The two of them sat side by side on the bench. Luo Jingyu looked around curiously, especially at the amusement facility area where the children were playing. He seemed very interested and kept looking there.
Zhan Xi pulled his sleeve, and he turned around. Zhan Xi asked, "Xiao Yu, have you ever been to the Children's Palace?"
Luo Jingyu shook her head, stretched out her arm and swept it forward, then pointed at herself, and finally made a "1" with her index finger.
"The first time?" Zhan Xi was quite surprised.
The extracurricular interest classes at Qiantang Children's Palace have been around since the 1990s, and the small playground also appeared along with it. It has been upgraded several times over the past 20 years. When Zhanxi came to Qiantang with his parents and brother as a child, he came here to play once. Unexpectedly, Xiaoyu, a local child, has never been here.
Come to think of it, he doesn’t come to attend the interest classes.
Seeing that Zhan Xi seemed a little confused, Luo Jingyu typed something on her phone for her to see: I was very cultured when I was a child and didn’t like to play.
Zhan Xi laughed as soon as he saw it and asked, "How elegant is it?"
Luo Jingyu pursed her lips and lowered her eyes as she typed: Very well behaved, like a girl.
Zhan Xi laughed so hard that his head rested on his shoulder. Luo Jingyu also laughed, and the two of them laughed so hard that they were shaking.
After laughing for a while, Zhan Xi raised his head, still resting his chin on Luo Jingyu's shoulder, looking at his profile.
Of course, he no longer looks like a girl now. He is a tall, handsome young man with a straight nose and a face that is not soft. His jawline is tight and clear. Although he is already 26 years old, he still exudes a pure boyish air. No wonder Zhan Xi thought he was the same age as her, or even younger.
Her eyes fell on his neck, where there was a protruding Adam's apple, which was very obvious from the side. Zhan Xi didn't know where he got the courage from, and reached out to touch his Adam's apple. Luo Jingyu was startled and immediately turned back to look at her, and her right hand grabbed her left hand that she didn't have time to retract.
Zhan Xi simply took his hand and touched his Adam's apple again. This is one of the sexual characteristics of men, and Zhan Xi has never touched it before. Luo Jingyu couldn't help swallowing, and Zhan Xi's fingers felt the sliding of his Adam's apple.
She asked softly, "Xiaoyu, have you ever learned to speak?"
Zhan Xi didn’t think there was anything wrong with her question. Xiaoyu was her boyfriend and she just wanted to know more about him, such as his childhood and adolescence. She wanted to know a lot about them.
Luo Jingyu was stunned.
After hesitating for a while, he shook his head. Zhan Xi didn't react in particular. She put her head on his shoulder again, just like all young couples in love. She felt particularly satisfied hugging his arms and snuggling with him.
Luo Jingyu's mind was in a mess.
He lied to Huanhuan. In fact, he had learned to speak, although only for one month.
Because Luo Jingyu was born into a large family with a genetic history of deafness, she had a hearing test right after she was born. Without any delay, she was discovered to have hearing problems.
The whole family fell into deep disappointment. After accepting the reality, the parents did not become depressed but dealt with it positively.
Therefore, Luo Jingyu received treatment for a long period of time during his childhood, but of course he himself remembered nothing.
As a child born with hearing loss, Luo Jingyu is actually lucky to some extent compared with those deaf children born in families with healthy parents.
There are many causes of congenital deafness, including genetics, improper use of medication by the mother during early pregnancy, and gene mutations.
Many healthy parents do not immediately discover hearing problems in their children after giving birth to deaf children. By the time they discover the problem, the children are already a few months old, or even one or two years old. Also, because the parents of deaf children are hearing people, they cannot communicate with their children, which results in many congenitally hearing-impaired children not receiving external information stimulation in the earliest stage of intellectual development, thus affecting their IQ and personality.
Luo Jingyu was not like this. The first language he was exposed to after he was born was sign language. His parents, grandparents, and sister all "spoke" to him in sign language, so there was no problem with his intellectual development. In contrast, he had almost no concept of spoken language.
Children are innocent. Luo Jingyu didn't realize that he was different from other children in the community until he was four years old. At that time, he would shout and cry unconsciously, and follow Ji Hongzhe like a little tail.
He could only follow Ji Hongzhe because only Xiaozhe could communicate with him using sign language. He didn't understand why other children couldn't "speak" like him, and their mouths opened and closed, and Luo Jingyu didn't understand what they were doing.
However, Xiaozhe doesn't like playing with him because he thinks his noise is annoying and sometimes he even brings other friends to bully him.
Luo Jingyu was kindhearted by nature and never argued with them. When she was bullied or excluded, she would just hide away and cry by herself. Later, she simply became alone and followed her mother to the welfare factory every day, sitting next to her and watching her make handicrafts.
Later, Ji Hongzhe went to kindergarten, but Luo Jingyu couldn't go. He asked his sister why he couldn't go to kindergarten. Luo Xiaomei, who was already in elementary school, told him: Because you can't hear and can't speak, and kindergartens don't accept hearing-impaired children.
Luo Jingyu opened her eyes wide and signed: What do you mean by can't hear
Luo Xiaomei pulled his ears: "Ears are used to hear sounds. Others can hear them, but we can't. You watch cartoons on TV, and they all have speech, but you can't understand them."
Four-year-old Luo Jingyu was terrified and asked in sobbing and sign language: Can I still go to school in the future
Luo Xiaomei comforted him: Of course you can go, the school we go to is different from Xiaozhe's.
That was the first time Luo Jingyu realized that she was deaf.
From then on, he began to observe other children, his parents' neighbors and colleagues, and finally understood that the world has sounds. Puppies can bark, horns can sound, people in cartoons can talk, and fireworks are not only beautiful, but also very loud. Others can hear these sounds, and they can also talk, unlike him.
Luo Jingyu would always hide in the quilt and touch his ears, wishing that he would be able to hear it when he woke up. But day after day passed, and every time he woke up, his world had never changed.
Fortunately, his parents, grandparents and sister are all deaf like him. As a child, Luo Jingyu learned to comfort herself, it doesn't matter, I'm not the only one who can't hear, my sister can't hear either, and she can still go to school.
In that year, Luo Mingsong wanted to try to install a hearing aid for Luo Jingyu. Unfortunately, after testing, it was found that Luo Jingyu, like Luo Xiaomei, had extremely severe, hereditary, sensorineural hearing loss in both ears, with hearing levels in both ears exceeding 120 decibels, which means she could not hear any sounds in nature.
It is useless to install hearing aids for hearing loss of this degree. At that time, a doctor recommended a cochlear implant to Luo Mingsong, saying that in 1997, China's first child cochlear implant surgery was successfully completed in Beijing. The patient was a three-year-old girl. The operation was very successful. After the machine was turned on, the little girl could hear sounds and learn to speak after speech training.
The doctor said that the best age for pre-verbal deaf children to receive cochlear implants is between 12 months and 5 years old. Luo Jingyu is suitable, but Luo Xiaomei is a little older. Luo Mingsong was tempted and thought of taking his son to Beijing for a checkup, but when he asked about the price, he and Yan Yajuan fell silent.
In the 1990s, hundreds of thousands of yuan was an astronomical sum for a deaf-mute couple who worked in a welfare factory and only earned a few hundred yuan a month. They didn't even have a house and lived in a factory dormitory. The tens of thousands of yuan they saved were intended to buy a house.
Luo Mingsong did not want to give up and sent Luo Jingyu to speech training. It is said that if a deaf child regains some language ability, he can better adapt to the implantation of a cochlear implant. Luo Mingsong thought that if his son learned speech training well, he would bite the bullet and borrow money to take him to Beijing. After all, this is a lifelong thing. Being able to hear and being deaf have very different meanings for a child.
Unfortunately, because Luo Jingyu had no auditory stimulation since childhood, let alone language learning, he was very resistant to repetitive and boring language training, and he cried and made a fuss every day and refused to go.
How can a little boy like him understand what speaking means? He thinks sign language is speaking, so why should he press his little hands on the teacher's throat to feel the vibration? Why should he open his mouth to imitate the teacher's mouth shape to make sounds
Even after he spoke, he couldn't hear what he said and didn't know if it was correct. Sometimes the teacher would ask him to say a simple word over and over again, but it was always wrong and he had no idea what was wrong. He felt that the shape of his mouth, the position of his tongue and teeth were exactly the same as the teacher's, but the teacher just said that his pronunciation was wrong.
He cried sadly and said as he cried. After a month of persistence, Luo Jingyu no longer wanted to go to the speech training. She wiped her tears and held the door, refusing to go out. After one, two, three, four times, Luo Mingsong and Yan Yajuan decided to give up.
Yan Yajuan thinks that being deaf is nothing, as they all grew up like this, and Luo Jingyu can still live a good life by finding a deaf girl in the future.
Luo Mingsong felt filled with guilt, especially after his son turned five, then six, seven, and eight... He was getting older and older, and was getting further and further away from having a cochlear implant. But their family still didn't have enough money, and they hadn't bought a house. They heard that the welfare factory was about to be restructured, and if they lost their jobs, the whole family wouldn't know how they would live in the future.
These things were gradually told to Luo Jingyu by his family after he grew up. Luo Mingsong has always been full of apologies for his two children, and he feels most sorry for Luo Jingyu. One reason is that he had a deaf daughter, but his son was born with a defect, and the other reason is because of the cochlear implant.
Of the two things, the former could have been avoided, while the latter was due to limited conditions. Luo Mingsong felt that as a father, he owed too much to his son and daughter.
Thinking of these things, Luo Jingyu's eyelashes drooped. He never blamed his parents, but when he was young, he blamed God, thinking that we are all human beings, why was he born different from others
Zhan Xi didn't know what Luo Jingyu was thinking. At this stage, he couldn't express his thoughts to her very well. This was a helpless thing. They had talked about this topic and agreed to take it slowly, not rush, and not get angry with each other because of this.
They both made plans in their minds. He was willing to work hard to improve his written typing skills for her, and she was willing to learn sign language for him.
At 10:30, Zhan Kaiwei finished his get out of class, and Zhan Xi went to the classroom door to pick him up. The little guy came out dejectedly, carrying his schoolbag. He was not excited to see Zhan Xi, and only called out softly, "Auntie."
Zhan Xi knew that his parents’ quarrel would definitely have an impact on his nephew’s psychology, so he coaxed him gently and changed the subject to ask him what he had learned in class.
Weiwei's next class was at 1:30 p.m., and there was a three-hour free time. Usually, Zhanxi would take him to the bookstore to read for a while, or to KFC for a meal and rest. Qin Fei did not allow her to take Weiwei to play on the amusement facilities, saying that the child would fall asleep in the afternoon class if he was too tired.
But on this day, seeing his nephew looking listless, Zhan Xi softened his heart and asked him, "Weiwei, do you want to go to the amusement park?"
Weiwei looked up at her, blinked his eyes and said, "I want to, but mom won't let me play."
"Your mother is on a business trip. Your aunt will take you out to play today. We won't tell your mother, okay?" Zhan Xi touched his little head.
Weiwei finally perked up a bit, jumped a little and said, "Great! I haven't been to an amusement park in a long time!"
"Well... before you go play, auntie wants to introduce someone to you. He's my friend, an uncle." Zhan Xi took Weiwei and walked towards Luo Jingyu. When Luo Jingyu saw them, she had already stood up from the bench.
Weiwei asked: "Is he your boyfriend?"
Zhan Xi blushed, neither admitting nor denying: "Who taught you that? He is my friend, look, it's him."
She pointed at Luo Jingyu who was a few steps away. Weiwei looked at him and saw a very tall uncle.
Luo Jingyu was very nervous. Although the other party was just a boy of six or seven years old, he still felt like he was meeting a parent. He put his hands in his pockets, tried to stand handsomely, and smiled at Weiwei.
"Call me Uncle Xiaoyu." Zhan Xi said as he came closer.
Weiwei raised his head and called politely, "Uncle Xiaoyu."
The three words "Uncle Yu" had very similar lip shapes, both with pouting lips. Gu Xinchi had been calling Luo Jingyu "Brother Xiaoyu" all the time, so she didn't react to what Weiwei was calling her. She looked at Zhan Xi with a questioning look: "?"
Zhan Xi used sign language to make a swimming "fish" and said jokingly: "Xiaoyu, uncle, Uncle Xiaoyu. I am his aunt, do you still want to be Xiaoyu's brother?"
Luo Jingyu slapped her forehead, shook her head and laughed.
Zhan Xi squatted down and said to the ignorant nephew: "Weiwei, Auntie tells you that Uncle Xiaoyu can't hear and can't speak, but he can understand what you are saying. When you talk to him, you have to face him and speak slowly, understand?"
After listening to this, Weiwei looked at Luo Jingyu again with a surprised expression. He never knew that there were people who were deaf and could not speak!
Luo Jingyu smiled at him, pointed at her right ear, and shook her hand. Weiwei let out an "ah", was a little scared, and hid behind Zhan Xi.
Zhan Xi was unhappy and pulled his nephew out: "Why are you hiding?"
The child didn't dare to say anything and just looked at Luo Jingyu with his eyelids raised. Luo Jingyu was naturally not angry. She reached out and rubbed his head, and made a sign language to Zhan Xi: It's okay, kid.
Weiwei watched him sign language and wondered if this was how Uncle Xiaoyu spoke
Zhan Xi and Luo Jingyu took Weiwei to play on the amusement facilities. After the child rode the train, the bouncing frog and the carousel by himself, he asked to play on the bungee jumping machine.
The bungee jumping machine in the small playground is actually very short. It is for children to play and is not very exciting. However, children under 1.3 meters tall still need to be accompanied by an adult to ride it.
Zhanxi is afraid of heights and refuses to play. He persuades his nephew not to play. Weiwei is unhappy: "I just want to play this! The little train is too childish!"
Luo Jingyu pulled Zhan Xi's arm, pointed at herself, and then pointed at the bungee jumping machine. Zhan Xi asked his nephew: "Then can Uncle Xiaoyu accompany you to ride it?"
Weiwei thought about it and agreed.
When they were playing just now, Uncle Xiaoyu was the whole time by their side. Apart from not talking, he looked no different from other people. He was always smiling, like a good person. I even bought him a sausage to eat.
Luo Jingyu and Weiwei lined up to go in, and Zhan Xi watched them from outside the railing. Luo Jingyu carried the child to the seat, sat down next to him, and helped them both buckle their seat belts.
After the guardrail was pressed down, the game began. A row of seats with eight people sitting on them gradually rose. Luo Jingyu and Weiwei had their feet dangling in the air and looked down at Zhan Xi. Zhan Xi waved at them and took out his mobile phone to take pictures for them.
When the chair reached the top, it was about four stories high. Weiwei hugged Luo Jingyu's arm in fear. Luo Jingyu had never played a bungee jumping machine before. When the chair suddenly fell down, he was really scared. He turned his head to look at the little boy next to him and found that he was looking at him in surprise.
The seat rose again. After the experience, Luo Jingyu was no longer frightened. She found the falling again and again quite interesting. At this time, the little boy beside him pulled his sleeve. Luo Jingyu looked at him and said with his head tilted up: "Uncle Xiaoyu, my aunt said you can't speak, but you just spoke."
Luo Jingyu: “?”
Did he make a sound? Perhaps he was frightened and couldn't control himself.
He smiled awkwardly, pointed at his mouth and shook his hands, implying that he really couldn't speak. Weiwei said naively: "Really, you really spoke, you said 'ah', I heard it!"
The kid probably thought that not being able to speak meant being unable to make a sound. Luo Jingyu didn't know how to explain it to him, so she could only point to her mouth and shake her hand again. Weiwei chewed his mouth: "I really heard it, you can speak."
After three minutes of ups and downs, the game was over. Weiwei felt that he and Luo Jingyu had become good friends. He held hands with him when walking, and asked to play self-controlled airplanes and pirate ships with Uncle Xiaoyu.
Both of these games require players to fly to the sky. Zhan Xi's legs go weak just thinking about it and he can't wait to let Luo Jingyu take part.
The pirate ship is more exciting than the bungee jumping machine. Luo Jingyu foolishly sat at the stern with Weiwei. When the ship swung to the highest point and then swung down, the feeling of weightlessness instantly hit him. He couldn't control himself and shouted again.
Luo Jingyu was so nervous that she covered her mouth. After coming down, she pulled his hand and said excitedly, "Uncle Xiaoyu, you really can talk! You said 'ah' several times just now, I heard it all. Your voice is very nice. I'm not lying to you."
Luo Jingyu: “…”
Children are very easy to be happy. When they are absorbed in playing, they forget about the bad things at home. They jump and skip as they walk, and their little faces are so chubby when they laugh that Luo Jingyu wants to pinch them a few times.
After playing several games, Weiwei said he wanted to pee, so the three of them went to the bathroom in the teaching building together.
On a road not far from the teaching building, there was a long row of stalls on the roadside. Zhan Xi took a look and found that they were the enrollment booths of various private children's training institutions. Some cheap gadgets were displayed on each stall. Parents could ask for advice or fill out an intention form, and the children could get a small toy.
There was a training institution booth crowded with many children. It turned out that a man dressed as a clown was tying balloons for the children. The long balloons could be tied into puppies, flowers, lollipops... The children rushed to surround the clown, who was very skillful and could tie a shape in a short time.
Weiwei also clamored for a puppy balloon, so Zhan Xi went to fill in the information and asked Luo Jingyu to accompany Weiwei to queue.
The clown wore a colorful wig, had snow-white powder on his face, and a red nose. The paint on his mouth almost reached his ears. He looked like a smiling face, but Luo Jingyu knew that he was not smiling at all.
For some reason, Luo Jingyu always felt that the clown was looking at him, again and again. He frowned slightly, and when it was finally Weiwei's turn, the clown did not immediately pop the balloon, but made a sign language gesture to Luo Jingyu: Xiaoyu, don't you recognize me? I am Yue Qi.
Luo Jingyu was very surprised. Yue Qi was his high school classmate and was also the study committee member of the class at that time. He had excellent grades.
When Zhan Xi came over, Wei Wei had already got the puppy balloon, and he was crying that he wanted to pee with his legs tucked under him. Zhan Xi hurriedly led him forward, and when he turned around, he found that Luo Jingyu hadn't followed him, so he waved at him, "Xiao Yu!"
Luo Jingyu noticed that she was calling him, pointed at the clown, then pointed at herself, and raised her thumbs and touched them together a few times. Zhan Xi knew what this meant, it was "friend".
She nodded and took Weiwei to the bathroom.
After using the restroom, Zhan Xi returned the same way. It was almost lunch time, and the staff at the enrollment booth were eating lunch boxes. Zhan Xi looked around and saw the clown and Luo Jingyu standing next to a trash can not far away. The clown took off his wig and red nose and was smoking. Luo Jingyu was chatting with him in sign language.
When parents walk along this road with their children, they will turn their heads to look when they see two people signing on the side of the road.
Zhan Xi did not go over, but just watched from a distance.
She thought of the couple who owned stalls at Fenglin Night Market. Now that she thought about it, they should be Xiaoyu's friends. And Luo Xiaomei, whom she met in the elevator, was Xiaoyu's sister. Now this clown should also be Xiaoyu's classmate.
They are all deaf.
Many of the people in Xiaoyu's social circle are deaf.
Yue Qi asked Luo Jingyu: How are you doing recently? I heard from Chen Liang that you bought a house
Luo Jingyu nodded embarrassedly: I bought it more than two years ago, and I need a place to make things.
Yue Qi took a puff of his cigarette and signed with one hand: You are doing well. Unlike us, it is hard to find a job and we can only do odd jobs.
Luo Jingyu thought for a while and asked: Didn’t you get into university
Yue Qi lowered his head and sighed, put out his cigarette, raised his head and signed: I was admitted to university, but I couldn't find a job after graduation. I wanted to apply for a job in the Disabled Persons' Federation, but I haven't been admitted for several years. I studied computer science with great difficulty, but I can't find a job that matches my major. There are so many hearing people studying computer science, who would want me? If I had known earlier, I should have studied special education and could have taken the teacher exam. I'm not like you, who is good at art. I'm not good at art. I don't have this talent.
Luo Jingyu looked at Yue Qi, who was dressed in a clown costume. His hair was greasy after he took off his wig. It looked like he had not had a good life.
He asked: What kind of work do you usually do
Yue Qi replied: I do everything. I learned how to make balloons. I do it on weekends when there are store openings, weddings, and real estate launches. My prices are much lower than others. Some people scold me for asking prices randomly, but I say I am deaf! How can I compete with you if I don’t offer low prices? People don’t say that to me. I usually work the night shift in a warehouse, so at least I can support myself.
He glanced at Zhan Xi who was not far away and asked Luo Jingyu: Is that your wife? Your child is this big now? I haven't heard that you are married.
Luo Jingyu laughed: No, the child is her nephew, she...
He hesitated in the air for a moment, but finally raised his hands and said, "It's my girlfriend."
Yue Qi's eyes widened as he asked, "Can she hear me?" I just saw her talking.
Luo Jingyu nodded, glanced at Zhan Xi, turned back to look at Yue Qi, and smiled a little bitterly: Is it strange
Yue Qi didn't know what to say, so he gestured: She is very beautiful. Is she disabled in other places? Or is she sick? Does she know sign language? Does her family agree with you being together
Luo Jingyu shook her head calmly: She is very healthy and doesn't know sign language, so her family probably doesn't know about it yet.
Yue Qi stared at him blankly, and finally patted his arm: "Good luck, Xiaoyu. I don't plan to find a partner in the next few years. It's hard to support myself. I advise you not to be too involved, not too serious. How many deaf people can be with hearing people? Your girlfriend is so beautiful, and of course you are handsome too. I just feel that if you two break up in the end, you will definitely be the one who gets hurt."
Luo Jingyu smiled and said: I know, I’m leaving first to take the kids out for dinner, you keep working hard, bye.
After saying goodbye to Yue Qi, Luo Jingyu walked towards Zhan Xi with her hands in her pockets. Weiwei was playing with his puppy balloon on the side, throwing it up and catching it repeatedly.
Zhan Xi watched Luo Jingyu walk up to her and asked with a smile, "Have you finished chatting with your friends?"
Luo Jingyu nodded.
Zhan Xi asked again: "Is he your classmate?"
Luo Jingyu nodded again.
"Do you want to introduce us?" Zhan Xi said, "I was just waiting for you to call me."
As she spoke, she suddenly bent sideways, smiled and waved to the clown not far away.
Yue Qi: “…”
He waved back.
Luo Jingyu turned her head to look at him, then turned back to Zhan Xibi and signed: No need.
"I'll listen to you. Let's go eat. You can tell me about your classmates while we eat." Zhan Xi took Weiwei by the hand. "The little guy said he wanted to eat pizza. Do you like pizza?"
Luo Jingyu smiled lightly and nodded.
Zhan Xi kept smiling, walking forward holding Weiwei's hand with her left hand, and Luo Jingyu walked on her right.
Not far away, Yue Qi leaned against a trash can, lit another cigarette, and looked at their backs.
He saw Luo Jingyu walking slowly with both hands in her sweatshirt pockets. The girl was holding a bag in her right hand, and after walking for a while, she slung the bag over her right shoulder and then reached out to grab the man's left arm.
After pulling it a bit, it didn't move. Luo Jingyu turned her head and looked at her.
She pulled again, and the man finally took his left hand out of his pocket. The girl took the opportunity to put her right hand into his left palm.
Luo Jingyu stopped and looked around. The girl looked up at him and shook his hand childishly.
Finally, Luo Jingyu turned her hand over and held the girl's right hand, holding her hand firmly in her own palm.