The first scene Luo Binhan saw when he walked into the living room was quite unusual.
His first visual impression was that everyone was sitting together. They were all sitting on the sofa, very close to each other, either reading books with their heads down, or talking quietly. This scene really puzzled Luo Binhan for a moment, feeling that they were all in the same boat. But when he took a closer look, he found that the person talking to Jing Huang was actually Zhou Yu. Yaleriga and Momolo were leaning against each other, reading a thick book. Zhou Bao was between the two groups, and he was also peeking at the contents of the book. But strangely, her body was slightly tilted in order to grab Zhou Yu's clothes.
How Zhou Ba decides on the object of her interest has always been a mystery to Luo Binhan. This may be a bit pretentious, but Luo Binhan always vaguely felt that Zhou Ba's attitude towards him was somewhat different. He made a wish because he had never seen Momolo or Yaleriga on Wednesday. Of course, her attitude towards Jing Huang was even more special. At least she never called him "Luo Luo" or "Han Han". However, now he seems to have suddenly fallen out of favor. Last night, he discovered that Zhou Ba prefers to be close to Zhou Yu. But why? Does Zhou Yu have any wishes that he is eager to realize?
This question troubled Luo Binhan for several seconds, and made him think of those terminal illnesses again. He didn't know whether Zhou Yu had the ambition to overcome terminal illness, and to be honest, Zhou Yu was just a graduate student, which seemed to be far from being a worthy qualification in the medical field, even if Zhou Yu had some family background. Same thing. Then he stopped thinking about it. As he approached, Zhou Yu and Jing Huang suddenly separated from their quiet conversation. Jing Huang looked out the window indifferently, while Zhou Yu looked at him as usual, waiting for him to say hello first.
Luo Binhan looked at the two people a little suspiciously. Of course, Jing Huang is the person Zhou Yu is most familiar with in this room, so it's not surprising that they talk about anything - but what exactly do they talk about? He never had the concept. There is no way Zhou Yu would discuss medical topics with Jing Huang, and Jing Huang had never quarreled with Zhou Yu, at least he had never seen one. The content of the exchange between these two people was outside the boundaries of Luo Binhan's imagination. It existed in theory just like the four-dimensional space, but he had never seen it himself. Why did they stop talking when he showed up? It's like she doesn't want him to hear her. But this was probably just him being too preoccupied, and they just happened to have finished talking at this time.
He was thinking about it a little absent-mindedly, so that when Zhou Yu gave him a hint with his eyes, he still didn't find out where the real crisis was. He used to pull Jing Huang's hair, but the latter shook his hand away.
"You're running away in a week?" Luo Binhan asked.
Jing Huang nodded impatiently, his face still facing the window, leaving only the messy back of his head. Luo Binhan thought he was targeting Farke instead of himself, so he still smiled and said: "How are you going to spend your time this week?"
Jing Huang finally turned to look at him: "What are you going to do?"
Luo Binhan happily pointed out to him that this week might be the last time they get together (Jing Huang snorted, sounding disapproving), so of course he had to do something more meaningful. He deliberately made several plans for outdoor activities, such as going to a children's playground or an ice rink. Jing Huang's gloomy eyes made him even more enthusiastic about going out. He turned to Yaleriga for support.
"Shouldn't we have formal team-building activities?" he asked in a dignified tone. "Shouldn't a family have a collective consciousness?"
Yaleriga agreed, her voice a little absent-minded. She continued to read with Momoluo without raising her head, her horns and bun completely blocking Luo Binhan's sight. Her response made Luo Binhan a little too proud, and he completely failed to notice that Zhou Yu was reminding him of the problem with increasingly obvious eyes.
But Luo Binhan ignored that scene. He was too immersed in the pleasure of causing trouble, and he was counting on someone accidentally smashing up his apartment in anger and having to compensate him for another space escape trip. He then asked Momolo if he agreed to the travel plan. To his surprise, Momolo raised his head with pure and confused eyes, obviously not knowing what happened in the conversation just now.
"What's the matter, Mr. Luo?"
Now Luo Binhan finally felt something was wrong. His eyes wandered for a while, and finally fell on the book on Momolo's lap. To be precise, he did not see the book, because Yaleriga's lowered head happened to completely block its contents.
"What are you looking at?" he asked slowly.
"It's the photo album placed in the living room, Mr. Luo." Momolo replied looking very sincere, "It's the one placed next to the TV."
Luo Binhan did not remember the existence of such a book. He didn't have the habit of taking and saving photos. He only had a thin photo album placed at the far end of his bed. He was pretty sure that the one Yareli's and Momolo were reading was much thicker. And why would he put the photo album on the TV cabinet? He didn't remember doing this yesterday. He didn't even pay much attention to the things on the TV cabinet yesterday. The place is very eye-catching, and just because it is so eye-catching, it prevents people from looking carefully. Everyone knows that the TV cabinet is a place where secrets are never hidden, not even in puzzle games, but the secrets of life are much more sinister.
He slowly turned his body and looked over Yaleriga's shoulder to see the contents of the album. At first he didn't recognize the older-looking photos—some of them were even beginning to fade. The characters above seemed to have nothing to do with him, most of them were middle-aged and old people. In the first photo on the upper left, there is an old woman wearing a cotton shawl sitting in front of the door threshold, holding a baby with bare arms in her arms. Her expression is a bit scary; in the opposite corner of the woman's photo They are two men standing side by side in front of a field. Their skin appears dark and wrinkled in the photo. The man on the left is staring at the camera with an unnatural expression, while the man on the right is much more relaxed. He had a smile on his face that was used to facing the camera.
Even though the photo itself has not been well preserved, his dangerous handsomeness is still impressive. He's the youngest on the page, and a little unfashionably fashionable, reflected in his well-groomed hair and shiny belt buckle. There is no doubt that this young man is very charming. People who meet him for the first time may think that he is not very decent, but they will not be disgusted by it. He wore a dark blue or jet black uniform and a hat with a metal stamp tucked under his arm. This outfit is indeed very majestic, but there is no actual necessity, and it inevitably looks a bit pretentious. This is a kind of high-spirited arrogance and showoff unique to young people. He seems to be younger than Luo Binhan's current age.
Luo Binhan stared at this photo for a while. At first, he didn't recognize who it was, but he thought the face was very unfamiliar. It doesn't look like a human face, but an abstract symbol. People will feel like this if they stare at a word for too long. Then he reasoned in his head: Look at this man's height. He is almost twenty centimeters taller than the middle-aged man next to him, and his hands and feet are flexible and slender, implying that he has an excellent physique and skill. His eyes were alert and showed a flexible mind. The eyebrows are like two moderately wide black knives, thick and sharp, while the bridge of the nose is raised high, and the end of the nose is slightly downwardly hooked, making him look very aggressive, but not to the point of being violent.
He observed these details and thought that this was a very distinctive nose, the essence of the face, just like the last stroke of a calligraphy stroke. Then he began to understand who the person in the photo was. The face, pale in the photo, immediately came alive in his imagination. He knew this person's gait and voice, and knew that when he was speaking at length, he would habitually put his palms together and straighten them, put them at his temples and raise them slightly, forming an action between a military salute and a farewell. That move made him look like he was in control of the situation. Luo Binhan could even imagine that when this person turned his head sideways, there was a slight bulge in the middle and upper part of the bridge of his nose, like a small slope on a steep mountain wall. Whenever he shook his head from side to side in the mirror, he could see very similar outlines appearing on his own face.
"Mr. Luo, what's wrong?"
Luo Binhan found that he had been looking at it for too long. But he didn't feel excited or nervous. He was just observing the image with a sculptor's indifferent attitude, wondering if he could still use a carving knife to chip away at the details of the old work. There's nothing to shave off, though. He grabbed the photo album into his arms and flipped through a few pages. He recognized part of the old house that could be called the "ancestral house", and it was estimated that all these photos were found there.
"It's not easy." He commented as he turned over the pages, thinking that perhaps one of his elderly relatives had passed away in the past two years. There is something relic-like about these photos.
He handed it to Momolo again. "It's not mine," he said with a light smile on his face. "I guess someone put it here. I didn't notice it last night."
Momolo looked a little uneasy, so he added: "It's nothing special...it's just put there for people to see, Old Mo. It's normal for you to open it and take a look."
"Are these photos of Mr. Luo's family members? Some of them look very similar to Mr. Luo."
"Maybe so." Luo Binhan said. He turned to look at Yaleriga again. Those golden brown eyes looked at him calmly and penetratingly, and Luo Binhan grinned back with a malicious smile.
"What do you think of these old photos?" he asked. "Did you see anything interesting?"
Yaleriga blinked but said nothing. She reached into the photo album and pulled out the two lines of small words on the back of the cover. The words were written in pencil and have been severely eroded by time. Luo Binhan squinted his eyes for a long time, and finally figured out that it was a motto:
Reason is the only light that illuminates people, and conscience is the only stick that guides people.
He immediately burst into laughter, too violent and sudden. Momolo almost jumped out of his seat. Jing Huang turned to him and said, "What's wrong with you?"
"I saw something funny." Luo Binhan replied mysteriously, reaching out to close the page.
Jing Huang's look showed that he didn't care at all about the contents of the album. He just glanced at Zhou Yu with a frown, as if the reason for Luo Binhan's nervous attack was written all over Zhou Yu's face. Luo Binhan put the photo album back next to the TV cabinet, still wanting to see the photo and the two lines of pencil writing. In fact, the two things may not have any connection, because the pencil writing has been blurred, and it is difficult to determine the characteristics of the handwriting. It can be written by anyone. All in all, now that the deal is done, why bother worrying about it anymore?
"Forget it." He said to himself pleasantly, and then turned to face the group of people on the sofa and the black dog squatting in the corner.
"I apologize," he said cheerfully and gracefully, "I must have given you a headache in the past two days...well, at least I have given Lao Mo a headache. I am a little out of shape, but this is just a small problem. You don't have to worry about what."
Jing Huang raised his chin a little higher to show that he was not worried at all. Luo Binhan looked at him with affectionate eyes until he became obviously angry.
"Mr. Luo," Momolo asked a little uneasily, "do you hate your hometown very much? I keep persuading you to come back and face something, am I too inconsiderate of your mood?"
"No, of course not. I love it here, and of course I want to come back here. There's just a little problem here that's bothering me. A very small problem. You'd be bored if I told you."
"I would never think that way!"
Luo Binhan stopped his eager confession: "I was about to say it, Lao Mo. There is no need to let this matter bother all of us, I will make it clear... This is a very simple thing, simple and boring."
He folded his arms across his chest and thought for a moment.
"Think of this as a story." He said in a dull tone. "Don't worry about its details and authenticity. There is nothing for you to deal with here. This is just my problem-once upon a time, there was a brother of yours. A colleague of mine, he happened to find clues to another crime while chasing criminals. A woman was killed because she was doing... well, she was living with a married man. Her lover was there at the time. She was a very powerful person in a certain area, and when they got into an argument, he pushed her out of the window and said she committed suicide by jumping off a building. No one wanted to get involved, but your brother's peers picked up on the clues. He He wants to pursue this matter, but... let's put it this way, he is on the murderer's territory, so this matter is not only stressful, but also dangerous. No one dares to help him, because most of them have families and families, And he felt it wasn't worth the risk to try to reverse the case for such a dead woman. In the end he had to go it alone. And that was basically suicide for his career."
"Are you saying someone wanted to kill him, Mr. Luo?"
"Maybe. I don't know... But after he took the risk and handed over the evidence, he could no longer stay in his original position, let alone be promoted. He had no choice but to leave, and he had to change his name. Last name. There was a female lawyer who had been secretly helping him during the process, so that he could pass smoothly in the end. After several years, the murderer was arrested for other things, and he could come back with a new name. He and The female lawyer met again and got married soon. No one knew that they had known each other in the past. In short, they became rich and there was no longer any danger in their lives."
Luo Binhan's eyes drifted into the distance. He saw a lumpy gray cloud outside the window slowly moving, sometimes covering the sun, sometimes letting it peek through the holes.
"They lived happily ever after." He said calmly, "——This is false. They all lived happily with others in the end. I don't think this is anything, but when I think about the beginning of this story and the ending of it, I always felt as if they were two completely different stories put together. There were actually four people in it, one pair at the beginning of the story and another pair at the end. And, Whenever I think about the place where these two stories are spliced, the middle section that has no climax at all, I will...will..."
Momolo looked at him and said, "You must be very sad, Mr. Luo?"
"No," Luo Binhan said in a calm and boring tone, "I'm very...ah, to be honest, I feel very surprised."
