withered lover

Running far away, Shen Guiwan did indeed do so.

He didn't know how long it took his mother to make up her mind to amend his will, but she was so desperate to let him go that he finally complied.

Shen Guiwan, who had left home, stood on the street in an unfamiliar city, feeling himself alive for the first time.

He went to the capital, hid in the ivory tower, forgot about the violent Shen Lu, and didn't think about his mother's situation.

The mother revises Shen Guiwan's college choice, but Shen Guiwan, who was admitted with the lowest score, is transferred to the foreign language department.

This is not his favorite major, the future is bleak, and it is very difficult to learn an unfamiliar language.

The roommate told Shen Guiwan that he could change his major, provided that his grades reached the top ten of the major.

Shen Guiwan did it, but didn't apply.

He has already left the Shen family, escaped from the nightmare, and has survived the most difficult period in his life. It is not so important whether the major he is transferred to is what he likes.

Perhaps it is destined somewhere in the dark, and he no longer needs to work hard to change anything in the future.

Shen Guiwan stayed in the German major to muddle through, and what happened later also confirmed his thoughts.

No matter what major he chose at the time, even if it was a hot and popular major, it was useless in the end.

Since entering university, Shen Guiwan has never met his mother again.

His mother hoped that he would not go back. Every holiday he would either stay in school to work part-time or go out to work, trying to earn tuition and living expenses for the next school year.

Shen Guiwan occasionally received calls from his mother, but the moment he picked up, his mother was often silent, and only smiled and made excuses when he couldn't help asking.

The frequency of mother's calls is not high, but most of the time it is in the silent night.

Shen Guiwan had already fallen asleep, and by the time he saw it, it was usually already the next morning.

He dialed back, and his mother smiled as usual and said everything was fine, just asking about his studies.

Naturally, the call late at night couldn't be to inquire about studies. Shen Guiwan knew that things couldn't be as easy as his mother said, but he hesitated to speak every time.

Shen Guiwan didn't dare to think about what his mother went through when he was not at home, and he didn't dare to listen to his mother's voice on the phone.

He was afraid that he would hear his mother's pain, and he would be shaken and run back.

For three and a half years, Shen Guiwan pretended not to know anything and lived a hard but peaceful life.

He thought he was isolated from everything in the past, and he could never escape the bloody reality.

The year when his mother died was Shen Guiwan's last winter in college.

He had just finished his defense that day, found an internship job, and was about to start a new life, but he received a call from Shen Lu at dusk.

"Your mother is dead and will be cremated tomorrow."

Shen Lu hung up the phone after only saying a word.

The cold news of death poured into Shen Guiwan's ears like the bone-piercing sea in midwinter, his ears were filled with sharp buzzing, and his head shook as if he had been beaten.

Shen Guiwan didn't remember how he returned to the dormitory at that time, and when his lax consciousness recovered, he was already standing at the door of Shen's villa.

The villa was full of lights, and the warm lights illuminated the dark night sky. The door was full of strangers in uniform.

A middle-aged man came out from the crowd, stood in front of Shen Guiwan, squeezed his shoulders, "My condolences."

Shen Lu stood beside the man, the two left the villa after a few words, Shen Guiwan watched them leave in a daze, and was locked in the living room by the group of strangers like a prisoner.

He sat on the sofa all night, and was taken to a cold room after dawn.

The room was cold and airless, and my mother was lying on the cold iron bed, covered with a white cloth, but it couldn't cover her bloated body.

Shen Guiwan only had time to take a look at his mother, who had been soaked white and swollen by the sea, before her body was hastily cremated.

The flames engulfed his mother's body, Shen Guiwan watched numbly, tears overflowed from his eyes, and were burned dry by the scorching flames.

He saw bruises and open wounds on his mother's body, but the person who pulled her out of the sea said that she had been hit by a rock.

Shen Guiwan kept asking, everyone talked about him, but no one answered him.

Mother's ashes were buried in the cemetery immediately after cremation, hastily as if to cover up a conspiracy.

Shen Guiwan was overwhelmed by the mourning crowd, no one paid attention to his existence, but Shen Lu, who had just lost his wife, was in the crowd, exchanging business cards with strangers Shen Guiwan didn't know.

He laughed wantonly at his wife's funeral, and Shen Guiwan's anger that had been suppressed for more than three years broke out again.

"Shen Lu, did you kill mother!"

He pointed the finger at Shen Lu, and the man being questioned did not dodge at all, and slapped him loudly with his backhand.

"You asked me how that woman died?" Shen Lu looked at Shen Guiwan who was lying on the ground, and said with a sneer, "You killed her, you little bastard."

Shen Lu lifted Shen Guiwan's collar and locked him in the basement of the villa.

That night, after calming down, Shen Guiwan smashed the glass and ran away.

He escaped for the first time and bought a ticket to the capital, but before he entered the airport, he was arrested by Shen Lu.

Shen Lu locked Shen Guiwan in the bedroom for a whole week. In the end, Shen Guiwan was sent to the hospital due to dehydration shock, and he was discharged after lying down for three days.

Shen Guiwan learned his lesson, and chose to escape the second time in the middle of the night, and bought a bus ticket that did not require a real name at that time.

When the car drove out of the toll booth, Shen Guiwan let out a long sigh of relief.

He thought he could escape Shen Lu's detention this time, but when the car arrived at its destination a day later, he was caught by the local snake that Shen Lu was looking for before he could get out of the station.

The local snake pushed Shen Guiwan to the ground in front of the crowd, tied his hands with a thick hemp rope, and threw him into the back of the pickup truck like trash.

The seats of the long-distance bus are very hard, and the dark cloth has a strange smell, but the body of the pickup truck has only a layer of iron sheet. Shen Guiwan curled up in the corner, his body swayed in the bumps, and knocked against the hard iron sheet.

When he was thrown in front of Shen Lu by the local snake, his face and body were covered with bruises, but this did not arouse Shen Lu's pity.

Shen Lu was born in a poor family. After dropping out of school, he worked as a laborer for more than ten years, and finally got help from his father-in-law when he fell in love with his wife, and he started his own company and became the boss.

He got rid of poverty and married an intellectual and beautiful wife, but he couldn't erase the inferiority complex engraved in his bones.

The unequal status difference with his wife made Shen Lu sensitive and suspicious. Before Shen Guiwan's mother died, he suspected her of cheating on her, and because she escaped by suicide, he was furious.

Shen Guiwan once escaped from his control, but now he came back right into the gun, these two escapes just gave him a reason to vent.

After the ground snake captured Shen Guiwan, Shen Lu dragged him into the living room, and broke his ribs with that discarded carbon fishing rod.

The moment the fishing rod fell, Shen Guiwan finally realized how much inhuman torture his mother had experienced in these years.

The broken ribs pierced the flesh of the chest, and the tiny broken bones pierced into the lungs. Shen Guiwan panted with his mouth wide open, and a terrifying hiss like a leaked bellows came out of his throat.

Blood gushed from his chest, spread across the marble tiles, and seeped into the gaps between them.

Shen Guiwan was so painful that he almost passed out, but Shen Lu didn't stop until the discarded fishing rod was completely broken, and the tiles were stained red with blood.

The 20-year-old Shen Guiwan was sent to the hospital again. He was hospitalized twice in a month, all of which were sent by his father himself.

His body was covered with bruises, and during the month of treatment in the hospital, doctors and nurses came and went in and out of the ward, aware that he had suffered domestic violence, but no one wanted to stop to talk to him.

Shen Guiwan saw the indifference in their eyes, and did not tell anyone what Shen Lu had done, because no one could help him.

He was alone in this one-sided violence, just like his mother was in the past.

After he was discharged from the hospital, Shen Lu took away all his documents and bank cards, transferred all the balance on the card, and only paid the minimum amount of living expenses every month.

Shen Guiwan failed to go to the agreed unit for an internship, failed to fulfill his mother's wish, and failed to escape to a place where Shen Lu could not find him.

Shen Luche completely broke his wings, and he couldn't go anywhere, but could only stay in the cold house of the Shen family.

Shen Lu has been violent to his wife all year round, and after his wife passed away, he began to beat Shen Guiwan for no reason.

During the long beating, Shen Guiwan gradually stopped resisting.

The object of Shen Lu's violence changed from his mother to him. Shen Guiwan, who had dared to break the teeth of his classmates and threaten others with a knife, chose to suffer.

He didn't look like this at the beginning, he also had the look of a high-spirited young man who was so rebellious and fierce that he dared to confront his father with a knife.

That was Shen Guiwan's most fierce resistance, but nothing changed.

The mother he rescued from his father with a knife back then chose to die in despair again and again. She became a cold photo in the photo frame, and all the voices and smiles were frozen on the deserted beach in the photo.

Mother loves the sea, and when Shen Lu was away, she often took Shen Guiwan to watch the magnificent sunset by the sea, but now she was buried in her favorite sea, and only left a photo for Shen Guiwan.

She might want to use death to cut off all Shen Guiwan's thoughts, but she didn't expect that the child who left would rush back because of a phone call, and would even stay by her tyrannical husband's side for her death.

Every time the thought of running away arises, Shen Guiwan will force himself to recall the despair when he was captured by Shen Lu again.

Don't run away, just be it.Shen Guiwan told herself this every time.

The broken ribs have been reattached, and it always hurts on rainy days. I have taken a lot of painkillers, but most of the time it doesn't work.

It is a long-lasting pain that will become more and more intense as time goes on.

This is also the torment my mother has endured for 25 years. What I have endured in the past three years is just the beginning, and it is only one ten thousandth of what my mother has experienced.

His pain was the retribution of his selfish evasion, and those two broken ribs were nothing compared to the bruises that his mother had not faded all the year round.

The time Shen Lu kicked Shen Guiwan down in the study, his back hit the bookshelf, the photo frame placed on the top hit him, and the glass stuck into his knees.

The glass was broken, and Shen Guiwan could only pick them out from his knees little by little, and put them back together on the photo frame.

It was as if his soul had been sucked out of him, and he turned from a high-spirited boy into a puppet to be ravaged by others.

Four years ago he fled to the capital alone, leaving his mother alone to endure all this, and now all this is his punishment.

Shen Guiwan had been ignorant like a walking dead for three years, and met that man surnamed Liu in front of the villa.

The other party came up to strike up a conversation, claiming to be Shen Lu's partner.

Shen Guiwan had only been beaten by Shen Lu the day before, and had taken an overdose of painkillers, and his brain that had stopped functioning was filled with chaos.

In a daze, he was coaxed into bed by the other party, established a so-called "lover relationship", and was caught by the other party's parents when they met, and stabbed in front of Shen Lu.

Shen Lu apologized to Liu's parents in a good voice and then kicked Shen Guiwan down from the second floor.

Shen Guiwan's head hit the pillar of the stairs, the split flesh rolled up, and blood dripped down the edge of the stairs onto the floor of the living room.

He entered the hospital again, and met Du Zhinian in the pale ward.

"Do you want me to call the police for you?"

Du Zhinian pushed back the sleeves of his hospital gown and asked in a low voice.

He seemed to have bad intentions, but he was the only one who asked him if he needed help in three years.

Although Shen Guiwan never mentioned the past to Du Zhinian, the other party guessed the person who even kindly persuaded him to leave after seeing the scars on his body.

"You can change."

Shen Guiwan lightly touched his lips with cold fingers, and put the mottled and faded photos of his mother into the book.

Shen Lu dares to push him out to entertain clients now, and he will do even more excessive things in the future.

It is impossible for him to meet Du Zhinian by such a coincidence every time, and he can no longer control violence with violence.

Even if she punished herself for everything in the past, Shen Guiwan didn't want to become an appearance that her mother hated.

He was still rebellious in his bones, but was wiped out in despair.

If someone is willing to help him, Shen Guiwan will run far away like his mother said, and never come back.

Shen Guiwan opened the notebook, and entered the string of phone numbers from abroad that he wrote down earlier into the phone.

He pressed the call button, and an electronic dial tone came from the receiver.

The dial tone lasted for nearly half a minute, and before the call was automatically hung up, it turned into a broken Chinese: "Hello? Which one?"

The foreign man on the other end of the phone was not good at Chinese, and then asked the same question again in English.

"Hello." Shen Guiwan paused for a moment, then asked again: "Excuse me, do you know... Lu Xing?"

"She gave me this number." He added softly.

The foreign man who picked up the phone suddenly fell silent. Shen Guiwan waited for a long time without waiting for the other party's answer, and was about to use the lame excuse of "wrong number" to ease the embarrassment when a deep female voice came out from the phone: "I haven't been able to contact Xiaoxing, is she okay?"

Shen Guiwan's teeth chattered, and he answered vaguely: "Not very good."

The other end of the phone fell silent again, and after a while, the woman asked him back: "What's your relationship with my sister?"

The other party took the initiative to reveal his identity, Shen Guiwan opened his mouth, but suddenly couldn't answer.

He looked blankly at the bookshelf in front of him, his eyes swept over the complicated titles, and finally landed on the book with his mother's photo in it.

"Friend." Shen Guiwan said, "I am her...friend."

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