Neverland

Probably because of being too mentally exhausted, Xu Muzhou's low-grade fever, which had improved somewhat, became violently severe in the second half of the night.

Yan Cen only slept briefly for less than two hours, and was woken up by the heat from the small stove next to him.

Yan Cen knew that his body temperature was lower than that of ordinary people, so he touched Xu Muzhou's forehead and felt that the other person was indeed a little hot.

It would have been difficult to squeeze two grown men into the bed, so Yan Cen decided not to sleep anymore. He got up lightly, tore off a long hem from Xu Muzhou's coat thrown out of the window, and folded it in his hands. After a few folds, he turned his head and opened a small window slit.

Before the cold wind from outside the window came in, Yan Cen stepped forward and stood in front of the window, and handed out the piece of coarse cloth in his hand.

I don't know whether it was the drizzle or the rising sea water that quickly wet the cloth, Yan Cen waited outside for a while, waiting for the cold wind mixed with the rain to soak the cloth, then retracted his hand in satisfaction, and fastened the window again .

He walked back to the bed, and put the simple physical fever-reducing patch in his hand on Xu Muzhou's forehead.

Xu Muzhou was shocked by the ice, frowned uncomfortably, and subconsciously stretched out his hand to grab a handful in mid-air.

Xu Muzhou's sleep was extremely chaotic this time, he had a lot of messy dreams in his sleep, one after another, illogical and jumping wildly.

In the dream, he was like an outsider watching everywhere. One second he was standing outside the orphanage watching a man drop his swaddling clothes, and the next second he walked to the door of their old dean's office, listening to the whispers coming from inside .

"This child is too young." The old dean's voice was muffled by the thick door panel: "...Did you call the police?"

"Reported." A female voice said: "But the chances of finding it are very small... Hey, I heard from people nearby that the one who threw the child seems to be a student."

The voice of the old dean was silent for a while, without speaking.

After a while, he sighed in embarrassment, and asked again: "Our youngest child is over three years old, and it is really troublesome to take care of the baby. Otherwise, we can discuss it with the hospital and find a way to find another one." The agency will take care of it."

"...Maybe it won't work." The female voice also sounded very embarrassed, and continued: "The child is not sick and healthy, and the hospital will not accept it."

"Forget it then." The old dean said, "Fortunately, it's a healthy child...and a boy, maybe it will be easy to be adopted in the future."

In the dream, Xu Muzhou's consciousness was a little dull, but he knew intuitively that the old dean in the room was talking about him.

It stands to reason that this conversation would only have happened during the period when he was just abandoned, but at that time Xu Muzhou himself was still a baby, and it was impossible for him to remember things, this conversation was more like buried deep in his consciousness What kind of reflection is it just displayed in this scene in the dream.

Xu Muzhou stood at the door and listened for a while, the voices in the room gradually died down, and after a while, the old dean suddenly opened the office door, Xu Muzhou couldn't dodge in time, and was caught by him.

In the dream, Xu Muzhou's emotional twists and turns became very pure, he was taken aback, and instinctively had the fear of being caught.

He took a step back shyly, only to realize that his angle of view became very low at some point, almost only reaching the old dean's knee.

So Xu Muzhou had to raise his head so hard that he could see the old dean's face.

"How did Xiaozhou get here?" The old dean squatted in front of him, patted his head, and said with a smile, "Shouldn't you follow the teachers to take a shower and change clothes at this time?"

The timeline in the dream was extremely chaotic, and it would suddenly jump at some point.

"I……"

Xu Muzhou opened his mouth, and found that his voice had become childish. He looked down at his hands, and found that they were a pair of young children's hands, who looked only two or three years old.

The old dean was obviously used to his awkward speech, and before he finished speaking, he supported his shoulders and turned him around, patted his back, and signaled him to leave the office door.

"The teacher will be anxious if he can't find you." The old dean said behind him: "Go back quickly."

Xu Muzhou shook his short legs, took two steps forward, and then looked back.

The old dean has re-entered the office and closed the door.

Xu Muzhou was trapped in a small body, but his consciousness was still that of an adult. He was affected by the dream, and he didn't even think there was anything wrong.

Although he was still young at that time, Xu Muzhou still had a vague memory of this matter.

The old dean told him to take a bath and change clothes because there was an "adoption event" this afternoon, which seemed to be the first time Xu Muzhou had come into contact with a similar event, probably to clean up all the children of about the same age, Then play in a good sized play room.

Outside the door of the activity room, there will be people who come to adopt children. They will confirm through observation that they have children they like, and then the teacher will bring them out for further contact.

The people who came that time were a very young couple. The man and woman looked too young, only in their early twenties. I don't know why they insisted on adopting a child.

That day, the couple picked the little boy in the bed next to him, that boy was much older than Xu Muzhou, he was already ** years old at that time, almost sensible.In fact, when adopting a child, most people would choose the younger one, thinking that it would be more agreeable to foster a relationship, but the young couple seemed to be too lazy to take care of their children, so they chose the older one.

This incident was originally just a very short episode in Xu Muzhou's young life, so much so that he had no idea about it other than wondering why his brother in the next bed didn't come back to sleep for two days.

And the reason why Xu Muzhou remembered this was because the boy was "returned" in less than three months.

When he came back, he looked gloomy and timid, curled up on the bed, with bruises on his exposed arms.

The young man and woman who sent him back were standing at the door of the activity room at that time, and said impatiently to the old dean who rushed over after hearing the news, that it was because the boy was "too bad".

In fact, when Xu Muzhou was a child, he was one of the few healthy children in the orphanage who were not sick. Although his nutrition was not very good when he was a child, and he looked a little thin and small, he was generally good-looking.

——It's just that Xu Muzhou didn't go.

Probably because of the influence of the boy in the next bed, Xu Muzhou was very distrustful of creatures like "adults" when he was young and ignorant. Whether the men and women he met were old or young, and whether they were dressed in luxurious or plain clothes, he instinctively resisted.

Children don't have to make any resistance, as long as they behave disobediently, don't answer questions, and look withdrawn, those who are not related by blood will naturally not want to make trouble for themselves and go back.

Later, when he was a little older and sensible, he felt that even his blood-related biological parents could abandon him, let alone a stranger who had never met him before.

——But the direction of the dream seems a bit strange.

The young Xu Muzhou sat on the stairs for a while, when he saw someone coming up the stairs, his life teacher was in front, followed by a middle-aged couple.

The young life teacher walked forward silently, picked up Xu Muzhou from the ground without any explanation, and handed it to the person behind him.

Xu Muzhou subconsciously wanted to struggle, but suddenly forgot why he was struggling.

He sank deeper and deeper into the dream, and when he was picked up by the man, he watched the face of the middle-aged man in front of him rapidly become younger, his slightly fat body began to stretch, and the straight suit on his body quickly faded. It ended up being a blue and white school uniform.

Xu Muzhou was at a loss, not knowing where he was, he was like a small boat on the sea, engulfed by a dream all the way forward.

The next second, the man suddenly withdrew his hand in horror and threw him to the ground.

"I can't, I—" the young boy yelled, "I can't have him, I'll be ruined if I want him!"

Xu Muzhou fell on the stairs, and a piece of skin was broken on his right elbow and knee, which caused burning pain.

The dream that was able to maintain normal operation was awakened by this scream, and it began to become bizarre, with layers of messy and illogical scenes, and Xu Muzhou suddenly felt that he had grown up, holding the annual scholarship on the podium After a while, he returned to the activity room of the orphanage, facing the life teacher, and loudly argued that he did not steal anything.

The only thing that remains unchanged is the young man's screams and shouts. Those sharp and piercing voices seem to be unaffected by the picture, and they continue to shout near and far in his ears, like a group of flies that have been magnified countless times. song.

Xu Muzhou had a splitting headache from the noise, struggling to escape from this never-ending cycle of nightmares.

But then, Xu Muzhou suddenly felt that his hand was being held.

The hand holding him was bigger than his palm, but it felt a little cold.

In the dream, Xu Muzhou subconsciously looked around, and there was no one around, but those annoying voices seemed to be taken away, and the distorted picture and stairs in front of him also became quiet.

So, as if he was grasping a life-saving straw, he firmly grasped that feeling.

Yan Cen looked at Xu Muzhou on the bed worriedly, the hand that pushed him had reached halfway, but for some reason he stopped tossing and frowning, relaxed his frown a little, and fell asleep again.

Xu Muzhou had been tossing too hard a few minutes ago, his face flushed abnormally, and he couldn't sleep peacefully, he tossed and changed his position on the bed.

Now it's finally getting a little better, Yan Cen didn't want to get up and leave him hastily, so he took off the warm cloth strip from his forehead, turned it over reluctantly, thinking about making use of it and using it for a while.

Seeing that Xu Muzhou finally slept peacefully, Yan Cen breathed a sigh of relief, and didn't want to wake him up again, so he simply pulled the quilt over, covered the hands they held together, and sat quietly Waiting for Xu Muzhou to wake up by the bed.