Chapter 25: I’ve Seen It, You Just Forgot
As he drew closer to the drawing board, his pounding heart beat more violently, as if it were about to leap out of his chest.
Stopping to look, the half-painted youth on the canvas was wearing a pure white school uniform. One could faintly see youthfulness in the outline.
Just based on that one eye—deep as the sea and lifelike—Jian An instantly merged the image with the youth in his memory.
That was what Ji Songting looked like at sixteen.
Something deep in Jian An’s heart was violently touched. He raised his hand to gently touch the face on the portrait.
The pigments on the oil painting were a bit dry, seemingly bearing the marks of time. Clearly, it had been painted for more than three or four years.
Moreover, he was all too familiar with this painting style and the way the character’s lines were sketched.
He hadn’t expected to see his former mentor’s work again after so many years, and in this way.
The man he loved most and the teacher he loved most—it was all like a golden millet dream; he had been unable to grasp anything.
Jian An just stood there quietly, his gaze fixed on the portrait. A thin sorrow overflowed from the bottom of his eyes.
Yet, as if possessed, his hand took the paintbrush and pigments from the table. His ears seemed to be wavering with a voice that wanted to fill in the other half of the youth’s face.
As if he were determined to make up for a regret.
The moment the tip of the brush in his hand touched the canvas, an anxious prohibition suddenly rang out behind him:
“What are you doing?! Don’t touch it!”
Jian An was startled by the sudden voice. The hand holding the brush jerked violently, accidentally leaving a light, shallow mark on the cheek of the portrait.
Ji Songting’s face changed. He walked quickly into the bedroom, pushed the youth away forcefully, and anxiously checked for the stain on the portrait. He turned and shouted in anger:
“Who told you to come into my room? I thought locking you up for three days would make you behave, but I didn’t expect you to still be so shameless. That is the only thing my mother left me! You killed her, and now you can’t even tolerate her last painting?!”
Seeing that Jian An was clearly speechless but still trying to explain, his eyes were cold. He stepped forward inch by inch, and the disgust in his heart was revealed without concealment:
“What? Feeling guilty? Seeing my mother’s things now, does it make you think of the scene where you hurt her? Are you so scared you can’t eat or sleep day and night?”
Jian An only felt his thoughts were in a mess, like a plate of loose sand, floating everywhere in his mind.
He turned his head slightly to look at the youth on the painting and said:
“No. It’s not like what you said. When I saw that painting, I couldn’t help but want to finish it…”
Hearing this, Ji Songting smiled contemptuously. He pointed at the oil painting by the window and looked directly at him, saying word by word:
“In this world, apart from my dead mother, no one else can finish it! Jian An, have you ever seen me at sixteen? On what basis do you say that?”
“I…”
I’ve seen it. You just forgot…
Jian An paused, and the words he was about to say became exceptionally difficult. Bitterness spread infinitely in his mouth.
“Get out! Get out!”
But Ji Songting didn’t appreciate it and forcibly pushed him out of the room, slamming the door shut.
The ousted Jian An hit his forehead hard against the wood, but he didn’t care about the pain. He was about to knock again to go back in and explain clearly, but he helplessly lowered his hand.
If he said it, Ji Songting wouldn’t believe him anyway, and it might easily invite unnecessary trouble.
“Songting, I will compensate you with a complete one.”
He spoke this sentence very softly at the door, then took a dejected glance at the door and turned to leave.
In the room, Ji Songting sat on the edge of the bed, carefully holding the oil painting. He slightly lowered his long eyelashes, which were like crow feathers. In his deep eyes, not a shred of his usual ruthlessness could be seen; instead, there was a pure, gentle gaze.
This kind of affection was rare and reserved only for those he loved.
But when his clean, slender finger gently and carefully traced from the youth’s eye to the cheek, that ugly brush mark deeply stung his eyes.
The warm side from a moment ago also vanished completely.
“Mom, you’re the one who clearly should have stayed in this world to enjoy life. Why did you have to go and lie in that cold grave? If three years ago you had just been in your room painting this picture instead of going to see Jian An halfway, would you still be alive today…?”
Ji Songting slowly closed his eyes, attempting to dispel those messy thoughts from his mind. His heart still constricted with pain.
He suddenly opened his eyes and said coldly to himself:
“No. With Jian An’s poisonous heart, since he didn’t succeed today, he will plan for tomorrow. You were truly deceived by his weak and pitiful appearance.”
A biting cold wind suddenly swept past outside the window, leaving a layer of frost on the glass. Then, without realizing it, snow began to fall.
Ji Songting put down the frame and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window. He frowned slightly, looking at the city’s vast white snow in a daze, and his thoughts were unintentionally pulled back to sixteen years ago.
“Hey! You in front, stop for me!”
Several young kids suddenly burst out from the alleyway next to the school and dragged the ten-year-old Ji Songting inside.
A little fatty of a similar age was a head taller than him. He blocked Ji Songting in the corner arrogantly, while three or four other followers surrounded the already small exit.
The pushed-down little Songting picked up the books from the ground, stood up expressionless, and then calmly patted the dust off his school uniform. His face, which had not yet lost its childishness, revealed indifference:
“I have no money. The school prohibits school bullying. I’m going to be late for class. Please move out of the way.”
“Today, I specifically won’t move!”
The little fatty spread his hands to block him. Two rows of tears suddenly welled up in his fierce eyes, and he said aggrievedly:
“If your dad hadn’t made my dad’s company go bankrupt, my dad wouldn’t have jumped into the river to commit suicide because he had no money to pay his debts…”
Noticing that there were still little brothers beside him who admired him, he immediately pouted and wiped his tears, shouting loudly:
“It’s all your fault! You son of a murderer! You and your dad should hurry up and go to jail! Stay there until you die!”
Hearing this, little Songting’s expression turned gloomy, and he said: “Listen, my dad is not a murderer, and I’m not the son of a murderer. Are you going to move? This is absurd.”
The fatty didn’t hold back; instead, he scolded even more vigorously: “You still dare to talk back to me? You are the son of a murderer! The son of a murderer deserves to have no friends!”
The other little followers also joined in the shouting:
“That’s right! The son of a murderer doesn’t deserve to live!”
The next second, little Songting’s fist hit the fatty’s face without mercy. His tone carried a warning:
“Shut up.”
The muscles on the other person’s cheek trembled a few times, and then a flush of red and pain spread quickly.
“Bah! You actually dare to hit me? You’ve got a death wish?! Brothers, beat him to death!”
The fatty had never suffered such grievance. He immediately urged the several children around him to swarm forward.
Several people were instantly entangled in a fight, punching and kicking the solitary little Songting. The scene was a mess.
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