Sheng Min did not tell Li Xuan that he had met Zhao Jize, but he always felt that Li Xuan knew about it.
At night, Li Xuan held his back and sighed faintly: "You..."
"Hmm?" Sheng Min raised his eyes dazedly.
Li Xuan stopped talking. After a long time, he lowered his head and kissed his forehead: "Go to sleep."
They never spoke of this incident, this person, again.
One morning, he saw a transfer agreement in his study. Li Xuan sold the Internet cafe to Zhu Zhou at a very low price.
"Zhu Zhou has done a good job. There is no use for me to keep the Internet cafe. At the end of the year, give it as his year-end bonus." He signed his name in front of Sheng Min.
Sheng Min nodded to show his understanding. Li Xuan looked at him for a few seconds, put down his pen, turned around and hugged him.
They went out together, and when they passed the express delivery station, Li Xuan stopped the car and mailed the agreement. After getting back in the car, he casually asked Sheng Min, "Are you rehearsing this morning?"
"No schedule in the morning."
Sheng Min shook his head. As the performance got closer, the frequency of rehearsals actually decreased. Yin Qianpin gave the actors more time to reflect on themselves. He originally planned to read the script. "What's wrong?"
"Go somewhere with me."
"Okay." Sheng Min agreed without thinking and then asked, "Where are we going?"
This time Li Xuan was silent for a little longer, and then he drove out of the tunnel and said, "Funeral home."
Hearing this, Sheng Min quickly reacted and realized that Li Xuan was indeed dressed very formally today. A black shirt and coat, but most of the clothes in his closet were dark in color, so he didn't notice it at first.
"Do you need to buy some flowers?" Sheng Min said and looked at his camel-colored coat again.
"It's already been ordered. Go pick it up later." Li Xuan noticed his gaze and pursed his lips. "It's okay. You don't have to go in. I actually don't want you to go..." He paused for a moment, as if he didn't know what to say.
Sheng Min stared at him for a moment, gently took his hand on the steering wheel, and said softly: "I understand, I'll accompany you."
The funeral home is located on the outskirts of Xicheng District, and Sheng Min has never been there before.
Various white buildings are scattered under the shade of trees, and from a distance they look like a magnificent garden.
But when you get closer, you can't hide your crying. At this moment when the pain of losing your loved ones has not yet had time to heal and dilute, the smell of death here is stronger than that of a cemetery.
Shu Xin's memorial service was held in the memorial hall deep in the woods.
Li Xuan stopped the car, sat for a while, unbuckled his seat belt, and took the bouquet of white carnations from the back seat.
"I'll be back soon."
"Okay." Sheng Min smiled at him, "I'll wait for you here. I won't go anywhere."
There was no funeral music in the memorial hall filled with wreaths and pine and cypress trees. A pianist in a black suit sat in a corner of the hall and played a widely circulated Scottish folk song.
Talking about some days that have long passed, asking when we will meet again and where.
Li Mingge stood in front of the table in the mourning hall, with elegiac couplets and funeral banners on the wall behind him fluttering up and down in the wind.
Compared to the last time we met, he looked much more decent. His crazy look faded away and he was dressed neatly, but it was hard to say which state was better.
At this moment, his meticulously combed hair had turned completely white, and he looked emaciated. It was hard to imagine that a living person's face could have such a gloomy expression.
He stood very straight, but the effort was visibly evident. The mourners whispered some true or false words of condolence and comfort. Li Mingge did not react much, but nodded slightly numbly, until he saw Li Xuan.
For a moment, his whole body froze, as if the air had turned into thin ice, freezing him inside.
Soon, someone followed his inappropriate gaze and noticed Li Xuan's appearance.
"Who is that?"
"Their son?" the voice answered uncertainly.
“Oh my, it’s so big now… I last saw it when it was very young.” The person asking the question was secretly shocked.
"No way." Someone else questioned, "How can a son come only now..."
He was too embarrassed to say it, because Li Mingge's condition really didn't look like he had seen his beloved son.
Naturally, these discussions did not escape Li Xuan's ears, but he turned a deaf ear to them and did not care.
I didn't even go to see Li Mingge.
He walked slowly to Shu Xin's portrait with the flowers in his hand. The woman in the black and white photo was still very young, in her early twenties, in the prime of her life and youthful appearance.
Even at this moment, she is still the most colorful presence in the entire memorial hall. The red silk covering the urn is the only bright color in the gray and white scene.
How absurd.
"My mother was very beautiful when she was young."
Someone once said this to him.
It's very beautiful, Li Xuan thought. He lowered his eyes, bowed slightly, and then gently placed the bouquet of snow-white carnations next to Shu Xin's portrait.
The fragrance of flowers and dew stained the back of his hands and had not completely dissipated when he walked to the car.
But any minor discomfort disappeared when Seungmin held both of his hands.
"Didn't you say you would wait for me in the car?"
"I want to see you sooner." Sheng Min pulled his cold hand to his lips and kissed it through the mask. "Are you going home?"
"Why don't we go for a walk?" Li Xuan thought for a moment, took his hand, and put them both in his coat pocket. "There's been a lot of work at the company lately, so it's hard for me to come out. It seems like I haven't walked with you for a while."
Sheng Min was stunned for a moment, then said okay, and calmly adjusted their clasped hands into a position with their fingers interlocked.
In addition to the main road, there are many narrow gravel roads in the funeral home. They randomly chose a fork in the road and walked slowly and casually without any direction.
Winter is the peak season for death. People come and go in the funeral home. You can hear voices and footsteps, but they are separated by trees and are dim. When you look to the end of the path, there is no third person.
The weather was good today. After the sun came out, the fog quickly dissipated. The air was still cool, with a hint of cold icy air when you breathed in. In places where few people passed by, the grass and trees were not trimmed so carefully, but in the cold winter, they grew more lush than elsewhere.
At first, they didn't talk. As they walked, Li Xuan seemed to remember something and suddenly smiled. When he caught Sheng Min's eye, he shrugged: "... I didn't notice that I always walk with you in places like this recently."
Cemeteries, funeral homes... everything close to the border of death.
Sheng Min smiled: "There's nothing wrong with that, just be quiet."
He wanted to say, "It doesn't matter where I go, as long as I'm with you." But then he felt that both of them knew this, so there was no need to say it.
I walked around slowly, and after the green trees passed, I could see the white roof of the memorial hall.
Li Xuan's car was parked in the parking lot opposite, and there was already a person standing in front of the car.
Li Xuan saw it and paused for only a short moment. He walked over without any hesitation.
"I didn't expect you to come." Li Mingge said after a moment. He casually glanced at their clasped hands and turned his gaze back to Li Xuan.
"I didn't expect that either." Li Xuan said lightly.
Li Mingge didn't have any special reaction to this answer that sounded not very solemn. After Shu Xin's death, his "madness" actually got better, and his mood seemed to be more stable than any other time they met in the past few months.
"Don't you have anything to say to me?" he asked Li Xuan.
Li Xuan said insincerely, "My condolences."
"My condolences..." Li Mingge closed his eyes briefly, "Everyone has been saying this to me recently, but no one has told me how to control myself... I was with her the first two days after she passed away, and I always dreamed of her at night. I wanted to find you... She tried to persuade me, but I just gave up... Besides, I don't know what's the point of looking for you."
Li Xuan couldn't help but frowned, but Li Mingge looked a little dazed, as if he just mentioned it casually and his mind was not here at all.
"Later, cremation..." These two words seemed a bit too difficult for him. He paused before continuing, "I haven't dreamed about it in the past few days since the cremation..."
His old face trembled a little, and he asked very cautiously and carefully: "Could it be that she doesn't want to see me?"
“That’s a possibility.”
Li Xuandao felt Sheng Min pulling his hand, pursed his lips and stopped talking.
Hearing this, Li Mingge smiled, although the smile seemed weak: "You really haven't changed at all... You were like this when I found you that year."
"I don't think there is any need for us to reminisce about the past." Li Xuan said.
Li Mingge seemed not to understand and continued, "During this period of time, I often wondered if, if I hadn't found you, would everything be different... But it's better for you to come today than for him to come. Children come to their parents to collect debts. If he hadn't been born, his mother wouldn't have to be heartbroken for so many years. If she hadn't thought about saving him, she wouldn't have found you, and the things that happened later wouldn't have happened..."
Li Xuanyue couldn't help but sneer as he listened to the confusing words. He interrupted him, "Why don't you just say that it would be better if she didn't marry you? Shouldn't you be the one who started it?"
"Of course." Unexpectedly, Li Mingge did not refute, but said, "I know that if she doesn't marry me, she won't have that child."
Is today’s result the child’s fault
Li Xuan really couldn't understand Li Mingge's thoughts. He looked at Sheng Min and saw the same helplessness in the latter's eyes. But no one tried to correct Li Mingge. It was meaningless.
Li Mingge said that Li Xuan had not changed, and so had he. He always had to find someone to blame. Zhao Jizhe was sent to prison. In his dream, Shu Xin said forget it, but he changed his mind and blamed a dead person who could not be refuted.
It's hard to change one's nature.
"But I can't help but marry her, she's so good." Li Mingge was immersed in his own emotions, unable to extricate himself, "... When I met her, I had nothing and was a poor student who had to borrow money for tuition. She was my teaching assistant for physics class, the daughter of the vice president, and the most proud graduate student of the department head."
As he spoke, he couldn't help but smile, as if he saw Shu Xin from more than 20 years ago again, smart, pretty, and with such a high talent for physics that no one could doubt that she had borrowed the power of her parents.
So many people like her, why did she choose herself? To this day, Li Mingge still can't figure this out.
His parents were divorced, and he lived on the meager income from his mother's odd jobs, which was almost considered poverty.
Shu Xin is a proud daughter of heaven and her father is a high-ranking government official. How could such a family look down on an ordinary poor boy? The most clichéd drama of breaking up a couple is played out again and again.
Even after Li Mingge got a teaching position at the school, they were unwilling to accept him because they thought his family was poor and their daughter would suffer.
"We were raised in the palm of your hand, with fine clothes and delicious food, and everything you wanted was given to you. You are a good child, but sincerity alone is not enough, and hard work is useless. Everyone can say nice things, but what can you actually give her?"
They questioned him like this, and at the same time frequently arranged blind dates for Shu Xin and young talents of equal status.
It has been more than ten years since his father-in-law and mother-in-law passed away, but he still remembers their contemptuous tone.
"I swore at that time that I would make them regret it. I wanted to prove that Shu Xin had made the right choice by choosing me. I would give her whatever she wanted!"
In order to prove his worth, Li Mingge resigned and founded Xinge Optics.
He had never done business before, and only Shu Xin supported him. The first round of funding was provided by Shu Xin, and even the company's core patents were developed by Shu Xin alone. Her original research direction was astrophysics, and she loved this major, which was great and romantic. In order to meet Li Mingge's needs, she switched to studying optics and spent several years in it. Only when the company was on the right track did she restart her career.
I thought my dream could come true, but with the pregnancy and the accident, it was all shattered.
"It would have been better if I hadn't had that child." Li Mingge insisted.
The child was not originally planned, and they had originally wanted to wait a few years, but when she got pregnant, Shu Xin didn't want to abort the baby, so she gave birth to it. But it seemed that since he was born, bad luck had followed.
He looked at his wife crying and felt heartbroken. He even thought of what his parents-in-law had said. Was it a mistake for Shu Xin to choose him
It's impossible, he doesn't believe it, he is the one who loves her the most and is the most suitable person for her.
Besides, he already had money and power, and could meet all of Shu Xin's demands, as he had promised.
She wanted to save her son, so he went to look for a needle in a haystack to find bone marrow.
In the end, she failed to keep her son, and the proud daughter of heaven became a mad woman. But it didn't matter. Li Mingge would keep whoever she recognized as her son.
He gave her everything she wanted! He thought he had done it perfectly, why, why did Shu Xin still die
Li Mingge spoke with great devotion and sincerity, which made the expressionless Li Xuan seem particularly indifferent: "You don't have to tell me this."
"Who else can I tell?" Li Mingge looked miserable. "Someone has to remember her."
"Do you remember her or your love?" Li Xuan's lips barely moved. "Your father-in-law and mother-in-law must be regretting that they looked down on you. If they knew about this, they would definitely..."
Before he could finish his words, Sheng Min started pulling his hand again.
"What qualifications do you have to doubt that I love her?!" Li Mingge understood the sarcasm in his tone and became excited again.
Don’t you love it? Of course I do.
The evaluation of the child whom he regarded as a disaster was so accurate, such self-righteous love.
"Mr. Li." Sheng Min sighed and spoke before Li Xuan, saying something irrelevant, "I think your wife has deep feelings for you."
Hearing this, Li Mingge's emotions, which had been fluctuating, suddenly calmed down.
"She listens to me in everything..." His tone suddenly softened, but he seemed to have difficulty speaking, "She always agrees with me... That day, I asked her to wait for me, and she agreed with me..."
A turbid tear slid down from the corner of the eye.
"Why didn't she wait for me..."
He kept repeating why, turned around, and slowly left, just like when he came, without any warning.
If you count carefully, Li Mingge is only in his early fifties, but looking at his back, he looks like an old man.
"Let's go back."
Li Mingge walked to the memorial hall, and a kind staff member supported him. Li Xuan retracted his gaze and said to Sheng Min.
Sheng Min nodded, but although he said he was leaving, no one moved.
After a while, Sheng Min looked around and saw that there was no one around, so she took off her mask, leaned over and kissed him.
After they separated, he raised his hand and stroked Li Xuan's slightly frowned brows with his thumb: "Are you okay?"
"There is something." Li Xuan was silent for a moment, and answered irrelevantly, "I have never told you... Actually, it is not very important..."
His tone was very calm, but he stopped in the middle of his speech. Sheng Min looked at him for a while and took the initiative to say, "I know."
"You know?" Li Xuan was stunned for once.
"I was just guessing, but now that you put it like that, I think it should be the case." Sheng Min smiled, "And then?"
Li Xuan lowered his eyes, took out a test report from his other pocket and handed it to Sheng Min.
The lymphocyte toxicity test was positive, and he and Shu Xin did not match.
Sheng Min finished reading it quickly, put it away and did not return it to Li Xuan.
"Will you go?" he asked him softly after a moment, "If you can match it."
"No." Li Xuan seemed to have thought about this question thousands of times. He answered lightly and affirmatively without hesitation.
Sheng Min smiled. It was hard to tell whether she believed it or not, whether she was happy or not. She just leaned over and kissed him again, put her arms around his back, and sighed softly, "You are truly the softest person I have ever met."
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Countdown to completion: three.