Symbiosis - chapter 21

I didn’t press charges against Qi Sinian for false imprisonment.

I only asked the Old Master to send him for medical treatment.

Everyone had seen his hysterical, frenzied state, even to the point of self-harm.

I thought that for Yanyan, a sick father would be easier to accept than one in prison.

Qi Sinian was in a very bad state.

He seemed to have retreated into his own world-silent, devoid of joy or sorrow, like a wooden puppet.

Qi Muyuan asked if I wanted to go see him.

I shook my head and refused.

I had known for a long time that Qi Sinian was ill.

A high fever made him forget almost everything that happened that night.

“So, did he really hear the knocking?”

I looked into the distance and shook my head.

“Only he knows for sure, I suppose.”

Lin Yuan sighed. “I don’t even know what to say anymore. Is it that every pitiful person has a hateful side? Or every hateful person has a pitiful side?”

I didn’t know either.

I clinked glasses with her and drained my drink.

Drowsiness washed over Lin Yuan; she pulled up the quilt and closed her eyes.

I remained sitting cross-legged, waiting for the sunrise.

I waited until Lin Yuan’s breathing grew heavy and she fell into a deep sleep.

I lifted my eyes; they were devoid of any emotion.

The chaos of that night had changed everyone.

Little Zhou Mu had watched his mother being chased and beaten, his father being taken away by the police, and blood covering the floor. He had let out a single scream before fainting.

When he woke up, his eyes were vacant, and he could no longer speak.

Everyone said he had gone mad.

Only a fool would lose their way home in a heavy snowstorm and collapse outside.

He nearly died from a high fever.

When he woke up, he was no longer “mad,” but he had forgotten everything.

He forgot that I was the one who got up to use the bathroom that night.

I was the one who heard the noise.

Ning Songyan was a man of extreme hypocrisy.

In public, he was refined and dignified.

But whenever he was slighted outside, he would come home and take it out on us.

He beat my mother, and he beat me.

He specifically targeted places others couldn’t see, inflicting as much pain as possible.

No one believed that Teacher Ning would hit anyone.

He was a teacher who had married a village woman; it was seen as an act of grace. What could she possibly have to complain about?

That year, I was six years old.

I only wished my father would spend as little time at home as possible.

He lay outside, covered in blood, which seeped in through the gap under the door.

I watched blankly.

I turned around silently.

And closed the bedroom door.

Little Zhou Mu rubbed his eyes. “Xiao Yan, where did you go?”

“To the bathroom.”

“You were gone for a long time.”

“Mm.”

In the quiet night, he rolled over and fell asleep.

I buried myself under the covers and soon fell asleep as well.

In my dreams, there was a dark, heavy sea.

I was on a small boat, drifting, surrounded by spots of blood.

No, that wasn’t blood; it was water.

No, it wasn’t water; it was bloody water.

My mother held a mop, her head bowed, scrubbing the floor with more and more force.

“Mom, what’s wrong?”

She looked up, her face expressionless. “Your father is dead!”

(The End!)