Chapter 9 Duckweed 01
I spent the entire winter vacation at my grandpa's house. My mother was still ill and we hadn't bought a new house after selling it, so my grandpa's old-style house was our temporary shelter.
After lunch that day, my grandmother took my mother for a walk, and my grandmother asked me to play chess in the yard.
This is a very cool old man, who never laughs lightly. The atmosphere during the game of chess is very solemn. Although it was sunny, it was still very cold. Because I usually find it troublesome to wear gloves, I got a few frostbites on my hands. Under the sun at noon, my hands were itchy and uncomfortable. I scratched them a few times, but after being glared at by my grandfather, I still endured it and continued to play chess with the serious old man sitting opposite me.
As far as I can remember, my grandfather never liked me, even when we were still a family with Ai Sheng. He had a deep-rooted patriarchal mentality, and if my uncle hadn't been idle, didn't marry, and hadn't had a son or daughter, my grandfather probably wouldn't even look at me, let alone play chess with me.
Halfway through the game, I had lost a lot of my pieces, and Grandpa didn't have much left. I was afraid that the old man would be angry, so I didn't dare to be too presumptuous. I gave up a "rook" and left a loophole for Grandpa, ready to let him win and please him. Grandpa always has a sharp eye and couldn't see through my tricks, so I could only try my best to resolve the situation while leaving loopholes so that my loss would not be so obvious.
After playing for a while, my hands were itchy from the chilblains, but the game was still undefeated. At the crucial checkmate move, my grandfather stopped, shook the chessboard, and all the chess pieces scattered in the middle. He smiled at me with his lips pursed.
"Ai Ye, you are not simple! You are good at chess! You follow the steps of a general. If you were a boy, you would have made great achievements." Grandpa said, squinting his eyes and drinking tea. Suddenly, he seemed to think of something, and there was some sadness between his eyebrows.
I'm not stupid. I knew that my grandfather's sudden invitation to play chess with me and his friendly words to me must have a deep meaning. I asked him directly what he wanted to say.
Grandpa looked up at me and asked, "Do you want to conquer the world?"
I said, "I am a girl, not suitable for conquering the world."
Grandpa said sternly, "No, you are my granddaughter, He Qiurong. You are not an ordinary girl. Which girl can be like you, who can find loopholes in the misappropriation of project funds from scattered data in a few documents at the age of fifteen or sixteen? Ye'er, you have a better brain than most people. You should be a businessman."
I said, "Grandpa, you want me to help you conquer the world, right? You are still unwilling to accept it, right? You are unwilling to accept that the empire you have spent most of your life building is destroyed and there is no chance of recovery, so you want to rely on me, your granddaughter who has always been regarded as a shame by you, to make a comeback. Grandpa, why do you think I will help you?"
Grandpa laughed and said, "You call me grandpa now! You are different from other people. You look kind and don't care about things, but you are actually very clear-headed and understand things. If you really don't want to help me and really hate me, you won't call me grandpa all the time."
I said, "Grandpa, you are so wise, nothing can be hidden from you."
That afternoon, I promised my grandfather to help him take over the bankrupt company. It's not that I like to take over a mess, but I found that everything Ai Sheng taught me in the past 19 years is applicable to business competition. I have nothing to do anyway, so it's not a bad idea to put what I have learned into practice, just as a training. Life is always full of struggle. Even if my life is shorter than that of ordinary people, I still have to struggle, right? Only a life of struggle can be colorful.
Throughout the winter vacation, I followed my grandfather to learn business methods. In my spare time, I chatted with my mother or visited Li Wei.
My mother just has depression. When she is normal, she is not crazy or stupid. She talks very logically and never talks nonsense. Recently, she likes to tell me about her love affair with my father Ji Dongming in college and their marriage, their sweet happiness in the past, her sadness and despair when Ji Dongming died, the appearance of Ai Sheng, and her emotions in the past ten years.
She spoke leisurely, recalling the past and unable to get over it. Her depression had not improved.
I like listening to her stories, but I don't like her living in the past. Sometimes I even want to use some method to make her lose her memory and forget everything, so that she won't be depressed anymore.
However, if a person loses her past, there will be a blank in her mind, and then she will be empty and lonely and fantasize about her past life, and then piece together her past from the words and deeds of others. This is more entangled than the pain of memories. In that case, it is better not to forget.
Time at home always passes faster than at school, and the winter vacation passed in a flash. Before returning to school, I took my mother to the hospital for a follow-up checkup.
I was surprised to see Ai Sheng, whom I hadn't seen for a long time, in the hospital. If I had known that my mother would get into trouble after seeing Ai Sheng, I would rather not take her to the hospital for a follow-up checkup.
I was the first one to meet the child—the child born to Ai Sheng and his seemingly docile concubine.
After accompanying my mother to finish the examination, I asked her to wait at the hospital entrance while I went to get the medicine. When I came back , I saw a three or four-year-old child, who was probably separated from the adults. He was standing at the door, holding my mother's hand and crying.
As for Ai Sheng’s woman outside, no, she might be his wife now, I have only met her once and don’t have a deep impression of her, not to mention the child hiding behind his parents.
Children in their growing stage will change a lot every day. Not only did my mother not recognize him, I didn’t recognize him either at the time.
It just so happened that my mother and I were standing at the door, teasing the pretty child, waiting for his parents to come and claim him.
The child was very cute, eating the candy my mother gave him and smiling sweetly at her, and my mother smiled too. It had been a long time since she fell ill, and she rarely smiled, but this time she smiled so happily because of a child. My mother happily held the child in her arms, kissed his face, and touched his head. It seemed that she really liked the child.
However, when the child's parents rushed over, the smile on my mother's face froze in an instant, and her hands holding the child began to tremble. The child fell down. I hurriedly reached out to catch him, but the child still brushed past my hand and fell to the ground, crying in pain.
My foot was under the child's butt and was hit a little, but it finally reduced some of the impact on the child.
Ai Sheng ran over and pointed at me and my mother and cursed us, saying we were cruel, heartless, and wanted to kill his child.
The child's mother also came over, looked at me and my mother, holding the child who was crying loudly on the ground, swallowing her anger, with tears in her eyes.
My mother smiled, with a cold expression, and yelled at Ai Sheng: "Yes! I just want to kill your child, so what? I also want to kill you! How can you live so well? You have a wife and children, your life is so good! Look at me, what kind of life am I living? Why do you live so well? How can you, a scumbag, enjoy family happiness?"
Ai Sheng was enraged and stretched out his big hand to hit my mother. I quickly threw myself on my mother and blocked the slap. It hurt a lot, but I didn't say anything. I just pulled my irritated mother and nervously persuaded her: "Mom, let's go! Let's go home! Mom, we didn't see anything, we didn't hear anything, let's go home ! We finally have a few days of peace, let's not be upset, let's go home!"
"Ai Sheng, I hate you! You ruined me, I hate you, Ai Sheng!" I pulled my mother away, but she kept looking back, crying and yelling at Ai Sheng, who was held back by the child's mother but still wanted to rush over to hit her.
My heart was in turmoil and panic. I cried and begged tremblingly, "Mom, we don't hate you! Please don't hate me anymore!"
My mother was still crying and cursing. Many people on the street were watching us. I cried with her and kept trying to persuade her until my mind was so confused that I forgot the way back to my grandfather's house.
It’s over, it’s all over, mom, it’s all over.
I cried until my voice became hoarse. My mother sat in the taxi, not saying a word. She had run out of tears.
I never knew how deep her hatred was. I always thought that all this hatred could be forgotten. However, the facts told me that it could not be forgotten.
