They Regretted it After Their Hearts Turned to Ashes - Chapter 16
Luo Zhi’s good mood remained until the moment he left the room and got off the elevator to the hotel lobby.
Seeing the figure sitting in the distance, Luo Zhi stopped.
Luo Zhi didn’t pause, turned around and wanted to go back to the elevator.
It’s a pity that the people in the lobby have obviously been paying attention to the movement here. When they saw him appear, they immediately got up and walked over quickly.
When the elevator door was closed and opened, the girl had stopped in front of him: “Second brother!”
Luo Zhi pressed the elevator up button with one hand and frowned slightly.
His memory has been blank for a long time, but his body still responds to this too unfamiliar and ancient name. Even if I couldn’t hear Luo Cheng’s voice, just seeing that mouth shape, there was still a hidden stinging pain rushing up my back before consciousness.
The elevator door slowly opened behind Luo Cheng.
Luo Zhi lowered his gaze, raised his hand and lowered the brim of his hat.
He said apologetically in a low voice, intending to walk a few steps into the elevator, but suddenly Luo Cheng hugged his arm.
“Second brother.” Luo Cheng looked up at him and pursed his lips, “Are you still mad at me?”
Luo Zhi’s physical strength is not enough to draw out the dragged arm. He tried several times, but could only stop and watch the girl’s mouth quietly.
Some vague and fragmented chaotic pictures vaguely surfaced in his mind, but they couldn’t form a continuous fragment after all.
So Luo Zhi had to ask her, “Why am I mad at you?”
After he asked this sentence, Luo Orange’s expression was obviously flustered and stagnant for a moment.
That bright face could hardly hold a smile, Luo Orange twisted the corner of his clothes, and lowered his head to hide his guilty conscience.
She took this as Luo Zhi’s ridicule and questioning of her, and her instinctual panic lingered for a moment, soaking up the resentment and resistance that had been suppressed by force, and soon it became unreasonable embarrassment.
… She knew that Luo Zhi must have hated her.
Because I hated the things she had done before, I deliberately forced her with this kind of question and embarrassed her in public.
She really shouldn’t have left without saying anything after finding out that Luo Zhi’s situation was different, and lied when Brother Chenbai asked.
But if Luo Zhi didn’t direct and act, and made a farce of seeking death to threaten their families, how could such a thing happen?
Of course he was wrong, but could Luo Zhi never learn to introspect and be ashamed? How could she be so embarrassed to act like a victim and question her here…
Luo Cheng buried his head very low, hiding his thoughts, and the fingertips twisting the clothes were faintly white.
She was so disgusted with Luo Zhi, and learned from her elder brother that she forgot something because she was too young, and the conflict deepened.
– She didn’t know until yesterday that the cold treatment of Luo Zhi by her father and brother was actually because when they were young, Luo Zhi once took her away from her mother because of her willful playfulness.
Fortunately, Luo Cheng was lucky. He escaped from those bad guys within a few days, and happened to be discovered by the police not far away, so he returned home safely.
It was because of the excitement of this incident that my mother’s consciousness began to become unclear.
Luo Cheng was really too young at the time, a child with big heart and no memory, she had no impression of this experience at all… But these days, because of Director Gong’s documentary, Luo Cheng has seen many real cases, closed her eyes and thought about it. Just thinking about it makes the back cold.
What if she was really lost?
If you really lose it, what kind of life will you have to live, and what kind of hardship will you suffer?
She was only a few years old at the time, Luo Zhi almost ruined her life, how come she never felt any guilt?
These thoughts were too vividly entrenched, and they completely overwhelmed her instinctive trembling at the tragic past in the records after she learned that the prototype of “Little Huo Miao” was actually Luo Zhi.
Luo Cheng even thought that she was so naive – she still cared about Luo Zhi.
It was obviously Luo Zhi who made her almost lost, but Luo Zhi never refused to admit it, and never even had the slightest conscience uneasy because she almost caused her own sister to suffer this fate.
…
If it weren’t for the fact that he couldn’t turn against Luo Zhi now, Luo Cheng would almost be unable to hold back his temper, and he would just throw his hands away like he did every time before.
But after all, she still has something to rely on Luo Zhi to help. Luo Cheng, thinking about the agreement with Director Gong Hanrou, took a deep breath, readjusted her state and raised her head with a sweet smile: “Second brother…”
She only called out again against her will, then suddenly stopped talking, stunned, and met Luo Zhi’s gaze with some hesitation.
Luo Zhi didn’t know how long he had seen her.
The look in those eyes was serious and gentle, so gentle as if he was looking at someone he didn’t know very well.
Although I still know who the other party is, because they have been separated for too long or have experienced too many facts, they have begun to feel unfamiliar.
I don’t know how to respond to the other person’s enthusiasm because I’ve already begun to be a stranger, so I apologize with a little polite alienation.
Luo Orange stayed where he was.
…for some reason, she suddenly felt a little flustered.
It shouldn’t be like this.
It was clear that every time Luo Zhi looked at her, whether it was a casual smile or a soft condoning attitude to cover up, there would still be a subtle sense of disappointment under the cover.
Luo Cheng couldn’t help but clenched her palm lightly. For the first time, she realized that she had always seen that look so clearly.
Every time I see the sadness in Luo Zhi’s eyes, in Luo Orange’s heart, there is actually a very hidden and unspeakable joy.
She knew that Luo Zhi was too tolerant and conceited to her, so she often used this to punish Luo Zhi for destroying their family—Luo Cheng regarded this as justice in her heart.
She is protecting the second brother Jian and her mother, venting her anger on behalf of her father and brother who have been annoyed and devastated, and protecting her own home.
As for a person like Luo Zhi, of course he deserved it.
Luo Cheng never thought that one day, these emotions would disappear in those eyes without warning.
Therefore, even after such a breakdown, when Director Gong Hanrou asked her if she could bring the client, Luo Cheng subconsciously agreed without thinking.
… Will Luo Zhi still agree to her request now?
What if Luo Zhi did not agree to come forward?
The last time I went to see Director Gong Hanrou, her performance was not very good.
If I can’t bring Luo Zhi, will I lose this opportunity completely?
Luo Cheng couldn’t help being a little nervous. She tried her best to calm herself, and clasped her palms with her fingertips, and said the backup plan she had made: “Second brother, come with me, I want to make up for your birthday…”
As she spoke, she stretched out her hand to pull Luo Zhi, but Luo Zhi was still standing there.
“My birthday is over, and I have something very important to do right now.”
Luo Zhi shook his head gently: “I’m sorry, Little Orange.”
Luo Cheng didn’t expect that he couldn’t say anything, and he was angry for no reason, and blurted out: “What if our family wants to make up your birthday?”
Saying this sentence finally made a slight change in the pair of eyes that have always been calm and gentle.
Luo Zhi frowned slowly.
He didn’t seem to understand Luo Cheng’s words. After thinking for a while, he slowly repeated: “Your family?”
“Yes.” Luo Cheng bit her lower lip. In fact, she didn’t discuss this matter with her parents and eldest brother, but Luo Zhi could not enter the oil and salt, so she had to take one step at a time, “Father and mother, eldest brother, two…Huai Yi Brother, we are all looking at the sea and want to have a meal with you…”
Luo Zhi saw the key words in her words: “Wang Hai?”
“It’s Brother Chenbai’s villa.” In order to hide his guilty conscience, Luo Cheng said in one breath, “Don’t you remember? Aunt Ren lived there when she was recovering, and didn’t you live there all the time? It is very quiet and the scenery is very good, Brother Chenbai lent it to us, Brother Huai Yi accompanied his mother to recuperate there, and Dad and Big Brother are here today…”
She spoke so fast that Luo Zhi couldn’t identify the mouth shape, but it was not difficult to guess the context of the matter after all, the cause and effect were already vaguely linked in her mind.
It turned out that the trap that was waiting for him in Wanghai was this.
…
If he really couldn’t help going to the Ren family’s villa according to the text message Ren Chenbai sent him, he would run into a happy family.
Luo Zhi is very familiar with the next development.
Ren Chenbai likes to do this.
Push Luo Zhi into their house without warning, and then don’t care about anything, just wait for Luo Zhi to be punished with bruises and bruises by the family law, or to be blasted out in disgust.
Then he took Luo Zhi back to Ren’s house and told Luo Zhi that he could only rely on himself.
When he was still young, Luo Zhi was fooled more than once because he trusted Ren Chenbai too much.
It’s a pity that this time there is another Luo Cheng who can’t hold his words. Although it is not clear how Luo Cheng found him, the two groups of people were mistaken, but he was prepared in advance.
Luo Zhi still looked at Luo Cheng apologetically: “Xiao Cheng, I really have something important to do, so I won’t bother you anymore.”
His state began to slip a little. Seeing Luo Cheng’s face that was instantly disappointed and cold, he was suddenly nauseated by a headache, and there were countless faces of Luo Orange that were similar or more icy and ironic in his memory.
Luo Zhi’s body shook slightly.
He stretched out his hand to support the wall, closed his eyes, turned and walked out of the hotel quickly.
The sky outside the hotel was overcast, but not correspondingly cool. The air pressure was so low that the chest was tight, the air was sultry and sticky, and the air was inseparable.
Luo Zhi walked out of the revolving door of the hotel. He took out his mobile phone and was about to confirm the direction to the beach when the white light flashed into his field of vision without any obstruction.
The strong light temporarily deprived him of his vision, which in turn caused a wave of dizziness that was even more overwhelming.
Luo Zhi’s consciousness fell into a blank without defense in those few seconds. He noticed that someone was pulling him, as if he was shouting something to answer, and it was like a live broadcast. More hands reached out, as if trying to rush him to face the camera. In the chaos, someone pushed hard and his right leg suddenly couldn’t bear it anymore…
…
When did his right leg get hurt?
In an extraordinarily quiet darkness, Luo Zhi thought quietly, and then found the answer in a certain memory fragment.
…Twelve-year-old Luo Zhi stepped back to the edge of the balcony.
This was also one of the times when he was brought home by Ren Chen and Bai Yu.
He forgot that he didn’t eat pineapples when he was a child, which made Mrs. Luo ill. His hand pierced by the dinner fork hung down, dripping blood dripping down.
“I lost my sister?” The twelve-year-old Luo Zhi brows were pale, and he looked at the hysterical Mrs. Luo in front of him, “Mom, tell them, I lost my sister?”
Mrs. Luo looked terrified and dazed.
Her hair was all messed up by herself, crying and laughing for a while, but she didn’t answer Luo Zhi’s words.
Not only did she not answer, Madam Luo looked at some terrifying monster, staring at him with bloodshot eyes.
Hearing that something happened to Luo Zhi again, and even implicated Mrs. Luo, Luo Chengxiu had to put down his work and hurried over with Luo Jun.
Luo Jun supported the sick mother, skillfully soothed her softly, and looked at Luo Zhi with a grim expression: “Luo Zhi, apologize to mother.”
Luo Zhi shook his head.
“Apologize!” Luo Chengxiu scolded in a deep voice. He didn’t want to startle his wife, so he tried his best to restrain the volume, but his anger was intensified because of this forced suppression.
Luo Chengxiu looked at this useless second son, the repeated troubles exhausted his last patience, and his anger finally turned into cold disgust: “Can you never be like Huai Yi, let me save a little bit of worry? “
Twelve-year-old Luo Zhi has not been able to get rid of the problem of asking for hardship. His eyes are white with pain and his ears are ringing, but he still insists on saying it clearly: “Dad, big brother, it’s not me…”
Luo Zhi couldn’t figure out a lot of things at that time.
He saw his eldest brother using the tie clip and cufflinks he gave him, and saw his father put the first place trophy he won in the competition in the bookcase in the office, so he thought that he at least had the qualifications and necessity to explain.
But the words that day were never finished.
Mrs. Locke suddenly screamed hysterically, interrupting him.
She struggled to push the eldest son away, and pointed at Luo Zhi with a trembling and thin finger: “You are not my son! You are a devil, a liar, and you are here for revenge. You can’t be my son…”
Then Mrs. Luo rushed over and pushed **** him with both hands.
Luo Zhi lost his balance and fell from the balcony on the second floor.
He fell into the lotus pond used for landscaping downstairs and saved his life, but still broke his right leg.
Later, Aunt Ren picked him up, took him to Wanghai Villa, and took care of him for three months.
Later, Aunt Ren sent him the car.
The car was lost by him.
…
The boundless dark karmic flames suddenly rose up, scorching a certain place under his ribs, slowly tormenting and turning into ashes, leaving pale and cold embers.
Luo Zhi’s heart seemed to be grasped by a hand and squeezed suddenly without warning. His chest rose and fell rapidly, he opened his eyes suddenly, and sat up from the bed.
He was lying in an all too familiar room.
Even without turning on the lights or checking anything, Luo Zhi could still recognize this room.
This is his residence at Wanghai Villa, where he had a leg injury for three months, and it was the most relaxing and pleasant three months for him.
There is no Luo family, no nightmares, not even Ren Chenbai.
Aunt Ren came to see him every day, accompany him to practice walking, and listen to him play the guitar. Together with Aunt Ren, he happily decorated his new car, waiting for him to become an adult.
Aunt Ren didn’t know that his leg injury actually healed for more than a month, but he couldn’t help pretending to be lame for three months.
He was like a greedy thief, uneasy indulging in happiness that didn’t belong to him, and after enjoying it for three months, he was finally willing to give everything back.
Why is he here?
It was Luo Cheng who smuggled him back, because he was afraid that his father and eldest brother would be angry, so he hid him in this room.
Why did Luo Cheng bring him back?
Because he was blocked by Li Weiming’s fans at the door of the hotel, while pushing, he accidentally fell and lost consciousness.
Why can Li Weiming’s fans block him so accurately?
Because Luo Cheng was looking for him like this, she found the posters who broadcast Luo Zhi’s location on the Internet, and paid them to continue to confirm Luo Zhi’s exact location… And this exact location was not only provided to Luo Cheng.
…Jian Huaiyi really took good care of Luo Cheng.
Luo Zhi put his soft arms and leaned back on the head of the bed.
He coughed a few times due to the rising dust, closed his eyes and waited for the palpitations and dizziness to pass, groping to turn on the ambient light under the bed.
In the dim and soft light, the whole picture of the whole room also emerged.
Since the day it lost its owner, no one seems to have come in here, or even tidied and cleaned.
Luo Cheng never expected that he would be exposed in the live broadcast. She was completely stunned, she hurriedly brought Luo Zhi back in a coma, and afraid of being scolded by her father and eldest brother, she could only hide him in the only old room that no one cared about. Of course, she didn’t care at all. Someone please clean up.
A thick layer of ash had accumulated everywhere, as if the time had been frozen at a certain moment, and then thrown into an invisible corner unnoticed.
After years of turning it out, there are only those familiar scenes that have been forgotten by time, and everything else is completely different from the original.
Luo Zhi didn’t want to come to Ren’s house.
He was choked by the dust in his throat, and he couldn’t stop coughing. Luo Zhi closed his eyes and tried his best not to pay attention to more details, but the scenes surrounded by dim lights seemed to automatically drill into his mind.
The memory had already begun to blur because it was too long to resist, until this time, it was finally slowly eroded by the new picture.
The window sill full of vibrant flowers and plants became empty, a large area of gray mottled white, and molds crawled out of the corners, gathering into absurd shapes of different shades.
The bookshelves full of books became empty, and the solid wood shelves took in termites or some other new occupants. The meandering lines crawled along the edge strangely, and the planks on one of the floors were nearly hollow, with sawdust and powder scattered below.
Those thick clouds that had been brewing all day did not fall, the pitch-black sky was crowded with large masses of lead gray, and poured torrential rain on the ground, and the silent wind of the day also came to life, whistling through the rain and shaking uncontrollably. branches and leaves.
The guardrail outside the window has been completely rusted, and the dark red rust is poking in the snow and lightning, and it looks like a wet bloodstain.
…
Luo Zhi retracted his hand and looked at the blood on his palm.
His two legs seemed to be turned into stone, and so was his body. It would be great if he could really be turned into a stone. There was no need to resist the vigorous attack of memory in vain.
But he wasn’t a stone after all, so he could only look like a ludicrous knight beaten to the ground by a windmill, watching his last armor crumble with rust.
He finally crawled with cobweb-like lines along with the armor.
There was no blood oozing out, just a little grayish-white cold embers that dissipated when they were blown away.
“Luo Zhi?” Luo Chengxiu’s voice came from outside the window, “What are you doing here?”
He had just handed over his work and was about to go to a family dinner. The assistant held an umbrella, and when he passed the garden, he accidentally saw someone who shouldn’t be here.
Luo Chengxiu raised his eyebrows and looked at Luo Zhi who was standing in front of the window.
Over the years, his disappointment with this stubborn second son has gone from disappointment, to undisguised disgust, and finally to disgust.
Only this time, Luo Zhi’s appearance was inexplicably strange.
Luo Chengxiu knew that he was ill, but a young man in his twenties would recover after a few illnesses, so what can he say?
Luo Chengxiu frowned, he didn’t know what was wrong with Luo Zhi, but it was inexplicably annoying.
…as if the whole world owed him.
Luo Chengxiu couldn’t figure it out, he was obviously his own son, how could Luo Zhi be so hypocritical.
“I’m asking you something.” Luo Chengxiu’s tone was cold, “What are you doing here? What’s your plan, and you want to make a scene here?”
Luo Zhi only seemed to be woken up this time, his eyes moved, and he stopped on the person outside the window.
Luo Zhi recognized his mouth shape, then turned his head slightly, and thought for a while: “What am I doing here?”
He spoke very slowly, almost as if he was learning to speak word by word, his voice was sandier than usual, with a certain lightness in his tone.
Luo Chengxiu’s expression turned cold: “You ask me?”
Luo Zhi didn’t answer him this time, but lowered his eyelashes, came up with the answer to the question just now, and said slowly, “I don’t know.”
Luo Zhi said softly, “I don’t want to come here.”
The way he spoke still seemed strange, and people were strange. I don’t know if it’s because of the light from the outside lighting, but his pupils seem to be dilated, very dark and quiet, empty and without a place to settle.
Seeing him like this, Luo Chengxiu’s anger, which had already swelled to his chest, suddenly lost his focus and scattered into the pouring rain.
“Then don’t get in the way.” Luo Chengxiu said in a deep voice, “Where to go, no one cares about you.”
In his impression, Luo Zhi has always been unbearable, with a stubborn, rebellious and perverse nature, causing everyone to feel uneasy.
Looking at the pale and quiet Luo Zhi in front of him… For unknown reasons, Luo Chengxiu suddenly felt some extraordinarily bizarre irritability.
He ended up chalking it up to this hellish weather.
Luo Chengxiu couldn’t help but scolded silently. He patted off the rainwater that rolled onto his clothes, signaled his assistant to stop wasting time here, turned around and walked away quickly.
In the corner of the light, Luo Chengxiu seemed to see Luo Zhi tilting his head slightly, his pale eyebrows curved gently.
…
Until sitting at the warm and bright dining table, the whole person was relieved in the lively atmosphere of the family and the aroma of delicious food. Luo Chengxiu suddenly realized that Luo Zhi had not been looking at him from the beginning.
Luo Zhi’s eyes stopped on the sea level shrouded in darkness.
Then even his eyes were dyed little by little with the color and temperature of the sea.