The photos looked really old, yellow patches could be seen upon the pictures.
In one of the pictures, there was a little girl with braids who was dressed in a set of black and white costume of knights. She was sitting on a galloping horse, displaying a wonderful smile. She had one front tooth missing, and looked cheerful. She seemed like an outgoing girl, smart and funny.
Shangguan Ning got so startled by what Zheng Lun said that it took her a moment to recover.
She looked through all the pictures on the wall and found that Zheng Lun on all the pictures looked the same. Her appearance didn’t seem to have changed since she was little, so Shangguan Ning couldn’t have imagined that the girl in the picture was not the Zheng Lun in front of her eyes.
Then who was she if she was not the real Zheng Lun.
Shangguan Ning’s heart ached a bit. She was about to ask her but had no idea about how to go about it.
Zhao Anan was a straightforward woman, so she didn’t hesitate and said, “Ah, Lun, so you were really picked up from the street by your parents?”
It was not a secret. Zhao Anan had heard about it ages ago, but she hadn’t been certain and had not felt comfortable enough to ask her this kind of question.
Seeing that Zheng Lun mentioning this matter herself, she just couldn’t control her curiosity anymore.
Shangguan Ning wanted to zip her mouth after hearing Zhao Anan speak.
Unexpectedly, however, Zheng Lun’s fingers went over the picture on the wall and a soft smile hovered upon her face.
“Yes, you are right. I was picked up from the street, not by my parents but by my brother.”
She turned to look at her friends and smiled, showing no grief.
“Want to hear the story? Come, let’s talk upstairs.”
There was a place close to the window on the second floor that had been turned into a cozy living room. A patterned screen was placed in the middle for tea hours.
The three of them sat down and Zheng Lun made tea for her friends with a smile.
As the scent of tea spread across the room, Zheng Lun’s soft voice arose in the room.
The first thing she said, gripped Shangguan Ning and Zhao Anan’s heart. “I used to be a little beggar staying with a human trafficker.”
“I was skinny, tiny and timid. I was not fed enough and beaten every single day. At that time, I thought that it was normal because the children around me were being treated just the same.”
Zheng Lun still looked frightened and agonized while talking about it.
The events of her childhood had cast an enormous psychological impact on her heart.
“I was hungry and cold and in pain every day. But that was not what I was most frightened of. What I was most frightened of was to be locked in an isolated, freezing basement with no light because of which I am still scared of darkness and need to have the light on when sleeping.”
Shangguan Ning held Zheng Lun’s hands in her own and said softly, “Lun, you don’t need to tell us anything more. It is all history, long gone. Don’t think about it anymore!”
Zheng Lun displayed a grateful smile and shook her head. “It is okay. I am not sad about what happened, because I don’t remember much about it. I was very young, only six or seven years old. I am not even sure how old I am right now, because I am treated as the real Zheng Lun.”
“My name is Qiqi. I had many beggar friends who were named randomly. I remember that I might have been called Qiqi because that’s what everyone else called me.”
“I got fully fed for the first time when I ran into my brother.”
Zheng Lun had a happy expression on her face. Apparently, Zheng Jing had brought unprecedented brightness and warmth in her life.
“He held me the moment he saw me and called me Lun. He was crying. When he got to know that I was starving, he bought me food. But later, he was beaten up by the human trafficker who claimed that he was kidnapping children. But the following day, he came to me again with his parents. He pointed at me and said that I was his sister.”
“Mother took me into her arms and kept crying. She asked me to call her mother. I obeyed and that made her cry even more. I was frightened and started crying too.”
Zheng Lun looked at the woman through the patterned screen. She was happily busy.
Then she said softly, “I really do look like Zheng Lun. Mother said that even my voice resembles hers.”
“Then I was brought home by my parents. They adopted me as a child. At that time, dad was the Deputy Director of Public Security Bureau, so the human trafficker was sentenced and imprisoned. The beggars were sent back to their own parents or to the orphanage.”
“My life changed tremendously. I really turned into a princess from a beggar. I got food and clothes and a family who loves me so much.”
“It was not until later that I understood that I had been adopted because I resembled their little girl. My mother never concealed the truth from me. I replaced Zheng Lun and became her daughter. She has been taking great care of me up to the present day.”
Zheng Lun paused and the smile on her face disappeared gradually.
She said in a low voice, “The real Zheng Lun got leukemia… medical science was not as developed twenty years ago. She only survived for a few months until she… when I came to this home, she had already been dead for half a year.”
“So when I suddenly appeared at Family Zheng, all the neighbors were astonished. They had no idea why the child who had disappeared was back again. Then they got to know that I am not the real Zheng Lun, but a girl who resembles her. But I have a totally different personality from the real Zheng Lun who was outgoing and open. I am timid and shy. Also, because we have an age difference or because I didn’t grow enough due to malnutrition, I am much shorter than Zheng Lun.”
As Shangguan Ning and Zhao Anan listened to her recounting the old story in a soft tone, they finally understood her real personality and why… she could have fallen for her own brother.
They were not real siblings.
Apparently, Zheng Jing regarded her as his real sister and judging from how Mrs. Zheng talked and behaved, Zheng Lun was truly regarded as her own daughter.
It seemed that Zheng Lun could only keep the affection deep inside her heart. They were not real siblings, but they were almost like siblings. They couldn’t possibly change their identities so easily!
