novelraw Chapter 239: Unfilial
Chapter 239: Unfilial
"Hey, I heard the eldest son of the Jiang family suddenly ran back home and then committed suicide!"
"My god, this young person... young people nowadays are too fragile."
"Yeah, not like our older generation. We old folks are so resilient, able to endure any hardship. Young people these days commit suicide at the drop of a hat..."
Jiang Si, squatting nearby, tilted his head to glance at the two old men chatting.
"Resilient where? The resilient old generation that guzzled down Paraquat until it got discontinued."
Jiang Si sighed beside them. "What a pity, such a good herbicide."
The two old men who had been playing chess looked at Jiang Si but didn't recognize him—after all, Jiang Si had that accident back then, stayed in the hospital for a long time, and was later taken away by Lu Ya. Neighbors who weren't particularly close didn't all know him.
"Young man."
"What kind of talk is that... Are you saying we old folks can't endure hardship as well as young people?"
Jiang Si stood up and patted his legs. "Paraquat is indeed very bitter. You guys were quite good at eating it."The two old men immediately looked disgusted and moved their chess table away.
Jiang Si didn't chase after them, just watched the vehicles coming and going on the road.
He held his own Miracle Seed in his hand.
After pulling out his heart, he retrieved the Miracle Seed, but couldn't transform.
The purple Miracle Seed was dim.
He touched his chest; his heart was still beating, as if the heart-to-heart talk with his father in the funeral hall was just an illusion.
He didn't stay there long.
He had no interest in wasting time with the police or discussing inheritance with his brother again.
He shouldn't be found in a short time. After all, there was no Colonel Chu here to ambush him. Reporting it higher up would probably take quite a while.
There was still plenty of time. Jiang Si wasn't in a hurry.
After leaving the park, he went to take a look at the school.
The school had a few more buildings. The railings, the main gate, even the playground had been renovated.
When he approached, the school security guard instinctively came to shoo people away, but seeing Jiang Si, he hesitated.
"Jiang Si?"
Jiang Si looked up at the not-so-young security guard, thought for a moment, but couldn't remember who he was.
"Wow, it really is Jiang Si! How come you haven't changed much, kid?"
The guard seemed to want to chat, rambling on.
But when the school bell rang, the guard just waved his hand. "Be careful. Don't get hit by a car again."
Not intending to stay at the school long, after leaving, he went to the place where he had been hit by the car.
The alley was gone, completely renovated into a wide road.
The houses on both sides had been demolished. He didn't know how much compensation those people got.
Jiang Si didn't linger too long either. He followed the path his brother mentioned, crossing streets, roads, and passing through a market.
Some places hadn't changed, but mostly, a lot had changed.
The place where he was born and raised had ultimately become an unfamiliar city.
He came a bit too early.
He thought.
More rushed than he had anticipated.
So much so that facing this unfamiliarity, he even felt a bit tired.
The road wasn't easy to find; the place he once lived was remote.
But luckily, he soon saw a familiar lane.
Even though he walked through it in the snow back then, now without snow, he still recognized it.
Sometimes, in an unfamiliar city, finding a corner that remains in your memory inevitably brings a sense of familiarity.
He walked forward. Finally, there were people in the houses on both sides.
Snoring, conversation, the clatter of bowls and chopsticks, the noise of a stove burning, and boiling water.
The smell of cooking oil smoke that wafts every evening when people start cooking.
Although the overall layout hadn't changed, many rooms had been renovated. In his childhood, they were dilapidated shacks, even mud huts. Now many were covered with brand new tiles.
Some had even been rebuilt into two-story small houses.
Cats and dogs strolled leisurely on the road. When Jiang Si passed by, they stood up warily, some barking a couple of times, some running away.
He just glanced at the place where he had thrown away the dead cat.
There was no garbage pile anymore. Some flowers and plants were planted there. Butterflies and bees could be seen flying. The morning glories were blooming quite vigorously.
In the shop with its door open nearby, the owner sat at the entrance, peeling edamame, occasionally angrily scolding the child playing with a phone inside, cursing and telling the kid to come out and help.
The child came out reluctantly with the phone, the sound of gunfire from the game echoing in the small lane.
An aunt on the second floor opened her window and splashed a basin of dirty water on the road. The uncle next door shouted "Hey!" a couple of times, and the two sides started arguing.
A little girl squatting by the roadside playing with cats and dogs looked up curiously at Jiang Si passing by.
In the world of Magical Girls, he rarely paid attention to these things because he could fly wherever he wanted to go. He wasn't interested in these mundane trivialities.
But here, having to walk everywhere, he could only watch these trivial daily scenes and feel bored.
Only when he reached the end did he see a familiar house at a corner.
That was the house his father used as an alchemy room.
It was also where the family of three lived for a long time.
Back then, when his father almost died from eating elixirs, his mother ultimately softened her heart and came back to take care of him.
Finally, his father turned over a new leaf, clearing out all the elixirs, alchemy furnaces, and books from the house.
He originally planned to sell them, but for some reason, they appeared in the funeral hall.
But after that, Jiang Changshou indeed never touched alchemy again, never spoke of seeking immortality and the Dao.
The family's life later gradually got back on track.
Now this once dilapidated alchemy room had actually been renovated too, not as crude and shabby. Of course, compared to other houses in this lane, it still wasn't great.
When he pushed the door open, an unpleasant smell came from inside.
The room looked like it hadn't been cleaned for a long time. Spider webs, dust, dishes with congealed grease on the table.
Then came a heavy, weary cough.
"Who is it?"
He stepped into the house and closed the door.
"It's me, Mom."
The coughing stopped. After a while, the old woman on the bed struggled to turn her head and look.
Her somewhat cloudy eyes, he didn't know if she could still see.
But she didn't need to see.
Just hearing the voice, the aged woman said tremblingly, "Is it Jiang Si?"
"Yeah."
He casually cleaned up the table a bit, then pulled over a stool and sat by the bed.
"I came back to see you, Mom."
The old woman tried to sit up, but Jiang Si pressed her back down.
Lying on her side, she turned her head, stretched out a withered, aged hand, wanting to touch him. "It really is Jiang Si... Jiang Si... son, why... haven't you grown taller? Haven't you been eating properly?"
Jiang Si lowered his head, took her hand, and let her touch his face. "I just didn't grow up."
"Didn't grow up... good. Didn't grow up, good."
She murmured, touching her son's face, then tears flowed down the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. "Mom missed you so much, son."
"Yeah."
"Why didn't you come back to see Mom?"
"I will in the future."
"In the future... Mom won't be able to see by then..."
"You will." Jiang Si just said flatly. "You'll see."
"Good, good..."
The already confused old woman couldn't understand his words, just murmured in agreement.
She started mumbling some things Jiang Si couldn't quite hear clearly, her voice getting smaller and smaller until it became snoring.
The old woman's stamina wasn't good. Just saying these words seemed to have tired her out.
When his mother fell into a dazed sleep, he got up, went outside to find a basin, and boiled some water.
Then he wiped the filth from the old woman's body and changed the bedsheet.
The immobile old woman looked like she couldn't get out of bed anymore, couldn't control her excretions.
He remembered when he was little, after his grandfather passed away, his grandmother lived in their house.
Back then, his grandmother was also old. Sometimes at night, if she wasn't careful, she'd wet the bed.
Then in the morning, she wouldn't dare get up, just covering herself with the blanket, as if trying to dry the urine by keeping it covered.
He remembered seeing his grandmother clutching the bedding tightly, with a look of confusion, fear, and timidity on her face. He just didn't understand it back then.
His mother just smiled, changed her clothes, the bedding and sheets, and said it was okay, weren't we all like this when we were little?
Just repeating like that.
After changing the sheets, bedding, and cleaning up, his mother was changed into new clothes.
He settled his mother on the bed, covered her with the quilt, and quietly looked at that aged face full of wrinkles.
Not long ago, he just saw his still-young mother in his memories. Now, she was already old and frail.
While his mother slept, he searched the kitchen. There was still some rice left. There was no refrigerator in the house; the vegetables had all gone bad.
So he went out to the shop to get some vegetables and snacks.
There was quite a bit of condolence money from the funeral. He took some when he left, after all, he'd need money.
When he finished making hot porridge, paired with some snacks and pickled vegetables, and brought it over, his mother had already woken up.
"Son, are you still here?"
"I'm here."
Jiang Si sat down beside her again, holding the porridge, blowing on it. "Eat something."
"Mom's not hungry."
"Eat even if you're not hungry."
"Oh." The old woman obediently opened her mouth like a child, eating the hot porridge fed by her son. "You... cleaned the bed? Don't bother with these..."
"It was easy."
"The bed was too dirty."
"It was okay."
As she ate, his mother started crying again. "Mom... is sorry to you."
"Getting senile?" Jiang Si frowned. "Eat properly, sleep."
"Back then, Mom thought you might not recover, so I had another child, had your brother..."
"What's the problem?"
"Later, when you were in the hospital, Lu Ya took care of you all the time. Mom rarely went to see you, always taking care of your brother. Later, my heart was all on your brother. I didn't even know when you and Lu Ya left the hospital..."
Jiang Si didn't know what she was apologizing for, just found it ridiculous. "Eat."
His mother lowered her head, sobbing as she spoke. "Mom just... didn't take good care of you. You shouldn't bother with Mom either."
He fed her while saying, "Stop talking nonsense."
He still had plenty of time, not short of this moment.
Taking care of his mother was just a trivial matter for him.
Cleaning, taking out the trash, washing his mother, listening to her ramble about his brother.
Actually, Jiang Si wasn't very interested, but if the old woman liked to talk, he let her.
The next day, Jiang Si went and bought a special commode for the elderly, so she could use the toilet right by the bed, which made things much more convenient.
In the middle, when money ran a bit short, he went to find his brother again.
Got some money back.
This unfamiliar brother yelled at him, thinking that while their parents were alive, he didn't come to take care of them, but as soon as they died, he came to fight for the inheritance. Not only didn't help with their father's funeral, but also caused trouble at it.
He was simply a beast.
Jiang Si didn't pay him any mind. After all, blood relations...
Without the bond of shared life, they were just meaningless trash.
He was just taking his own money.
This cheap brother was too much of a nuisance, so slapping him once wasn't a big problem.
He bought food, bought some clothes his mother used to like, and bought himself a jacket—when he was little, his mom was annoying, always liking to make Jiang Si change into new clothes to show her, probably enjoying this kind of boring thing.
Sure enough, when he went back and changed into the jacket, his mom's cloudy eyes lit up.
She even sat up quite energetically, touched his face. "My son is so handsome."
Every time he changed clothes, she'd only say this same sentence over and over.
Guess Mom wasn't very educated, not just with web novels, but didn't read many books either.
Days passed like this day by day. His mother seemed to have endless things to say.
Telling him about a dream she once had, dreaming of Jiang Si, dreaming Jiang Si committed suicide. Waking up, she was scared into a cold sweat. Telling him about how she promised Lu Ya back then that Jiang Si would marry Lu Ya, that Lu Ya would become the Jiang family's daughter-in-law.
Then she talked about his father's regret before he died, regretting taking those elixirs and ruining his health.
Talked about how that brother changed after having his own family. Neither their father nor mother wanted to take care of them anymore.
Even though the brother didn't say it, his wife and her family had strong opinions about the parents on this side.
The old woman sighed. Back then, the bride price money given was too little. Unable to hold their heads high, even living together, they endured disdainful looks.
After the father died, living in that house, the mother suffered greatly and felt very lonely. She missed the house they used to live in.
Maybe it wasn't really missing the old house. She just simply missed home.
But after the father died, the mother no longer had a home.
So she returned here, living alone, never bothering the brother again, and the brother never came to see her either.
The old woman didn't want to trouble her child, and the child indeed saw the old woman as trouble.
But, at least he would hold a funeral.
That should be enough, right?
Even if it might be delayed for a few years.
Regarding his mother's rambling, Jiang Si occasionally responded. When he didn't feel like responding, he just listened quietly.
The old woman's health grew worse and worse. In the end, she spoke less and less.
Had a doctor check. It wasn't any serious illness, just simple organ aging, bodily functions gradually reaching their end.
Sometimes, Jiang Si sat in the room, watching her all day without a word. The room was so quiet only breathing could be heard.
As usual, washing her body, cleaning up urine and feces. Even with the commode, sometimes at night it still didn't work.
Quietly listening to her breathing, gradually growing weaker.
"Son."
One day, his mother suddenly woke up, struggling to grab his hand. Very forcefully. That withered hand even gripped Jiang Si until it hurt a little. "Mom... Mom wants to go up the mountain, up the mountain, see the sea, okay? If not... forget it."
After saying this sentence, she breathed rapidly.
Jiang Si just picked her up. "Let's go."
It wasn't very far. Outside the city, there was a mountain. Opposite the mountain was the sea.
His mother always said before, when we have time, let's go up the mountain to see the sea.
But in the end, Jiang Si actually never went with his mother.
Because they were always busy, always had no time.
This delay dragged on until now.
Took a car to the foot of the mountain, bought a wheelchair at a shop nearby.
But pushing a wheelchair couldn't go up, so Jiang Si carried his mother with one hand and carried the wheelchair with the other, climbing up.
When they were on the path, it started to snow.
He remembered in his memories, when his mother carried him out of his father's alchemy room, laughing and joking, his mother even sang him a song.
So Jiang Si recalled and hummed that song from back then.
His mother was only occasionally awake now, mostly unconscious.
Jiang Si carried her, dragging the wheelchair. When they reached the mountainside, his mother suddenly woke up, laughing with a hoarse, aged voice. "Oh my, this snow, why does it always drift into my son's neck."
Maybe because she was out getting some air, his mother's speech became much smoother.
"Son, stop carrying. Carry Mom on your back."
Jiang Si said "Oh." Although he didn't understand why she was being fussy, if the old woman liked it, he switched to carrying her on his back.
"Mom will block the snow for you, hehe..."
Not sure what she remembered, his mother started laughing to herself.
Jiang Si couldn't help but smile too.
The mountain wasn't very high, only about a thousand meters. Carrying his mother up wasn't very tiring. On a snowy day, not many people were on the mountain path. By the time they reached the summit, there was almost no one.
The view suddenly opened up. Miles of sky spread out before them. Snowflakes dotted the air. A few eagles circled in the sky, crying out long calls.
On the other side of the mountain was the turbulent sea, surging amidst the snowflakes. The sound of waves echoed in the mountains, distant and ethereal.
Looking down, the world was magnificent and beautiful.
Just as Jiang Si finished setting up the wheelchair, he heard his mother, who had been in poor spirits, actually let out a long cry like the eagles too.
It made Jiang Si pause in surprise.
"Haha, son, you cry out too. At the mountaintop, crying out feels good."
The wind was strong. His mother spoke with effort. Jiang Si, while settling his mother into the wheelchair, let out a cry.
"Your voice is too soft, not even as good as your old mom's."
His mother laughed like a child.
Jiang Si just nodded, pushing the wheelchair to the other side of the mountaintop.
His mother gazed blankly at the turbulent sea below, at the dancing snowflakes weaving the plain white of heaven and earth.
Like a grand funeral, with wreaths and elegiac banners spread across the mountain peaks.
"Son."
The corner of his mother's mouth twitched. Saliva involuntarily flowed. She tilted her body. "Are you cold?"
"Not cold."
Saying this, Jiang Si took off his newly bought jacket and draped it over his mother, casually wiping away her saliva.
His mother tremblingly stretched out her hand, reaching beyond the mountain peak.
Below was the turbulent sea. She caught the snowflakes.
"Jiang Si."
"Yeah."
"Son."
"Yeah."
"My little treasure."
"What?"
"Nothing." His mother murmured. "I just... wanted to call you. Si'er, Little Si, Eldest..."
As if enumerating family treasures, she called out all the nicknames she used for Jiang Si in the past.
Jiang Si patiently responded to each one.
"Mom has a dream."
"Tell me."
"Mom always wanted to go to the bottom of the sea. When I was little, Mom really liked the sea floor. Back in school, the teacher asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up. I said, when I grow up, I want to be a diver." The old woman spoke, then chuckled to herself. "Back then, everyone thought your mom was crazy."
"Not really." Jiang Si thought about it. "The sea floor is very dark, also very cold. Easy to develop claustrophobia."
"Your mom isn't afraid of that."
His mother said cheerfully, tugging at the clothes on her. "When dead, I won't be afraid."
"After Mom dies, send Mom to the sea floor, okay, son?"
The sound of waves below crashed against the mountain rocks, like roaring.
"Oh."
So his mother laughed happily.
"When I was little, watching you throw away that cat, I thought, in the future, my son will definitely be able to help me fulfill my wish. Only my son..."
Murmuring, her voice gradually grew softer.
The snow also began to lessen.
"Son."
"Yeah."
"Before, Mom said, I hope you can be my son again in the next life. Next life, I will definitely do better, become a more perfect mother. That sentence..."
"I take it back." His mother said hoarsely. "You should meet better parents. Richer, more understanding, more loving parents. Let you live happier, grow taller. Not parents like us..."
The whistling wind blew snowflakes that stuck to the corners of his eyes. Jiang Si looked into the distance.
The dense dark clouds covering the sky cracked.
Magnificent sunset glow spilled from the gaps in the clouds. The lingering sun was like blood, burning the clouds until they churned, making the sea surface boil too.
Brilliant, turning into a sea of fire.
"No need. My parents being you is fine." Jiang Si said softly. "I'm used to it."
His mother reached out, grabbing his hand. "Then... there's no helping it."
"Yeah, no helping it. Used to it." Jiang Si just went along. "Other people, not used to it."
The setting sun fell on his mother's face. Her smile was warm, blissful happiness. "Being used to it, that's really good."
The vast world gradually began to grow quiet.
The sound of waves and wind faded into the distance. Snowflakes no longer fell. The cold covering the ground began to melt.
The lingering sun was slowly dragged into the sea at the horizon. The world fell towards the abyss.
But the sunset was still gorgeous, resplendent.
"Son."
"Yeah."
"The sky has turned completely dark. How will you go down the mountain later?"
Jiang Si looked at the burning red sky. "I can see."
"Ah? Is it that Mom can't see anymore?"
"No, it's that the sky is dark."
"I see."
His mother bathed in the last rays of the setting sun, on the high mountain, slowly fell asleep. "You... go home early, Jiang Si. Go back to sleep early. Don't stay here too long, you'll freeze..."
He stood beside her. His mother's voice began to fade until it could no longer be heard.
Her body temperature gradually lowered on the mountain, as cold as the snow. Even that heartbeat stopped.
The wind howled, blowing his mother's pale hair. Her closed eyes were peaceful, as if she were just sleeping.
Until finally, the sunset vanished, the world turned into an abyss.
"The sky is dark."
He said.
Pushing the wheelchair, he walked his mother, who would never wake again, to the edge of the mountaintop.
Below, the sea churned with white foam.
"Good night."
He pushed the wheelchair over.
Falling into the deepest sea floor.