How am I Being a Gigolo When I'm Doing Door-to-door Sales?

144: photoHe pulled out another photograph.

It was a family portrait.

The background of the photo was the Yang Family’s living room.

A large fruit cake sat on the table, topped with a candle in the shape of the number ’5’.

A young Shen Zhixia, wearing a snow-white princess dress, was surrounded by Yang Shengli and Zeng Qifang. Her biological parents and the three young rascals of the Yang Family were also gathered around her.

Everyone’s faces were overflowing with the most pure, heartfelt smiles.

Those smiles were even sweeter than the cake.

Yang Shengli’s fingertips gently brushed over that warm family portrait.

The murderous aura in his voice had faded, replaced by an immense tenderness, as if he were afraid of disturbing the time frozen in the photograph.

”There are many people in this photo.”

”These three are my three good-for-nothing sons.”

His finger slid over the three boys who were making faces, a helpless yet doting smile appearing on his face.

”They’ve been following Zhi Xia around since they were little, protecting her as she grew up as if she were their own sister.”

”This couple is Zhi Xia’s biological parents—my good brother and sister-in-law.”

”And behind them are Zhi Xia’s grandparents and maternal grandparents.”

”Standing at the very back are my parents.”

He paused, his gaze sweeping across the smiling faces of everyone in the photo before finally settling on the small figure surrounded by everyone in the center.

His voice sounded like a promise coming from the deepest part of his chest.

”All of us are doing everything in our power to love this child.”

”We are all praying that she can grow up safe and sound.”

Boom.

It was as if a dam that had been building up for a long time had completely collapsed at this moment.

The bullet comments in the livestream were no longer questions or anger; they were completely drowned out by three words that surged like a mountain tsunami.

[I’m sorry.]

[Miss Shen, I’m sorry!]

[We were wrong, we were really wrong. I’m sorry!]

[I’m not human. I was actually cursing her just now. I’m sorry!]

Apologies.

They were dense and overwhelming.

Every single word carried a burning sense of regret.

If there were still people holding a shred of doubt before, believing the leak that Yang Shengli’s original wife had ’severe depression’ was true, they might have thought the Zeng Qifang sitting next to Yang Shengli today was just a woman he had found to act the part.

But now, these old photos, bearing the marks of time and impossible to forge, formed an incredibly clear timeline.

It was like a sledgehammer, smashing all the conspiracy theory speculations to pieces!

Yang Shengli did not stop.

He seemed intent on laying out all the love and pain accumulated over the past twenty-plus years before the world all at once.

He took out another one.

And another.

One after another.

In the photos, Shen Zhixia went from a little girl with pigtails to a slim and graceful young woman.

In her elementary school graduation photo, she stood in the first row, smiling shyly.

At a middle school sports meet, she sat by the sidelines, cheering for the Yang brothers as they ran on the field.

At a high school arts festival, she wore a white gauze dress, quietly playing the piano.

Meanwhile, the black hair at the temples of Yang Shengli and Zeng Qifang in the photos gradually became tinged with silver frost.

Their appearances were aging, but the way they looked at that girl remained consistent throughout.

That thick, inseparable love pierced through the photos, through the screen, and slammed hard into the hearts of every viewer.

Finally, Yang Shengli’s finger stopped on the last page of the album.

His hand trembled almost imperceptibly.

What he pulled out was the newest and most jarring of all the photos.

The background was no longer home or an amusement park, but a glaring, cold white.

It was a hospital.

On the hospital bed, eighteen-year-old Shen Zhixia wore a transparent oxygen mask, her face as pale as paper.

Yet her eyes were startlingly bright.

She and a young man holding a small birthday cake by the bed were facing the camera together, making an effort to flash a ’peace’ sign.

That young man was precisely Yang Shengli’s eldest son, Yang Rui.

At this moment, the image seemed to possess a heart-wrenching power!

The bullet comments that were previously just regret and apologies instantly turned into devastated wailing.

[Holy shit... I’m fucking crying...]

[This was her eighteenth birthday? Spent in a hospital?!]

[I’m not human! I’m really not fucking human! How could I participate in a cyber-violence campaign against a girl like this!]

[My heart hurts so much... She was clearly in so much pain, yet she was still smiling...]

Everyone’s guilt reached its peak the moment they saw this photo!

It was the kind of soul-drowning sense of sin that only comes from realizing you’ve personally plunged a knife into the heart of someone who was already covered in wounds!

Yang Shengli’s eyes turned completely red.

He held up that photo, his voice as hoarse as if it had been rubbed with sandpaper.

”This one was on Zhi Xia’s eighteenth birthday.”

”That day, she had just finished a major heart surgery.”

”The doctor called us family members over and said the situation... was not optimistic, and told us to prepare for the worst.”

”Our whole family waited outside the operating room from daylight until dark.”

”By the time she was finally wheeled out and transferred from the ICU to a regular ward, it was already the early hours of the next morning.”

”That day happened to be her birthday.”

”My son quickly ran out and bought this little cake.”

Yang Shengli’s voice choked up so much he couldn’t continue.

He lowered his head and fiercely wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

He wanted to tell everyone: We just wanted her to know, the moment she opened her eyes, that she had passed another hurdle, that she was another year older.

We just... wanted her to live.

By the end, Yang Shengli’s words were like weeping blood.

He took a deep breath, as if using all his strength to finally force out the words that had been blocked in his throat by his sobbing, one word at a time.

”We just... wanted her to live.”

One sentence.

Six words.

Yet it was like a heavy mountain, crashing down onto the hearts of everyone in the livestream.

It made it hard to breathe.

Yang Shengli held up the photo, his bloodshot eyes staring deathly at the camera, as if he wanted to look through the screen into the eyes of every person who had ever insulted Shen Zhixia.

”This child’s illness is very severe.”

”It’s a complex congenital heart disease that is rare worldwide.”

”Back then, more than one top hospital gave us a definitive diagnosis.”

”They said this child wouldn’t live past twenty.”

There was a fierce stubbornness in his voice that refused to accept fate.

”We didn’t believe it.”

”We took her all over the world.”

”We begged everyone we could; as long as we heard there was a glimmer of hope somewhere, that’s where we went.”

”Fortunately, the Heavens were kind.”

”She stumbled along and finally made it past that hurdle of twenty.”

”She’s held on until now, at twenty-nine.”

”But all of us know full well in our hearts.”

”Her life is something borrowed from the Heavens day by day.”

”Her heart is like a piece of porcelain covered in cracks; it can’t withstand any heavy blow.”

”We don’t know which day, which episode...”

”...will be the one she never wakes up from.”