The End of Memories (2)
“But I never expected to raise a tiger. Do you remember when you were six?”
What happened that summer was so painful that Lin Yan chose to forget it physically. She never spoke of it, but at Lin Youyuan’s reminder, the memories came flooding back.
It was her third year in the Lin family. She had a good relationship with Lin Ge, and they attended the same prestigious school’s primary and junior high sections.
Due to the close distance, Lin Ge would conveniently pick her up after school.
After the dismissal bell rang, Lin Yan waited for a long time under the banyan tree at the school gate with her schoolbag on her back. She waited until the sun set and everyone had left, but he still hadn’t come.
The little girl, bored, dug at the dirt on the ground and used a twig to poke at the ants moving their home.
Suddenly, a pebble struck her head out of nowhere.
Lin Yan stood up, clutching her head, “Who? Who hit me?”
Lin Cheng jumped out from behind the tree, “Hey, how come you’re alone today? Not going home with Lin Ge?”
“None of your business!” The little girl angrily threw the twig at him, hitting his school uniform.
The boy didn’t get angry, just impatiently brushed the dust off his clothes, frowning.
“Hey, it’s going to get dark soon. The weather forecast says it will rain tonight. Do you want to come home with me…”
The girl, still remembering how he often bullied her, glared at him angrily.
Lin Cheng spread his hands helplessly, “I don’t get it. I’m also your brother. Why do you only get along with him? Fine, if you don’t appreciate it, I’ll just go home by myself.”
As he picked up his schoolbag and was about to turn and leave, a shadow fell over him.
He looked up from his toes to see a burly man with a scarred face staring at him menacingly.
He turned and shouted to Lin Yan, “Run!”
Before he could finish, the man knocked him out with a hand chop. The man grabbed Lin Yan by her collar and lifted her up. Lin Yan struggled violently and bit his wrist, causing him pain. She fell to the ground and started to run, but only took two steps before running into a human wall. She looked up and the person grabbed her collar, stuffing a drugged cloth into her mouth, making her lose consciousness quickly.
When she woke up again, she was in an abandoned factory.
Recalling this, Lin Yan bit her lip slightly, her eyes filled with tears, her body trembling.
Song Yuhang cupped her face, wiping away the tears at the corners of her eyes, softly saying, “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s all over now, don’t think about it…”
Lin Yan shook her head, pulling down her hand and gripping it tightly, trying to draw some strength from it.
She wasn’t someone who liked to cry, but talking about this incident inevitably made her choke up.
“No, no, you don’t understand… Lin Ge has always been very punctual. He wouldn’t miss an appointment without reason. He said the teacher kept him after class, so he was late. But it turns out, it wasn’t like that at all…”
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What was Lin Ge doing at that time?
He was an exemplary student and it happened to be his duty day. After all the students had left, he cleaned up, wiped the blackboard, and packed his bag to leave. Just after locking the classroom door, he turned around and saw a man standing not far away, waiting for him.
It was a completely unfamiliar face, wearing a baseball cap that obscured his features, except for a scar-covered chin.
“Who are you…” The boy looked at the empty corridor and retreated cautiously.
The man, seeing his face that looked very similar to his own, tried to make his voice sound as gentle as possible.
“I know about your father. Come with me.”
Lin Ge looked at the man’s departing back, hesitated for a moment, then followed.
During the half hour he talked with Lin Jueshui, Lin Yan experienced the first major calamity of her life.
The boy knew nothing, immersed in the joy of learning about his father’s past.
His mother and Lin Youyuan never told him these things.
As the man was leaving, he asked, “Who… who are you, what’s your name?”
Lin Jueshui turned back, seemed to want to pat his head, but felt it was too abrupt, and withdrew his hand.
“Call me Supreme Lord.”
Lin Ge felt a strong sense of reluctance, “Will we meet again?”
The man replied blandly, “Yes, whenever you need me. Also, don’t tell anyone about today, especially your uncle. Be very wary of him, he’s not as easygoing as he seems.”
When Lin Ge hurried back to the school gate, the sun had already set, and Lin Yan’s schoolbag was on the ground.
“Lin Cheng’s death was indeed an accident. The autopsy report shows he was killed instantly by a blunt object to the temple during a struggle…” Lin Youyuan rubbed his forehead as he spoke.
“Forget it, let’s not talk about it. Old people tend to reminisce about the past. Anyway, after you were rescued, the police checked the surveillance around the school and found that during the time Lin Ge should have been meeting you to go home, he was seen walking with another man to a surveillance blind spot. Although it was just a blurry back view, I still felt it might be him. He came back, and a great fear swept over me.”
At this point, Lin Yan already understood.
Lin Ge felt guilty towards her, which is why he later went to great lengths to be good to her, fulfilling every request, doing everything a brother could do, and even developed a twisted sense of protection and possessiveness due to this guilt, leading to all the subsequent tragedies, including Chu Nan’s death.
And Lin Youyuan, out of this unknown fear and to protect his only bloodline, was forced to sacrifice his family affection, gradually distancing himself from her.
Is this really the truth?
Lin Yan had actually only guessed half of it correctly.
Clearly, several years had passed since her kidnapping, and she and Lin Ge had both transferred to different schools.
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But the boy still often heard such comments:
“Hey, Lin Ge, let your little sister come play with us. Anyway, there’s nothing to do on the weekends.”
“Yeah, yeah, little junior girl, so tender.” someone chimed in.
“She has to go to cram school on weekends.” The boy calmly packed his books into his bag and got up to leave.
The malicious classmate grabbed his backpack strap.
“What are you pretending for? Everyone knows your sister was only in elementary school when someone…”
Before he could finish, a fist struck his nose.
The classmate fell backward, knocking over several desks, wiping the blood from his nose, “Damn it, come at me!”
A flurry of punches and kicks ensued, Lin Ge fell to the ground, protecting his head. He didn’t know who ruthlessly kicked him in the abdomen several times.
His vision darkened, someone lifted a chair and smashed it onto his lower body. A surge of pain hit him, and the boy screamed in agony.
Except for Mother Lin, no one knew about this incident. He never told Lin Yan the fact that he was actually disabled until his death.
As for Lin Youyuan and her relationship, he had thought about making amends, but he was too busy with work to spare the time. By the time he realized it, Lin Yan had grown up quickly, like wild grass swept by the wind.
Lin Yan, who had experienced that incident, became even more difficult to approach. Coupled with entering adolescence, her personality became rebellious, arrogant, and disdainful of others.
As for Lin Youyuan, a middle-aged man who had reached middle age but had not learned how to love someone, how could he educate his daughter?
He racked his brains but could only resort to the ways of the business world, giving her money, giving her everything she wanted, even the stars in the sky. But at that time, these were precisely what Lin Yan scorned the most.
The two drifted further and further apart in this way, never becoming close even until death.
Of course, it cannot be denied that Lin Youyuan intentionally allowed this gap to widen. Only in this way could Lin Yan be safer.
He knew well that his abilities were limited, and even a hundred years later, there would be no one to protect Lin Yan. She could only rely on her own strength.
When eagles are born and can’t fly yet, they are picked up by their eagle parents and thrown off cliffs. Only the eaglets that adapt to this change and successfully take flight can survive.
This is survival of the fittest, natural selection, and also a twisted and deformed form of love.
This kind of love can make one powerful, but it can also ruin a person’s life.
Actually, upon hearing this, Lin Yan really wanted to ask him, “Do you regret it? What if I had died from the fall?”
The old man on the screen smiled, leaned back in his wheelchair, and a hint of peace appeared on his face.
“When Song Yuhang took you away from me that day, I was actually very happy, Lin Yan. You’ve grown up and found your own place in the world. You’re no longer the fledgling eagle stumbling around.”
After saying these words, he coughed lightly a couple of times and returned to the topic.
“Originally, I wanted to bid you farewell, but I ended up saying so much unintentionally. What I’m going to say next, you should have guessed.”
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Lin Yan’s pupils contracted, as expected.
“It’s about Chen Chu Nan. You must be curious why I didn’t kick Lin Ge out of the house to eliminate future troubles. But in fact, if you were my age, you would make the same decision as me. Firstly, there was no conclusive evidence to prove that the blurry figure was Lin Jueshui. Secondly, Lin Ge grew up with me since he was a child. I treated him, his mother, and you as family. For the sake of baseless suspicions, I couldn’t abandon my loved ones. I couldn’t do it.”
As he talked about these things, Lin Yan had been trembling slightly all along. Song Yuhang had to hug her tightly, resting her chin on her head to give her strength.
“All I could do was send him abroad for studies, to keep him away from everything related to you. Even during Chinese New Year, I didn’t let him come back. But looking back now, I realize I gave you and him enough money but never enough care.”
“The summer when you turned eighteen was an exception. Lin Ge secretly booked a plane ticket to come back and celebrate your coming-of-age ceremony with you. I guess you already know that Chen Chu Nan did indeed die at his hands, but Lin Jueshui was the actual accomplice.”
Lin Yan deeply remembered everything that happened that day. Even if her soul faded away, she wouldn’t forget.
June 18th, her birthday, also the day when the college entrance examination admission notices were issued.
It had been raining steadily since morning, turning into pouring rain by the afternoon.
After lunch, she went to the martial arts gym to practice Brazilian jiu-jitsu. About two hours later, she was supposed to meet Chu Nan at school, then go watch a movie and eat hot pot together in the evening. They had made plans to go drinking and karaoke afterward because they would go their separate ways after that summer.