After the visiting hours ended, Qiao Yang grabbed Li Xiu and chatted for a long time in the small flower bed downstairs of the hospital building.
Qiao Yang is not very old, but he is very nagging when it comes to Li Xiu's life.
"It's going to be very expensive to go to Beijing, right? Prices there are high, and tuition and living expenses are all expenses. The money I transferred to you before was just a red envelope, so why did you return it to me? Seriously, you're being polite to me—"
Li Xiu looked helpless and desperately refused Qiao Yang's further transfer. "I'm really not being polite. Jingbei waived my tuition for four years, and there's also an additional scholarship, which is enough to cover my expenses for four years. I already had some savings, so the money is definitely enough."
"That's not the case. You're all alone in the capital, unfamiliar with the place. How can I feel at ease if you don't have some money on you..."
"I'm not exactly alone there."
Li Xiu scratched the tip of her nose lightly and spoke softly.
"Fang Qianan also went to university in the capital."
"ah?"
"His university is right next to mine, so we can take care of each other."
Qiao Yang let out a long "Oh" and an interested smile appeared on his face.
"I understand. Well, with Fang Qian'an here, you really don't have to worry about anything."
When meeting Qiao Yang's gaze, Li Xiu felt inexplicably hot on his face.
"I worked so hard to get that guy's grades up. Even if he works like a slave for me, it wouldn't be too much to repay me. Asking him to help me get familiar with the environment in Beijing... is already a bargain for him."
Qiao Yang nodded repeatedly: "Yes, yes, yes"
The young man glanced at Li Xiu's face and suddenly sighed in dissatisfaction: "...It's really too cheap for that wild boar."
Qiao Yang complained quietly.
Li Xiu didn't hear Qiao Yang's last sentence clearly, and was about to ask again when her cell phone rang.
As soon as he saw the incoming call on the screen, Li Xiu's expression naturally softened.
When the call was connected, Li Xiu's tone was very casual: "What?"
"How long are you going to keep talking to that guy?" came the boy's hard voice.
"Ah? How do you know I'm talking to Senior Brother Qiao..." Li Xiu was feeling confused when a flash of inspiration came to him. He turned around with his cell phone in hand and saw a tall figure on the other side of the flower bed.
Fang Qianan was standing at the other end of the flower bed, looking at Li Xiu through the lush shade of the trees.
"Why are you here? Didn't you say we'd meet at the station later?"
Fang Qianan put away his phone and strode towards Li Xiu.
"Hello, Senior Brother Qiao." He greeted Qiao Yang, intentionally or unintentionally standing between the two of them, then turned to look at Li Xiu, "I deliberately finished my work in advance so that I could come to see you earlier, but you were busy talking to others. I'm such a big person standing here, but you didn't even notice me.
The boy muttered as if he was dissatisfied, with a hint of grievance in his tone.
"I even brought you some hot cocoa from xx."
"It's obviously you who was standing in the wrong place. You were just blocked by the tree." Li Xiu snorted and retorted bluntly, then happily took the hot cocoa that Fang Qianan handed to her and took a big sip.
"Wow, it's delicious!" The boy squinted his eyes happily because of the hot cocoa.
"Hiss, I don't understand how you can drink something so sweet." Fang Qianan kept staring at Li Xiu. Although he kept complaining, his expression was unusually gentle.
"Ahem." Qiao Yang looked at the two adolescent boys who had unknowingly stuck together, and was a little irritated by the inexplicable sticky feeling. "...Okay, since Fang Qianan is here to pick you up, I'll leave first."
Qiao Yang said this with great self-awareness.
Before parting, he casually asked, "Where are you going to play later?"
Li Xiu and Fang Qianan's expressions froze for a moment.
After a few seconds of pausing, Fang Qianan said calmly with a complicated expression, "I'll take Ah Xiu... to see my mother."
*
Mrs. Fang was in the final stages of her life. Years of living in a mental hospital had completely drained away the last bit of vitality in her body.
As if she had realized that she was about to leave this world, the woman used various methods to beg Fang Qianan to see her. However, since he knew what she had done in the past, it was not easy for Fang Qianan to see Mrs. Fang.
It was not until yesterday that the private doctor who had been in charge of taking care of Mrs. Fang called Fang Qianan and told him that these two days might be the woman's last days in the world. Only then did Fang Qianan finally make up his mind.
Li Xiu decided to go with him. He wanted to ask Mrs. Fang what she was thinking when she took the life of another innocent child for her own child. Did she feel even the slightest regret over the years?
*
Li Xiu and Fang Qianan saw Mrs. Fang in the deepest ward of the luxurious private sanatorium.
She was completely different from the pampered, beautiful woman Li Xiu saw in the illusion. When he saw her, Li Xiu even felt a little scared - he almost thought he had seen a ghost again.
How could humans become like that?
She looked like a living skeleton. Her eyes were sunken and her body was skinny. She looked like a bunch of dry firewood wrapped in yellow skin, tied to the pale bed.
She was indeed on her deathbed.
She had clearly been begging her children to see her for the last time, but now even when Fang Qianan stood in front of her, there was only chaos in her eyes.
She looked at Fang Qianan blankly, and a little shiny saliva flowed out from her dry lips.
His bony chest rose and fell, and after a long while a few incoherent mutterings emerged from his dark throat.
"sorry..."
Her gaze passed Fang Qianan, as if looking into the endless void.
Even now, that voice is still filled with fear.
"Forgive me, Xuelin...I am sorry for you...I was wrong...I am sorry...I was wrong..."
"mom."
Fang Qianan lowered his head and looked at the living skeleton on the hospital bed. He shouted in a hoarse voice.
"Wuwuwu... I was wrong... It's been so many years, can you please let me go... I'm in so much pain... I was wrong..."
…
Li Xiu vaguely felt that Fang Qianan was trembling.
He tilted his head to glance at the boy beside him, and couldn't help but gently stroke the back of the latter's hand with his fingertips. As a result, the next moment he was grabbed tightly by Fang Qianan.
"I'm grateful to you for giving me life, but I also...I hate you too."
"You made me a sinner."
He heard Fang Qianan speak word by word to the woman on the bed.
Tears welled up in Mrs. Fang's eyes.
Fang Qianan took a deep breath, stretched out his hand, and wanted to help Mrs. Fang wipe away her tears and saliva - but the next second, Fang Qianan suddenly withdrew his hand and covered his face.
"I'm sorry, Xiu, I, I'm not feeling well."
Fang Qianan's face looked extremely ugly, and the muscles on his face were twitching slightly as if they were in spasm.
Before Li Xiu could respond, the boy hunched his back and rushed out of the ward.
Li Xiu instinctively wanted to rush out, but after taking a few steps, he stopped involuntarily.
He turned to look at Mrs. Fang.
"If you hadn't suffered so much," Li Xiu walked back to Mrs. Fang's bedside. Looking down at the woman, he murmured, "...would you still feel regret?"
He asked.
"Wuwuwu… Wuwuwu…"
Mrs. Fang just opened her eyes blankly and continued to sob.
She looked miserable and pitiful, but Li Xiu, who had always been soft-hearted, stared at the woman with only indifference in his heart.
No, this woman shouldn't regret it.
Although Mrs. Fang was no longer able to respond to him, Li Xiu already had the answer to his question.
"Oh..."
He couldn't help but sneer at the woman.
"Actually, I hope you can live longer."
He said softly.
"It would be best if I could live a hundred years and continue to suffer like this forever."
After the words fell, Li Xiu turned around and prepared to go out to find Fang Qianan. But at this moment, his wrist suddenly tightened - the woman who was still unconscious and haggard a few seconds ago now grabbed Li Xiu's wrist tightly.
"?!"
Li Xiu turned his head and met Mrs. Fang's eyes in surprise.
The woman's sunken eyes were now sparkling with brilliance, completely different from the emptiness and confusion she had before.
"Don't, don't be fooled."
She stared at Li Xiu and spoke word by word.
"That's not it, that's not Xiao An."
There was no longer any madness on the woman's face, only endless fear.
"I've regretted it a long time ago. I regret it so much."
With tears streaming down her face, the woman repeated to Li Xiu like crazy.
"I killed my son, you know. I turned my son into a monster with my own hands."
"That thing...is not my son at all!"
*
"hiss..."
In the restroom of the nursing home.
Fang Qianan splashed cold water on his face, but when he was wiping his face, the stinging pain from deep in his eyes made him gasp involuntarily.
"it hurts."
The boy frowned and muttered.
Then he leaned closer to the mirror and carefully examined his throbbing eyeballs.
A little red, but nothing else...
At this moment, Fang Qianan suddenly found that something was wrong in his eyes.
He placed his fingertips on his eyelids, gently pulled them open a little and began to observe.
Then, he met the other pupil hidden behind his eyelid.
"Fuck—"
The boy let out a scream and stumbled backwards. The bathroom floor was slippery and he was about to fall, but he managed to steady himself in a strange way.
"Be careful."
He heard a nightmarish voice.
And that sound…came from deep within his own body.
"A Xiu really likes this body."
"Don't break it."
There was a creepy gentleness in the voice.
*
In the ward——
Li Xiu slowly pulled his hand out of the woman's wrist.
He looked straight at Mrs. Fang.
"I know."
The boy's voice was eerily calm.
Mrs. Fang stared at Li Xiu blankly with her eyes wide open. After a moment, the woman's expression twisted.
The clarity in her eyes faded little by little.
"It was eaten." She puffed out her lips and nervously repeated to Li Xiu.
"It ate you... wuwu... was eaten..."
Li Xiu ignored the woman's sobs.
The sunlight fell into the room from the window, casting deep shadows on the handsome boy's face.
"It's really scary to live alone."
Li Xiu just looked at Madam Fang like that, with the corners of his mouth slightly raised and a smile on his lips.
"So even if it's a monster, so what..."
*
[It doesn't matter even if it's a ghost. ]
[It will still be his only relative.]
["elder brother".]
——"Brother"·the end ——
The author has something to say:
I've seen a lot of comments where people think the ending is a bit abrupt, so I'd like to add a few more comments, because I changed the ending...
The original ending was that A Xiu hugged Gui Ge. He felt that Gui Ge was very touched and pitiful, but he still used Teacher Xu's candle to burn Gui Ge because he could not forgive Gui Ge for what he did to his grandmother and others.
If A Xiu did it himself, the effect would be completely different, so Brother Gui did not resist and let A Xiu kill him.
After Ah Xiu returned to the real world, he was also caught in a fire. He felt that this was Brother Gui's punishment for him. The strong sense of self-blame made him not run away, and he prepared to face his own death.
But at the critical moment, Xiao Fang showed up at the risk of his own life and dragged him out of the fire...
At this time, A Xiu had actually suffered a mental breakdown. Although Brother Gui was really scary and disgusting and had killed so many people, in A Xiu's cognition, if it were not for him, Xiao Yu could go back to her grandmother's house and would not have to suffer such a terrible thing. What's more, for a long time, her grandmother had been telling A Xiu that Brother Gui was his relative.
After killing Brother Gui with her own hands, Ah Xiu developed a strong self-destructive mentality due to the strong self-blame and guilt.
It was Fang Gou who told A Xiu word by word in the fire that he would be with him forever. He had Li Yu's kidney and shared the same original sin with A Xiu, so they were one.
It was at this moment that A Xiu realized that Xiao Fang was his only and last companion in this world.
…
After that, Fang Gou and A Xiu escaped from the fire and returned to reality.
Ah Xiu also completely fell for Xiao Fang because of his special existence.
He arrived at Mrs. Fang's bedside when she was dying...
After being reminded by the woman, A Xiu was horrified to find that Xiao Fang had disappeared long ago, and it was Gui Ge who was with him now.
He didn't escape from Brother Gui's control at all.
Just like what Teacher Xu always reminded him... Don't believe a single word the ghosts say.
But after going through so much, A Xiu no longer had the energy to attack Xiao Fang again.
The only thing he could do was to continue to stay with that monster forever.
…
In fact, I know myself that if I had written it according to the original ending, the whole story would have been much better.
But today when I was sitting in front of the computer preparing to send out the ending, I still felt a very strange sense of compassion.
According to the original plan, Teacher Xu also died. This was also Brother Gui's plan because Teacher Xu was the only person who could hurt him. Including the fact that Teacher Xu later taught A Xiu the Life Candle, it was also caused by Brother Gui's constant hints.
But this is really too tragic...
The whole story is full of utter despair. Mr. Hong was born in despair and brought Ah Xiu into despair as well.
In the end, I couldn't bear it, so I changed the plot to what it is now.
At least in this story that may have a somewhat abrupt ending, everyone can get a little happiness.