Chapter 2 Part 2

Was there anything else?

Oh, his dad and mom…

Yang Shun had been only one year old when he was abducted. Even if he were extraordinarily gifted, it was absolutely impossible for him to remember anything from that far back. He began struggling to recall.

The photos of his parents that he had seen during the day spun around and around in his mind. He simply couldn’t stop himself from thinking: So this is what they look like? Would they like him? What should he say as the first words when they met? Should he buy a gift? What would be good? They seemed to be very rich; the little money he had probably couldn’t buy anything decent…

The bed, covered with a layer of straw, rustled faintly at the slightest turn. He had heard that sound for over ten years; he should have been long accustomed to it. But that was the first time he felt so irritated by that tiny noise that he couldn’t fall asleep.

He tossed and turned, flipping like a pancake seven or eight times. Yang Shun still wasn’t the least bit sleepy. His palms, the soles of his feet, even his chest burned startlingly hot.

This was too unreal. A wild thought even sprouted in him: Could everything before his eyes be just a dream? Something he had simply imagined? That when he woke, it would all be gone?

The next second, he suddenly and fiercely pinched his own thigh. Yes, the pain was so clear. It was real. Reassured, he closed his eyes.

The next day, the Camera Boy continued filming along the way.

From Pingshan Village Team 7, where Yang Shun lived, to the head of Team 1, there was a stretch of rugged, muddy road, nearly two kilometers long, terribly hard to traverse. Everyone in the car was jolted around badly, and the camera footage jolted along with them.

A crew member asked Yang Shun how he usually got around.

“How do you usually go out? What vehicle do you take?”

Yang Shun clung tightly to the handle above, his face taut, his voice vibrating from the bumps. “Families with three-wheelers drive them. My family didn’t have a vehicle, so I always walked…”

The terrible road conditions only improved after leaving the village. The path changed from mud to asphalt, and finally they were entering the city.

Once out of the car, Yang Shun’s mind was fixed on buying new clothes. So the whole group grandly strode into a clothing store.

While trying on clothes, Director Guan noticed that although Yang Shun’s skin had many sunburn marks from years of exposure to wind and rain, making him look haggard at first glance, his facial features were actually quite good on closer inspection. The only problem was that he seemed a little timid and apt to shrink into himself.

This was something Director Guan had seen in many rural children — perhaps a lack of confidence. Their bodies habitually hunched forward, like a frightened hedgehog.

This child was even more so. On the surface, he kept a tight, strained face, trying his best to look fierce, but his eyes and expression still betrayed his true thoughts.

He was afraid of the camera. Afraid enough to deliberately avoid the cameraman.

Toward these strangers from the city, he was extremely guarded and wary, though also full of timidity. Before opening his mouth to speak, he would observe their expressions, as if they were all traps that could hurt him.

After nearly two days of contact, he had only just stopped deliberately evading the lens, only just begun to slightly lower his guard around this group, starting to show a hint of the youthful liveliness appropriate to his age.

“How is it?” Yang Shun, emerging from the fitting room, looked at Director Guan. Though his face was still tense, you could tell he was lacking confidence. His voice was as faint as a mosquito’s hum. “Does this look weird?”

He had changed into a completely new outfit, inside and out. The new coat was a black tracksuit. He had pulled the zipper all the way up, almost covering his nose and mouth. Overall, he actually looked pretty good. It was just that he was too shy.

“Weird? Not weird at all! Such a handsome young lad, don’t you all agree?”

Director Guan didn’t stop at praising him himself; he even turned to ask the other staff members. Of course, not a single one disagreed. They all chimed in with approval.

The journey that followed was uneventful.

That was the first time in Yang Shun’s life riding an airplane. The whole process was novel and fresh. Once on the plane, he maintained the same posture, gazing out the window at the soft, fluffy white clouds for a long, long time.

The world beyond the village really was vast.

This novelty was accompanied by nervous tension. Director Guan began chatting with him idly about other things — from time to time talking about the antics of his own son, now and then about the things they had done back in Pingshan Village.

Chatting from heaven to earth like this, the arrival announcement on the plane soon rang out. Director Guan gently patted the back of Yang Shun’s hand again. “Don’t worry, it’ll be fine, all fine…”

The young man’s hand, which had been gripping his backpack, relaxed for a few seconds. He gave Director Guan a sincere smile. “…Thank you.”

In front of the program’s cameras, the youth who had been abducted and trafficked to a remote mountain area when he was just over a year old finally met his birth parents, whom he had not seen for fourteen years, in the airport’s VIP lounge.

When they first met, Yang Shun was visibly awkward. In the footage, his entire body stood frozen, motionless, as an elegantly dressed woman with red-rimmed eyes pulled him into her arms, ceaselessly recounting how she had lost him back then — that the nanny had gone to prison, that she thought she would never see him again, how much she had missed him, how she often dreamed of him…

Off-camera, a middle-aged man’s voice could be heard gently soothing: “There, there, it’s good now, he’s back… Don’t frighten Little Zhuo.”

The Camera Boy precisely captured every change in Yang Shun’s expression — from being blank and at a loss when first embraced by his birth mother, to gradually being moved, to moisture filling his eyes until the tears overflowed uncontrollably, and finally, carefully, his arms wrapped back around the woman. In an instant, he seemed to transform from the hedgehog keeping everyone at arm’s length back into a wronged little child, trembling as he called out: “Mom…”

It was truly a moving scene. Several staff members couldn’t help turning their backs to wipe away tears. Director Guan even took off his glasses to wipe the mist on them.

Standing beside the Li family was another young man, also dressed impeccably. His face wasn’t captured, but according to introductions he was the elder brother, who kept smiling warmly at his younger brother.

Yang Shun was taken home.

Before getting into the car, his brother took the initiative to carry the luggage. His father drove, and his mother pulled Yang Shun into the back seat, holding his hand tightly the entire way.

To avoid disturbing the family’s private moment, the program crew’s cameraman didn’t squeeze into the car but simply filmed from behind the vehicle.

The destination was a luxury home whose average price was jaw-dropping. Even the crew’s young staff members couldn’t help marveling.

The shot shifted. Yang Shun was seated on the Li family’s genuine leather sofa, beneath a magnificent crystal chandelier, while servants in uniform, moving silently, laid out tea, drinks, and pastries one after another on the coffee table.

Even though he had already changed into new clothes, this little country bumpkin from a mountain gully still seemed a bit dusty and out of place as he was fussed over. His eyes kept darting around, surveying this home that should have been familiar but was utterly strange to him — curious and also full of trepidation.

The mother he hadn’t seen in fourteen years spoke to him with gentle concern: “Little Zhuo, you must be hungry after traveling so far, right? What would you like for dinner? Mommy isn’t going anywhere for the next few days, I’ll stay home with you…”

The director was also on the side, offering reassurance: “Don’t be nervous, relax a little. This is your own home…”

At that moment, the taut expression the youth had worn the whole journey finally showed the emotional fluctuations of someone his age. He began daring to observe “his own home.”

“Thank you.”

The Family Search Program thus drew to a close.

The post-production team considerately added a warm color filter to this scene of family reunion. Even the subtitles were in a decorative font: 【In the end, this child who had drifted for fourteen years in a foreign land finally returned to his true home, a warm and bright new future awaiting him…】

But… was that really the case?

As a series, the Family Search Program didn’t feature Li Zhuo alone as its subject. Yet perhaps because of his melodramatic background, or perhaps for other reasons, his episode became somewhat more popular than the others.

Nearly every audience member who watched the program believed from the bottom of their hearts that when a long-lost child was found, the parents would surely love the child like a pearl or a treasure and do everything to make up for the love lost over the years…

Netizens in the comment section called out to friends, joking around:

【Don’t even say it — the moment the camera turned to him, I could see at a glance he wasn’t just an ordinary farm boy (dog head)】

【Young master, go ahead and cry, cry hard while you can now. Later you’ll have plenty of chances to laugh…】

【That environment was way too familiar. My hometown is pretty much like that too — transportation depends on your feet, communication depends on shouting. Though I just grilled my dad for ages, he insists on pain of death that he didn’t buy me. Sigh…】

【The subject of the last episode was already middle-aged when found; even crying wouldn’t do much. This subject is only 15? His life is just beginning. A blessing within misfortune, you could say. He can even go home for his coming-of-age ceremony; truly a gift from heaven…】

【I wonder what the young master is doing right now…】

【Probably enjoying a cozy life.】

【……】