the culprit

Cyril, who fled back to the room, didn't know when he fell asleep.He heard rustling noises outside the door at night, he carefully opened his eyes in the dark, struggled to roll himself tightly with the blanket, and stared nervously at the closed door.Then, the door opened, and the shadow squeezed in.He couldn't see its hands and feet, but could only vaguely make out its white face.It came to him silently, bent down to touch his cheeks and lips, pulled his hands from under the covers, checked whether he had trimmed his nails.

Then he saw clearly that the black shadow had green eyes.

The boy yelled in horror, and suddenly rolled over and sat up.The thin sunlight penetrated the white gauze, and the shrikes still gathered on the branches and shouted happily.

Doris pushed the door open, carried him off the bed quickly, quickly dressed him, picked up his small suitcase, and led him downstairs with one hand.

Heken was standing at the door, his face was still unhealthy pale, his eyes were still swollen, only his smile was quite cheerful.Seeing that the maid had brought Cyril, he greeted and hugged his nephew.

"The carriage is coming, little one. I will miss you."

As he spoke, he wanted to kiss the boy's forehead, but the latter avoided him.The favor failed, and he endured shame and anger, he raised his eyes to look at Cyril, the boy's staring eyes were full of fear, his hands resting on his chest, tightly clenched into fists.Thinking of what he said yesterday, he guessed that maybe the boy was also tortured by them all night. Thinking about it this way, the shame and indignation in his heart gradually turned into a hideous and weird pleasure, so he only responded to the boy's rudeness. With a big smile, he personally sent his nephew to the carriage.

After the boy left, the manor returned to its old silence, Huken still visited the brothel, and Felix still didn't exist.Old Jack would go to the lake to visit his wife every few days. Even if no one took care of the seeds scattered in the soil, they still bloomed fragrant flowers. Later, when the weather turned cold and the flowers fell, he thought about waiting for the next year to see his wife again. Go buy some seeds and come back.

When Cyril came back from vacation, no one greeted her.Hucken hadn't asked him how life was at school, Doris was still habitually avoiding him, and old Jack was still watching sullenly as before.He became more silent than before, and occasionally met Felix who came back from going out and knew to hide away, but Felix looked at him a few more times in surprise when he saw him.

In the fourth grade, I heard that Heken had a serious illness. When I returned to the manor during the vacation, I found that Heken had become extremely thin, and his complexion was worse than before. His thin and gray skin was covered with sunken eyes and high protruding eyes. Cheekbones, making him look like a living skeleton.Cyril greeted him, but he just snorted twice, and leaned against the door, as if he was about to die.Cyril glanced at his hands inadvertently, the nails on the ten fingers were still neatly trimmed as before.

Knowing more and more characters, Cyril learned to hide in the study to pass the time.He climbed up the bookshelf by stepping on the wooden ladder, but couldn't move the bulky books, so he picked some relatively thin legends and anecdotes to read.

In fact, the same is true in school.

The classmates are all favored young masters. Although he is the earl's son, he can't get in the way when talking about their families.His father would not take him hunting, and he would leave him alone at the ball and dinner. Later, he was sent to his uncle's manor, and naturally he missed the luxurious and exciting life.He knew that his classmates called him a country bumpkin behind his back, and not only the seniors, but even the boys in the same grade would bully and isolate him in the name of pranks.

He tried to resist, but he was almost sent home for violating school rules.That time my father came, wearing his favorite top hat, and his hands were still wearing clean white gloves.That was the first time he had seen his father in four years.The father repeatedly assured the principal that he would never make mistakes again, and after walking out of the gloomy school building, he raised his hand and slapped him.

He was ten years old then.He knew what it was like to be hopeless, and finally understood why his father repeatedly sent him to his uncle's manor years ago, why he insisted on making him the next victim, why he was so eager to erase his name from the family tree .

Not disgust.

He was ten years old and knew the difference between hate and loathing.

Later, he became very obedient and never resisted those seniors and classmates who bullied him.The dormitory supervisor saw the bruises on his shoulders and arms during his inspection, and asked him what happened. The first time he said that he accidentally fell while walking, the second time he said he rolled down the stairs, and the third time he hit him. When he reached the wall of the school building, those classmates who bullied him for the fourth time were taken home by the parents who came.

Standing by the window, he watched the former high-spirited classmates follow behind his father in disgrace, some got into the carriage, and some suddenly received an angry slap in the face after walking a long distance.He closed the window, sat down at the table and continued reading the book he hadn't finished reading yesterday.

You can stop thinking about hate when you are reading, and you can also stop for a while to think about how to get those hateful boys out.

In seventh grade there was a scandal at school.It is said that some students bumped into their classmates and the pastor who came from the church to teach them in the office.No one mentioned this in class, assembly and meals, and it was so peaceful as if nothing had happened, but when get out of class was over, rumors spread between tongues and ears like crazy, with certainty.

Cyril, the student in the rumors, also knows that he is a grade lower than him, and like him, he has been bullied since he entered school.I heard that he is also a child who is not favored at home.On the third day after the scandal broke out, the child's father rushed to the school and not only demanded to take the child away, but also threatened to send the damn pastor to the scaffold.When Cyril saw them leave, the father put a cloak on the boy, and his generous hands were on the boy's shoulders from the moment they walked out of the school building, and did not leave until they got into the carriage.

That was an unloved child.

Maybe before something really happens, parents can't figure out their own hearts.

A fire ignited in Cyril's heart.

The fact that he had been bullied for a long time was only discovered by the school when he was ten years old, and after him, there are still countless boys who silently endured the bullying.Even though he is now in the seventh grade, there will still be senior seniors blocking him from time to time at the end of the corridor or pushing him into the abandoned storage room.The last time, they took out a skirt they got from somewhere and forced him to wear it. He took off his uniform and put on the skirt. An ambiguous and obscene laugh.

They stroked his shoulders and breasts, half-kneeled and lifted up the ridiculous skirt that hung over him.

He asked why they didn't keep doing something fun, and they did.

The senior took off his shoes and stood in front of him in shorts.He bent down and picked up their trousers, smashed the glass and got out.A man in a skirt appeared out of nowhere in the boys' school, and the students surrounded him. He threw the trousers of the seniors on the ground, covered his face with his hands, and his shoulders were trembling.

That will be the last time.

When they were taken away by their parents, he still stood by the window of the room and watched quietly. The skirt of unknown origin was put into his box by him.

People kill two rats and think that they have wiped out all of them, but they don't know that there are still hundreds of rats living in the foul-smelling gutter.Bullying was always going on quietly, and he believed scandal was too—hidden in offices, under desks, in walls where the sun couldn't see it, in prayer rooms where no one went late at night.

Cyril, who never cared about gossip, began to pay attention to all kinds of whispers around him. He changed his bad habit of keeping his head down. No matter where he went, he would raise his head and stare straight at everyone who came to him.More than one person said that he looked like a girl. He used to take it as a mockery and insult, but now he doesn't.He accepted, he accepted the fact that he looked like his mother, accepted the fact that his mother died because of him, but struggled to prove that his father's hatred for him was an illusion between the two of them.And that's exactly what he's doing now.

However, after several months of hard work, he failed.The stench and shadow covered up the mouse's figure and cry, and the rumors were always heard. He tried to squeeze into the offices or rooms where the rumors had happened. The decent teacher took off his monocle and asked him kindly what difficulties he encountered. .

There were quite a few among the students, and he was not the only one who was forced to wear a skirt, but he knew that kind of thing was nothing to his father.That wasn't enough to debunk the illusion.

During the winter vacation that year, he obsessively asked the coachman to take him back to the earl's mansion, and there was a heavy snowstorm on the day he arrived home.He waited for an hour in the heavy snow, but no one opened the door. He wrapped his cloak tightly in frustration, and walked on the road leading to the manor with his increasingly heavy suitcase.

In fact, the original intention was to prove something to his father, hoping that his father would take him home.He didn't want to be a victim, even though he lived in that lifeless manor for so many years, even though he, like the three dumb servants, was used to Uncle Hickon's shady and capricious, the fact that Felix was a vampire, Even though Uncle Heken and the vampire are struggling, but he still has a glimmer of expectation, he is still not reconciled.

But in this snowy day, he was homeless, and the first thing he thought of was still the old manor.

The boy hadn't cried for many years.Since he was slapped in public by his father in the fourth grade, he has never cried again.There is nothing in this world that is worthy of his sadness. The tears that followed were all props to win sympathy. He blinked his eyes, his breath trembled and his voice was choked, some people looked at him with pity, and some people sighed for him and were filled with righteous indignation. His heart was empty.

But at this moment, for some reason, he felt his eyes burning hot and his nose sore.

He didn't want to go back to the manor.

He didn't want to accept that fate.

He pulled his cloak tight in the howling wind, his cheeks were cut by the blade-like cold wind, and the broken leg was aching from the bone-chilling cold.In the heavy snow, he stopped and raised his head to look far away. The sky above his head, the nearby trees, and even the road extending into the desert and the unknown distance... The exhaled white mist and white snow blurred what he could see He hesitated for a while, then suddenly turned his back and walked in the opposite direction.

It is better to take this opportunity to escape.

The boy breathed hard against the wind, stopped and walked, and stretched out his hands from time to time to brush away the cold snow particles blown into his collar by the wind, or bent over to rub his painful legs.It got dark quickly, the temperature dropped even lower, but the wind and snow were fierce, and there was no sign of stopping at all.The fingers carrying the box were numb from the cold, and his arms were sore and heavy. He compromised and threw the box into the snow, enduring the hunger and stumbling forward.

I don't know how long I walked, I don't know how far I walked, my clothes were soaked in sweat, my breathing was deep and long, and Yingfeng's cheek was still painfully cut by the wind knife all over the sky.Hungry let out an unwelcome cry, he put his hands on his stomach, pulled his legs out of the snow that reached deep to his calves, took steps, stepped on them, and repeated the difficult process.

In this vast snowy night, there was only the sound of the majestic wind, but after a long time, he couldn't even hear the sound of the wind, only his prolonged breathing and gradually humming could be heard in his ears.I stick out my tongue to lick my dry lips, but it's only a drop in the bucket, the thirst has already poured into my throat from my lips.The aching leg was so heavy that he couldn't drag it anymore, his eyelids sank, and the originally dark world became darker and darker, like a dark curtain covering the sky covered by night.

The boy plunged headlong into the snow, and the icy snow particles rushed to his steaming body, eager to pounce on his bare cheeks, neck and hands.He subconsciously curled up his body, hugged his knees with his hands, and was so sleepy that he almost fell asleep.The snow particles that touched his body melted, and the icy water slid in along his collar. He shivered in the bone-piercing cold, trying to get up, struggling for a long time, but unable to overcome the fatigue and cold, and fell into the snow again.

His strength and temperature gradually passed away, and he could even feel his blood getting colder.The dark world became far away in an instant, and was pushed to the same distance as the North Star.At that moment, he felt warm again, his hands were grasping in the snow, and in the end, there was only numbness like isolation from the world.

He closed his eyes.

Pure blackness descends.

It was like a dream.

A black shadow that was sprinting in the middle of the night came to embrace him. The black shadow had a fair face like a ghost and eyes like emeralds.He thought of his father, of Uncle Hucken, of the loathing and hatred that had hurt him, and of the fangs of that monster in the manor.

"Am I going to...die?"

He said to Sombra that he was dying.

Sombra didn't answer, but just hugged him up.

Even in his dream, he could feel the cold body temperature of the shadow.

Mary had done him favors.

But Mary died.

Thinking about it carefully, that monster also gave favors.

The monster appeared when he was beaten by his uncle.

He wasn't sure if that was a coincidence, but that didn't matter now.

"Am I going to die..." he asked again, his hoarse voice could hardly make a sound, "Are you going back? Uncle Heken... is he at home... Can you wait? I'm going to die anyway... I give you all my blood..."

Right to repay.

He tried his best to raise his chin, but every part of this body was so heavy, the head could only hang powerlessly from beginning to end.

And the arms holding him suddenly tightened.

"Won't let you die. At least not yet."