Xia Yan also ran to their side to support Grandma Xia. Grandma Xia was trembling, both angry and humiliated. She cried loudly: “Xiao Yang, people have to be conscientious ah!! Back then when the verdict came out, you asked for the compensation to be paid in one lump sum. We sold our house and car and paid every penny without holding back anything we owed, not a cent less! We don't owe you anything more! Yet you keep coming back again and again asking for money, we really don't have any more to give to you!”
The woman turned to the onlookers and shouted: “Listen, everyone listen! This person's son killed my husband, killed my daughter's father, yet after paying out just a sum of money she dares to say they don't owe us anything! How much money would our (Old) Lao Wu have earned if he had lived until now! He could have supported us two for the rest of our lives! How dare you say you don’t owe us anything if you don’t make up for our whole lifetime?"
Xia Yan angrily said: “Why don't you mention you beat my Grandma before! If you have the guts, go sue us in court and see if the judge will make us pay!”
"Shouldn't she bear responsibility for raising a son like that? How dare you argue with me? If your dad hadn't been in such a rush to make up for your treatment back then, how could he have dragged my husband into a scheme that led him to lose all his money and death! Your dad's blood debt, you have a share too! It's all your fault!”
Xia Yan's eyes turned red, and he wanted to charge forward: "You're talking nonsense! You're talking nonsense! Shut up!"
Nie Qingzhou held Xia Yan back. He suddenly felt a tearing pain in his back, and in the next moment Xia Yi pulled Xia Yan back.
Nie Qingzhou said coldly, "Auntie, you are also a mother, how can you say such things to a child!"
"Why can't I say it! My husband is dead, what more do I have to worry about!" The woman stood with her hands on her hips and retorted defiantly: "You think moving away can escape from me? Wherever you go, you can't get away from the fact there was a murderer in your family! If you don't take care of us two women, we'll come looking for you every day, we won't leave here!"
The onlookers gathered in layers, crowding up. Their gazes, either curious or contemptuous vied to fall on this small grocery store, and the sounds of pointing and discussion buzzed together, like a sea of waves crashing down.
Grandma Xia and Xia Yan, beaten down by these waves lowered their heads to dodge, feeling humiliated and embarrassed.
But Xia Yi did not dodge. Her skinny back was very straight as she stood in front of everyone she wanted to protect, like a sturdy shield that no arrows could pierce through. She looked at everyone, as if watching a play, watching a group of passionate performers.
The arrogant woman met her dark eyes for just a moment, and as if humiliated, she angrily shouted: "What are you staring at me for! How dare you stare at me!"
"Auntie, aren't you tired? You're no longer sad, it's just about money now." Xia Yi looked at her and calmly asked, "Why do you have to take advantage of the dead?"
The woman was stunned for a moment, then pounced at her with bared teeth: "You little wench, what did you just say!"
Nie Qingzhou immediately stepped up to block the woman. Seeing the situation, people around came up to stop them. Unexpectedly, the woman was extremely strong. She struggled fiercely to lunge forward, and left three bloody scratches on Xia Yi's face with one hand.
Xia Yi was pulled back by those trying to stop the fight, and people kept saying "No matter what, you can't cross the line with a child ah!" "She's still in school!"
Nie Qingzhou's face turned cold. He held back the struggling woman with one hand, and softly said: "What are you making a scene for? The money the Xia family compensated you, where did it all go? With so much money, you wouldn't have taken it to support someone else, right?"
The woman jumped three feet high and pounced at Nie Qingzhou: "Bah, you little bastard! I'll rip your mouth apart!"
In that instant, Nie Qingzhou's restraining force suddenly loosened, and the woman didn't brake herself and charged forward. Nie Qingzhou went along with her momentum and heavily fell backwards, crashing into the shelves at the grocery store entrance.
The shelves were knocked down by him, and bottles of Cola and Sprite on it fell and shattered all over the ground. Then the body heavily fell down with a resounding crash.
A chilling silence descended around them, and everyone pulling and persuading to stop the fight froze in place. Xia Yi looked down at the ground with her eyes wide open, her hand still hanging in midair.
Nie Qingzhou laid in the broken glass shards, his blood spreading among the broken glass shards, staining his clothes, then mixing with the messy spilled drinks on the ground, blending into a horrifying dark pool.
"Help! He's injured!"
"Quick, quick, call the police!"
"Call an ambulance!"
Panic erupted around them. Xia Yi took two quick steps forward and crouched down next to Nie Qingzhou's arm. Next to her, Grandma Xia covered her mouth crying, while Xia Yan called an ambulance. Amidst the clamor, an enormous dissonant sound rang in her mind, then music similar to Mozart's 'Requiem' rose up, drowning out all other sounds.
She lowered her eyes, seeming as calm as she was when speaking to the woman earlier, only the movement of reaching out her hand was very slow.
When that hand reached Nie Qingzhou's shoulder, it was suddenly held by another hand, which was moist and warm.
The pale boy opened his eyes slightly and whispered: "Don't look, don't be frightened."
His voice was very low, so Xia Yi bent down closer to listen to him.
"Is she gone?" he asked weakly.
Xia Yi nodded.
The woman who sensed trouble just now, upon hearing someone mention calling the police, immediately grabbed her daughter and slipped away.
"Who put those glass bottles here, I didn't even see them. My skills are lacking, I tried to touch porcelain (scam) but went overboard." Nie Qingzhou murmured.
Xia Yi was stunned for a moment. Nie Qingzhou laboriously patted her shoulder, and smiled with difficulty: "It's fine, I'm fine."
Nie Qingzhou felt that indeed one should not casually attempt things they are not skilled at, such as touching porcelain.
In the chaos earlier between the pushing and shoving of the crowd, he had clearly felt the wound on his back couldn't hold up anymore, it was definitely going to split open. That troublemaking Aunt Yang was clearly a tough one, if she got through today she'd be back tomorrow, so they needed to find a way to scare her off.
Therefore he provoked her and went along with her force, falling backwards. He figured once his injury started bleeding it would definitely scare Aunt Yang, and he could be considered to have an advantage to use against Aunt Yang.
Who knew there was a shelf diagonally behind him?
Who remembered there were glass bottles on the shelf?
He fell onto the glass shards, countless sharp things pierced his back. The pain made his mind go blank, only Xia Yi's words left - he is very easily hurt.
——From the time I got to know him, he was often injured throughout high school, and kept running to the hospital all the time. Later, he didn't even need to say anything, all the doctors and nurses at the hospital knew his name.
He thought, isn't it right, old injury is unhealed and new injury added upon it, and then more and more new injury added like stacking buffs.
Nie Qingzhou resigned to his fate.
Xia Yi and Grandma Xia followed the ambulance to the hospital. Even though Nie Qingzhou was reluctant, Xia Yi still saw his bloody back.
The clothes on his back were cut open, revealing a large area of bruised skin. As expected, the stitches from last week's injury were really opened, along with the various small and large size cuts from the glasses, it was horrific to behold. The doctor used small tweezers to slowly remove the glass shards stuck into his flesh little by little. He lay curled up on his side on the bed.
Each time the doctor pulled out a glass fragment with the tweezers, his body jerked slightly. His bruised fists were so tightly clenched that the veins were exposed, his head was half buried in the pillow, and his forehead was covered with sweat.
Grandma Xia agonizingly trembled along with him, continuously wiping away tears. Xia Yi, with her face covered with gauze, stood by his bedside, silently watching him.
Nie Qingzhou lifted his head slightly from the pillow, revealing one eye, which was squinting from the pain as he looked towards Xia Yi.
"Xia Yi... you go buy me some snacks... I want to eat candy... you know, that kind..."
Xia Yi's eyes were very deep. She looked about the same as usual, except that her whole body was extremely taut, like a drawn bowstring, filled with power that had nowhere to go.
"Nie Qingzhou," she called his name.
"I'm fine... don't look at me, there is...Grandma Xia here...you go."
Xia Yi finally managed to stand up and said softly, "Okay."
Then she turned around to walk out of the ward, without looking back. There were many people in the hospital, some sporadically crying. She walked past the coming and going people, her blood stained canvas shoes steadily going forward among the countless leather shoes, high heels, and sneakers.
Suddenly she started to run - she ran through the long corridors, down the stairs, across the gravel path between the hospital lawns, using all her strength like during the 800 meter race, as if she couldn't wait a second longer.
She went to the supermarket at the end of the gravel path, bought all the candy and snacks she knew he liked, especially the coffee flavored ones.
She was in such a hurry, as if these weren't just snacks but some kind of panacea. As long as he ate these things, Nie Qingzhou wouldn't bleed and hurt anymore.
The glass shards would automatically fall from his body and the wounds would heal.
Then he would continue shining like a bright light.
His eyes shining as bright as that day when he was describing the sunshine.
Always healthy and radiant.
Everything in her vision rapidly retreated, the plastic bag full of snacks crinkle loudly. The ward Nie Qingzhou was in grew closer and closer. Just as Xia Yi's hand touched the door frame, she heard a piercing cry of pain.
"Just now when the little girl was here he held back from shouting, now that she's gone he finally can't hold back anymore." Someone in the room said.
Xia Yi's footsteps stopped there. Still panting heavily, she poked her head to peek in slightly. Nie Qingzhou's body was blocked by the doctor. A muffled grunt sounded as Nie Qingzhou's body was blocked by the doctor, and then the doctor clamped a piece of glass and threw it inside the tray which was already full of blood-stained glass shards.
Grandma Xia wiped away her tears and said, "Xiao Nie… Xiao Nie, I'm sorry."
Xia Yi silently watched them, then took two steps back to sit on the bench outside the ward. After sitting a while, she stood up again and walked over to the nurses' desk, asking in a low voice, "Can you lend me paper and a pen?"
Seeing her still in school uniform, the nurse thought she wanted to do homework. She rummaged around and found paper and pen to give her.
Xia Yi took the paper and pen back to the bench and sat down. The nurse who lent her the pen and paper, looked on curiously and said to her colleague, "Look at that little girl with a bruise on her face, she just came with the ambulance and doesn't look scared at all. She's so calm and still doing her homework."
Xia Yi didn't hear her words.
She can't hear anything now.
She finally let loose the seagulls in her mind, they had been noisy for too long. Now the melodies came like waves, flooding and submerging her. The sounds swept her nerves, seized her hand, wantonly scrawling on the paper.
The paper was quickly filled with notes, without any gaps left, like some kind of outpouring.
"Luckily it's his back and it's winter now, there shouldn't be major issues, but the wound area is too large, he'll need to be hospitalized." The doctor said so to Grandma Xia.
Grandma Xia sobbed: "It's great… great."
Strangely, while Xia Yi couldn't hear anything from the outside world, she clearly heard this conversation.
The frantic writing on the paper finally slowed down, each stroke extending towards the end. She looked up towards the room. The lights in the ward were on, and medical staff, all dressed in white, surrounded the bed."
Her shoulders slumped, the taut strings relaxed their strength.
They really are like angels, she thought.