Chapter 41

"You know I was once a second lieutenant. Do you want to know what happened before that?" Chen Li asked again.

"Yes."

"I... probably don't have a father, and I haven't seen my second biological mother. There was a woman who raised me. Her name..." Chen Li didn't say the name directly, but wrote two words in the palm of the hand of the smoker.

The smoker was stunned and stopped. He frowned and looked surprised. "Write it again."

"It's the person you think of."

"Are you her son?"

The smoker guessed that Chen Li's life experience must be unusual, but he could never have imagined that Chen Li was the son of that person.

"Legend" is not worthy of being an adjective for her life. The last general, who had made great achievements during his lifetime, and predicted the person of the Mayfly Era - Chen Ming.

"Maybe not, she never let me call her mom."

"Then how did you... run to the sea?"

Chen Li was fished out of the sea by the counter-revolutionaries. He was also there and witnessed the miracle.

"She died. Not long after she died, her sister, whom I should call aunt, asked me to retire and go back to get married. She announced my gender and everyone in the regiment knew it."

"I couldn't stay any longer, and I didn't want to go back to get married, so I jumped off the carrier."

Talking about such a tragic past, Chen Li was still calm, as if he was telling someone else's story.

Yan Qiang unconsciously tightened his hand on Chen Li's shoulder. There were tiny emotions in his eyes, full of pain.

"Do you miss her? Your mother." Yan Qiang asked in a deep voice.

Chen Li shook his head, "No, compared to her, I think her sister is much gentler."

"That's the one who forced you to jump into the sea." There was a hint of anger in Yan Qiang's voice.

"She is a lunatic. The first thing she did after she gained power was to drive her own sister out of the central city and send her to guard the border for ten years. So compared to her cruelty to her sister, her sister is not cruel to me. She just asked me to go back and get married."

"Your big family is really... complicated." Yanqiang didn't know what to say for a moment.

"Her sister told me that she is dead, so you should stop hating her, but I can't do it." Chen Li shook his head.

"Is it because she did something that disappointed you?" Yanqiang asked cautiously.

"Disappointment?" Hearing this word, Chen Li's eyes suddenly became a little distracted.

"I don't have parents, I don't understand the mother-child relationship. Maybe you expect too much from her, so you are disappointed. Parents may not know how to treat children." Yanqiang was incoherent.

"No, I have no expectations for her, nor am I disappointed."

"I wasn't born like this," Chen Li suddenly smiled, thinking of his past self, he found it funny, "There were times when I was so weak that I couldn't even walk properly. I was also afraid of the dark and hunger. But what's the use of being afraid? What's coming will still come."

"People say she is a genius, and she is indeed a genius. You know that geniuses think differently from ordinary people like us."

From this moment on, Chen Li's tone suddenly became brisk, but the content of his words made people even more shocked.

"Once, I don't remember exactly when it happened, I was still very young, and I forgot the reason, but I remember that both my legs were broken, three pieces on the left leg and four pieces on the right leg. That was my first broken leg, and it was so painful. I couldn't sleep, and if I couldn't sleep, I couldn't get up in the morning, and if I couldn't get up, I would be late for training, and she was very angry, she felt that I shouldn't be late."

"I hadn't shown weakness to her for a long time, but that day I couldn't bear it, and told her that my legs hurt and I couldn't sleep, so she took me to the 'hospital'... Later I found out that it wasn't a hospital, but her laboratory, she Tell the 'doctor' to cut off his pain nerves."

Yongqiang's face was full of horror, "So you don't have pain nerves?"

Chen Li was amused by him and shook his head, "The doctor didn't dare to cut it out. He might not be alive."

"But she insisted on doing it, and even put on the surgical gown herself. Then her sister suddenly ran out to stop her. The two of them almost fought in the laboratory. Just think about it, two women of prominent status scolded and pushed each other, which was very funny." Chen Li did laugh, and he laughed very happily.

Yongqiang's scalp was numb, and his chest was stuffy and painful, and he couldn't speak.

"She must have hated me at that time, because I was cowardly, soft, and didn't know anything. I didn't look like her son at all... So in order to make her like me more, I trained and studied hard, but she was never satisfied. If she was disappointed, it was probably because she was disappointed in me."

"I thought she was born with a cold and bad temper and was unreasonable to everyone, but she liked the little girl from the Wen family very much. Once, the little girl stepped on her new shoes and made her embarrassed in public, but she didn't get angry. Instead, she hugged her and kissed her and comforted her."

"I was so jealous that I felt like a fool. I should have exposed her to the media and said that she abused children. Maybe I could have her suspended for investigation for a few days." Chen Li said angrily.

The smoker stopped.

This rainbow roaming road seemed to be endless. He took a deep breath and felt a little dizzy. He couldn't bear Chen Li's story for a while. How painful it would be for the protagonist of the story.

"Later, I joined the army at the age of fifteen. My gender and age were faked, and my name was not made public... But in the end, it was made public by her sister, damn it." Chen Li's statement became more and more rude.

"I did very well in the army. No matter where I was, my grades were very good. I was never second."

"I thought she would gradually accept me, but when I went home, everything was the same as before, no difference. She hated me, and it was clearly written on her face."

"The last time I went home was eight or nine years ago. I remember that day I quarreled with her again, then slept, and returned to the camp early the next morning. Six months later, the regiment was full of news of her death, and probably later there was news of my death... I didn't expect that jumping from such a high place would not die."

After Chen Li said this, he saw the smoke gun stop with a pale face, so he also stopped.

He patted the smoke gun on the back, "Do you want to vomit again?"

The smoke gun shook his head painfully.

"This is the version of the story I have always believed." Chen Li said calmly. The smoker opened his mouth in surprise, and it took him a long time to organize his words, "Is there a worse version?"

Chen Li looked at the night sky outside the window, as if thinking, "Maybe."

"Can it be worse?"

"Maybe."

"Then can I choose not to listen?" The smoker had a bitter face.

"No."

"...Okay."

"The second version, I met her sister's son a few days ago, he told me that forcing me to jump into the sea was not her mother's intention... his mother's intention, she said it was to give me freedom."

"Nonsense."

"He also said that the woman was willing to kill herself for me. He showed me the video of her experimenting on herself, a live experiment, she dissected herself, and used her own experimental report to negotiate terms."

Yongqiang calmed down, he suspected that he had just heard an auditory hallucination, "What?"

"I watched the video, it was very real. If it was completely fictional, how could it be so consistent with her own behavioral logic, how could it be so similar to what she could do... I am so fucking familiar with her every word and action."

Yongqiang remembered what Chen Li said to him that day, which was probably the prologue of this story.

True and false is the most distressing, not even as refreshing as straightforward tearing. Yanqiang didn't know how to help Chen Li solve his distress. Shame, anger, and pity mixed together, causing a sour heartache.

Chen Li continued to talk to himself, "He and his mother told me that because I am her offspring, I inherited her genes, and like her, they want to protect her bloodline, so they haunt me... Even after death, the ghost will not go away."

"So you can see it too..." Smoker suddenly thought of something and hesitated.

"No, I can't see anything." Chen Li shook his head.

"What about her?" Smoker felt that he had never been so hesitant in his life.

"She is indeed the same as the legend, so many people have always wanted to open her head to see what kind of brain is inside, but she got there first."

The Rainbow Wandering Road finally came to an end, and no expected danger came.

The temperature was also so warm and comfortable, but Smoker felt as if he had just finished a tough battle, sweating all over, his legs heavy, his knees weak, and the aftermath of shock in his head was still buzzing.

"That mother and son are powerful. I think they can probably support RC and give us more resources. I think we can take the risk."

Yongqiang nodded.

"Old Yan. You have to keep the secret for me. All of it. Don't tell a word." Chen Li turned his head and looked at the eyes of the Yanqiang seriously.

"I will." The Yanqiang promised firmly.

"Besides you, I only told the boss, but I only told you about these messed up things," Chen Li said, shaking his head, his voice became lighter, "... I don't seem to hate her so much now. Time is really a good medicine."

"She..." Yanqiang asked carefully, "She treated you badly?"

After saying this, he felt that this was nonsense. It must be bad, and it might not even be good.

"She has done everything you can imagine, and there may be many more that you can't imagine."

Chen Li simply sat at the end of Rainbow Road, leaning against the glass wall, looking up at the Yanqiang.

His eyes were still so dark and calm, as if he was telling someone else's story from beginning to end. There were no tears, no sound or physical trembling, no description of the degree of pain, perhaps because those were cowardice that he could not look directly at.

Yongqiang remembered when he first met Chen Li, he was a kid of eighteen or nineteen, with thorns all over his body and a sharp and cold expression on his face.

He hardly smiled, and he didn't care about his life.

"Fuck, what kind of life did you live before..." Yanqiang frowned.

"Let's wait a little longer. If such a good opportunity can't wait for those cowards in the business, it proves that they are really cowards." Chen Li changed the subject. He patted the seat next to him and motioned Yanqiang to sit down.

Yongqiang sat down, he rubbed Chen Li's hair, couldn't help but hold him in his arms, and rubbed his cheek.

Chen Li had a faint smell of laundry detergent on him, not fragrant, but a very clean smell.