During those few days, Tao Siyue had been confined to her home and had taken a half-month leave from school.
Jiang Zhaolin tried calling her several times, but her phone was unreachable. He even visited her home a few times, but each time, Tao Xianyong sent him away with excuses.
It wasn't until Saturday, while Jiang Zhaolin was lingering near Tao Xianyong's house, that he saw two adults leaving hurriedly. Seizing the opportunity, he rushed to the front of the building and shouted Tao Siyue's name.
After waiting a while with no response, Jiang Zhaolin entered the building through the main door, which he found open. He cautiously walked around the house until he opened the door to a small bedroom in the corner and found Tao Siyue lying on the floor.
The tiles felt cold, and Tao Siyue was dressed only in pajamas, lying stiffly in the narrow hallway, staring blankly at the ceiling.
Jiang Zhaolin took off his shoes, held them in his hand, and carefully crouched by the wall, asking, "What's wrong?"
Tao Siyue didn’t reply. If not for her open eyes, Jiang Zhaolin might have thought she had fallen asleep.
"Why aren't you going to school?"
After a few seconds, Jiang Zhaolin added, "What they said on the news can't be true, right? Uncle He would never do something like that."
He glanced at Tao Siyue's bare feet exposed to the cold air and pulled a thin blanket from the bed to cover her.
"Are you scared?" Jiang Zhaolin asked. Without waiting for her to answer, he continued, "Your brother hasn't been in a good mood lately either. I heard that some parents made a fuss at her school, and he chased them with a broom. The teachers couldn’t catch up, and the security guards at the gate finally stopped him."
Tao Siyue shifted slightly, pushing the blanket off her.
"But the school didn't punish him. Some people even wrote letters to the school to support him."
Tao Xianyong hadn't chosen his scapegoat well. He hadn’t done his research and didn’t know that He Xu had a good reputation in the southern district of A City. While some people had been misled, many of the locals spoke out in his defense.
Jiang Zhaolin, feeling his legs going numb, decided to sit down, leaning against the wall. "When my dad got sick, I also felt like my life was over, like I couldn’t go on by myself. I was already so unlucky, and then I had to deal with debts that I could never repay. What was I supposed to do? And look at Yifei. When his dad killed someone, he must have been in shock too. Lots of people hate him and won't forgive him. But you know, when you really face it, you get used to it quickly. Life doesn't get worse, so everything else doesn't seem so bad anymore, right?"
With a sob in her voice, Tao Siyue asked, "Aren't you going to scold me?"
Jiang Zhaolin was silent for a moment, then said, "Uncle He said it wasn't your fault... and I don’t think you’re that kind of person either."
Tao Siyue covered her face and took a deep breath.
"Why won't you speak up?" Jiang Zhaolin smartly guessed, "Does it have something to do with your parents?"
Tao Siyue sat up. Having lain on the cold, hard tiles for so long, her movements were stiff and slow.
"Then leave them behind," Jiang Zhaolin said. "They’ll live just fine without you worrying about them. Besides, they don’t love you that much anyway."
Jiang Zhaolin repeated himself, almost as if trying to convince her, offering a simple yet daunting solution: "Leave them behind, Tao Siyue."
Tao Siyue was stunned, sitting on the floor, hunched over, her mind a whirlwind of useless thoughts.
Jiang Zhaolin was the first person to offer her a second option.
He Xu hadn’t pressured her, and He Chuan Zhou hadn’t come out to condemn her. Yet, she had hidden away, burdened by the overwhelming guilt and the worst possible thoughts occupying every corner of her mind.
Jiang Zhaolin's firm suggestion provided a sense of destruction and rebirth, an unsettling relief. Perhaps she had harbored such thoughts herself but had been too afraid to fully consider them.
Dazed, she murmured, "What will I do then?"
Jiang Zhaolin shrugged, pretending to be relaxed. "It’s okay. We’re almost adults. Soon, we can start earning our own money. If we don’t make much, we’ll just eat less. We won’t be alone, anyway. Uncle He will help us."
As teenagers, they were more naive, believing that life’s hardships had limits and that they could endure life’s despair.
Tao Siyue sat there, hugging her knees, lost in thought for a long time. Finally, she stood up, put on a school jacket, and reached out to him.
They ran together towards the shopping mall.
By noon, the sun was high, and the air had warmed up. After running for over half an hour, sweat covered their foreheads. As they waited at the intersection for the traffic light, Tao Siyue suddenly smiled.
Looking at the people on the other side of the street, she asked Jiang Zhaolin, "What do you want to do in the future?"
"A doctor," Jiang Zhaolin replied without hesitation. "Medical bills are too expensive, so doctors must make a lot of money!"
Tao Siyue lowered her head, thought for a moment, and felt the coin in her school jacket pocket. She said, "Then I want to be a teacher."
"The teachers asked when you’re coming back to school. The classmates are worried about you," Jiang Zhaolin remembered, smiling as he gestured, "They saved notes and tests for you so many of them. They even made a new class rule that no one’s allowed to talk about it. The other classes can’t say anything either, so you don’t have to be afraid to go back. Everyone will protect you."
Tao Siyue’s eyes started to redden. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve and nodded firmly.
At that time, He Chuan Zhou was standing on the street a hundred meters away from the building, unaware that they had entered the mall from the other side.
When He Xu fell from the building, they had just stepped inside the mall.
Tao Siyue heard someone scream outside, turned her head to look, and through the glass doors, just a few meters away, she saw He Xu crash to the ground.
The impact and the wind were shockingly clear. The dust seemed to roll towards them with the airflow. Before the blood even began to spread on the ground, Tao Siyue fainted.
Screams erupted at the scene, blending into a continuous noise. Jiang Zhaolin felt dizzy, paralyzed with shock.
It seemed that Zhou Tuoxing had noticed them but didn’t approach. After a few seconds, Jiang Zhaolin finally reacted, sluggishly picking up Tao Siyue and carrying her out.
Soon, Tao Xianyong came down from the top floor. When he saw them, he roughly shoved Jiang Zhaolin, telling him to take Tao Siyue and leave.
Jiang Zhaolin almost fell but was caught by a faceless passerby.
People rushed toward He Xu, and a passerby grabbed Jiang Zhaolin’s arm, pulling him away. Dazed, he took a step, feeling on the verge of fainting himself. It wasn’t until they got into a car that he began to regain some clarity and heard the driver ask, "Should I take you to the nearest hospital? Is the girl okay?"
Jiang Zhaolin opened his mouth but couldn’t make a sound.
Not long after arriving at the hospital, Tao Siyue woke up.
Her mind was foggy, and she didn’t respond to the doctor’s questions, only nervously wringing her hands together, trembling all over. The doctor and nurse, worried she might hurt herself, tried to pry her hands apart. But under extreme stress, she started hyperventilating, struggling to breathe.
The doctor quickly let go and turned to say something to Jiang Zhaolin.
Jiang Zhaolin didn’t catch what was said. Borrowing a phone from a nurse, he crouched in the emergency room's empty space and dialed He Xu’s number.
No one answered.
He called again, and when he finally heard the message that the phone was off, he broke down, crying uncontrollably. A few nurses pulled him onto a chair, but he soon slid to the floor again.
He had no idea what people around him were saying. Hospitals probably saw life and death every day, with countless unresolved griefs. Today, he was one of those grieving.
After crying for a while and somewhat regaining his composure, Jiang Zhaolin numbly took Tao Siyue back home.
Tao Xianyong had arrived home first and was anxiously pacing around the living room. Li Lan was not there; she might have stayed at the hospital or been taken to the police station for questioning.
Hearing the noise, Tao Xianyong glanced toward the door and quickly walked over.
Tao Siyue, as if seeing someone terrifying, nervously cried out, "You killed him! You killed Uncle He! Why did you kill him?"
She took a deep breath and, in this moment of emotional outburst, let out all the dirty, unspoken suspicions she had harbored: "It wasn't Uncle He; it was your brother! Did you know? Did you do it on purpose?"
Before she could finish, Tao Xianyong grabbed her arm and yanked her inside, slapping her hard across the face.
He hit her with full force, causing Tao Siyue to fall to the ground, momentarily dazed, lying still.
In his rage, Tao Xianyong kicked her again, prompting Jiang Zhaolin to rush over and shield her with his body, shouting, "What are you doing! Don’t hit her!"
It took a while for Tao Siyue to lift her head. Blood trickled from her ear and the corner of her mouth, her gaze unfocused as it wandered through the air, unable to see anything clearly. She reached out, grasping at the air, but Tao Xianyong grabbed her by the collar, lifted her up, and spat in her ear, "You call me the murderer? Let me tell you, the real murderer is you! How can you be so despicable? Huh? How could you be so despicable? You're the one who went out and seduced men first. I was just cleaning up your mess! None of this would’ve happened if you hadn’t caused so much trouble! When will you start acting normal?"
Jiang Zhaolin, not strong enough to overpower him, could only cover Tao Siyue’s ears. But Tao Xianyong kept spewing vile words, blaming her for everything.
Tao Siyue’s pupils dilated as she began to repeat his words, then murmured to herself, "Am I not normal? Am I not normal? Did I cause his death?"
"No, it's not true!" Jiang Zhaolin, at a loss, cried and tried to console her, "It's not true! Tao Siyue, snap out of it! Don’t listen to him!"
That day, it was as if Tao Xianyong possessed the strength to move mountains. He dragged Jiang Zhaolin out of the room, then hauled Tao Siyue downstairs, hailing a taxi by the roadside. He gave the driver the name of a station and left, trailing exhaust fumes behind them.
Jiang Zhaolin chased after them, running. The sun was about to set, and only a sliver of blinding light remained, with the horizon awash in a deep red.
Eventually, he could run no further. He stopped midway, collapsing to the ground, his vision clouded with misty tears.
Jiang Zhaolin reported it to the police, who confirmed that Tao Xianyong had taken Tao Siyue to the countryside and that there were no other issues.
Jiang Zhaolin didn’t know what she experienced afterward. After He Xu’s funeral, he planned to visit her.
This time, none of his friends wanted to go with him, so he bought the ticket himself, but to his surprise, Tao Siyue returned on her own.
Her mental state had clearly improved. When Jiang Zhaolin saw her at school, she was working on a math test, going through the problem-solving steps with the help of the teacher’s notes, as if nothing had ever happened.