Chapter 158: Life Experience (2/2)

The old man is a bit presbyopic and tired when looking at the phone screen for a long time, so he closed his eyes and listened.

Tang Jinyu was holding his mobile phone and was watching with him. Seeing that the ending was not good, he immediately turned off the volume.

The old man asked: ”Why is there no sound?”

Tang Jinyu said: ”There is something wrong with the phone battery, but there are subtitles, grandpa, you can't read it clearly, so I will read it to you.”

The old man lay there, listening to him carefully with his eyes closed.

Tang Jinyu made up a particularly good ending, the kind that the old man likes most.

In the story he told, the woman didn't suffer a bit. She took her child and fled the house with the help of reporters and mediators, and then went to the police station to report the case. After the injury, her husband was detained. She finally got divorced and received a large sum of money, and took her children to a new city to live incognito.

The old man listened attentively and smiled and nodded, ”Okay, it's time to leave long ago. It's good to take the child to go far. The tree is moved to die, people move to live, It's not worth hanging in a crooked tree when she is so young.”

Tang Jinyu turned his phone off and let the old man rest for a while, ”Grandpa, I'm going to have a meal, you can rest for a while, do you want to eat millet porridge today?”

Grandpa Tang nodded and smiled: ”Okay, I like to drink that. Go ahead.”

It was unknown if watching the TV show he had been worrying about, or if the anti-resistance medicine he had taken before had taken effect. Tonight, the old man was in good condition, and sat there and drank a small bowl of porridge and talked a lot with his grandson.

Tang Jinyu sat there chatting with the old man. Grandpa Tang touched his head and said with a smile: ” Xiaoyu has grown up and is eighteen years old.”

”No.”

”Why not, grandpa counts every day!” The old man held his hand, his expression relaxed a lot, ”You have grown up, and you will be able to decide many things by yourself in the future, you know?”

Tang Jinyu shook his head, he had a vague premonition in his heart, he didn't want the old man to talk any more. But this time the old man didn’t listen to him anymore. He spoke each word very slowly, and told him a little bit: ”Grandpa’s illness, I know in my heart, it’s actually much better than what the doctor said before that I would have a few months left. At that time, I thought I would’ve had to grit my teeth until your birthday, and see you turn eighteen with my own eyes, and rest assured that… when you are at the age of eighteen. If Grandpa is gone, you will not be an orphan. You can decide many things for yourself.”

The old man shook his hand and whispered: ”I watched you turn eighteen, and I was still alive. I wanted to watch you finish the college entrance examination and see you take notice with my own eyes. Grandpa knows that human hearts are greedy. In fact, I actually still wanted to see you go to university, and I want to stay with you all the time, but how can this be done? I am sick and old. It's only a matter of time.”

”Grandpa saved 50,000 yuan for you. The money is in the small box under the bed at home. I was afraid of leaving too early, and I didn’t know when I would be gone. You can't get it out when you go to the bank, It's all cash, remember to go and take it. Grandpa doesn't have many abilities in his life, and he didn't save much, so don’t blame Grandpa.”

Tang Jinyu wanted to speak, but Grandpa Tang raised his hand and stopped, ”Be obedient and let Grandpa finish. There is one more thing to tell you. I have been celebrating your birthday on June 1 for so many years. In fact, your birthday is not on that day.”

The old man laughed and said, ”I took it for you myself when Grandpa took you back.”

Grandpa Tang shook his hand slightly and used some strength to tell him a story.

That happened more than ten years ago. The old man lost his son, daughter-in-law, and grandson in a car accident, and all his relatives were gone.

The last sentence of the daughter-in-law was to ask him to save her child, but what she didn’t know was that her child had been in the car accident as well. The old man's hair turned gray overnight, and he aged a couple of years. On that day, the hospital rescued a child that was about two years old. The child was sitting there with dementia, neatly dressed, and a ribbon was hung around his neck. No one came to pick him up, and no one wanted him—no one wanted such a sick child.

When Grandpa Tang saw him, he went to pay for his hospitalization and went through the formalities to adopt him.

Day by day, the child got better and better. He can talk and laugh. He was also very clever. He learned everything quickly. He always keeps his head up next to the old man and calls out ”Grandpa” repeatedly.

…

Grandpa Tang raised his hand and touched his head, and said with a smile: ”The little one who I carried back then is so big in the blink of an eye.”

Tang Jinyu wiped the tears from his face with the back of his hand, and hugged him and called to grandpa.

The old man patted him gently, coaxing him not to cry like he did when he was a child.

He gritted his teeth and insisted on living a few more days, just to arrange everything in order to find a good way for his only grandson.

He didn't want to send his child to the orphanage, but wanted to protect him when he grew up to be able to support himself.

This is the limit he can do.

Grandpa Tang wiped his tears and laughed in a low voice: ”You don't know, I privately hoped that your parents would not come to you at that time, and I don't know where you came from. The younger you just sat there and was injured, and didn’t know how to cry anymore. Grandpa lost all his relatives that day and raised you as the only child. When I later learned that I was sick, I didn’t feel much pain. This was originally a period of time that I stole.”

Tang Jinyu was still shaking his head, crying beyond words.

”Crying just like a cat, stop crying, do you know why grandpa wrote your birthday on June 1st? Because grandpa wanted you to be a child for the rest of your life, happy every day and have nothing to worry about.” Grandpa Tang rubbed his head and sighed with a smile, “Unfortunately, Grandpa has no abilities. Come here, the little money that grandpa saved for you, you keep studying hard, and I’ll be relieved once you finish college.”

”I don't want the money, I'll use it to treat you…”

The old man shook his head, ”Grandpa is getting older, and the loess is buried in my neck, and the disease can't be cured. Grandpa knows in his heart and keeps the money for you. I am very happy to see you grow up. Half of my wish has been fulfilled.” He held Tang Jinyu's hand, his gaze fell on his face with nostalgia and looked back and forth, with eyes full of dismay, ”Grandpa just didn't see you go to college, it's a pity.”

Tang Jinyu hugged him without letting go, his knuckles were firmly clenched until white, his shoulders trembled slightly, and his teeth were clenched, but he could hear the sound of it crashing up and down, ”Yes, you can see it, I want to take you. I want to take you to many places together. I have been looking for you for a long time. You can't just leave me like this.”

”Stupid boy, everyone gets old, I just got off at the station ahead of time. You have to let go and go forward.” The old man was held tightly by him, and his eyes were wet, ”I will buy it for myself a coffin. But I don’t want it. It’s not worth it, it’s good to scatter my ashes in the sea. But then I thought, if you miss me and want to talk to me, there is a place to go.”

He raised his arms laboriously, hugged his grandson with his big, rough and dry hands, and said dumbly: ”Xiaoyu, when you go to college, come and tell grandpa, grandpa will be satisfied.”

Two days before the college entrance examins notice came, Tang Jinyu sent off his grandfather.

The old man left in his sleep, did not experience much pain, and his face was kind.

He couldn't wake up the old man, and only realized that he had left.

Tang Jinyu, a young boy, had never experienced anything like this before, and he didn't know what to do, and stood there at a loss.

The head nurse pityed him and took him to complete the formalities. The hospital issued a death certificate. He took the death certificate and went to the funeral home for cremation.

There were good-hearted people to help him along the way, and he followed in a daze, and brought back a small wooden box from the funeral home, which contained a handful of grandpa's ashes.

When he returned home, he only felt that the room was very quiet. He hadn't eaten anything for a day, only dipped in water, but he was not thirsty or hungry, as if he couldn't feel it, and layed there groggy and fell asleep.

But at night, Tang Jinyu suddenly woke up in the middle of the night, like he had a big dream, suddenly remembering what happened during the day, tears rolled down, and he burst into tears.

Grandpa is gone.

He has no relatives in this world.

It took a few days for Tang Jinyu to slowly recover a little energy. He lost weight and his smile disappeared. He pursed his lips and quietly packed up the old man's belongings, putting everything away properly. Their grandfather and grandson had been poor all the time, but this did not mean that the old man had treated him badly. The toys he used when he was a child were made by the old man himself, the small wood-carved pistol, and the cowhide rattle… Tang Jinyu put them in the same small box, and when he saw one of the red blessing kits, his hand paused and picked it up.

This kit seems to be a few years old, but when Tang Jinyu touched it, he suddenly felt a little strange, like something urging him to open the kit.

The urgency was so fast that his hands trembled a bit, and he accidentally tore two tassel pendants.

The ”Fu” kit was opened, and inside was a piece of yellowed paper, folded into a small square and placed inside.

Tang Jinyu opened it and found that it was not a complete page, but an incomplete half, as if it was torn off in half by someone inadvertently. There were some unintelligible characters on it—or indistinct characters.

He watched for a while, and suddenly his heart beat faster, stumbled into the room and took out the autobiographical book, turned to the last page, trembling hands, aligning the torn half of the book with the torn half of the book, and stuck it tightly together. The moment the pages on both sides were closed, they began to glue together, and almost merged into a complete book page in the blink of an eye. The last page of the book was aligned.

The whole book was silent and automatic, and the pages of the book were flipped and rolled from the last page to the front. With so much strength, Tang Jinyu could hardly hold it. He barely saw the handwriting that flashed on the pages of the book that jumped over. The words at the back of the book are no longer vague and all become clear. He vaguely sees ”Xia Ye’s 78-year-old buys overseas companies” and ”Chateau mergers”… And so on, but before he could understand it, the whole book closed with a ”bang”.

Tang Jinyu turned it hard and couldn't open it again, but a countdown appeared on the black cover of the book.

——23:59:59.

The number of seconds began to decrease a little bit, the book was firmly in his hand, the heavy feeling was really tangible, and the faint feeling of being able to contact the other side came back again, Tang Jinyu's throat tightened, he felt a feeling in his heart, if If he guessed correctly, one day later is the moment when he makes his final choice.