Mo Han quietly finished eating that orange.
At some point, an old man wearing blue cloth garments walked over. Looking rather serious, he walked to Mo Han’s side, stood shoulder to shoulder with him, and gazed toward the pitch-black entrance of the stairwell.
Mo Han glanced at the old man’s feet, then looked away.
However, feeling Mo Han’s gaze, the old man turned his head to look at him. For some reason, his expression softened slightly.
“Young man, are you waiting for someone here too?”
Mo Han shook his head. “Who are you waiting for?”
“Waiting for my wife.”
The old man’s expression was very serious, as if he were mentioning something extremely important. “She’s timid, afraid of the dark, and doesn’t know her way around. I’m afraid she’ll get lost, so I’m here to pick her up.”
The two of them stood shoulder to shoulder like that. Before long, a figure walked down from the stairs. Leaning on a cane and still bent at the waist, she had changed into a pretty outfit that looked as brand-new as if it had never been washed.
The old woman smiled warmly and greeted Mo Han, “Young man, we meet again.”
Mo Han softly let out an “Mn.”
The old man kept his serious expression, yet immediately followed up by taking a few steps forward and tightly holding the old woman’s hand.
The old woman’s cheeks flushed, and she chided playfully, “Oh my, there’s still a young person here.”
The old man didn’t reply; he just tightly grasped the old woman’s hand.
The old woman patted the pretty peony flower pattern on her clothes and, like a little girl, showed off her new outfit to her husband. She asked him, “Isn’t this outfit nice? Our grandson’s wife bought it. She said the red suits me exceptionally well. Do you think it looks good?”
The old man looked at the clothes, then looked at his radiant wife. “Good-looking.”
The old woman then beamed from ear to ear.
They waved at Mo Han. “Young man, we’ll be heading off first.”
Mo Han nodded and waved back at them.
“Goodbye.”
Mo Han watched as their figures walked side by side toward the exit. Their stooped backs gradually straightened, and their graying hair gradually grew dark and thick.
In the end, the stern young man and the charming young girl tightly held each other’s hands, their figures dissolving into the light.
Mo Han pressed his lips together, his eyes brimming with blessings and a faint yearning.
To win one’s heart, and never part until white-haired old age.
Easy to say, but truly carrying it through to the very end is exceedingly rare.
Much like Mo Han, he was simply one of the sentient beings who sought and could not have.
A burst of sorrowful wailing erupted from inside the building. Giving the stairwell one last glance, Mo Han leaped up and sprang onto the top of the wall.
Thinking of Little Black’s appearance, he walked slowly along the top of the wall. As the sunlight shone on him, he noticed that his body seemed even more transparent than before.
Paying it no mind, he raised his chin and fully enjoyed the warmth of the sun.
If there were a next time, being a cat would actually be pretty nice basking in the sun atop a wall, feeling the sunlight toast one’s fur until it was warm and dry, radiating a cozy, fragrant scent, and lowering one’s head just enough to lick soft paw pads.
Two small cats walked toward him from the opposite direction one white and yellow, the other calico. Two cats and one person thus met by chance on top of the wall.
Seeing the kittens arch their backs somewhat vigilantly, Mo Han smiled and drifted away from the wall.
Mo Han’s gaze shifted away from them as he quietly drifted there. After a moment, he instead felt a warm, moist touch on his hand.
Looking down, he saw that the yellow-and-white kitten was trying to rub its damp nose against his knuckles.
He stroked the heads of the two kittens, earning two soft meows in return.
He asked in a low voice, “Have either of you seen a small, long-haired, blue-eyed black cat?”
The kittens tilted their heads to look at him, as if they understood, yet as if they didn’t. In the end, they flicked their tails and trotted away from the top of the wall with feline steps.
Mo Han straightened up, watching the retreating backs of the cats.
This actually seemed pretty good too.
Before he died, he had also once thought of traveling the length and breadth of the country, carrying his maternal grandfather’s unfulfilled wish to see the scenery of their homeland everywhere. Yet his love had instead become an eternal, unyielding shackle, locking him layer by layer inside that villa.
Now he had no burdens and no attachments, leaving him quite free.
Even though the range of his activities was still somewhat restricted, he was far freer than he had been in life.
He continued walking along the top of the wall, his fingertips gently brushing against the tender flower petals at the corner, catching a fledgling bird that had fallen from its nest. With an idle motion, he plucked a strip of grass blade and wove it on the fly, crafting an intricate little grasshopper.
Its slender antennae swayed gently in the breeze, looking as if it might spring to life the very next second.
After death, the injuries on his body from when he was alive seemed to have healed.
Mo Han walked all the way along the top of the wall, unconsciously wandering further and further into a remote area. Ahead lay a dead end. Mo Han turned around, intending to find somewhere else to stroll, but at that moment heard a muffled groan.
Mo Han was stunned and drifted toward the source of the sound, though at first glance he saw nothing at all.
This narrow dead-end alleyway was packed tight with people, locked in a fierce brawl. Judging by their ages, they ranged from middle schoolers in their early teens to social youths in their twenties.
They were ganging up and beating two people in the center.
One looked slightly older, in his early twenties, with a blood-red diamond stud in his left ear.
The other looked a bit younger; one of the temples of the glasses on his bridge had already broken, hanging crookedly across his face. He looked very young, likely only thirteen or fourteen.
Seeing that flash of a red diamond stud cross his field of vision, a trace of familiarity flickered through Mo Han’s heart.
The fight grew increasingly fierce. A steel pipe landed solidly on the older youth’s shoulder, and he let out a muffled groan. Even if it wasn’t broken, it was bound to bruise.
Seeing him showing signs of defeat, the surrounding youths instantly grew eager to try, each seemingly wanting to deal the fatal blow to the young man before them.
A teenager who looked like a high school student gripped a stool leg embedded with protruding nails, aimed at the back of the young man’s head, raised his arm, and prepared to smash it down viciously.
The young man heard the whistling wind and executed a fierce pivot, kicking the high schooler’s wrist so that the stool leg clattered to the ground.
The younger boy he was shielding reacted with lightning speed, catching the stool leg. Like a cornered rabbit, teeth clenched hard, he swung the stool leg and lashed out at the high schooler.
Blood instantly welled up on the high schooler’s leg. His face flushed red with anger, and letting out a cry of pain, he kicked savagely at the boy, sending him flying backward.
“Get him! Big bro, help me beat him to death!”
After seeing blood, the eyes of this pack of youths reddened with bloodlust, resembling a pack of wild beasts that had tasted human blood.
The situation grew increasingly unfavorable for the young man. Just as he was barely holding on with left-and-right parries, someone whipped out a dagger and lunged toward his abdomen with bloodshot eyes!
Damn it, my guts are going to get torn to pieces this time!
Everything happened far too fast for any interception; the sheer terror of facing evisceration caused him to instinctively slam his eyes shut.
Yet the anticipated pain never arrived.
He opened his eyes and saw a pair of hands.
These were the hands of a young man slender and fair-fingered. The slightly tensed knuckles and the pale veins on the fair back of the hands gave them an indescribable, powerful sense of aesthetic beauty.
These were hands of ingenious craftsmanship.
He had seen so many beauties, yet he had never seen anyone whose hands could compare to this pair, beautiful to the point of distraction.
Yet there were only hands.
Suspended mid-air, this very pair of hands had grabbed the wrists of the person lunging at him with the dagger.
The person attempting to stab him now had wide eyes, filled with utter terror as if he had seen a ghost. He shouted to the surrounding crowd, “S- someone’s grabbing my hands! There’s a ghost!”
The one who appeared to be the leader frowned. “Ghost my ass! You wouldn’t be chickening out, would you?”
He stepped forward, his voice instantly cutting off.
He saw that while nothing was on his buddy’s hand, a red handprint was gradually materializing on the back of it, as if someone were gripping it for dear life.
Having subdued this person, Mo Han finally had the mind to turn back and look at the young man.
No wonder he looked so familiar; he turned out to be Bai Ziyan’s third brother.
The thought flashed through his mind. He casually picked up a steel pipe lying by his feet. Seeing his action, the hooligans around them piqued by adrenaline reddened their eyes and charged over once more, their fear converting into anger as they sought to beat all three of them to death right here.
Mo Han rushed forward.
Seeing this, Bai Ziyan no longer cared about what kind of entity was helping him. He hurriedly scrambled over to place the kicked-unconscious boy in a corner, then waved his one remaining usable arm and joined the fray.
Someone gently pushed him light as a feather, yet returning him right to the young man’s side.
A soft voice seemed to echo in his ear: “No need.”
His eyes snapped wide open.
This existence, whether human or ghost, was terrifyingly formidable. A steel pipe floated through the empty air, taking down one person with every descent. This fight was a completely one-sided steamroll; what that presence said was true he indeed didn’t need to lift a finger.
Yes, Mo Han was actually quite skilled at fighting.
Though his appearance seemed frail and tranquil, if one couldn’t fight amidst such a childhood, living a decent life would have been impossible.
Leveraging his invisible advantage, Mo Han quickly gained the upper hand.
Before long, bodies were sprawled in disorder across the alley, while a few others, unable to contain their terror, had already fled.
Seeing this, Bai Ziyan finally let out that held-in breath.
He collapsed onto the ground, tossing aside any lingering cool-guy persona, breathing heavily as black spots danced before his eyes and everything doubled in his vision.
With a crisp clatter, the steel pipe fell to the ground.
He raised his head and, in a daze, actually saw the owner of those hands take on a solid shape. Against the backlight, the figure appeared somewhat blurred. Looking upward, he saw the person panting softly, raising his head to reveal half of his profile.
His pupils shrank violently.
That face that face was clearly his.
“Second Brother?!”
As if a dream had been pulverized, the figure before him vanished.
“Second Brother? Second Brother!!”
A terrifying speculation struck Bai Ziyan with sudden force. He scrambled frantically to grab his phone, only to remember that his phone had long since been smashed to pieces by those thugs.
He cursed softly under his breath, turned around to pat-down the youths, fished out a phone, unlocked it with a fingerprint, and tremblingly dialed his second brother’s number.
In his heart, he prayed desperately that things weren’t the way he imagined.
Smoothly enough, the call connected, and on the other end, Bai Ziyan’s voice came through, gentle and peaceful just like every time they spoke.
“What is it, Xiaoyan?”
“B- Brother, are you alright?”
As Bai Ziyan’s tightly wound nerves relaxed, tears immediately began to stream down.
Mo Han stared blankly at that teardrop, his mind instead replaying Mo Shengshan flashing a malicious smile at him and saying, [Do you really think that because you saved me, I actually take you as an elder brother? Do you think you can worm your way into the Bai family? Keep dreaming!]
[Those guys were just my buddies putting on a show for you.]
Bai Ziyan arrived very quickly. When he got there, the police had just finished hauling off the gang of thugs, and an ambulance was standing by to transport the two injured individuals to the hospital.
After identifying himself as Bai Ziyan’s family member, Bai Ziyan was also pulled into the ambulance.
Arriving at the hospital for check-ups and finally wrapping up the administrative mess, Bai Ziyan and Bai Ziyuan learned the ins and outs of the whole ordeal.
As it turned out, Bai Ziyan had seen a middle school kid cornered by classmates demanding money, with a few older delinquent youths tagging along. Feeling rather indignant, he wanted to stick up for the kid.
Little did he expect that one of the high schoolers had sworn fealty to an outside gang of hoodlums as their “Big Bro.” Hearing that their sworn little brother was in trouble, this gang of big bros decisively rushed over.
Sensing things going south, Bai Ziyan hurriedly brandished his identity as the Third Young Master of the Bai family. To his surprise, these hooligans weren’t legitimate mobsters they were just a bunch of unemployed street youths banded together who had never heard of any Bai family, and naturally hadn’t taken him seriously, almost leaving him on the losing end of a terrible beating.
Once the nurses and doctors had stepped outside, Bai Ziyan sat by his younger brother’s bed and asked, “Aside from all that, what else?”
He knew his brother’s temper; even if Bai Ziyan were beaten nearly to death, he wouldn’t shed a single tear. Today, with his eyes swollen red like goldfish, there had definitely been something else going on.
Bai Ziyan looked around the hospital room. Confirming no one else was present, he said hesitantly, “Brother, I… I think I ran into a ghost.”
“A ghost?”
Upon hearing mention of a ghost, Bai Ziyuan’s first reaction wasn’t worry over whether his brother was terrified out of his wits and needed a psychologist, nor was it scolding him for nonsense; instead, he thought of that pair of arms that had saved him on the roller coaster.
Seeing his brother maintain a stony silence, Bai Ziyan assumed his brother didn’t believe him and instantly panicked. “Brother, don’t you believe me? It really was a ghost at the time! Otherwise, that dagger would’ve stabbed right here!” He gestured to his stomach.
“Fortunately, some kind ghost-brother helped me block it, otherwise my intestines would’ve been poked to shreds by now.”
Before Bai Ziyuan could react, Bai Ziyan scratched his head again. “I it’s just that for some reason, that big bro revealed his profile, and I thought he looked a lot like you. It scared the wits out of me, I thought you were a goner.”
Reflecting on his own performance, he felt a bit embarrassed and wanted to brush the topic past, but then saw Bai Ziyuan grab him tightly by the shoulders.
He asked urgently, “He looked very much like me?”
Not knowing why his brother was in such a rush, Bai Ziyan hurriedly tried to recall. “No, actually, thinking about it carefully, not quite. Your temperaments are completely different, but at first glance, you really would mistake them.”
“Are there any other characteristics besides that?” Bai Ziyuan stared fixedly at Bai Ziyan.
Thinking of those hands, Bai Ziyan blurted out, “His hands were good-looking! Especially good-looking!”
“I’d recognize them the moment I laid eyes on them again!”