The hospital was in chaos at the time. Ni Pingsen had no idea what was happening and was pulled away by Liu Hui. Those days were really tough; the two of them had no money and no status.
Ni Pingsen thought they would die at any moment, but in the end they survived and even got better and better.
Ultimately, they decided to illegally leave the Middle East, as tickets to Europe and the United States were too expensive. Following the Syrian war, the entire Middle East was engulfed in a massive refugee crisis, with countless people trying to escape this vortex.
Because they were of yellow skin, the two decided to travel to East Asia, and the boat tickets to Vietnam were the cheapest option.
They saved up for a very long time before they had this money.
After arriving in Vietnam, the two could only find odd jobs because they lacked legal status. It wasn't until Ni Pingsen discovered his talent for finance that he realized he might have been an accountant before he lost his memory.
Because he had helped a very important person in Chinatown, the two of them gradually gained a foothold in the area.
In the end, they not only gained an identity, but also a small shop.
When Ni Jingxi asked him this question, Ni Pingsen fell into a long silence once again.
The reason he didn't ask for help was because someone didn't want him to.
Ni Jingxi took a deep breath and said softly, "Dad, I don't care what happened in the past, but now that I've found you, I hope you can come back to China with me. That's where our home is."
Ni Pingsen looked up, his eyes filled with confusion.
Before this morning, he was thinking that business was getting better and better, and whether he should rent a bigger storefront to do business, but now everything is different.
"I'd like to think about it," Ni Pingsen said after a long pause.
Ni Jingxi didn't pressure him immediately. She knew that every decision she made now would be difficult, after all, his life had been in Vietnam before, and now there was someone else in his life.
But Ni Jingxi still said, "I know I should be grateful because you are still alive. But I can't be grateful because you have countless opportunities to reunite with us. Grandma was calling your name until her last breath, and she couldn't see you one last time."
This is Grandma's regret, and it's also Ni Jingxi's regret.
*
After Ni Pingsen left, Lao Sun escorted her back. Huo Shenyan returned to his room and saw Ni Jingxi standing at the window looking downstairs. Actually, she hadn't seen Ni Pingsen leave; she was just standing there in a daze.
"How did your chat with Dad go?" Huo Shenyan walked to her side and put his arm around her shoulder.
Ni Jingxi turned to look at him, then hugged his waist, as if seeking warmth. She was a little tired, the kind of tired that made her feel helpless.
After a long while, she looked up at Huo Shenyan and said, "Your father hasn't come home for so many years, do you think it's an accident?"
Huo Shenyan lowered his eyes. His eyes were truly beautiful, with deep, dark pupils that seemed to draw people in, as if they were being sucked in.
He shook his head and said softly, "I don't think so."
The reason was so simple: Ni Pingsen only needed to go to the embassy once, and he could easily go home.
He asked, "What do you plan to do?"
"I want to take my dad back to Shanghai." This is Ni Jingxi's biggest goal.
Seeing her troubled expression, Huo Shenyan lowered his head and gently kissed her forehead, seemingly to comfort her. Then he asked, "Are you worried about that Miss Liu?"
Huo Shenyan has always been very good at judging people. Even if he has only met someone once, he will still remember them very well.
She possessed a shrewd, worldly wisdom that wasn't necessarily off-putting, but the situation was complicated now. He didn't think Ni Jingxi would be happy to see her return to Shanghai with Ni Pingsen.
Ni Jingxi nodded, but then fell silent and said in a low voice, "But Shenyan, this is Dad's life. I don't know how he survived from nothing for the past seven years. I can't forgive Liu Hui because it was her who made my grandmother carry regrets in her heart until her death."
“You know what? If she had been able to bring Dad back seven years ago, I would have knelt down and thanked her. But not now.”
Even if she didn't see the truth, she could guess some things. She didn't know why Liu Hui kept clinging to Ni Pingsen, but if it weren't for her interference, Ni Pingsen wouldn't have stayed away for so long.
But no matter how much she disliked Liu Hui, she couldn't make the choice for Ni Pingsen.
Because this is her father's life.
Huo Shenyan reached out and hugged her, whispering, "Xingxing seems to have really grown up."
Ni Jingxi looked up, initially a little annoyed but then chuckled at his words, and asked curiously, "You've grown up like this? What was I like before?"
"Should we rush over and beat her up?" Huo Shenyan actually thought about it for a while before speaking seriously.
Ni Jingxi looked at him and said calmly, "Yes, actually I really want to do that."
Her personality is really not suited to getting caught up in things. Generally speaking, when faced with such a messy situation, Ni Jingxi's best skill is to cut everything in half.
In the past, she might have forced Ni Pingsen to leave with her.
But now, she must respect Ni Pingsen's own choice.
Even if he really chooses to let Liu Hui go back to Shanghai with him, Ni Jingxi might have no choice but to accept it.
But would Ni Pingsen do that?
*
After Ni Pingsen got out of the car, Lao Sun watched him enter the restaurant. At this time, the restaurant's roller shutter door was half closed, indicating that it did not plan to open for business today.
When Ni Pingsen bent down and crawled inside, the shop looked particularly gloomy due to insufficient lighting.
There wasn't a single customer.
Liu Hui was sitting at a table with several plates of cold dishes and a bottle of liquor in front of her—surprisingly, a bottle of Moutai. When Ni Pingsen walked over, she was already flushed from drinking.
After glancing up at him, Liu Hui rested her chin on one hand and pointed to the stool next to her with the other.
"Sit down."
Ni Pingsen slowly sat down. There was another wine glass on the table. When Liu Hui picked up the wine bottle, her hands were trembling. Just as she was about to pour the wine, Ni Pingsen suddenly took the bottle away.
He said, "Stop drinking, you've had too much."
Liu Hui laughed, her smile was extremely charming, every frown and smile was full of tenderness.
She suddenly touched her face and said with a smile, "I've been good-looking since I was little, really. I was known as a beauty in our area. Everyone said that with my looks, I'd definitely marry into a good family when I grew up."
At this point, she suddenly laughed self-deprecatingly.
It's really not a good thing for a girl from a poor family to be beautiful.
She dropped out of school at sixteen, and her parents started arranging marriages for her, demanding an exorbitant dowry of 180,000 yuan. This was an astronomical sum in their area, but even in small places, there are always plenty of wealthy people.
Selling a daughter with such a clear price tag will always attract people who want to see just how beautiful she must be to dare to sell herself for such a high price.
As one potential partner after another came to meet, and her parents were still picking and choosing, Liu Hui couldn't take it anymore.
Finally, she ran away by herself. At first, she went to Guangzhou to work, and later she moved to several other places.
Until she met the first man she liked, and she truly liked him, but he was poor and had no money. Her parents insisted on a dowry of 180,000 yuan, not a penny less.
Yes, she can get married without her parents' consent.
But the moment she had this thought, her mother drank poison and was rushed to the hospital. This money was meant to be her younger brother's dowry for his future marriage; if she couldn't get it back, she felt it was tantamount to telling her parents to die.
As Liu Hui spoke, she glanced at Ni Pingsen with seductive eyes.
She chuckled and said, "People from big cities like you probably can't understand the ignorance of our place."
Ni Pingsen gazed at her quietly, his eyes tender.
Liu Hui couldn't bear his gaze any longer; perhaps that was why she was determined to hold onto him even at the cost of her life. In that hellish prisoner-of-war camp, he was the only one with the same skin color as her, and besides, he was so gentle, always helping others even when he was being beaten.
It is said that human nature is inherently evil, and such a hellish place can drive people crazy.
But she didn't go crazy, because he always protected her and comforted her.
Even though he had no relationship with her whatsoever, she felt so warm when she listened to him talk about Shanghai, about his deceased wife and daughter.
He said he had to get out alive because his daughter was waiting for him in Shanghai.
At that time, Liu Hui was truly envious. There are always so many unfair things in the world. She, a living person, was forced by her parents to ask for a bride price, and in the end, she could only go to the Middle East to work with her boyfriend.
After arriving in the Middle East, her boyfriend, unable to bear the hardship, encouraged her to marry a wealthy Middle Eastern man.
Liu Hui was truly stunning; the other party took a liking to her at first sight.
So in the end, she did agree to marry that rich man, even though he already had several wives. She wanted money, she only wanted money.
As for the dreams her ex-boyfriend was having, that was even more ridiculous.
He actually expected to get a sum of money from that rich man and then elope with him back to China. Liu Hui found it utterly ridiculous, and she laughed at herself for being so blind as to think that this kind of person was true love.
She then settled temporarily in the Middle East, but unfortunately, her good fortune didn't last long, as she was kidnapped during a trip.
Her so-called husband never paid to ransom her.
It was in this despair that she met Ni Pingsen in the prisoner-of-war camp. Although they were both kidnapped, he kept comforting and protecting her.
How could Liu Hui not love a man like that?
She thought all men in the world were the same, whether it was her ex-boyfriend or her so-called husband, they were all so selfish that they disgusted her.
But he really isn't.
This was the first time Ni Pingsen had heard about her background.
She never spoke of it before, and he never asked.
Now that she had spoken out without any reservations, Liu Hui seemed to feel extremely relieved, and she poured herself another glass of wine.
After she finished drinking it in one gulp, Ni Pingsen looked at her.
He said, "Do you know I have a daughter?"
"I know," Liu Hui replied without hesitation.
A trace of grief flashed in Ni Pingsen's eyes. Sure enough, even if he was deceiving himself, the truth was still so cruel.
He finally spoke with a determined look: "So you're deliberately preventing me from returning to China?"
Liu Hui looked at him, seemingly smiling but with tears in her eyes: "Before you lost your memory, I asked you why you hadn't remarried even after your wife had been dead for so long. You told me that you would stay with her for the rest of your life and would never remarry. Because that was a promise you made to yourself and your daughter."
“I didn’t have such high hopes of keeping you by my side, but we were rescued and you lost your memory. So I became attached to you.”
Looking into his eyes, Liu Hui finally called out in the gentlest of all, "Ping Sen, you know how powerful human desire can be. I have experienced a warmth in you that I have never felt in my life before, so I want to keep you by my side."
From the time she could remember, she was not just a person; she was a tool her parents used to raise money for her younger brother's marriage.
She thought she could break free from her family of origin and find happiness, but she encountered one selfish man after another. She never knew that in this world, there could be someone who could be good to another person without any self-interest.
So she became greedy and wanted him to stay with her forever.
Ni Pingsen looked at her, his eyes filled with nothing but sorrow.
Finally, Liu Hui stood up as if she couldn't take it anymore. She asked, "Why aren't you angry? Why don't you scold me and say that I'm vicious and deserve to die for having such a wicked thought, keeping you by my side without caring about your family's feelings?"