So, in the middle of the night.
The mother and son sat on high stools at the water bar, drinking sweet soup at three in the morning.
It was mango milk jelly sago.
Shu Lingchen scooped up a large spoonful and put it into his mouth. The sweet fruit flesh and creamy fragrance spread across his taste buds.
The last time he drank sweet soup made by his mom was thirteen years ago.
The taste was just as good as ever.
So nostalgic.
Shu Lingchen squinted in satisfaction, and the lingering fear from the nightmare in his chest also faded.
He took several more big bites, then suddenly thought of something. He looked up at Shu Shu across from him and cautiously said, “Mom, tomorrow if I fall asleep in class, you won’t smash my head, right?”
Shu Shu didn’t even look up. “If you sleep, I’ll smash it.”
“But I’ll only sleep for a little while before having to get up for school. I’ll definitely be sleepy during the day.”
Shu Shu said, “It’s fine. If I smash it a few more times, you won’t be sleepy anymore.”
“…”
Shu Lingchen wilted. Thinking of how Shu Shu had softly called him Xiao Chen when he woke from the nightmare earlier, the boy looked at her resentfully.
“Mom, I’ve realized something. You’ve changed.”
Shu Shu said calmly, “Mm, I know. I’ve become younger and prettier.”
“…” Shu Lingchen couldn’t deny that, but after thinking for a moment he said, “No, that’s not it. Before, you always called me Xiao Chen very gently. But now you call me by my full name—Shu Lingchen, Shu Lingchen. It sounds really cold.”
“Mom, are you… disgusted with the grown-up me?” he asked, lowering his eyes gloomily.
Hearing this,
Shu Shu raised her eyes and looked at Shu Lingchen seriously.
Feeling his mother’s gaze, Shu Lingchen instinctively straightened his back nervously. He stiffened his neck, thinking he might hear something like, How could Mom dislike you? You’re overthinking it.
But the next second—
He heard Shu Shu let out a long sigh and say, “Shu Lingchen, you need to understand. No one can be gentle toward a turkey chick.”
Shu Lingchen: “?”
What did that mean?
Shu Shu looked at Shu Lingchen’s indescribable red-yellow-blue “turkey head.”
When he was little, Shu Lingchen’s looks were famous throughout the entire neighborhood and kindergarten.
He inherited his father’s excellent genes—big eyes, double eyelids, and a high nose bridge.
He had been a soft, fragrant, handsome little boy, the kind that made people adore him.
Back then, Shu Shu’s favorite thing was to customize all kinds of little vests and suits for Shu Lingchen to wear.
But now—
He had turned into a punk wearing ripped pants.
Shu Lingchen looked up and saw the obvious disgust in Shu Shu’s eyes. He immediately felt like he had been struck in the knee by an arrow. Then he turned his head and snorted.
“…Fine, dislike me if you want. No matter how much you dislike me, I’m still your genuine biological son.”
Shu Shu couldn’t help curling her lips slightly.
The brat was pretty good at patching things up for himself.
Shu Shu looked at the boy’s profile and thought again about the dream she had. The pitiful little figure curled up on the bed in the dream slowly overlapped with the terrified Shu Lingchen who had been sobbing earlier.
She wasn’t sure whether that was just a dream or something that had actually happened…
Shu Shu pressed her lips together, her gaze falling on her son.
“Xiao Chen, I’ve always wanted to ask you—during the thirteen years when I wasn’t here… how did you live?”
Shu Lingchen had been about to smugly feel happy when he heard her call him Xiao Chen again, but when he heard the second half of her question, his expression paused.
“Didn’t I say before? Aunt Chu took care of me.”
Shu Shu said, “What I want to know is what happened after I died.”
The dream just now had been too real.
Just as real as the dream she had before she died.
“You also said before that you refused the orphanage and the foster family simply because you didn’t want to go. Was it really that simple, or was there another reason?”
Shu Lingchen fell silent. After a long time, he finally spoke.
“I refused to go to the orphanage because I had been there before. There was an aunt there… who abused me. She falsely accused me of spilling food everywhere and kept pinching me.”
Shu Shu’s pupils shrank.
The dream was real!
“She deliberately made me wear long sleeves to cover the bruises on my body and pretended to treat me well in front of others.”
Shu Lingchen said, “If Aunt Chu hadn’t reported her, maybe people wouldn’t have discovered that she abused me so quickly.”
Shu Shu said, “Wait, Aunt Chu—Chu Lian’s mother? She was also at that children’s welfare institute?”
“Yes.” Shu Lingchen nodded. “Aunt Chu happened to volunteer at that orphanage and discovered that the aunt was abusing me. She immediately reported her to the director, and that woman was taken away by the police.”
Shu Shu fell into thought.
It was actually Chu Lian’s mother who helped Shu Lingchen.
“Later I returned to Yujing Garden. A young couple wanted to adopt me, which would have been the foster family.”
Shu Shu nodded. “Mm, mm. So what were they like?”
In the dream she had seen that the couple liked children very much and had been very patient with Shu Lingchen.
But then Shu Shu heard Shu Lingchen give a cold laugh.
“They were the same as that aunt in the orphanage—actors. Liars. Their kindness toward me was all fake.”
“Why do you say that?”
There was heavy mockery in Shu Lingchen’s eyes.
“At first I thought they sincerely wanted to adopt me. But later I found out they couldn’t have children and wanted to take me home just to experience what it felt like to have a child.”
“They were also seeing doctors to treat their condition and trying to have their own child. They said that once their own baby was born, they would abandon me.”
So that was why Shu Lingchen rejected the young couple.
“…How did you know they thought that way?”
Shu Lingchen said, “Aunt Chu told me.”
Shu Shu: “???”
Again, Chu Lian’s mother.
“At that time, Aunt Chu was the one who came to apartment 1701 every day to take care of me for free instead of the property staff. She overheard the couple making a phone call to their doctor.”
Shu Lingchen remembered that day.
Aunt Chu had held him in her arms, her face full of pity, repeating again and again:
“Our Xiao Chen really has a hard fate. That couple is like wolves and tigers. Sooner or later they’ll have their own child. They even said that once their baby is born, they’ll throw Xiao Chen back into the orphanage and never care about him again. Oh dear, what will Xiao Chen do then?”
At that time, Shu Lingchen had already developed a stress reaction to the words orphanage. Just hearing them made his whole body tremble.
Instantly, all his goodwill toward the young couple disappeared, replaced by strong resistance.
So on the day he was about to be taken to their home, he resisted fiercely and ultimately didn’t go.
“If it weren’t for Aunt Chu, who knows what kind of miserable life I’d be living right now.”
Shu Shu remained expressionless.
Thinking to herself that his current life wasn’t exactly great either.
“Since then, Aunt Chu has been taking care of me, and Chu Chu as well—”
When Shu Lingchen mentioned Chu Lian, his eyes lit up and a shy expression flashed across his face.
“For a while I became quiet and didn’t like talking. No one at school wanted to play with me. Only Chu Chu did. She walked to school and left school with me, and ate meals with me.”