flawed

Qi Nuliang stepped out of the big rusty iron gate.

The loose-leaf door, which was not very bright, "squeaked" and made an unpleasant sound until it was closed behind him.

He looked up at the sky.This is almost the first action of every prisoner who has just been released from prison.

In the vast and empty sky, there are no high walls and iron nets, no guards and sentries, only a strange and confusing freedom.

The weather was gloomy, and it started to rain lightly.In the early winter of November, after several cold waves, it was already very cold.He was standing in the dense rain curtain, with a little thin heat coming out of his blue-skinned bald head, and he pulled up the hood of his black down jacket to cover the top of his head.

Qi Nuliang was carrying a canvas travel bag, which contained all his belongings.He stood in the rain curtain for a while with his bag in his hand, but couldn't move for a long time.

He had no mother since he was a child. According to his father, his mother ran away with wild men after giving birth to him.And his alcoholic father passed out drunk on the side of the road during his third year in prison, and was drowned in a puddle the size of a washbasin.The only person he cared about—Yao Huilan, also died of illness in his sixth year in prison.

Qi Nuliang is 24 years old, with a pretty face but no vitality like his peers.He stood at the gate of the prison where he had lived for eight years, like an elderly orphan who was about to leave the orphanage, his eyes were full of confusion, he didn't know where to go.

"Did someone pick you up?" The guard guarding the gate asked when he saw that he was still not moving.

Qi Nuliang shook his head.

"No one is answering, what are you doing standing here, hurry up."

Qi Nuliang finally turned his head to take a look at the familiar door, wall and guards, stepped on the shallow stagnant water, and took a step.

This is the outside world. He used to yearn for it. He earnestly reformed through labor, actively participated in various training conferences, and never took the initiative to pick things up. He just wanted to reduce his sentence and come out sooner.But since the news of Yao Huilan's death came, he stopped thinking about this world.But a prison is not a hotel, you have to leave when you have to.

He first went back to his hometown in the countryside.

On the side of the road, his house has collapsed and there is no wall left. Who knows who is still planting vegetables on the ruins, a piece of green vegetable leaves, full of vitality.

He turned his head to the back mountain to see his father's grave.All the people buried in this area were people with the surname Qi, and he found his father's grave covered with weeds in the most shaded corner.He pulled the weeds from the grave, stood in front of the grave for a while, then turned and left.

Next to his house is Yao's yard.It is completely different from the small adobe courtyard in his memory. Now it is a two-story small building, which is quite grand.He looked at the yard for a while, knowing that the person he was thinking about was no longer there, but he still couldn't help but want to go in and have a look.

He pushed open the yard door, and Yao Huilan's younger brother, Yao Chunyang, was scrubbing the motorcycle.The four eyes met, and it took a while before the other party recognized him and stood up abruptly.

Qi Nuliang could see the surprise, disgust, and shrinking in Yao Chunyang's eyes.He didn't go any further, and stood at the door and said, "I'm coming out, your sister..."

"You still have the face to mention my sister..." Yao Chunyang threw the rag in his hand into the basin, splashing water all over the ground, as if something made him angry.But the anger didn't burn up in the end, and after a while, he just said boringly, "My sister has been dead for two years, don't you know?"

"Where is she buried?"

"Hongcheng Cemetery." Yao Chunyang squatted down again, picked up a rag and continued to wipe the car, "Go, you are not welcome here."

"Where's your sister's child? Not with you?"

Yao Chunyang threw the rag into the basin again, with an irritable expression on his face: "Qi Nuliang, what else do you want to do? Isn't it enough to make my sister miserable?"

"I don't want to do anything, I just want to see the kid."

Probably in order to get rid of him as soon as possible, Yao Chunyang said: "The child has nothing to do with the Jiang family, or us, and it has nothing to do with you. I advise you not to go to the Jiang family."

After leaving Yao's house, he didn't know why he wanted to see that child.Before he said this, he had no such intention, but after he said it, he really thought about it.

He has no relationship with that child, and he doesn't know what to do after finding him, and he doesn't know what to say to him, maybe he just takes a look at Yao Huilan's child from a distance.

Yes, that is Yao Huilan's child, and it is the most profound proof that she has lived in this world.It is said that the child is the flesh that fell from the mother, so this child is the part of Yao Huilan that still exists in the world, and it is the part that bears his longings and regrets that he has nowhere to dispel.This reason alone is enough for him to do anything.

The bus heading for Hongcheng wobbled, Qi Nuliang looked out the window, and suddenly remembered an old man who had been in the palace with him for an unclear number of times.

An old man and a young man go to jail, and when they leave after serving more than ten years, their parents have passed away, and their wives and children have long since disappeared.In the following life, he deliberately committed crimes again and again, and returned to prison again and again, where he spent most of his life.Unencumbered and alone, the prison became his real home.

On the eve of his release from prison for the last time two years ago, the old man wiped his tears and told Qi Nuliang that he was old now, and he would never come back after going out this time.He said that he envied Qi Nuliang, that he was a lover, and that he had a loving woman. In this kind of place, love is a person's greatest salvation and hope.

At that time, he didn't understand the meaning of these words. Not long after, Yao Huilan died of illness, taking away his "salvation" and "hope", and he really understood their meaning.

In eight years, Hong Cheng has long been different from what he remembered. It can be said that things are neither people nor things.Qi Nuliang found the community where Jiang's family was located by following his past memory and adding some inquiries.

He sat at the gate of the neighborhood and smoked half a pack of cigarettes, not knowing how to meet the child.Knocking directly on the door of Jiang's house is definitely not enough. If you take a look at this place from a distance, and then go to school to find him after you are sure, it might be better to avoid his family.I just don't know if it will be regarded as a bad person.

However, the only problem now is that the child was still a small child when he went in, and now even if someone stood in front of him, he couldn't recognize him.

Qi Nuliang bought a fleece hat to cover his bald head, spoke his native dialect, chatted up people walking in the neighborhood, and asked them about the situation of Jiang's family.Perhaps it was because of those clear eyes and a pretty face, the sky was bright and bright, and everyone didn't think he was a bad person, so they chatted with him.

The strange thing is that after asking around, even Jiang Yufu, that is, Jiang Yu's grandfather, found out the private affairs of Jiang Yufu's death from throat cancer last year, but no one heard that the Jiang family had a child named Jiang Yu.

Qi Nuliang thought it might be because these people didn't know the child, so they said no, unlike in the village, every household in the city has something new and the whole village knows about it.

Seeing that he didn't believe it, an enthusiastic aunt beckoned to another aunt: "You and Jiang Mingying live across the street. Tell me, does his family have a boy in his teens? Didn't his family's Wang Cheng go to a vocational high school?"

The aunt who lived across the door pondered for a moment, then slapped her thigh: "Really, it was about a year or two ago. I saw a ten-year-old boy with Wang Cheng once. I asked him who it was, what about it?" The bastard ignores me."

Qi Nuliang was a little anxious: "What happened next? Where did that child go?"

"Who knows, I'm just a relative of his family who came to visit."

Someone suggested: "You might as well go directly to Jiang's house to inquire about it."

Afraid of arousing suspicion, Qi Nuliang had no choice but to agree, thanked him and left.

But he suddenly raised his heart, such a big child, if he is not in Jiang's house, where did he go?Was kidnapped?People in their teens don't like to have them either.Is he still alive in this world?

Qi Nuliang found the street office.As soon as he said it, the people in the street immediately knew and told him that the guardian of the child was indeed his elder aunt Jiang Mingying, but the child didn't want to be here, so he ran back to his own home in the daily chemical factory. It has been two years.

Qi Nuliang was anxious when he heard this: "The child is only eleven or twelve years old, so you let him spend two years by himself for such an older child?"

The other party was also not happy, and slapped the table to challenge: "Hey, our support work is in place. I have received news from the daily chemical factory several times, brought him back, sent him to school, and reduced his tuition and miscellaneous fees. .His aunt also went back and forth to find someone, trying to reason with him. It is he who wants to run, and the leg grows on him, what can we do?"

Qi Nuliang stared for a while, but finally said nothing.

After getting out of the street office, he couldn't wait for a moment, and immediately went to the daily chemical factory.

When I went to a place and asked, I asked people without any effort.Wandering around in that narrow alley all afternoon, but saw no one, finally found out the address of his home, and went to the gate of his house to wait for the rabbit.

When it was dark, he was finally made to wait for someone.At the moment when he turned to run away, Qi Nuliang confirmed that he was Jiang Yu.

"Jiang Yu, why are you running..." Qi Nuliang chased after him confused, "...you stop!"

The child didn't speak and didn't look back, but ran forward with all his might.

There were no lights in the corridor, and Qi Nuliang suffered from the unfamiliarity of the terrain. He kicked debris several times and almost fell down.After chasing all the way out of the building, in the open space in front of the community, he finally grabbed the clothes on the back of the child's neck.

"you……"

Before he finished speaking, Jiang Yu immediately raised his arms to protect his head.

Qi Nuliang was taken aback for a moment, then felt uncomfortable, and immediately let go.Just as he was about to say that he was not a bad person, the child ran away again.

The second time he was caught at the gate of the community, Qi Nuliang was out of breath and couldn't help swearing.

Looking around, there is a cool chair between the two buildings.He grabbed Jiang Yu and walked over, and pushed him on the chair, afraid that he would run away again, so he kept pulling his arm.

After sitting down, he said: "Don't run away, my name is Qi Nuliang, I'm not a bad person.

"Your mother's name is Yao Huilan, right? I'm your mother's...cousin." In order to dispel the child's fear as soon as possible, he made up an identity for himself, "When your mother was still in Qijia Village, our two families lived next to each other. .I know your mother has passed away, and she asked me to take care of you before she died, and I was delayed by something at that time."

"I'm late."

Qi Nuliang was full of guilt. If he had known that Jiang Yu was wandering here alone, he would not have given up on himself so much in the last two years, and could have fought to come out earlier.Thinking of this, Qi Nuliang subconsciously reached out to touch Jiang Yu's head, but he avoided it.

The man withdrew his hand in embarrassment: "We met before, you called me little uncle, but you were too young at that time, maybe you didn't remember."

"...I gave you candy...you don't remember it either."