equal love

Shanghai is four or five hours away from Huangshan Mountain.In addition, the orphanage is not in the city center, but in a suburban county.

So when Ai Jun arrived, it was already afternoon.

She hadn't eaten all the time, and Ai Jun was hungry, but she didn't care so much, so she got off the car to find the staff.

Ai Jun was received by an aunt surnamed Liu, in her fifties, with gray hair and deep wrinkles around her eyes. The temple of her glasses by her right ear was wrapped with scotch tape a few times.

Aunt Liu asked: "You said Lu Qijiu, he is no longer in the orphanage, he has moved out for many years."

Ai Jun said, "Do you know where he went?"

Aunt Liu looked at Ai Jun secretly, and asked vigilantly: "Who are you? What do you want him for?"

"I'm his friend." Ai Jun took out her mobile phone, and wanted to let Aunt Liu see the call records, but then realized that the phone was out of battery and turned off.

Ai Jun lied in a hurry and lied: "I came to Huangshan to play, but my mobile phone was turned off, so I couldn't contact him. I remembered that he said that he was in this orphanage, so I had to come here to find him."

Aunt Liu said: "Are you really his friend?" Her tone was actually very gratifying.

Ai Jun nodded, "That's right."

Aunt Liu's attitude immediately eased a lot, and she began to rummage through boxes and cabinets to find things, saying, "He finally has friends, it's really not easy!"

"That child, I watched him grow up. When he was a child, because he had a harelip, other children liked to make fun of him and nicknamed him, ugly little rabbit and so on."

"There is only one little girl who doesn't bark. That girl has always protected him from being bullied by others."

"I have seen him kiss that little girl since I was a child, and I have never seen him have any other friends."

"Oh, what a pity, that little girl was later adopted by people in the city. The two of them lost contact."

"At that time family planning was strictly enforced. Many families gave birth to girls and couldn't raise them, so they secretly sent them to us at night. He was even more pitiful. It is said that he was thrown in the middle of the road. Fortunately, there were few cars back then, otherwise he might have died early. was crushed to death."

"There are many children, and we don't have the heart to name each child. Usually, we can only call them serial numbers. After the children are adopted, the adoptive parents will name them, or they will name them themselves when they grow up."

"You know what Xiaojiu looks like. Even if his lips are not in the way, he can't be considered a normal child. So even though he is a boy, no one wants to raise him, so he has been living with us."

"He happened to be No. 679 in our yard, so he took that name for himself."

"Even though he doesn't talk, he's really smart. That year he got the first place in the junior high school exam, and the teacher liked him very much. But he dropped out of school after only one year, saying he found a part-time job. Never came back."

Lu Qijiu's childhood was summed up in a few words.

Aunt Liu rummaged through several cabinets and several drawers, and finally found a thick stack of papers.

"Oh, when you get old, you lose your memory. It was hard to find it."

Ai Jun took it over and saw that it was all express orders.

Aunt Liu said: "He hasn't been back since he moved out. But he sends back things almost every month. Pencils, watercolor pens, notebooks, snacks, etc. Although there are not many, they will definitely be sent every month. Look, is there his address on it?"

Ai Jun flipped through a few sheets.

These were all things that Lu Qijiu bought online, and sent them directly from the store to the orphanage.

Aunt Liu may be old and doesn't understand online shopping, thinking that these were sent by Lu Qijiu from home.

Seeing Aunt Liu's eager smile, Ai Jun nodded, "Thank you. Can you give these to me?"

Aunt Liu smiled and said, "What do you want these things for? I keep them as souvenirs. If you want them, take them away!"

Ai Jun carefully coded the stack of papers.He took out his wallet, took out all the cash in it, and neatly clipped the courier slip in.

Ai Jun handed the money to Aunt Liu: "This is my kindness, please accept it."

Aunt Liu hesitated.

Ai Jun said again: "Buy some food for the children."

Aunt Liu took it over, and asked with a smile, "If you give it to me like this, you won't be afraid that I will hide it secretly?"

Ai Jun solemnly said: "It would be better if you can hide it, then I will repay Lu Qijiu for your kindness of nurturing in those years."

Aunt Liu's eyes were wet, "With a friend like you by Xiaojiu's side, I feel relieved!"

Just as Ai Jun was about to go out, she turned around and said, "Aunt Liu, can I have a meal here tonight?"

"The food here is simple. You look like you are either rich or expensive. I'm afraid you can't get used to it!"

"Will not."

Lu Qijiu has been eating for so many years, and I only have one meal.

I just...wanted to experience his old life.

Aunt Liu was busy taking care of a few babies, and Ai Jun walked around the orphanage by herself.

A few children were playing hopscotch, and in the distance a little girl with a yellow and thin face was behind the pillars of the horizontal bar, sucking her thumb and looking at them eagerly.

Ai Jun remembered a famous photo: big eyes eager to read.

And in this little girl's eyes, apart from longing, there is more loneliness.

Was Lu Qijiu back then the same as her?

Because of her birth defects, she could only hide in the corner and watch other children silently.

Or, it may be that Lu Qijiu is not just hiding in a corner and watching, but he also has to face ridicule, insult, and teasing from others.

Moved out at 13.

What can a 13 year old do?

When Ai Jun was 13 years old, she was still pulling the ponytail of the little girl in the seat in front of her. She could organize the whole class of boys to fight against the neighbors for a position on the basketball court. Every day she thought about what to have for dinner and how to skip class. , How to attract the school belle's attention.

But when Lu Qijiu was 13 years old, she had already started to live on her own ability.

Ai Jun has been interviewed by many media, talking about the hardships of starting a business.

Looking at it now, those so-called hardships seem so ridiculous.

After the dinner bell rang, the children lined up from childhood to adulthood. First, they washed their hands carefully under the tap, then lined up with their lunch boxes to eat, and then walked to the fixed seats, sat down to eat in a proper manner.

The staff of the orphanage hadn't eaten yet.

Aunt Liu and several others patrolled around.There were some very young children who couldn’t handle the chopsticks well, so they taught them patiently from the sidelines; some half-grown children were anxious to play after eating, so they ate hungrily, and Aunt Liu said a few words.

There were more children, all of whom focused their attention on Ai Jun, a stranger, with eyes full of curiosity and expectation, but also faint fear.

Every child longs to be taken away and has a home of his own.

Ai Jun does not consider herself to be a soft-hearted and charitable person, but facing such a scene, he still feels greatly touched and deeply powerless.

Under the pressure, Ai Jun filled the meal and found a seat to sit down.

There are only two kinds of dishes in the canteen, stir-fried cabbage and shredded carrots.

For his picky taste, the rice was too dry, the cabbage too bland, the stems too hard, and the leaves too limp.But he ate it anyway.

Ai Jun is a picky eater, and usually never eats carrots, but now she picks up some carrots and tastes them.

After eating, Ai Jun said goodbye and left, and the mobile phone was charged in Aunt Liu's room.Before eating, Ai Jun asked someone to check Lu Qijiu's current address, and Ai Jun just received a call after leaving the orphanage.

The other party reported an address, and Ai Jun was about to drive there.The other party said again: "Mr. Ai, do you want to go find him now? Mr. Lu is not at home now, he is in the People's Hospital..."

Ai Jun interrupted: "Is he sick or injured?"

Without waiting for the other party to answer, he said, "Forget it, I'll go directly to him."

Ai Jun asked about Lu Qijiu's ward at the nurse's station, and walked over there.

Opening the door of the ward, Ai Jun was a little shocked.

There are three beds in the ward, and two of them are babies, all grinning and crying loudly.

Well, really grinning.

These two children, like Lu Qijiu, were born with cleft lips.

Surrounding each hospital bed were four or five parents, trying to divert their children's attention with various toys and snacks.But the two children cried more vigorously than the other, as if they were in a competition.

In the innermost part of the ward, next to the window, a thin figure sat on the bed and fiddled with his mobile phone.

It was as quiet as if it didn't belong to this world.

It wasn't until Ai Jun walked to the bed that Lu Qijiu found him.

Lu Qijiu's nose was covered with thick gauze, and only the upper part of her face could be seen.The eyebrows are the same as on the ID card, very thin and light.The eyes seem to be shorter than ordinary people, so the upper and lower distances appear to be very wide.In addition, he stared at Ai Jun with wide eyes at this time, those two eyes were like glass balls, round and round.

Judging from the exposed face and hands, Lu Qijiu's skin was extremely white.Different from the fairness of Caucasians, Lu Qijiu's skin revealed a sickly paleness.

Ai Jun introduced herself in the most amiable tone in her life: "Hello, I am Ai Jun."

Lu Qijiu looked puzzled, and Ai Jun explained: "It's the king in the game."

Seeing that Lu Qijiu still didn't speak, Ai Jun said: "It's in "The World of the Tang Dynasty". Are you Liu Qi?"

Lu Qijiu nodded, and took out another mobile phone from beside the pillow.

Not today's smart phones, but old-fashioned phones with buttons and tiny screens.

Ai Jun paid attention to the sign, a string of letters she had never seen before.

It seems that this phone is still fake.

Lu Qijiu pressed a few times, only to hear a clear female voice from the phone: "Are you here to find me?"

Ai Jun asked, "Can't you speak now?"

Lu Qijiu nodded.

The mechanized recording did not have any ups and downs. Only now did Ai Jun understand what the company employee said, the tone was so strange and too calm.

Ai Jun lied cheekily again: "I heard that you were hospitalized, so I came to see you. Are you... having an operation?"

Lu Qijiu still nodded.

The baby in the middle bed was probably not to be outdone, and suddenly raised another voice, covering up all the sounds in the ward.

Ai Jun frowned.He can't say he hates children, but he definitely can't say he likes them.Naturally, he can hide as far as he can from such a crying child.So I went out immediately to find someone to change to a superior single ward.