chapter 19
Half a month later.
I recovered and was discharged from the hospital.
I took the elevator up to the sixteenth floor.
The elevator doors opened.
Ruru happened to be pushing her mother out to get some sun.
Aunt Zhao had a thin blanket draped over her.
Her head was tilted to one side, drool trickling from the corner of her mouth.
When she saw it was me and my mom entering the elevator, her previously vacant eyes suddenly focused. She trembled, her mouth mumbling incoherently, making sounds that no one could understand.
She tried hard to lift her hand to grab me, but it was all in vain.
She had become a vegetative patient, unable to reach out anymore.
Ruru gave an awkward smile and tucked the blanket around her again.
She lowered her head and apologized to us.
She said her mother’s cancer had suddenly worsened half a month ago and affected her central nervous system, leaving her completely paralyzed.
So, Ruru didn’t know any of it.
She didn’t know about the bad things her mother had done; she just thought her mother was paralyzed from complications.
Forget it.
If she doesn’t know, let her never know.
Seeing Aunt Zhao, the resentment in my heart surged. I was angry; after what happened, I wanted to call the police, but my mom stopped me. She said Aunt Zhao was already in the late stages of cancer and didn’t have much time left, and now she was in a vegetative state, so calling the police would be pointless.
Besides, who would believe such a thing if we told anyone?
Aunt Zhao had received the punishment she deserved.
That was enough.
Thinking about it, I realized she was right.
What happened that night was too bizarre.
If I hadn’t experienced it myself,
I wouldn’t have believed it either.
The day I was discharged
was also my birthday.
That evening, my mom prepared a table full of my favorite dishes.
There was tomato scrambled eggs, twice-cooked pork, and my favorite sweet and sour ribs.
My mom even bought me a birthday cake.
She held the cake, smiling brightly: “Shengsheng, happy birthday! We survived a great disaster-good fortune will surely follow.”
I smiled and echoed, “Good fortune will surely follow.”
After the birthday song ended,
My mom lit the candles in front of me.
“Shengsheng, make a wish.”
I smiled, “Mom, you make a wish too. We survived a great disaster-good fortune will surely follow.”
She smiled and closed her eyes with me.
When she opened them again, she pushed the cake with lit candles in front of me.
“Shengsheng, be good and blow out the candles.”
I smiled and pulled her closer.
“Mom, blow them out with me.”
“Alright, Mom will blow them out with you.”
Amid laughter and joy, that candle
went out.