Seventh Year Of Separation chapter 24
End of Spring
Later, after the winter vacation ended, Li Zhao asked why he didn’t reply to the text that night.
Gu Jiahe simply said his phone ran out of battery and he couldn’t find the charger. He didn’t elaborate further.
In the last semester of senior year, the teachers became stricter. The two of them hardly had any time left to escape and have pure fun.
Throughout the entire semester, the school only gave one May Day holiday. Even though it was just a day and a half off, for Li Zhao, it was still something worth celebrating.
On the evening of the last day of April, Li Zhao opened a movie poster on his color screen phone and handed it to Gu Jiahe to see.
Gu Jiahe glanced at it and saw a man in iron armor and a handsome man spliced together in the same picture.
“What’s this?”
“Iron Man 1. Want to watch?”
Gu Jiahe had only heard of this term from classmates and knew nothing about the movie. He had never even been to a movie theater before or watched a movie on the big screen.
Before Gu Jiahe could answer, Li Zhao took out two tickets from the side pocket of his backpack and handed one to Gu Jiahe, pushing it toward him across the table.
“At 2:00 p.m. on the first, don’t be late.”
Gu Jiahe carefully picked up the thin movie ticket and nodded.
After that night when Qian Liyun cried a lot at home, Gu Jiahe thought his parents would get a divorce. But it didn’t happen.
Qian Liyun returned home and reverted to her original self, scolding Gu Jianmin for drinking too much and scolding Gu Jiahe for coming home ten minutes late. But she never mentioned catching him cheating that night.
Gu Jiahe and Qian Liyun gradually developed a tacit understanding between them, which was not to mention Gu Jianmin’s name anymore. Most of the time, they used “that person” to refer to him.
At noon on May 1st, after Gu Jiahe finished his lunch, he told Qian Liyun that he had something to do in the afternoon. Qian Liyun scolded him a few times but still let him go.
Gu Jiahe started feeling nervous an hour early. He even chose to wear a blue T-shirt that he hadn’t worn in a long time to show respect for this date.
When he walked out of the house wearing the blue T-shirt, Qian Liyun was sitting alone at the octagonal table in the living room, looking as if she were staring at some distant point, with a somewhat weary expression. After thinking for a moment, Gu Jiahe waved to her, “Mom, I’m leaving.”
The movie theater was in the city center of Pingcheng. Gu Jiahe had to change buses twice before he arrived. He looked at the time, it was 1:40 p.m. He was twenty minutes early.
As May had just begun, the temperature rose rapidly, and that day’s highest temperature exceeded 28 degrees.
Gu Jiahe wanted to find some shade to shelter from the sun. However, as soon as he arrived at the entrance of the movie theater, he found out that Li Zhao had arrived even earlier than him. Li Zhao was wearing a pure white short-sleeved shirt that day, paired with dark blue jeans, looking handsome and refreshing.
Gu Jiahe walked over quickly, “How long have you been here?”
“Just arrived.” Li Zhao handed him an ice cream.
Gu Jiahe saw that it had already melted a bit and didn’t look like it was just bought.
He quickly took a lick, “Thanks.”
“Jumpy.” Li Zhao smiled and pushed him lightly.
“What’s wrong?” Gu Jiahe asked puzzledly.
“You’re talking so seriously, it feels like we’re strangers.”
“Do you want popcorn?” Li Zhao asked him before they went inside to check their tickets.
Actually, Gu Jiahe smelled the aroma of popcorn as soon as he entered the cinema, but he was too embarrassed to ask Li Zhao.
“Yes.” Gu Jiahe nodded repeatedly.
In the dark screening hall, they sat in the eighth row, right in the middle of the theater.
Gu Jiahe had never seen this kind of movie before, and the flying special effects on the full screen made him a little dizzy. His understanding of movies was still stuck at the slow-paced movies organized by the school, most of which were quite soporific.
Li Zhao didn’t eat much of the popcorn. Gu Jiahe, on the other hand, devoured it like a little squirrel until the bottom was visible.
At the end of the movie, Tony Stark walked up to the stage in his suit and tie, facing a group of reporters sitting below.
The camera zoomed in, giving his face a close-up.
Gu Jiahe couldn’t help but whisper, “So handsome.”
Li Zhao turned to look at him, “What’s handsome?”
Gu Jiahe glanced back, and a dim silver screen cast a beam of light, illuminating Li Zhao’s profile. His pupils twinkled with a faint light in the darkness.
“The eyes. I mean his eyes.” Gu Jiahe pointed to the small Robert Downey Jr. on the silver screen.
Li Zhao smiled, his eyes curving.
The movie lasted for two hours and six minutes. When they walked out of the screening hall, the sun hadn’t set yet.
Gu Jiahe glanced at his phone and saw a missed call. It was from Grandma just now.
Grandma wasn’t used to using the phone, usually Gu Jiahe called her first, and she rarely called him.
Seeing Gu Jiahe frown, Li Zhao hurriedly asked what was wrong.
Gu Jiahe waved his hand and said it was nothing.
On the way back from the movie theater, the two did not take the same route. Gu Jiahe took the bus, while Li Zhao stood at the platform waving to him.
Gu Jiahe pondered for a moment and decided to call his grandmother back, but after dialing twice, there was no answer.
Perhaps he had accidentally dialed the wrong number? Gu Jiahe wondered.
By the time he arrived home, it was already dim outside, the sun was almost setting on the horizon, and the afterglow gradually lost its warmth, dissipating into the night.
The door at home was slightly open, but the sound of an old woman sobbing could be heard from inside. Gu Jiahe vaguely sensed that something was wrong, so he gently pushed open the wooden door.
Buzz—
Everything in front of him made him freeze in place, unable to move. In an instant, he felt his head go blank, his throat tighten.
Grandma was holding Qian Liyun, who had collapsed to the ground, crying uncontrollably.
Gu Jianmin stood aside, his hands in his pockets, his expression unreadable.
And Qian Liyun in Grandma’s arms, her face pale, lips tinged with blue, limbs stiff and dragging on the ground, her eyes not even completely closed, revealing half of her whites and pupils.
Her pupils were completely dilated.
Gu Jiahe didn’t want to speculate on the worst outcome. His voice trembling, he asked, “What happened to my mom?”
Gu Jianmin’s tone was very calm, “She’s gone. An hour ago.”
An hour ago, half an hour before he received Grandma’s missed call. By then, Qian Liyun…
“What do you mean she’s gone?” Gu Jiahe’s legs were nailed to the ground, unable to move a step, and he even spoke incoherently, “What do you mean gone?!”
“She was fine, but then she suddenly collapsed, and in a moment, she was gone. Cardiac arrest, probably a recurrence of her old condition.” Gu Jianmin even turned and walked into the house, took her coat, and covered her with it.
“Why didn’t you call an ambulance?! Cardiac arrest can be treated, why didn’t you call an ambulance?!” Gu Jiahe knew that even in the case of cardiac arrest, there were several minutes for resuscitation.
Why didn’t anyone take care of her?!
Gu Jianmin stood by without saying a word, but instead took out a cigarette and lit it. The smoke drifted onto Gu Jiahe’s face, causing him to cough.
Gu Jiahe’s eyes stung, feeling as if his back had been cut with a knife.
He knelt down and held Qian Liyun’s face. That familiar face, now stiff and cold. His fingers couldn’t stop trembling, and he couldn’t even properly feel the texture of her cheeks.
Gu Jianmin brushed off the cigarette ash, turned around to make a phone call.
Gu Jiahe immediately stood up, took a big step forward, grabbed Gu Jianmin’s collar, his eyes bloodshot, holding him tightly and not letting him go, “Was she with you? Was she? Why didn’t you call an ambulance!”
Gu Jianmin ignored him, forcefully pulling his hand away. But Gu Jiahe held onto the buttons of his clothes tightly.
Snap!
In the midst of the argument, one of Gu Jianmin’s buttons came loose and fell off.
Gu Jianmin was completely enraged by this action, raised his hand and slapped Gu Jiahe hard, “What’s your fucking attitude? I did my best to save her! Even if I called an ambulance, it wouldn’t have been in time to save her!”
Gu Jiahe’s cheek burned painfully.
Qian Liyun’s emaciated body was casually covered with a coat. Grandma leaned over her and cried until she almost fainted. And Gu Jianmin turned and walked out of the house.
Gu Jiahe felt that everything before him was absurd to the extreme.
Soon, many people came into the house. They were all people from the village who knew Qian Liyun, coming to help with the funeral arrangements.
Gu Jiahe was squeezed into a corner of the living room alone. He watched as they manipulated Qian Liyun’s stiff body, changed her into a set of strangely colored new clothes, forcefully closed her eyelids, and then several people carried her into a makeshift coffin.
The narrow living room was turned into a mourning hall, with plastic wreaths strewn across the aisle. In no time, incense was lit, and Gu Jiahe smelled the scent of cheap cigarettes.
The sky outside grew darker and darker. Someone came in and tied a rope around his waist and draped him with white cloth; someone else came and kicked his knees, forcing him to kneel in front of the spirit tablet.
Between the two incense sticks, there was originally nothing. Later, someone placed a bunch of bananas and an apple.
And then, in the center, a photo frame was placed. In the photo frame was an old photo of Qian Liyun taken when she was 30 years old.
At that time, she rarely wore lipstick, drew two delicate eyebrows, and tied her half-curled hair into a high braid. She even looked somewhat beautiful.
Gu Jiahe knelt on the cushion, his knees rubbed raw by the rough rope knots.
He listened to the increasingly noisy voices around him and looked up at the old photo.
He remembered Qian Liyun’s boxes of barely touched medication, her breakdown that day, her withered fingers, her taking him to work at the textile factory, and her once riding a bicycle with him to chase the moon.
And now, the sky was pitch black outside, the candlelight flickered, casting a fluctuating light onto Qian Liyun’s old photo, sometimes bright, sometimes dim.
It was only then that he realized, Qian Liyun was indeed gone, she died on May 1st, 2008, at the end of an ordinary spring.