Gentle to the Bone - Chapter 5

During the Spring Festival of 2016, Shen Yansheng originally thought that she would never have the opportunity to reunite with her father. She and her mother discussed going to Nanshan Temple early on New Year’s Eve to have a stick of incense, and prayed to the Buddha to bless their family of three to reunite as soon as possible.

Unexpectedly, just the day before New Year’s Eve, when I was drying clothes on the balcony with my mother in the morning, I suddenly received a call from Gu Xu.

Shen Yansheng didn’t know Gu Xu’s phone number. He was an unselfish prosecutor. He wouldn’t even give her a chance to meet her when she came to ask for help. She suddenly called her on the eve of the Spring Festival, which surprised her somewhat.

In just a few minutes, she held the phone tightly and felt the string in her heart break tightly, as if waiting for a verdict.

The moment she heard Gu Xu finally say that she was asked to go to the detention center to pick up her father home, she suddenly couldn’t help her nose sore, as if the boulder that had been pressing on her for months had finally been removed, and she was so weak that she was almost at a loss. Sit down on the ground.

Gu Xu said on the phone, “Come here now. Originally, this case would have to wait until the end of the year to be dealt with, but someone forced me to deal with it properly a year ago. I worked overtime and finally finished the procedure.”

Of course Shen Yansheng knew who Gu Xu was talking about. She nodded while holding back her tears, and said, “I’ll come, I’ll come right away.”

After hanging up the phone, she went back to her room and changed clothes in a hurry. When she went out, Zhou Xiuyun handed her an umbrella with trembling hands. Knowing that her husband was going home soon, Zhou Xiuyun was so excited that she was shaking all over, and told her daughter, “Be careful, it’s raining heavily.”

Shen Yansheng nodded, told her mother to take care of herself at home, opened the umbrella and hurried out the door.

On this day, it rained heavily in Beicheng, and because of the approaching New Year’s Eve, many people were rushing to go home for the New Year, so the traffic was congested along the way. Usually, the distance of half an hour’s drive was abruptly driven for almost an hour.

Shen Yansheng was anxious to see her father, but she felt anxious. When she got to Yanghuai Road, she finally couldn’t help it, and paid in advance to get off the bus.

The driver said to her through the car window, “Miss, it’s still far from the detention center.”

Shen Yansheng opened the umbrella and said, “It’s okay, I’ll walk over.”

The traffic behind her was blocked, Shen Yansheng was wearing a black coat and walking by the side of the road holding an umbrella, she walked faster and faster, and finally ran, the rain splashed the hem of her coat, but she also gradually left the traffic behind. behind.

When Gu Xu saw Shen Yansheng, she saw that her whole body was almost soaked by the rain, her fair cheeks were flushed, it was obviously a cold winter and the twelfth lunar month, and there were fine beads of sweat on her forehead.

He was a little surprised and asked in surprise, “You came here? It’s raining so hard.”

Shen Yansheng said: “There is a traffic jam on the road. I came from Yanghuai Road, and it’s not too far.”

She put away her umbrella, stood on the steps, looked at Gu Xu’s face with a bright smile that she hadn’t seen in a long time, and her eyes were extraordinarily bright, and asked, “Gu Jian, where is my father?”

Gu Xu then said: “It’s inside, it’s raining so hard, I’ll let him sit inside for a while.”

Behind Gu Xu was the office lobby of the detention center. Shen Yansheng was anxious to see her father, and at this moment, she couldn’t even care about etiquette. She passed Gu Xu and walked straight towards the inner hall.

Perhaps because of the holiday, there were not many staff in the office hall. Shen Yansheng walked in and saw his father sitting on the empty bench in the distance.

Even though it was so far apart, Shen Yansheng still felt that his father had lost a lot of weight, and the originally black hair had almost turned gray in these short months.

Her heart seemed to be filled with lead, and it was weighed down so heavily that she didn’t dare to move forward.

Perhaps it was the telepathy between the father and the daughter. Shen Haihua, who had his head down, seemed to sense the presence of his daughter. He raised his head, and from a distance, he saw the daughter standing in the distance, bursting with tears.

Seeing his daughter cry, he suddenly couldn’t control the tears.

He stood up and walked in the direction of his daughter.

It was only at this moment that Shen Yansheng realized that her father had not only had white hair, but his back, which was originally straight, had become hunched.

She suddenly felt very, very sad at that moment. Fate is so elusive, her father has worked hard all his life, and in the end he has nothing.

But she also felt that after so many things, the family of three can be reunited now, and it is already God’s mercy to them.

She didn’t want to make the family reunion day so sad, so she tried her best to show a smile, hold back her tears, walked to her father, and shouted happily, “Dad,” just like when she saw her father coming home from a young age.

Shen Haihua looked at Pang’s emaciated daughter in front of him, his vicissitudes of life filled with tears, and even his voice was choked when he spoke, “Sheng Sheng, you are thin.”

Shen Yansheng smiled and said, “No way, you haven’t seen me for too long.”

While talking, he helped Dad out and said, “Let’s go home, Dad, Mom is waiting for us at home.”

Speaking of his wife, Shen Haihua asked worriedly, “How is your mother? Is the operation going well?”

Shen Yansheng nodded and said, “It’s very smooth, I was discharged from the hospital a while ago, and you can see my mother when you get home.”

Walking to the door, Shen Yansheng first carried an umbrella to the side of the road to take a taxi, then helped his father to the car, then turned around and said to Gu Xu, who took them out, “Gu Jian, thank you.”

Gu Xu smiled and said meaningfully, “It’s not me who you want to thank, and I’m just following the instructions above and doing things according to the rules.”

Of course Shen Yansheng knew that who was behind the father’s release so quickly. But she still smiled at Gu Xu and said, “Thank you anyway.”

That night, in the small house of the Minghua Road Textile Factory, a family of three finally reunited. Zhou Xiuyun cooked a large table of her husband’s favorite dishes to wash away the dust for him, but during dinner, Shen Haihua, who had never cried easily, couldn’t help crying in front of his wife and daughter.

He sat down on the sofa, crying in pain. Seeing this, Shen Yansheng hurriedly put down the bowls and chopsticks and sat down, holding Dad’s hand, “Dad? What’s wrong?”

Shen Haihua raised his head, his eyes were full of tears, looking at his daughter’s eyes full of guilt, he blamed himself extremely, and said in pain: “Sheng Sheng, it’s Dad who dragged you down.”

In the afternoon, Shen Haihua and his wife talked for a long time in the room, only to realize that after the accident at home, Fu Shiyu unilaterally abandoned his daughter as if he had disappeared from the world.

Zhou Xiuyun couldn’t stop crying when she said, “Not long after you had an accident, I also fell ill. In those days, Sheng Sheng wanted to take care of me and run around for your affairs, but those who were good friends with you in the past All my friends avoided Sheng Sheng, and even the Fu family refused to help.”

“Although Sheng Sheng always reported good news to me but not bad news, but I watched her lose weight day by day, and my heart was cut like a knife.”

Seeing her father blaming herself like this, Shen Yansheng also felt sad. She clenched her father’s hands and said, “Dad, don’t think like that. I don’t know how happy I am to be your and mother’s daughter. I have been with you since I was a child. Growing up under the protection of my mother, I have never suffered a bit. Although our family is in trouble, the most important thing is that our family of three is still together. Nothing is more important than this.”

Having said that, she paused for a while, then continued: “As for Fu Shiyu, I don’t think losing him is a loss. Having experienced this change, I can see things that I usually can’t see clearly.”

I understand that true love does not exist in this world. It is human’s instinct to seek advantages and avoid disadvantages, so there is a saying: husband and wife are birds in the same forest, and when disaster strikes, they fly separately.

Instead, she would like to thank this incident, so that she understands that people should never pin their feelings on others. Without passion, it can be indestructible.

That night, the family of three chatted in the living room for a long time, and did not go back to their rooms to rest until the early hours of the morning.

Back in the room, Shen Yansheng sat down beside the bed, picked up her phone and sent Lu Jingce a WeChat, a few short words, but with her most sincere thanks.

She knew too much how much she owed Lu Jingce. If Lu Jingce hadn’t come out to help, she might still be charged by loan sharks today, or maybe she would have been thrown into the vast sea on the day she was kidnapped to Heifengya, how could she still have the chance to spend the New Year with her parents alive? .

Therefore, the WeChat message she sent to Lu Jingce, although few words, was very sincere.

And when Lu Jingce received the WeChat message from Shen Yansheng, he was still in a friend’s game. He was in bad luck that night, he didn’t play a card all night, and was leaning against the window smoking a cigarette.

The phone vibrated in his trouser pocket, he took it out, and watched Shen Yansheng send him a WeChat thank you.

He stared at it, and the corner of his lips unconsciously raised a smile, and then directly dialed the phone.

On the other end of the phone, Shen Yansheng saw that Lu Jingce had called her directly, picked it up quickly, lowered her voice, and said softly, “Hello.”

Lu Jingce’s voice came, lowly, with a somewhat pet-like smile, and said, “Shen Yansheng, I’ve spent so much trouble, I don’t want to hear you say thank you.”

Of course Shen Yansheng knew what Lu Jingce wanted, she unconsciously pursed her lower lip and said softly, “I know.”

Lu Jingce seemed to be making her addicted, the smile in his voice deepened, and he asked her, “What do you know?”

“…” Shen Yansheng was a little embarrassed for a while, she pursed her lips and stopped speaking.

Her embarrassed reaction seemed to please Lu Jingce, he chuckled a few times, and he could feel his pleasure through the receiver.

After he laughed enough, he suddenly asked her inexplicably, “Can you play Cantonese mahjong?”

The topic of Lu Jingce jumped too fast, Shen Yansheng couldn’t help but be stunned, before answering after a while, “Yes, what’s wrong?”

Shen Yansheng never dreamed that on the eve of the Spring Festival in 2016, she would take a bus to Fengming Villa in the middle of the night to help Lu Jingce play cards.

The driver who came to pick her up was Lu Jingce’s driver, Uncle Chen, an experienced driver with over 30 years of accident-free driving experience. He was very kind. He chatted with her on the way and said with a smile, “Mr. Lu is not feeling very lucky tonight. After playing all night, I haven’t played a single card.”

Shen Yansheng couldn’t help but smile when she heard the words, and she couldn’t believe it, that someone was playing cards, and she couldn’t handle a single card.

It was already one o’clock in the morning when we arrived at Fengming Villa, and the temperature in the mountains was lower than in the city. When we got off the car, a gust of cold wind whistled, making Shen Yansheng subconsciously shiver.

Uncle Chen helped her lead the way and said, “Mr. Lu and the others are inside.”

Shen Yansheng nodded, subconsciously wrapped the scarf tighter, and followed Uncle Chen into the villa.

She had also been to Fengming Villa before, she was with Fu Shiyu at that time, it was a friend of Fu Shiyu’s birthday, and she booked a few rooms here.

It was just that the private room was in the outer courtyard. Fu Shiyu also told her that his friend originally wanted to reserve several rooms in the inner courtyard, but he did not decide. He said that the rooms in the inner courtyard were not open to the public, and were reserved for the boring entertainment of a few big people. The place.

When he followed Uncle Chen to the inner courtyard, Shen Yansheng realized that the legendary big man was Lu Jingce and the others.

She followed Uncle Chen through a yard and finally came to a long corridor.

This corridor was twisted and twisted, like walking through a maze, and after a long detour, they finally came to Lu Jingce’s base.

Before entering the box, he saw Lu Jingce from a distance.

He leaned against the door of the box and smoked, wondering if he was waiting for her, or if he was bored and came out to get some air. Seeing her appear, there was a smile on the corner of his lips, still in the posture of copying his pocket with one hand, with a cigarette between his fingers in the other hand, leaning against the door to wait for her to pass.

Shen Yansheng walked up to Lu Jingce, Lu Jingce glanced at her, and then asked her, “Why so long?”

Shen Yansheng explained, “I have to wait until my parents are asleep before I dare to go out.”

Lu Jingce looked at Shen Yansheng with a bit of a smile in his eyes, and teased her: “What? You came out to be a thief? Don’t you dare let the adults in your family know?”

Shen Yansheng pursed her lips unconsciously, she looked at Lu Jingce and thought, what is the difference between her and coming out to be a thief.

Lu Jingce glanced at her, as if to see through what she was thinking, his smile deepened, he reached out and hooked her cheek, and said, “How about scolding me?”

Shen Yansheng said, “How dare I.”

Lu Jingce sneered.

At this time, a friend shouted, “Is my sister-in-law here? Come in, there are three missing and one!”

Shen Yansheng looked at Lu Jingce and waited for him to speak.

Lu Jingce hadn’t finished the cigarette in his hand, he took out his wallet from his trouser pocket and gave it to Shen Yansheng, and said, “Go play, if you lose, it’s mine, if you win, it’s yours.”

Shen Yansheng took the wallet, she was a little nervous, looked at Lu Jingce, and asked carefully, “What if I lose too much?”

Lu Jingce looked at her and was amused by Shen Yansheng’s cautious and well-behaved appearance, and said, “If you lose, you will lose. Are you still afraid that I won’t have any money?”

With Lu Jingce’s assurance, Shen Yansheng was relieved to take his wallet and go in to help him play cards.

Luckily, she was lucky. After one night, not only did she not lose, but she also won a lot.

When it was almost dawn, the game ended. Back in the room, Shen Yansheng stacked the winning money and gave it to Lu Jingce.

Lu Jingce sat on the sofa smoking a cigarette, watched Shen Yansheng hand him the money, and said, “Keep it yourself, what can you do for me.”

Shen Yansheng said seriously: “I already owe you a lot.”

Lu Jingce put out the cigarette **** in the ashtray and said, “You also know that you owe me a lot. But since you already owe so much, it doesn’t matter if you owe more, you have to pay it back anyway.”

After Shen Yansheng listened to Lu Jingce’s words, she stopped insisting. For Lu Jingce, this amount of money might not be worth it at all.

She put the money back in her bag and said, “Then next time I play cards for you, I’ll play with the money I won today.”

Lu Jingce looked up at her, as if he heard something cute, and there was always a smile in his eyes.

Shen Yansheng originally thought that something would definitely happen that night, but unexpectedly, Lu Jingce didn’t touch her. He sat on the sofa and read a report after taking a shower.

Seeing that Lu Jingce didn’t sleep, she didn’t dare to sleep, but maybe it was because of the rain during the day, and she played cards all night. Sitting on the sofa, she gradually felt dizzy, and her body was slowly unable to support herself. Unable to bear the sleepiness, he lay on the armrest of the sofa and closed his eyes.

Shen Yansheng didn’t know how long she slept this time. She felt as if she had a long dream. She dreamed of many people, including former friends and Fu Shiyu. I also dreamed that I was standing on the edge of a cliff, as if I would fall in the next second.

When she woke up, she faintly heard someone talking beside the bed. She opened her eyes and saw a female doctor in a white coat was helping her pull out the infusion tube on the back of her hand. When she woke up, she smiled and said, “You wake up. already?”

Shen Yansheng had just woken up, her consciousness was still a little chaotic, she subconsciously looked at Lu Jingce next to the doctor, wearing a shirt and black pants, was standing beside the bed with her pockets in her pockets.

Seeing her pitiful appearance, Lu Jingce couldn’t say anything serious. He just asked, “Does your head still hurt?”

Shen Yansheng shook his head subconsciously. Only then did I feel a little tired.

The doctor took her temperature with a thermometer and said, “The fever has subsided, and it should be fine after taking the medicine on time for a few days.”

Lu Jingce made a “hmm” and sent the doctor away before closing the door. He walked to the coffee table, poured a cup of warm water from a cup, walked back to the bed, and picked up Shen Yansheng to take medicine.

When he handed the medicine to Shen Yansheng, Shen Yansheng looked at him a little warily and asked subconsciously, “What is this?”

Lu Jingce laughed angrily at Shen Yansheng’s vigilant look, and deliberately frightened her, “Poison, if you eat it, you will die.”

Shen Yansheng heard Lu Jingce say this, and of course knew that he was deliberately scaring her. She took the medicine over and looked at it, and it turned out that it was just an ordinary sense of health.

She took the cup from Lu Jingce’s hand, and then took the medicine obediently.

Lu Jingce looked at her and said, “I don’t know what to say? If it’s 40 degrees, I’m not afraid of burning my brain?”

Shen Yansheng actually felt a little uncomfortable when she played poker last night, but everyone was still excited at the time, and she wasn’t good at spoiling it.

She obediently finished taking the medicine, looked at Lu Jingce, and said, “I didn’t expect to have a fever, and I’m fine now.”

She still remembered that today was New Year’s Eve and couldn’t help but ask, “What time is it now?”

Lu Jingce put the cup back on the bedside table for her, and said, “It’s almost noon, sleep a little longer, and I’ll ask you to eat later.”

When Shen Yansheng heard that it was almost noon, he was about to get out of bed immediately. Lu Jingce pressed the person back and frowned, “What are you tossing about?”

Shen Yansheng was anxious and said, “Today is New Year’s Eve, I have to go home.”

Lu Jingce frowned even more, staring at Shen Yansheng, “Would you like to look in the mirror and see how pale you are now, do you think you have a long life?”

Shen Yansheng bit her lip, she wanted to refute, but the person in front of her was Lu Jingce. She knew that she was his person now and wanted to listen to him, so she held back and did not dare to attack.

Knowing what she was thinking, Lu Jingce raised his hand and rubbed her head, “Listen to what you have to say, rest for a while, and I’ll take you back later.”

Shen Yansheng knew that she couldn’t fight against Lu Jingce, and in the end she still lay back on the bed obediently. She found her mobile phone and called her mother, saying that she and her friends were playing outside, and that she would go back to celebrate with them at night.

On the other end of the phone, Zhou Xiuyun and his wife woke up in the morning and didn’t see their daughter. They were worried at first, but when they heard that her daughter was just hanging out with friends, they couldn’t help but say, “You kid, why don’t you say a word when you go out? Your father and I are so worried.”

Shen Yansheng curled up in the quilt, and said obediently: “I was wrong, I will tell you in advance next time I go out, I forgot today.”

Only then did Zhou Xiuyun feel more at ease, and said, “Okay, then you play outside and pay attention to safety. Come back early in the evening. Your dad said to make you a braised beef brisket that you like to eat.”

After hearing this, Shen Yansheng finally showed a smile, nodded “um”, and said, “Understood, I’ll be back in the afternoon.”

After hanging up the phone, Shen Yansheng got off the bed and went to the bathroom.

When she finished using the toilet and looked in the mirror, she suddenly felt that Lu Jingce was right. Her face is really bad, and if she goes back like this, it is estimated that her parents will also be very worried.

When she came out of the bathroom and saw Lu Jingce sitting on the sofa with her laptop in her arms, she hesitated for a while, but walked over, squatted in front of the coffee table, and poured a cup of hot water to drink.

Lu Jingce looked up at her, and was amused by Shen Yansheng squatting in front of the coffee table, holding a cup and drinking hot water, and deliberately teased her, “Go back without making a fuss?”

Shen Yansheng felt his fault and remained silent.

After a while, she sat next to Lu Jingce holding the cup, and said seriously to him, “I want to go home in the afternoon, so you can take me back after lunch, okay?”

Lu Jingce didn’t lift his head, and teased her, “It depends on my mood.”

Shen Yansheng: “…”

The author says:

From the next chapter, there will be more rivalry between the two~