deep in time

Chapter 22 (2)
There are always regrets in everyone's life. Baili has experienced the "worst". She was an abandoned child. Every night she couldn't sleep in the orphanage, she prayed to God. She wanted to see her Mom - a role that no one in this world can replace.Opening her eyes almost every morning, she longed for a miracle.

I want a hug when I'm sick, a doting look when I'm acting like a baby, a pair of hands to tuck myself in when it's cold, and even a scolding when I'm messing around.She doesn't have all the normal things that normal kids have, she can't get them.

She kept a small world in her heart, and gradually became unfamiliar with the word "mother". The door of the small world was covered with dust, and she lost the courage to wait.

It is precisely because I have never obtained it that the longing that grows densely from the bottom of my heart criss-crosses in the flesh like thorns, and the bleeding wound keeps crying and whining.

On cold winter mornings, the scene of children sitting round and round in the empty hall, singing songs and waiting for the adopters to pick them up, still recurs in her nightmares to this day.

"I don't have eyes", "I want one that is as cute as a doll", "It's a bit big, it's difficult to raise"—all kinds of comments were repeated in front of her, until she felt that she was not enough Qualifications, not worthy of happiness.

Maybe I am such a poor person.Even if I am willing to sacrifice my life for a day of happiness, it is impossible.The light of God's mercy does not reach my head.

Day and night, every minute and every second, I stand the trial of time.I want to rebel against my life and make a little cry with meager strength.

Can you understand this feeling?
She was eight years old when her adoptive parents came.

"Be able to help, be sensible, and be able to endure hardships. It is better to be older."

This is totally tailor-made for her.

Uneasy, I followed my adoptive parents to Yilang Island. At the beginning, I was unfamiliar and timid.

Until one day, her adoptive mother asked her if Yelang Island was suffering.

She smiled and said that she is not afraid of hardship.

The adoptive mother looked at her for a long time, tears gradually filled her eyes, and finally hugged her tightly.

This was the first hug that Baili got with the meaning of "mother". The door in her heart collapsed, and the dust choked her to tears.Baili thought, finally a pair of hands pushed the door open.

Material deprivation can be depressing, but nothing is worse and more hopeless than being "abandoned."

Adopted by adoptive parents, Baili got what she longed for in another way, a room of her own, even if it was very simple, and the round table where the family gathered for dinner was old, but she was satisfied.

"Baili is wearing the old-fashioned clothes her mother changed", "Baili cut her own hair like a pot lid", "Baili picked up the notebook I didn't want and used it as a scratch paper for calculations"... I heard these words a lot , She thought she would be sad, ashamed, painful, and struggling, but the strange thing was that she didn't have any of these emotions.She thinks more about "When will Daddy Haifeng come back today", "I have to work harder to get the scholarship", "Hurry up and do my homework so that I can help my mother cut the fish for an hour in the evening".

——You have to become a person with an extremely strong heart!
...Is this what I always demand of myself.

[Fives]
Cheng Lichen arrived at school the next day.

Before class in the afternoon.

The senior from the photography club went around the desk and walked behind Ji Nan, and patted Ji Nan's shoulder vigorously.

"Hey, it's you, who almost caused my heart to suffer from insufficient blood supply." Ji Nan patted it back with a smile.

The senior blinked: "I have a gift for you."

"My birthday hasn't come yet." The boy suddenly seemed to understand something, and lowered his voice, "Isn't it a coming-of-age ceremony like Sora Aoi DV?"

"Brat." The senior scolded with a smile.

Baili, who was coming back from the toilet, happened to come in. The senior inadvertently saw that he pointed at her and uttered several modal particles, and then narrowly said to Ji Nan, "You boy."

Such ambiguous words were like magnets, faintly enclosing the people related to this topic - Ji Nan who was stunned, Cheng Lichen who raised his head suddenly, and Baili who walked in.

"Let you see the good things I took." The senior mysteriously put the camera he carried with him on the desk, turned on the screen, pressed the left button to go backwards, and found the photo after a while.

"Look at how you look." Jinan's curiosity was aroused, and he looked down.

A photo that is impeccable in terms of photography angle, light, technique, and scene.

The sidewalk is not spacious, with lush green street trees on one side and a mottled wall covered with vines on the other side. Behind the dense leaves is a clear blue sky.

Boys and girls in school uniforms, fiery red mountain bikes.

"It's so beautiful!" The girl next to her came over curiously.

More boys and girls gathered around.The photos were flipped through one by one, and from time to time, "Ji Nan's eyes... tsk tsk", "Where is this place, how can we go to school every day so beautiful", "The light and shadow feel a little bit..."

There are various voices that drag out the pitch, including praise, appreciation, jealousy, fantasies of "if I were sitting on the crossbar of Jinan's bicycle", and grievances of "why is Baili"... all kinds of things. Such emotions are implicitly conveyed from every sentence.

Surrounded by the crowd, Ji Nan shone brightly like a red sun.

He was the center of attention.

He was the kind of person who was naturally approachable.

He was the kind of guy who could handle everything well.

He was originally the kind of person who was smooth sailing and was favored by the goddess of luck.

His worries are probably "Which shirt should I use to match the newly bought sneakers to be more handsome", "I'm going to those people's parties again on Sunday", "Mom made soup that I don't like to drink again" Such innocuous little things.

——I already knew that he was happier than me, luckier than me, and more popular than me.Obviously, I was grateful for this before, but at this moment, these differences that I accepted by default suddenly swelled up in my mind, stuffing my brain into a sponge full of water, making me lose the ability to think .

"Cheng Lichen, are you... all right?"

A girl noticed the boy's unattractive expression and asked cautiously.

Cheng Lichen didn't seem to hear it at all, he suddenly coughed violently, as if he wanted to cough out his heart and lungs.

The group of people who were all looking at the photos parted ways. Ji Nan put the camera on the desk, picked up Cheng Lichen's thermos, unscrewed the bottle cap three times, and handed it over.After waiting for a while, Cheng Lichen hadn't reached out to take it, so the boy joked in his usual tone: "Ah Chen, do you want me to feed you?"

Cheng Lichen's face became more gloomy, he stood up suddenly, and walked straight out of the classroom.

"Wow, that's cool." One girl whispered.

"I don't know if it's 'underpants' or 'outer pants'!" There was a strange tone of yin and yang in a moderate voice from the corner.

Cheng Lichen's walking steps stopped suddenly, he turned around slowly, stared straight at the two boys sitting against the wall behind the last desk in the third group, and said word by word: "Who said Yes, stand up."

The taller and stronger of the two boys sneered, stood up, and said provocatively, "So what if I said it?"

"Looking for death." Cheng Lichen's face was gloomy, and he strode across the gap between the desks.

"Achen."

A hand grabbed him.

Cheng Lichen lowered his head and looked at Ji Nan's hand holding him, who was looking at him with a confused expression.

"Ah Chen, he was just joking, don't be angry." The boy wanted to ease the atmosphere, turned around and scolded the tall and strong boy, "Dakai, I apologize."

"Why do you have to apologize. A big man can't even take a joke." The boy named Da Kai muttered dissatisfiedly, with disdain in his eyes, "with that stinky face, like someone owes him 1000 million, whoever sees it?" Makes me sick."

——In addition to "rich", "handsome", and "popular with girls for no reason", Cheng Lichen also has some dark adjectives, such as "reclusive", "arrogant", "unhuman", " In private, many boys are confused about why Ji Nan and Cheng Lichen became friends.In the eyes of many boys, being too handsome, too popular with girls, and too rich are sources of hostility.

It's been a long time since I saw you.

I want to smack that stinky face of yours.

I really want to know if your Wannian Bingbing face will become more exciting after being provoked.

I really hate you.

——The surrounding eyes carry all kinds of complicated meanings.Cheng Lichen's nerves are not slow, why can't he feel it?The few boys chatting in the bathroom would wink at each other and stop talking when they saw him go in; none of the boys would take the initiative to talk to him; between" and forget his share; when Ji Nan received the love letter, a large group of people would surround him and coax him to "read it", and even when girls confessed to him in class, they would always hear Weird sneer and cough.

—I am an unwelcome person.

As if to prove something, Cheng Lichen looked at Ji Nan with deep black eyes. If it was a dark night when all the light was lost, he said one word at a time: "Help me, or help him?"

Ji Nan looked at Cheng Lichen's clenched fists, and his rational eyes were burned by anger. He subconsciously made the most normal behavior for everyone in the face of a situation that was about to get out of control, in order not to make the situation worse. Seriously, he wants to persuade the fight.

Thus, Cheng Lichen saw Ji Nan stepping in front of him, raising his hands like a scale, and said, "Don't get excited, Ah Chen, Da Kai..."

His eyes were blurred, and his vision gradually turned blood red. He saw Ji Nan's mouth opening and closing, but what came from his cochlea was the sound of rumbling planes taking off.

The boy waved his hand and punched him down.

Firm, heavy, tightly clenched fists like steel.

Screams, the sound of desks falling to the ground, the sound of running.

"Go and call the teacher!" "Why are you fighting?" "What's going on?!"

"Everyone help, pull Cheng Lichen away!" Baili's trembling words drowned out all the voices.

Cheng Lichen looked at the chaotic scene in front of him and stood there dumbfounded.

Da Kai laughed, and Jin Nan persuaded, and it only took tens of seconds. Everyone thought it was just a trivial matter, but no one could guess what the follow-up development would be——Cheng Lichen punched Jinan.

There was blood oozing from Ji Nan's lips, he felt as if the tip of his tongue had touched something, and a mouthful of blood froth spit out from his throat.He looked to the ground, and at this moment, the dull pain sensation hit overwhelmingly.

Sick of blood.

There was a thick fog in front of Ji Nan's eyes, a tingling pain was magnified thousands of times from his nerve endings and spread to every part of his body, and then he fell softly against the desk.

[six]
A tooth that had been knocked out and foamed with blood.

Ji Nan with his eyes closed.

Stunned, puzzled, contemptuous, disgusted eyes.

Messy scene.

Cheng Lichen stared blankly at his hands.

The slender right hand with the knuckles turned blue and white from being held so tightly.

All the demons disappeared.

Gradually, his rationality came back, and he couldn't believe that he really punched his friend.

Unforgivable.

(End of this chapter)