Up to You - C175
I’ve survived. Why are you leaving?
In the evening, I told Jiu Jiu a story, coaxed him to sleep, and then went to the hotel lobby to buy a disposable phone card. In my bag, I bought an old phone from the used market.
Shen Xiuyuan picked up the call. It was quiet over there, he was probably alone, I heaved a sigh of relief.
“How did you know it was me?”
“There’s an unfamiliar call for me right now. Other than you, who else could it be?”
“Uncle Xiu Yuan…” I took a deep breath. “He Fang, are you all right?”
The other end of the line was suddenly filled with a long silence and coldness. I could hear the sound of breathing coming from the other end, steady and stifling, a sigh that hid a slow outburst, a sound that came from the other end.
“Very bad.”
Shen Xiuyuan said, “It’s not good at all for He An Fang right now. Mu Huainan, he’s not good either. ”
My heart sank.
“Uncle Huainan, he ….” I hesitated. “Didn’t I see his lecture on the website a while ago? It’s quite good …”
Shen Xiuyuan heaved a long sigh.
“After you left, Mu Huainan was enraged. Right now, He An Fang, oh no, all the places that Mu Huainan had visited, are filled with plants and vegetation.”
My heart clenched tightly, as though everything had returned to seven years ago, as long as the matter could reach a bottom line that Mu Huainan could not endure, the entire city would suffer along with him.
“An An, let me ask you.” Shen Xiuyuan’s serious voice came from the phone: “Is that child really Peng Haobai’s?”
I couldn’t answer.
“If it really is Peng Haobai’s, is there something wrong with his head? His own child was kept in an orphanage? If he’s not crazy, then this kid is definitely not his. ”
“Uncle Xiu Yuan, stop guessing…”
I knew he was right, so I was afraid he might be. I had nothing to say to that.
“An An, I want to tell you something. A few days ago, Mu Huainan came to find Peng Haobai and asked him about the matter regarding his child.”
This Peng Haobai told me about it, and he even described the situation to Mu Huainan again, which infuriated him to death.
“Peng Haobai admitted that the child is his in front of Mu Huainan.”
I was stunned.
“Peng Haobai said that the child is his!?”
My uncontrollable shock had exposed myself and the child’s facts.
“But Mu Huainan didn’t believe it. He asked Peng Haobai why his own child was being sent to an orphanage.”
I listened, my heart pounding.
“What is Peng Haobai’s answer?”
“He said that because he was in the underworld, there would be people who would take advantage of his family. He said that he didn’t want his children to grow up in such a chaotic environment, so he decided to send him to an orphanage.”
I carefully asked, “Do you believe the Uncle Huainan?”
Shen Xiuyuan sighed: “This is Peng Family’s usual style, cruel and merciless. Even his own child would be the same, of course Mu Huainan would believe it.”
My heart lurched uncontrollably.
“That day, he was so angry that he vomited blood and got the chance to escape again. Now that Mu Huainan has recovered, he wants to capture Peng Haobai and An Fang.”
“Then… If Uncle Huainan caught Peng Haobai, he would … What will happen to him? ” My heart was in my throat.
Shen Xiuyuan sighed deeply, “Think about it, when his own child was about to be done away with, he was afraid that in the future, he would make you suffer for his sake. He gave up a child with so much difficulty, and Peng Haobai easily obtained it.
No wonder… No wonder Peng Haobai didn’t allow me to sit in his car, because he knew that Mu Huainan had already started to arrest him on all fronts. However, he still risked his life to protect me, and even pretended to be so sloppy, pretending that nothing was wrong.
After all, he was afraid of my worry.
This idiot.
“Do you have any news of Peng Haobai’s whereabouts?”
“Not yet.”
I was finally a little relieved.
“Uncle Xiu Yuan…” After a while, I finally dared to speak carefully. “Regarding that child, Uncle Huainan is now … “What kind of attitude is that?”
“Mu Huainan came out to busy himself not long after the surgery last night. He had to run off with An Fang and the company to recover his health, plus Peng Haobai really pissed him off that day. Now that he is talking about children, he is coughing non-stop.”
I couldn’t help but worry about him.
“An An, you better get to the bottom of this.” Shen Xiuyuan said so much, but he still didn’t know. “Who exactly is that child?”
“Uncle Xiu Yuan, don’t force me.”
“Hai.” I know how important that child is to you, so I didn’t care about the fact that he helped you escape with him. But, I still have to tell you, you were raised by Mu Huainan, you have to differentiate between who you are and what kind of person you are. ”
I closed my eyes, tears streaming down my cheeks.
“Uncle Xiu Yuan, I always knew who I belonged to.”
“Um… “Then …” Shen Xiuyuan suddenly stopped halfway through her words. I heard footsteps on the other end of the phone, as well as light rubbing sounds.
The next moment, the voice on the other end of the phone changed.
“An’an.”
He called to me, his voice as husky and heavy as ever.
I couldn’t speak for a long time.
“What happened? Why didn’t you say hello to me?”
I forcefully swallowed the sour water in my throat. After a long while, I finally managed to spit out a few words, “Uncle Huainan.”
It was unknown if he had always been standing by Shen Xiuyuan’s side, or if he had only discovered this afterwards.
Just hearing his voice made me feel extremely uncomfortable.
“An An, how are you right now?”
he asked me, his voice full of weariness.
“This is bad…”
Hearing me say so, he suddenly laughed again.
“Coincidentally, me too.”
Tears were streaming down my face. I didn’t want him to hear me, so I tried to hang up, but just as I was getting closer to my ear, he called me.
“An’an.”
I can’t stand him calling me that.
Gentle, doting, with love that the whole world could not compare to.
I couldn’t bear to hang up the phone.
He asked me, “When do you want to come home?”
I didn’t say anything, and after a while he sighed and continued, “I was shot, covered in blood, and felt like I was about to die. You said please live on, you cried like a man, but I didn’t even have the strength to help you wipe your tears. After talking for a long time, he took a deep breath and continued, “That’s why I’m trying my best to endure in the operation room. Do you know how hard it is to fight against Yama Minamiya? I’m so tired that I just want to die, but the moment I close my eyes, you look like you’re crying, I …” As he spoke, he suddenly stopped and let out a long sigh. I can’t bear to part with it. ”
I just stood there in the crowded hotel lobby, crying like a silly tearful person.
“An An, when I went home that day, before I saw you in university, I caught you taking a photo at a cosplay exhibition. The girl in the photo didn’t know how to live a life of misery, she was simple and pure, she was the most beautiful.”
“Anthea, you remember what I told you, the doctor said I can’t live past twenty-five if I get sick, but how old are you this year, remember?”
“Thirty-five.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. After a long silence, his deep male voice suddenly came over:
“An An, I’ve endured it all, why are you leaving?”
I crouched down in a corner and wiped my eyes with my sleeve.
“You know why I’m leaving.”
“Bring Jiu Jiu back. Let me see, okay?”
All the lines of defense in my heart have been broken by him layer by layer. He is such a person, the old fox in the martial arts world, a few words, a look, what I want, there is nothing that I cannot get.
Naturally, I couldn’t escape either.
“Will you allow me to keep her?”
I finally mustered the courage to ask him.
But Mu Huainan still did not give me the answer I wanted.
“No,” he said.
“Bring her back first.”
He can’t give me that guarantee. A person who can’t give my child a guarantee of safety, even if the threat is 0.01, I, as a mother, can’t take the risk.
“Uncle Huainan.” My tears suddenly dried up and stopped flowing. “Is the spring in Mu City coming soon?”
He said softly on the other end of the line, “Uh-huh.”
“I remember that you used to like it a lot because you said it was a carnivorous animal, the only plant that you loved.”
“You remember.”
“Uncle Huainan, in the spring of the next year, you should plant a bunch of flowers in the courtyard. Just treat it as me, I was eaten up by cats and dogs that ran in that day, so just forget about me.”
“An’an.”
His tone suddenly turned anxious.
“Uncle Huainan, take care. Thank you for everything.”
I hung up before I could hear any reaction from the other side.
I found it funny that there was a thin layer of salt on the screen. I had cried so much just now that my tears had dried, leaving only salt on the screen.
After crying this time, that’s it.
I lost my cell phone card, took a map from the lobby, went back to the hotel room to pack my things, and fell asleep on my bed. When I was done, I carried him wearily to sleep.
When tomorrow comes, everything will be all right, I told myself.
That night I had a dream again.
When I looked from afar, it seemed like the sky and earth were connected. I never thought that the Mu City would also have such a vast and generous appearance, after all, his memory is always a small city that’s easy to organize and it’s very crowded.
The place wasn’t big, but it held too many important people that couldn’t be taken over.
I dreamt that Mu Huainan was carrying my old photo album. From the age of fifteen to twenty-five, he washed all of my photos and made them into a photo album. Then, he carried them and stood in the midst of the snow and wind, staring at the distant buildings that could not be seen.
Finally, he couldn’t bear it anymore and came over to hug me. His body was ice-cold, without any warmth at all.
Only the heat that spread across my forehead when I spoke.
He said, “An An, I’ve survived. Why do you want to leave?”
