"If there was a time machine, when would you choose to go back to?" On the train to Zhang Hao's hometown, Li Jing asked me.

"How do you ask that?" I looked at Li Jing incomprehensibly, didn't he usually hate this kind of question that didn't have more than a dozen foundations.

"Ask you, you just have to tell me when you want to go back." Li Jing turned his head to look out the window, and his cheeks suddenly turned a little red.

I looked at him amusedly, but still obediently told the truth: "Me? May avoid the time machine. ”

Li Jing probably didn't expect me to answer like this, so he instantly turned his head and asked me with wide eyes, "Why?" Don't want to go back and see? ”

"I'm afraid I'll be greedy." I looked at him very seriously, "If you really go back to the past that you like very much, although you just want to go back and have a look, but if you really go back to the time you like very much, you will not want to come back because you are greedy for the warmth of that time, and you will hope to stay at that moment." So even if I have a time machine, I won't use it, I won't go back to the best time, I won't go back to the most painful time, just go with the flow, I will meet the people I should meet and do the things I need to do. ”

"I didn't expect you to be very sensible about this." Li Jing returned to the previous ridicule of underbeating.

"I'm just telling you the truth, so where do you want to go back with a time machine?" I pounced on Li Jing and asked him. An elderly couple sitting on the other side of the carriage smiled and said, "Young people are really open nowadays." ”

I blushed and immediately sat upright, and Li Jing also snickered before answering my question: "I, go back to your past and have a look." ”

"Huh? Why? "My past?

Li Jing touched my head: "Okay, make sure you don't become stupid." "Sure enough, the mouth is still just as poisonous.

Fortunately, Zhang Hao's home is not far from us, and it took more than 2 hours to take the train to Zhang Hao's hometown, but the distance between Zhang Hao's home and the railway station is not close, and it was close to noon when he arrived at Zhang Hao's house. When Zhang Hao's mother learned that we were here for Zhang Hao's business, she was stunned for a moment and then invited us in. Unlike what we had expected might be the fluctuation of the relationship, her mother didn't have a sad expression when she mentioned her son Zhang Hao, and even invited us to lunch together.

"I didn't expect that there would be people thinking about Zhang Hao now." After lunch. His mother officially talked to us about her son.

"Hmm. It's because a friend of mine recently received a letter from him. "I decided to tell the truth.

Her mother gave us a cold look, as if she didn't care about it: "He's been dead for a long time, and your friend's heart must be a prank." ”

"But they said that the handwriting on the letter was Zhang Hao's, so I wanted to know if he had any particularly close friends who could imitate his handwriting?" I'm still not too dead. After all, this is her son, and he should be able to give us more information.

However, to our surprise, Zhang Hao's mother shook her head without thinking about it: "I don't know." Zhang Hao and we are not close. ”

I didn't know what to say for a while, so I could only look at Li Jing, hoping that he could say something to alleviate the embarrassment now. Apparently Li Jing was also taken aback by Zhang Hao's mother's unusual reaction, but he recovered from the shock faster than I did. looked at Zhang Hao's mother and asked, "Auntie, do you know about Zhang Hao's life before he went to college?" I saw that he didn't go to boarding school before college, so I wanted to talk to you about him as a child. ”

Zhang Hao's mother has already reported that she told us quite coldly: "He didn't grow up next to me. ”

Seeing me and Li Jing casting puzzled glances at her, Zhang Hao's mother suddenly got up and went to the bookcase to take out a photo album and put it in my hand: "This is a photo of Zhang Hao when he was a child, and there is not even a group photo of me in it." When she said this, Zhang Hao's mother did not have any fluctuations in her expression, and it looked like she was saying something unrelated.

"Do you have any other children?" Li Jing asked her.

This was the first time I noticed a different expression on the middle-aged woman's face, and there was some sadness in her eyes, and she said, "No. I only have one child, Zhang Hao. ”

"That's why I asked too much, I'm sorry to offend you." Li Jing opened the photo album, most of which were Zhang Hao's solo photos, and in the few group photos, Zhang Hao was taken with his grandmother or father. Li Jing closed the photo album and asked, "By the way, Zhang Hao's father went to work, right?" ”

The woman on the other side was stunned for a moment, but quickly shook her head and said bluntly and indifferently: "I don't know anything about his father. Afraid that we would continue to ask, she replied with a relaxed face: "Since Zhang Hao's suicide, his father's temper has become very irritable, and we always quarrel. Later, his father didn't come home often and couldn't stand this life, and finally we divorced by agreement. If you want to find his father, just ask his mom. ”

Li Jing asked her with some uncertainty: "Then can you tell me the address of Grandma Zhang Hao?" ”

The rich man still had no expression. I took a sticky note from the coffee table and wrote the address for us. After thanking Zhang Hao's mother, we got up and left the cold room.

"Li Jing, do you think that room is so weird." Walking out of the community, the apartment just now was out of our sight before I dared to ask Li Jing. Even in the summer, I still feel the cold in that room.

Li Jing looked at the goosebumps on my arm because of the cold, and looked at me with some mockery: "Is it so terrible?" The hairs stood on end. ”

"Of course it's scary." Before I entered that room, I had imagined many scenes, including Zhang Hao's mother who couldn't stop loving us because of her son who had died in four years, or we were scolded for mentioning other people's sad things. But what I didn't expect was that Zhang Hao's mother was really indifferent to her son's death as Mr. Ke said.

"Actually, it's not surprising that some people suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder after experiencing a big injury, don't think that only irritability is his symptom. In addition to becoming irritable, some people will avoid the things that cause the trauma after suffering from this mental illness, symptoms include great changes in personality, nightmares, insomnia, emotional alienation from people, and even indifference to people and things around them. Mainly because of the huge psychological or psychological trauma, they choose to avoid giving emotions to avoid being traumatized again, and some of them are even more avoided, and even have amnesia. Li Jing patiently explained to me that Fan Fo was not at all frightened by Zhang Hao's mother's strange attitude just now.

I still don't believe it: "But how do you know his mom has PTSD?" She may just not care about her son. You see, there are no photos with her son in the album she showed you, which is not like the daily life of a normal mother and son. "I thought about the album for a moment.

Li Jing curled the corners of her mouth slightly: "It was because of that album that I was sure that her mother suffered from traumatic stress syndrome." ”

"Huh?"

Li Jing pulled me forward, Zhang Hao's grandmother's house is not far from here, you can reach it by walking, Li Jing explained to me as he walked forward: "You may not have looked at that photo album carefully. What is the arrangement of your photos in your album? ”

I thought about it and replied, "I guess it's by age." I don't know if other people are like this, but all the albums I've had since I was a kid have been arranged by age, with 4-year-old photos of the war together, and 5-year-olds showing them together. ”

"But Zhang Hao's photo album is not." Li Jing interrupted my recollection, "Zhang Hao's photos should have been taken after his death, and his album is not sorted by age or other order. But it can be seen that it has been arranged before, and it should be in the order of age, but why is it that we are seeing a chaotic arrangement now? I think it should be that after Zhang Hao's death, someone took out some of the photos inside. ”

"Why? Wait a minute. "Hearing Li Jing say this, I seem to have thought of something, and I am eager to verify my thoughts with Li Jing, "You mean that his mother took these photos by herself, and then put other photos in the vacant space to replace them, so that there will be a problem of chaotic chronological arrangement of the album." “

Li Jing nodded: "That's right." Another reason why I noticed that the album had changed was that almost all of the photos around these photos used to fill in the gaps were similar in scene and the same age, so I could determine that those photos that seemed to be messed up should be to fill in the photo of Zhang Hao and his mother. I think it should be that after Zhang Hao's suicide, his mother chose to escape the harm caused by her son's death in great pain. All right. We're here. Li Jing pointed to the community in front of him and said.

"So it's not her husband who gets weird, it's her?" We walked into the hallway.

"Maybe there are strange things on both sides, after all, Zhang Hao's mother is not the only one who has been hit." Li Jing knocked on the door of a household.

After waiting for a while, no one answered the door, but the neighbor next to him poked his head out: "Don't knock." It's been a long time since their family has returned. ”

"Did the family move away?" I asked the neighbors.

The neighbor didn't speak, just shook his head and closed the door again. We were a little discouraged when we didn't ask anything, and just wanted to leave, we saw the door of the nearest family open the door and beckoned us to enter. But after a few seconds of consideration, we chose intelligence.

It was an old woman who greeted us, and although her wife was quite dissatisfied with her meddling, she finally sighed, and told us what had happened.

It is very similar to what we guessed before, Zhang Hao's mother did suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome, although she became sluggish and numb with human feelings, and the two old men speculated that they were crushed because of the sudden death of their son, and they were completely stupid, just like this son was not his own, and he was like having amnesia about the previous things, and he was also indifferent to his husband.

"So they got divorced later?" Li Jing asked the grandmother.

"No, can Zhang Hao get a divorce? The city court of her mother's home said that she went to the hospital to check out her mental disorder and refused to leave, so the two of them are now separated. Zhang Hao and his father were afraid of his father-in-law, so he went back to see his mother after a short time, for fear that something would happen. Alas, as soon as Zhang Hao left, this family was scattered. The old woman sighed.

The old man was quite dissatisfied with his wife's last words, and said with disdain: "If their family doesn't have Xiaohao, it will be over sooner or later." ”

"Huh?" The old man's words successfully aroused the interest of Li Jing and me.

The old grandmother patted the old man and signaled that he had talked a little too much, but on the contrary, this shot aroused the old man's temper: "Why can't you say it." The old man's tone was a little rushed, "What can't be said about the bad things in their family, this old Zhang left early, what can't others say about the things that his good son is used to?" ”

The old grandmother couldn't stop the old man when she looked at it, so she had to sigh again and again beside her: "The old Zhang family is retribution." ”

"What retribution?" I think there must be a story in this.

The old man patted his thigh: "It's not a secret." Actually, you came in because when I saw you knocking on the door, I thought you were different from the other people who came to his house and knocked on the door, and I guessed that you might have opened the door for you for something else, so blame us for being nosy. Count me as one more question. You shouldn't be here for that bunny cub of Zhang En, right? ”

Zhang En is Zhang Hao's father, and when I heard the old man ask, I hurriedly waved my hand and said, "No, we are here for Zhang Hao's business." ”

The old man was stunned for a moment, but quickly recovered his expression and asked us what was the matter. In order to know more about it. I told the old couple the truth about the previous letter. After listening to this, the old grandmother kept chanting as she had just done, "Retribution, retribution." ”

The old man talked to us about the situation in Zhang Hao's family, and this was the first time I learned about the tragic childhood experience behind the boy who committed suicide.

Zhang Hao is indeed the only child of Zhang En and his wife, but Zhang En, as the old man mentioned before, is a spoiled child, some of whom are exclusive to me, and became the little bully of this neighborhood at a very young age, every time someone is bullied. went to find Zhang En's mother, but was mostly scolded by the mother of the calf guard, and over time, this generation knew that Zhang En's child was completely not afraid, so they let their children keep their distance from Zhang En as much as possible. Because he couldn't make friends of the same age, Zhang En mixed with the youth in society early and became a famous gangster in this area. The thing happened that not long after Zhang En became a gangster, Zhang En violated a girl. In the parents' time, when a girl was violated, people would not only condemn the man who committed the crime, but also the girl's life would be turned upside down. Of course, it's a bad change, and there are many girls who choose to commit suicide after being violated again. The girl chose the same path, but fortunately she was rescued. It's not that I didn't sue Zhang En at that time, but Zhang En's mother has been giving people money as bribes. In the absence of a real person, Zhang En actually bit back and said that the girl seduced him, and said that he was completely unaware of this incident when it happened, which caused the girl to be embarrassed and angry in court, and later tried to commit suicide, but it was discovered by the family in time. In the end, the desperate girl was represented by her family in the city. Completely gone.

Everyone knows what Zhang En has done, but at that time, Zhang En's family used money to settle everything, coupled with his usual virtue, the big guy dared not speak out. Not long after, for some reason, Zhang En hooked up with the daughter of the judge who tried the case at the time, and the two got married not long after. There is an old judge and father-in-law, and no one dares to advance that matter anymore, and this matter has become a dead knot for the big guys, and we all feel sorry for that girl. The old man shook his head again and again as he spoke, as if he was particularly remorseful for the choice he had made.

"Do you remember that girl's name?" Li Jing opened his mouth and asked the old man.

The old grandmother looked at Li Jing and said: "I can never forget the girl's name, that incident was the biggest thing in our city at that time, the streets and alleys were talking about that child, we all know that Zhang En, the king of the eight lambs, did not do a human thing, so even now, I sometimes can forget what I ate two days ago, maybe because I didn't dare to speak for that girl, but my old man and I can never forget the girl's name, her name is Guo Nuo." ”

When I heard the name, Li Jing's writing hand paused, and my psychology trembled, and I looked up at the two old men, both of whom had guilty and painful expressions, as if they were enduring inner torture. After a while, the old grandmother continued: "But we didn't expect that things would end up on their children. Xiao Hao's father Zhang En is still doing evil as he wants after what he has done, Zhang Hao doesn't care about his mother, I don't know where she likes this man, especially listen to his man's words, her man is drunk and beats the child, Xiao Hao's mother doesn't care. Zhang Hao's child is also hard enough, so he wants to leave the city and lacks other places. But no one expected that something would happen later, and he would pay off his parents' debts. What a wickedness. The old lady had a look of pity on her face.

said something else, probably knew about Zhang Hao's father Zhang En, a typical gangster, relying on the relationship between his father-in-law and basically doing illegal things, but recently he didn't come, but he heard a rumor that he wanted to arrest him, his father-in-law retired, and now he can't keep him, so he hurriedly ran away.

"What about his mother? Did you leave with him? "I suddenly remembered that the mother who spoiled Zhang En should be indiscriminately 'protecting' her child.

The old man sighed: "Alas, I left early, and I left when I heard that my grandson had committed suicide." The last sentence is regret, regret that I doted on my child too much, and finally let my grandson be punished. She's also strange and pitiful, the white-haired man sent the black-haired man before leaving. (To be continued.) )