The two elderly people hugged each other and wept bitterly for quite some time before barely managing to control their emotions.
They wiped away their tears and respectfully bowed, “May we ask the master’s name—”
“Su Jiaojiao.”
“So it’s Master Su!”
Chen Anhua bowed respectfully once more, then gestured for Su Jiaojiao to go upstairs and sit for a while.
“Master, regarding our son, we have more specific matters we’d like to ask you about. Please honor us by following us upstairs to talk.”
“Alright.” Su Jiaojiao agreed.
The two elderly people turned and instructed the shop assistants to wait a moment, saying they would go rescue Zhao Shufeng’s wife once they were done.
Then the three adults and one child headed upstairs.
Upon reaching the reception room, Mrs. Chen personally poured tea and respectfully handed it to Su Jiaojiao.
“Master, please have some tea.”
Su Jiaojiao gracefully accepted it.
Su Tuantuan obediently sat beside his mother. Seeing her drink tea, he curiously looked at the elderly couple.
In his childish voice, he asked, “Grandpa, Grandma, since your son is still alive, how did you come to think he was already dead?”
He blinked his big, dark eyes gently, “Was he kidnapped by traffickers?”
The two elderly people now held Su Jiaojiao in great esteem, so they naturally regarded Su Tuantuan with kindness as well.
If another child had asked such questions, they would never have answered.
But since this was the master’s son, they naturally answered every question.
The two of them pulled out tissues to dry their tears and said with choked voices, “If Master and Little Master are not in a hurry, please listen as I explain slowly—”
Su Jiaojiao nodded for him to continue.
The two elderly people exchanged a glance, and then Chen Anhua began recounting the events of the past.
The couple’s eldest son was born when they were in their twenties.
At that time, they had not yet made their fortune and were not well-off. Yet, just as their son was less than a year old, he was diagnosed with congenital heart disease.
Forty years ago, medical standards were not as advanced as they are today. Heart transplant surgery was not an option; the only treatment was long-term medication. Thus, a heart condition could easily bankrupt a family.
And even after bankrupting the family, the child might not survive.
The young couple sold everything they had to pay for their child’s treatment, stretching every penny as far as it could go. During the most difficult times, they even considered abandoning the child.
But seeing the child smile so sweetly and innocently at them, they ultimately suppressed that thought with great effort.
When the child was two years old, the family truly had no money left.
Since the child still needed constant medication, the couple, unable to make ends meet, had no choice but to leave the child in the care of their parents and go to another province to work and earn money.
They worked from dawn till dusk, each taking on three jobs a day, desperately saving money to buy medicine and keep their child alive.
The exhaustion was one thing, but they also refused to spend on food or clothing. When they returned to their hometown a year later, they were so emaciated that a gust of wind could have knocked them over.
At that time, every household in their village was having a second child, but because of their sick child, they dared not have another.
They feared that if they couldn’t properly care for the older one, the younger would suffer as well. Wouldn’t that mean both children would endure hardship with them?
While they were willing to work so hard for their biological son, their elderly parents could no longer bear to watch them suffer like this.
The elderly parents would rather not have a grandson than see their children endure such hardship…So, when the new year came and they went to work in another province again, in July, tragic news reached them from home.
Their parents said the child had suddenly fallen ill and passed away.
At that time, transportation was inconvenient, and there were no telephones in the village. By the time the tragic news reached their ears, the child had already been dead for four days.
In a daze, they rushed home overnight by car, and both sets of parents were waiting for them at home.
After embracing each other and weeping bitterly, their parents took them to a small grave.
Their parents told them that the weather was hot in July, and they were afraid the body would decay, so they couldn’t wait for them to return and had to bury the child early.
Since both sets of parents were present, all grieving and saying the child was buried there, how could the young couple suspect that the four elders had conspired to deceive them?
They accepted reality and spent half a year recovering from the grief of losing their son.
Two years later, they had a daughter.
The arrival of their daughter rekindled their hope for life.
They worked hard, starting as street vendors and eventually opening their own shop, then expanding to a chain of stores. They did their utmost to give their daughter the best life possible.
However, fifteen years ago, their twenty-one-year-old daughter met with an accident.
That day, she was going out to meet friends and didn’t want to make her classmates uncomfortable by driving, so she didn’t take the car. After the gathering, while walking home, she was hit by a car…
The hit-and-run driver had no conscience and fled, leaving their daughter lying alone in a pool of blood, unattended.
By the time she was discovered, her body was already cold…
Having lost two children in succession, they could no longer bear such a blow. Even though the couple, then just forty-seven years old, could have gone to the hospital to recover and have another child, they refused to try again.
They felt that perhaps their fate was too harsh, and they brought misfortune to their children.
Their elderly parents, seeing them devastated and unable to recover, finally told them the truth about what had happened back then.
The elderly parents said that the son with a heart condition hadn’t actually died from an illness.
It was because the elders couldn’t bear to watch the young couple struggle so hard for a sick child, so after discussing it, they decided to abandon the child.
But what use was it for them to learn the truth now?
Nearly thirty years had passed since the incident. At that time, transportation was underdeveloped, computers were scarce, and there were no surveillance cameras to check.
Even if they wanted to search for the child, it was already too late.
Moreover, a child with a heart condition like that might not have survived after being abandoned…
Later, they inquired around the area where the child had been abandoned and searched for five years, but they never found any leads.
They thought that the child they had abandoned had likely died pitifully in that scorching July…
It was only because of their guilt toward that child that they couldn’t give up. Over the years, they had been searching for a master, hoping the master could help them find the child’s whereabouts.
Whether alive or dead, they had to find him.
Otherwise, they wouldn’t rest peacefully even in their graves.
…
“It’s precisely because our son has been gone for forty years that no one knows we ever had a son,” sighed the elderly Chen Anhua. He wiped away his tears and looked up at Su Jiaojiao.
His gaze was filled with a mix of excitement and intensity.
He wanted to say something, but the words caught in his throat before he could speak.He had his reservations, but Mrs. Chen, with tears streaming down her face, could not hold back any longer.
She raised her head, her eyes fixed intently on Su Jiaojiao, and asked with a trembling voice.
“Master, can you tell us where our son is now?”