Chapter 14

In that spacious, empty new home, Li Zhuo did his homework. Midway through, he stumbled on a question he wasn’t sure about. While looking up information, he unintentionally came across a photo in his friends’ feed—Li Xuan with his parents.

It seemed like some event?

The three in the photo were all smiling. The bright tones made the whole picture look extremely warm and cozy. They looked like such a happy family. It was as if without him, the family had become even more complete.

Evening fell. The dim yellow afterglow slanted through the half-drawn curtain gap, casting a long shadow across the cement floor of the empty living room.

Li Zhuo didn’t throw a tantrum like before. He just quietly watched his phone until the screen went black, until the entire vacant room was swallowed bit by bit by the silent darkness.

It was as if nothing had happened.

The next day, Li Zhuo got up from the sofa as usual, washed up, ate breakfast, did homework, and even took time to reply to the messages that had piled up on his accounts over the past month.

Even though he hadn’t made any real friends at the international school, there were still quite a few contacts in his list. Some of them sent probing messages from time to time, with unclear intentions.

Li Zhuo never replied to those.

He usually checked messages from his biological mother and father first. Of the two, the former sent messages and replied more frequently.

Li Zhuo’s mother’s name was Lu Fei. Just as the Aunt Liu who had worked for the Li family for years often said, they were mother and son, after all; they looked very much alike around the brows and eyes.

Li Zhuo had specifically observed this.

During the first half year after he arrived at the Li family home, Lu Fei often took Li Zhuo to various beauty parlors for various treatments, mostly things like hydration and skincare.

Every time Li Zhuo was led out of the treatment room by the staff, the first person he saw was Lu Fei.

Most of the time, she’d be drinking tea and chatting with a few close lady friends in the VIP lounge. When she caught sight of Li Zhuo out of the corner of her eye, she would beckon him over.

“Little Zhuo, come here, let me see.”

Once Li Zhuo sat down beside Lu Fei, she would hold his hand, ask how he felt, what he wanted to eat or drink, and simultaneously introduce him to her friends with a smile:

“This is my youngest son.”

The other aunties would mostly exchange pleasantries, complimenting Li Zhuo a few times, and Lu Fei would say a few words in response. Then both sides would tacitly drop the topic and continue chatting about the latest goings-on in their social circle.

At those moments, Li Zhuo would carefully study the woman’s face, from her newly permed, slightly wavy hair to her delicately done lashes, to the faint, faint lines just visible at the corners of her eyes, to her constantly moving red lips.

So beautiful.

He always thought that.

Later, when Li Zhuo had arguments with Li Huachuan over all sorts of trivial little things, Lu Fei initially tried to mediate and comfort him, but gradually she also started to think he was making mountains out of molehills, being too petty…

This continued until he left Hai City. Only then did she resume contact, mother and son keeping to a rhythm of one phone call a month, occasional texts.

Most of the content was speaking up for Li Huachuan.

“Your father actually misses you, you know…”

That was a line often on her lips.

Li Zhuo believed it at first, but after seeing that photo, he suddenly wasn’t so sure anymore.

So that day, he deliberately skipped over the topmost chat window. He scrolled down and saw another familiar avatar and name.

It was none other than the director from the Family Search Show, the one who had previously, by coincidence, learned that Li Zhuo had been trafficked and had traveled all the way to Pingshan Village to find him.

The director’s surname was Guan, full name Guan Zeyang. He and Li Zhuo had gotten acquainted through the show two years ago. When they parted, Guan Zeyang had voluntarily given Li Zhuo a phone number.

After Li Zhuo got a social media account, Director Guan became one of the first contacts in his list.

The third time Li Zhuo ran away from home to get his parents’ attention, they were completely indifferent and didn’t call him at all.

He sat alone in a 24-hour KFC for a long time. Director Guan got the news and came to sit with him for a while. After that, Li Zhuo stopped playing those games.

Later, when Li Zhuo came to Changyang, Director Guan would occasionally ask him about his recent life. But because he was busy with work, often traveling here and there, the messages were few—two or three a month, nothing more than concern for his studies and health. Li Zhuo would reply in batches during his monthly leave.

After replying to Director Guan, the rest were messages from some classmates at Experimental High School. Among them, Deng Yuliang’s messages were the most, mostly boring things like “What are you doing” or “Wanna hang out.”

As usual, Li Zhuo replied with three words: Doing homework.

He closed his phone, went downstairs to eat, and on the way back, looked up at the clear, blue, freshly washed sky.

On the way to Swan Bay, he came face-to-face with a family of three. The young couple pushed a stroller while playing with their child, chatting and laughing as they passed by Li Zhuo.

Only after their silhouettes disappeared at the end of the road did Li Zhuo leave, carrying the dinner he had bought in advance.

Nothing happened. The sun set and rose just the same.

But once he returned to school, Li Zhuo developed an aversion to food. He couldn’t sleep soundly at night, with old dreams recurring, nightmares recurring more and more…

And it was under such circumstances that he ran into Teacher Mo in the school hallway. He was proactively invited to the Psychological Counseling Room. Under Teacher Mo’s gentle guidance, a conversation that lasted an entire hour began.

Come to think of it, ever since Teacher Mo appeared, Li Zhuo had gradually regained his sense of hunger. Under his supervision, he ate three regular meals a day, and even stopped having nightmares.

After coming and going so often, the route to the Teacher’s Apartment and the Counseling Room had become more and more familiar.

Not just the road—he’d even started recognizing the faces of the teachers who lived there.

Teacher Mo was very particular about Li Zhuo’s diet. Having learned from previous lessons, he now reminded Li Zhuo to eat slowly, not to rush, even when he occasionally ate too fast or too much. He said things like it would affect nutrient absorption and increase the burden on the stomach.

Li Zhuo didn’t even know what to say.

Once or twice, when Mo Liang was eating with him, he looked at Li Zhuo with an expression that was hard to describe: “How can you be so fragile…”

Li Zhuo looked up and asked what he had just said?

Mo Liang said nothing.

Other than Teacher Mo, Li Zhuo was called on significantly more often in class. Sometimes when a problem in his notebook was wrong, the teacher would even focus on explaining it during the lecture.

Once, after their head teacher Zhang Zhiwen finished explaining different solutions for a particular tricky problem type, he specifically asked Li Zhuo if he understood, if there was anything he didn’t get.

At that moment, Li Zhuo was completely dumbfounded.

Looking back on the past month, every single day had been incredibly pleasant. It seemed even the air he breathed had been filtered and tasted sweet.

It was going just too smoothly, wasn’t it?

Could life really be this plain sailing?

The noisy dormitory had quieted down at some unknown point. Li Zhuo’s thoughts gradually slowed.

The frequency of his eyeball movements, the frequency of him turning over—every minute fluctuation was transmitted in an invisible way to somewhere outside the dorm.

【He’s asleep. It’s a bit later than usual. Was it today’s food or classes…】

Mo Liang mused, swiftly pulling up all of Li Zhuo’s dialogue with him during the day, the distribution of his three meals, and the courses he’d taken that day.

Dense images pieced together. At a glance, the center of the pictures was almost the same person.

【Actually, the mission target sleeping a little later than usual won’t affect anything,】 the System said with an eerily human-like chuckle. 【The host doesn’t need to be so nervous…】

Mo Liang paid no heed and continued browsing one by one. Just then, the originally steady breathing beside his ear became erratic. Heart rate quickened, blood pressure rose.

He immediately mobilized more of his perception. The concrete wall within his retinal view gradually became transparent. The youth lying on the bed had his eyes closed, brows furrowed, muscles tense, a faint hint of sweat at his forehead.

Clearly, he was having a nightmare.

In the next instant, within a single breath, Mo Liang’s figure appeared beside Li Zhuo’s bed.

The dorm was quiet; many students had already fallen asleep. The underclassman on the lower bunk turned over, kicked off his thin blanket, and smacked his lips.

Mo Liang’s lips were tightly shut. A special frequency, inaudible to ordinary people, looped over and over. The youth’s furrowed brows on the bed gradually relaxed during this process.

【Found the reason my child slept so late today.】 From the dense images, Mo Liang swiftly locked onto a vision marked in red.

Inside was a scene of Li Zhuo and the classmate next to him. The time was roughly right after the class break exercises ended. In the background, students were queuing to use the campus phone to call their families.

Li Zhuo was in line ahead of his deskmate. They were also relatively lucky—the line wasn’t long, and the people in front weren’t dawdling. Soon it was Li Zhuo’s turn.

He probably rarely used the campus family phone, as he was very unfamiliar with the process. First, he accidentally dropped his card when trying to swipe it. When dialing, his hand trembled slightly.

Upon investigation, he had made three calls in total. The first was to his father Li Huachuan; the phone showed a busy tone. The second was to his mother Lu Fei; the line was engaged. The third time, he dialed the Li family’s living room number.

This time, someone actually picked up, but it was a new hire at the Li house. She’d probably just started recently, and even Li Zhuo didn’t know her. After hearing just a few words, she took him for a scammer and hung up.

Beside the phone booth wall, Li Zhuo had unconsciously scraped off flakes of paint with his fingers.

It looked like Li Zhuo wanted to make a fourth call, but the other students queuing behind him were growing impatient. So he didn’t continue and gave up his spot.

The next person to call was Li Zhuo’s deskmate. His first call connected right away. “Hey, yeah Mom, it’s me. Don’t call me Liangliang. First, listen to what I gotta say…”

Li Zhuo’s deskmate spoke to the parent on the other end with animated gestures, while Li Zhuo listened quietly, like a shadow.

In the extraordinarily realistic phantom image, Mo Liang could even clearly see the sorrow in his child’s eyes that filled him with heartache.

What was that deskmate’s name…?

Mo Liang really paid very little attention to other humans. All the teachers and students at Experimental High School were just pixelated blobs in his eyes. Only his child was clear.

So he thought hard for a moment.

Oh, his surname seemed to be Deng.

If it weren’t for the fact that this human spent a fair bit of time with his child, he probably wouldn’t even remember the surname.

【I had already blurred his memories and emotions…】

【It’s all his fault…】

The light on the System flickered for a moment, as if it wanted to say something, then quickly dimmed again.

【……】

【My child is sad because he couldn’t get through on the phone. But why didn’t he call me? I would have looked forward to talking with him that way.】

The Ball of Light didn’t dim this time. It couldn’t help but speak: 【Are you confusing something here? He sees you every day, doesn’t he? Why would he go so far to make a phone call to you?】

Mo Liang didn’t answer and continued thinking along his own train of thought: 【Ah, right. I don’t think I’ve given him my number yet. Maybe I could give him my number. Fine, I’ll tell him tomorrow morning…】

【Is it that primitive form of communication converting sound signals to electric signals? Does he like communicating this way?】

【So that’s how it is…】

【I’ll give it a try too then.】

The Ball of Light completely dimmed this time.

A bright moon hung high in the sky. The old dormitory supervisor, half-asleep on his night shift, was dozing off, completely unaware of how long that twisted, dark shadow in the shadows had stayed there, or when it ever left.