Chapter Thirty-Six: A Glimmer of Sunshine, A Glimmer of Dreams (01)

  Humans are emotional animals. This seems to be true, otherwise humans would not be human. It is precisely because of the existence of various emotional factors that this world, society and life have a human touch, and also have their preciousness.

  In the past, Chen Haonan had always harbored resentment towards his father, thinking that his father's harsh words and corporal punishment were intentionally directed at him. As a result, he felt some disgust and rebellion towards his father, even secretly cursing him...

  However, since his father's illness, Chen Haonan gradually realized that he was wrong, and he was terribly wrong. How he wished to make up for his mistakes, but his father suddenly left, forever gone, and he was filled with regret - he often scolded himself, questioning himself over and over again.

  These days back at school, Chen Haonan couldn't stop thinking about the time he spent with his father and the mistakes he made in the past. He became somewhat neurotic: afraid of other people's gazes, afraid of being asked questions, and even more afraid of their sympathy and pity... His situation made his classmates feel strange, especially his good friend Li Donglin.

  "If we are true brothers, then we should treat each other with sincerity!" This is a sentence that Chen Haonan once said.

  For a very long time, Chen Haonan and Li Donglin were indeed sincere with each other. However, since Chen Haonan's father fell ill, Li Donglin noticed that he had changed a lot - in Li Donglin's eyes, the previous Chen Haonan was so bright, confident and sunny, but now he has become gloomy, closed and introverted, and lost enthusiasm and passion for many things. Because of this, Li Donglin is very worried, especially in the past few days, Chen Haonan missed a whole week of classes, and he is anxious all the time. However, Chen Haonan always deliberately avoided him, and his several inquiries were brushed off by him with mumbles.

  That evening, Chen Haonan was again "scared" out of the classroom because a girl in his class asked him kindly. Coincidentally, Li Donglin had just returned from dinner at home and saw this scene, his heart ached terribly - he had too many questions in his mind, but his good brother not only didn't give him an answer, but also didn't even give him the opportunity to ask. Suddenly, Li Donglin thought of Chen Haonan's seriously ill father again. As soon as he thought of this, he vaguely sensed something: Had something happened to Haonan's dad? Was his condition getting worse? Or...

  Thinking of this, Li Donglin hastily stopped his restless thoughts, but he clearly felt that his heart was trembling with fear.

  "No matter what, I must ask Han for clarification, or else tomorrow's holiday will be delayed again..." Li Donglin muttered to himself, throwing the book in his hand onto the desk, and hurriedly chased out of the classroom. The "holiday" that Li Donglin mentioned refers to the National Day long vacation: grades one and two are off from September 30th afternoon to October 6th afternoon, while grade three is off from September 30th afternoon to October 2nd afternoon. When the school leaders held a "pre-holiday meeting", and each class teacher promoted it, the students all cheered and jumped for joy. The students who were immersed in happiness had twice as much energy and their eyes were wide open during every class, so the teachers all sighed: if you had such enthusiasm every day, not only would our province's key universities be easy to get into, but even Tsinghua and Peking Universities would be yours for the taking! However, the students responded with a string of laughter.

  A few people in the classroom saw Li Donglin rush out and were silent for a while, then they started discussing it in hushed tones.