OS - 46

Yan Ci and Zhang Qiang both entered the emergency room. Zhang Qiang’s parents were divorced and neither were in Baicheng, but he had a troublesome uncle who called the police after finding out about the incident.

Even if he hadn’t called the police, Zhou Yu would have.

Yan Ci was also injured, and no less severely than Zhang Qiang; he even came out of the emergency room later.

Zhang Qiang’s uncle was troublesome but also foolish. He dared to rush into the ward with an iron rod in front of the police. Before Yan Ci and Zhang Qiang’s situation could be handled, he was taken away and detained by the police for maliciously damaging hospital equipment.

Yan Ci had no one to take care of him, so Zhou Yu stayed at the hospital until evening, then had to leave.

“Yan Ci, I have to go home,” Zhou Yu had told Liu Fen in the morning that she’d be back in an hour. Yan Ci’s situation wouldn’t be a big problem for now, but she was worried about home, “There’s some food on the table. If you’re hungry, please ask the nurse to microwave it for you.”

“Mm.”

“Don’t move your hand around,” he had a fracture.

“Okay.”

“If the police come to ask questions, don’t say anything random. Just tell them what happened.”

Yan Ci no longer remembered what he was thinking at the moment he picked up the brick and smashed it on Zhang Qiang’s head, and he had no regrets afterward.

“I struck first.”

Zhou Yu paused, her face turning slightly pale, “Even so, they outnumbered you and bullied you first.”

She walked out of the ward and gently closed the door.

Yan Ci opened his eyes, looking at the lunchbox on the table for a very long time.

She hadn’t eaten all day either, and was still wearing blood-stained clothes. While he was in the emergency room, she ran up and down helping him with the hospital admission procedures. While he lay in bed receiving an IV drip, she sat quietly beside him. When Zhang Qiang’s uncle rushed into the ward with a stick, she unhesitatingly stood in front of him.

He knew that if it were anyone else, she would have done the same.

But what he didn’t know was that when Zhou Yu went to his house to get his documents, she saw a whole bottle of sleeping pills he had saved up, placed by his bedside, as if he could open the cap and swallow them all at any moment.

He was waiting for the Cheng family to leave Baicheng, or perhaps, waiting for her to leave.

________________________________________

The area near the street lamp was empty. The words ‘Zhoujiawan’ on the sign were weathered by the wind and sun every day, becoming somewhat illegible.

Zhou Yu clutched the small bottle of sleeping pills inside her clothes, suddenly missing Cheng Yuzhou very much.

The entire day had been chaotic; she hadn’t seemed to stop. Only this little bit of time before going home allowed her to think of him.

For a period, almost every day after evening self-study, Cheng Yuzhou would walk her back home. From the classroom to this street lamp, sometimes they would talk a lot, sometimes they wouldn’t say anything, just hug her and watch her go home before leaving.

Liu Fen and Teacher Li had actually noticed early on. When her monthly exam scores declined, they subtly and overtly reminded them not to let their heads get hot at the most critical time.

In front of the teacher, he took all the responsibility upon himself, moved his desk to the very back row, far away from her, and promised never to affect her again.

They maintained distance at school. After evening self-study, because Liu Fen always came to pick her up outside the school gate, he could only stand at the school entrance and quietly wave to her.

That small library became the most frequent place they visited during holidays.

When she scored poorly, he wouldn’t ask if the pressure from home was too great, but he would tell her that he could go to any university, his parents didn’t restrict him. When community workers advised her to send her grandmother to a nursing home, he knew she couldn’t bear to. He asked her which city she wanted to be in, and when she said Nanjing, he asked his parents to help contact places. Even when he wanted to give her a gift, he was afraid of hurting her meager self-esteem, trying to slip it into her bag several times before putting it away again. If the neighbor hadn’t called her that day, she probably would have told him that she really liked that bookmark made from a plane tree leaf.

“A-Yu!”

The neighbor saw Zhou Yu and called out loudly, “You’re finally back!”

Zhou Yu tiredly looked up, “Sister Mei, what’s wrong?”

The neighbor said, “Your mom went crazy. Don’t know what happened, but she’s been running back and forth on the street since the afternoon, hitting people and cursing. I was afraid your grandma would be scared, so I let her stay in my house first. Go back and check on your mom quickly.”

Upon hearing this, Zhou Yu didn’t even worry about her grandmother and immediately ran back.

The yard was a mess. The door was locked from the inside, and no lights were on.

“Mom!” Zhou Yu couldn’t hear anything. She shouted and pounded on the door, “Mom, I’m home, open the door, Mom! It’s me, no one else.”

No matter how much she shouted, Liu Fen didn’t open the door.

In desperation, Zhou Yu had no choice but to smash the glass with something and climb through the window. Liu Fen was in her room, sitting on the floor with messy hair. Books and other things on the table were strewn about. Zhou Yu turned on the light and saw that the bookmark was under Liu Fen’s foot, shattered, with only a thin string salvageable.

“Mom, what are you doing!”

Zhou Yu tried to help Liu Fen up but was pushed to the ground.

“You leave! Go far away, don’t come back, hurry and leave.”

Liu Fen thought Zhou Yu had left with the Cheng family.

Since her illness, she had been sensitive and suspicious. Her husband was tricked and died a few years later, leaving her only Zhou Yu. She constantly heard gossip from others, and she had personally seen Zhou Yu and Cheng Yuzhou holding hands and returning from school. The calculation paper filled with ‘Nanjing’ had long been torn to shreds by her, but it hung over her head like a bomb. The Cheng family left today, and Zhou Yu didn’t come back for an hour, then not for three hours. Her unease and anxiety grew more and more obvious, escalating from pacing back and forth at home to running wildly through the streets.

“Go! Go! Everyone go, all of you go!”

“My home is here, where do you want me to go? I had something to do after seeing off Wanyue today, and I forgot to tell you. I won’t do it again,” Zhou Yu lunged forward, blocking with her body. Liu Fen still tried to push her into the wall, “Mom, please stop. Can we take your medicine first?”

Liu Fen slapped Zhou Yu across the face, “Who told you not to study properly! Liking other people’s families, always running to other people’s houses, do you think it would be better if your mom died?!”

“I didn’t study improperly, I just didn’t do well on one or two tests...”

Zhou Yu’s face was scraped, and tears flowed into the wound, stinging painfully.

Liu Fen screamed for her to get lost, pushing her hard, tearing her clothes into disarray. The tight string in her heart snapped with a ‘bang,’ going from wronged to collapsed in just one second.

“What did I do wrong! Was Dad’s accident my fault? Is your becoming like this my fault? Is Grandma’s illness my fault? I’m sad too, and heartbroken, and I wickedly hope it’s just a dream, hoping that these things happened to someone else’s family, not mine... I’m already trying very hard to look forward. What else do you want me to do?!”

“Why aren’t you taking your medicine again! I was only away from home for one day! Do you want me to stay at home every moment of my life?!”

“Why do you hurt people? Isn’t what happened to Yan Ci’s parents enough? Aunt Zhang had her face scratched by you, Sister Mei had her hair pulled by you. How many more people do you want to hurt?!”

“Ah! Ah! Why! Why!”

Liu Fen looked dazedly at her shouting daughter, as if her soul had been sucked out.

Something fell to the ground; it was the desk lamp her daughter had used for a long time. She suddenly snapped back to reality and cried, hugging her daughter, “Good girl, Mom was wrong. Mom thought you didn’t want us anymore...”