They Regretted it After Their Hearts Turned to Ashes - Chapter 84

Early the next morning, Zhao Lan sat in the tea restaurant ahead of schedule.

She came a full hour earlier than the appointment and brought all the gifts prepared by her family. She couldn’t help but ask her husband, “Will my brother not want to come?”

“No.” Mr. took her hand and answered her seriously, “Brother is as brave as you are.”

Zhao Lan clenched her husband’s hand and carefully tidied up her collar.

She looked out the window, retracted her gaze, and turned the teacup slowly.

She knew that her brother was brave.

The child she took back from the pile of firewood seldom spoke even after waking up. A few days later, she knew that the child was called Huo Miao.

Those people forbid them to remember their own names, they want them to forget everything before, otherwise they will keep hitting them until they can’t move.

So they made an appointment, she called her brother “Huo Miao” and Huo Miao called her “Sister”.

During those three years, apart from working day and night and being beaten, they kept trying to find a way to escape.

There were not many opportunities to find them. They were closely watched. Once it rained heavily, they took advantage of the opportunity to mow the grass and ran as fast as they could, and almost succeeded.

That time they ran into a field of crops, hiding among the corn stalks, and the sharp blades scraped blood all over their hands and bodies. The rain was terribly heavy, the thunder and lightning were dazzling, the footsteps of those who searched for them were close at hand, and the light of flashlights swept everywhere.

“Sister.” The boy squeezed her hand tightly, “I was the one who ran away.”

“I ran away, you came to me… just tell them that.”

At that time, it was impossible for them to escape, and they had to come up with an explanation to explain, otherwise it would be impossible for the two of them to go back to that level.

“I’m too young to take care of the two of us. You can’t be beaten.”

The younger brother’s voice was low, trembling gently in the raging rainstorm: “If you are fine, we can escape.”

“I will live.” The younger brother promised her, “Sister, I promise you, I will live.”

“I want to live.” My brother told her many times, “I have a younger sister, and she will be afraid without a brother.”

The younger brother survived every time, and every time he struggled to tell her that the family was looking for him and that he was going to escape and go home.

What happened next was another nightmare. She watched the boy turn around and rush out. She gritted her teeth, forcing herself to act according to the agreement, and watched those fists and wooden sticks fall unceremoniously, all hitting her brother.

She watched the child gradually stop moving, and finally couldn’t stand it any more… She learned without a teacher how to be a crazy expectant mother who wanted a child with a sick mind.

She went hysterically to fight with those people, snatched the child out of her fists and feet, held him in her arms, kept shaking her dangling, cold hands, shaking her arms and calling for the baby.

At this time, those people were satisfied. What they wanted was such “goods”, thinking that she had finally figured it out, put away the guys and left.

A week later, the flame woke up, still lying in bed immobile.

The broken rib hurts the lung, and the local local doctor is connected. The wound is covered with herbal medicine, and it will cause hemoptysis when sitting up a little.

The child opened his eyes, and suddenly recognized her after a while, with a smile in his eyes, and called her “sister” without a sound.

…

Three years have passed since then.

In those three years, the two of them lived on each other’s lives. One couldn’t hold back and fell asleep, while the other held the iron drill to watch the night. Any movement would immediately wake up.

Zhao Lan knew very well that Mingchi was very brave, and as long as Mingchi agreed, he would definitely come.

But she was still worried that this appointment was a little early.

“We can also chat.” Zhao Lan was holding hands by her husband and whispered to him, “He said that my mother didn’t do it on purpose. It was an accident that no one expected.”

“He said that his mother must have blamed herself for losing him and his sister. My brother is abroad, but I should be worried when I heard about it.”

Zhao Lan said in a low voice, “He blamed himself very much. He felt that he should not be lost. He said that he should be more alert and more self-protective that day.”

They don’t just talk about how to escape every day, so people will be suppressed and go crazy, they also talk about things after they escape and return home.

This is the biggest motivation for them to survive desperately and flee desperately.

This is when they are happiest.

Only this time, they are like college students who are less than 20 years old and children who are less than 10 years old.

“As soon as I get home, I will hug my parents and cry.”

Zhao Lan hugged her knees and rested her chin on her arm: “I still have a younger sister, and my younger sister will also come over and cry.”

Huo Miao also followed her example, hugging her knees and her chin on her arms: “I’m going to cry with my parents, my sister, too.”

He found that he had won a game, and immediately added: “I still have a brother at home.”

“Such a shame!” Zhao Lan nodded his head, “Then I will sleep in the bed at home all day and night without getting up.”

The flames doubled immediately: “I’m going to sleep for three days and three nights.”

Zhao Lan couldn’t help laughing, and pretended to be angry: “Okay, then I have to make up for the past few years – I want to celebrate three birthdays in one breath, and directly add to my 20s.”

“I want to pass four in one breath.” The flame struck with precision, “The day I lost it was my birthday, and there were thirty-four candles on the cake.”

Zhao Lan was completely defeated by him, and decided to take the final punitive measure. He took a few breaths on his hand and touched his ticklish place.

…

The two of them fell on the haystack laughing, and it was the happiest few minutes of those three years.

That night Zhao Lan dreamed of going home, and she guessed that Huo Miao also dreamed. But I don’t know why, the boy was not as happy as before, but vaguely seemed to have something to do.

“What’s the matter?” Zhao Lan bent down and asked him while cutting the wheat, “I’m worried we won’t be able to escape?”

Huo Miao shook his head without thinking, wiped the sweat with his sleeve, and showed a very brief smile.

Zhao Lan didn’t allow him to do heavy work again, and asked his younger brother to stand still and not move, and squat down to check his waist.

There was a bone protruding from the thin waist. The local doctor did not dare to press the button, saying that he was injured, and he couldn’t even walk after he could not press the button properly.

“When you get home, you must tell your parents to heal your waist.”

Zhao Lan put his clothes down, turned to him, raised his hand and touched his ear: “There’s still this, remember?”

Huo Miao nodded obediently and touched her hair: “Sister also needs to take care of her body.”

“Definitely.” Zhao Lan clenched his fists, “When we’re all done, we’ll make an appointment.”

She was so hungry when she thought about it: “I’m dying of hunger when I think about the cafeteria. Wow, there is also a New Year’s Eve dinner. The family has a large table of dishes. When we eat back together, it is two large tables of dishes. It’s great. “

Huo Miao’s eyes also laughed and clenched their fists together: “About a meal.”

…

This meal has been delayed for thirteen years.

“It’s not either of you’re fault.”

The husband said to her: “Fortune makes people.”

A few days before they successfully escaped, they were furiously retaliated by those people. This time Zhao Lan didn’t let his younger brother stop him.

Those people still didn’t believe that a ten-year-old child had the ability to steal a mobile phone and call the police. Zhao Lan pushed the flames behind him and was locked in a completely dark room by those people.

Even including those three years, it was probably the most terrifying three days, and those three days were enough to destroy a person’s entire sanity.

Zhao Lan’s memory was broken there, and only vaguely remembered the terrifying sound of fighting. She fell to the corner of the room, the door of the room was pushed open, and someone in uniform rushed in.

After that, Zhao Lan was rescued, diagnosed with stressful psychogenic amnesia, and had a long illness.

Zhao Lan came out little by little, faced the past again, retrieved the memory of the past, and remembered that he owed his brother a meal.

“I died once in those three days.” Zhao Lan said to her husband, “and then lived thirteen years.”

“That child.” Zhao Lan said, “my brother.”

She lowered her head and said, “He died slowly in those thirteen years.”

None of what the kid said came true.

Why did Huo Miao have something on her mind when she woke up that day, what was she thinking about?

Have you vaguely realized that maybe everything may not be as expected, even if you go home, you will not have four birthdays to make up, and there will be no bed for three days and three nights?

Could it be that the child who was lost at the age of seven and stumbled outside until he was ten years old actually had a vague hunch about his family and guessed part of the possible future?

But I’m afraid I can’t guess more.

How could a ten-year-old child be able to guess how many times he died and escaped with a wound, waiting for him for thirteen years like that.

– Just two days ago, in order to finally confirm the authenticity of some of the information, Zhao Lan followed Mr. Gong to visit the person in Ren’s family.

“That person.” Zhao Lan said, “He didn’t go crazy recently.”

Zhao Lan has lived in a hospital for a long time and has been recuperating for a long time. When Ren Chenbai brought Luo Cheng to meet with Teacher Gong, she already suspected that the person was abnormal.

So Zhao Lan also took the initiative to open his wounds to remind the other party that memory is not necessarily the truth.

But a person who seeks the truth is destined to have no way of understanding those who weave lies and try their best to cover up the truth.

Just like this time, Zhao Lan accompanied Teacher Gong and saw Ren Chenbai in the special management ward.

Dean Xun did not deliberately conceal the news, nor did he prohibit anyone from visiting. Ren Chenbai knew that Luo Zhi was still alive—it should be the Ren family who told him.

Ren Chenbai’s performance was very normal.

It’s normal to be like a person who is not sick, and greets them as politely as in a coffee shop.

Even the new nurses would mistake him for the fact that he wasn’t sick—if he didn’t look at the empty hospital bed, which was carefully covered with a quilt.

Before Ren Chenbai said a few words to them, he apologized that Xiao Zhi was going to take medicine and went back to the empty hospital bed.

The things he does, it’s like there’s a real person there.

He is probably still a patient who is indifferent and resistant and does not cooperate with treatment at all. It took Ren Chenbai to coax him softly and slowly for a long time before he was willing to take a mouthful of medicine, and then he no longer responded.

So Ren Chenbai had no choice but to put down the medicine. He was not angry at all because of this incident, nor was he impatient because of it, he just sat on the floor beside the hospital bed.

Facing the empty hospital bed, he apologized in a low voice, counting the sins he had committed.

…that’s the limit of what he can accept.

When sending them away, Dean Xun told them that Ren Chenbai couldn’t imagine other possibilities.

Ren Chenbai couldn’t imagine how Luo Zhi, who had been treated like that by him, could still grit his teeth and swallow blood, desperately gouging out the old sores with one knife at a time, and rushed into a new life without looking back.

No matter who did this to him, Ren Chenbai only thought it was an illusion that they came to deceive him.

Because he changed himself, and asked him to come a hundred times a thousand times, it was absolutely impossible to survive.

…

Teacher Gong didn’t even think about it.

She knew that the child would not disappoint Shuangmei, but she didn’t expect it to be so soon – so fast that she wasn’t ready.

Perhaps human beings themselves are kind of animals that can think about what if. Gong Hanrou couldn’t help asking Zhao Lan when she was finishing work late at night when she was filming the following documentaries.

If she hadn’t stubbornly adhered to the principle of non-intervention in documentary filming, hadn’t blindly believed in the dust, and hadn’t avoided the subject for so long because of the death of a friend, everything might not have come to this point.

This is probably a question that every documentary director will encounter, and there will be no answer, and she does not want Zhao Lan to give an answer.

It’s just that she feels regret, and this regret does not belong to any identity or occupation, just because it may be possible – even if there is a change in any place.

Even if there was any difference, it might be possible that they would be able to carry the child out of the pitch-black cold water.

…

Zhao Lan was suddenly pulled back by the sound of the message.

When she saw the message from Mingchi, she immediately became nervous and kept shaking her husband’s hand: “Come, they are here, they are downstairs.”

“I’ll pick it up.” The gentleman stood up, “What’s the license plate number?”

Zhao Lan pressed the screen a few times, forwarded the message to him, and immediately ordered a large table of Cantonese-style morning tea, specifically instructing not to use egg white products.

These refreshments should be eaten while they are still hot. If they are ordered early, the taste will not be so good. Order now is the most appropriate.

The person who was worried and thought about it just now is obviously full of anticipation at this moment, and is excitedly busy.

The husband stood beside him, patted the back of her hand with a smile, and walked down to pick up the person according to the address given in the message.

Zhao Lan finished the order in one go.

She couldn’t wait to return to the dining table, ready to tidy up her collar and cuffs so that her brother wouldn’t see the scars on his hands and neck.

Zhao Lan took out the small mirror from the bag, and when he saw the person walking from the other direction, his eyes suddenly froze.

…someone was walking towards her.

The other party obviously came to her after waiting for her husband to leave. She felt that this person’s figure was a little familiar before, but she didn’t pay much attention to it.

Someone who shouldn’t be here at all.

Zhao Lan’s heart sank.

She put down the mirror, held the phone beside her, and called out the person’s identity directly: “Mr. Luo.”

Luo Jun paused and stopped at the table.

Although he has always been aware of the existence of this person, Zhao Lan has never seen Luo Jun very much.

So even if the other party found her somewhere and followed her all the way, Zhao Lan didn’t notice it immediately – the last time she saw this person, she was actually in Ren Chenbai’s ward.

When they were about to leave, Zhao Lan saw Luo Jun visiting Ren Chenbai.

… Said to be visiting Ren Chenbai, but in a more precise and weird way, it was actually a visit to “Luo Zhi”.

Dean Xun told them that Luo Jun was sober, and he just tacitly acquiesced to the other party’s ridiculous hallucination when he came to see Ren Chenbai.

Luo Jun’s care is even more attentive, more thorough, and more sleepless than Ren Chenbai. No one knew what the point of his doing—because it couldn’t have made any sense at all.

Luo Jun stopped at the table and did not move.

Zhao Lan didn’t know what he was like before, but the Luo family’s son in front of him was probably not as good as he wanted. His blue and black eyes are particularly heavy, his expression is numb and sluggish, and he is completely depressed. It is obvious that he has completely collapsed in this turmoil.

It can be seen that Luo Jun has done his best to appear a little decent today, but this so-called decent is just barely supported by clothes, in fact, the inside has long been withered.

“Miss Zhao, no offense.” Luo Jun spoke with difficulty, his voice a little hoarse, “I heard…”

Zhao Lan asked him, “Who told you?”

Luo Jun closed his mouth.

Zhao Lan has already sent a message to the husband, asking him to take the fire to go shopping first, not in a hurry.

She met Ming Chi for the content review. Someone in the crew must know, and it’s not surprising that Luo Jun could ask someone to find out.

…

It’s just that she really can’t understand what this person is doing.

“Mr. Luo, who are you taking care of?” Zhao Lan asked, “Who are you looking for?”

Luo Jun’s pupils shrank, his face pale.

Zhao Lan didn’t want to say anything to him at all, but Mr. Luo’s brain was not bad, even if he didn’t say something, he could understand it.

He is taking care of ten-year-old Luo Chi.

Looking for a ten-year-old brother who escaped scarred from a nightmare and wants to go home.

When Zhao Lan was interviewed as a participant, he mentioned this incident in the documentary, and Luo Jun read every frame of the documentary over and over.

Luo Cheng didn’t want him to see it, saying that he would have nightmares and made trouble several times.

But if Luo Cheng still wants to rely on him to do odd jobs to make a living, he can only endure this, because he is not Luo Cheng’s second brother who will always protect her.

If Luo Cheng doesn’t want to endure him, he will figure it out by himself and live by himself.

Luo Jun remembered the situation in the documentary. In this part, the young actors hired by the crew also reproduced it.

The little actor was very well chosen, with similar body and voice, sometimes he thought he had seen Luo Chi in a trance.

“I have a brother at home.”

The boy in the picture is squatting next to the haystack and compares with his sister childishly: “My brother is abroad, but when he heard about this, he would worry about me too.”

The elder sister has no elder brother, and stares at him enviously: “So good!”

“Your brother must hate that group of bad people.” My sister took his hand. “When you go home, he must love you the most, protect you wherever you go, and take care of you personally to accompany you to heal.”

The elder sister said, “Your brother will definitely beat up all the bad guys for you.”

The boy’s pale face turned bloody, he pursed his lips and smiled, and after a while he added in a low voice, “No need.”

“No need,” the boy said. “Just take me home.”

The boy raised his head, raised his hand and gestured: “My brother should be so tall.”

He raised his shoulders and closed his eyes, as if he had really seen his brother: “I raise my hand, he doesn’t need to bend down, he can lead me home with just one move.”

…

Luo Jun’s arm suddenly twitched, barely recovering.

“I just want to see him.” Luo Jun said in a hoarse voice, “Miss Zhao, I know there’s no way…” He paused before saying those words with difficulty, “It’s too late, I can’t go back if I’m wrong. It’s just that he’s my brother—”

“He’s not, Mr. Luo.”

Zhao Lan said: “I want to see my brother today. My parents and sister asked me to take him home. If he wants, we will celebrate the New Year and have a reunion dinner together this year.”

Luo Jun froze in place.

He looked a little dazed, opened his mouth with difficulty, but couldn’t make a sound.

There is no problem with what Zhao Lan said.

This is the result he wants.

This is the result they want.

No one took Luo Zhi home.

They repeatedly asked Luo Zhi why they disturbed the whole family and why they wanted to go home.

New Year’s Eve dinner, reunion dinner?

Luo Jun tried to think back, but he found that he couldn’t remember any of Luo Zhi’s New Year’s Eve dinners, after all, it was only a festive time.

“I won’t let you see him, and I will never tell you where he is.”

Zhao Lan told him, “Mr. Luo, I want to protect my brother.”

Zhao Lan can’t say anything excessive. She has been meticulously cared for and protected by her family for thirteen years, and she has never seen such a person.

Zhao Lan gave him one last look, then turned and walked out.

Luo Jun chased after him in a panic. He was a little staggered. He wanted to catch up with Zhao Lan, and stretched out his hand to pull him: “Miss Zhao—”

Zhao Lan’s expression changed slightly when he saw the outstretched hand.

She will still be afraid of these, but she will not let this person find her brother. She gritted her teeth and tried to slap him away, but someone was faster than him.

The cane was firmly between the two of them, and he lifted Luo Jun’s hand and placed it in front of Luo Jun.

Luo Jun stopped hastily.

Mingchi retracted his cane and blocked Zhao Lan behind him.

He is already taller than Zhao Lan, and his stature is complimented by the windbreaker.

Zhao Lan’s husband was quite ruthless, Luo Jun stepped back in embarrassment, bumped into the table, stared at Ming Chi, his chest heaving violently.

Ming Chi looked at him with an unfamiliar gaze.

There was no indifference or resistance in Luo Jun’s imagination, or even the kind of indifference that lowered his head after he no longer had any expectations for him in the past – only pure strangeness, confusion and confusion.

Luo Jun’s pupils froze.

He could no longer speak half a word, nor did he know how to move.

…

Zhao Lan firmly grasped Ming Chi’s arm.

Her eyes lit up uncontrollably, and she thought she would be unable to hold back her tears or be sad, but it turned out that she didn’t.

Only that breath was completely relieved, and there was no way to describe the extreme ease and relief in words.

They all seem to have a little problem with the exit. They have all lost their way, and have gone far, but they have passed the vast sea of ​​people, passed through time, and met again here.

The road is not easy to walk, but when we met, we had already reached the end, so we had time to repair it properly.

Zhao Lan couldn’t care about anything, and looked at his brother who had grown up in front of him with all his attention.

The younger brother was already taller than her, but he still leaned over his shoulders to let her touch his head and help her tidy up the messed up sleeves.

Zhao Lan couldn’t help laughing, she rubbed Mingchi’s hair, looked at the handsome and steadfast brother in front of her, and coughed: “Trouble, my sister asked me to bring a remote control car.”

“Thirteen years, it’s a long time.” Zhao Lan sighed, “We are all so mature, I’d better take it personally, the baby may want to play in the future.”

Mingchi slightly bent his eyes: “It’s troublesome.”

He took out the hand hidden behind him, handed the shell boat to Zhao Lan, and discussed with the little nephew who has not yet written a word: “I was thinking of changing to a remote control car.”