Chapter 49: The Way Back

At the weekend, Qiao's eldest sister came to see Qiao's father Qiao's mother, and after talking to Qiao's mother for a while, she went to Qiao Lan's room, which is now almost a miscellaneous room.

Qiao's eldest sister bit her lip and went to the kitchen to help Qiao's mother with the cooking, and asked Qiao's mother when the family sat down to eat, "Mom, has LanLan not been in touch with the family?"

"I even called her class teacher last time to call me back, but I haven't heard from her at all, so if you don't like to come back, don't ever come back, and I don't want to come back when I'm starving and can't take it anymore. "

Qiao Yuan gnawed on a piece of pork ribs and grabbed the words vaguely, "I can't die of hunger, my third sister got a five thousand dollar scholarship for coming first in her grade last semester."

Qiao's grandmother took the opportunity to spit, "You've raised a wolf for so long, you don't remember the family when you have something to gain."

"Qiao Yuan wiped his greasy hands and agreed, remembering the last sports day when he only wanted Qiao Lan to go with him to meet his classmates, but Qiao Lan refused to go, causing him to be laughed at by many people in his class and costing him another 200 yuan to buy dinner for a bunch of people.

Speaking of this, Qiao Yuan suddenly remembered something and grabbed her chopsticks and asked Qiao's mother, "Mum, have you seen Sis 3 again this term?"

"It's been a little over six months since I've seen Qiao Lan, but Qiao's mother's attitude doesn't seem the least bit worried, as if Qiao Lan wasn't her own child.

Qiao Yuan was a bit excited, "You haven't seen her, but I have. She's changed a lot, she's a different person."

How is it different?

"I almost didn't recognise her, but there were so many people who chose her as the school flower, and a few days ago a rich boy from the school even sent her flowers, and the whole school knew about it."

Qiao's mother was finally interested in hearing this.

After dinner, Qiao Lan took Qiao's mother's phone and found a picture of Qiao Lan at the sports day.

"Look at you, I almost didn't recognise you."

--

For the new week, Qiao Lan and Tan Mo switched seats and moved to the seat in front of Bai Yu.

Bai Yu was at the same table as another boy, who had been in the same class in the first year of high school and was said to be very close friends.

The two of them were so happy to welcome the "god of learning" in an overly exaggerated tone that Qiao Lan grabbed him by the arm and reminded him that he was the only one who had ever seen the "god of learning".

"Smile."

The young man froze slightly, his delicate yet cold features mistaken for a moment before smiling.

The two in the back row had never seen Tan Mo with any other expression, let alone such a nice smile, Bai Yu covered his heart and grabbed Qiao Lan in an exaggerated manner, "Beauty blast!"

Tan Mo had probably never encountered such overly exaggerated closeness before, and was at a loss as to how to react when Qiao Lan whispered in his ear, "I've told you before that you look good when you smile.

Tan Mo looked back at her again and for a moment even a smile was in his eyes.

But Tan Mo's smile was always different from the others, not when she was happy, but when she felt, after a short and quick analysis, that it was the right moment to smile.

So even Qiao Lan sometimes doesn't understand what Tan Mo is hiding behind his smile.

I don't know. Tan Mo now looks at her more, speaks to her more, and struggles with the torture of those two words.

How are you worthy, how dare you.

When he was alone, he held his phone for a long time before struggling to type in the word "disabled".

Admit that I am a disabled person, physically handicapped and mentally disabled, yet I love someone.

After struggling to type in the word "disabled" and then carefully typing in the word "like", I clicked on the search, but after just one look, Tan Mo's still bloody wound was instantly stabbed again.

The big banner at the bottom reads, I'm in love with someone, but disabled people are never supposed to have love or desire.

Tan Mo closed his eyes abruptly, dropped his phone on the table and leaned against the back of his wheelchair for a long time before finally picking it up again.

He tried to find some dissenting voices in what these people were saying, but he spent nearly an hour reading the whole answer and couldn't find a counter-argument.

He has seen so many, yet no normal and disabled person has ever ended up happily together. Even those couples who insisted on staying together despite their families' objections at the beginning have ended up in tragedy in later years.

As one girl said, she once had a boyfriend who was blind and she loved him so much that she once broke all ties with her family for him, thinking that such a love would surely last forever and ever.

But then, she only lasted three years.

It's too hard, she says, and sometimes when she can't hold on she asks herself over and over again why she has to be so tired, why she can't live a normal life like a normal person.

She was once a normal person too.

Many people from the beginning of the doubt, do not know whether the disabled should fall in love with normal people, with the flow of the years, the growing serious body, and a thousand pressure when the disabled can resist as normal people, to give the beloved her a tomorrow, finally in a time of disappointment to get the answer.

Tan Mo is desperate and anxious to find a case of happiness, to find a possibility of happiness enough to make him not so desperate. Finally, at the end, he sees someone saying that he has found love, but when he finishes reading, Tan Mo only feels more desperate.

Someone said she once met a very beautiful and nice boy who could not speak, but he was very good, and years later he married a very beautiful but equally non-verbal girl.

Some people use the simplest but cruelest way to say, the dragon with the lobster with the shrimp, they are not able-bodied, for their own sake and for the sake of others, or the same to find a person who is not able-bodied, lower the standard, it is necessary to hope again.

Yes, they call this word extravagance.

For a moment, Tan Mo thought that if he really went to therapy, he would really be able to get back on his feet, but when he came to his senses, he realised that it was all self-deception.

Some people are physically disabled, some are mentally disabled, but a disability of the mind is more frightening than a physical disability.

Even though he stood up and looked like a normal person, he understood better than anyone else how horribly crippled he was, mentally and spiritually.

Tan Mo suddenly understands the meaning of the last two lines of a poem he once did not understand.

I could have endured the darkness

If I had never seen the sun

Yet the sun has made my desolation

Becoming the desolation of renewal

When salvation appears in his life, she brings him warmth and light, for having seen the beauty of the sun, he can never return to loneliness and darkness, but the sun does not save him from the darkness, instead he begs for it and everything becomes a luxury.

During the two language classes on Wednesday afternoon, the language teacher showed a world classic film, Edward Scissorhands, to the class.

She is required to watch the film carefully and submit a copy to her afterwards.

Edward, a robot created by an inventor living in an old castle, falls to his death unexpectedly one Christmas when the inventor is about to fit Edward with a pair of human hands that he has prepared for him for Christmas, so that Edward has not normal human-like hands but sharp scissors.

He is brought home by Peg and falls in love with the beautiful Kim, but ends up being questioned in the town and re-hiding back in the old castle.

Edward, because he is a monster, has feelings for Kim that come entirely from his sexuality, without merit, and are all about other people's disputes. He can go to yard art for Kim, knead food for others with scissor hands, endure the temptations of his neighbours, and even harbour his conscience to hide the truth and steal for her.

Kim asked him why

Edward said, "Because you asked me to."

This world-renowned classic film is full of regretful endings and touching lines such as "I can't hug you when I pick up the scissors, I can't protect you when I put them down", which brought tears to the eyes of many girls in the class, who were most distressed by Edward, the feeling of being unable to do anything to protect their beloved but being misunderstood. The feeling of being unable to do anything but run away.

Most of the thoughts expressed in the afterthoughts handed in that day were very consistent, an attack on human nature and on social indifference.

The language teacher selected the best points to project for the class, and someone wrote that

"It is not necessary to be together for love to end well, and even though it is sad to part, even if we are strangers afterwards, I am glad to remember me as you remember me, always as I was when I was young and the most beautiful."

Edward will always remember Kim at her most beautiful, but Tan Mo will never understand.

He didn't tell the others, and at the end of the film, when Edward returned to the castle alone and Kim had a life of her own, married and had children, Tan Mo felt that if he had been Edward, he might have chosen to die.

Love has never had only two answers in his world, either a hundred or a zero.

The teachers don't ask Tan Mo for homework, but this time Tan Mo also wrote a reflection, only he didn't give it to the teacher.

Everyone says it's social indifference, but Tan Mo writes that it's because of the inadmissibility of deviance.

Just like Edward, just like him.

Edward has scissor hands unlike any other human being, and he has two legs that can't stand, and a brain that can't understand emotions.

Edward was once popular because of his scissor hands, but after falling in love with the heroine, he was rejected by everyone because of his suspicious hands; he was looked up to by everyone because of his above-average intelligence, but if they learned that he was also in love with a good girl, they would probably feel just as weird and disgusting as Xiang Xiaohan did.

Edward's scissor hands are a symbol of alienation, of being out of place, he can't really think of them as a pair of scissors, they represent autism, poverty, disability and everything else that normal people don't accept.

One day, many years later, he and Qiao Lan, like Edward in the film, will live alone, and one will eventually have a life of his own.

Tan Mo closed his eyes and didn't say a word for a long time. After an unknown period of time, Tan Mo tore his homework book in half and threw it into the trash, clenching his trembling hands and using all his strength to suppress all his emotions.