The little shrimp said, "Sister, please be my older sister in your next life, since you don't have a younger brother!"
Ah Heng lowered her voice—I have a younger brother, he… is the same age as you.
Xiaoxia suddenly realized—this must be her sister's younger brother from when she was at the Yun family's house. Where is he now?
Ah Heng said, "The Wen family doesn't like me contacting them. I just call the hospital often to find out that he had surgery and was discharged last year after recovering."
The little shrimp is confused but pretends to be mature—that's good, very good.
He saw the sadness in Ah Heng's eyes, but didn't know what to say. That was good, but he still didn't know why.
Although that person recovered from their illness, they were the closest strangers he would never see again.
What a huge price to pay!
Xiaoxia cautiously observed Aheng's expression, but Aheng smiled—"Alas, all older sisters in the world feel the same way. They always hope you are well, and they worry about you being a few years younger than them. They wish they could grow up faster for you."
Seeing the tears in her eyes, Xiaoxia chuckled dryly—Sister, he must be missing you, just like me. I understand him.
He patted his chest and said I understood him.
Aheng patted his shoulder, said nothing, smiled, took his hand, and walked towards Zizhuyuan.
Zizhuyuan Park is said to have more than 500,000 bamboo trees, most of which have deep purple branches and trunks. With its small bridges and flowing streams, it is elegant and stylish, easily reminding people of the literary fame and refined deeds of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, although the two have no connection whatsoever.
Xiaoxia said, "Sister, do you know that there's a legend about Zizhuyuan Park?"
Ah Heng stroked the long, slender bamboo branches, feeling their coolness and smoothness. She imagined the sound of a flute playing in her ears, soft and gentle. She tilted her head and asked him—what legend?
The little shrimp is mysterious—legend has it that if two people walk hand in hand here, whether they are lovers or not, they will inevitably become strangers in this lifetime.
Ah Heng chuckled, unconvinced.
Suddenly, a sound came from behind—you better believe it.
Ah Heng turned around and saw a man in a long trench coat sitting on a park bench. He looked to be about twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old and had a handsome face.
Ah Heng looked at him; he was a very familiar face, but she couldn't quite place him.
The man smiled, took out a pair of gold-rimmed glasses from his trench coat pocket, put them on, looked at her, and nodded in acknowledgment.
Ah Heng's gaze became somewhat wary.
This man, known as Xiao Chen, is Lin Ruomei's secretary.
Yan hope felt extremely uneasy every time he saw him. Aheng had a gut feeling that this person must be connected to what happened to Yan hope back then.
Lin Ruomei was replaced by Lu Liu two years ago, and the Lu family's empire now belongs solely to the Lu family. As for the Wen family, they hold shares, but it's unclear what their stake is.
She greeted him politely—Secretary Chen, if it's convenient, I'd like to have a chat with you.
Secretary Chen nodded slightly and said, "Miss Wen, just call me Xiao Chen."
Ah Heng smiles—your name?
Xiao Chen paused for a moment, then shook his head—I don't have a name. I grew up in an orphanage and only know that my surname is Chen. Later, I was adopted by the Lu family and have always been called Xiao Chen.
Ah Heng found it unbelievable; how could there be people in this world who didn't have names?
So, regarding household registration...
He smiled—on the household registration, it was the name Lu Shao had casually given him when he was a child, a name they never called him.
Ah Heng's expression softened slightly, and she said, "Mr. Chen, I'm sorry, but I'd like to ask you something today..."
Xiao Chen rested his chin on his hand and murmured softly, "Let me guess... about what happened to Young Master Yan back then, right?"
Aheng nodded.
He lit a cigarette, holding it between his index and middle fingers. His refined and unassuming appearance concealed a deadly allure.
It belongs to men, yet it is a natural gift that other men cannot possess.
He spoke up—first, I must clarify two points to Miss Wen. First, the matter of Young Master Yan being humiliated back then has nothing to do with me, so you don't need to bother trying to kill me with the candied hawthorns you have on hand; second, I am not Lin Ruomei's person, and never have been.
Aheng frowned – So, you are Lu Liu's person?
Xiao Chen smiled, or rather, one could say, he was from the Lu family.
If you had nothing to do with that matter, Yan hope would have looked so...unpleasant when he saw you.
Okay, this is a long story, I need to organize my thoughts.
His eyes were unfocused as he gazed into the distance, the cigarette butt in his hand shimmering with orange specks, his fingers pale and worn.
He exhaled a breath in the crisp, cold air.
I don't even know where to begin with this story.
—When I was ten, on my tenth birthday, I was taken from the orphanage by the Lu family after answering a few intelligence questions correctly. At first, I thought I'd finally have a complete family, but in reality… I was constantly trained as a chess piece. You know what a chess piece is, right? It's someone who's there to help most of the time, but can be sacrificed at crucial moments… I was sent to the best business school, along with many other children my age. Their existence, and mine, was solely for the sake of the Lu family's only grandson, Lu Liu. He needed a solid chessboard; in fact, many times, that was more important than a hardened heart…
Xiao Chen paused for a moment, then smiled. His voice was soft, carrying a hint of reminiscence, yet also a sense of joy.
—And I, because of my excellent grades, was assigned to Lu Liu's side early to tutor him in his daily studies and life. I am seven years older than him. When we met once, he looked at me for a long time before smiling and touching my face, saying, "So it's the real person."
Lu Liu, as a child, was a very gentle and kind boy. Hmm, he reminds me somewhat of… Miss Wen. He was fair-skinned, like a little jade statue, and was often jokingly called 'Little Bodhisattva Lu' by his elders. I've been secretly observing him. You know, this is probably something that happens in many novels. My coming to his side isn't for simple reasons. I need to report his every move to Old Master Lu. I need to prevent him from becoming obsessed with the bright side of the world, or even from becoming overly intimate with one person.
But he would keep looking at me pitifully and say, "Brother, let me play with Yanxi a little longer. After we defeat the monster, we'll do our homework."
That was the first time I heard Yan hope's name from him.
As Aheng listened, she suddenly smiled, her eyes shining, and gently asked him, "Yan hope, was he as sharp-tongued as he is now when he was a child?"
Xiao Chen waved his hand, lost in deep thought. No, no, no, it's not like it is now at all.
I've never seen... such a cheerful child. He had chubby cheeks, a bob haircut, huge eyes, and a mouth that could crack a heart when he smiled. Every time I saw him, he was always running around in a pair of pig-head slippers, a bag of milk dangling from his mouth, following behind Lu Liu, gulping it down as he ran.
He and Lu Liu grew up together, and the two always had a very good relationship. Ah, there's a phrase, "inseparable," which often applies to them.
I often see them sitting together on the carpet playing Transformers, holding game controllers, killing little figures, yet unknowingly falling into a deep sleep with their little heads down.
Oh, right, Yan hope used to suck his thumb when he was little, probably because he didn't have a mother from a very young age.
When I look at them, I always feel a sense of quiet, as if it's the last bit of warmth I can grasp.
So I chose to remain silent, no longer actively reporting to Old Master Lu. Instead, I taught Lu Liu some business skills from time to time, took him to eat the cheapest yet most delicious food I had as a child, and told him how kind the world was. Fortunately, Lu Liu was developing in the direction I had hoped for—a close partner with a soft heart. However, this was no longer within the range that Old Master Lu could tolerate.
He was furious and wanted to take back everything I owned, including the identity that allowed me to be a person, to stay by the side of the child who gave me my name.
Lu Liu cried and begged him, saying he would never dare to do it again, and begged Grandpa not to send his brother away, promising he would never do it again. From that moment on, Lu Liu changed a lot... He became more self-disciplined and patient, and although his face was gentle, he became less talkative. He became more and more dependent on me, but drifted further and further away from Yan hope.
As for Yan Xi, during that time, he was in the second year of junior high school, but he began to rebel. He grew his hair long, tied it in a small braid, carried his sketchbook, and ran to various places to draw different things, beautiful and dirty, as long as he saw them.
He painted silver bracelets on roadside stalls, twilight after the rain, copied the Mona Lisa, painted dirty walls, stray dogs fighting over a piece of bread, and even men and women having sex in a dark movie theater where Van Gogh's movies were being shown.
You can't imagine how many alleyways and dirty, rough places that child, thin and frail, wearing a rainbow-colored sweater, traversed.
He seemed to be searching for something, something I didn't understand, and neither did Lu Liu. As for Wen Shao and Xin Shao, in their interactions with Yan Xi and Lu Liu, they didn't even know that Xiao Chen existed.
Yan hope no longer smiles. He often runs to the places Lu Liu and I went to together, and when he comes back, he tells us very seriously, "I've eaten what you ate. It's too sweet, too sour, too bitter, and not tasty at all, really."
Lu Liu looked at him and always smiled indifferently. It was youthful impetuosity that made him tolerant or patient of Yan hope's childishness.
He often said to me, "Brother, Yanxi is still too young, isn't he?"
He was eager to proclaim his maturity, preferring to teach me how to eat a lavish European meal, drink red wine, and warm each other rather than expose his weakness and cry loudly while holding me.
Back then, there was a legend in Zizhuyuan that two people who were very close would walk through the bamboo forest together and then go their separate ways. Yan hope was so dismissive of that. He grabbed Lu Liu's hand, ran through every bamboo stalk, and then burst into laughter.
As I watched them, seeing their innocent smiles return to those of their childhood, a vague sense of jealousy stirred within me.
I can't quite understand what I'm thinking, but everyone has things and people they can't share.
Lu Liu secretly said to me, "Brother, I won't go to that bamboo forest with you. We definitely won't go."
Then I realized that he and I had left an irreplaceable mark on each other's hearts.
In 1997, I don't know if you heard from the news, there was an explosion in the southern part of the capital. It was caused by fireworks being set off indoors in a bar during the Lunar New Year, and a total of 33 people died.
Ah Heng was stunned, trying hard to recall. She remembered the tragedy: the raging flames, the explosions, the rampant spread, the endless melting and scorching, the agonizing cries. She had seen it all back then, the horrific scenes magnified in the newspapers.
Xiao Chen took a deep drag on his cigarette, gazing wearily at the sky—at that time, Lu Liu, Yan Xi, and I were all there. Yan Xi and I had drunk too much, and as we watched the fireworks, we thought they were beautiful one moment, but the next second, we heard a terrible scream, which spread with the wind.
He said that Lu Liu could only choose one.
*********************************************************
Ah Heng stared blankly, tears streaming down her face. She looked at him in disbelief, her heart aching terribly. Finally, she went berserk and knocked him to the ground.
She kept crying, her voice hoarse, and she shouted—How could you, how could you give up on him so easily!
Xiao Chen's eyes were numb as he wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth—I grabbed Lu Liu's hand, thinking only of surviving. Lu Liu told me, "Don't look back, don't look back."
But when I turned around, there were tears in Yan hope's eyes. He had fallen to the ground, so thin and small, looking up at the melting signboard, desperately trying to crawl out.
Desperate, desperate, desperate.
He said, "I can't get out of this. It's a nightmare almost every day." Lu Liu couldn't face Yan hope, so he went to Vienna under the pretext of studying abroad.
Ah Heng said, "God have mercy, my Mr. Yan is still alive."
She let go, coldly looked down at the man, and wiped away the tears in her eyes—you will suffer the torment of your conscience forever.
She borrowed a pedestrian's phone and said with a smile, "Yanxi, I'm lost."
Then, Mr. Yan, who was quietly waiting for her, looked up and saw bamboo leaves falling and the aroma of fermented rice wafting far away.
After thinking about it carefully, in 1997, Hong Kong returned to China, and the whole country was overjoyed. Zai Zai had grown up a bit and was able to eat half a bowl of rice. The school sent her to the city for the first time to participate in a math competition, and she was lucky enough to win first place.
She counted on her fingers, but it seemed that none of these things had anything to do with her Mr. Yan.
She knew of such a hell on earth, but she didn't know of such a man who had risen from the ashes.
He was covered in sweat as he looked around the bamboo forest, where the bamboo stretched as far as the eye could see, a vibrant purple hue, and the sound of Ah Heng echoing through the air.
They rushed over, Ah Heng's shouts were intermittent, and the empty space was drowned out by the rustling of bamboo.
As she listened, she slowly closed her eyes and tears streamed down her face.
He found her, let out a long breath, leaned on the bamboo, and smiled—"Hey, you idiot, I've come to take you home."
She walked up to him and embraced him tightly, for a long time, stumbling and falling, embracing each other as if they were strangers.
He was at a loss, like a child, and gently patted her back—"It's okay, I'm here, it's alright now."
Her voice trembled, suppressed, and she sobbed softly—I couldn't even find a reason to tell them in 1997 that the boy they had abandoned would also be someone else's beloved in 2003! They almost trampled on someone else's treasure by claiming they didn't know!
Yan hope was stunned. She stared at her for a long, long time, confirming that the sadness and pain in her eyes were deep in her bones and could not be deeper.