After a night of unspeakable dreams, Shen Qiao woke up a little earlier than usual the next day.
After regaining consciousness, he closed his eyes and waited for a while, but still didn't hear the alarm clock ringing. Shen Qiao lost his patience, frowned tightly, reached out and touched the quilt for a long time, and finally touched the edge of the phone.
He took it out, opened his eyelids and glanced at it, and found that he had taken it down. Shen Qiao turned around and looked at the time:
Thirteen at seven.
He let out a foul breath from his throat, and threw the phone on the bedside table. He didn't know what was knocked down with a "boom", and then he didn't look at it. He raised his hand and pulled the quilt away. After sitting for a while, he went to the bathroom. wash.
Refreshingly packed himself, when Shen Qiao went out again, he habitually went to the closet to look through his swimming trunks and half-opened the closet door, he paused for a moment, then closed it again.
- He didn't go out today with his old backpack.
…
"Master, go to the Beiyuan Cemetery." The morning light swayed across the city. Shen Qiao stood on the side of the road, holding a bunch of lilies in his arms, raised his hand and stopped a taxi to sit in.
The driver glanced at him in the rear-view mirror, turned the steering wheel and drove the car out.
After forty minutes.
The driver pressed the button of the meter and glanced at the price: "One hundred and twenty-three."
Shen Qiao took out his mobile phone and swiped WeChat, opened the car door and walked out. The unopened white flowers in his arms were budding, and they swayed slightly with his movements, little by little.
He took the flowers to the door to register, and showed the guards that he had brought a bunch of flowers on his body. After no flammable objects affected the environment of the cemetery, he was allowed to enter.
The black sneakers stepped on the first-level stone steps, and Shen Qiao walked in the direction of the familiar stone tablet according to her memory.
Turn right, go straight, turn right again, third floor.
After counting four, he saw the black-and-white photo. The woman in the photo was delicate and indifferent. Perhaps it was because the expression was too formal when the photo was taken. The corners of the eyes, lips, and even the jaw line were cold. Attached to this cold tombstone, at first glance, there is a chill in the cracks of the bones.
This is his mother, Shen Jinyi.
To be more precise, it was his adoptive mother.
Shen Qiao put down the flower in her hand, raised her hand and wiped it on the slate on which the fruit tribute was placed.
There was a bit of ridicule on his face, and he looked at the woman in the photo, and his voice was very dull:
"Find someone to clean up such a simple thing regularly, but Lu Chengzhen didn't do it for you."
"If you're still alive, you shouldn't be able to tolerate being trampled on by him like this. After all, mom, you've always been very strong and won't admit defeat to anyone."
It was the same for Lu Chengzhen, and the same for Su Qiongpei... Later, it was the same for Shen Qiao.
He forgot to bring a tissue when he went out. He just wiped the rough slate with his palm. The clean palm was quickly dyed a fuzzy gray. The bunch of lilies was placed in front of the tomb.
The fresh bouquets carefully wrapped in the flower shop still have thin drops of water on them, and the faint fragrance of lilies spreads out, and there is a temperament that I still feel pity for.
Shen Qiao casually patted the palm that became a little dirty, and looked up at the woman on the tombstone again:
"It's a coincidence. Today I went to a nearby flower shop to buy flowers. They strongly recommended me the freshest lilies. I came out of the checkout and remembered. You seem to hate this kind of flower the most."
"You said that when you were a child, the graves all over the mountains and plains were full of them. They were obviously pure white, but they grew out of the dead. You didn't even like the smell."
"However, no one will come except me. Mom, let's make do with it today."
Shen Qiao seldom said so many words, he was clearly whispering softly, but his eyes were full of fatigue, so he stopped uncomfortably, and then pulled the corner of his lower lip again, "I won't come in the future anyway."
His tone was light, and there was no change compared to before. It was normal that he was talking about the weather today. Other people visiting relatives would feel chills on their backs after listening to the content.
The location of Shen Jinyi's tombstone is not a good one. There are pines and cypresses standing quietly on both sides on the way here. With the change of the sun's height, the shadows will shelter many tombstones nearby. From morning to night, there are always people who can sleep forever. To get cool comfort in this hot summer, only her monument...
Unbiased, always exposed to the sun, regardless of heat or cold.
Shen Qiao even suspected that Lu Chengzhen and Su Qiongpei hated her so much that they chose such an excellent position so that she would not be at peace after her death.
How strange-
When Shen Jinyi was alive, her sense of existence was so strong, Lu Chengzhen hated her, Su Qiongpei was jealous of her, and the servants at home were afraid of her.
As a result, when she died, everyone seemed to forget their memories of her overnight, leaving her alone here and no one cared about her. Perhaps this was the cruelest revenge against her.
Only Shen Qiao still remembers visiting her from time to time.
But after today, Shen Qiao couldn't come.
He still remembered that when Shen Jinyi was the most ill, he couldn't speak. Lu Chengzhen was talking on the phone in the corridor outside, his face was cold and indifferent, he was clearly a door away from the ward, not only wearing a mask , I don't know where the secretary got the protective clothing, standing in the corridor arousing the attention of many people, as if his wife had some highly contagious disease.
Until Shen Jinyi stopped breathing, he didn't take a step into that door, including the follow-up collection and cremation, Lu Chengzhen hired someone to take charge.
The only person in the ward was Shen Qiao.
He was standing in front of the hospital bed, Shen Jinyi was wearing a breathing mask and couldn't keep her eyes open, but she still looked at him persistently, taking a breath was harder than taking a breath, the oxygen mask was full of white mist, but she looked at Shen Qiao stubbornly .
Her hands that were exposed outside the white quilt gripped the cold iron bedbar tightly, her fingertips were no longer green and tender, and the back of her hand was wrapped with an indwelling needle, making the swollen fingers even paler and more morbid.
Shen Qiao looked down at her, looking at the decreasing breathing rate on the instrument next to her, she was silent for a long time, and hesitated for a while: "Lu Chengzhen is outside."
Shen Jinyi didn't seem to have any special reaction to the name.
She stared straight at Shen Qiao with messy hair on her forehead, her expression almost terrifying.
Only Shen Qiao did not retreat.
He met Shen Jinyi's eyes, motionless, and remembered one thing—
It was during the period when Shen Jinyi was looking for someone to treat his deformed relationship. Shen Jinyi fell ill again and was sent to the hospital by the people from the Lu family's old house in the middle of the night.
Shen Qiao had just received treatment, and the road was unsteady. The elevator waited for too long. He held on to the handrail of the stairs and slowly climbed up to the sixteenth floor layer by layer. It's the same as the one that came out.
As soon as she approached the ward, Shen Jinyi was already awake, and was being shaken by the aunt who was taking care of her at home and sat up.
Seeing him, Shen Jinyi showed a gentle smile, as if nothing had happened between their mother and son, she was still such a decent and noble woman from a noble family, and he was still the child with a happy family.
Shen Jinyi patted the bed in front of him and called him: "Qiaoqiao is here, sit down, how are you feeling today?"
Shen Qiao didn't have any expression, just looked at her with heavy eyes. Without sitting there, he could no longer go to this mother's side without any grudges like before.
He began to fear this woman.
Shen Jinyi seemed to understand his gaze, the gentleness on his face remained unchanged, but his tone became a lot crueler:
"Jojo."
"Don't blame mom, didn't I say it? I don't mind who you fall in love with, but Lu Zhe can't, and that woman's child can't."
"If you haven't repented yet, then don't recognize me as a mother. You don't need you to come to see me when I die, and you don't need to come to my grave after I die."
…
Standing in the ward, Shen Qiao looked at Shen Jinyi, who was confronting the god of death, and was unwilling to leave anyway for a long time.
Then he finally spoke and asked the topic hidden in his heart:
"Does Mom want to hear me swear that I will never have contact with Lu Zhe in my life?"
Hearing this name, Shen Jinyi had a reaction, her fingertips scratched like a spasm, leaving traces on the sheets, like struggle and pain.
Shen Qiao slightly hooked her lips.
He didn't do what she wanted.
As if competing for patience with Shen Jinyi, he waited in front of the hospital bed for a long time, until three in the morning, when the detection machine sounded an alarm, and the column representing the heartbeat became a straight line.
Shen Jin didn't wait for his words until he died.
So she didn't close her eyes until she died.
Shen Qiao was pinned to the spot by her eyes, but she was pulled away by the medical staff. The nurse had never seen such a scene because she was young. Seeing him alone in the ward accepting the departure of his relatives, he looked at him hesitantly. For a long time, as if trying to comfort him.
Only Shen Qiao knows—
He doesn't need any consolation.
Even seeing Shen Jinyi's appearance, his heart was filled with joy.
…
"You may not remember the first time I saw you guys."
In front of the tombstone, Shen Qiao spoke again.
"At that time, I just had a fight with an older child, and I lost the fight. I was covered in mud, and I hid under the slide in the amusement park. I heard the voice of the dean chatting with people. When the voice was far away, I sneaked out. I took a look at the head to see which rich man came again."
"Then you saw it at a glance, and it turned out that you didn't leave at all."
"Then the dean told me that I was adopted by your family. I couldn't believe it, and I kept regretting why I went out to fight at that time, and why I couldn't make you see me better. At the same time, I also felt You might just be on a whim and send me back later..."
"Until the time I saw you again, you said to me, 'Do you know why I picked you? Because you are very similar to me, I like the look in your eyes, and I don't want to admit defeat. We are the same people.'"
From then on, Shen Qiao felt that meeting Shen Jinyi should be the blessing of the god of fate.
She brought him home from the quagmire, took good care of him, and gave him the best environment for growth.
Even if he did something wrong for a while, injecting him with Omega's pheromone or something, in Shen Qiao's opinion, it wasn't a big deal - he could attribute it to Lu Chengzhen's fault.
But then...
Shen Qiao paused for a long time before speaking again.
"If it hadn't happened with Lu Zhe, maybe I would have become the most perfect son in your mind."
"But you made me fear and love, gave me the deepest pain, and let me see hell." Shen Jinyi pulled him up from the mud, washed every mud spot on his body, and when he was finally full of hope, he floated again. When he raised his hand, he pushed him into the depths of the cliff, and the sun was nowhere to be seen.
"When I finally lose hope, I want to get revenge on you."
"I also want you to know this feeling, so I deliberately refused to swear before you died, and wanted you to die without resting your eyes, and deliberately brought your most hated lily to see you, so that you also understand this disgust, and even want to Every time I come, I tell you over and over again—"
"I will always love Lu Zhe, the son of Su Qiongpei who you hate the most and hate the most."
In the process of narrating, Shen Qiao stopped many times, and the content was intermittent. It seems that until today, he dared to dig out those scars that cannot be seen, and let the sun bask in the flesh that is about to be covered and rotted. One sun, kill virus, sterilize bacteria.
Then…
Cut off quickly.
"But I don't hate it now."
"You're gone, forever in this pain."
"And he came back into my life."
"This time, I'm here to tell you that I will live a good life, quit smoking, follow the doctor's orders, take medicine on time, exercise, and I will live my new life well."
"Goodbye, mother, thank you for giving me new life."