Mocking him was one thing, but when they left the hospital, everyone still helped Ke Bu carry his luggage.
Outside the hospital, Wu Qian nodded to the others. “Our Ke Bu is going to trouble all of you again. Just treat it as doing Auntie a favor and keep a closer eye on him. If something like this happens again, my heart really won’t be able to take it.”
“This kid gives us headaches too, but don’t worry. We’ll train him properly.” Chu Hao Yu patted Ke Bu on the shoulder. Ke Bu slapped his hand away. “Who the hell put you in charge?”
Ke Qin had parked by the roadside. He had probably guessed that Ke Bu’s friends would come to pick him up, so he had borrowed a larger ten-seat vehicle from a colleague. Ke Qin looked at Wu Qian. “Everything for the discharge finished?”
“Mm.”
“The doctor confirmed Ke Bu doesn’t have any lingering problems, right?”
“I asked several times. The doctor was very certain that there’s nothing wrong with him anymore. Don’t worry. You’ve been running back and forth between both sides lately too. You must be exhausted.”
Ke Qin waved a hand. “You were the one staying with him most of the time. I barely did anything.”
“I think the person paying the bills had it hardest,” Wu Qian joked.
They no longer seemed like husband and wife. They were more like relatives or friends, talking naturally with each other. Without even Ke Bu noticing, the two of them had already forgotten the scars of the past. His original family had split apart, but the shouting, the arguments, and the heart-wrenching crying had stopped along with it. There were so many kinds of relationships in the world, yet so few people who could remain together forever. Sometimes, if both sides felt that separating was better, then perhaps separating really was the better choice.
Ke Bu remembered his younger self, stubbornly trying to put his family back the way it had been, stubbornly trying to push his parents together again, blaming them for never considering his feelings. But had he ever considered theirs?
“Dad, you don’t need to take time off work just to drive me back to school. I’m not a kid anymore. My little brother is still young. He needs you to spend more time with him.”
Ke Qin pressed his lips together but didn’t speak for a long time. Parents always passed something down to their children. It wasn’t only Zhi Li. Ke Bu was the same. Maybe his dislike of saying things that felt awkward came from Ke Qin too. Ke Qin squeezed the car keys in his hand, glanced at the group of friends beside Ke Bu, and finally spoke a little unnaturally. “Ke Bu, don’t ever think Dad loves your little brother more. How long have I known your brother? And how long have I known you? Don’t compare yourself to him anymore. When it comes to time and the weight of feelings accumulated year after year, no one can compare to you.”
Why had he ever envied Zhi Li? Why had he envied how special Zhi Li was in Lan Yin and Zhi Zuo Si’s eyes?
Wasn’t Ke Bu special in his own parents’ eyes too? Maybe one of the greatest flaws people had was how difficult it was to see what they already possessed. He kept saying he had no family. He kept saying he was unnecessary. Yet his parents had shown their love again and again. They had never abandoned him. They were always considering his feelings, afraid he would be hurt. What exactly was so pitiful about him? That old woman had been right about one thing. Divorced families were far too common. Compared with children whose parents truly ignored them, what did Ke Bu have to complain about?
A place deep inside Ke Bu’s heart, one that had long been covered in a thin layer of ice, was touched by the sunlight of this moment. Strangely, it hurt a little. Hurt enough to wake him up.
Maybe… maybe from the very beginning, he had misunderstood what the word home meant.
“All right, all right, everyone get in.” Ke Qin was probably embarrassed by what he had just said too, so he hurried them into the vehicle. Since they were taking Ke Bu and the others back to school, Wu Qian wouldn’t be going with them.
Zhang Luo was the last to get in. The moment he saw the situation, he asked Ke Qin, “Uncle, can I tell a story?” Ke Qin didn’t quite understand where the sudden question had come from, but he nodded anyway.
“Not everyone’s here yet, right?” Ke Bu asked lazily, too tired to argue.
“Who isn’t here?” Zhi Li asked as he suddenly climbed in too. Ke Bu jumped. “Stop appearing like a ghost! Why are you here? Everyone knows you’ve been accompanying Liu Qing, so nobody should’ve told you.” Ke Bu looked toward Su You Yan, who only gave a small shrug. Ke Qin, who had just fastened his seat belt, spoke. “I told Zhi Li.” Ke Bu froze for a moment but didn’t pursue it. Instead, he asked Zhi Li something else. “Everything okay with your grandma?”
Zhi Li tilted his head, thought about it, then finished thinking without answering.
“What kind of reaction is that supposed to be?”
“The reaction you’re looking at.”
“Show some respect for the person trying to tell a story!!” Zhang Luo had been ready for ages, but every time he opened his mouth, someone interrupted him.
“Fine, fine. Go ahead.” Ke Bu generously surrendered the time and space to the other two protagonists.
“Then I’ll skip everything unimportant and get straight to it.” Zhang Luo cleared his throat. “The story is called: Peh Peh, Darling!”
[“Countdown: three, two, one!” As the countdown ended, flames and thick smoke erupted beneath a spacecraft and it slowly began to move. Inside, astronaut Guo Zhi was strapped tightly into his seat. His mission this time was to investigate a newly discovered planet found by PISA. Since this was his first mission of this kind, he couldn’t help feeling nervous.
Was there life on the planet? If there was, what did it survive on? Would it be the same as him…? Everything was unknown, but Guo Zhi wanted to believe that this planet too would contain many things as beautiful as rainbows, just like his own world. Exactly how beautiful they would be, however, might exceed even Guo Zhi’s expectations.
After a long ten-day journey, the spacecraft finally landed. Once he had surveyed the surroundings and reported a string of boring data to his superiors, Guo Zhi finally opened the hatch. Wearing a language-conversion device, he stepped outside and was surprised to discover that this planet was remarkably similar to his own. There was air, there were trees… As he slowly emerged from the forest, his view opened up. Aliens with bodies shaped exactly like his own walked along both sides of the road. But…
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