A Heart-Shaped Chandelier and a Return to the Past

In the darkness, I didn’t know how long I had been silent, when a glimmer of light entered my eyes. It was a heart-shaped chandelier.

“Is this the world after death? No, it’s my home,” I stared blankly at the chandelier above, yes, it was my home. I bought this chandelier with my parents, and I was lying in bed, I sat up and my eyes scanned the room. A familiar room, the same layout, “Didn’t I die? I remember being killed by Yamashita Izumi…”

Something was rushing into my head, I remembered, I remembered everything I had forgotten. It turned out that Xia Yinuo and Hu Lan’er had no blood relation with me, Xia Yinuo lied to me, so how did I come back? I jumped out of bed and ran barefoot into the living room.

The living room was spacious, and on the table was a very obvious black and white portrait, a middle-aged man with a refined demeanor, and a woman with short hair and a gentle expression.

“Dad! Mom!”

My nose stung, and tears welled up. With a heavy step, I walked over and hugged the frame. I hadn’t thought of my parents in a long time, could it be that… I quickly returned to the bedroom, and on the bedside table was a red phone, which was my mom’s.

I turned on the phone, which showed 2002, September 5, 8:00 am. This was…

It wasn’t that Yamashita Izumi let me go, but that I came back a year after my death. I remembered, everything was connected. The frame was always placed in the living room before I went to school, and I put it away after I met new friends. So I would be able to see Xia Yinuo again, as long as I went to the school’s psychological counseling room, I would be able to see her again.

I thought of this and was overjoyed, putting the frame on the bedside table. I found the materials for school and the fees to be paid in the drawer. A faint sound of a door opening came to my ears, and I thought it was the wind that blew the door open. I was about to go out when the phone rang.

I looked at the caller ID, which said it was Uncle Goblin.

Uncle Goblin was my father’s colleague and used to be our neighbor. For some reason, he moved to another city, and I used to go to his house often when I was little. Goblin was not his name, but I thought he looked like a goblin, so I called him that.

“Uncle,” I answered.

“Goblin! I used to live next door to you, hissing, next door, that, hissing, uncle. I have something to ask you, you must, ah, you must promise me, uncle is begging you.”

In my ears, Uncle Goblin’s very humble tone and the sound of a whip on his body, and his weak tremble. If it weren’t for the fact that I was already used to the noise that could be misunderstood, I would have thought he was being beaten.

“I’ll do what I can, it’s just, I’m afraid I can’t help you with much.”

Uncle Goblin was an adult, and usually, I couldn’t help with adult matters. Before, when we bought light bulbs and sockets, it was my father who did it. Uncle Goblin should be asking me to help with these things.

“Only you can help! Do you still remember Xiao Qi? You two used to play together, she just started middle school this year, and she said she wanted to move out, can she stay at your place for a while?”

“No problem, I have an empty room, I’ll let her come over, okay, yeah, I’ll take good care of her.”

“Then I’ll send you her number, you can go pick her up later.”

“Okay!”

I was about to hang up the phone when I suddenly remembered something important. “Uncle, wait, Xiao Qi, Xiao Qi is a girl, she should be about the same age as me, I’ve grown up, both in mind and body, I’m a qualified man, it’s not appropriate, not appropriate.”

“Goblin! You’re 12 years old and 1 day, Xiao Qi is 12 years old and 2 days. She is a mature woman, both in chest and ass, and has the hard qualifications to be a mother, you can rest assured.”

“Uncle, that’s not what I’m talking about, that’s not it, you… hello?”

Uncle Goblin had hung up the phone, I remembered that Xiao Qi used to follow me everywhere, her nose always had two bright snots. As for her appearance, it had been so long that I couldn’t remember.

I also received the message from Uncle Goblin, and I dialed the number on it, and the living room rang with a ding-dong sound.

“Why is there a phone in the living room?” I remembered clearly that there was only one phone in the house. Dad’s was broken, and I saw a white phone on the table in the living room.

Strangely, as soon as this thought came to my mind, I saw a figure in the corner of my eye. There was a figure in the bathroom, and the door of the bathroom in my house was the kind of frosted glass, and the figure inside could be vaguely seen.

A white towel wrapped around the girl’s chest, along her slender waist, all the way to her calves, with a towel on her head, her dazzling arms were rubbing her hair, and her calves, moistened by water, were very pink and very pleasing to the eye.

Why was there a girl taking a bath in my house, was this really my house? I didn’t dare to speak, and my eyes swept the living room, kitchen, and bedroom. Then I opened the door, looked outside, and the number on the nameplate was still so familiar, this was indeed my house.

So why was there a girl in my house, how did she get in, the girl who was washing her hair hummed a song, completely unaware of my existence, and the phone on the table was still ringing.

A flash of inspiration came to my mind, the number I dialed might be the number of the phone, I quickly hung up the phone, and the phone on the table also stopped ringing. I looked at the girl in the room who was so relaxed, I was still a bit stunned, so I dialed the number again.

Ding ding ding…

The phone on the table rang in response, the phone number was correct, that is to say, the girl in the bathroom was Xiao Qi, my childhood sweetheart.

I didn’t dare to speak, not because I was afraid, but because I was shy. I never thought that when I met my childhood friend again, it would be in this situation. I tiptoed to the table, picked up her phone, and sat upright on the sofa. I sat on the edge of the sofa, leaving a large space on the side. After all, Xiao Qi and I had both grown up, and we could no longer be as close as we were in the past. I also wanted to make a good impression on her, at least I wouldn’t peep or take photos while she was taking a bath.

I pressed the power button and the screen lit up, showing two pink little girls, who looked to be three or four years old. The girl on the left had a bob, holding a jar of yogurt in her left hand, and her right hand was on the shoulder of the girl on the right, who had long hair and looked like they were getting along well. Because of the close posture, the girl with long hair leaned against her friend.

“Wait… this, this bobbed girl is me.” Because on her left wrist was a red string with a bead on it. My gaze turned to the left hand holding the phone, and on the wrist, there was still a red string with an apricot kernel. This red string was a pair, the other one was on Xiao Qi’s hand, I didn’t know if she still had it after so many years.

I was very nervous, and I heard the sound of water splashing and the humming of “la la la.”

Her voice was ethereal, free, like a little bird in the depths of the mountains, chirping with the mood.

Creak!

The door opened, and I saw a pair of pink little feet on the floor…

Above the little feet, the entire body was wrapped in a towel, and from the outside, the whole body was very small and delicate. The slender left hand was pinching the hair, and the right hand was wiping the hair with a blue towel, the movements were very natural, and there was no sense of restraint in someone else’s house. My gaze moved from the beautiful waistline, and the chest was two buds, small but not lacking elegance.

Looking up, the skin was whiter than milk, Xiao Qi was small in stature, but the collarbone was not bony and abrupt. My gaze continued to move up, wanting to see what she looked like now. The pointed chin was 7 points, of which 7 points were from the whiteness and smoothness of the skin, and the lips were 9 points, the mouth was small and naturally had red lips. Knowing that 99% of people’s mouths are not red, just because of this, she was far ahead of many women. Whoever married her would definitely save a lot of lipstick money. 9 points couldn’t be more, more than 9 points for fear of her being conceited, and less than 9 points for fear of being unfair. The face was in the shape of a melon seed, but there was a little baby fat on the cheek.

Only these few parts were six or seven points like Yamashita Izumi.

“Damn, how did Xiao Qi grow up to be like this?” Not that she was not pretty, but she was very cute. It was just that Yamashita Izumi had cast a huge shadow in my heart, and just looking at the part below the eyes made my back a little cold. The almond-shaped eyes looked at me gently.

Whoosh!

When I saw those eyes, I jumped onto the sofa, trembling and pointing at her: “You are… who are you, where is Xiao Qi?”

Because this face was the enlarged face of Yamashita Izumi, almost identical. I wouldn’t be wrong, it was Yamashita Izumi, just grown up.

“Brother, don’t tease me. I’m Xiao Qi!” The girl in the towel pouted and blushed, rubbing her hair and walking towards the sofa.

“Don’t come over, stop, stop!” I almost screamed, and I jumped off the sofa, retreating to the bedroom door. One hand on the wall, one hand on the doorknob. If she rushed over, I would lock the door first. Yamashita Izumi wanted to kill me again, right!

Xiao Qi was Yamashita Izumi. I knew I had died once. But I didn’t know if the original timeline was still the same after everything came back, and the Xiao Qi in front of me made me doubt. This world was not that simple, there should be some changes on the basis of the original timeline, and there were two possibilities. For example, Xiao Qi was Yamashita Izumi, and she just wanted to kill me again. The other possibility was that Xiao Qi just looked very similar to Yamashita Izumi.

Uncle Goblin and Xiao Qi were real, and the probability that Xiao Qi and Yamashita Izumi were the same person was much smaller. But this did not dispel my doubts.

If it was Xiao Qi, she would listen to me the most.

The girl in the towel looked at me in disbelief, standing in place and looking at me in panic.

“Brother!”

The girl in the towel called me softly, and this short word “brother” contained affection, admiration, and coquetry.

“Don’t call me brother, I won’t fall for your tricks again. You must be trying to relax my vigilance with your beauty and then kill me, dream on, the same trick won’t work on me a second time, ridiculous, ridiculous, you just want to kill me so much?”

“I, I… brother, what are you talking about? I’m Xiao Qi, you forget? When we were children, we played in the mud together, and we slept together…”

“Shut up! You’re going to strangle me with that towel, right? There must be a fruit knife under the towel, right? Do you really think such a simple trick can fool me? You can just give up on that.” Yamashita Izumi was also this kind of innocent and pitiful appearance, and after I found various knives on her, I still believed she was a good girl, which was also the indirect cause of my death.