Aunt Ge looked up: "Yue Yue?" She looked at Chi Yue who had taken off her mask: "When did you come to Qingyang?"
"today."
"Where are your dad and the others?"
"No more."
Chi Yue's expression was calm.
She met those lifeless eyes and suddenly saw the other person clutching his chest and letting out a heartbreaking cough.
There was a water glass on the bedside table, and she handed it to Aunt Ge. After she stopped coughing, she said a few words of care.
"Yao Yao, you go out first." Aunt Ge sat up straighter and said without refusal, "I'll have a few words with Yue Yue alone."
Ge Qinyao nodded hesitantly.
She walked out of the bedroom, and Chi Yue looked at the haggard Aunt Ge quietly, mistakenly thinking that she meant to let herself and Ge Qinyao support each other and take care of each other in the future.
Who would have guessed──
"Yueyue, our family is not as well off as before. Yaoyao and his two siblings not only have to take care of me as a patient, but also have to take care of the food and drink of the family. The burden is really heavy."
"Auntie knows it's not easy for you to be alone, but the situation in our family is not optimistic either..."
Aunt Ge ordered it.
She knew that Chi Yue was a smart person and could understand her refusal and give up staying with the Ge family or seek help from the Ge family.
"Auntie." Chi Yue said expressionlessly: "My husband and I were just passing through Qingyang and came to see Qinyao."
The atmosphere suddenly became awkward.
Or maybe Aunt Ge felt embarrassed.
She covered her lips and coughed twice, pretending that she had not declined politely, and asked her with a smile: "Is your husband here too?"
"Um."
"Where do you live now?"
"Source City."
After rambling on and on, Chi Yue's patience ran out and she got up and left the bedroom on the pretext of not disturbing the other person's rest.
"Yueyue, what did my mother talk to you about?" Ge Qinyao saw her coming out and held her arm affectionately.
"She asked me to take good care of you."
Chi Yue didn't mention those self-righteous words.
She adjusted her mood and reminisced with Ge Qinyao, chatting about each other's experiences. It was not until lunch time that the doors of the other two bedrooms opened one after another, and she saw Uncle Ge and his family.
The Ge family rents a three-bedroom apartment.
Uncle Ge and his wife occupied one room, their son and Ge Huai shared the same room, and the remaining room was reserved for Ge Qinyao and her daughter.
"Qinyao, who are these two?" Uncle Ge saw two unfamiliar faces at first glance and looked at them curiously.
"my friend."
Ge Qinyao introduced them one by one.
She often mentioned Chi Yue. Although Uncle Ge's family had never met her, they had heard about her many times and were deeply impressed.
The two sides chatted for a while, and she looked at Aunt Ge, who was in charge of supplies: "Auntie, shall we have sausage fried rice for lunch?"
"We've finished eating the sausages." She glanced at Chi Yue and her husband and said lightly: "Now there are only compressed biscuits."
"How is that possible? I..."
Halfway through her words, Ge Qinyao suddenly understood that the real reason why she lied was that she refused to let Chi Yue and the others eat at home.
Her chest heaved with anger.
They rushed to Uncle Ge's bedroom and found that they had locked the door. They asked, "What do you mean?"
Uncle Ge and his son did not say a word.
Aunt Ge walked outside Aunt Ge's room and said in a loud voice: "Sister-in-law asked us to take care of the supplies. We must lock the door. What if someone steals it?"
"Others? I think it's me you're guarding against, right?" The anger she had accumulated in her heart suddenly burst out, and she kicked the door shut.
The movement was huge.
Aunt Ge, who had never missed their conversation, yelled through the door: "Yaoyao, what are you talking about?"
"I didn't make a fuss!" Ge Qinyao couldn't stand it anymore: "Why should the supplies my brother and I found be given to them for safekeeping?"
"You...you come in!"
Aunt Ge started coughing again.
Ge Qinyao, who couldn't let it go, clenched her fists and glared at Aunt Ge fiercely, then entered the bedroom unable to hide her aggrievedness.
Ge Huai followed her uneasily.
Uncle Ge was so proud of himself that he didn't know how to get along with outsiders who had witnessed the dispute, so he took his wife and children back to the bedroom.
The candlelight flickered, and the two reflections on the wall swayed slightly, then returned to calm after the wind blew by.
Chi Yue and Wen Qizhou, who were sitting side by side, fell into a lengthy silence as they listened to a burst of sobs mixed with grievances.
I don’t know how much time passed before the sobbing stopped.
Ge Qinyao, who was holding a slap mark, and Ge Huai, who had an indistinguishable expression, walked up to them and smiled in tacit understanding.
They were just about to sit down when Chi Yue, who was feeling depressed, took a deep breath and said softly: "Let's go downstairs to eat."
"Where to eat?"
"In the car."
They got on the off-road vehicle, Chi Yue took out four boxes of self-heating rice from the space, and Wen Qizhou turned on the lights in the car.
Warm light poured down, and she tore open the package of self-heating rice and looked through the windshield at the streetlight that was lit in the distance: "Are you planning to keep that family forever?"
"Won't."
The brother and sister said in unison.
Ge Huai said with a cold face: "In half a year, I will take Yaoyao and leave Qingyang."
They hate their current life, and are even more tired of facing relatives who are comparable to leech. If not for their mother's repeated requests, they would have abandoned that family on the way to Qingyang.
Tolerance so far is the limit.
When their mother dies, they will never let the locusts crawl on them, suck their blood, and gnaw their flesh.
"Yeah." Chi Yue didn't mention that family again, so as not to affect their mood: "When the time comes, shall we go north together?"
Ge Huai was slightly stunned: "Okay."
He knew very well that fighting alone would not work in troubled times. Only by joining them would the safety factor be higher.
"Going north? Are you going to Jing City?" Ge Qinyao's eyes lit up, and her previous worries turned into joy at this moment.
"yes."
"Will Chi Yunyan and the others be together?"
"Probably not." Chi Yue took two mouthfuls of rice into her mouth, talked about the people who would be traveling with them, and briefly described the personalities of Yan Shuo, his wife, and Xie Changxiao so that they could understand them.
Unconsciously, after finishing lunch, she raised her wrist and stared at the dial, ready to return to the Taoist temple with Wen Qizhou.
On the eve of their departure, she handed Ge Qinyao a backpack full of supplies: "There aren't many things, so take it first."
"Thank you Yueyue."
Ge Qinyao did not refuse.
She leaned her upper body forward, approached the co-pilot and kissed Chi Yue's cheek: "I'll go to Yuancheng to see you in a while."
"No need." Chi Yue didn't want her to take risks. She pondered for a moment and then said to her, "We will come again next month."
"when?"
"At the end of the month."
After agreeing on a time to meet, Ge Qanyao and Ge Huai, who was carrying a backpack, got out of the car and reluctantly said goodbye to them.
"Yueyue." She pursed her lips tightly and waved to them with concern: "You must pay attention to safety!"
Chi Yue smiled: "I know." She told them a few words, closed the half-opened car window and left the base with Wen Qizhou.
