Summer 2004.
", Auntie will ask you some questions below, you just need to answer yes or no, okay?"
"… "
“Is the sky blue today?”
"yes."
"Does this make you feel good?"
"yes."
"Has anything happened to you since you last came here that made you happy?"
"yes."
"Did you express your emotions through words or facial expressions during these events?"
"no."
"During this time, have you... "
…
"Okay, our little assignment is done successfully. Thank you for your cooperation." The woman in the white coat closed the notebook and stood up. She smiled and bent down to touch the top of the girl's head. "Wait here for a moment, auntie will talk to your mother about something, okay?"
"… "
Song Shu raised his eyes quietly and watched the woman walk out of the treatment room.
Because of the wind, the door did not close completely, and the sound of faint conversation came through the gap in the door.
"Sister Bai, don't worry. Judging from the results of this phase of testing and treatment, your daughter does not have any obvious serious psychological problems."
“But she still doesn’t fit in with her peers.”
"Introversion or extroversion is not the same as psychological problems, nor is it good or bad. We respect the differences in children's personalities..."
The sound outside the door was sometimes light and sometimes loud.
Song Shu withdrew his gaze and looked towards the window.
The glass was clear, and the jasmine blossomed richly among the branches cut by the railings.
Cicadas are chirping outside the window, but the room is quiet.
Song Shu shook his dangling legs and felt the wind flowing past his feet.
In fact, Song Shu felt that her mother needed such tests and conversations more than herself. Because she was always busy with work, and...
Song Shu recalled in his mind, but still couldn't count how many lies he had told in his answer sheet.
Same as before.
She didn't like this kind of questionnaire very much. She could easily guess the answers that the doctor and her mother wanted to hear, so it was a waste of time to complete it.
However, if this allows my mother to work with peace of mind, then there is nothing wrong with that.
Anyway, time has always been very long.
Changing things would be equally boring.
"What? You're going abroad?"
"… "
The calves that had been swinging very lightly in the air slowly stopped moving and the girl slowly turned her head back. There was no emotion on her delicate face, only a blank calm.
She looked towards the crack in the door.
"The company is expanding its overseas market. Mr. Qin has always valued me over the years. I can't refuse his good intentions."
"What should we do then?"
"The Qin family will take care of her."
"Sister Bai, Mr. Qin values you, but his daughter is different. How could Qin Fujun tolerate her husband and his ex-wife's daughter living under her nose?"
"Don't worry, we're going to live in a house in the city. Only Mr. Qin's grandson and the servants who take care of him live there."
"Qin's grandson? Wait - you mean Qin Lou?"
"Yes. What's wrong?"
"Sister Bai, this decision is inappropriate. You don't know Qin Lou well, and you absolutely cannot let him live with you!"
A bell rang.
A very soothing prelude. It was mom’s cell phone, which Song Shu was very familiar with.
It was probably something at the company again. The conversation was forced to stop, and Bai Song finished his urgent business on the phone, and the conversation could continue a few minutes later.
"Xiao Qian, there is an emergency meeting at the company. I have to leave first."
"Have you really decided to let me go to the Qin family?"
"She's not a gregarious person either. I think she and Qin Lou can get along well."
"No, Sister Bai, Qin Lou's situation is completely different. He is different from all normal children. He is very dangerous!"
"He's only 11."
"Yes... As a psychologist, I may be a little too extreme, but Qin Lou is like a madman. He has no trust or emotion towards anyone. His antisocial personality is very obvious, and his aggression and desire to hurt are beyond imagination! He-"
"That's enough, Xiao Qian. I don't want to hear this a second time. Mr. Qin is not only my employer, but also a father figure to me. I don't believe he would put me in danger."
"But… "
"Okay, I don't have much time. Let's talk about the rest over the phone, okay? Let's go. Mom will take you home."
Bai Song walked in, and his eyes and expression softened the moment he saw the girl.
Song Shu slid off the chair and took Bai Song's hand.
When she walked out, she turned around and saw the doctor with a gentle smile standing behind them, with a look of genuine worry and uneasiness on her face.
Song Shu turned back silently and hugged the sketchbook in his hand tightly.
Qinlou... huh
On the eve of his departure, Bai Song sent Song Shu to the Qin family's main home. On the day of his departure, Qin Fujun, the only daughter of the Qin family of this generation, happened to be at home.
The old people who stayed in the host's house more or less knew about the open and covert discord between Qin Fujun and Bai Song over the years, so someone reminded Bai Song as soon as he got off the car.
Bai Song stopped outside the Qin family's gate.
Song Shu stood on the gravel path beside the neatly trimmed lawn. She was wearing a new skirt today, with a fluffy hem, a layer of light purple silk underneath, and a layer of white translucent tulle outside.
The aunt who brought her this custom-made dress smiled and touched her expressionless face, saying that this was the most beautiful little princess style this year.
Well, that's also the type she hates the most.
But mom likes it.
Surrender is the first lesson in adulthood.
Xiao Songshu has always believed this firmly.
What’s even better is that your parents will be your regular guest lecturers.
", after arriving at the Qin family, you must be polite in everything, understand?"
"Um."
"Middle school will start soon. You must respect your teachers and get along well with your classmates in your new school."
"Um."
"Mom is leaving, is there anything you want to say to her?"
"… "
Song Shu remained silent under Bai Song's expectant gaze.
Then silence.
Then she shook her head.
There was an unchanging blank calm on that little face that was just beginning to show its beauty.
Bai Song sighed softly and handed Song Shu to the servant of the Qin family. Mr. Qin had naturally arranged everything, so she didn't need to worry about it anymore.
"Well, say goodbye to mom, okay?"
"goodbye."
"Well, bye."
The car drove away, taking Bai Song away.
Song Shu stood there quietly. She didn't say a word except goodbye. She just looked at the place where the tail of the car disappeared quietly.
At that moment, Song Shu discovered that he still had emotions, but they seemed to be much duller than normal people... Much, much slower.
Only then did I realize that this was the first regrettable thing.
The second unfortunate thing was that before she could fully appreciate the ups and downs of her emotions, her mood was suddenly broken by a voice that came from above her head -
"So, my birthday present this year is this oversized doll?"
This was the first time Song Shu heard this voice.
It was probably the most beautiful sound she had ever heard. Clean and clear. It reminded her of a spring that played against the rocks in the empty valley, or the winged wind that blew through the pine forest.
But with a cold and strange mockery.
Song Shu followed the voice and turned around.
The single-story Qin family house is much taller than ordinary buildings, about four meters. The boy who spoke was sitting on the terrace on the third floor.
To be exact, he was sitting on the marble railing of the third-floor terrace.
The man was facing outwards, his legs dangling in the air. He was a little taller than his peers, playing with a Rubik's Cube in his hands, which was spinning so fast that it was about to leave an afterimage.
He lowered his head and eyes, playing so intently that he seemed to forget everything else -
The boy's toes were ten meters off the ground, and a gust of spring breeze of two or three levels could blow him under the terrace.
Song Shu lowered his head and looked towards the wall.
There is a concrete floor under the terrace. If you fall from a height of more than ten meters, you will be seriously injured, at least with broken bones, if not death.
After being stunned for more than ten seconds, the servant standing next to Song Shu finally reacted and shouted loudly--
"Master Lou, why are you up there? Come down quickly! Someone, come up and take a look!"
No one responded.
With the final "click" sound, the Rubik's Cube in the boy's hand returned to its original shape.
He raised his right hand and held it up, measuring it against the glaring sun, then glanced at the time on his watch.
"Tsk, two minutes."
The young man sneered and threw the Rubik's Cube away casually, just like throwing away useless garbage.
It hit the concrete floor with a thud and broke apart.
The boy sitting on the fence lowered his eyes in boredom and curled his lips, "Go down? How? ... Like this?"
He suddenly leaned forward.
“Master!!”
The servant screamed hysterically.
The boy stopped.
He laughed freely in the hot summer breeze, sitting on the fence, laughing so hard that he fell back and forth, with the shadows of the trees and the light between the leaves falling on him alternately.
Like a complete lunatic.
Mottled but beautiful.
The servant could no longer endure the torture, so he threw Song Shu aside and ran towards the entrance behind the building.
Song Shu stood there quietly, without moving.
In fact, she was looking down at the Rubik's Cube that was broken into pieces not far ahead.
The last time she finally counted them clearly.
A Rubik's Cube has six layers - the boy was playing with a strange six-layer Rubik's Cube.
He restored it to its original state in two minutes, but was not satisfied, so he threw it away like garbage.
Song Shu thought that the boy must be his mother's favorite type, a genius.
"Hey." The genius called her.
Song Shu looked up.
"I hate dolls." He laughed mockingly, looking at her with cold eyes.
Well, she doesn't like it either.
"The last time someone gave me a doll, I tore it into pieces and stuffed it into the drain of the swimming pool."
The young man stopped, supported himself on the railing with his hands, and leaned forward again, as if he wanted to reach her from a height of ten meters.
He was staggering, but he grinned and gave Song Shu a silent smile.
Uncovering the malice and madness:
"Doll - do you like the pool?"
Song Shu looked at him.
After a long silence, she shook her head expressionlessly.
After waiting for a long time for no other reaction from Song Shu, the young man frowned as he got none of the expected reactions.
"Dumb or retarded?"
If you don't speak, you are dumb; if you speak, you are mentally retarded.
Little Songshu faced a dilemma in his life for the first time, and his expression became even blanker.
"It's all of them. It's boring."
The boy sneered, and the servants' shouts came from the stairwell behind him. The boy showed annoyance in his eyes, and he flipped to the side and fell into the fence.
He glanced at the girl who was still standing motionless in front of the lawn, and his brows frowned even more tightly.
After a few seconds he looked away, mocking coldly.
"You are not allowed to go up to the third floor while I am here, or I will break your legs and use them to fill the swimming pool - Yang, Wa, Wa."
Song Shu thought for a few seconds and nodded slightly.
But the boy had already turned and left, and didn't see it.
Song Shu didn't want to have his legs broken, and he didn't want to be stuffed into the swimming pool.
She would not go to the third floor when Qin Lou was there.
She is trustworthy.
So when Qin Lou regretted it later and shamelessly rubbed against her neck and begged her to come up, she also shook her head with a serious expression -
Keep your word and don’t go to the third floor.
The evildoers deserve to suffer the consequences.
Song Shu stayed there for half an hour before the Qin family's servant who was originally responsible for picking her up finally remembered that he seemed to have forgotten something.
", why are you still here? Auntie thought you had left and was looking for you for a long time." The servant ran over with small steps, a reproachful tone in her voice.
Song Shu was silent for a few seconds, then he slowly stood up, supporting himself on his knees, "I'm sorry."
Although she didn't know why she should apologize for staying there and waiting for the other person to forget her, adults often did this.
"I'm sorry" would make things easier. And Song Shu didn't like trouble.
However, her "I'm sorry" coupled with a blank expression may make it difficult for the person being apologized to feel her sincerity.
The servant obviously didn't feel it now.
However, after thinking about it, the servant felt much more at ease after realizing that the little girl in the Qin family actually had no one to complain to.
"Then let's go."
"… "
Song Shu was taken by the hand and left.
Without her shadow blocking the view, the smashed sixth-order Rubik's Cube was still lying there alone.
I just don't know when it was put back together again.
After being led into the living room on the first floor by the servant, Song Shu saw Song Ruyu and Song Shuai sitting side by side on the sofa.
They are twin siblings with the same father but different mothers as Song Shu.
Song Shu's parents divorced before Song Shu was born. The person Song Shu's father married, who is also Song Shu's stepmother, is Qin Fujun, the only daughter of the Qin family.
The twin brother and sister born after the marriage were only a few months younger than Song Shu, and they had no respect for this half-sister -
"Look, the little beggar is here again." Song Ruyu turned around after hearing the voice and laughed, "I heard that you are going to No. 2 Middle School to study with us? How unlucky."
The servant who brought the freshly squeezed juice hesitated for a moment, then smiled apologetically while holding the tray, "Ruyu, the old man will be angry if he hears this."
"Why are you angry? I'm not lying. If you come to my house, you're just a beggar, right? Grandpa is mine, not hers. This is my home - if I say she's a little beggar, then she is a little beggar!"
The servant lowered his head in embarrassment.
Song Shu was the only quiet person in the living room. She walked to the sofa expressionlessly and sat down.
The girl opposite was almost furious.
"Uneducated little beggar!"
"… "
"When we get to No. 2 Middle School, I will make sure you know how powerful I am. By then, you won't have your grandfather to protect you!"
"… "
Still no one responded.
Song Shu lowered her eyes and sat on the sofa. Although she didn't like dolls, she knew there was nothing wrong with being a doll at this time.
And my mother once said that good manners are not spoken but done.
After Song Ruyu racked her brains to curse a few more times, the servant next to her couldn't stand it anymore and whispered to her, "Ruyu, Master Qinlou is also at home today. He will hear you if you make such a loud noise."
"Little beggar--" the voice stopped abruptly.
The arrogant little girl a second ago was like a chicken with its neck pinched. After two seconds, she turned her head with a stiff neck, and a subconscious shudder made her face full of confusion and fear.
"Why... why did cousin Qin Lou come back..."
"I can't teach this student! Please find someone else who can teach him!"
The sudden angry voice interrupted the conversation in the living room, and several people turned to look at the spiral staircase on one side of the living room.
An elderly man in his sixties was walking down the stairs angrily.
The servant hurried over and asked, "Teacher Jian, why are you coming down?"
"Me? Why don't you ask your eldest young master instead of asking me?"
"Teacher Jian, please don't be angry. Young Master Qin Lou is not--"
"Yun disease
A sharp electronic noise suddenly hit my eardrum.
Song Ruyu and Song Shuai screamed and covered their ears, and the servants on the first floor looked around in panic.
Song Shu turned her head. Before she came in, she had seen a loudspeaker in the corner of the living room.
The next second, the boy's voice echoed in the empty air on the first floor, mixed with a mocking and malicious laugh:
"I won't accept a useless student who can't derive Taylor's formula in two minutes."
“… … ”
The noise stops.
The living room was in complete silence.
Song Shu sat quietly in the corner, watching the teacher's face turn from white to red with anger, and then from red back to white with anger.
After a few seconds of dead silence, the old teacher snorted and sneered. "I can't teach a genius who can derive advanced mathematical formulas and theorems at the age of 11. Did the Qin family invite me here just to humiliate me?"
"No, no, Mr. Jian, please stay for a moment--Mr. Jian!"
The old man turned pale and walked away.
“How many times has this happened?”
"I don't know. There are so many. Who can count them?"
"No wonder Mr. Qin wants Master Qinlou to go to school. I think if this continues, the Qin family will soon become a forbidden area for psychological treatment and tutoring."
"This young master should stay alone in the house in the city, so as not to cause harm to others."
"That's difficult. I heard that Miss Bai's daughter is also going to move there."
"ah--?"
After a few low discussions around the living room, Song Shu felt several sympathetic or complicated gazes falling on her.
There is also Song Ruyu's opposite: fear is the emotional tone, surprise is the prefix, and then it turns into gloating under the catalysis of disgust.
"You're going to move in with your cousin Qin Lou?"
"… "
Song Shu still didn't respond.
Song Ruyu finally couldn't stand it anymore, she stood up and walked to the girl, she reached out and grabbed the round collar of the beautiful princess dress that made her jealous -
"You're just as annoying as your mother! That's why your father dumped you!"
Song Shu was picked up.
Song Ruyu was taller than her and she gripped very tightly, making it a little difficult for Song Shu to breathe.
But the ripples in her eyes were not because of this, but because of Song Ruyu's words.
Mother…
"Ruyu, what are you doing? Let me go!"
Seeing that the situation was not good, the servants hurried over here.
"She is just dumb. Even if I strangle her to death, she won't cry or scream."
Song Ruyu was so angry that her voice became shrill due to her rapid voice change.
She turned back and glared at Song Shu, who still had no expression, and uttered the most vicious curse:
"It's great that you can move to your cousin Qin Lou's place. I won't have to see you for a day, because you will definitely die in his hands!"
The nearest servant had already rushed over, reaching out to rescue the girl.
Everyone thought she still couldn't speak.
Until she suddenly spoke.
"oh?"
The girl was held by the collar and looked up at Song Ruyu with a blank expression.
His eyes were empty and his tone was flat.
"Then I'm looking forward to it."
Song Ruyu was stunned.
After a few seconds, she reacted and felt that she was being greatly ridiculed and insulted. Her snow-white face was so angry that it seemed to bleed.
"you--"
Her younger brother Song Shuai, who was sitting on the sofa behind her and watching the fun, suddenly changed his expression and almost jumped up from the sofa.
"Cousin!"
In the living room on the first floor, everyone except Song Shu froze.
Song Ruyu came back to her senses and raised her head, her expression suddenly changed. She took two steps back and shook her hands desperately, "Cousin, I, I, I didn't say anything just now..." She couldn't hide her tears in her voice.
Song Shu waited for a few seconds, but the arrogant but pleasant voice did not sound.
She turned back quietly.
There was a spiral staircase leading from the second floor to the first floor. The young man was lazily lying on the wooden handrail, bending over, looking down at the first floor.
An abnormally calm expression.
Song Shugang raised his head and his eyes met his.
He was staring at her.
But the look in his eyes was different from before.
As if he had suddenly discovered the most novel and interesting toy, the boy stared at the girl and slowly raised the corners of his mouth.
There was a hint of madness in his eyes.
"This is my 'doll' - who allowed you to touch her?"