Xu Muchan was surrounded by the Xu family as they entered the villa compound.
The reporters and livestreamers, still reluctant to leave, were stopped outside by the security personnel. Zhou Yang also tactfully left, not wanting to disturb the family reunion.
Xu Zhifei tightly held Xu Muchan’s hand and led him along the path back to the villa. As they walked, she chattered about what had happened when Xu Muchan went missing.
“You were so tiny back then, like a little snowball. You were so obedient and well-behaved. Anyone who came to see you would have to praise you a few times…”
As she spoke, she began crying again.
“It’s all my fault. If I had watched you more carefully back then, you wouldn’t have had to suffer all these years out there.”
“Fortunately, we finally found you. And don’t be afraid just because you can’t see for the time being. Mom will find the best hospital and the best doctors for you. They’ll definitely be able to cure you…”
Her slightly choked voice was extremely gentle, awakening a distant memory in Xu Muchan.
Xu Muchan had been capable of remembering things from a very young age.
He still remembered that when his mother had once held him in her arms, she had also spoken in the same choked, sorrowful, yet exceptionally gentle voice.
“Muchan, don’t blame Daddy and Mommy. We really had no other choice.”
And then three-year-old Xu Muchan had been handed over.
He had been so frightened that he cried desperately, lying over the shoulder of the man who had bought him and desperately looking back.
But all he had seen was his parents’ figures growing farther and smaller.
Until they finally disappeared.
They had not turned around even once.
Adults always seemed to think that children were too young to remember things, which allowed them to fabricate lies without any burden once the children grew up.
In fact, Xu Muchan had not thought about his parents’ backs for many years.
As he grew older, he had gradually been able to understand his parents’ choice.
After all, there was no such thing as love in this world without a reason.
Even the love between parents and children was the same.
Xu Muchan lowered his eyelids listlessly and said nothing.
He merely squeezed the schoolbag in his arms instinctively.
The shrine inside the schoolbag was extremely quiet. This time, it did not make any troublesome noises.
For some reason, Xu Muchan instead felt a little disappointed.
His pale lips slowly pressed into a straight line.
Suddenly, Xu Muchan stopped walking.
He raised his face and turned toward Xu Zhifei, as if he had something to say.
Xu Zhifei had been chattering away, saying a whole basketful of things without receiving any response from her son. Now that she finally saw him about to speak, she immediately looked at him expectantly.
Her loving mother’s heart was practically overflowing.
“What does Muchan want to say?”
Xu Muchan’s long eyelashes fluttered several times. He spoke with a very puzzled tone.
“I’ve always remembered that you sold me to a middle-aged man for fifty thousand yuan. You said you had lost money in business and urgently needed money. I even cried at the time. Did I remember it wrong? Was I actually kidnapped?”
The boy’s expression was innocent and confused, without the slightest hint of accusation.
It was as though he simply wanted an answer.
Xu Zhifei and Xu Qingming’s expressions changed drastically at once.
The moment the old matter was brought up, the fear and trembling that had been dulled by the passage of time resurfaced.
Xu Zhifei remembered something. The muscles in her cheeks twitched unnaturally several times before she forced a smile and said, “You were only three years old back then. How could you remember anything? The people who kidnapped you must have brainwashed you for a long time, which is why you have such memories.”
Xu Qingming also echoed her from the side.
“That’s right. After you were kidnapped back then, your mother and I were devastated for a long time. Especially your mother—she even fell seriously ill and nearly lost her life. How can you say things like that? Aren’t you breaking your mother’s heart?”
Xu Muchan turned his face toward them as he listened.
His bloodless cheeks seemed almost to blend into the gloomy sky.
He let out an “Ah,” as though he had suddenly understood.
His voice was light and cheerful, as if a burden had been lifted.
“So that’s how it was. I’m sorry. I misunderstood you, Mom and Dad.”
The boy’s expression did not seem fake.
Clearly, he had already believed the explanation his parents had given him.
Even the unfamiliar stiffness from their earlier interactions had completely disappeared. His face now carried a little of the affectionate dependence a child had toward his parents.
Seeing this, Xu Zhifei’s violently beating heart, which had been racing from fright, gradually calmed down.
She raised a hand and smoothed the loose hair at her temple behind her ear. Eager to move past the subject, she introduced the adopted son beside her.
“After you were kidnapped, Mom adopted a child from an orphanage to pray for your safety. That was Wangchuan. Wangchuan is half a year older than you. From now on, you should call him Big Brother.”
“If you’re not used to calling me Big Brother, you can just call me by my name.”
Xu Wangchuan gently interrupted from the side, completely adopting the demeanor of an accommodating and tolerant older brother.
The husband and wife were pleased to see how obedient and sensible their adopted son was, and their satisfaction with him grew even more.
Xu Muchan turned his face slightly and recognized Xu Wangchuan as the person who had spoken into his ear earlier.
Xu Muchan had always been sensitive to other people’s emotions.
Xu Wangchuan’s final remark, for some inexplicable reason, made him sense ill intent.
His eyelashes trembled.
He parted his lips and called out to him.
“Big Brother.”
The boy’s voice was clear and bright. When facing family, it carried an additional softness.
His jet-black hair contrasted with his snow-white, delicate face, making him look obedient and easy to bully, as though he would neither resist nor be able to resist whatever someone did to him.
After all, he was still blind.
Xu Wangchuan narrowed his eyes slightly.
He took hold of Xu Muchan’s arm and led him toward the villa.
“You can’t see, so living on the first floor will be more convenient. I happen to live on the first floor too. You can stay in the room next to mine. I’ll take you around the house first so you can familiarize yourself with it.”
Xu Muchan obediently allowed himself to be led into the villa.
The Xu family villa was located in Oak Tree Manor beside Jiunü Lake. It had three floors above ground and three underground floors, stood independently on its own lot, and also came with a garden of approximately 1,500 square meters in total at the front and back.
Because the residential compound had a good environment and sufficient privacy, the Xu family lived here most of the time.
The first floor had originally been the living room, dining room, and reception area.
However, because Xu Wangchuan disliked taking elevators, he had asked the servants to tidy up one of the vacant rooms on the first floor and had moved down from the second floor.
Now that Xu Muchan had returned and could not see, it happened to be convenient for the two of them to live on the first floor together and look after each other.
The moment Xu Muchan entered the living room, he smelled something both familiar and unfamiliar.
It was a scent that was difficult to describe.
If he absolutely had to describe it, it was probably the smell of incense mixed with the bloody, rotten stench of animals.
It inevitably made one think of those gods that appeared compassionate on the surface but actually required offerings of blood and flesh, easily giving rise to disgust and fear.
Xu Muchan’s footsteps paused.
He turned his face around in confusion, uncertain whether he had smelled it incorrectly.
When he had been sold, he had been only three years old. At that time, the Xu family was nowhere near as wealthy as they were now.
The family of three had still been renting a three-story self-built house in the suburbs.
By all accounts, the Xu family had moved countless times since then.
So why was this smell still here?
It was even more intense than he remembered.
Recalling his childhood in the old house, Xu Muchan’s eyelashes suddenly trembled. His lips pressed into a straight line, and his entire mind became tense.
Xu Wangchuan looked at the boy who had suddenly stopped in confusion. “Muchan, why aren’t you walking?”
Xu Muchan said softly, “Walk a little slower. I want to familiarize myself with the route.”
Xu Wangchuan suddenly understood.
The blind boy was holding his white cane and exploring his surroundings, clearly memorizing the layout and route around him.
He said patiently, “I overlooked that. You can’t see, so you really do need to familiarize yourself with the environment slowly. Then let’s walk more slowly. The reception room is ahead. After passing through the reception room, turn right and that will be your room. The servants have already cleaned it up in advance. If there’s anything else you need, just tell me. My room is right next to yours. If you call out, I’ll be able to hear you.”
Xu Muchan hummed in acknowledgment and followed his instructions, walking straight ahead before turning right.
Compared with the clumsiness he displayed, blindness had actually not dealt him as severe a blow as others imagined.
Qiu Ze’s earlier guess that his eyes had been injured and blinded during the landslide was not entirely accurate.
In reality, his eyesight had begun to deteriorate a long time ago.
At first, things merely appeared blurry to him, and he would temporarily lose his sight. He had thought it was nearsightedness caused by excessive use of his eyes and had even gone to the county hospital for an examination, but nothing was found.
Afterward, his eyesight grew worse and worse, while the periods of temporary blindness became longer and longer.
By then, Xu Muchan had already considered the worst possibility and done his best to make sufficient preparations to deal with it.
Until half a month ago, when he became completely blind, Xu Muchan had forced himself to rapidly adapt to a life without sight.
Although he was somewhat unaccustomed to unfamiliar places, he was actually nowhere near as panicked and helpless as he appeared.
Xu Wangchuan took him around the entire first floor.
Xu Muchan had always had a good memory. After becoming blind, his other senses had become even sharper, and he had already constructed a floor plan of the Xu family’s first floor in his mind.
He did not show this at all.
Instead, he used being tired as an excuse and said he wanted to return to his room to rest.
Xu Wangchuan did as he asked and escorted him back to his room.
Then he said, “There’ll be a family dinner tonight. All our relatives will be coming. Mom and Dad said they want to introduce you to everyone. We’ll probably leave around eight-thirty. You can rest for another two hours. I’ll come get you when it’s time to leave.”
Xu Muchan nodded.
Holding his schoolbag, he stood in the unlit room, looking somewhat pitiful.
Xu Wangchuan’s mood improved slightly.
His gaze boldly swept over Xu Muchan’s oversized old school uniform, his knockoff Adidas sneakers, and the old black schoolbag he had been clutching tightly the entire time without ever letting go.
The schoolbag was stuffed so full that it bulged outward. Who knew what precious treasure was inside?
Xu Wangchuan curled the corners of his lips and directly reached out to take it.
“Give me the schoolbag. I’ll put it in the closet for you.”
“Mom bought you some new clothes too. They’re in the wardrobe. You can change into a different outfit before we go out.”
As he spoke, the old schoolbag was already in Xu Wangchuan’s hands.
Taking advantage of the fact that the boy could not see, he directly opened the schoolbag, wanting to see what kind of precious treasure a bumpkin from some mountain ravine could possibly be so reluctant to let go of.
The zipper opened.
Inside the bag, the head covered by a red veil suddenly turned one hundred and eighty degrees and looked toward Xu Wangchuan.
The faded red veil half-covered its face, hanging precariously as if it might fall off at any moment.
The exposed lower half of its face was as white as flour, yet its lips were blood-red.
Those lips curled upward.
As they opened and closed, they made a sticky, slurred sound, as though something were stuffed inside its mouth, or as though it had only just learned how to speak.
It quietly called out:
“Xu Wangchuan…”
“Xu Wangchuan…”
“Xu Wangchuan…”
The indistinct voice, impossible to distinguish as male or female, circled around Xu Wangchuan like a curse.
The head inside the schoolbag also stretched its neck outward.
The neck was thin and long, bending like a snake as it carried the head closer until it was almost nose-to-nose with Xu Wangchuan.
Its blood-red lips opened and closed, revealing serrated teeth stuffed with scraps of flesh.
Yet its tone carried a bizarre, almost affectionate tenderness.
Xu Wangchuan screamed and instinctively threw the schoolbag away.
The head inside rolled out with a clatter.
But the red veil did not fall off. It remained draped over that eerie face that continued making sounds, and the outline of the lips constantly opening and closing could vaguely be seen beneath it.
Xu Wangchuan’s face was pale, sweat appearing on his forehead.
With trembling hands, he took out his phone and checked the time.
6:12 p.m.
The God of Joy clearly could not come out until after midnight.
Why had He appeared now…?
Why had He suddenly come early?
Xu Wangchuan stared neurotically at the time displayed on his phone, his entire body seemingly clenched into a ball by fear.
Xu Muchan could not see, but he heard Xu Wangchuan’s scream, as well as his increasingly heavy and tense breathing.
The corners of his lips curled upward, only to be quickly suppressed.
With confusion and concern, he asked, “Big Brother, are you all right?”
The head lying on the floor began moving again.
Its snake-like neck stretched out long and thin, twisted around in a circle, and moved behind Xu Wangchuan.
Intimately, it rested its chin on his shoulder and blew against his ear with its lips.
Xu Wangchuan could even smell the rotten, bloody stench emanating from behind the red cloth whenever its mouth opened and closed.
Finally, he could no longer care about Xu Muchan at all.
He fled the room as if running for his life.
Xu Muchan was left behind in the darkness.
Following his memory, he walked two steps and accurately grasped the doorknob, closing the door.
Only then did he leisurely turn back and pick up the schoolbag from the floor.
The shrine was very sturdy and had not been damaged by the fall.
He felt around until he found the innermost wardrobe door and pulled it open.
With great solemnity, he placed the shrine inside.
Then he took out the palm-sized stone statue of the god and placed it inside as well.
After carefully straightening it, he bowed before it.
“Thank you, Big Brother. I just arrived at the Xu family, and I’m still unfamiliar with this place. You’ll have to bear with it for now. When I come back tonight, I’ll find a chance to make you something to eat. I’ll make the egg mixed rice you like best.”
As always, there was no response.
Ever since Xu Muchan had decided to return to Jiang City, Big Brother had not appeared again, nor had He spoken to him.
Xu Muchan was secretly delighted that he did not have to serve Him.
Yet he deliberately put on an expression of sorrow, let out a heavy sigh, and sat before the statue for quite a while.
Only then did he close the wardrobe door with a disappointed expression and lie down on the bed.
He crossed both hands over his abdomen, suppressed his excitement, and closed his eyes.
Returning to the Xu family really had been the right decision.