Chapter 25 Part 2

Just like how could such a large shop be this quiet? How could there not be any other customers besides them? Mo Liang must have done something.

He didn’t even need to ask whether Mo Liang was responsible. He was simply curious: “How did you do it?”

Mo Liang showed not a hint of guilt at being found out or any other emotion. He answered earnestly, “Are you talking about setting up a protective firewall and data purification matrix? It’s very simple for me. I didn’t want you to be unhappy…”

“……”

Li Zhuo lowered his eyelids. “Actually, even without searching, I can pretty much guess what kind of discussions would appear.”

To the guests who attended the banquet that day, they didn’t know the whole story. From their perspective, it was simply a case of a temperamental teenager throwing a tantrum in public over a trivial matter with his father.

Even journalists who witnessed the entire incident, when reporting on this gossip, would just list a few more past stories about the Li family and Li Zhuo compared to others. But they would still conclude that Li Zhuo acted out because his father refused to cut the cake.

Even System 0255 thought the mission target’s emotional outburst was triggered simply because Li Huachuan wouldn’t agree to cut the cake, assuming Li Zhuo was just too eager.

However, so many subtle feelings can never be put into words. Only the person experiencing them can feel them, and some even exist without the person themselves being aware of them.

For example, when he returned to the Li home after a year away, even though the atmosphere at the dinner table seemed harmonious, he couldn’t taste the food. Or Li Xuan’s shallow smile full of condescending pity, as if he had already foreseen the outcome.

Like the tight, ill-fitting old suit. Like Li Huachuan’s hurried and vague impatience when giving his blessing speech. Like Lu Fei’s ten long, sharp fingernails piercing through his clothing when she smilingly came on stage to coax him down…

Perhaps the cause of that incident didn’t lie in what happened at the banquet itself, but had occurred much, much earlier.

The moment he was abducted to Pingshan Village…

When the Family Search Program crew came knocking, and he looked expectantly toward the convoy, but no one stepped out…

In those moments he couldn’t tell whether they truly loved him or not:

Li Huachuan seemed to love him deeply, willing to spend a fortune on tutors, using money and connections to get him into an international school. But whenever Li Zhuo’s performance fell short, that love was smoothly withdrawn in its entirety.

Lu Fei seemed to love him deeply. She would often confide in him, telling him how poorly her in-laws treated her, how her father died young, how her mother was perpetually in poor health, and that he was the only one around she could talk to.

Because of Lu Fei’s influence, Li Zhuo’s relationship with his grandparents remained lukewarm at best. The two elders had bad tempers and had never spent time with Li Zhuo, so naturally they were closer to Li Xuan. He had only ever heard his maternal grandmother’s voice over the phone, where she said she liked him, said she wanted to see him, yet she never once showed her face.

Within the entire Li family, Li Zhuo deeply trusted Lu Fei. Whenever Li Huachuan scolded him, she would indeed put in a few words on his behalf. But at the same time, she would also remark that if only Li Zhuo’s grades were a bit better, even half as good as Li Xuan’s…

She seemed like the person who loved Li Zhuo the most in the Li family, yet she also seemed blind to his awkward situation.

Li Zhuo felt as if he were wearing a thick coat, yet couldn’t feel a trace of warmth.

Dense and numerous, accumulated day by day, month by month,

a tiny seed had already sprouted.

People can mostly only see events through their own limited perspective. They see the lush tree canopy above ground, but not the roots twisting and spreading deep underground.

0255 didn’t know. Even if it were tasked with recording Li Zhuo’s past, it could only objectively log all his current words, actions, and emotions.

It couldn’t comprehend that a human’s emotional shifts in any given moment are complex—not just for that moment itself, but grievances that had brewed in the chest for years, finally cascading down from the eyes and tearing out from the throat.

It was simply too complex.

Mo Liang, a non-human creature, naturally didn’t know these things either. However, what set him apart from the system was his genuine, profound concern for Li Zhuo’s emotional state.

He harbored an extreme protectiveness, an overly intense love, and an almost obsessive possessiveness toward Li Zhuo. He treated this human as an existence more important than his own life. Whatever Li Zhuo wanted, he yearned to present it before him instantly.

So even though Mo Liang didn’t know why his child got upset just because the cake wasn’t cut, or why a simple phrase like “It’s okay” made him cry so devastatingly,

he knew:

The child is sad, I must comfort him.

The child cried, I must go down and soothe him.

The child is unhappy, so I will block all negative news and only show him good comments that praise him. If there are none? I will just post many, many myself!

…

He disliked Li Zhuo’s lingering attachment to those two humans, so he subtly undermined them, telling Li Zhuo that wasn’t love, that they didn’t love him, that only he loved him.

Mo Liang didn’t realize that his act of stepping off the stage to wipe away Li Zhuo’s tears, and those words he spoke without much thought, had actually inadvertently helped Li Zhuo find the answer.

The fog that plagued him for years was gently lifted by a pair of hands in that moment: —Love is something you can see and touch. To not love that much… is simply not to love.

“Thank you.”

Li Zhuo suddenly said.

Mo Liang had been busy checking his child’s fundamental physiological indicators—heart rate, pulse, blood pressure, body temperature—when the sudden gratitude stunned him for two seconds. “I haven’t done anything. Why are you thanking me?”

Explaining would take far too long; he wouldn’t even know where to begin. So after thinking for a moment, Li Zhuo changed the subject instead. “You purposely brought me out today not just to order clothes, right? When we left, I noticed many unfamiliar workers in the front courtyard. What were they going to do?”

Li Zhuo paused. “You didn’t happen to prepare a cake for me and set up a birthday venue, did you?”

“……”

Mo Liang didn’t answer right away. Instead, he directed a question to the system within his consciousness.

【Who talked?】

Mo Liang’s reasoning was easy to guess. Seeing his child cry like that, he assumed all he wanted was a piece of cake, and yet that human wouldn’t even cut one for him. So he decided to prepare an even bigger cake for his child…

Cut freely! Cut however you want!

According to the guide he looked up online, compared to giving a gift directly, creating a surprise would make the child happier.

He followed it step by step.

But the guide didn’t include what to say if the child found out about the surprise beforehand.

After freezing for 0.35 seconds, Mo Liang chose to confess. “Yes, I did indeed prepare something.”

Li Zhuo suddenly burst out laughing. It was the first truly happy laugh he’d had since winter break started and he came to Hai City. “Then when are we going back?”

Mo Liang didn’t need to check the time; he answered instantly. “If you account for our travel time, we can go back in 34 minutes and 28 seconds.”

Right at that moment, the waiter approached the table with a tray and gracefully set down two identical drinks in front of Li Zhuo and Mo Liang.

Li Zhuo picked up the warm tea and took a sip. The perfect level of sweetness lifted his mood a few more notches. “Alright then, let’s wait 34 minutes.”

That very afternoon, the day after that farcical “coming-of-age banquet,” Li Zhuo finally experienced a true adult ceremony celebrating his birthday.

Mo Liang’s arrangements were so elaborate that Li Zhuo, who had only been gone for a few hours, could barely recognize the place where he had been staying for almost two days.

It wasn’t just the decorations bearing his name and well wishes. The gigantic cake, resembling a dreamy castle, was already enough to astonish him.

The cake stood over half a person’s height, layer upon sprawling layer. The base tier was nearly a meter in diameter, its body intricately sculpted with swirling ocean wave patterns. The delicate cream looked like pure white sea foam, every ripple unbelievably lifelike.

The tiers above featured a lush forest outlined in chocolate, dotted with realistic strawberries that gleamed like ripe rubies within the woods. And the small animals crafted from fondant were diverse in their poses, incredibly vivid.

At the very top of the cake, written in golden frosting, were the prominent words [Happy Birthday, Li Zhuo], glowing with a soft radiance under the lights.

Li Zhuo was still thinking that ordering such a cake couldn’t possibly have been completed in just a few hours; perhaps preparations had begun even before his birthday.

Before he could voice this question, footsteps sounded. He turned his head, and his expression grew even more dumbfounded, as if he thought his eyes were deceiving him.

Deng Yuliang?!

What was he doing in Hai City?!

Leading the group at the very front was him. Behind him, five or six were schoolmates Li Zhuo had exchanged a few words with before—some from Class 10, and two he met at summer camp.

The bolder ones among them had already started observing the surroundings, greeting Li Zhuo. The more cautious personalities silently followed the crowd.

The most outgoing was still Deng Yuliang. He strode over and threw an arm around Li Zhuo’s shoulder. “My god, you have no idea! When those guys in suits and sunglasses stopped downstairs at my place, I thought they were filming a movie or something. Turns out they were there for me…”