Chapter 1: The truth

Two things happen on the day her father is diagnosed with Alzheimer.

The first is the diagnosis itself, the second is that Lin Zhao Xi learns that the male god that she has been in love with for many years is going abroad for further study.

About her father’s Alzheimer, Lin Zhao Xi actually has had a premonition. She and her father have tried both the trustworthy and untrustworthy tests on the Internet. Therefore, when the doctors announce the result, they do not feel surprised or unexpected, they only feel —

Anything in this world can happen to anyone, there’s no big deal.

Along with that statement, the second thing is really no big deal, Lin Zhao Xi has always acknowledged the distance between herself and her male god.

Before saying this, she and her father were sitting in a noodle restaurant next to the hospital. Her father is secretly raising his hand, about to ask the waiter for another fried pork chop.

It is mid-noon, raining and moisturizing the air, it is even steaming in the noodle restaurant.

Lin Zhao Xi bites her chopsticks, sharply asks: “Accountant Lin, does your fatty liver allow you to eat that again?”

To change the subject, the man looks at the golden-colored pork in front of her, acting sad and dejected: “Dad only wants to remember the taste of pork chops.”

His tone is especially high, purely to tease her. Lin Zhao Xi is both angry and humored, who even jokes on their Alzheimer.

At the thought of it, her eyes suddenly become teary, and she hurries down to suck her nose and pretends that the soup is too spicy.

Outside the window is a lively street near the hospital, pedestrians and vehicles in the rain curtain shuttle back and forth. The French Sycamore tree stands silently, drops falling from the leaves, everything is foggy, just like the light colors of an Impressionist painting.

Lin Zhao Xi looks at the bowl in front of her.

The snow-white noodles sink in red oil, with green scallions, and she looks at it for a moment, and then she hears her father state that.

— Everything in the world, can happen to anyone, no big deal.

The statement is right, but this situation is still extremely uncomfortable.

“What am I going to do?” Lin Zhao Xi ponders for a moment, then she asks.

“Your old father has raised you to university graduation, you have to deal with the society by yourself.”

“I haven’t graduated yet.”

“Our family has millions in the bank account, plus five houses!” Mr. Lin is afraid of her misunderstanding, hastened to add, “Of course, those are mine.”

Lin Zhao Xi: “…”

“You see, I am me, and you are you. My noodle is mine, your noodle is yours.”

Mr. Old Lin takes out the long chopsticks from the chopsticks barrel, knocks on the edge of the bowl, and after a crisp sound, he continues to proclaim, “Then my disease is my disease, your life is your life. These things are relatively independent and do not affect each other too much.”

Lin Zhao Xi raises her head looking at her father, feeling overly unimaginable.

Today Old Lin wears an old man’s T-shirt, talking lightly as having found the red dust of the light wind (Ok this is a bit hard to explain, but it’s kind of learning the truth of life). But when she thinks of the two father and daughter relying on each other for so many years, Lin Zhao Xi wonders if she has misheard him.

“Your disease is your disease, my life is my life?”

“Doesn’t that make sense?”

Mr. Old Lin is enormously proud of this sentence, but Lin Zhao Xi cannot help interrupting him: “But didn’t your life become a mess because of me?”

The sentence is perfectly legible, but this matter has troubled Lin Zhao Xi for many years.

She is 22 years old.

22 years ago, she was born, Mr. Old Lin who is sitting in front of her, gave up his chance to go abroad to continue the study of mathematics, and chose to become her father and to raise her alone instead.

If it is now 6 in the evening, at that time, she has already known that her male god Pei Zhi is going to study abroad, and that the school was the same school her father gave up, she must have been so impressed by the subtleties of her life.

But now, she’s just choking on the pork cutlets because of what Old Lin says.

“What can I do? The law states that I have to raise you.” says Mr. Old Lin.

The topic ends here.

So many years, from her eighth-grader phase (Chunibyo, google for more details) of tearfulness to a casual question now, she does not know how many times she had asked the same question, yet the answer has always been so simple and direct.

Although specifically, there are still many problems. For example, why her mother abandoned her, or why her father could not take her abroad, and why grandparents did not lend a hand.

But to be honest, it doesn’t matter. For twenty-two years, the two of them have been dependent on each other, that is the reality of life.

For this kind of reality, the two father and daughter raise their cups of Coca Cola, to have the cups touched.

Mr. Old Lin sips the coke like sipping tea, puts down the can and asks, “Are you disgusted with your father being sick?”

Lin Zhao Xi drinks half of the can, looks at the energetic middle-aged man in front of her, and gets a hiccup: “How is it possible?”

“Well, then there’s no big deal, really.”

After that, Mr. Old Lin picks the pork chops she orders with a chopstick and takes a big bite.

Lin Zhao Xi could only sit and watch.

It is a great matter, but it is made as simple as the problem of running out of rice at home so going downstairs to the small supermarket to buy two pounds.

People who have seen the truth of the world, probably really do not care about these.