My name is Shen Jue.

Shen is my mother's surname. Decision is the decision of determination.

When I was a child, Shen was actually a somewhat unfamiliar existence to me.

At that time, my name was He Jie.

Like every ordinary child, I was born in a very ordinary hospital, and I was greeted by a gentle and virtuous mother and a silent father.

I grew up in an ordinary family and studied in an ordinary school. Like every child in this world, I bear my father's surname, and walk a path as ordinary and ordinary as my parents.

I used to think that life was just like that. Tasteless walking, watching. I never imagined that maybe one day, my life would be turned upside down.

Until, I met the man.

The man who changed my life.

My stepfather, Shen Xiwen.

The first time I met him, it was probably the most emotionally entangled day of my life.

On that day, my biological father died in a car accident.

I knelt in the mourning hall, hanging my head and fiddling with the white chrysanthemum in my hand. The flowers are very fragrant, and they are still stained with Qingling's dew. I offered the flowers in my hand in front of the spirit, and my posture was upright, but the thoughts in my heart were somewhat absurd.

It's a pity that such a good flower.

I think.

A warm palm touched my shoulder, and a sigh slipped into my ear. I slowly relaxed my back and turned to look at my mother behind me.

She wore a black skirt made of very old material, probably from the earlier years when the bottom of the box was pressed.

She didn't cry, she just lowered her eyes and was silent. The black dress made her thinner and thinner, and her pale skin was haggard and almost transparent. I watched as her black dress bloomed before my eyes, like a cloud of black ink that swallowed everything.

I knelt on the futon, and my eyes hurt inexplicably. It's like black seeping into front of me, and I can't wash it anymore.

I know she's always disliked black.

In the early years, there were times when we were respectful as a family. I still remember that year, I accompanied her through the whole wrist ornament on a summer night, when I was still a child and my heart was not stable. There were peers around me spinning around in roller skates, and my mind was firmly tied to the glowing wheel. She picked out the clothes at the stalls and asked me softly if I was okay, but I was only perfunctory, and I didn't even glance at them.

Then the night market was dispersed, and the boys in roller skates were nowhere to be seen. I turned my head to look at the bag in her hand, three or four pieces of clothing, all of which were pure white or grass green light colors. Somehow, I suddenly remembered that I had never seen her dressed in black. Later, I asked by chance, and she answered with a smile. But in that answer, there is something I can't do anything about.

"It's black, it's so dull," she said to smile at me, but she accidentally pulled the bruise on her cheekbone. Accustomed to rubbing the horrible wound, there was a sluggishness in her voice that I couldn't capture.

"The days at home are dull enough. If there is no more color, I'm afraid I won't be able to hold on—"

At that time, I could only stare at her.

I watched her smile and laugh and burst into tears, and then turned my back and hurriedly wiped it away with the back of my hand. I sat still, silently watching her back.

I don't know what I should do.

It's time to straighten your back and say, I can keep you from being bored.

It's better to rush over and hug her and say, I can keep you going.

But even in my opinion at the time, it was ridiculous.

My role was too thin and I didn't have the strength. I was in the role of a child, and in that extremely awkward time, I was defenseless and had no influence.

Living in such a family, in addition to being able to open her arms to block my mother when my father, who is often abusive, stands in front of her again and again, and blocks those attacks that she can't bear. Other than that, there's really very little I can do.

When I was a teenager, I was desperately annoyed with myself like this. can't help the mother who is covered in bruises, and can't stop the father who is addicted to domestic violence. It's like a clown who locks himself up in a spiked cage. I could hear the commotion outside, but I could only curl up in place hypnotically. I can't open the cage, let alone fight back. I could only look at the outside world in silence and tell myself all my feelings in silence.

Later, I forget what day it began, my father began to indulge in the paralysis of alcohol.

Drunk again and again, domestic violence again and again. He began to vent all his frustrations at work and the pressure of life on my mother and me.

One day, after getting drunk, my biological father slashed my mother's shoulder with a sharp beer bottle. It was the shoulder because at the moment when the fragments were about to touch the skin, my mother turned her body sideways in horror.

The bottle was originally aimed at my mother's neck.

The next day after school, I picked up a beer bottle from the garbage. I smashed the bottle on the wall and took it upstairs in a covert way. He collapsed drunk in the bedroom, and I grabbed the half-broken bottle in my hand and approached quietly.

Just as I was holding my breath with trembling fingers and about to walk to the edge of the bed step by step, my mother, who was supposed to change the dressing in the living room, suddenly rushed in. With tears streaming down her face, she snatched the bottle from my hand and threw it out the window. I watched as she trembled and collapsed to the ground, burning tears soaking the hem of my chest. I clenched my fist for a long time, but I still couldn't hit that person.

Then, that day, without any warning, it came out of nowhere.

I thought that day would be the same as every day. When I got home from school, the moment I opened the door, I could see my mother serving me food. She would smile at me and tell me, "Eat quickly, it's too late, and your dad will be back."

But that day, when I opened the door, there was no food on the table, and there was no mother on the sofa in the living room. I put my bag away and finished my homework again. When I took Tagore out to read it hungry, the phone at home rang suddenly.

On the phone, the mother's voice was a little hoarse. In fact, I could hear at that time that she must have cried just now.

This phone call announced the death of my biological father.

Noting down the address of the hospital my mother had given, I hung up the phone, and the paper in my hand was crumpled into shape.

I tried to laugh, but my throat was so dry that I couldn't make a sound. I looked around at this familiar room, the place that had long been called home, and never saw that person again.

It's something I've been looking forward to for a long time, and it's something I've always dreamed of achieving. But the dryness of my throat made it difficult for me to make a sound, and I opened my mouth, but I couldn't laugh.

I was amazed, I was annoyed, I forced myself to laugh out loud, laughed until my voice was hoarse, laughed until I curled up, laughed until I couldn't stop shaking, and then, I started coughing uncontrollably.

Salty tears choked my throat, and I held on to the table next to me and choked so hard that I almost vomited blood.

There was a salty wetness blooming on the tip of my tongue, and I raised my hand in disbelief, and I touched my face in a daze.

Then I laughed out loud.

With tears in my eyes and a hoarse and broken whimper, I tried to pull the corners of my lips and mock this unknown self.

I cried.

I actually cried.

For that man, the man who ruined almost everything—

I cried until I was hoarse and almost nauseated.

Kneeling in front of the spirit of the black-and-white photograph, I looked at the bouquet of white chrysanthemums that I had placed with my own hands.

Instead of looking at the picture, I looked down at the bouquet of flowers and slowly leaned over and knocked.

Bow your head.

Thank you bloodline.

Two bows.

Thank you for leaving.

Three bows.

Thank you for giving us the power to choose anew.

Behind me, my mother's breathing seemed to be a little messy, but she tried her best to endure it, but I still recognized it.

She was crying.

The relatives who came to help with the funeral seemed to be comforting her in a low voice, and I knelt on the futon with my back straight, gritting my teeth and not looking back.

The sobs behind him gradually became quiet, and the sound of steady footsteps was slowly approaching. A moment later, the man's cold voice passed past my ears, and the cool rain on his body hit me.

"The deceased is gone, please mourn and change. ”

Strange and cold, wrapped in an indelible chill. This is my first impression of Shen Xiwen.

I turned my face sideways, my legs still on the futon, and I had to look up at him from the bottom up. As if catching my gaze, the man's slightly narrow eagle eyes paused on me for a few seconds, and then ignored it and moved away. But even this moment is enough for me to see clearly the looming scrutiny contained in those dark eyebrows.

Unfortunately, I didn't understand what that meant.

But in the days that followed, when he began to come and go in and out of my house from time to time, he would always bring some additions. When the mother's smile grew, her complexion became better and better.

One day not long after, my mother suddenly and cautiously asked me what I thought of that person.

It dawned on me.

This is her choice.

The day I moved to Shen's house with my mother was a sunny day.

My mother was very happy and described the future to me along the way. I looked at her eyes lit up, and I smiled with her, but my heart floated and fell with the shaking of the car, and I couldn't fall to the end.

Almost the first time I saw the Shen family's old mansion, I knew exactly what I was about to face.

Famous family, scholarly family.

Such houses, pavilions, gardens, and pavilions are not what we can get used to?

But my mother seemed very happy, and kept pointing to the flowers and plants in this magnificent courtyard, calling me to make out the name.

I looked at her, and with a single glance, I could see the vague worry and careful flattery in her eyes. There was a suffocation that was not strange to my heart, and I smiled, looked into her eyes and said, I like it.

Seeing her eyes light up, inadvertently brought out a look of relief, I lowered my eyes and slowly pursed the corners of my lips.

I thought it was probably because my mother was afraid that I would not adapt to such an environment, so she was so cautious. Then I cooperated a little, so as to avoid her worries and save her from worrying about me.

With this in mind, I learned to raise my eyes to look at the courtyard. Who knew that this eye raised and crashed into the eyes that were always staring at me. Sharp eyebrows, narrow corners of the eyes. I was startled, pretending not to care, and looked away as naturally as possible, but I could still clearly feel that the person's gaze was still firmly locked on my body like a shadow, making me suffocated.

My mother, who was walking in front of me, did not notice anything unusual in the atmosphere. She took my hand and followed the man to the inner courtyard out of the corner of her eye. Occasionally, she passed by people who carried vegetable baskets and looked like servants, and she didn't seem to see the inexplicable eyes of those people, but she just kept smiling at me.

I don't think she'll ever know, but I knew very well what kind of disdain was hidden in the eyes of those people.

Although it was only after living in the Shen family that I understood why those people who passed by that day whispered disdainfully.

But I know better that my mother is not that kind of force.

How fortunate my deceased biological father is, his wife, even under his frequent domestic violence, still guards her small family and never abandons her life day after day. Even though he was covered in bruises, he never thought of leaving. For many years, as before.

If she is really as powerful as others think, why did she get to such a situation. Leave me early and go to live a good life.

But I can't tell anyone about these things, let alone tell anyone about them.

It's enough to do such a stupid thing once.

Yes, when my father first abused my mother, I also thought about asking others for help.

At that time, the neighbor's grandmother always said that she liked me, and even stuffed me candy every time we met. But when my father swung his fist at my mother and ran out to ask her for help, she laughed and told me that such a thing should not be talked about.

From that day on, I gradually understood that people only want to believe what they see.

Or rather, what humans want to see for themselves.

Life is cruel, that's right. But these things that my mother wouldn't tell me were what the cruel life taught me.

If there is no one to talk to, then read a book.

When I first joined the Shen family, confiding in each other with books became the only way for me to dissipate my emotions.

I thought that maybe the days to come would be like this, and the same would pass quickly.

Until, I met Luo Yi - 166 Reading Network