And so, in the dead of night.
The mother and son sat perched on high stools at the kitchen bar, having sweet soup together at three in the morning.
It was mango panna cotta sago[1].
Shu Lingchen scooped a massive bite into his mouth. The sweet, juicy fruit blended perfectly with the rich, milky flavor, exploding across his taste buds.
The last time he had tasted his mom’s homemade sweet soup was thirteen years ago.
The flavor was exactly the same as it had always been.
God, he missed it.
Shu Lingchen narrowed his eyes in pure bliss, and the lingering dread in his chest from the nightmare finally melted away.
He shoved a few more large spoonfuls into his mouth. Suddenly remembering something, he looked up at Shu Shu across from him and asked tentatively, “Mom, if I fall asleep in class tomorrow, you won’t smack me in the head again, right?”
Shu Shu didn’t even look up. “If you sleep, I smack.”
“But I barely have any time to sleep before I have to drag myself up for school. I’m definitely going to be a zombie during the day.”
Shu Shu replied calmly, “No worries. A few good smacks and you’ll wake right up.”
“…”
Shu Lingchen slumped. Recalling how, when he had just been jolted awake by his nightmare, he had heard Shu Shu gently calling him Xiao Chen, the boy’s gaze turned a little aggrieved. “Mom, I’ve noticed… you’ve changed.”
Shu Shu didn’t bat an eye. “Yeah, I know. I’ve become younger and prettier.”
“…” Shu Lingchen couldn’t exactly argue with that, but after mulling it over, he tried to counter: “No, I mean, you used to call me Xiao Chen so gently. But now you always call me by my full name—Shu Lingchen, Shu Lingchen. It sounds so incredibly cold.”
“Mom, do you… do you dislike the grown-up version of me?” As he spoke, his eyes dropped dejectedly.
Hearing this.
Shu Shu lifted her gaze, locking her eyes onto Shu Lingchen, studying him intently.
Receiving his mother’s full attention, Shu Lingchen’s spine instinctively straightened with tension. He craned his neck, fully expecting to hear a comforting, motherly phrase like, How could Mom ever dislike you? You’re overthinking it, sweetie.
Instead, a second later.
He watched Shu Shu let out a long, heavy sigh. “Shu Lingchen, you have to understand. Nobody can be gentle to a baby turkey.”
Shu Lingchen: “?”
What the hell was that supposed to mean?
Shu Shu stared at Shu Lingchen’s indescribable, red-yellow-and-blue turkey head.
When Shu Lingchen was a little kid, his looks were famously top-tier throughout the entire neighborhood and kindergarten. He had inherited his father’s excellent genetic lottery—big eyes, clear double eyelids, and a high nose bridge. He used to be a soft, sweet, incredibly handsome little toddler, the kind of cute that could melt anyone’s heart.
Back then, Shu Shu’s absolute favorite thing to do was dress him up in custom-made little waistcoats and suits.
Yet now.
He had transformed into a Shamate punk wearing ripped jeans!
Sensing the glaring, undisguised judgment in Shu Shu’s eyes, Shu Lingchen felt a metaphorical arrow pierce his knee. He huffed, turning his head away.
“…Fine, judge me all you want. No matter how much you hate it, I’m still your 100% genuine, biological son.”
Shu Shu couldn’t help but let her lips curl up.
The brat sure knew how to comfort himself.
Looking at the boy’s profile, Shu Shu thought back to her dream. The pitiful, tiny figure curled up on the hard orphanage bed seemed to slowly merge with the terrified, whimpering teenager sitting in front of her.
She wasn’t sure if it was just a dream, or if it had actually happened…
Shu Shu pursed her lips, her eyes fixated on her son. “Xiao Chen, I’ve been meaning to ask you. These past thirteen years that I’ve been gone… how did you get by?”
Shu Lingchen’s face had just lit up with smug delight upon hearing his mom call him Xiao Chen again, but at her second question, his expression faltered. He muttered evasively, “Didn’t I tell you before? Auntie Chu took care of me.”
Shu Shu pressed, “What I want to know is what happened right after I died.”
The dream from earlier had felt far too real. It was just as vivid as the dream she’d had right before her death.
“You mentioned before that you resisted the orphanage and the foster family. Did you just genuinely not want to go, or was there some other reason?”
Shu Lingchen fell silent. It took a long time before he finally spoke.
“I refused to go to an orphanage because I had already been to one. There was a woman there… she abused me. She framed me, saying I threw food everywhere, and she wouldn’t stop pinching me.”
Shu Shu’s pupils contracted.
The dream was real!
“She intentionally forced me to wear long sleeves to hide the bruises on my body, pretending to be super sweet to me in front of others,” Shu Lingchen said. “If Auntie Chu hadn’t reported her, the abuse probably wouldn’t have been discovered so quickly.”
Shu Shu interrupted, “Wait, Auntie Chu? Chu Lin’s mom? She was at that orphanage too?”
“Yeah.” Shu Lingchen nodded. “Auntie Chu happened to be volunteering at that orphanage when she caught the woman abusing me. She reported it to the director immediately, and the police dragged that woman away.”
Shu Shu fell into deep thought.
So it was Chu Lin’s mother who had helped him.
“After that, I came back to Yujing Garden. A young couple wanted to adopt me—the foster family.”
Shu Shu nodded. “Right. What were they like?”
In her dream, she had seen that the couple absolutely adored children and had been incredibly patient with Shu Lingchen.
However, Shu Lingchen merely let out a cold scoff. “They were just like that woman from the orphanage—actors, liars. All their kindness to me was fake.”
“Why do you say that?”
A look of deep cynicism flashed in Shu Lingchen’s eyes. “At first, I really thought they genuinely wanted to adopt me. But later, I found out they couldn’t have biological kids, and they just wanted to take me home to ‘test drive’ what it felt like to have a child.”
“At the same time, they were seeing doctors and getting treatments to try and conceive. They literally said out loud that the moment their own kid was born, they were going to abandon me.”
So that was why he had rejected them so fiercely.
“…How did you find out they were thinking that?”
Shu Lingchen said, “Auntie Chu told me.”
Shu Shu: “???”
Auntie Chu again.
“Back then, Auntie Chu was stepping in for the property management, coming over to Unit 1701 every day to take care of me for free. She overheard the couple talking to their doctor over the phone.”
Shu Lingchen recalled that day.
Auntie Chu had held him tightly in her arms, her face filled with absolute heartbreak as she lamented:
“Oh, our poor Xiao Chen has such a bitter life. That couple is nothing but a pack of wolves. Sooner or later, they’re going to have their own kid, and they said the moment their baby is born, they’ll dump Xiao Chen right back into the orphanage and never look after him again. Oh dear, what is our Xiao Chen going to do then?”
At that time, the word “orphanage” was a massive psychological trigger for Shu Lingchen; just hearing it made his entire body shake.
In an instant, all his good impressions of the young couple evaporated, replaced by an intense, visceral repulsion.
So, on the day he was supposed to be taken to his new home, his resistance had been incredibly violent. Ultimately, the adoption fell through.
“If it weren’t for Auntie Chu, I don’t even want to think about what kind of living hell I’d be in right now.”
Shu Shu’s face remained blank.
She thought to herself: The way you turned out now isn’t exactly a paradise either.
“From then on, Auntie Chu kept looking after me, and so did Chu Chu—”
When Shu Lingchen mentioned Chu Lin, his eyes lit up, and a wave of shyness washed over his face.
“For a while, I stopped talking much, and nobody at school wanted to play with me. Only Chu Chu stayed by my side. She walked with me to class, hung out with me after school, and ate lunch with me every day.”
Sansukini: He has been PUA’d for so long.
[1] yummy, btw