reborn stepfather

I sat in the train station blankly for a long time, and behind the scrolling entries on the electronic display above my head was November 2002, 11.

I just slapped myself twice in the bathroom, and the burning pain on my cheeks still exists, clearly reminding me that it was the autumn of 11 years ago.

I am only 27 years old this year, and I have just returned from teaching in the West.

Chi Qian has not yet been adopted.

Coming out of Nanchuan Railway Station, the sun was strong outside, and I raised my head and took a deep breath.

At this time, he should only be nine years old, right?Where will the nine-year-old Chi Qian be?

A private car drove up in front of me, and a round-faced female driver rolled down the window: "Handsome guy, where are you going?" I shook my head, and she stretched out her hand to point to the taxi waiting area, where there was a long queue, and said : "Get in my car, it's cheaper than taking a taxi, and you don't have to wait."

The shock brought about by the rebirth made me confused. In fact, I hadn’t decided where to go yet. My eyes caught a glimpse of a photo in front of the windshield. It was a boy smiling shyly at the camera.So I remembered the last phone call Liqiu made to me, and got into the car in a daze.

The female driver started the car and asked me, "Where are you going?"

I tried my best to think about it. I didn't know whether Li Qiu was talking about Zhaoshui Village or Daoshui Village. I was a little uncertain, so I asked the driver: "Is there a place called Zhaoshui Village under Nanchuan?"

The female driver thought for a while and said, "Yes."

That should be there, I nodded: "Then go to Zhaoshui Village."

The car was very old, probably a second-hand car, where the radio should have been turned into a hole, and a few CDs were piled up in it, the female driver dug it out and picked one, it was Faye Wong's "Red Bean", I don't know if it was a pirated version After listening to it for many years, the sound quality is very poor. The female driver is holding the steering wheel and humming along with the rustling song.

I pointed to the photo: "Is that your son?"

She glanced over there, and a smile appeared on Yuanyuan's face: "Yeah, I'm in the sixth grade, like a little monkey, jumping up and down, I can't control it at all..."

The car drove out of Nanchuan Town, the narrow road was surrounded by mountains on one side, and terraced fields on the other side, each piece was filled with rice, tender green, slightly shaking in the wind.I looked out the window and said, "I have a son too."

The female driver looked at me in surprise from the rearview mirror: "Oh, you got married and had children at such a young age?"

I smiled: "I'm almost thirty."

She looked even more surprised, and said again and again: "I can't see it, I can't see it, I really can't see it, I can see it like this, at most twenty."

People in business are exaggerating.I smiled, didn't speak, stretched out my hand to shake down the glass, a cool air with a bit of dust smell rushed in, I blew on the wind, different shades of green flashed past my eyes, and my heart gradually calmed down.

At that time, Li Qiu's begging on the phone was always a thorn in my heart that couldn't be erased, thorn in the most painful place.

"The only person I can think of is you." That day, she called me from the prison. I was not in Nanchuan at that time, and I had already gone to teach in a poor corner in the west. She asked a lot of people before she got my phone number.

After saying that, she began to cry: "I know I'm sorry for you, I know, but I really can't help it, if you don't even help me, what will the child do? I am like this, my child But what should I do?"

She married me in 1996, when I had just graduated from university and was assigned to teach Chinese in Nanchuan No. [-] Middle School.

I have been classmates with her for ten years, in junior high school, high school, and university for four years.She is the person I feel closest to besides my parents. We have never quarreled together, so I didn't know until the day of divorce that she never loved me. Come on kidding.

I can't remember what she looks like now, probably because she is always covered by heavy makeup.But I still remember her appearance when she was seventeen or eighteen years old, with a mole of tears under her eyes, and her eyebrows and eyes curved when she smiled, which was extremely warm.At that time, she held a stack of mock exam papers and smashed open the classroom door with her shoulder. The sun was lying on her bundled black hair, and the long ponytail swayed with her steps, so the sun also swayed.

After the divorce, I realized that my short half-year marriage and nearly ten-year love were all a joke.

When her belly was just getting bigger, she went to school, refused to kill the child, hid at her grandma's house in the country, and finally gave birth to a son for that man, but was sent away by her mother as soon as he was born, and gave it to a relative who had no children Upbringing, and she had just become my girlfriend at the time, and the excuse she used to prevaricate me was illness.

She disappeared suddenly, and I couldn't contact her. In 92, Nanchuan didn't even have public buses. I rode a bicycle for three hours to her house alone in the winter to find her. Her mother blocked the door and didn't allow me to see her. And don't tell me where she is.

After returning to school, she was in a bad mood, and she didn't laugh or make a sound no matter how teased she was.I stayed with her cautiously and didn't dare to ask more questions. I never thought about getting pregnant out of wedlock, never.

Later, it was a bland relationship and marriage. Half a year later, she knelt down in front of me with a five or six-year-old child in her arms, begging me to forgive her and let me let her go.

That was the first time I saw Chi Qian. He leaned quietly in his mother's arms, lowered his head, lowered his eyes, and there was no expression on his face. It was a kind of numbness and indifference at the mercy of others.I didn't expect to see this look on a child's face.

He looks very similar to Li Qiu, with a pointed chin, a snow-white face, and a tear mole under his eyes.

But I dare not look at him, because at the same time he is very similar to the man who swore to give Liqiu happiness and take her away from me.

Perhaps this is why Chi Qian said that I don't love him. I always refrain from making eye contact with him. Maybe I am flustered in my heart, but in the eyes of a nine-year-old child, what is it if it is not rejection?

Facing Li Qiu's entreaties, it felt like something was biting my chest, a bite of flesh and blood, and the pain blurred my eyes. I was afraid that I would cry in front of Li Qiu, and I would lose even the last of my self-esteem and stubbornness.

In the end, I let her go as she wished, and then I packed up my things and fled Nanchuan like a lost dog.

Liqiu married that man, and less than three months after marriage, those bubble-like vows of happiness shattered, and the man who had whispered sweet words in her ear began to beat her, sometimes because of trivial matters, sometimes because When I get angry outside, sometimes it's just plain unhappy.

The worst and last time.The man took a kitchen knife for chopping ribs from the kitchen, grabbed Li Qiu's hair and dragged it to the toilet. Li Qiu was so frightened that he began to struggle, and the knife was placed on her neck, only about one centimeter away.

Seven-year-old Chi Qian came back from school, and when he heard his mother crying, he ran over, beat his father with his schoolbag, and knocked him away with his head and body.The man's eyes were already red with anxiety, and he held up the knife and went to the child. Li Qiu grabbed a razor from the tripod and stabbed it into the man's neck.

She was sentenced to life, and even her mother refused to talk about her. She was desperate and cried in prison, begging me to take care of her son: "Ayan, I beg you, I beg you, that child is still so young , I beg you, just take pity on me..."

Even when I think about it now, my eyes still feel sour, and I can't say no to it, although my salary is enough to support myself.

At that time I said that I can't go back now, but I can send money to him.

"He's in Zhaoshui Village, my grandma helped raise him..." Li Qiu didn't have time to go into more detail, the prison guard next to her was urging her, the time was up.

Later, I had to ask my friend Wei Heng to find out the child's address after a lot of trouble. I wanted Wei Heng to take him to my parents' house for a temporary settlement, but Wei Heng told me that the child refused and wanted to accompany him. By the side of the old man.

When I got this answer, I didn't force myself any more, I just entrusted them with money every month, thinking that I would pick him up after the teaching support was over.

At the beginning of the second year of supporting education, Wei Heng called me and told me that Li Qiu committed suicide in prison. She sharpened the other end of her toothbrush like a knife and ended her 26-year-old life with that thing.I heard from a female prisoner who lived in the same cell as her that she couldn't sleep all night, and when she fell asleep, she would dream of the night of the murder, and then woke up screaming and terrified.

At that time, I was holding the phone and standing in the endless wheat field, and the same batch of teachers who came to support the teaching pushed Jin Chengcheng's wheat ears to look for me: "Chen Yan, Chen Yan, where are you?" I turned my head and saw He, he was frightened and helpless by the tears on my face.

I can't describe how I feel, I guess I'm just sad because I thought, I might never see her again.

I once kissed her in the grove behind the campus playground. I closed my eyes, but she opened them. The long eyelashes trembled slightly on my eyelids.The evening self-study get out of class was over, and I walked slowly in the crowd of people, shoulders bumped shoulders, arms rubbed, and then I grabbed her hand, but she didn't shake me off, nor shook me back.My palms were slowly sweating, and I still remember what it was like with the damp temperature.

I will never see again, the woman I have loved for more than ten years, but never loved me.

When I was reborn, I didn't feel the pain I used to think of. After such a long time, even though my relationship with Chi Qian was inexplicably stiff, I couldn't deny that my wounds could only heal with him by my side.

On the contrary, thinking about those words Chi Qian said before he died, his heart palpitations will be filled with sadness.

I have failed him like that before, and in this life, I want to love him well.

At about three o'clock in the afternoon, I got out of the car and walked on the gravel-covered loess road. Large trucks transporting coal mines and stones roared past me, raising a cloud of dust like a sandstorm. I retreated to the door of the grocery store on the side of the road. Hiding, there are two old men sitting on the stone pier and smoking.

I took out a cigarette from my pocket, shook out one and handed it to him: "Grandpa, do you know where Zhang Dingfu's house is? How do I get from here?"

Zhang Dingfu is the name of Liqiu's grandfather, who passed away a long time ago, but most of the women in the past were married, and their names were mostly forgotten, and they were called whoever they were called, so even if I wanted to find a living person, I could only Ask a dead person's name, or you'll never find it.

In my previous life, I didn't pick him up personally. I went back to my parents' house first, and it took a long time before I remembered about him. Then I hurriedly asked Wei Heng to find someone to pick him up. I didn't ask him afterward, so until now, I have never thought about him. It is not known where he lives.

One of the old men looked at me with cloudy eyes, stood up, and put the cigarette behind his ear: "I can't tell, I'll take you there."

I followed him around in the narrow space between houses, up and down, and finally stopped in front of a courtyard door with a half-drawn wall, half of the door was missing, and the Spring Festival couplets pasted on both sides were torn and broken. The cracked red was blown by the wind.

How can people live in such a place? I poked my head in and saw that the yard was filled with grass and smoke, and the ground was full of broken tiles. I was so startled that a few birds flapped their wings and flew to the roof without tiles, tilting their heads and looking at the two of us. intruder.

I turned back to the old man and said, "Did you make a mistake?"

"That's right," the old man pouted, "Ms. Zhang Dingfu lived here until she passed away, and I came to carry the coffin on the day of the funeral."

I was surprised: "Grandma Zhang is gone?"

"It's gone, half a year ago."

half year ago? !

I hurriedly asked again: "What about the child who has been at her house?"

"I don't know." The old man shook his head, "I haven't seen that brat for a long time."

My heart sank a little bit.