C3 (1/2)

Mom and Dad didn't come to see me as they promised, but they had a phone call every week.

At first, I was very homesick. Once, when I walked out of school, I saw a familiar car parked on the opposite side of the road.

That's my dad's car.

”Dad!”

I ran across the street, but my father drove away at once.

I walked home for two hours, crying and chasing, with no money on me.

But there was no one home.

I sat in front of the door until Shuyue came to pick me up and left while crying.

It was a long time before I realized that my mother was home, that she had turned out the lights and was crying, but I had to make up my mind not to go in.

Seven years after I left home, my father was waiting for me at the entrance to the elementary school to catch a glimpse of me from afar.

I slowly got used to being with Shuyue. In the beginning, whenever I returned home, Shuyue would definitely follow me. No matter how busy my parents were, they would always be waiting for me at home to come back and have a meal with me.

After attending junior high school, the number of times I returned home gradually increased, and Shuyue didn't follow me every single time.

This feeling was as if something had finally come to an end. Their worries were unnecessary. I also seemed to see my parents unfurl their ancient frown.

One day, my mother said to me: ”Wangwang, you have troubled Shuyue for so many years, now mother is not busy, you can move back.”

It was a joyous occasion! His wife of many years had finally become a wife!

Just when I thought it was a good day, there was a thunderbolt waiting for me.

I was still in school that day, halfway through, when the head teacher opened the door.

”Wang Wangwang, come out for a while.”

I followed the head teacher out of the classroom. I didn't know why, but I felt like she was looking at me strangely, actually feeling a bit sympathetic.

”Calm down, child. The people from your father's office are waiting for you downstairs. Your father is in trouble. ”

With a buzz in my head, I reflexively walked down the stairs. The person who walked up to me was an uncle that I had never seen before. He was wearing a polo shirt with a horizontal stripe on it. It was a hot summer in the south, and he kept wiping the sweat from his forehead with a paper towel.

”I'm a colleague of your father's. Let's hurry,” his uncle said. ”Your father is dying in the hospital. Let's go see him one last time.”

In fact, the memory of that day was very vague. He only remembered that the car had been driving along the road, surrounded by the white shadows of the trees and the crowds of pedestrians as usual.

My mind was blank all the way.

The car stopped in front of the traffic lights. The lights turned green, but the traffic lights were always gone. Uncle Polo pressed his horn, and the pedestrians still crossed the road, laughing in an inaudible manner.

Just like I usually did when I crossed the street after school, I didn't care what it felt like to be in a car.

”Step on the accelerator!” In that instant I exploded.

”Step on the accelerator!” My father is still waiting for me! ” My tears fell.

As the car buzzed its way through the zebra crossing, there was a series of disgruntled shouts and curses outside the window.

”Why are they in such a hurry to be reincarnated!”

When he arrived at the hospital, the outside of the ward was full of people. They were all soldiers, wearing military uniforms.

A man who looked like a cadre greeted me, and I don't know if I was dragged or pushed into the ward.

The doctor in the ward was already removing the ventilator, and the nurse was pushing the emergency equipment out of the room, filling it up with me. I saw my father lying in bed, and my mother crying out.

”You are not allowed to leave! You're not allowed to leave! Why aren't you saving them! My dad is still not awake! ” I grabbed the doctor:

”My dad can still be saved!”

The doctor shook his head.

When I touched my father's foot, it was stiff.

It didn't feel like human skin, like marble. There was a big hole in my dad's chest, but no blood came out. I don't know if it was frozen or already drained.

His hand was strangely bent, and the side of his face beyond his temple was bluish-purple. I didn't dare look at it again.

I remember when I was a kid, my dad took my hand to see a movie, I was tired in the cinema snoring.

I remembered when I first went to Shuyue's house, I met him outside the elementary school, sitting in her car. Tears were in his eyes, but she quickly drove away.

I remembered that every time my father wanted to give me pocket money and was afraid that my mother would say something about it, I would be secretly tucked away in a book on the shelf. We had agreed on the first few pages, and every time we went home we would get a hundred dollars. The book was Wesley's Blue-Blood.

I thought about how he took me to a restaurant and watched my mom and I eat huge fish and meat while he grilled his own food …

”… …”

How about I die too, I'll be able to see my father once I die.

At that moment, I smelled a familiar scent.

Shuyue came.

There were two lines of dry tears on her face, and I had never seen her cry in my life, not even when she'd fallen off the bike and sewed a dozen stitches or so, as if none of it had happened.

As if she hadn't seen me, she walked step by step to the bed.

Looking at my father, his eyes were filled with heartbreak, loneliness, and anger.

Shuyue covered my father with a blanket. Her hands were trembling and her long hair was hanging down. I couldn't see her expression.

”You've suffered.” She whispered into my father's ear, then looked at me.

”Wangwang, go home and help your father get a clean set of clothes and socks.”

I stumbled down the stairs. The polo shirt uncle was still in the car.

”Take me home.”