The Twelve Years: Song of the Unsung Friends

He was silent for a moment, and continued: "In the end, I still couldn't bear it. I was not reconciled. I didn't want the Shen family to be left alone. Before ransacking the house, I asked Dong'an to bring money to find someone to clear the case, but my elder brother discovered this Something. I had no choice but to stop."

Fu Dongwen later recalled that his father suspected that he was involved in the revolution, and it must be related to this matter. My mother knew that the Shen family was a knot in his heart, and it must have originated from bribery at that time.

"Your father suspected that your second brother was also involved in the revolution, but your second brother never admitted. Your father said, if a dozen of Shen's children and him are dead, I hope I can see your second brother. I think According to your father, he ordered someone to save your second brother before the execution," he recalled the scene at the time. "Finally failed. Fortunately, they brought you back by accident."

No, it was not an accident.

Brother...

Shen Xi suddenly understood everything. Why did the second brother be the one who sent him away? Why did he know everything and still smiled and told him to forget the Shen family in order to save his life. That night, the second brother quietly took her out of the bedroom, avoiding the nanny and the maid, and the people at home. He wanted to give himself the only chance to survive...

At the end of the month, the footsteps of the second brother walking in the back garden were still in his ears. He passed those yards, but was he sour in his heart that he couldn't save all his younger siblings? He walked in a hurry, walked unsteadily, and wrestled both times. The second elder brother is a wealthy prince, and he is carrying the air on weekdays. That was the second brother who once held her six years old and dared to say that he would hollow out half of Guangzhou City in the future and buy her as a dowry.

He walked on the moss gravel road, and drove his last life.

The moonlight was blooming, and the brocade spread on her feet. She still remembered that before she was about to get on the carriage, she looked down and saw that there was dirt on the second brother’s leather shoes and the trousers were dirty...

The second brother will tell her the righteousness, the future, and the future. She seems to understand, only knows to escape.

Parting, he wanted to leave something for her, but he felt all over his body, not even a decent jade pendant or ring. The ancient life always pays attention to this kind of things, but he is not used to wearing these, and he doesn't even have a pen. The pen is attached to the pocket of his suit jacket. He is afraid that people will pay attention to him. The trousers came out.

Later, as if embarrassed by my own panic, and regretted that I had not seen each other in this life, the second brother held her hands and rubbed and heated it repeatedly: "Second brother has nothing to give you, Yang Yang "Where to go and what to do in the future, you must live like the Shen family, whether you live or die," It’s too late to rub her hands, "Beijing is colder than in Guangzhou."

This is the last word left to her by the second brother, saying that Beijing is a colder place than Guangzhou.

But he would never know that this little sister had fled for half a year, and it was already June when she entered Beijing.

...

Shen Xi's tears welled up and blocked her throat, she suddenly raised her hand and covered her eyes.

She couldn't breathe gradually, clutching the front of her one-piece dress, breathing quickly, her throat and trachea seemed to be blocked, no oxygen could enter, and no sound could be made.

Fu Dongwen found her body trembling, holding her hands, it was hot: "Uncomfortable?"

Shen Xi's voice was hoarse, and he whispered: "Don't stop..."

Her sorrow was infinitely magnified under the lamp and before her eyes.

Fu Dongwen looked at Shen Xi like this, why didn't he feel distressed, he was even thankful that she was willing to let himself hold his hands. For her, she is still a person to believe, even if he has hidden this family history for so long.

He wiped her tears with the palm of his hand: "Because of the bribery of Dong Chi, my father and elder brother already suspected me. At that time, I could not send you away. So I had to keep you in the fireworks display and treat you as the young girl I raised No one doubts your background."

He said again: "At that time, Fu Jiazhengsheng, I didn't want you to know your family feud. With your own strength, you can't do anything but send death. But as long as I live, I will protect your future and a safe life. ."

It turned out that Fu San in the car outside the fireworks pavilion said these words, not just thinking about it.

He said: If I can protect her tonight, I can protect her forever.

She thought wrong, she thought all wrong. This is not a heroic demonstration of the old age, nor a firm prediction, but a secret he has held in his heart for many years.

"You will live in peace, marry an ordinary but wealthy person, marry and have children, and I will return the wealth of the Shen family," Fu Dongwen whispered, "Wan Yang, I said to you that I used to pay homage to my father and son. Keeping filial piety for three years is for your father. The Shen family should not die, and I will not let the Shen family die. Since I kept filial piety for your father, my surname was Shen, and my future descendants will also be named Shen, Yan The blood of the Shen family in Guangzhou, the genealogy of the Shen family in Guangzhou."

"Three years later, when the filial piety period expires, I will find out your name and identity, which room is in the Shen family, and who is your biological mother? Shen Wanyang, Wan is in the middle of the water..."

Speaking of this, the old case of the Guangzhou Shen family has ended.

The rest is Shen Wanyang and Fu Dongwen's business.

At the end of the three-year filial piety period, he got a few black and white photos of the Shen family, one of which read: Wan Yang, Wan in the middle of the water.

In the photo, she was ten years old, wearing an old-style skirt and gown, but with a small foxtail around her neck, holding a girl's bun from the end of Qing Dynasty, holding a folded fan in her hand, and looking at the camera in surprise. Although her face was dignified, like a peony flower in the beginning, her eyes betrayed her. Fu Dongwen guessed that it was the western photographer who ignited the magnesium powder and frightened her. That's why the panicked picture appeared.

He regarded her as his younger sister and had no plans to meet.

He hoped that she would never know the Fu family or anyone from the Fu family.

If it weren't for a murder in the Huayankan, he would have to come forward and take her away. In order to be afraid of people revealing her identity as the Shen family daughter, everyone who has come into contact with her is properly arranged and sent away from Beijing.

At the Fu's family, he didn't want to have too much intersection with her. Later, when he sent her to New York, he was also saying "not goodbye".

But after all, it was due to chance.

"Two years ago, I let you go. I had nothing to do with Miss Gu. At that time, I had a private agreement with her. When she chooses a husband-in-law who agrees with her, the marriage contract will naturally be invalidated," he said. My father and brother’s power is in full swing, my hands and feet are bound, life and death cannot be controlled. At that time, Fu San couldn’t and didn’t dare to keep you by his side. This is the main reason. Wan Yang, you are the last blood left by the Shen family. Dong Wen can die, but you can't."

After he was trapped, he was most fortunate that Shen Xi stayed in Shanghai, but she did not expect that she would go north alone and venture to find him.

When Yuan Shikai came to the throne, when his father and brother were the most proud, he was always worried about what would happen to Shen Xi after his eldest brother hurt the killer? Fu Tongwen, who is accustomed to killing and decisive, is vacillating on the issue of her going and staying. He is reluctant for a while, fearing that she will be difficult to see in this life once she is gone, and there is no possibility. For a while, she wanted to give up cruelly. The troubled times were safer than the Fu family. If he died, she would be a dead end.

It is easy to say that it is easy to give up. The easy thing is to "cut" with a knife.

Fu Dongwen stopped talking.

In the long night, the rain does not stop, and Xu Yuan, the most lively place in Shanghai, has no other sound except the sound of sand and rain. The white smoke of the incense burner was blown away by the wind, and the black shadow on the wall rose, spread, and disappeared.

Two living people are facing each other, like people in the painting who don't even breathe, in vain.

I don't know how long it took, the servant outside the door called, and Fu Dongwen left the room.

Shen Xi vaguely listened to him talking with Xu Yuan's boss, saying that his wife was unwell and he wanted to wrap up the garden tomorrow and night. Soon there was a bedding held by the maidservant, who helped Shen Xi aside and laid the mahogany-inlaid seven-screen smoke couch into a bed. The low table lay on the ground. Knowing that she was unable to support it, Fu Tongwen turned Xu Yuan's first-class private room into a Fu Jia Nuan Pavilion.

She had no strength to sit, and lay on the smoking couch.

The rain followed the window and onto the floor of the house, where it had already converged into puddles. The two maids hesitated for a moment, afraid to make any movement, afraid to wipe. Fearing that the evil wind would blow the smoke on the couch, Shen Xi would become ill, so one of them took off the copper hook holding the window and closed the window.

The carved window latch was erected with a "click".

The last sober memory of Shen Xi stopped here.

She was lying curled up in the quilt, the smell of smoke lingering, which was left by the guests in this private room in the past. Tears flowed for half an hour, stopped for half an hour, the red light of the wall lamp was shining on her eyelids. She wanted to call someone to turn off the light, but she couldn't speak. She passed the charcoal fire in her throat, and so did her body.

In the middle of the night, the light source in the room was gone, and she burned confusedly, thinking it was a fire at the moment when the light was turned off, she turned over and almost fell to the ground. Before dawn, there was a doctor who seemed to be someone she knew well, a doctor in the Western Hospital. Someone fed her fever-reducing pills, someone stripped off her long skirt, wiped her hands, feet and arms, waited for her to sweat, and then changed into clean clothes.

Sweat layer by layer, uninterrupted.

Shen Xi seldom got sick, even more so.

In the confusion, Fu Dongwen's words were reversed and repeated last night.

There are many things that Fu Dongwen didn't say, and she guessed them all.

Before his father died, the two quarrels between the father and the son in the hospital over the Fu family’s property, she still clearly remembered whether he was the Fu family’s rebellious son or decided to be the Shen family’s son, no matter how unfeeling Fu Dongwen, he could not leave his first half The identity of being a descendant of the Fu family and the memories of growing up as a child.

He was afraid that she would seek revenge against Master Fu, he was afraid that she would kill his father, and he was afraid that his father would kill her.

Even Shen Xi himself could not foresee, if he knew all this before Fu Dongwen's father died, what would he choose to do and would kill and revenge? Become Fu Dongwen's father-killing enemy?

...

The next night, when she had a high fever, half-wake and half-dream, all she saw was the person who exchanged her life for her death.

In the dream, the second brother took himself to the Pearl River to find a wooden boat selling Dingzi porridge. He said "Wonderful", and he happily packaged the next day’s Dingzi porridge as a gift to the past fisherman;

In the dream, there was a dragon boat rowing on the Pearl River. The second brother asked her to look into the distance. It was a foreigner steamer. He told his father that he was coming back. He had come back with orders from the West and Europe;

In the dream, there is also the Goose Duck Wharf. The workers of the Shen family are carrying goods. She curiously watched. In the corner of the wharf, in front of a shaved stall, a ten-year-old boy was shaved. The second brother is a fake foreign devil. She had lost her braids a long time ago, and she had to return to the shaver in a decent way, just to satisfy her wish for a closer look;

The Shen family has a back garden and a special garden for bonsai. The road in the garden is like a maze. The wall is half-person high. There are pots of various flower bonsai on the wall. The second brother and a young lady met for the first time and she hid After watching from a distance, the second brother who was walking with his hands on his back saw him, and he twisted a gravel in the bonsai and threw it over. The oncoming stone fell to her feet. She screamed, and the lady screamed. The maids and servants in the garden were all messed up, surrounded by the two young ladies, but the second brother was laughing.

...

Shen Xi lost weight and slipped off the edge of the bed, awakening herself.

She stared at the unlit lamp in a daze, remembering where she was. The bone head was dissected and disassembled, and then put together again. It hurts every time it moves, and even the posture of lying down is very strange. She wanted to drink water, and the low table was in front of her eyes, with a teapot and a single cup, she knew it was for her at first glance.

Shen Xi crawled hard, turned over, sat on the edge of the cigarette couch, lifted the lid of the cup, and took a sip.

It's warm, it's still cold.

She was holding a tea cup, still immersed in old dreams. The second elder brother knew everything and sent her away and told her about the future, but did not mention who the enemy of the Shen family was. Even he didn't want to live for revenge.

She was startled, as if trying to persuade herself to let go.

As of today, the Fu family and the uncle are gone, and the other is unclear. He has done everything he can. What's wrong with Fu Dongwen? Was it the fault of being born in the Fu family? Like Fourth Master and Fifth Master, what's wrong with them?

But the Shen family, who was wrong again...

The entangled life and death debts, life debts, trapped her.

In the lonely space, she will be bright from the sky, sitting in the sun.

Because the rain stopped last night, the windows were half open, and sunlight fell on the ground along the windows. In the fan-shaped white light and shadow, there are traces of rain coming in, which will dry up, and the watermark will still be there.

Shen Xi was afraid that the door would open, afraid that he would ask himself what to do. she does not know.

Under the door, you can see the light coming in. She looked at it, her eyes were sour, and she closed her eyes slightly, and then she could hear footsteps walking back and forth. "San Ye!" Suddenly exclaimed.

Followed by chaotic footsteps.

Is it a heart disease? Shen Xi stood up in a panic, hitting the low table with the back of his feet, knocking over the teapot. She ignored this, threw away the teacup, ran to the door, and slammed the door.

The sunlight outside the door pierced her eyes so that she could not open her eyes. Her feet were empty, and she ran out for two steps. Seeing his shadow, she rushed forward: "Do you want it? Medicine? Where?"

In the bright sun, Fu Dongwen was very haggard because he personally served her for a day and two nights, but he stood here well, not looking like a heart attack, but coughing badly. He started coughing last night, fearing to wake her up, so he sat on the stairs outside the door. After sitting inadvertently for a long time, my eyes turned black when I got up and almost fell off.

Unexpectedly, Shen Xi had already woke up and heard the movement.

He lowered his head, looked at her red and swollen eyes, saw her tears and the usual unconcealed anxiety in the past, and suddenly lost her language ability. What is a surviving life, that's it.

"Where's the medicine? Say it!" Shen Xi rummaged in all his pockets, completely losing his judgment.

She couldn't find the mist in front of her eyes.

She couldn't help shaking because of fear, until she was held in his arms, still immersed in the imaginary of his heart attack. Fu Dongwen pressed her head to his chest, where the heart was, and said in a hoarse voice: "I'm fine, Yang Yang, third brother is fine. Yang Yang..."

He pressed his chin against the top of her head and rubbed her hair lightly.

During the day and two nights, he was afraid that he would open the door, and even more afraid that she would open it. He was afraid that she would get better, so he wanted to understand, and told himself that the fate of husband and wife stopped here.

Shen Xi cried bitterly and wet the front of his shirt.

Fu Tongwen hugged her and accompany her, suppressing and coughing from time to time.

He happened to be facing the east, and the sun was so violent in the morning that he couldn't open his eyes. The messy black short hair, the sloppy shirt, and the beard growing on the chin are all exposed in the sun.

Hearing her crying weakened, he rubbed the hair on top of her head with his face, jokingly said: "Three brothers, wait two more years, and it will be over."

Shen Xi's heart shuddered, pushing him, and staring at him complainingly.

Instead, he smiled, holding her face in both hands, wiping tears for her, and then straightening the hair sticking to her face behind her ears. Finally, he wiped the sweat from his forehead with his palm, looked into her eyes, and looked into the black and white photo.

"Don't go now, Third Brother can't bear it." He whispered.

Shen Xi seemed to be in the dazzling sunlight to clean up the tears of the second half of his life, and his eyes were moist again, because he cried too much, and his eyes felt sandy.

"Why are you crying again?" He smiled, was quiet for a while, and said again: "I really don't bear it."

This is what he wanted to say after lighting up those three hundred sounds in Rouge Lane in the snow.