Chapter 446

Persuasion must be done. Although Anna's condition has stabilized, she has just been discharged from the hospital, so it won't be good if she cries and ruins her body.

After touching the little head of his younger brother, who was a bit honest when he said smart things and understood everything when he said stupid things, Leon put down the newspaper in his hand, got up and left the second bedroom, and walked toward Anna's room.

This old house located in Veteran Alley is not the original home of Leon's four siblings, but an old house allocated by the military after forcibly deducting part of the pension, and it is almost five times older than Leon.

The old house is old and broken, the lighting is average, and there is not even a toilet. Apart from the small living room connected to the kitchen, only one master bedroom and one second bedroom are left.

The slightly smaller second bedroom has always been occupied by Leon. As for the so-called Anna's room, it is actually the master bedroom shared by her and the two younger siblings.

"Creak"

Accompanied by the dumb cry of the old door shaft, Leon pushed the door into the master bedroom, and the first thing he saw was his sister sobbing on the bedding.

Like the second bedroom where Leon lived, there was only one single bed in this small master bedroom. William and Melanie could barely sleep when they were young, but after the two mischievous ghosts grew up a little later, it seemed a bit crowded.

So Leon picked up some wooden boards and bricks from outside, added a section to the original old bed, and padded it with mattresses and his parents' old clothes, hoping that his younger brother and sister could sleep more comfortably. However, because of the material problem, the part that was built was a bit unstable, and the bed board was easy to shake.

And Anna was lying on this part of the bed board at this time. With every muffled sob of hers, the half bed that was built followed and shook, and her butt also followed and shook. With the sobbing sound, it twisted and twisted, which looked quite funny, making Leon laugh.

"Brother! You are still laughing!"

Hearing Leon's muffled laughter, Anna, who was lying on the bed, became even angrier. She rarely threw a tantrum, kicked her two white and tender feet in the air angrily, and then couldn't help but complain:

"It's all because you spoiled them! Before, when they made trouble, you always stopped me from beating them! Now they have started stuffing horse manure into other people's mouths! You can still laugh!"

"Uh..."

Not embarrassed to explain what he was laughing at, Leon had to take the initiative to move his gaze away, and while looking at the furnishings in the room, he said something else:

"I just think that just beating the butt might not work, or you have to let them know why they were beaten. Otherwise, don't let them think that they were beaten and making trouble was not wrong.

If you don't believe it, look at William. He has already summarized the experience of how many slaps he will be beaten after making trouble, so it proves that he still has to reason well."

"But you have to be beaten before they will listen to your reasoning!"

Anna, who has always been very gentle in front of Leon and almost never expresses her opinion, is extremely strong only in educating her younger siblings.

After rubbing her tears with the back of her hand, she turned around, pouted and argued unconvinced:

"You don't spend much time with them, you don't know how annoying they are at all!

Melanie doesn't understand right from wrong, she thinks she can fool around by playing tricks! William is even more worrying. Although he doesn't actively make trouble, his ideas are always very strange, just like... just like..."

After thinking for a long time without thinking of a vocabulary that could describe her younger brother's peculiar brain circuit, the sickly girl hammered the bed board angrily and summarized directly:

"Anyway, I have to manage! If I don't manage it, it will be too late when I grow up!"

"Hmm, manage! Must manage! If there is a next time, I will definitely not stop it!"

After echoing twice, Leon walked over and sat on the edge of the bed, while gently stroking his sister's back, and comforted her softly:

"But you might as well think about the good side. Although they are indeed a bit naughty, they have never actively bullied others. The previous few times were not all their problems... hmm... let me think."

After recalling the few times he remembered, Leon's expression was slightly complex and he said:

"This time they caused trouble, it was someone who said you wouldn't come back; last time it was a game that got anxious, and a child scolded William for being a wild child; the time before that was to stop the little fat boy named Jack from bullying others;

The time before that was when I went to the wharf to be a stevedore, because I was too weak and was driven away, and someone in the alley said idle words; before that, it seemed that your coughing sound was too loud at night, disturbing the neighbors' rest, and you were called a tuberculosis ghost..."

The more they recalled why the younger brother and sister made trouble, the more uncomfortable Leon and Anna's expressions became.

They didn't feel it before, but now they see that although they are very naughty, they have reasons for every time they cause trouble. So rather than saying that the two of them are "naughty," it is better to say that they are also using their own way to try to maintain this fragile little home.

If I, the big brother (sister), could be a little more powerful at the beginning, and block more maliciousness from life for them, the two little ones might not have to be so "naughty," and could happily be two lively and innocent ordinary children...

"Don't think about these first."

After looking at the tears flashing in his sister's eyes, Leon, who found that the more he persuaded, the worse the situation was, hurriedly changed the subject, picked up a yellowed old photo album from the shelf at the head of the bed, hugged Anna's thin shoulders and comforted:

"I have a public office in the Police Department now. After becoming a regular employee at the end of the year, I can also let William and the others enter school for free, and no longer have to fight with the children in the alley. So let the past things pass! Our family will definitely get better and better...

By the way, the last time we looked at the photo album together was more than two years ago when I had a high fever. It's not too late today. If your body doesn't feel uncomfortable, then accompany me to flip through it again?"

"Hmm..."

After leaning her body along Leon's strength and leaning gently on his shoulder, Anna, with red eyes, took the photo album, touched the damaged cardboard shell nostalgically, and then opened the photo album and flipped through it gently.

"This is when mother was young."

Opening the first page of the photo album, pointing to a faded group photo in which a beautiful woman in military uniform with eyebrows similar to Leon's and a vigorous heroic spirit on her face, Anna explained softly:

"Mother told me... told us when she was young, this is a photo of her when she was admitted to the Mechanical Engineer Academy and assigned to the Artillery Adjustment Class, and this is father..."

Anna's soft fingertips lifted up and pointed to a tall, handsome, and gentle-looking black-haired man in the corner of the back row.

"Father and mother were originally classmates. After graduation, they were conscripted into the same unit, so they slowly became familiar, and then there was... you, and then I was born the following year..."

As Anna flipped through the photo album lightly and slowly, looking at the strange man and woman, from knowing each other to falling in love, and finally wearing wedding dresses and wedding gowns, hugging each other affectionately with happy hot tears in a small church, Leon's mood also became better.

Unlike the cold and cruel reality, the happy moments frozen in the photo album were so warm, even though they were severely faded due to time, they did not affect the brightness and dazzlingness of those smiles at all.

Speaking of which... was Anna such a lively child when she was young?

The enviable happiness in the photo album continued. Looking at the little golden-haired girl who was smiling incomparably brightly in the photo, Leon couldn't help but reach out and touch little Anna's bright golden hair gently.

In his memory, apart from Anna smiling and nodding at him softly, there was only the choking cough when she was sick, and the frowning eyebrows from time to time. Leon had never seen his sister smile so happily... what exactly took away her smile?

Looking at the photo album that had already been flipped through more than half, even though Melanie and the two had not appeared yet, the self-evident answer naturally surged into his heart.

"That... I suddenly remembered that there is still some work to be done!" Because he clearly knew what a cruel ending the incomparably beautiful family in the photo album would face in the end, Leon's body couldn't help but stiffen slightly. While regretting why he had to propose such a stupid idea of looking at the photo album, he apologized to Anna:

"How about we look at it here first? You are also tired today, so go to bed early!"

"Hmm..."

The thin girl responded softly, seemingly not noticing Leon's abnormality, closed the photo album in her hand directly, and nodded her chin with a light smile.

However, after Leon fled, she didn't get up, but opened the heavy old photo album again and slowly flipped to the last page.

On the back cover of the yellowed photo album, in the position that should have been left for the most important photo, there was a torn old photo.

The person who tore the photo seemed to be very hard, and even rubbed the fragments very hard, causing many cracks in the photo to warp. Even if it seemed to have been carefully processed, it still couldn't be completely flattened, and even the face of the portrait was not very complete.

In this strange photo, the husband and wife, who had appeared many times in the front of the photo album but had been dead for a full six years, were still smiling happily at the camera, standing hugging each other under the sign with the flower-style word "Family Photo".

However, in front of them, it was not the four siblings of two men and two women, but only one child of about eight or nine years old. The child was holding the father's and mother's hands one by one, showing an incomparably happy smile at the camera.

Reaching out her finger to touch the child's face in the photo, pressing the warped part of the crack flat, revealing the bright golden hair of the same color as her mother, and looking at the strange smiling face on the girl's face, Anna couldn't help but bite her lip hard.

Immediately after, as if she had made up her mind, she scraped the glued broken photos one by one with her fingernails, then found a matchbox and a small bucket in the room, threw the fragments into the iron bucket, and...

After looking away with full reluctance, Anna struck a match with a "cha" sound, lit a ball of cotton wool, threw it into the bucket, and burned the last family photo of her parents and herself into black ash at the bottom of the bucket!

Hmm... there seems to be something I forgot to do yesterday.

Not knowing what happened after he left last night, as a social animal without holidays, Leon climbed out of his small bed when the sky was just getting bright.

After taking out the straw paper used as a memo and looking at it, he helplessly found that because he was worried about making Anna think of sad things yesterday, he slipped away halfway through looking at the photos, and directly threw the matter of asking her to confirm his birthday behind his head.

Now... she and William should not be awake yet, right? Then wait until I come back in the evening to ask!

After looking at the still dark master bedroom, Leon shook his head and gave up the idea of asking now, instead holding a stack of old newspapers, pushed the door and left home lightly, walking on the way to work while wearing stars and moon.

Hmm? Where is the coffee stall?

When he walked to a position similar to the previous few days, Leon was surprised to find that although the temperature was very suitable for the coffee stall to open, the cunning merchant with the same name as Charle Department Store did not come to set up the stall today.

After turning around two streets nearby and not seeing Old Charle's shadow, Leon finally gave up on the promised half-price coffee, walked toward another small stall across the street with a drooping face, and ordered the cheapest cup of coffee.

It has to be said that although Old Charle's coffee stall is dead for money and the things given are very stingy, the "consumption experience" is indeed first-class. Other coffee stalls really can't compare. Although the things given by this small stall are very sufficient, it really doesn't have the taste of the one at Old Charle's stall.

Sighing quite regretfully, and drinking the hot coffee in three or two mouthfuls, Leon was about to get up and leave, but caught a glimpse of a somewhat familiar face at the next table.

That person... seems to be an old customer of Old Charle too?

After identifying that face and confirming that he hadn't recognized the wrong person, Leon hesitated for a short time, then walked over quickly.

"Hello, excuse me."

After reaching out and pointing across the street, before Leon could ask his question, the old customer raised his eyebrows in realization and spoke first:

"Oh! Isn't this the son-in-law chosen by Old Charle?"

???

What? I only drank his coffee a few times, and I paid for it, how did I become his son-in-law?

Looking at Leon, who was confused by his shouting, the old customer, who was about fifty years old, laughed twice, briefly explained the origin of this title, and then asked with a smile:

"You came to talk to me, you want to ask why Old Charle didn't set up the stall today, right? I really know this!"

After gesturing for Leon to sit down, the fifty-year-old old customer continued:

"I met him last night. It seems that his wife and others partnered to do business, but accidentally fell into a trap set by others, and it seems that they lost a lot of money, which made her so angry that she fainted on the spot.

Although his wife was lucky and was saved by a kind young man passing by, and nothing major happened, it is estimated that she will have to raise it for more than half a month.

Old Charle told me that he wants to take care of his wife and by the way find those people to ask for justice. He definitely can't set up the stall these few days."

"..."

Doing business... falling into a trap... losing a lot of money... so angry that she fainted on the spot... and was saved by a kind young man passing by... why does this sound a bit familiar?

After hearing the encounter of another "Mrs. Charle," Leon couldn't help but scratch the back of his head awkwardly, feeling that the coincidences in this world are really a bit too outrageous.

Reasonably speaking, if his stealing data from the hydraulic company can be counted as a kind of "passing by," then the encounters of these two Mrs. Charle are really not different at all.

As for whether it is possible that these two Mrs. Charle are the same person, and whether this Old Charle who buys coffee on the street will be the Charle of Charle Department Store...

How is this possible!

After thinking about the possibility of such a strange coincidence, Leon couldn't help but curl his lips and mock himself fiercely in his heart.

Met a coffee-selling uncle at a street stall, and it happened to be the top three richest man in the capital, and then when performing an external mission yesterday, he happened to save the life of the rich man's wife, and then heard others say this morning that the rich man seems to have the intention to choose him as his son-in-law and inherit his department store that has opened all over the capital...

Stop talking nonsense, do you really think you are the protagonist!

(End of chapter)