Eighteen, or Eight

"Sunrise Rehabilitation Center."

Looking at this sign, my heart was filled with confusion. Why had she brought me here?

She parked the car, walked over, and took my hand.

Her hand was very soft, and I felt an unusual sensation in my heart.

"Here to see Little Yin again?" A girl dressed as a nurse greeted Xu Qiuyan. Xu Qiuyan smiled and nodded at her: "Yeah."

"You haven't been here for a while. Were you on a business trip?" the nurse asked again.

She nodded once more: "Mm, I've been really busy lately."

I knew she wasn't actually that busy—she'd had an incident. A few days ago, hadn't Xie Yi and the others locked her up in the Second Provincial Hospital?

But what I was more curious about was this "Little Yin."

A person suddenly flashed through my mind—a kid a few years younger than me. His name was Yin Wuyu. The year the Little Ancestral Hall Entrance incident happened, he should have been only eight. If it was him, then he'd be eighteen now, a grown young man. But how could he be living here, and how did Xu Qiuyan know he was here?

"Is it Yin Buyu?" I asked quietly.

Xu Qiuyan glanced at me, then nodded and said, "It's him."

I couldn't help asking again: "How did you find him?"

Xu Qiuyan didn't answer. By then, we had arrived at the door of a room.

She pushed the door open and walked in. Then I saw a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old boy. Hearing the noise, his eyes turned toward us. When he saw Xu Qiuyan, a naive smile spread across his face. Naive—yes, I couldn't find any other word to describe it.

"Sister, sister, hug Little Yin!"

Xu Qiuyan actually opened her arms and pulled him into an embrace.

I felt a bit sour. Even though there was nothing between Xu Qiuyan and me, seeing her hug another boy still stirred some jealousy in my heart.

After a few seconds, she let go of Yin Wuyu, pointed at me, and asked: "Little Yin, do you still recognize who he is?"

Hearing this, Yin Wuyu stared at me seriously. After a long moment, he said uncertainly: "It's big brother, big brother!"

"Then do you remember what his name is?" Xu Qiuyan asked him. Yin Wuyu scratched his head, his gaze toward me tinged with confusion.

"Think hard. If you get it right, sister will give you candy."

Hearing Xu Qiuyan say that, Yin Wuyu's face lit up with joy: "Really?"

Xu Qiuyan answered very seriously: "Of course it's true. When has sister ever lied to you?"

I noticed something off. Yin Wuyu's reactions were very abnormal, as if something was wrong with his mind.

"Sister, Little Yin can't remember." His face showed a pained expression.

Xu Qiuyan stroked his head: "Don't rush. Take your time. Didn't you remember sister's name before? Be good, Little Yin. You can do it."

Then she looked at me: "Little Yin's intelligence is still stuck at age eight. But all his memories of the Little Ancestral Hall Entrance are gone. Still, he can remember who I am. I think he should be able to remember who you are, too."

I was four years older than Yin Wuyu. Back then, he loved following me around. Whatever I said, he'd do. He was my close little sidekick. I never expected he'd end up like this.

"How did you find him?" I was still hung up on this question, because aside from the few people I knew from the Little Ancestral Hall Entrance, everyone else seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth—including my parents. They were neither seen alive nor found dead.

Back then, the Little Ancestral Hall Entrance had turned into a pile of rubble and ruins overnight, as if an earthquake had hit. But there was no earthquake. Given how suddenly it happened, no one should have been able to escape. Yet somehow, a few of us did get out. But Yin Wuyu wasn't among them. I thought he'd met the same fate as the others.

"I dreamed he was here, by accident," Xu Qiuyan said.

My eyes widened, but I believed she wasn't lying. It sounded unbelievable, but I had experienced this kind of thing before. Wasn't the first time Xu Qiuyan and I met after the disaster in a dream? And it had felt so real.

I wondered, in that dream, who was the one in control—her, or me?

Maybe it was her. Otherwise, why wouldn't I have dreamed of Yin Wuyu? He was my little sidekick, close to me.

Seeing Yin Wuyu like this now, I felt a pang of bitterness. The jealousy I'd felt earlier about Xu Qiuyan's hug faded. Wasn't he still just that eight-year-old kid from ten years ago? Why would I bother getting worked up over a child?

Yin Wuyu was still staring at me, sucking on his fingers nonstop.

That was his signature move. Back then, he had two quirks: one was that he loved sucking his fingers, and the other was that there was always a snot bubble hanging from his nose.

I smiled at him.

His eyes lit up, as if he'd thought of something: "Boss! Little, Brother Xiaobai!"

Xu Qiuyan's face showed a hint of excitement. She'd been right—this kid had remembered me.

I stepped forward and ruffled his hair too: "Remembered Brother Xiaobai?"

He nodded vigorously: "Brother Xiaobai, you promised to buy me bubbles."

A scene flashed through my mind. I was blowing bubbles, and he was chasing them with a smile on his face. Back then, something that simple could make us happy for an entire afternoon.

Suddenly, I felt a lump in my throat. I wanted to say something, but the words wouldn't come.

Xu Qiuyan said: "Don't worry. Brother Xiaobai will keep his promise. Next time we come, he'll bring the bubbles. I'll supervise him."

"Great!" He clapped his hands, excited and thrilled.

"How did he end up like this?" I asked quietly.

Xu Qiuyan shook her head. She said she didn't know either. She visited Yin Wuyu often, hoping to awaken that part of his memory. But those missing memories weren't just Yin Wuyu's—even we didn't know where we'd lost them.

"Who else did you dream about?" I asked again.

She rolled her eyes at me. "Do you really think I'm some kind of psychic, that I can find everyone on that whole street just from one dream? I only dreamed of him. Honestly, I wish I could dream of my mom too—I have no idea how she's been all these years."

I didn't say anything more. I was thinking about my own parents too.

But her mood picked up again all of a sudden. "Anyway, seeing him at least confirms one thing for me—they're probably all still alive. I just don't know where they are right now."

Something suddenly occurred to me, and I frowned. "Xie Yi said that Bureau Five, Section Nine has been secretly searching for those people from Little Ancestral Hall Entrance all these years. So why haven't they been able to find him?"

Xu Qiuyan said, "I'm not sure about that. But I haven't told them about him yet."

"By the way, they suspected you had a problem before." I hesitated but still brought it up, pointing at my own head.

She looked at me, dead serious. "You're right. I did suddenly forget a lot of things before I met you. Then the day you showed up in front of me, it all came rushing back. Maybe that guy with the surname Xie was right—maybe I really was in some kind of crazy state back then. Because I found scars on my body, and I have no idea where they came from. Xie told me that when I was first brought there, I had severe violent tendencies, even self-harmed. But I can't remember any of it myself. Thinking about it now gives me chills. Xiaobai, if you hadn't shown up that day, would I have stayed like that forever?"

I didn't know. I couldn't even figure out what was happening to me.

So all I could do was give a bitter smile.

We didn't stay long at the rehabilitation center before leaving.

On the way back, I asked her if she'd ever asked who brought her to the center. She said she had—the hospital told her it was a man in his forties, two months ago. He paid for three years' worth of fees all at once, and after that, they could never reach him again.

But the hospital didn't think much of it. Since they'd already received three years' payment, any problems would be three years down the line.

The man had filled in a fake name on the hospital's records, and the ID was fake too.

Honestly, I was full of curiosity about Xu Qiuyan as well. What had she been through these past ten years? Why had she been at the scene when Li Sen jumped to his death? And why did she say she and I were the same kind of people, that we both had our own "good friends"?

But I never asked. Because I felt it wasn't the right time yet—asking too many questions right after meeting would've been too awkward.