Chapter 47
Extra (Gu Tang’s Perspective)
That was the first time Jiang Huaisheng saw Gu Tang, but it wasn’t strictly their first encounter, because Gu Tang didn’t notice him.
Unlike his mother, who, as an adult, had her own judgment, adults knew what money, wealth, and high society were.
The Jiang family’s estate was a level of high society she could never reach in several lifetimes. Ms. Wen Xinyi was naturally apprehensive after losing her husband. After all, she was just a young small-town woman, a 26-year-old girl who hadn’t seen much of the world.
Gu Tang was different. He was an eight-year-old child, a pure and innocent child. His father loved him very much and, after earning money, would take his wife and child to visit big cities during holidays.
Although they lived in a small town, the family of three had visited the county seat and the provincial capital during busy holidays.
When Gu Tang was six, Gu Ze even took him to the capital. He saw monkeys, elephants, and pandas at the zoo, climbed mountains, and crossed rivers.
A child’s world was simple and pure. Gu Tang didn’t know what a luxury car was.
If he had to calculate the price, he had ridden very expensive buses, and he had also taken the subway, which was also very expensive.
As for the scenery in this estate, how much was this land worth? What kind of power and status did it represent? Gu Tang didn’t understand, and he didn’t care.
He only cared about one thing: they said his father was dead, his father’s face was covered with a white cloth, his body was cold, he wouldn’t get up and talk to him, he wouldn’t lift him high onto his shoulders, he wouldn’t play with him anymore.
Dad was gone. Gu Tang was actually very smart. In their small town of Lishui, even at a young age, he had experienced death.
When he was five, his great-grandmother, over ninety years old, passed away. The old lady passed away on a cold winter day, they said she just fell asleep one night and never woke up, a peaceful passing.
Many people came to the funeral. As a child, he followed the adults, kowtowing and kneeling, then surrounded by a group of white banners, he followed the procession around the village several times.
Strong adults buried the old lady’s pre-prepared coffin in the ground.
Gu Tang had seen such coffins in other people’s attics. To a child, coffins were large, dark, and mysterious.
At that time, the zombie movies directed by Master Lin X were popular on TV. His friends, while playing, discovered a coffin: “There’s a dead person inside the coffin…” “But Great-Great-Great-Grandma… has been dead for over 100 years…” “Then has she turned into a zombie?!”
A group of boys then started playing a game of catching zombies in the attic. Gu Tang, only four or five years old at the time, followed the older children.
But he clearly remembered that the boy leading the group stole glutinous rice from home, which was used for making wine.
“Scatter…”
Glutinous rice rained down from the attic, naturally alerting the adults, and then came a beating, and the boy who wasted the food kept yelling.
Gu Tang remembered the adults saying with a mixture of exasperation and amusement: “What zombies? That coffin is empty, it’s something the old lady prepared for herself.”
It was said that many families had such coffins. The elderly in the village or town, not relying on their children, would prepare a good coffin for themselves when they were still able to move around, around sixty years old. After it was made, they would store it in the unused attic.
“When people die, they are placed in coffins to be buried in the ground.”
Gu Tang knew that everyone would die, but it would be a long, long time from now. His father was so capable, he would definitely live to a hundred years old!
But his father lied to him. He died at only twenty-six, too young to even choose his own coffin.
Dying at this age was considered an untimely death. The elderly in the town and village sighed and whispered behind their hands.
“So young, such bad luck!”
The eight-year-old Gu Tang clenched his fists and glared at the old people: “You’re the unlucky ones!”
After a while, Gu Tang’s grandparents also passed away from grief. They had prepared their coffins long ago and were buried in their hometown in the countryside.
Gu Tang’s father, Gu Ze, was different. His household registration had been moved, and he died in a foreign land. They said he had to be cremated according to regulations, not buried in the ground, but turned into a small box, a large person reduced to a pile of ashes.
Gu Tang was a lively, cheerful, and active child, but overnight, he seemed to have grown up.
He didn’t remember how many times he cried, only that his eyes were swollen, and he had embarrassingly soaked several pillows with his tears.
Not all the children in the village and town liked Gu Tang. Some boys were naturally mischievous. Seeing that Gu Tang’s family only had his mother left, they took this opportunity to taunt him for being fatherless.
Some children were like this. Gu Tang used to have both parents, and his family had an impressive house in town, but now? He didn’t have a father anymore, children without fathers…
Gu Tang, hearing this, lashed out. The other child’s parents were naturally unreasonable, defending their own child…
At that time… his eyes, tears streaming down: “Mom, he said I don’t have a dad…”
The hefty woman said with her arms akimbo: “My son is telling the truth! Look, Gu Ze died early because he married your vixen mother, she sucked the life out of him…”
Ms. Wen, usually gentle and soft-spoken, was apologizing, but hearing this, she rushed into the kitchen, grabbed a kitchen knife, and scared the family away.
Without his father, he still had his mother. Gu Tang, who had been sleeping in his own room since he was three, now slept with his mother.
Later, after a while, a car arrived in town, sent by his father’s employer.
They brought Gu Tang’s father’s ashes and spoke privately with Wen Xinyi.
Ms. Wen said: “Xiao Tang, we’re leaving here, going to where your father worked, okay?”
The small town was beautiful, but it also operated on the law of the jungle. A beautiful and gentle single mother with a child faced many inconveniences.
With Wen Xinyi’s appearance, many men naturally wanted to marry her, even saying they didn’t mind her son.
But Wen Xinyi looked down on these men. Having had a young, handsome, and capable husband who was devoted to her, it was difficult for a normal woman to accept these odd and unsuitable men.
Even if she needed a man, she wouldn’t settle for this level.
But the town was too small, and there weren’t many outstanding people. Everyone was trying to move to the big city.
No matter how you looked at it, staying wasn’t a good option, so Ms. Wen Xinyi decisively chose to leave with the Jiang family.
After all, the Jiang family was very powerful, the compensation was substantial, and with such a large sum of money, it was even more unsafe for her and her son to stay in the town.
Arranged by the Jiang family, Gu Tang was led by his mother into the Jiang family’s mansion.
“Mom, you’re hurting me.”
After arriving at the Jiang residence, Gu Tang felt his mother’s grip tighten. He knew he was a little man and was initially willing to let his mother hold his hand, but her grip became tighter and tighter, and he felt like his hand would break.
“Be careful, don’t get lost.” Wen Xinyi loosened her grip.
“I won’t.”
Gu Tang wasn’t a naughty or unruly child. Although mischievous, he was also smart and well-behaved outside, never causing trouble for his parents.
And his father had said that he was a little man, he had to protect his mother and listen to her.
“There are some things we need to discuss privately.”
Ms. Wen Xinyi let go of Gu Tang’s hand and walked aside with the young man who came to pick her up, a shy smile on her face.
The young man looked gentle and refined, dressed in a suit. He was an employee at Mingyuan Group’s headquarters.
Of course, he wasn’t the CEO yet at this time, just a secretary to the general manager, to be precise, one of the secretaries in the secretarial office.
Gu Tang looked at his hand, now free, and waited obediently.
He sat quietly in the garden, watching the ants marching in the cracks of the stone bricks. At this moment, the sound of a car came from outside.
They arrived at a grand villa. Beside the villa was a small path paved with stones, connecting to a wider road. But the car wasn’t driving towards the villa, but in the opposite direction, at the intersection.
Attracted by the sound, Gu Tang subconsciously looked over and met a pair of eyes inside the car.
The child in the car looked like a doll.
Gu Tang had never seen such a beautiful doll before. The child’s skin was exceptionally fair, like porcelain.
And the doll’s hair wasn’t pure black, but slightly golden, reminding Gu Tang of the little prince with golden hair in “The Little Prince.”
The car drove forward. Gu Tang ran a few steps, then realized there was a huge building opposite the villa, like a castle from a cartoon.
“Is that the prince who lives in the castle?”
His father, Gu Ze, occasionally talked about his workplace, saying it was a beautiful place.
Gu Tang had longed to see it, but now that he was here, he wasn’t happy at all.
He would rather never know what the little prince looked like, he just wanted his father to be alive.
Because of Old Master Jiang’s decision, Gu Tang was allowed to attend a new school.
His household registration was also transferred from the small town and placed under Wen Xinyi’s name, arranged by the Jiang family.
The Jiang family compensated them with an apartment in City A, registered under his mother’s name.
“You’re very lucky, you must study hard and be grateful to the Jiang family, understand?” His mother, usually gentle and melancholic, suddenly had a different glow on her face, her eyes shining like gemstones.
Gu Tang nodded: “I will.”
He would definitely study hard, grow up, and become the outstanding man his father wanted him to be.
Of course, at that time, he didn’t know that he would gradually lose his mother.
And later, he met Jiang Huaisheng again and learned that the doll-like child was the heir of the Jiang family, the only child of the Mr. and Mrs. Jiang his father had saved.
But this prince was completely different from the ones in fairy tales, not a symbol of bravery, kindness, and beauty. Although outstanding, he was arrogant, mean, and a vicious prince.
“Mom, I hate Jiang Huaisheng.” Gu Tang said.
Wen Xinyi just patted his head and said: “Be obedient. Whatever Young Master Huaisheng asks you to do, just do it. If you offend him, we’ll be kicked out.”
So Gu Tang gradually became silent in front of Jiang Huaisheng. He couldn’t bring himself to flatter him, at most tolerating him and not arguing with the bad-tempered young master. Although he didn’t like this life, he wouldn’t let himself and his mother be kicked out.
Fortunately, Jiang Huaisheng found his submissive behavior boring and didn’t deliberately bully him.
Jiang Huaisheng was busy with his studies, and they didn’t spend much time together.
Until that one time, he couldn’t take it anymore and knocked Jiang Huaisheng’s wheelchair over, then called the butler.
Gu Tang thought: “I’ll definitely be kicked out this time.”
He anxiously waited for the stern old butler’s judgment, but Jiang Huaisheng didn’t tell on him.
Gu Tang thought, it seemed Jiang Huaisheng wasn’t that bad after all.
In that case, he owed Jiang Huaisheng once. He would definitely repay him in the future! He wouldn’t be indebted to Jiang Huaisheng!
At that time, he would never have imagined how deeply entangled he would become with Jiang Huaisheng, owing and repaying, until the debts between them could no longer be calculated.
Many years later, one day, he held Jiang Huaisheng’s hand, both wearing matching wedding rings, and appeared in front of Gu Tang’s father, Gu Ze’s grave.
They came to the cemetery at night. Under the starry sky, Gu Tang said: “Dad, it took me a long, long time, but I finally found my rose.”
Gu Tang wasn’t the little prince from the fairy tale, and Jiang Huaisheng certainly wasn’t either. He was that fragile, bad-tempered, thorny, yet beautiful rose.
There were many roses in the world, but there was only one Jiang Huaisheng. He was his rose, the one he had devoted so much responsibility, time, and love to, his unique and irreplaceable rose.
-THE END-
