They Regretted it After Their Hearts Turned to Ashes - Chapter 21

Luo Jun thought that he would soon forget about it.

He doesn’t remember a lot of things, mostly because it’s unnecessary. Especially regarding Luo Zhi’s impression, he and Luo Zhi are really not very familiar – a partner heard him mention this matter, and he was quite surprised.

But in fact, no matter what others think, Luo Jun and Luo Zhi just don’t know each other very well.

They are very different in age. When Luo Zhi was born, he was studying abroad. When he came back from the summer vacation, he also went to the company for an internship, so he had very little time at home.

What was Luo Zhi like at that time?

I don’t really have a deep impression. He only remembered that he was a rather lively and laughing child. He liked to run around behind him the most. When he saw him reading a book, he followed suit.

After two years, I got another sister, and they became two little boys chasing him everywhere. He had a headache because of the noise, so he had to go to the study to hide in peace.

Then one day, when he was reminded by Ren Chenbai, he suddenly realized that as long as he was at home, Luo Zhi would not be noisy at all.

Not only did he not make noise, Luo Zhi would quietly lead his sister to the toy room as soon as he found out that his elder brother was reading a book.

He was not yet taller than the table, so he held up toys and tiptoed to tease his sister, hugged her and gently shook her gently, coaxing her until she fell asleep.

… When was the last time Luo Zhi made a fool of himself in front of him?

Luo Jun thought that he would not come up with the answer, but human memory can’t always do the right thing.

The more he can’t control his irritability and wants to clear the endless thoughts in his mind, the more those memories come back and forth in his mind.

It’s Luo Zhi’s sixth birthday, he knows, he knows, so don’t jump out and annoy him endlessly.

He knew it was Luo Zhi’s sixth birthday.

He didn’t go back to the study that day to read, watching Luo Zhi rushing back and forth because his parents hid gifts and wouldn’t give him, and because he was there, he didn’t dare to rummage around.

He felt that this kind of game was really boring, so he put down the book, grabbed Luo Zhi and carried it on his shoulders, so that Luo Zhi found the gift on the top of the bookcase.

Luo Zhi was so happy that time that he couldn’t find the north, sitting triumphantly on his shoulder, holding the gift and shaking it back and forth, and singing loudly and happily.

After finally venting and calming down, Luo Zhi remembered that his eldest brother didn’t like to make noise, and slipped to the ground with the gift box in his arms, carefully looking at him.

Luo Jun did not expect that he could recall so many details.

He even remembered that he was not angry, and he opened gifts with Luo Zhi and said happy birthday to Luo Zhi.

He seemed to have casually promised Luo Zhi that he would wish him happiness on every birthday in the future.

With a golden birthday crown, Xiao Luozhi reverently closed his eyes to the candles on the cake and made a wish for every birthday in the future.

Happy birthday to every future birthday, I want to spend it with my big brother, my parents and my little sister.

…

That was Luo Zhi’s last birthday.

Luo Zhi was lost on the day of his seventh birthday. That day, his mother took him and his younger sister to the aquarium. When they came back, he was so lost that he could not stand still, hugging his father and crying.

It took them a long time to finally appease their mother, and they learned the story of the accident that day from Mrs. Luo’s intermittent narration.

Both children are missing. When he came out of the aquarium, Luo Zhi insisted on buying roadside snacks. His mother disliked it because it was not clean, and Luo Zhi got angry. He had already traveled a long way, and when his mother was not paying attention, he secretly took his little sister back to buy it.

The mother was so frightened that she hurriedly chased back, but only after turning a corner, the two children disappeared.

Then there are the police, the bounty, the investigation… The offices that specialize in finding people have changed one after another, and finally they are looking for a needle in a haystack.

Fortunately, the little sister was sent back by the police after more than a month.

Luo Cheng was not injured, and his body was fine, but he was so frightened that he couldn’t tell what happened.

My father invited a kindergarten teacher who specializes in psychological counseling for young children, and brought her back for a long time.

But even for just over a month, it has already caused particularly severe irritation to the mother.

Mrs. Luo began to have auditory and visual hallucinations from time to time, and had nightmares all night long. Occasionally, she would suddenly cry.

After Luo Cheng came back, although the situation improved slightly, Mrs. Luo was too unstable, and no one dared to give Luo Cheng to her. Luo Cheng didn’t kiss Mrs. Luo very much either, but it didn’t take long for him to cry for his second brother, and when he fell asleep, he murmured that he would come to accompany him.

Perhaps inspired by Luo Cheng’s incident, Luo Chengxiu coaxed his sick wife to say that she was going to school to pick up her son from school, and then took Mrs. Luo to the orphanage.

Those specially selected children who were about the same age as Luo Zhi were led to the reception room, and Mrs. Luo groaned and hugged Jian Huaiyi from the inside.

Then Jian Huaiyi was taken back to the Luo family and obtained the identity of the young master of the Luo family and everything attached to this identity.

The young master of the Luo family was not originally called Luo Zhi, let alone Jian Huaiyi. The name was helped by Ren Chenbai’s mother, and next to it was the word “Fire”, which was scorching hot, bright and spotless.

Three years later, the lost child returned to the Luo family. In the hysterical screams of her mother’s collapse, the little sister was also scared and cried. Luo Chengxiu hastily added a stroke to the position of the name on the newly processed identity registration form, and the word next to the fire became a crooked word next to the wooden word.

The boy who was brought back was no longer what he remembered. He was a punch lower than his adopted son. He was thin and silent.

The boy’s chest rose and fell slowly, looking at each family member, and finally his eyes were quietly cast on Luo Jun.

This time Luo Jun’s memory didn’t bother him anymore.

Because he didn’t do anything at all.

Why did he do nothing at that time?

Perhaps as Jian Huaiyi said, he was eager to find someone to recognize the responsibility of not taking good care of his mother and protecting his sister.

…Perhaps even Jian Huaiyi thinks highly of him.

He just felt that this matter had nothing to do with him.

When Luo Zhi was seven years old, he and Luo Zhi had only seen each other for less than half a year in total. After Jian Huaiyi was adopted, he also returned to China to accompany his mother and sister, and slowly learned how to be a brother.

At that time, he couldn’t even help feeling that Luo Zhi was capricious. Why do you make the whole family uneasy just because of a name? Why do you care so much about these trivial things.

He thought so, and there was probably impatience and condemnation in his eyes.

The ten-year-old Luo Zhi stood under his gaze, the blood on his face faded little by little, and finally became completely pale. He slowly lowered his eyes, the corners of his lips were bitten by the tip of the tiger teeth, and there was an inconspicuous wound, and blood beads leaked out quietly.

Then Luo Zhi walked to the counter, grabbed a pen, and described the name that his father had changed over and over again.

That unintelligible disaster, after all, completely changed the fate and life trajectory of everyone in the family.

After that, Luo Zhi never had a birthday.

…and he’s sitting here doing something ridiculously boring to him.

Luo Jun put out the smoke between his fingers little by little.

On the boat, he also spoke coldly to Luo Zhi, thinking that Luo Zhi was playing tricks with him, and asked Luo Zhi why he secretly followed the boat.

He didn’t see that Luo Zhi’s state was wrong at all. Was it hard to see? Now when he recalls, he can find too many abnormal details, but he just thinks that Luo Zhi’s abnormality is due to being drunk.

Jian Huaiyi is right, even now he is still selfish.

Because of the possibility that a Luo Zhi had already died, he began to recall his memories endlessly.

He kept looking for Luo Zhi in his memory, trying to prove that he was not the worst one to Luo Zhi.

At this time, he still just wanted to prove that he was not the culprit.

…

The ferry docking time was actually shorter than expected.

As soon as he got off the boat, Luo Jun realized why Jian Huaiyi didn’t take it too much trouble and wanted to do such a play again.

Because of that “push and shove”, Jian Huaiyi fell into the water—although the boat was approaching the shore, the water was not deep, and the people were rescued quickly, but to be on the safe side, the boat owner still called the police.

He had suspected intentional harm on the boat, so he was taken away for questioning before seeing his family.

Official inquiries, just to investigate the situation at that time. Luo Jun was not embarrassed, he knew that Jian Huaiyi was not trying to embarrass him, but wanted this time difference.

With this time difference, Jian Huaiyi will see his family before him, his parents and Luo Cheng before him.

Luo Jun did not doubt Jian Huaiyi’s ability to make up stories.

Therefore, when he walked out of the interrogation room, he looked at the empty waiting area outside, and after confirming that there were no new messages and calls on his mobile phone, he had almost guessed what happened within two hours of being interrogated.

Now Luo Jun was sitting on the bench, continuing to rummage through his memories, and continued to rack his brains to find someone who was worse than himself to Luo Zhi, as evidence that he was not the culprit.

Not long after they went ashore, a sudden torrential rain fell outside. During the police interrogation, the rainstorm almost overturned the trees outside the window, making people wonder if a typhoon made landfall by accident.

After the rain stopped, the weather that had been cloudy for many days got better.

The sun was so bright that the sky seemed to have been washed completely, and the gloomy clouds seemed to have all turned into rain, and the blue was extremely dazzling.

Then he suddenly remembered that he actually remembered what Luo Zhi was like when he was drunk.

Luo Zhi was very good when he was drunk. He liked to talk but his voice was very low. There was fog in his eyes, and he kept smiling with his eyes bent.

The team that Luo Jun brought at that time had just signed an important contract, held a celebration party at a wine estate, and happened to meet people from Huaisheng Entertainment who were also building a team.

Luo Jun’s team had a department head, an elite-level female manager in her early thirties. Usually, he was decisive and decisive, but Luo Zhi was so obedient that his heart was melted on the spot, and he dragged his department and sat down to listen to him tell stories.

The weather that day was so dazzlingly blue that Luo Zhi sat under a tree and was talking about a nightmare of his own.

The nightmare is about him playing hide-and-seek with a group of people.

Their rules of hide-and-seek here are different from other places. Everyone walks in a circle singing nursery rhymes. When the last sentence is sung, everyone raises their hands and points to a random person.

The person who was pointed out the most was completely immobile for ten seconds,

In these ten seconds, everyone will disappear in a hurry, leaving only the person who was pointed out standing there.

“It’s not a nightmare either.” A young girl from the newcomer listened curiously, “Isn’t hide-and-seek fun?”

…

Luo Zhi didn’t answer her question, but still smiled with his eyes bent, but the fog in his eyes was getting deeper and deeper.

Those hazy vapors didn’t accumulate in the end.

Only then did Luo Jun finally know why this was a nightmare.

Luo Zhi was pointed out by everyone as the culprit who lost his sister and made his mother sad.

Then they were able to hide themselves smoothly, without having to be approached by guilt and self-blame, and continued to live their lives with peace of mind, leaving Luo Zhi standing in place.

Then Luo Zhi was left in place by them.

Luo Jun stopped the ridiculous act of rummaging through his memories. He had read the list of all the rescued people ten times, word by word, but couldn’t find the name he was looking for.

Luo Zhi is not good at playing this game, and now Luo Zhi is out.

This long and overdone nightmare finally ended here in Luo Zhi.

Luo Jun flipped through his phone over and over again. He didn’t know what he was trying to find. He asked a lawyer to sue Jian Huaiyi? It doesn’t make sense, Jian Huaiyi knows his temperament too well and knows too well what he will do.

On the rescue boat, he heard Jian Huaiyi speak his mind without missing a word, and then he suddenly realized that he was such a person.

He turned out to be such a person. Because he refused to face the fact that “I didn’t protect my younger brother well”, he didn’t want to see Luo Zhi at all. He hated Luo Zhi more than anyone else, and wished that Luo Zhi would disappear. He used all the evidence to prove that Luo Zhi was not the one who should be punished Treat your brother well.

Because I refused to face the fact that “I didn’t protect my younger brother well”, I only dared to stand on the side with a cold eye, watching the child whose name was taken away was thrown into a corner where no one cared about it.

…

Luo Jun swiped his phone and saw a phone number that was stored in his contacts.

He suddenly sat up straight, as if grabbing the last straw, the hand holding the phone even had blue veins bursting out, and he had to take a few deep breaths before slowly pressing the call button.

The other side didn’t pick up the phone.

Luo Jun was not surprised. He plugged in the earphone and dialed it several times.

Finally, a beeping sound came from the earphones.

Luo Jun’s heart beat violently.

He squeezed the phone so hard that his voice was stable enough: “Mr. Ming.”

He introduced himself as succinctly as possible, and then pointed out directly: “No intention to disturb… My brother was on the cruise ship where your company was shipwrecked.”

Luo Jun struggled to choose his words. He didn’t know each other, and the Ming family’s circle did not allow them to get in easily. This was just a small reward for a business negotiation.

If this is still a business negotiation, Luo Jun can calmly pick out the most appropriate attitude that is neither humble nor arrogant.

But he is the murderer who is still running away, and he is still trying to clear his name with such ridiculous selfish thoughts.

“He’s not on the rescue list.” Luo Jun whispered, “I want to ask you to check…”

The other party paused and seemed to pick up something: “What’s it called?”

“Luo Zhi.” Luo Jun held his breath involuntarily, the breath almost stagnated in his chest, he could almost hear his own heartbeat, and his hand on the earphone was cold, “Beside the wooden characters, there is only…”

The paper on the other end of the phone rattled.

He said, “Sorry.”

Luo Jun’s throat moved slightly.

What else did he want to say, he opened his mouth and tried his best to smile calmly: “What?”

Why are you sorry?

sorry for what?

He can be sure that Luo Zhi is not on the rescue list. He is about to memorize the list… The other party answered so quickly, where did he see Luo Zhi’s name?

Besides the rescued list, what other list?

“The family should have been notified.” The other party asked, “They didn’t tell you?”

Luo Jun was speechless, he sat motionless, and the chill ran up his palm inch by inch, pinching his entire arm.

He didn’t speak, so the other side apologized again and hung up the phone.

…

The sky was as blue as it had been washed, and the sun was hot.

As if the sunlight was stirred and dissolved by the wind, the sea water also turned into a clear and translucent blue-green.

The overly young “Mr. Ming” hung up the phone.

He handed the cell phone to the crew next to him, left the deck, and returned to his exclusive suite.

The sea breeze opened the curtains, and a little sunlight slipped in quietly and perched beside the pillow.

The person on the bed was sunk in the soft quilt, pale and quiet, and if it weren’t for the faint ups and downs of the chest when breathing, there would be almost no sign of life.

Probably too tired, he didn’t notice the few paper scores that were put back by the pillow, and he still fell asleep unconsciously.

Guitars and drawing boards huddled aggrievedly beside the bed, and the inexpensive but decent-quality travel bag was hanging on a solid wood hanger, perhaps bragging about the stormy winds he had experienced to his new neighbors.

The expensive work of “I Haven’t Did Bad Things” from Mr. Huo Miao, who did not want to be named, was back on the drawing board.

It was crumpled to the point of being crumpled, and it was soaked in water several times. Even if it was re-finished by a professional painter who was resident on the cruise, the handwriting on it was already blurred.

Therefore, “Mr. Ming”, who has not yet successfully paid the bill, has no choice but to sit by the bed.

Mr. Ming lightly moved, took his hanging hand, and slowly wrote the forty-seventh “um” in his palm.