Chapter 4 I cried at the end 2
No matter how much you want to make a big splash, you have to accept the fact that no one will notice your "big splash".
But fortunately, Qiao Lu discovered some clues about Shen Li's "earth-shaking" behavior.
She hasn't come to school for several days.
When Qiao Lu "accidentally" passed by Shen Li's classroom, he saw that the seat that originally belonged to Shen Li was empty. The number of papers pressed by dictionaries on the table showed that she had not come to school for several days.
are you sick?
Qiao Lu walked down the stairs near Shen Li's class as if nothing had happened, and after leaving the school, he hesitated between the restaurant and the supermarket, and finally entered the supermarket. He thought, maybe the little monkey's pudding was almost finished.
Qiao Lu carried the plastic bag and found the small garden of Shen Li's house. After knocking on the door three times, Shen Tianyou opened the door and stuck out his pale face: "It's you, Qiao Lu."
"Well, I bought some food for 'Pudding'."
Shen Tianyou invited Qiao Lu in, picked up an apple and started eating it, pointing to his sister's room: "The monkey is in there. It has been lying on the bed these days and looks a little depressed."
Shen Tianyou didn't know why Shen Li was crazy that day, saying that she hated him or something. But no matter what her purpose was in bringing the little monkey back, the little monkey betrayed him and saved his life. Therefore, his attitude towards the little monkey changed drastically. He used to treat the little monkey as a toy, similar to cats and dogs, but now it's different. The little monkey is his "brother in life", and he cares more about the little monkey.
Shen Tianyou stood at the door of Shen Li's room with his arms folded, looking at the little monkey with a worried look on his face, and sighed: "No matter how you coax it, it still looks depressed. It didn't eat much of the pudding last time."
Hearing this, Qiao Lu immediately wanted to go inside, but he still asked: "Is this your room? Can I come in?"
Shen Tianyou waved his hand, his tone anxious: "My sister, you go in, it's okay." Qiao Lu hesitated for two seconds and was pushed in by Shen Tianyou, "It's okay, she hasn't been back for several days, she won't know."
Qiao Lu looked back in shock. He hadn't been home for several days? Did he really run away from home?
But the monkey's condition didn't allow him to think too much, so he walked to the bedside, pulled out a chair and sat down next to the monkey. The monkey raised his head with some awareness, and found that it was not the person he expected, so he rested his head on Shen Li's pillow again.
"Are you thinking about her?"
Qiao Lu slowly stroked the little monkey's arm. The little monkey hummed sadly twice, which made Qiao Lu's heart wrenched.
But she brought you back to ask you to help her get revenge. She treated you as a tool. Why do you still miss her?
Qiao Lu stroked the little monkey and noticed that there was another small pillow next to the pillow. What is this?
"She did it for the little monkey." Shen Tianyou pouted disdainfully and muttered, "I don't know what kind of magic she cast on the little monkey. I'm the one who stays at home the longest and spends the most time with it, but it likes Shen Li more! It even runs to her room every night to sleep with her."
Qiao Lu was stunned. He didn't expect that Shen Li would dare to sleep with the little monkey after bringing it home. He himself couldn't completely trust the little monkey from the first day.
Qiao Lu suddenly stood up and looked around Shen Li's room. Logically speaking, this was a girl's room, and Qiao Lu was a boy. It was wrong for him to enter her room without the owner's permission, and he should not look around in her room.
But after just a few glances, Qiao Lu discovered something. The bathing utensils for the little monkey were placed on the small balcony outside Shen Li's room, there was a comb specially used for combing the hair of animals on the desk, and snacks for the little monkey could be seen in the gap of the drawer... In this family, the person who has been taking care of the little monkey is Shen Li.
The look on Shen Li's face when she said "hate" that day was too ferocious. He couldn't even reconcile Shen Li in that state with the person who would comb the little monkey's hair and give it a bath. No matter what Shen Li's purpose was in bringing the little monkey home, it can be seen from these items that she took meticulous care of the little monkey!
The little monkey probably calmed down a little after seeing its owner. It jumped to Qiao Lu's side and led him to look at Shen Li's photo.
Yes, if she didn’t treat the little monkey sincerely, how could the little monkey miss her so much?
Qiao Lu thought about it and decided that it was necessary to help the little monkey find out about Shen Li's whereabouts: "She hasn't been home for a few days. Is this okay?"
When talking about Shen Li, Shen Tianyou used a mocking tone: "What can happen to her? She just moved to Li Zi's house, went to school and ate as usual. After a few days, she will find that no one cares about her, and she will come back obediently."
The little monkey squatted aside and whimpered after hearing this, with sadness in his wet eyes. Qiao Lu opened his mouth and said to Shen Tianyou who looked indifferent: "But she hasn't been to school for three days."
Shen Tianyou tilted his head in confusion.
"At least three days." Qiao Lu could tell from Shen Tianyou's indifference on his face, and he emphasized, "There are at least four test papers in our grade every day, and there are at least twelve papers on her desk. She hasn't been to school for three days!"
"So what?" Shen Tianyou frowned, thinking it was troublesome, and added, "If she really has something wrong, the teacher will definitely call my parents."
One sentence cleared the matter up completely.
Qiao Lu couldn't help but ask, "She is your sister. Now she is missing. Why do you act like it has nothing to do with you?"
Shen Tianyou was stunned. Since childhood, there were too many people who used "he is your younger brother" to demand something from Shen Li, but no one had ever used "she is your older sister" to demand anything from Shen Tianyou.
How long did this unequal sibling relationship start and last, and yet everyone accepted it and never made a single statement in defense of Shen Li.
Qiao Lu repeated: "Your sister is missing, and you are not worried at all?"
Looking at Shen Tianyou's pale and blank face, Qiao Lu suddenly felt guilty. The guilt that was floating like oil suddenly became thicker. He thought Shen Li was "Qiao Zishun of the Shen family", but he didn't expect that she was "Qiao Lu of the Shen family".
Shen Tianyou felt like he was being skinned, and he felt even hotter under Qiao Lu's gaze. He defended himself: "She deserves it! She was the one who first ordered the little monkey to mess with me. The one who teases first is a slut, and I won't complain even if I beat her to death!"
Qiao Lu shouted, "So you're going to frame her for pretending to be sick and going to the hospital because you ate the wrong food?"
"Even if I didn't say that, my parents would still blame her..."
"Ah?" Qiao Lu just remembered that Shen Li said Shen Tianyou pretended to be sick to trick him, but he didn't expect to get such an explosive truth, "It turned out to be true, it turned out that you really framed her!"
Shen Tianyou panicked. He didn't frame Shen Li on purpose. But when he saw Shen Li's expression of lecturing him, he felt that his self-esteem was trampled under Shen Li's feet. Shen Li? Teach him a lesson? How could that be possible!
He didn't say anything to frame him, he just said a few words and then coughed twice, and everyone would naturally stand on his side. He is the younger brother, he is sick, do you need any other reasons to believe him?
"So what? She deserves it! If she hadn't let the little monkey torment me, would the little monkey have smashed her figurines and dug out junk food? She deserved the scolding!"
Qiao Lu's brows were furrowed into deep grooves, his eyes fixed on Shen Tianyou, and he asked, "You did this on purpose, didn't you?" Qiao Lu made a judgment in his mind, and without waiting for Shen Tianyou to answer, he turned around and picked up the little monkey and prepared to leave.
"What are you doing? Where are you taking the little monkey?"
Qiao Lu turned around and said, "I was willing to leave Pudding at your house because of Shen Li. Now that Shen Li is gone, there is no need for it to stay at your house any longer."
Shen Tianyou couldn't bear to see Qiao Lu looking at him with eyes that looked the same as Shen Li's. The same gaze, but nakedly expressing the accusation that Shen Li dared not say, he felt offended again : "Do you think I don't know? The little monkey is not yours at all! You stole it from the zoo!"
Qiao Lu's eyes looked like they were bleeding, and he stared at Shen Tianyou fiercely: "What do you want to do?"
Seeing that Qiao Lu was frightened, Shen Tianyou uttered a few words triumphantly: "Nothing, just returning the property to its original owner, returning the jade intact to Zhao."
"You dare!" Qiao Lu stepped forward and said, "If you dare to say it, I will tell you everything about how you framed your sister."
Shen Tianyou thought he was going to say something, but it turned out he was going to tell his parents. He laughed out loud : "Do you think my parents believe me or you?"
The door was pushed open, and Shen Ma entered first. She saw Qiao Lu smiling first, and then she understood the state of their confrontation, and then she asked, "What's going on? What do you mean by believe it or not?"
"aunt……"
Shen Tianyou immediately interrupted him: "Nothing, Qiao Lu said that my sister was missing, and I said I didn't believe it."
"Ali is missing?" Shen's mother frowned, then smiled and said, "How is that possible? Didn't she go to her friend's house out of spite?"
Qiao Lu asked: "Which friend?"
Mother Shen thought for a while but couldn't say the name accurately. She simply gave up thinking about it and advised Qiao Lu not to worry: "It's okay, Shen Li knows her limits. She also ran away from home for no reason before. In fact, she just lived in a friend's house and went to school as usual."
"I went to her classroom and found her. She hasn't been to school for at least three days."
Qiao Lu examined Shen's mother's expression and found that she didn't seem to be worried at all. How could there be such a mother?
——How come being a parent doesn’t require taking exams?
This sentence came to Qiao Lu's mind. He thought Shen Li was just comforting him, but it turned out that she was venting her emotions. Students have to take exams, teachers have to take exams, and you have to take exams to get the qualifications for anything. Why don't parents have to take exams?
Qiao Lu looked at Shen's mother coldly and advised: "Aunt, you'd better call her friend to confirm whether Shen Li is at her house."
Mother Shen asked awkwardly, "Is it that serious?"
"Are you sure that Shen Li didn't go to school from which day of the week?" Qiao Lu asked back, "If it was Monday, then maybe something happened to her at her friend's house, or she was sick or something, and couldn't come to school?"
Qiao Lu looked at Shen's mother's relaxed expression and suddenly emphasized, "But what if, I said what if, Shen Li didn't go to her friend's house at all, her friend thought she was at home, you thought she was at her friend's house, but in fact..." Qiao Lu paused and said in a grim tone, "Shen Li had an accident the night she ran away from home last Saturday."
Mother Shen stared at Qiao Lu with wide eyes, and it took her a while to digest what he said: "No...no?"
Qiao Lu stared at her, and her psychological defenses were completely broken. She trembled as she took out her phone to make a call. After unlocking the phone, she quickly searched through the address book, muttering, "What's her name? What's her name? Tianyou, your sister's friend, what's her name? Why can't I find her phone number?"
Shen Tianyou stared at this scene in amazement, saying, "How should I know? Mom, don't listen to him, he's just trying to scare you. That kind of thing only happens in TV dramas, okay?"
"Are you going to wait until something happens to your sister before you regret it? Why are you not willing to care about your sister's life or death now?"
Shen Tianyou was completely furious: "What did you say? I don't think that way!"
Mother Shen raised her head and glared at Shen Tianyou: "Tianyou, don't make trouble."
Don't make trouble. To Shen Li, this was just an insignificant remark, but in Shen Tianyou's eyes it seemed like a humiliation. When had he ever been scolded by his parents?
Mother Shen found the number and dialed it, but the other party said it was a wrong number.
"How is it?" Qiao Lu asked.
Mother Shen looked dazed: "It seems like I changed my number."
"Then call other students!"
Mother Shen looked up in a daze and said, "This is the only number I have and the note is 'Li Li's friend.'" The time was probably when Shen Li was in elementary school and Shen Tianyou was not yet born.
Qiao Lu thought it was ridiculous: "You don't even have the phone number of your daughter's friend? You must have the phone number of the head teacher, right?"
Mother Shen looked down and shook her head in disappointment. She had lost her phone once, and only saved numbers from a long time ago, so she couldn't find anyone who could contact Shen Li.
Qiao Lu laughed softly and said sarcastically, "What kind of mother is this?"
He did it on purpose. Staying at Shen Li's house, he seemed to be able to see Shen Li's growth trajectory: she was ignored after having a younger brother, and was ignored again and again, and even ran away from home and no one cared. He couldn't help but ridicule her like this, as if he could get comfort from hurting Shen's mother.
He once hid on the roof alone for three hours, from the time the sky gradually darkened until it was as dark as ink. There were lights in all the houses except his surroundings, which were completely dark. What was he thinking at that time? Was he complaining, or was he expecting someone to come and find him?
What about Shen Li? The night she ran away from home, with the stars and street lights behind her, she ran towards the unknown night. What was she thinking at that time? Would she be like him when he was young, expecting someone to find her? Who would she expect to find her?
The running figure kept lingering in Qiao Lu's mind. She ran towards the darkness until she completely overlapped with the thin boy.
Will anyone go find her?
At this time, Shen Tianyou suddenly said: "Maybe at Li Zi's house."
Qiao Lu's eyes were full of light. He turned to Shen Tianyou and stared at him like an eagle: "Where is she? Where does the Li Zi you mentioned live?"