Pastel Colours

Day0721:00

He Zhiyuan heard the news of Bubu's illness during the regular call at night.

Songran originally intended to conceal it to the end. He knew that He Zhiyuan would not be able to fly back for a while. If he knew that Bubu was ill, he could only worry about it in the distance. But he overestimated his concentration. As soon as the phone was connected, He Zhiyuan's magnetic voice came into his ears. He was like a leaky water bottle with seven or eight eyes, leaking out all the secrets.

After the leak, he worked hard to remedy it, saying that Bobo had gone from fever, so He Zhiyuan must not worry.

This is not a lie.

Bu Bu is really good. He talked with his father in Songran's arms. He spoke crisply and was particularly energetic. It's just that the sick child is more or less vulnerable than usual. As he chatted, he suddenly pressed his mouth and rolled down two strings of tears.

"Paba, I miss you so much," Boob said with a sob, "I haven't seen you for a long, long, long time."

Mr. He has been on business for a week, and for a four-year-old child, this is a long enough separation. Songran hugged Bobo, comforted him with his body temperature, bowed his head and kissed his little cheek.

The rest of the time belongs to the father and son, Songran accompanied him, listening to He Zhiyuan's kind words to comfort Bubu, occasionally adding a few words just right.

He Zhiyuan promised to return to China on April 18th, and Songran cooperated and said that he would draw a calendar with hollow footprints for Bubu. Bubu took a colored pen every day, and when it was full, his father would go home. Up. He Zhiyuan said that when he came back from a business trip, he would tell Bobu stories every night, and Songran cooperated with him and said, let’s pick out the stories we like one by one, and let Dad tell whichever story we want to hear then.

It is amazing that young children always have precise recognition for sincere care, and children who are bathed in love will never cry for too long.

Bubu quickly stopped his tears and said to the other end of the phone: "Paba, you come back early, brother and I... well, we are all waiting for you."

"I will." He Zhiyuan said, "You also have to listen to your brother, take care of your illness, and tell him where you feel unwell, understand?"

Bubu nodded: "Okay."

It was half past nine after finishing the call, and it was time to go to bed. Songran checked the spread of acne, dozens of scattered, not too serious, so he left a cup of warm water on the head of the bed, put a small pillow in his arms, and patted his back gently. , Coax him to sleep.

When I came out, the mobile phone on the coffee table was vibrating.

It is He Zhiyuan's number.

Songran was surprised, bent over to pick up the phone and connected to the phone: "Mr. He?"

"Song Ran, I just remembered something and I need to confirm it with you." He Zhiyuan said straightforwardly, "Have you ever had chickenpox before?"

"what?"

He Zhiyuan emphasized his tone: "You should know that chickenpox is very contagious. If you did not have chickenpox when you were a child and lack antibodies, you should stay away from Bobu now."

"This...this is okay." Songran leaped into the sofa and said dismissively, "Didn't I talk about it before, I have a large group of younger brothers and sisters. There are so many children in the family, one has acne and the other I have to follow along, I will definitely get it."

To be honest, Songran has been indifferent to the word "lucky" since childhood.

He has lived in the orphanage for ten years, and the children are stumbling all the way to the age, and he will have to take a turn for any bad luck. If this physique can get away with chickenpox, he doesn't believe it.

It's a pity that his "reasoning" is too far-fetched, and in He Zhiyuan's eyes, it is completely beyond the limits.

He Zhiyuan asked again: "Are you sure?"

Songran smiled: "It's not very sure, but it should be..."

"There is no ought, there are only ‘get it over’ and ‘not over it.’" He Zhiyuan's attitude was persistent, not allowed to be fooled, and his tone became harsher than ever. He raised his wrist and glanced at his watch, calculated the time difference, and said, "It's less than ten o'clock. I shouldn't be asleep at home? Songran, please call your parents to confirm, otherwise I'm worried."

Songran was stunned: "To... to parents..."

He Zhiyuan keenly caught a slight strangeness: "Is there a problem?"

"No, no!" Songran hurriedly concealed, "Then...Should I hang up first?"

"Okay." He Zhiyuan said, "remember to send me a message after asking."

After hanging up the phone, Songran sat alone on the sofa, holding the phone, and rubbing her knuckles in silence.

One cannot lie.

The first lie has to be filled with hundreds of subsequent lies, and the more you fill it, the more holes you leave. When loopholes can no longer be filled, lies will be ruthlessly exposed.

He beautified the experience of the orphanage, pretending to have a lively big family in front of Mr. He, so now, he was pushed into a new predicament-at ten o'clock in the night, the staff of the T city orphanage had already left work. Who can you call? Even if it really gets through, who will remember if a child who left seven years ago had chickenpox?

No one will remember.

there has never been.

Ten minutes passed in a blink of an eye, and Songran couldn't drag it any longer, and his fingers flicked rapidly on the buttons, sending out a message.

"Ask mom, I have had chickenpox."

He fixed his gaze on the phone screen and saw that the information bubble's logo changed from "sent" to "read". After ten seconds, a new white bubble popped out - "Okay, I can rest assured Up."

Songran threw the phone aside, closed his eyes, and exhaled wearily.

The next day, Bubu had a fever, his body temperature dropped to 37 degrees, and his appetite basically returned to normal. After eating breakfast, Songran took him to the balcony to soak up the sun and kill the germs by the way. He sat on a velvet cushion in a little yellow duck pajamas, read picture books for a while, played a ball game with the cloth bags, and stepped on each other's tails. play.

Ducks have short tails and cats have long tails. Boob has the advantage of species. He can win by twisting his **** flexibly, and he is in a good mood.

Songran stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room and called the T City Welfare Institute.

He wants to confirm his medical history.

City T is a small city in the fourth and fifth tiers of an inland province. The children's welfare home occupies a small area, the buildings are short, the facilities are poor, and the quality of the employees employed is uneven. The uncle from the archives room arrived fifty minutes late in the morning, soaked a jar of crude leaf tea, spread out the mimeographed magazine, tore off a page of advertising paper and rolled pancakes to eat, and quickly became immersed in the **** story of the senior official and the mistress. So when he was interrupted by an unknown phone, he gave a very unpleasant "tsk".

Songran politely clarified his intentions, and the uncle chewed on two pancakes and perfuncted him with a strong local accent: "Come, cross, no one of our children has a cross."

I just wanted to hang up.

"Wait! Can... Could you please help me to check it separately?" Songran quickly asked, "Ms. Jiang said before that our medical records will also be kept on file. It should be in the archives."

The uncle's face was immediately unsightly.

He put down the pancake heavily, pushed the magazine with the bust of the actress aside, opened the registration form, and asked very impatiently: "Name, age, year of admission."

"Song Ran, singing praise, of course, 23 years old, admitted to the hospital in February 2001."

The uncle scribbled down the information and threw away the pen: "I will check it now."

He said so, but the actual action was to open the magazine, find the previous article "Senior Officials and Mistresses, A Bloody Rose Trap" and read on. Five minutes later, he finished reading this dog-blooded cliché story and opened his mouth to curse Sum Niang, only to remember that Songran was still hanging on the other side of the phone, so he picked up the receiver, and said, "It's over, you have chickenpox."

Songran didn't hear the moving of the desks and chairs, and didn't hear the sound of walking. He only heard the turning of the paper pages nearby. He naturally felt puzzled and asked, "When did I get it?"

I lost my patience over there and got angry directly: "What's the matter with you kid? If you say you have it, you can. I only check it once, believe it or not!"

Then, the phone was hung up.

Songran put down his phone, looked at the pitch-black screen, and shook his head mockingly-seven years later, the orphanage was still the same, unchanged, and it made people feel chills across the phone.

A long time ago, there was a faded banner hung at the entrance of the welfare home in Songran's memory, with slogans such as "belonging to the big happy family of children". Adults always like to say, this is your home, you are brothers and sisters, and the teachers are fathers and mothers, how happy life is. On New Year's and holidays, TV stations and newspapers routinely come over for interviews. As long as they can guide the children to face the camera and say "the welfare home is my home", the task will be successfully completed.

But every child knows that the orphanage is not a real home.

The concept of "home" is too slender and too fragile. It is like a glass sculpture held on pearl velvet, and a small impact will make it shattered. Sometimes, when the children are about to believe, words of over-compassion, close to humiliation, a cold-eyed who cares and dislikes secretly, or become sick like today, ask the uncle in the archives room to help them. I wake up immediately and realize-this is not home.

No matter how many decorations are on the wall or how many bouquets are on the table, this is not a home.

Song Ran raised his head and looked through the floor-to-ceiling windows on the twelfth floor. Opposite them were rows of very similar glass windows. He turned his head to look at the balcony again, and a blurred beam of sunlight penetrated the clouds and evenly spilled into the room. Bubu hugged the big fluffy hair ball, barefoot, and fell asleep curled up under the overhanging bluebells.

He walked quietly, sat beside the child, and covered him with a small blanket.

So, what is home?

Home should be such a place, where some people who accompany each other live, one person's life will become the common memory of others. Your family will remember when you had chickenpox, whether you had a fever, whether you shed tears, and how you survived each day until you recovered. When you grow up, you have lost the fragmentary and vague memories of your childhood, and only your family will keep them intact for you.

Because I remember each other, I won’t be helpless wherever I go.

Songran reached out and poked Bubu's round face.

it's okay.

Although no one has collected the memory of him, he is now not sure whether he has ever had chickenpox, but he and Bubu have been together for so many days. It is a small grasshopper on a rope. After being infected, why worry too much.

Now, taking care of Bobo is the most important thing.