Someone asked Duan Zhanzhou, Do you like your beautiful and elegant fiancée?
Duan Zhanzhou always said, “How can I not be happy when I have such a good wife?”
He was happy, no matter who asked him, he was happy, even if his elder brother Duan Yelin and the king came, he would still say he was happy. When he was a child, Fourth Uncle Qiao always said that he would find him a good marriage when he grew up and that his wife should be good at both housework and cooking and should be graceful and of equal social status… Cong Wei had all of these.
The black tea from Great Britain always tastes slightly bitter. Cong Wei’s soft hands making tea are very pleasing to the eye. She asked, “Do you want to add goat’s milk or cow’s milk?”
Duan Zhanzhou didn’t reply. His eyes fell on Cong Lin, who was talking to a pug on the grass outside. Cong Wei called him twice, but he still didn’t turn around. He just casually said, “Any is fine. As long as you make it.” After a pause, he asked again, “Your brother… doesn’t seem to like talking to people.”
“He… is more introverted.” Cong Wei replied.
Talking about being an introvert, Duan Zhanzhou, who loves to play, is the best at curing it. He said, “I have to do my brother-in-law a favor; otherwise, he will make me suffer in the future.”
So, Cong Lin was taken by Duan Zhanzhou to have a great time in Shanghai.
Unfortunately, at that time, he didn’t know that no matter how his brother-in-law’s favor was done, he would still suffer a lot in the future.
This guy really doesn’t know anything. This is Duan Zhanzhou’s evaluation of Cong Lin.
Cong Lin always had an indifferent expression on his face and a surprise in his eyes, just like he saw a toy he liked but didn’t dare to ask for it. Especially when he stood in front of the window of a Western pastry shop, the colorful cream looked so beautiful under the warm light.
But Duan Zhanzhou didn’t know at that time that the stars in Cong Lin’s eyes were because of him.
“What, you haven’t eaten it before?” Duan Zhanzhou’s tone was as if he was teasing a bumpkin.
Cong Lin, who always said nothing, timidly raised his voice at this time: “I have eaten it!” Realizing his loss of composure, he turned his face away again, ” I have eaten it…”
There was a faint red mark on his neck, half of which was covered by his collar. Duan Zhanzhou only took a glance, he couldn’t see it clearly.
That day he bought a big cake for Cong Lin, who ate to his full. Duan Zhanzhou didn’t know why, but he always found the way his brother-in-law licked the cream interesting.
He had a dream at night. He dreamed of that absurd night when he was drunk and was intimate with Cong Wei. They kissed on the bed, and in a panic they tore down the curtain, covering the two of them. Just like a full moon half covered by a cloud, the light was dim. He was licking, but through a veil, the roughness of the veil rubbed his tongue and the other party’s skin, bringing an unbearable itchy feeling. If he were a naughty monkey, he would have wanted to reach into the well and scoop up the moon in the water to quench his thirst, no matter how deep the well was.
He could feel the person’s trembling fear from his naked back, section by section. He turned the person over so that he was facing him—it was Cong Lin’s face, with the halo of the red moon spreading across his body. His lips were slightly parted, exhaling incoherent breaths.
He was suddenly covered in sweat and woke up from his dream.
What a mess! He must have been too close to Cong Lin recently!
The wedding date was getting closer and closer, and the Duan family’s gifts were sent to the Zhang family like a stream of water. People on the streets and alleys looked at the trucks loaded with red boxes and admired Duan Zhanzhou’s deep relationship. However, Duan Yelin didn’t think so. He crossed his arms and held a dogtail grass in his mouth, jokingly saying, “Your play of being a lover is fake to me.”
Duan Zhanzhou retorted, “You are jealous.”
He and Cong Wei must be the most perfect couple in Shanghai. He is a responsible man, and he must do his duty well.
When trying on a wedding dress, Cong Wei was wearing a full body of Western lace, and the clerk said it was the most fashionable style at the moment. The white dress matched her red lips. Duan Zhanzhou stared at those lips. They were beautiful, but he could never remember that it was these lips that he kissed that night. Was it her who called his name in his ear? Was it she who put her hands under his arms and hugged his back? Was it she who made him crazy and felt pity?
It’s her, it can only be her. Duan Zhanzhou shook his head, he was afraid that he was confused by what others said about pre-marriage fear.
On the other side, Cong Lin, who also came to try on the clothes, was sitting quietly in the corner. He looked at the handsome and beautiful couple and turned his back. After a while, he felt something covering his head, and his eyes suddenly became blurry.
“The way you keep silent makes you look like a young bride waiting to get married. This veil is just right for you… you…” Duan Zhanzhou wanted to make a joke to Cong Lin, but Cong Lin turned around, carefully came out from the veil, raised his head, blinked, and looked at him, which made his heart skip a beat.
Duan Zhanzhou said, “After I marry your sister, there will be no one to take care of you anymore. Why don’t you come with me? I… your sister and I will take care of you together.”
Cong Wei smiled and came over to hold Duan Zhanzhou’s arm and acted like a spoiled child: “Isn’t it enough that you kidnapped me? Are you going to kidnap my little brother too?”
Duan Zhanzhou scratched her nose and kissed Cong Wei on the face again: “I’m afraid you’ll miss him.”
Cong Lin didn’t say a word from beginning to end. He silently pulled off the veil and crumpled it into a ball.
In the end, his brother-in-law did not agree to live with them because Zhang Yaochen arranged for Cong Lin to entertain another young man from a high-ranking official.
After a long time, the next time Duan Zhanzhou saw Cong Lin was at the horse farm. Cong Lin and the young man were on the same horse. Duan Zhanzhou couldn’t take his eyes off his trembling and fearful appearance.
His eyes were fixed on the young man’s hands placed on Cong Lin’s waist. Cong Lin only held the reins of the horse with his back stretched straight. The young man was probably very amused by this expression. He whipped the horse, and the horse ran away as fast as it could. Soon the horse disappeared into the deep mountains and forests.
“Since when was he able to have such a good relationship with others?” He said sarcastically.
The groom was adjusting the saddle, not realizing what Duan Zhanzhou meant by that: “These young masters are always close to each other. If you come and go often, won’t you be able to become one of their friends as well?”
Duan Zhanzhou jumped on his horse and said, “A young man who walks his bird and gambles for money is not worthy of being with me.”
Not long after, the flying birds were startled out of the forest, gunshots rang out in the sky, and a scream was heard in the deep forest. Duan Zhanzhou rushed in on his horse and saw that the young man whom he had just despised in his heart had been shot and fell to the ground dead. Cong Lin covered his mouth, hid behind a tree, shivering, and his clothes were in disarray.
There was a masked guy holding a gun in the distance. Duan Zhanzhou pulled out his gun and shot at him. The killer dodged, and his mask fell off. Although he disappeared into the bushes after only a glance, it was still memorable.
Duan Zhanzhou tried to comfort Cong Lin for a long time before Cong Lin confessed that it was the young man who had ill intentions but was shot dead by someone before he could make any moves.
Duan Zhanzhou knew the identity of this young man. Recently, the warlords and political parties had been fighting each other, and assassinations and threats to family members were common. He asked Cong Lin if he could still move.
Cong Lin timidly said, “My legs are weak, and I can’t stand up…”
Duan Zhanzhou simply put his hands on his shoulder and carried him on his back. It was only then that he discovered that Cong Lin’s palms were covered with wounds, cut by the bark, and a large piece of skin was peeled off.
“Don’t be afraid. With me here, no one will dare to shoot again.”
“Don’t tell anyone that you were here when you go back. I’ll make the people here keep their mouths shut.
“Don’t tell your sister either, she’s timid and weak. I will take you to have this wound bandaged, just treat it as if I was riding the horse improperly and caused you to fall.”
Duan Zhanzhou kept giving orders, thinking that Cong Lin was a cowardly guy who had never seen the world and must be scared to death. In fact, he had no idea that Cong Lin was used as bait and his accomplices were ambushing and killing him from a distance. It was the chief of staff’s order to get close before taking action. Even the wounds on his hands were caused by him deliberately rubbing them against the tree trunks, for fear that Duan Zhanzhou would discover the calluses from his years of holding the gun.
The reason why he asked Duan Zhanzhou to carry him on his back was because he was afraid that his accomplice, who had his identity revealed, would come back and kill him.
Cong Lin was thinking on Duan Zhanzhou’s shoulder, does he know that he is carrying a guy as miserable as a rat in a stinky ditch?
Did he know the expression on his face when he deliberately seduced that person?
Did he know that he was a cruel person waiting for that person to die with his eyes wide open while he watched that person bleed?
That night, Cong Lin stayed in the small room in Duan Zhanzhou’s office. Duan Zhanzhou kept making calls and taking time to watch the doctor apply medicine to Cong Lin. But when all of them left, Cong Lin loosened the gauze, scraped the medicine to heal the wound, and threw it into the spittoon. He tore off a piece of cloth and bit it, frowned, and sprinkled the rot grass powder he brought with him on the wound.
He didn’t want to get better too quickly.
Sure enough, in the middle of the night, he developed a fever. Duan Zhanzhou sent someone to notice Cong Wei and then stayed on guard in the office outside.
The desk lamp was on until three in the morning, when suddenly there was a power outage and the lights in the entire building went out, leaving it so dark that they couldn’t even see their fingers.
Cong Lin was dizzy from the fever, but he remained alert. He heard a slight click on the door and footsteps slowly approaching the bed. The quilt was lifted, and a pair of warm hands came in.
He was not unfamiliar with this feeling. Instead, it was like an old friend visiting: “You are ‘dreaming’ again.”
The kiss stole his breath. Though he was usually cool by nature, the fever burning through him today made him warmer than ever. He was suddenly pressed against another hotter body, which made him feel a little breathless. Knowing that the person in front of him would not listen, Cong Lin still couldn’t help but say, “It can’t be too long tonight… I still have things to do… ugh!”
His neck was bitten by Duan Zhanzhou. In his dreams, he always follows his nature, impatiently taking off Cong Lin’s pants. Cong Lin subconsciously bent his knees, and Duan Zhanzhou’s body was embedded in them, forcing him to separate, forcing him to suppress a sound in his throat, and the heat came into contact with his immaturity.
Duan Zhanzhou probably felt that Cong Lin’s hands, which were on his shoulders, were in the way, so he pushed him up, put his arms around his neck, and then kissed him from cheek to lips in the dark. His hand rubbed Cong Lin’s back, and gradually he felt that the clothes were in the way. Cong Lin was so shocked that he kept saying, “You can’t tear it… you can’t…”
He was afraid that if he tore it up, some evidence would be left behind, and all the secrets of the night would no longer be able to be covered up. Fortunately, he was thin, so he took off his hands and feet quickly and threw them on the ground.
Without the obstruction, Duan Zhanzhou held his chest against his. Cong Lin had difficulty breathing due to his illness. He raised his chin, there was no place for him to look at, and his chest rose and fell violently as if it was moving in and out actively. He could feel the tongue sliding across his skin, gentle for only a moment, and then it was like a beast that had tasted the sweetness and bit him wantonly. Cong Lin was in so much pain that he could only use a little strength to push him hard to get a chance to rest.
He kept listening to the sound of the clock, and he was very nervous during this lovemaking. When Duan Zhanzhou took root in him like a seedling in the ground, he remembered it was exactly four o’clock. Logically speaking, there was no part of his body that had not suffered pain, but these few fragile inches of flesh in his body were the only ones that were rarely tortured, and Duan Zhanzhou was the only one who carried out the execution.
“Zhanzhou… I can’t stay here too long. Make it faster…” Cong Lin grabbed the bedsheet and bit his lips to endure the pain.
Duan Zhanzhou couldn’t hear any of his pleas, he only knew that he was letting out his feelings from the bottom of his heart, a ball of fire burning down his body. He needed to vent. His lips found the same warm place, he probed in and hooked it out, like a wild bee drilling into the core of a flower. He didn’t care if it was too much, he would not stop until he was covered in honey.
When he lifted Cong Lin’s waist and almost bent it in half, Cong Lin finally wanted to take back his words: “Don’t… umm, don’t be this fast as well! Don’t… ah!”
Cong Lin’s thighs were pressed against his chest, with Duan Zhanzhou’s body on top. He was like the Monkey King being pressed down by the Five Finger Mountain, unable to escape anywhere. Even his paralyzed hands were held tightly by Duan Zhanzhou’s ten fingers. The unbearable feeling made him sway back and forth in this confined space, unconsciously provoking Duan Zhanzhou to fight more and more courageously. Duan Zhanzhou, who was working hard, was muttering in a daze, “Don’t move…”
The pair of feet placed on his shoulders hooked their insteps together and bent into a semicircle, which was the only place where Cong Lin could exert force.
Later everything was quiet. He heard the crows calling outside and got up and went out.
It was a dark and windy night, and his masked companion asked him, “He saw my face, have you taken action?”
Cong Lin lowered his head and said grimly, “Yes.”
“That’s good. Ugh!” The companion was surprised to see a knife on his chest and closed his eyes before any questions even came to his mind.
When Cong Lin buried him, he scooped up a handful of soil and said, “I remember you blocked a gap for me when we were on a mission two years ago. Unfortunately, your kindness went to waste on an ungrateful person like me. Please remember me better. Don’t ever meet a partner like me in your next life.”
When washing his bloody hands, Cong Lin stared at the water rushing down. He lay by the pool and laughed with his mouth wide open, but it was a dumb laugh, and he didn’t even dare to make a sound.
————
The Duan brothers’ reputation for bravery is well known to everyone, but compared to Duan Yelin, when people mention Duan Zhanzhou, they always say, Oh, Commander Duan’s younger brother, he’s not bad either.
Of course the young Duan Zhanzhou was very angry.
At that time, many people who couldn’t make a living turned to banditry, and many who lived near the water became pirates, and they would come out to cause trouble every time the weather was good. Duan Zhanzhou led three warships and rushed out to fight for fame.
Zhang Yaochen was waiting for him to act on impulse and had already colluded with the pirates to deliberately defeat him so that he could feel proud for a while. After a period of peace on the sea, Duan Zhanzhou took Cong Lin out to sea to relax one day, and they were surrounded by the pirates who had returned and had nowhere to escape.
Zhang Yaochen’s intention was to capture him alive. With this younger brother in hand, he would not have to worry about his older brother being constrained.
Water was even entering the bottom of the boat, and most of the people died in the sea. Duan Zhanzhou was protecting Cong Lin behind his back with a gun. When a bomb exploded, he cursed, hugged Cong Lin, and jumped into the sea.
Before Duan Zhanzhou fainted, he saw Cong Lin abandoning him and boarding the escape boat alone.
Cong Lin left Duan Zhanzhou behind because all of the pirates recognized him and he had a token of Zhang Yaochen on him. He boarded the pirates’ ship by boat, and the pirates rescued the unconscious Duan Zhanzhou and imprisoned him.
That night, the whole ship was celebrating and drinking to their heart’s content. Cong Lin flattered them by pouring wine to celebrate, and when most people couldn’t even stand steadily, he finally revealed a strange smile.
If there was one person who survived on this ship, he would never forget this night for the rest of his life: a short man holding an axe, with bloodshot eyes, chopped off the heads of the drunken pirates one by one, and those who were not drunk fought him to the death, beating him until he was gasping for breath and his body was covered with bloody wounds.
In the end, he won. His axe was bent, his clothes were stuck to his body because of blood, his legs were shaking like sieves, half of his face was blood red, and his chest was torn with pain every time he breathed. But even so, there was still a woman of the captain left in the cabin, her belly was slightly bulging, and she kowtowed to him for mercy.
He threw the axe away, picked up a bowl of wine from the ground, and tremblingly held it in front of her: “Drink it… so it won’t hurt so much.”
The woman cried so pitifully, and her forehead was bruised from kowtowing. Cong Lin gritted his teeth, grabbed the woman’s hair, lifted her head up, and forced her to drink. When the wine was finished, she fainted.
He closed his eyes and grabbed her throat: “When you go to the underworld, remember to tell the King of Hell that it was my fault alone.”
Only when all the people were dead could he make up a lie to deal with Zhang Yaochen. The loyalty he had received from childhood to adulthood gave him the confidence to deceive the world.
No one could have imagined how he could swim to shore with Duan Zhanzhou, who had never woken up, on his back despite being so seriously injured. The seawater soaked the wound, causing it to hurt to the bone.
Unfortunately, the first thing Duan Zhanzhou saw when he woke up was Cong Wei, whose eyes were swollen from crying in front of the hospital bed. Zhang Yaochen told him that it was Cong Wei who got the news and went out to sea to search despite the danger, and only then did she find him dying on the shore.
Any man would be overwhelmed with emotion at that moment.
He held Cong Wei’s hand and said that he would take good care of her and make her the happiest wife in the world. But he still had something to say. He was a little disappointed that Cong Wei, whom he had been taking care of, only cared about his own life and ran away at a critical moment.
While the couple were talking sweet words to each other, Cong Lin, wrapped in bandages, stood at the door of the ward, shedding tears.
When he was a child and just entered the Blood Vermillion Bird, he often cried and was severely punished every time. Later, he met the two brother and sister of the Zhang family several times and was beaten as a target. The young lady of the Zhang family used him as a donkey to ride. Cong Lin once got angry and deliberately fell down and was slapped in the face, but she was the one who cried. At that time, he wanted to cry, but he was ordered not to cry; otherwise, he would be punished more severely.
So he could only endure it, and after enduring it for a long time, he actually stopped crying. Maybe he was too disappointed with the world, so he didn’t think it was worth crying.
But he still feels aggrieved.
Just like he worked so hard, and he couldn’t even shout, “I’m the one who saved you”, he could only put him on the shore, let passers-by rescue him, let him misunderstand, let him feel sorry for others and comfort others, and hide away to lick his own wounds.
So when he saw Duan Zhanzhou wiping his sister’s tears, he felt aggrieved that the world treated him unfairly, and he had to cover his mouth even when he released his sadness, which made his wounds split again.
A new opera troupe has arrived in the city, and tickets are hard to come by. Duan Zhanzhou booked a private room and took Cong Wei and Cong Lin with him. Cong Wei had just returned from a mission the night before and was not used to listening to opera, so she fell asleep with her head propped up.
Cong Lin, on the other hand, rested his chin on the railing, looking very interested.
On the stage, the young man from the Pei family asked, “Why are you smiling on the wall?” The girl answered, “Don’t let down our appointment in the back garden tonight.”
This is a play called “Right Away”, which is taken from the story of “Silver Vase at the Bottom of the Well”. I fell in love with you at first sight, but you betrayed me. I played with green plums leaning against the short wall, while you rode on your horse beside the weeping willow.
Duan Zhanzhou asked, “Do you like this story? After all, you are a child, and you love to believe in this kind of love story of ‘I looked at you from afar, and when I saw you, I knew you were heartbroken’.”
“What do you mean?” Cong Lin hasn’t read many books.
“It means, I looked at you from the wall and felt the pain of missing you.”
Cong Lin blinked and repeated this sentence twice in his mind. Only then did he understand why scholars were always sad about the passing of time. It turned out that poetry could express people’s thoughts so clearly and accurately.
A female voice sang on the stage: “One day of your kindness will ruin my life for a hundred years…”
Cong Lin whispered to him, “If you were the Young Master of the Pei family, would you dare to fight against the secular world with the eloped Young Lady of the Li family and stay together for life?”
“I already have your elder sister, why do I need Young Lady Li?” Duan Zhanzhou thought he was joking, “After you take a wife and then still take a concubine! How can you give up your legitimate wife and do these nonsense things?”
It turns out that his head is full of nonsense, ha, haha.
On the way back that day, Cong Wei suddenly said to Cong Lin, “Someone wants to kill him these two days. If he comes to you, stay away from him.”
“Who?”
“Instructor. He made a mistake a while ago, and the Chief of Staff ordered him to make amends. You know his skills, he won’t make a mistake.”
Cong Lin clenched his fists: “Then… what if he makes a mistake?”
Cong Wei sighed, “Then it will be our wedding night. I will kill Duan Zhanzhou.”
Cong Lin felt empty in his heart all of a sudden: “Doesn’t the Chief of Staff want to deal with Duan Yelin more?”
“Duan Yelin is too strong-minded to be shaken. His brother, on the other hand, loves and hates quickly and is easy to manipulate. Otherwise, the Chief of Staff would not have chosen him to set a trap…” Cong Wei looked out the car window. Duan Zhanzhou met her eyes outside and waved to her with a smile. She smiled back as gently as a newly blooming rose but said cold and cruel words, “He bullied you before, and it is his karma for me to take action.”
Cong Lin laughed at himself: “Karma. We are the ones who deserve karma the most.”
After lowering the car curtain, Cong Wei held Cong Lin’s hand. She said warmly, “I’m really tired of this. We are just tools. If we can’t kill people, there is no value in living… Little Brother, if I want to be cruel, you have to be ruthless too.”
“Sister, since you like Zhang Yaochen, you are still comfortable after all. Tell me, if I fall in love with the mission target one day, how can I be cruel?”
Cong Wei’s hand tightened, and after thinking for a moment, she said, “People change. The person you liked when you were fifteen may… change when you are twenty-five. As time goes by…”
“Hehe!” Cong Lin laughed again, interrupting Cong Wei’s words.
“Little Brother…”
Cong Lin’s eyes were dark without a single glimmer of light. Cong Wei couldn’t bear to see that. He said, “My silly sister, count the number of Blood Vermillion Bird’s killers. None of them lived past the age of 25.”
He doesn’t have another ten years to meet another person, so the time he lives in this life is only enough to give to one person.
The choice came so quickly that Cong Lin had no time to mourn.
That night, when Duan Zhanzhou was so tired that he fell asleep on his desk, someone sneaked into the study.
His gun was on the table. Cong Lin walked around behind him, picked up the gun, and pointed it at his back. It is true that Duan Zhanzhou was one of the best fighters, but he was far inferior to him, a killer who had been trained since childhood.
As long as he moves his hands, many troubles can be solved.
“If you don’t die, my sister will die,” Cong Lin tried to comfort himself, but his hands kept shaking. He even had to hold the gun with both hands to prevent it from falling. “I have to kill you. Otherwise, I have to kill my sister. Duan Zhanzhou, you are nothing to me. You don’t have me in your heart. Why should I suffer for you for so long? I, I…”
If I had known it would be so heart-wrenching, I would have never met you.
Later, Duan Zhanzhou woke up from a good sleep and knew only that his gun had fallen to the ground and a bullet was missing for unknown reasons. He did not know anything else. When his appointment with Cong Lin came, Zhang Yaochen told him that he had caught a cold and could not go out for several weeks.
How could he know that that night, Cong Lin returned to the hut injured, saying that he went to assassinate Duan Zhanzhou in order to grab the credit, but he didn’t expect that Duan Zhanzhou had secret soldiers around him, which instead alerted the enemy, causing Zhang Yaochen to recall the other killers?
But even so, it did not make him cancel his plan to kill him on his wedding night.
————
When the Western wedding style was popular in China, white pigeons became the most novel decoration at weddings. The pigeon trainer blew a whistle, but some stupid pigeons still didn’t know how to fly back according to the command.
Duan Zhanzhou said with disdain, “What’s so good about this bird… it would be better to find someone to play the suona to liven things up.”
Cong Lin was holding a fat pigeon in his hand and feeding it corn kernels. He was surprised to hear this: “You don’t like pigeons?”
“It makes me feel dull just looking at it,” Duan Zhanzhou pouted. “Women and children just like these kinds of flashy and impractical things.”
In fact, this guy who is about to get married is not much older than Cong Lin, but Cong Lin just likes to go along with him: “En, I like it very much.”
Duan Zhanzhou raised his eyebrows and walked away with his hands in his pockets. The pigeon trainer then whispered to Cong Lin that Young Master Duan also liked to train parrots and pigeons when he was a child. He liked it so much that he forgot to eat and sleep and was even beaten by Duan Yelin. However, one time, the pigeon he had raised for the longest time pecked his eye, so he stewed the pigeon for a midnight snack that day and never walked his bird again.
This is Duan Zhanzhou, who treats others with enthusiasm and always wants others to return the same warmth. If he doesn’t get it, he will hate it.
After listening to this, Cong Lin forced a smile, with a bitter taste in his mouth.
The pigeon was still cooing in his palm. He walked slowly into the house. When he returned to the room, he opened his palm and found that the pigeon had been strangled to death already.
However, Duan Zhanzhou, who hated pigeons the most, actually bought several hundred more white pigeons from various places and patted the pigeon cages to show off to Cong Lin: “How about it? It’s enough, right? Enough for the wedding? On the wedding day, I guarantee that you and your sister will have enough to see!”
Cong Lin’s watery eyes completely pleased Duan Zhanzhou. He opened the cage and said, “While your sister is not here, I will let you see them first!”
Hundreds of pigeons were released from their cages, and they flew towards Cong Lin in the wind. When they heard Duan Zhanzhou’s whistle, they wagged their tails and rushed upwards, dropping countless white feathers.
It’s enough, it’s enough.
Even if all his joy could only be achieved by relying on his sister’s name, he felt it was enough.
Because at the end of the wedding, not a single dove took off. They all flew back the way they came. Just like his life, he had seen the splendor, but what he got was just a feather of glittering light, still covered with dust.
The cake for the wedding was brought to Duan Zhanzhou. It was covered with circles of cream and piled with roses. When Duan Zhanzhou delivered it to the Zhang family’s house, Cong Lin was in the yard. He stood up when he saw him.
Duan Zhanzhou said, “I can’t give this to you today. This is for your sister.”
After a moment of stiffness, Cong Lin forced out a bigger smile: “…En.”
Duan Zhanzhou felt that he seemed a little unhappy. So he explained, “It’s not that I don’t want to give it to you, but this is specially made by your step-sister, Young Lady Zhang, for your sister’s marriage to me. I can’t just give it to you casually.”
Hearing this, Cong Lin stopped smiling, and just as Duan Zhanzhou was about to leave, he overturned the cake. The expensive and exquisite cake fell to the ground and turned into a puddle of mud.
“You!” Duan Zhanzhou felt that this was unreasonable and was furious.
Cong Lin didn’t give him any explanation, turned around and ran away until he ran to a small corner where no one was, then squatted down and muttered to himself, “That’s poisonous… that’s why I don’t allow you to eat it, did you know that?”
No matter how one looks at it, this is just a petty and even somewhat paranoid child throwing a tantrum. Naturally, Duan Zhanzhou thought about the last time when Cong Lin abandoned him, and he was prejudiced for a moment.
People are afraid of any cracks between each other. Once a crack occurs, it will get bigger and bigger.
Duan Zhanzhou hated deception the most in his life, but in his short life, Cong Lin deceived him most thoroughly.
This kind of betrayal is far more unforgettable than being pecked in the eyes by a pigeon.
So on the day Cong Wei died, he grabbed Cong Lin in disbelief: “How could you have the heart to do this! Why? You are only fifteen years old, only fifteen years old ah, how could you be so vicious?”
Cong Lin was only fifteen years old when he committed the murderous act, and he was only seventeen when he died.
On the day he swallowed charcoal, the two corners of his mouth were burned by charcoal, leaving two long scars, which was also deliberately done by Cong Lin himself. It was better to be ugly so that he could regard Duan Zhanzhou’s disgusted look at him as dislike for this face rather than disgust for him as a person.
There was a burning sound between the red-hot charcoal and the flesh of his palms. Before the heat wave, he was still thinking of the scene of the two of them listening to “Qiang Tu Ma Shang” on the stage. Duan Zhanzhou scooped some cream on his nose. He smiled and dodged to the side, hitting his head. Duan Zhanzhou thought he was stupid and rubbed it for him. The tall man in front of him overlapped with the little person under the wall that year.
Before the charcoal fire entered his mouth, Duan Zhanzhou was still puzzled: “Why did you kill her?”
Cong Lin raised his head, his eyes were red, but he smiled and said, “Jealous…”
Then he took it in his mouth, his mouth full of scars and blood, and he looked as miserable as a turtle with its shell peeled off.
When you gaze at me, you’re right within reach. But when I look at you, you’re miles away. A little sweetness, in exchange for a lifetime of bitterness, is unfair no matter how one describes it.
You must think I’m jealous that my sister is better, more favored by others, more popular, and has a better life.
Stupid, you don’t know…
I’m jealous that you have me, who loves you so much.
