10 Chapter 10: Bracelet_1

He got up and went to the study, where a vintage photograph was placed on the desk, identical to the one in the old house. Only this one was the original.

Yang Yi stroked the gold bangle on the woman's wrist in the photo, noticing the phoenix pattern and the old-fashioned style.

The woman in the photo was his grandmother. When he was small, his parents were preoccupied with their careers, and he lived his life mostly with his grandmother.

He remembered her always wearing this bangle, talking about his grandfather, telling tales about the days of poverty, supporting his grandfather's entire family. She sold her dowry, and his grandfather spent all his savings and only managed to buy her this gold bangle in his whole life.

His grandfather passed away early, and she would often sit all afternoon staring at the bangle, murmuring his grandfather's name.

She would say, she didn't care about the return of her dowry, what she really cared about was the premature departure of him.

The love of that era captivated Yang Yi, making him yearn and be obsessed by it.

Later, when his grandmother fell seriously ill, his sister, playful as she was, accidentally broke grandmother's bangle. Fearing his grandmother would come to know, he took it for repairs behind her back.

Just as it was repaired, news of his grandmother's demise reached him. He was hit by a fast car while walking along a narrow path, bangle in hand, and crashed into the roadside wall.

He was unconscious for almost a month and didn't get to see his grandmother one last time. The bangle was lost too, and he couldn't accompany her in her final journey or even at her funeral.

Later, he paid a visit to the hospital that gave him emergency treatment and, through surveillance footage, he found out that it had been Meng Xiao who had taken it.

When he approached her, indirectly asking about the bangle, she just pretended to not know what he was talking about.

As they spent more time together, he gradually began to like her. He gave her an opportunity, handing her fifty thousand yuan, expecting her to return the bangle out of respect for the money.

But Meng Xiao dodged the topic and gave the money to her little brother back in her hometown.

Yang Yi gradually became disappointed but couldn't give up on the tiny bit of affection he had for Meng Xiao, hence their relationship, which should have been him spoiling her, ended up with Meng Xiao suffering unilaterally.

Now, three years later, Meng Xiao has been constantly proving that she is not a greedy person, and his feelings for Meng Xiao are no longer just simple like.

He hopes they have a future, but he has never overcome the obstacle of the bangle.

He could have given his girlfriend anything, but Meng Xiao is not yet qualified.

…

Meng Xiao was awakened by the ringing of her phone—it was five o'clock in the morning.

The incoming call was a string of numbers which Meng Xiao recognized as Meng Xun's number. Agitated at being woken up, she hung up.

The phone rang again, and Meng Xiao hung up.

She hung up three times in a row, losing any desire to sleep due to the disturbance. Fearing the constant vibration would wake her roommate, she got out of bed to answer the call in the corridor.

"Meng Xun, would you stop?! I've already said we're not related, I'm not your sister!" They had not been in contact for three years, and she knew him well enough to know that something must be wrong for him to call her now.

"Hello, this is X City Central Hospital. Your brother was surrounded and beaten by a group of gangsters last night. A kind Samaritan found him lying on the side of the road this morning and brought him to the hospital. His current situation is very troublesome, please hurry over."

The cold voice of a middle-aged woman on the phone reported Meng Xun's dire situation.

Meng Xiao, unable to be ruthless, quickly got dressed and rushed to the hospital.

It was too early, and she had to take a long-distance bus. She arrived at the hospital after four hours of travel. Meng Xun was full of injuries, his face was swollen to the point where his original appearance was unclear. He had been placed in a general ward, his hand hooked to an IV drip, still unconscious.

"Are you Meng Xiao's guardian?" A nurse noticed her and criticized displeasedly. "How are you even a sister? Your brother didn't come home for the whole night and you didn't look for him, even rejected his calls."

It was evidently this nurse who had called earlier, expressing her dissatisfaction. Meng Xiao apologized, making the excuse that she had been busy.

"What could be more important than your own brother?! When he was brought here, he was barely breathing. You better find the doctor and ask about his treatment now." The nurse was clearly unimpressed by Meng Xiao, but "busy" was an all-too-familiar excuse in the hospital. Having vented her grievances, she told Meng Xiao to hurry and find the attending doctor.

The doctor was a middle-aged man, holding the x-rays taken of Meng Xun. He said, "Three ribs are broken, left forearm and right leg fractures, no excluding internal injuries. You need to pay first and finish the formalities for him. Then I will arrange a more detailed examination."

Meng Xiao nodded and went to pay and complete the paperwork.

When she returned after completing all the procedures, Meng Xun had already been taken for the examination. Meng Xiao sat alone in the ward waiting. A patient in the same room told her that Meng Xun hadn't woken up since he was brought in, the hospital couldn't find any family, so they had only done a basic examination, given him a glucose drip, and didn't look after him further.

Meng Xun's phone lay abandoned on the hospital bed. Meng Xiao picked it up—it was a gift from their father when Meng Xun started high school three years ago. When Meng Xun got a new phone, he gave her the old one which he had grown tired of playing with. Short on cash, she had been using it till now.

The exterior of the phone was worn out yet the inside was very clean, bereft of even a WeChat account. It seemed like he kept it with him all the time but didn't use it much.

She scanned his contact list to see if he had relatives who could come and look after him, as she needed to get back to school and didn't want to stay too long.

There were three contacts in his phone—his dead parents and her. There wasn't even a single school friend. The call log was very simple too; the most recent call was to her last night, and the one before that was from three years back, which she had made.

That was when she gave him fifty thousand yuan and severed ties with him over the phone.

Thinking about Meng Xun's shattered face freaks her out, and Meng Xiao is reminded of the call last night. He must have been beaten, but in his consciousness, he sought help from her.

A wave of silent sorrow surged in Meng Xiao's heart. What a fool he was, not calling for an ambulance, but turning to her for help.

The wallpaper of the phone was a fuzzy, blurry photo of four of them—the "Family of Four"—from when they were all very young. It was the time when their family first came together, the stepmother was still nice to her. Their dad was holding Meng Xiao, stepmother was holding the little Meng Xun. Back then he was still called Zhou Xun, following closely behind her, calling her 'sister'.

The photo had been taken off another photo and was somewhat blurry.

Meng Xiao stared blankly at the photo. Their dad was still young at the time, holding her hand, telling her the new woman would be her mother who would take care of her. As compassionate as the stepmother looked back then, she was equally ruthless when she sent her away without batting an eye.

She had even pleaded with her, insisting that she could sleep on the balcony and give the room to Zhou Xun. She wouldn't occupy a single bit of space.

But her father said that if she did that, the neighbors would laugh at him for not being able to provide for his own child.

Wouldn't the neighbors laugh at him for sending away his own child?

That house was the one her mother gave her life for, attempting to save someone's life, and it was given to them by the factory in compensation. If her mother had known that her own daughter would be kicked out of the house, would she have still saved that child?

Meng Xiao did not know. There was no one she could ask.