a harsh friction sound as they slid across the ground.
Sheng Min seemed extremely tired, and the car was parked crookedly. She silently pressed the elevator button and went upstairs, then went straight back to the bedroom. Soon the sound of water from the shower was heard, and she didn't say a word to Li Xuan the whole time.
He only barely touched his fingers when he entered the door, and they were cold.
Li Xuan stood at the door for a long time, and felt that his coat seemed to still have the unique smell of death in the cemetery. He pressed his eyebrows, went to the bathroom to take a shower, and returned to the bedroom. Sheng Min had already fallen asleep.
There was silence and silence. Once my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could just make out a slightly undulating outline beneath the quilt.
Li Xuan lay down. He knew that the person beside him was not asleep. His breathing was very light, but seemed suppressed. Li Xuan tentatively touched his thin shoulder blade, but Sheng Min turned around suddenly.
In the darkness, Sheng Min looked at him coldly, as if he was looking at a stranger. Li Xuan stopped talking and just let him look at him in silence. This look was too cold, and for a few moments, Li Xuan felt that it even contained hatred, but the next second, Sheng Min came over and kissed him.
He kissed the corners of his lips and his eyes, trembling but firm. Those kisses were cold at first, but when they were too close, they gradually became hot.
When Li Xuan realized Sheng Min's intention, he tried to stop it. He knew where Sheng Min's loss of composure came from... But Sheng Min would not allow him to be rejected and kissed him more fiercely, too stubborn...
Just like he knew all of Sheng Min's weaknesses, Sheng Min was also familiar with his and could easily make him infatuated... Intellectually, Li Xuan felt that this was not right, but at this moment, his body's will was controlled by Sheng Min...
He couldn't refuse him... or maybe he didn't really want to. Desire and greed made them intertwined, entangled like beasts or trees swaying in the wind and snow.
The quiet room echoed with each other's uneven breathing and deafening heartbeats. He saw Sheng Min's flushed cheeks and the crystal sweat on his forehead... He sucked his soft tongue, reached out and grabbed his shoulder, trying to take the initiative. But Sheng Min firmly grabbed his wrist with his fingers intertwined, and the next moment, he turned over and sat on his body...
Without any preparation, Sheng Min opened herself up and accepted him inch by inch. She was so angry and scared. There were so many times in the past when he had no chance to participate, when he almost lost Li Xuan without knowing it.
Because of the pain, the white calves were trembling, the originally flushed face lost its color, and the hot body felt a chill at this intimate and inseparable moment. The brutal love affair could not bring too much happiness, but only made each other's desires become concrete, and then intensified...
"Does it hurt?"
Pleasure and pain came and went like the rising and falling tides, and they were still closely connected, hot and muddy. He heard Sheng Min ask him, breathing rapidly, with a fierce tone and a possessive look in his eyes that could not be hidden.
Li Xuan couldn't answer, Sheng Min smiled lightly: "I am in a lot of pain."
Li Xuan couldn't help but frowned, but Sheng Min seemed unaware and fell silent after saying this.
His bony fingers slowly slid across Li Xuan's Adam's apple, shoulders, and chest. He touched every scar on his body, all the way to the wound on his waist that had long since scabbed off. He touched it very carefully, as if he wanted to count how many stitches were needed.
"Does it hurt?" He sat naked on Li Xuan, but his posture was as proud as a god. He looked down at him condescendingly, his fingertips lingering on the wound for a long time, and asked again.
"It didn't hurt at first." Li Xuan looked back at him and said very slowly and softly, "Now that you ask, I feel a little pain."
In the darkness, he saw Sheng Min's bright red eyes, and then drops of water rolled down his chest, leaving winding water marks, just like the tortuous road over the past years.
He walked so far and for so long alone, and it was not that he didn't feel tired or bitter. It was just that fate always made him endure and wait, waiting for another person to appear, to accompany him, to save him, to allow him to show weakness, and to take him through the long and bitter river of the world.
"Sheng Min, please kiss me. If you kiss me, I won't feel any pain at all." He gently wiped away the tears from the corners of Sheng Min's eyes with his thumb, begging for his mercy like the most devout believer.
Sheng Min stared at him for a long time, then obediently leaned over and kissed him, kissing the ugly scar on his body with great loving care.
"Li Xuan." Sheng Min placed his hand on the man's heart and told him firmly, "I chose you, you chose me, and you are mine. Every inch of your body and every strand of hair belongs to me. You can't give it to anyone else."
His tone was authoritarian, but his eyes were soft, enough to heal all pain.
The moonlight came in from the window, crushed by the suffering, and sprinkled on their intertwined bodies.
Li Xuan hugged him and gently kissed Sheng Min's wet eyes. All the pain and grievances of the past years came flooding back in an instant because of this person's appearance, and also because of him, they disappeared in the next instant.
"Yes." He held his fingers tightly, "They are all yours."