Translator: SJade, Editor: Dj22031
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For Zhen Xuxu’s birthday, her father and mother had booked a very delicate Japanese food shop in the commercial center to celebrate her birthday.
Sushi, eel, foie gras and other dishes were placed on the table, as well as a lovely peach heart cream birthday cake.
Her father was a business executive, wearing glasses and a black suit, he looked like a gentleman.
“Father, this is a kid we met in school. He just got into Beicheng University this year.”
Zhen Zheng said politely to Qiu Li, “Hello, thank you for coming to celebrate my daughter’s birthday.”
“That’s right, that’s right, junior brother, we don’t know your name yet!”
“My name is Qiu Li.”
After saying these two words, his eyes swept over Ren Xian.
The expression on Ren Xian’s face did not change at all, in fact she picked up a piece of eel for Zhen Xuxu, and said to him: “Xiao Li, don’t be restrained, eat more.”
She seemed to have forgotten him completely, as if in her memory, there was no Qiu Li at all.
Only unimportant people would disappear into memory at will like this.
To her, he was an irrelevant person.
Qiu Li didn’t know how he felt at this moment.
Was he disheartened?
It didn’t seem to be, he just couldn’t feel anything.
It was like when he was killing birds as a child, watching the frail life slip little by little through his hands, he was indifferent.
His stress protection mechanism… seemed to have been activated again.
No grief, no pain, no heartbreak.
Qiu Li picked a small piece of foie gras on the dinner plate with his slender chopsticks. The thin tip of the chopsticks slowly poked the surface of the foie gras, and something greasy oozed out.
Seeing that he didn’t seem to be interested in foie gras, Zhen Xuxu ordered another Hell Ramen and delivered it to Qiu Li.
“Try it, their Hell Ramen is a must-try, I guarantee you will fall in love with it.”
Qiu Li numbly ate a piece of noodles, still without taste or feeling.
“Is it delicious?” Zhen Xuxu looked at him expectantly. Seeing that he didn’t respond in a daze, she thought he was too restrained, and gave him another piece of sushi: “Why don’t you try this again.”
Seeing this, Ren Xian, said: “Let Xiao Li eat by himself.”
“Okay.”
Zhen Xuxu comforted: “Don’t be too restrained, although it’s the first time we met today, we will be friends in the future, just be casual with us.”
At this time, the waiter brought the cake, the candles on it had been lit, Zhen Zheng raised the teacup and said, “Happy birthday to our daughter. She will be a real big girl in the future. Keep working hard.”
“Read books, don’t stay up late, and go to bed before ten o’clock.”
Zhen Xuxu pouted and said, “Mom, you are really embarrassing me… Haven’t you heard that you should not do to others what you don’t want to be done to you? You often stay up late, don’t talk about me.”
Zhen Zheng tapped his daughter on the head, and said angrily: “Mom stays up late to write papers, and you stay up late to play with your mobile phone.”
“No, I also want to write, okay! I want to be a writer!”
Looking at the happy and warm scene in front of him, Qiu Li felt like an outsider.
He was an outsider, even though the woman in front of him was his mother, but she didn’t remember him at all. To her, he was just a stranger.
Zhen Zheng looked at Zhen Xuxu dotingly, and said helplessly, “You are a twenty-year-old girl, and you still act like a child.”
Qiu Li looked at Zhen Xuxu and asked, “Are you twenty?”
Zhen Xuxu shrugged: “Yes, I’m older than you, logically speaking, you should call me sister.”
The word “sister” poked Qiu Li’s heart at once, and Jiang Yu’s gentle face emerged in his mind, his numb perception gradually eased.
His chest began to ache, and his breathing became very difficult. His hands clenched around the chopsticks tightly.
“You are twenty…”
Qiu Li was only eighteen years old, that was to say, her mother only had him after she had Zhen Xuxu.
How could this be, how could it be…
Could it be that she and her father were having an extramarital affair?
She already had a family with children?
No, it didn’t make sense, it shouldn’t be… Where was the problem!
Qiu Li’s mind was confused.
He decided to stop thinking wildly and guessing. He had to ask clearly, ask Ren Xian, why she left so cruelly in the first place, was it just because he hurt the little animal.
He had changed, he never did that again, would mom still accept him?
Qiu Li looked at Ren Xian, with a bit of bitterness in his voice, and asked, “You really don’t remember me?”
This question made Ren Xian startled: “Huh?”
“Qiu Shao, do you still remember?”
This was the man’s name, even when Qiu Li said it now, he felt that these two words hurt the tip of his tongue.
Qiu Li suppressed the feeling of physical nausea, and continued to ask: “Do you not remember at all, I am his son, and I am also yours…”
He didn’t have the courage or confidence to say those two words, with the only glimmer left in his mouth, he looked at Ren Xian expectantly, hoping that she would recognize him.
Ren Xian reacted after a long time, and exclaimed: “You are Xiao Li?!”
Qiu Li heaved a sigh of relief, and his tense expression relaxed a lot. The corners of his mouth were about to rise, but Ren Xian suddenly said: “You are Dr. Qiu’s son! My God, I haven’t seen you for so many years, you are so old!”
“Doctor Qiu’s… son?”
Qiu Li was stunned for a moment.
Seeing that they actually knew each other, Zhen Xuxu couldn’t wait to ask: “Mom, do you know him? What’s going on, please explain clearly!”
“I always suffered from insomnia because of staying up at night, so hypnosis treatment was recommended to me by my colleagues. I heard that Dr. Qiu is very good at hypnosis, so I went to see Dr. Qiu for help. Every time after hypnosis, I could sleep well for a while.”
Qiu Li’s brain with a “hum”, it was like an ancient solitary bell being slammed.
His whole world seemed to be shattered.
A splitting headache.
There were sporadic clues, slowly crawling out from the cracks in memory.
Yes, that’s right, every time his mother came over, she only rested in the office.
Qiu Li’s small room was right next to the office, every time he finished solving the complicated puzzles on the table, his mother would wake up, then visit him in his small room, touch his head and say: “Xiao Li, it’s amazing, such a complicated puzzle was completed in two hours.”
That’s right, he remembered it clearly, there was no problem!
So what’s the problem…
He continued to go back in his mind, trying to restore all the details of that year, mother especially liked bright yellow skirts, the same color as a little daisy.
His mother always said to him gently: “Xiao Li is really good.”
His mother also taught him several Olympiad problems.
In front of that man, his mother always respectfully called him: “Doctor Qiu…”
His mother often took a nap in the consultation room, and she woke up in a particularly good spirit.
Every time his mother finished her rest, she would pay his father and ask him, “Where did Xiao Li’s mother go?”
The man’s answer seemed to be…
Dystocia, dead.
“Bang.”
The colourful bubbles in the air burst.
In that second, his whole world collapsed.
She was not his mother…
His mother was dead, she died while giving birth to him.
Because of the lack of maternal love, Qiu Li subconsciously regarded the woman who came to consult his father as his own mother, and he kept deepening this memory over the years.
As a result… he firmly believe it!
“Xiao Li, are you okay?” Seeing that his complexion was not very good, Ren Xian asked softly, “Did you think of something unhappy?”
Qiu Li didn’t answer, he couldn’t hear the voices from outside at all. They seemed to be completely blocked.
Zhen Xuxu said: “So, my mother is actually Qiu Li’s father’s patient! This is really a fate!”
“Yes, Dr. Qiu…”
Zhen Xuxu paused, but whenever she thought of this man, she couldn’t help but be afraid after a while.
When she first met him, he was gentle and amiable. Who would have thought that after closing the door, he would cause such cruel and perverted mental torture to his own son.
Back then when she saw the news of his imprisonment in the news, she was covered in a cold sweat, and then suddenly realized why that little boy looked so withdrawn and sinister.
She still remembered the last day of the treatment session, when the little boy brought a dead bird to show her.
She seemed to have criticized him severely, saying that small animals should not be treated so cruelly.
The little boy seemed to have been crying.
After the treatment was over, she never had the chance to see him again.
“Auntie is really happy to see that you are so outstanding today!” Ren Xian said to Qiu Li emotionally, “It’s really great.”
Her soft voice was completely blocked from Qiu Li’s eardrums.
Boom!
Another coloured bubble burst.
All his efforts, all his hopes, and the bright future he thought were being shattered one by one.
Boom!
Boom.
Boom.
Bang…
The only remaining trace of decency supported him, and he finished the meal with difficulty.
Even Qiu Li didn’t know how he persisted until the end, he couldn’t feel anything, he just chewed the food mechanically.
After saying goodbye to the family, Qiu Li walked down the street with his hands in his pockets.
When the lights came on and night fell, his mind was completely emptied.
Pedestrians on the street, busy traffic, loud sirens, hawkers hawking…everything was isolated from his world.
In front of him was a dessert shop, Qiu Li walked in with slow steps, and ordered a large cake with popping pulp.
The dessert girl scrutinized him several times, and in the end she specially gave him a cup of pearl milk tea.
Qiu Li sat on a chair by the side of the street, looking at the people passing by with expressionless faces, just like looking at animals without emotion.
He opened the small box of the bursting cake.
“Woof!”
A stray dog barked ferociously at Qiu Li, looking at the cake in his hand with a fierce look in his eyes, “Woof!”
“Woof!”
Qiu Li raised the corner of his mouth and waved to it: “Want to eat?”
The dog immediately rushed to him.
He stretched his legs lazily and kicked it away.
“Aw!”
The stray dog screamed, not daring to bark at him anymore, and ran away with its tail between its legs.
Looking at its fleeing figure, Qiu Li didn’t feel anything.
He directly grabbed the bursting cake with his hands, tasted it, and it was the same as on the table just now, the entrance was just a pile of substances, and he couldn’t taste any flavour.
He was too far away, too far away from Jiang Yu, he couldn’t feel anything.
The world had closed its doors to him again.
He began to swallow in big gulps, until cream was splattered all over his mouth and face, stuffing his stomach crazily like a robot.
Many people around him looked sideways at him and cast strange glances.
While swallowing the cake, Qiu Li dialled Jiang Yu’s phone number.
“Calling me now.” The girl’s gentle voice came, with anger: “You haven’t contacted me all day today! I thought you forgot that you have a girlfriend.”
The moment he heard her voice, only then did the tip of Qiu Li’s tongue suddenly regain consciousness.
Salty and bitter taste.
He vomited out the cake in his mouth, only to realize that the taste of tears was so bitter.
His self in the reflective glass of the opposite window had already burst into tears.
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