reborn stepfather

Chapter 16 Wishes

"Let Chi move into the ancestral hall tomorrow."

Dad crossed his legs to watch the Spring Festival Gala and said suddenly.

"Huh?" I was a little surprised.

"Didn't your mother tell you?" Dad was very puzzled by my reaction, "Didn't she say that Chi Qian will be on vigil tonight?"

Hakka people's old customs, on New Year's Eve, when the bell strikes twelve o'clock, every household must open the door, set up incense tables, light fireworks and firecrackers, drive away the Nian beast, and welcome the arrival of the new year.

If any family has a baby, the parents will bring the newborn to vigil.

When my mother said it, I actually didn't think about it, because Chi Qian was nine years old after all.As for the entry into the ancestral hall, my father said that he pasted the red paper with Chi Qian's name under my name, and lit the longevity incense for him to show that he is an official member of our family.

This is the family's decision to recognize Chi Qian's identity.

From then on, he is really my son, and his name will be engraved in the genealogy.

Before the vigil, I knelt down and changed Chi Qian into thick clothes, and wrapped the thick plaid scarf around his neck again and again, until finally only half of his snow-white face and a pair of black eyes shining like stars were exposed.

"A Juan, would you like to have my surname?" I asked him.

He didn't seem to understand what "my last name" meant, and looked at me with some confusion.

"That's right, you won't be called Chi Qian anymore, but Chen Qian, okay?" I thought Chen Qian sounded nice, so I said enthusiastically, "Isn't this more like Dad's son? What do you think?"

I feel more and more that changing my surname is reliable. In the future, I will transfer his household registration to my name, and it will be much more convenient for him to go to school. It will also avoid a lot of gossip and rumors, and no one will ask him: "Why is your father's surname Chen? Your surname is Chi?" Such embarrassing words.

"Okay?" I took his hand.

He bowed his head and remained silent for a while before shaking his head very slowly.

To be honest, at the time I thought that Chi Qian would definitely agree. Didn't he depend on me very much and wanted to integrate into this family?

But he refused.

I can't help but be disappointed.

As soon as he looked up, he saw my collapsed expression, and immediately became flustered, and timidly came to hold me back: "Dad..."

"It's okay, it's okay." I took a deep breath and adjusted my tone, "Can you tell me why?"

This is not a big deal, children also have their own ideas.

There was another silence, he lowered his head, I could only see his two curved eyebrows.

After a long time, he whispered, "I don't want to forget my mother."

He was sent away less than a hundred days after he was born, because he was adopted by the relatives of Tang Shu Liqiu. When he established his household registration, he didn't expect so many things to happen later, so he took the family name of Chi's family. It can also be said that Chi Qian was Following the mother's surname.

Although Li Qiu later took him back to raise him, and the household registration was also transferred, but the name was not changed in time - after she married that man, she did not enjoy a day of blessings, and lived in fear every day. Days, where can I think of changing my name?Otherwise, Chi Qian should have followed his biological father's surname.

Therefore, when he said such words today, I understood immediately, and the unhappiness in my heart was replaced by full of pity.

The child suddenly raised his head, his eyes were red, and he grabbed my hand and said forcefully, "If my father and I have the same surname, people will forget that I am mother's child, and I may forget her in the future... How can this work? The mother is buried in the soil alone, no one remembers her, how can this be done? How can this be done? "

He asked me repeatedly, with tears in his eyes.

I was so heartbroken that I knelt down and wiped his tears with my hands, saying stop crying and go wash your face.

After Liqiu died, her ashes were taken away by her parents. Her parents also changed their number and address and left Nanchuan. Since then, no one knows where she was buried.

There is not even a place to pay homage to him. Apart from relying on his dwindling memory and dreams that he will forget when he wakes up, Chi Qian has no other way to express his miss.

When Tiantian Pengpenglai was playing around like a baby in the arms of his sister-in-law, he could only watch quietly from the side.

But there is no envy or other things in his eyes. No one taught him, but he already has the consciousness to hide himself.After the new year, he is only ten years old, but he understands what it means to read words and emotions better than many adults.

How much perfunctory, how many stares, how many times have you been hurt by this cold world, can you wipe out the innocence that a child should have to this extent?

I just can't think about it.

I never mentioned changing my surname again, just like he never mentioned his murderous mother in front of others.

After all, he was still a child, and he might feel embarrassed by such a mother, but he couldn't help missing her.

I still remember the only time in my previous life that Chi Qian, who had grown up, told me about Liqiu. That day was my birthday, and Chi Qian, who had never drunk alcohol, was blushing and slightly drunk.

I talked about the most difficult moment in my teaching career, when I was a fresh graduate, an inexperienced young man, tortured by naughty students, locked up overnight in a warehouse for sports equipment, and dyed my hair The messy little girl almost lost her job by framing her for sexual harassment.

"What about you? Have you ever suffered?" I looked provocatively at Chi Qian, who had just grown into a young man.

A mocking smile curled up on the corner of Chi Qian's lips: "Is yours considered bitter?"

I also drank too much, and being underestimated by a child who was raised by one hand made me feel very embarrassed. I suppressed my anger: "Oh? Then tell me!"

Seeing what kind of flowers he can make up, I secretly slandered in my heart at that time.

"You know, when I was a child, my mother used to take me away from home?" he said suddenly.

I haven't heard Li Qiu mention this matter, so I shook my head blankly.

"I used to have a younger brother. He beat my mother to a miscarriage, and my mother couldn't take it anymore." The "he" Chi Qian said was his biological father. Chi Qian had always been reluctant to address him directly, so he paused for a while, Chi Qian continued, "My mother took me to escape in the middle of the night, took the train for three days, and ran far away."

It was a freezing cold winter, every family closed their doors, and there were no pedestrians on the streets.

A mother who just had a miscarriage, a child barely above the knees, no money, no acquaintances, no place to live.

He asked me with a wry smile, "Do you know what life is like?"

No money, no acquaintances, no place to live.

When the mother and son wandered the streets and were about to freeze to death, the proprietress of a foot-washing city saw that their mother and son were pitiful, and Liqiu was quite pretty, so she tricked Liqiu into giving foot massages to customers.

By the time she recovered, she couldn't get away.

Where are the waiters in that kind of place clean?

Maybe she would resist the first time and the second time, but then she gave up on herself. For money, Li Qiu wandered around the streets all day. If there was a man who liked her, she would exchange her body for some money.

She would rather stand on the street than go back even if she betrayed herself, which shows how that man forced her into.

But they were still captured by the man later.

If there are really gods in this world, maybe they can see all kinds of suffering in this world by breaking through the clouds and mist that surround the nine heavens.

Chi Qian said that what happened that day was a scene he would still dream about in countless lonely and helpless nights in the future.

The lead clouds in the sky hung low, and Xuemozi spun and danced in the air for a long time before falling down as if powerless to resist. With the woman's trembling mournful cry in the wind, it fluttered and scattered in the icy world with the cold wind.

The man dragged Liqiu away by her hair, Liqiu screamed and struggled, and the man beat her in the street.

Chi Qian rushed over, and was kicked into the middle of the road by the man. A car coming from the opposite side barely stopped and almost ran over him.

Chi Qian, who was slammed to the ground, supported the ground with his bloody arms, bounced up like a cannonball, and rushed over.

"What are you doing here!" Li Qiu cried hoarsely at Chi Qian, "Run, run, run!"

They were taken back.

Liqiu's parents regarded her as a disgrace and ignored her.

Some policemen who heard the news were blocked from the door by saying: "This is our family's business, don't want you to interfere."

Even her parents didn't help her, no one could save her, and no one was willing to save her.

After a few months, Liqiu ran away for the second time without Chi Qian.

Chi Qian's biological father was furious, hung the stripped child in front of the window and whipped him with a belt, forcing him to tell Li Qiu's whereabouts.

He gritted his teeth and remained silent.

I hesitated for a long time during the vigil with him, but I still couldn't help talking about Liqiu with him.

I asked him if he blamed Liqiu in his heart, leaving him alone and running away.

Chi Qian shook his head.

"I just hope that my mother will run away as far as possible, and never come back."

He told me so.

But things backfired. Waking up one morning, Chi Qian found his mother curled up on the floor with bruises all over her body.

There is no medicine at home, and there is no running water at home because of the arrears of water bills.

Chi Qian could only hold the snow that fell on the anti-theft net with a towel.

He gently scrubbed the wound for his mother.

Li Qiu remained motionless, her face was swollen and there was a deep purple strangle mark on her neck.

Chi Qian thought she was asleep, but when he scrubbed the wound on his forehead, Chi Qian realized that her eyes were open.

There was no expression on her face.

That is the emptiness that only those who are in despair have.

Chi Qian held her hand and sat down. The snow was howling outside the window welded with iron mesh, the sky was gloomy, and the gray light gradually dimmed in the impoverished home.

Li Qiu suddenly pulled Chi Qian into his arms, hugging him and weeping silently.

Chi Qian raised his head from Li Qiu's arms, stretched out his small hand to wipe away the tears on the woman's face, and said softly, "Mom, don't cry."

Li Qiu was stunned, and burst into tears immediately: "Chi Qian, Chi Qian..."

"Yeah." He responded softly, hugging her tightly.

Only reality can write such a cruel story.

I heard that the last room where Chi Qian and Li Qiu lived was not rented out, and there was a bloody handprint on the door of the toilet.

"Even if he dies, he won't let me go. He will haunt me even if he is a ghost." Li Qiu once said to the female prisoner who lived in the same cell, "It will never end, unless I die, otherwise it will never end. Finish."

At this time, the firecrackers that herald the coming of the New Year suddenly sounded, and countless fireworks bloomed above the head.

It's like trying to burn your soul with all your strength.

Chi Qian looked up at the incomparably bright sky, and asked, "Dad, is it better to make New Year's wishes?"

I patted his head and said, "Yes, do you have any wishes?"

"Can you have two?"

"can."

"I thought, I want to be with Dad forever."

Suddenly, five fireworks were lifted into the sky, and his whole body was instantly illuminated by the exploding fireworks, his eyes were like shining amber.

"Do you know what forever is?" I smiled.

He thought about it seriously, and told me in a childish voice: "I don't really understand, it might be a little longer than a lifetime!"

"How can it be longer than a lifetime?" I deliberately wanted to tease him, "If Dad is very old, and the time of this life is used up, he will always be one step ahead of A Juan. At that time, we will be separated. Then How can we be together forever?"

He blurted out and refuted me: "My time is not up yet. Although Dad can't accompany me anymore, I can still go to the grave to talk with Dad. Then Dad's life will be longer than a lifetime!"

I was stunned, and I couldn't tell what I felt. It was like drinking a bowl of steaming borscht in the winter, and my limbs and bones were warmed up.Feeling full of emotion seems to be stuck in the throat together, but no words can be uttered.

I rubbed his messy curly hair, and my voice softened: "Then there is another wish?"

He lowered his head and hesitated for a while, and moved his lips, but I didn't hear it clearly, and my ears were filled with the deafening sound of firecrackers and the sound of fireworks bursting one after another.

I bluffed him: "What is the other wish? Only the Bodhisattva can hear it louder."

After hesitating for a while, I finally waited for him to speak and I lowered my head to his ear to hear it. The voice was so soft that it seemed that it would be blown away immediately against the background of festive noise.

"Mother......"

I heard his voice tremble.

"If possible... I really want to see my mother again."

"It doesn't matter in the dream."