Chapter 110 – Lost you for so many years

Warning: Short descriptions/mentions of blood and gore. If you are uncomfortable with these things, kindly stop reading.

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The contents of the first half of the diary are quite normal, and probably nothing unusual happened during the week. After Zhou Jinchen went, the situation had a big change. An Xumo continued to turn back the diary, Xin Zimai wrote a number of diary entries by then, all related to Zhou Jinchen.

Bing Tuotuo^[1]Block of ice, lol) hasn’t spoken for a day. Bing Tuotuo did not speak for two days… Bing Tuotuo didn’t say a word for five whole days. At first, Xin Zimai bet with his fellow brothers who … Continue reading

“But today, Master scolded Zhou Lengleng because he stuffed his candy into Xiao Qi’s most precious doll’s mouth, and the doll got dirty. Xiao Qi cried for a long time, and Zhou Lengleng didn’t apologize to him.”

According to the previous records, Xiao Qi should be the youngest child in the deep mountains. An Xumo looked at these records and felt rather marvelous. He looked up at Zhou Jinchen who was not far away and found it difficult to connect the man in front of him with the ‘Zhou Lengleng’ of many years ago.

“After the Master asked him why he stuffed the doll with candy, Zhou Lengleng said that his didi^[2]Younger brotherliked to eat milk candy. I think he may have mistaken the doll as his didi.”

Suddenly seeing the words didi, An Xumo couldn’t help but be surprised.

… Didi likes to eat candy?

Old Zhou has four sons and four grandchildren, apart from An Xumo who’s not his own, Zhou Yunhua, the third oldest member of the Zhou Family also has two sons in his family and they are both Zhou Jinchen’s younger brothers. Although An Xumo’s heart beat faster, he didn’t dare put himself in that seat right away.^[3]Note (in case you forgot): The eldest: Zhou Yunfeng;The second: Zhou Jinchen’s father — Zhou Yunlin;The third: Zhou Yunhua; (it wasn’t mentioned before if he had any children, author just … Continue reading

An Xumo opened the diary for the next day and saw Xin Zimai wrote, “Today Master brought back a new doll for Zhou Lengleng, which is very similar to the one from Xiao Qi, but the new doll’s arms were holding a particularly large milk candy. Master said that his didi has a candy and told Zhou Lengleng to keep the candy for himself while they ate it together.”

“It sounds too childish but Zhou Lengleng seemed quite happy, he kept hugging the doll for the whole day.” 

An Xumo saw this and suddenly felt some heartache for some reason.

Zhou Jinchen was already twelve years old when he went to the deep mountains to recuperate. Before the accident, in An Xumo’s impression, his brother was already very stable. Not only in academics but also in dealing with people, he has always been one of the most outstanding people in the younger generation of the Zhou family.

However, in Xin Zimai’s diary, Zhou Jinchen did not speak for more than ten days in a row and held a rag doll for the whole day.

Xin Zimai was still young at that time. Even if Mr. Old Yu said that Zhou Jinchen was sick, he had no real concept and didn’t know how serious it was for a person not to communicate with the outside world for more than ten days. But when An Xumo was reading, he could also guess the seriousness of the condition between the lines.

He also saw another diary entry later on.

“Something happened to Zhou Lengleng today. He drove everyone out of the room, piled so many things together, and hid behind them. When we called Master over, we heard him (ZJ) say that there was blood and a knife but there was clearly nothing in the room. Zhou Lengleng hid alone for a long time, and Master failed to call out to him. In the end, it was Master who said that he could not save his didi by hiding inside and that he had to come out to protect him. Zhou Lengleng was willing to come out from behind.

I saw that he was still holding the doll in his arms and never let go. After seeing Master, he took the Master’s arms and handed over the doll, saying that he wanted to protect his didi from being taken away by the bad guys. These bad guys would cut people into several pieces with a knife, their arms fall off and their fingers would still move.

What Zhou Lengleng said was so scary that Xiao Qi and the others were all scared to tears but Master didn’t scold him this time. Master took Zhou Lengleng away with the milk candy doll and told us to put things back in place. We were busy for a long time before we cleaned up the room.”

At the end of the diary, Xin Zimai also wrote, “I don’t know who Zhou Lengleng’s didi is, he seems to care a lot about his didi, but when his parents came to visit the mountain, Zhou Lengleng’s didi never came.”

An Xumo looked at it three times over and over and still couldn’t believe his eyes.

“Brother ……”

Zhou Jinchen looked up from the booklet with an obvious movement.

He put down the book in his hand, got up, and walked over. Standing next to An Xumo, Zhou Jinchen glanced at the diary and bent down to see the boy’s expression.

He asked in a low voice, “What’s wrong?”

An Xumo handed the diary to the man, his hand was halfway up but then he remembered something and fiercely took the diary back.

His brother’s illness never healed. He didn’t know if it would trigger any bad emotions if he directly let the other person see such things.

Zhou Jinchen picked up nothing, and his right hand also reached halfway, empty, failing to hold anything.

But after retrieving the diary, An Xumo was the one who took the initiative to reach his hand over and hold the man’s right hand. His tone carried obvious nervousness, “Brother……you, do you still remember what happened when you were recuperating in the mountains?”

Zhou Jinchen quietly glanced at the palms of the two people’s clasped hands. He conveniently closed his right hand and gently wrapped the boy’s hand.

He said, “Old Yu helped me with psychotherapy which made me forget some things.”

That’s why he felt little impression when he saw the box of books

An Xumo hesitated, “Then……”

Zhou Jinchen looked at him, “Is it about my attack back then?”

“Ai……?” An Xumo was shocked for a moment. “Brother, you still remember this?”

Zhou Jinchen pointed to the drawing book and a thread-bound book on the side, “I read that.”

He explained, “The drawing book is mine, in the book are the records of Old Yu’s treatment for me at that time.”

An Xumo put the diary aside first and took the drawing book Zhou Jinchen handed him. The contents inside were very mixed, with both watercolor and pencil drawings. The first half of the book didn’t have specific content, only messy lines and large chunks of colors. It’s only until later that it began to slowly show some specific images. An Xumo briefly flipped through the book and saw two kinds of content, mostly —— children and milk candy.

The drawing book rarely has textual content but later, a name was marked next to the children who were drawn.

It was written by Zhou Jinchen with fluent handwriting that has become sharper and sharper, ‘didi’.

In addition, An Xumo also saw a word on the back of the child’s hand.

Mo.

He hasn’t been able to digest the news well when Zhou Jinchen on the side has opened the booklet used by Elder Yu and relayed the story of the whole treatment of that year.

After suffering an extremely serious psychological trauma, coupled with the birth of Asperger’s syndrome, Zhou Jinchen once showed autistic tendencies, and completely cut off communication with the outside world. After going through many hospitals and failing to improve, the Zhou family found Mr. Old Yu a famous psychotherapist and entrusted the person to him.

Elder Yu took the person to the deep mountains for treatment. The whole process of treatment was to overwrite old memories that can cause harm to Zhou Jinchen, just like raising a newborn baby, teaching him to learn from scratch.^[4]Author changes Elder Yu’s title from time to time, sometimes there’s the corresponding Mr. along with the Lao/Old/Elder or sometimes there’s no Mr. at all. In case you might be … Continue reading

The deep mountains are less affected by the outside world, and it is more convenient to control various variables. Mr. Old Yu almost helped Zhou Jinchen reconstruct a brand-new mental world but after weighing it again and again, he only added two key concepts of father and mother, he didn’t build in the image of a ‘younger brother’.

In his notes in the book, Mr. Old Yu wrote that Zhou Jinchen’s obsession with his younger brother was too deep and if the concept of his younger brother was added, it was likely to evoke memories of his real past and pursue his younger brother’s whereabouts, thus resulting in failure. However, even if it’s a deliberately guided of forgetting, the risk is not small, at the beginning to cover the scarred memories, Zhou Jinchen has been trying to resist, it seems that there are obsessions that can’t be put down.

Elder Yu’s deduction was that Zhou Jinchen may have probably been in a dangerous situation with his younger brother before he suffered the trauma and that’s why he kept thinking of saving his younger brother.

It was only after a long period of repetition and deepening that he slowly let go of his original memories.

The method used for the treatment tends to be mild. As time goes by, the original memory will loosen, and the past will be revealed little by little. The person receiving the treatment will only think that the memory of his childhood is blurred because it’s been so long, and there will be no sense of dissonance that the memories have been forcibly erased. Those original traumatic memories may also reveal themselves but over time, the patient’s mind matures and his ability to accept those increases, and these traumas, are no longer an insurmountable gap.

If it was an ordinary person, it would be enough to do all of this but what makes Zhou Jinchen special is that he is also a patient with Asperger’s syndrome. Zhou Jinchen who was already insensitive to emotions had a harder time receiving emotional signals after the accident. Elder Yu helped him learn emotions corresponding to different behaviors little by little; this is why it took him five and a half years. He has to go to the mountains every year for six months in five years.

However, even so, Zhou Jinchen’s lack of emotions still affects his normal life. In the Zhou family, Zhou Jinchen’s parents are married for business, and the two had no emotional foundation, let alone how much affection and care they gave their son. That’s why Mr. Old Yu suggested that Zhou Jinchen should learn acting and make up for his emotions in other people’s stories.

Seventeen-year-old Zhou Jinchen debuted in the entertainment industry. He was cold to everyone’s attitude and only calculated everything with benefits. After that, the clues turned around and it was rumored that He Wenbin was the mastermind of the accident back then. Zhou Jinchen who had no special feelings for his family turned a blind eye to He Wenbin’s son, his didi.

The memory of the year at the age of seven is so far away that An Xumo can no longer remember his own condition when his brother’s accident happened, but he can still remember his brother’s sudden change of mood. When he went to be a trainee, the two didn’t see each other for more than 370 days.

An Xumo thought that his brother was like the rest of the Zhou family and didn’t want to be involved with him anymore, but that wasn’t the truth.

He was not abandoned nor rejected. He was hidden in the doll holding the milk candy, inside the thick drawing book, in the deepest covered memories, in the heart of his brother.

Zhou Jinchen put down the book in his hand and reached over, his warm palm gently covering the boy’s slightly cool cheek.

It was just like finally finding the lost treasure after so many years.

He touched the boy’s face and opened his arms, embracing the person in his arms.

An Xumo’s face was buried in the nook of Zhou Jinchen’s neck. There was a kind of cold wood fragrance on his brother’s body; his voice was low, like the evening breeze sweeping the pine sea.

“Xiao Mo.”

He said, “I’m sorry I lost you for so many years.”

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The author has something to say:

One small step for brother, one big step for sending out sugar.

Mai-zi’s alternative list of nicknames to brother: Zhou Lengleng, Zhou Bingbing, Zhou Liangliang, Zhou Toutou.
[Zhou Lengleng: Cold Zhou
Zhou Bingbing: Ice-cold Zhou
Zhou Liangliang: Cold Zhou
Zhou Toutou: Block of ice Zhou]

Next chapter, I will write about what kind of accident happened to the brother back then

Sending out sugar is really good! I am! Famous! I am famous for my sweetness! Sugar Bun!