As soon as Xu Xilin left that day, Xu Jin was called out by a phone call.

Many years ago, a large financial sponsor who was ignorant of the law set up a special purpose company overseas but the domestic procedures were incomplete. This historical issue was somehow dug up by overseas investors, who are questioning its legality in a heated discussion. Strategic investors are all engaged in crisis public relations, and several domestic teams responsible for cleaning up the mess are busy as hell.

Xu Jin, who had been away from home for more than two months, hadn't even warmed up to the sofa before she put two new Band-Aids on her feet and ran to the company in her 10-centimeter Gaoqiao brand leather shoes to take charge of the situation.

When she arrived at the company, she first held a video conference. Seeing that they had to come up with a plan overnight, Xu Jin had no choice but to pinch her increasingly dizzy temples and walk to the tea room to call Aunt Du.

Before she dialed the phone, she looked down and found that her shoelaces were broken.

Xu Jin sighed, squatted down and checked the broken part, thinking: "This year is not a good year."

She was just about to get up and ask her assistant to buy her a pair of shoes, but she suddenly got up and her vision went dark.

The years came to an abrupt halt.

Xu Xilin had been to the hospital no more than ten times in his life, and most of them were before he was ten. When he rushed to the hospital in a daze and panic, it was already late at night. The autumn wind pierced his coat without mercy. Xu Xilin stood at the door of the hospital and shivered. He found that he had no common sense and didn't know where to find someone.

Dou Xun held his hand silently.

At this time, a man who had been wandering at the hospital entrance saw them and strode over. The tip of his nose was red, perhaps because he was cold outside.

"Xiao Lin?" the man said, "I'm Uncle Zhao who called you just now."

"Hello, uncle." Xu Xilin still remembered his politeness. "Where is my mother? How is she?"

Lawyer Zhao pursed his lips with difficulty, as if he was stumped, and stared at Xu Xilin for a full half minute.

"Child," he sighed tremblingly, a little incoherently, "child..."

Dou Xun sensed something first and suddenly tightened his grip on Xu Xilin's hand.

As for how he felt that day, Xu Xilin couldn't remember clearly. It was especially like a dream. Even the faces of the people around him were blurry, just like a dream. All the team that Xu Jin had accumulated over the years came. He did whatever they asked him to do and went wherever Dou Xun led him. As for the ins and outs of the whole incident, he didn't take it to heart.

At first, some of Xu Jin's female colleagues cried and wanted to hug him, but Dou Xun politely rejected them. Dou Xun sensed the "daydream" that enveloped Xu Xilin with an extraordinary sensitivity, and instinctively protected it. He ignorantly and with difficulty extended his tentacles, which were not good at communicating with others, to help Xu Xilin deal with people who came and went.

After dealing with the hospital matters, the two young lawyers sent them home.

The street lights in the middle of the night were connected in the mist, and they flew away one by one in a line. Xu Xilin looked out through the car window, and suddenly he felt a sharp shock in his heart. He just realized something and thought to himself: "What was I doing just now?"

Dou Xun put his arm around his shoulders and pressed him into his arms.

The lights were on all night long at the Xu family's house. Aunt Du was waiting at the gate with red eyes. The moment she saw Xu Xilin, she cried "wow". The woman's cry hurt Xu Xilin's numb nerves. Huge panic and almost helpless anger came back to his mind. Xu Xilin suddenly shook off Dou Xun and ran home.

His grandmother, who had a head full of white hair but was always neatly groomed, was sitting upright in the living room. The moment Xu Xilin looked into her eyes, his seventeen-year-old soul broke free from all the shackles of self-protection.

He instinctively wanted to vent his anger at Grandma Xu by making a scene. He wanted to scream in panic, "They said my mom is dead, they farted." He also wanted to hide behind his grandmother like a little boy, waiting for the adults to deal with everything.

But before he could do anything, he heard his grandmother sighing softly.

Grandma Xu would cry when she heard Zhu Xiaocheng complain about the difficulties of marriage, when she heard White Snake and Mr. Xu parted ways, and when she saw the Monkey King being driven away by his master during the Three Strikebacks with the White Bone Demon… She had acted in many plays and had cried all her life in other people’s stories, but at this moment, she didn’t shed a single tear. She just gently and slowly stroked her snow-white temples and said to Xu Xilin, “Before you were born, your grandpa passed away like this. He thought he was in good health, but one day he sat down and was about to stand up, and suddenly he fell down, leaving us an orphan and a widow. I’ve told him many times that it’s not good to get too fat, and it’s not good to eat too much greasy food…”

Now, decades later, another fall has happened, and what's left are still orphans and widows.

"This Xiaohui," said Grandma Xu, taking a breath that seemed to have no end, like an old actor who forgot his words on stage. She was silent for a long time before she helplessly continued her words, "How can she be like her father in everything?"

These two sentences were like a hand that was forcing something to grow faster. They gently brushed past his ears, then fiercely grabbed the soul of the seventeen-year-old boy, and in an instant stretched and tempered him to twenty-seven... thirty-seven.

Xu Xilin exhaled the last breath of his youth, stretched his back to the size of an adult, stepped forward to help Grandma Xu up, and said to her: "It's too late, you go and rest first, I'm here, it's okay."

Grandma Xu had to look up to see her grandson's face.

Xu Xilin bent down and hugged her. His hands felt like a handful of old, emaciated bones that felt like an old door frame eaten away by worms. He whispered in her ear, "Xiaohui is gone, but I can still take care of you, huh?"

Every word was spoken in the volume of a whisper, but every word was like an iron nail. After Xu Xilin finished speaking, he nailed the iron armor to himself.

Then, without saying anything, he pushed Grandma Xu into the bedroom, took off her shoes and coat, covered her with a quilt, and then came out to listen to each of the guests in the house express their condolences. He asked Aunt Du to serve tea and water to the guests, and only saw everyone off to the door in the early hours of the morning.

"My mother left behind a lot of things that I haven't dealt with and don't understand very well. I may need to trouble my brothers and sisters for help in a few days. Thank you in advance." Xu Xilin gave himself a higher generation title and changed "uncles and aunts" to "brothers and sisters". After a pause, he added, "Please leave me your contact information in the future. Don't cut off contact just because my mother is gone. If you need me for anything, I'll be there whenever you call."

The next few days were spent handling the funeral, dealing with Xu Jin's property and company shares, the funeral, and receiving groups of visitors who had no idea what their relationship with Xu Jin was. Even with the help of her former colleagues, it was still so tedious that it made people exhausted. Xu Xilin didn't dare to let his grandmother worry too much, and Aunt Du didn't know anything. Fortunately, there was Dou Xun by his side, with whom he could discuss everything, so he was not completely alone and helpless.

Dou Xun took a leave of absence from school and helped him run errands and deal with various things during the day. At night, he accompanied Xu Xilin in his single bed - the two of them could actually sleep in a spacious bed, because Xu Xilin basically couldn't sleep, and he lay there quietly all night, taking up only a small space.

Zhu Xiaocheng, who had been elusive all day, came, Dou Junliang also showed up, Song Lianyuan... all kinds of people from all walks of life that Xu Jin had come into contact with before came, and Zheng Shuo made a special trip back from abroad - he could only stay in a hotel temporarily, as Grandma Xu really didn't like him.

Xu Xilin entertained all the people and declined Zheng Shuo's invitation to "have a chat" - fortunately, Zheng Shuo did not force him, and accepted his excuse of "let's talk about it later" with great understanding, and then saw Xu Jin off with everyone else.

The first time Xu Xilin knew what "death" meant was when he was very young and listened to the storytelling of "The Xue Family Generals" with his grandmother. As a three or four-year-old child, he could not understand it very well, and he did not know who most of the characters were. He only liked the third master Bai Wenbao because his "Eight Diagrams Plum Blossom Silver Hammer" sounded particularly cool.

Hearing that Bai Wenbao died at Xue Ping's hands, little Xu Xilin was confused. Hearing his grandmother sighing, he asked, "What happened to him?"

Grandma said, “He’s dead.”

Xu Xilin asked: "What do you mean by dead?"

Grandma replied: "I won't come again in the future."

I won’t come here again in the future.

From now on, all the sorrows, hatreds, joys and sorrows in this world will have nothing to do with me.

The relationships between people are like duckweed and tumbleweed. The comings and goings of fate, the arising and ceasing of fate, are all impermanent. Whether it is parents, brothers, lovers or old friends, when it comes to the so-called "forever love", it is actually nothing but a careless lie.

Time comes and time gathers, one more day is one more day earned, and it can stop at any time...but most mortals cannot accept this fact, they always feel that they have "lost" something.

After all the work was done, Xu Xilin was exhausted and lay on his back on the sofa in the living room. Outside the floor-to-ceiling window, the sun was shining brightly. The sky was high and the land was vast. It was the perfect autumn season. Doudou was lying on the windowsill, sleeping listlessly.

"No one has taken care of this dog these past two days. Is it sick?" Xu Xilin asked his grandmother for no apparent reason. "How about I take it to the veterinary hospital?"

"Don't look at it, it's not sick." Grandma said, "It's just old."

Xu Xilin was stunned for a moment. Doudou dog came when he was very young. At that time, Xu Jin was in the beginning and had a hard time doing things. She was very busy and had very tight money. When she heard that her son wanted a puppy, she couldn't afford a purebred dog of show grade. She could only get up early and take the child to the smoky and chaotic dog market and bought this little hybrid, which became less and less popular as it grew older.

"It's like this for kittens and puppies." Grandma said almost inaudibly, "You are a little person, and it is a puppy. It grows up with you, and when you grow up, it will leave."

May I ask how many roads there are to Lingshan? There are more than 108,000.

You're not tired, so why kill someone, brother? You're not tired, so why kill someone, brother?

Xu Xilin, who thought he was numb and exhausted to the extreme, suddenly couldn't help it. Without saying a word, he ran upstairs in two steps and went straight into his bedroom.

Dou Xun, who was tidying up the room for him, looked up in astonishment. When Xu Xilin saw him looking at him, he only had time to close the door behind him, and tears started to flow because he had been absent from work for several days.

The author has something to say: "May I ask how many roads there are to Lingshan? There are more than 108,000." - Sifan