Raised by A Considerate Fighter Chapter 4

It’s too cold. No matter how sleepy I am, I can’t resist the chilly night in late autumn.

Simon sat on the futon, wrapped in the big coat that the man had given him, and stayed as close to the brazier as possible, occasionally adding a stack of paper money into it, relying on this little bit of warmth.

The yard was very quiet. The eldest aunt and the others said that they would be busy tomorrow. After seeing off the last guest, they went back to the house to rest. Before entering the main room, they reminded him again that the incense must not be cut off.

Simon was so sleepy that he was confused, but his ears were sharp. When he heard footsteps, he immediately opened his eyes, his heart pounding, and his mind uncontrollably appeared the images of gods and ghosts he had heard of before. He was three parts terrified and holding back a bit of fear. He glanced at the three incense sticks on the incense table, his face still expressionless, but his heart was filled with a little more anxious anticipation.

The footsteps were getting closer, there was a shadow, I looked up, and the unspeakable expectation turned into surprise.

Owen was also surprised. He didn't expect that this child was the only one left in the mourning shed.

Simon watched him walk in, squat down beside him, then lowered his head without saying a word, staring at the brazier in front of him.

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Owen looked calm, not knowing what he was thinking. After a while, he took the initiative to ask, "Why don't you go to bed?"

Thinking that he was still wearing someone else's coat, Simon replied for the first time: "Shou Xiang."

"They left you alone?"

Simon understood what this meant, turned away, but said nothing.

Owen was silent alone. After a while, he reached out and pulled over another cushion next to him and sat down next to the child.

Neither of them said a word, just sitting by a pot of fire that was about to go out to keep themselves warm. As they got closer, the heat rose up, and Simon began to feel drowsy again, his eyelids blinking intermittently.

At this time, Owen next to him suddenly said: "If you are sleepy, go back to sleep. I will keep watch for you for a while."

His words hit the critical point of Simon's sleep, and in a moment of distraction, the child was startled and came back to life.

Simon did not respond, but reached out for a stack of papers and threw them into the brazier.

However, Owen understood the meaning of "no" from the action of "throwing".

In the deep night, an adult and a child, guarding a fire and three incense sticks, actually spent most of the night like this.

In the second half of the night, Simon could not hold on any longer and fell asleep with his legs curled up while sitting on the futon. It was a habit for Owen to stay up all night to finish his designs. Two cups of extra-strong drinks would keep him going all night. Thinking about what would happen after daybreak, he was thinking about whether he should ask the kid what he thought first. But when he turned around, he saw Simon curled up into a small ball with his head buried in his arms. He was sleeping soundly in this extremely insecure self-defense posture.

So he had to give up the speech he had just prepared. On second thought, it was useless to ask. No matter whether the child was willing or not, it would not change the Lin family's decision to kick him out of the house.

Owen sighed secretly, and when the incense on the incense stand was about to burn out, he took out three sticks to replace it.

Simon slept so soundly that it seemed like only a short while had passed. When he was awakened by the sound of the main door being pushed open, he discovered that the eastern sky was already turning pale.

He turned his head suddenly, and a breath rose to the top of his head, then fell lightly and exhaled in a corner.

The incense was still burning, and a thick layer of ash had accumulated in the incense burner, thicker than before he fell asleep last night.

The eldest aunt's family also got up. Today they were going to bury his father. The time agreed with "Da Cao'er" was early. After washing up, Jack came out of the main room with a white belt tied around his waist. He walked to the entrance of the mourning shed and said to Simon, "My mother wants you to have a meal. I'll take care of you."

Simon didn't say anything. He stood up from the mat unsteadily and staggered as he walked out of the mourning shed.

After entering the main room, the eldest aunt and the others were still sitting at the table. Simon washed his hands in the washbasin, walked silently to the stove, took a bowl, filled it with porridge, and returned to the table to drink.

He was still wearing Owen's coat, which was too big and the sleeves were too long, making it inconvenient to hold chopsticks, so he took it off in the heat of the main room, thought for a moment, and then rolled it up on his legs, not putting it down in the end.

The eldest aunt and her family left the table after they finished eating. Simon drank two bowls of porridge with pickled mustard tubers and ate a small steamed bun. She put down her bowl only when she was full. She cleaned the table as usual, scooped two ladles of water into the big pot on the stove, and washed the dishes for the whole family without anyone telling her to.

When he finished cleaning up and walked out, a lot of people gathered in the yard. Those who didn't come to the banquet last night came today. After a while, "George" waved at him, and Simon walked over holding the suit jacket.

"Da Cao'er" is also from the same village, about fifty years old, and used to have a good relationship with Simon. When they met, his father would always greet him as "Uncle". If Simon was there, he would let him call him "Grandpa Zhang". At this time, after explaining to Simon for a long time, he still couldn't get the child to say a word, so he couldn't help but feel anxious, "Lin family boy, did you remember everything I told you?"

Simon said nothing, waited for a long time, and nodded slightly.

Back in the mourning shed, Simon knelt down on the mat again, facing outwards, at the various faces outside the canvas on both sides. At this time, "George" shouted again: "Why are you still holding clothes in your arms? Put them aside!" After saying that, he bent down, walked into the shed and reached out to take them away.

Simon stepped back and dodged.

"Da Cao'er" was anxious: "This child, why don't you let go? What's wrong with you?"

Simon ignored him, thought for a moment, turned around, got another cushion, pushed it to a corner, and put his coat on it.

He ignored people and didn't talk, and was quite stubborn. Seeing him like this, "George" was at a loss as to what to do. He sighed heavily, turned around and left the shed.

The funeral was only held today. Relatives who lived in the same village and were within the fifth degree of mourning took turns to attend. According to custom, sisters could not wear mourning clothes when their brother was buried, so Simon only pinned a white flower on her front. She cried so hard that she almost fainted as she watched the waves of people coming to pay their respects. Henry and He Zhou stood on both sides of her, supporting her. One of them sobbed, while the other simply refused to pretend, with his eyelids drooping and no expression.

A row of people stood at the entrance of the mourning tent, and "Da Cao'er" shouted: "Bow once, bow again, bow three times---Thank you, filial son!"

After each "Thank you, filial son", Simon would kowtow to the ground.

After half a day, he couldn't remember how many times he hit his forehead on the ground.

Before the funeral, Henry specially consulted a fortune teller to check the time. He said that holding the funeral at around 10 a.m. would be "auspicious", so after the last kowtow, "George" stuffed a porcelain bowl with ashes from burning paper money into Simon's hand, and placed a red brick in front of the mourning shed, shouting: "Throw the mourning basin!"

Simon threw the porcelain bowl in his hand hard onto the brick. With a "bang", broken porcelain pieces flew everywhere, and paper ash and smoke rose up.

Simon turned around, picked up Simon's urn, stood at the front of the funeral procession, and walked away step by step.

Samuel watched the funeral procession leave the door, shook his head and sighed to himself: "Such a young child, pitiful."

After not sleeping all night, Owen's face didn't look very good, and the dark circles under his eyes were a little obvious. Hearing these words and looking at the crowd that was getting farther and farther away, he thought to himself, more than that.

There were more things to pay attention to at the cemetery. By the time Simon's ashes were finally buried and Simon followed the crowd back home, more than two hours had passed.

It's funny that today is the day of the funeral, but Simon and his wife didn't even prepare the last meal.

The funeral processions left one after another, the mourning shed was dismantled, and the originally cramped and messy yard seemed to become a lot emptier all of a sudden.

Simon took off his mourning clothes and removed Simon's portrait from the table. He wanted to go back to the west wing, but then he remembered something and looked up suddenly, only to find that the cushion where the coat was placed was empty.

He ran into the main room holding the photo. Simon and Henry were sitting cross-legged on the kang counting their share money. When they saw him come in, they first stuffed the money in their hands under the kang mat, and then asked fiercely: "What are you doing? You are running around the room with your father's photo. You shouldn't put it where it belongs!"

Simon pursed his lips and said nothing. Even though he was such a young child, his eyes were cold. The fingers that were holding the photo frame were shaking, and his nails were pale.

Maybe the look in those eyes was too cold, Simon finally couldn't help but asked again: "What's the matter with you?"

"Clothes." Simon finally spoke, his voice was so hoarse that it was inaudible, "Did you take the clothes in the mourning shed?"

"What clothes?" Henry asked in a calm and unfriendly tone, "The shed has been demolished, where are the clothes?"

Simon stopped talking, looked around, and after a moment, asked again: "Where is He Zhou?"

"That's your brother! Who are you referring to by name?" Simon scolded.

What an eight-year-old child has experienced in the past few days, those turbulent emotions that are never revealed have already reached the limit. Simon doesn't know what he should do or what he can do. He only knows that the area in his heart is so blocked and painful that he wants to shout, scream, and roar. He wants to smash to pieces everything he sees and touches.

But he didn't, he just swallowed hard and added: "The clothes belong to someone else, I have to return them."

"What do you mean by someone else's? Who are you going to return it to? It's just a torn jacket. I don't care if I throw it away!" Henry got anxious when he heard this and shouted, "Besides, if they want to return it, it should be his family returning it to our family. They owed a life, so they have to pay it back!"

At this point, Simon slapped her thigh and said, "Oh no, where is the man surnamed Shen? He must have run away!"

After saying that, he started rummaging through his pockets, looking for the business card that Samuel had left behind last night.

After all, she was just a child. Simon looked at her impatient and flustered appearance. No matter how angry he was, he finally felt a little aggrieved. "Aunt, are you really going to give me away?"

Simon finally found the business card. Hearing this, she paused holding her phone, looked at Henry next to her for a few seconds, cleared her throat, and reluctantly changed her tone: "Baoer, it's not that your aunt wants to give you away, it's that your aunt really can't afford to support you. Tell me, your father is gone, there's no one to earn money at home, your brother and sister still have to go to school, from now on... your uncle and I can't do anything about it."

After a pause, seeing that Simon was still looking at her expressionlessly, tears welled up in her eyes again: "Your father is kind-hearted, and he has been sensible and obedient since he was young. You should let him be. You have to understand the difficulties of your aunt. Although we have the same surname, there is an old saying that 'a married aunt is like spilled water'. When I die in the future, I will be buried in the old He family's cemetery. My aunt, my aunt is not the head of the family... Besides, that's a rich family. You will enjoy a peaceful life when you go there. When you grow up and want to come back to see your aunt, you can come back anytime. We will always be a family!"

Simon didn't say anything and didn't express his opinion. He just looked at her with a pair of dark eyes. His eyes were so calm and terrifying. It was not until Simon felt a little panicked that he uttered a word.

"If you send me away, I will never come back."

After saying that, he ran out of the house holding the photo. No matter how Simon shouted at the window, he did not look back.

Simon ran out of the yard, not knowing where to go or who to find. He instinctively didn't want to see that family, nor did he want to follow Mr. Shen. As he ran, he thought, since he had nowhere to go, he would go find his father.

Suddenly, the figure in front of him flashed, and Simon couldn't stop his rapid steps, and bumped into the arms of the person opposite him.

He instinctively took two steps back, and as soon as he looked up, he saw the "Mr. Shen" he had just been talking about standing in front of him.

Owen lowered his eyes, looked at Simon, then looked at the photo in his arms, and asked: "Where are you going?"

Simon pursed his lips tightly and said nothing. He wanted to walk around him, but before he could move, the next second, the wrist holding the photo was grabbed by him.

"Little boy," Owen called him, "come home with me."