Suddenly, Chen You recalled something, didn’t that big sister’s subordinate say that he found Second Pup in the west of the city. Then… was Second Pup trying to find his father?
Chen You had previously mentioned that his father was buried in the west city.
Thinking about this, Chen You forcefully brought the child in front of his father’s grave. There were several paper money scattered on the ground with some buried under the soil, exposing only a bit of their corners.
The child stared wide-eyed ahead at the tombstone atop a lump of soil. He’d never been to school and could only recognize a few words. However, there were times when he had sneaked to the back of a school courtyard to listen in, hence, he was still able to recognize his and his father’s name.
A line of words on the tombstone read, “Here Lies Chen Dafu”.
Actually, Second Pup’s grandfather was somewhat educated. When he was still alive, he disliked staying at home and would go out to wander aimlessly. He especially liked to sit at a tea house and listen to storytelling performances. One time, he had an epiphany and thought the words ‘da fu da gui’1literally, big rich big expensive. sounded really nice and so he memorized it.
This was how Second Pup’s father got his name.
Chen You softly spoke, “See, I didn’t lie to you, I really did bury your father properly.”
The child walked to the very front of the grave and stood there, motionless.
Chen You looked at the back of the child’s head. “Are you not going to say even a few words to your father?”
A few seconds later, Chen You suddenly remembered something. He awkwardly touched his nose. “My bad, Second Pup. I forgot that you can’t speak.”
Thud! The child suddenly knelt down and started kowtowing towards the grave, issuing ‘thud thud’ sounds as he did.
Chen You was frightened by how heavy the sounds were. He stepped forward and pulled the child’s arm. “That’s enough, bowing three times is enough.”
The child pushed Chen You away and continued kowtowing.
Chen You frowned. So full of zeal, eh? Fine, continue to bow, Laozi don’t care anymore!
He left in a hurry but still returned with a huff to drag away the extremely stubborn and hateful child.
By the time they came back to the Eastern streets, the crowd had died down quite a bit and the paths were more empty and spacious. Thus, the journey back was so much better than before because at least now, he won’t have to worry about his money pouch getting stolen every time he walks forward since the little thieves won’t be able to hide properly.
Chen You saw a vendor selling tanghulu, it was the same guy from before. He bent his head down and asked the child, “Do you want tanghulu?”
The child was like a block of ice, not moving, not responding.
Chen You dragged him to the vendor and bought a tanghulu for him. “Eat ba.”
The child coldly pursed his lips.
Chen You rolled his eyes in anger. A jinx, Second Pup, you really are a little jinx sent by the Heavens to prevent me from returning home.
Chen Yu stopped trying to suck up to the other and directly placed the tanghulu into his own mouth. He took one bite after another and smacked his lips as he ate.
Upon reaching home, the child started to develop a high fever.
Chen You was seriously annoyed, and he had never been this annoyed. No matter what he did, all of it was useless towards this child. If he were to compare, he would be given the illusion that the previous few worlds were easier compared to this world.
How scary.
Chen You sighed and asked the system about the situation.
The system said, “The child’s thinking is actually quite simple. He already determined that you are a bad person, thus, you are a bad person.”
Chen You wiped his face. “But I’m really not.”
The system replied, “You picked the original owner’s identity yourself.”
“Don’t even mention this trivial matter,” Chen You consoled himself, “Time will prove everything.” Second Pup was just mute, everything else about him was the same as that of a normal person. Surely, he would eventually feel his warm fatherly love.
The system said, “Well, jiayou.”
Chen You leaned against the head of the bed looking after the child. He felt that if one day he goes back home and his father clamored for him to adopt a child, he would definitely remember every single annoying incident that happened in this world.
This child was really too hard to handle, whatever sickoes or psychos couldn’t compare to him.
The next morning, the child refuse to eat or drink. Don’t mention his medicine, he wasn’t even willing to drink a sip of water.
Spring Peach2Figured it would be easier to remember who’s who if the readers can identify them based on their seasonal fruit counterpart. This is Chun Tao. had just been antagonized by Winter Date3This is Dong Zao. Date as in Jujube or Red date. and was in a bad mood. He said strangely, “I don’t know what wind came about Master, but that wind will pass sooner or later.”
The meaning behind his words was that when the time comes, what needs to be done will be done, so don’t think too highly of yourself.
The child had no reaction towards his words.
Spring Peach’s complexion became even more unsightly. He took a few steps forward and stared at the child on the bed. “Let me ask you again, do you or do you not want to drink the medicine?”
The child continued to remain still.
Spring Peach snorted coldly. “It doesn’t matter, I’ve tried already anyway. You not taking your medicine has nothing to do with me. ”
A voice suddenly sounded at the door, “Spring Peach.”
Spring Peach’s back stiffened and with a pale face, he turned his head. “Master…”
Chen You went over and interrogated, “What were you doing just now?”
Spring Peach’s eyes flashed with obvious guilt, now he was really scared. “Servant… This Servant has done nothing…”
Chen You called Summer, Autumn, and Winter over and instructed, “Listen to Master properly. From now on, whoever can’t control his tongue and dares to talk drivel in front of the child, this Master will cut it off himself.” Of course, this was just talk, Chen You would never dare to do such a bloody thing himself.
Spring Peach felt the tongue in his mouth tremble.
“Also,” Chen You said with a stern face, “Spring Peach is not allowed to have any meals for today, the three of you better watch him carefully. If he eats even a grain of rice, all of you will join him.”
Not caring as long as it’s not them, Summer, Autumn, and Winter immediately answered, “Yes.”
Spring Peach knew that he overstepped and so he couldn’t utter a single word.
During the whole process, the child didn’t have any reaction at all, as if all the people and things of the outside world had nothing to do with him.
Chen You persuaded patiently, “People will die if they don’t eat or drink, and they will also die ugly.”
No response.
Chen You directly picked up the bowl and took a mouthful of water, then he squeezed the child’s chin and force-fed it in. However, before it could even reach his throat, the child spat it all out.
Damn it, I really cannot fix you right huh?
Chen You wiped away the water on the child’s neck and asked the system how to give a person the motivation to live.
The system replied, “Hatred.”
“Really?” Chen You snorted. “Why do I feel as if you’re digging a pit for me and waiting for me to jump in?”
The system said, “There’s no such thing.”
Chen You then said, “Don’t lie to me! You’re definitely up to something!”
The system, “…”
Chen You sat in front of the bed. After a while, he reached out and patted the child’s face. “Do you know? Boss Zhang really likes kids your age, in fact, he loves them to the point of death and would even arrange a coffin for them. He would carry the dead inside and then lie down after. As to what he’s up to inside, you should probably know.”
The child still did not utter a word.
Chen You endured and endured until finally, he went to slap his butt. He was hot-headed that day, but today he was very much sober.
After being slapped over a dozen times, the child’s butt became swollen. He finally opened his eyes and coldly glared at Chen You.
Chen You sneered. “So you’re finally willing to open your eyes?” Do you think being spanked is a disgrace? You can also hit me ah, if you can that is.
With this thought in mind, Chen You, not afraid that he would end up dead, let the words slip out of his mouth.
After a few moments, the kid closed his eyes once again.
When night came, the child’s fever finally subsided and now it was Chen You who became sick instead. He lied on the bed with a wet cloth on his forehead, complaining to the system, “Why is my life so hard….”
The system issued an autoreply. Apparently, it was busy with something else and was not online.
Chen You sighed. This feeling of being ‘a lone army putting up a brave fight’ is really not nice.
Because Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter had received a lecture, they didn’t concern themselves with Second Pup anymore. And with Chen You sick in bed, Second Pup finally had some freedom.
Maybe because he had some other plans, Second Pup didn’t try to run away anymore. Every morning he would go out and not just to anywhere, rather, he would stand in front of the grave west of the city until the sky darkened before obediently going back to Qing Feng Lou.
Seeing this, Chen You felt at ease and focused on recovering.
One day, Second Pup came back with injuries. Spring Peach immediately informed Chen You of this. Currently, out of the four people inside, he was the one who talked the most and couldn’t hide things in his heart.
Chen You understood Second Pup’s character, and the kid disliked him very much. Almost as soon as Second Pup saw him, the other would immediately enter combat mode.
Thus, after thinking for a while, Chen You decided to go and watch him secretly instead. The doors in ancient times were good, but the windows were made of paper. With a poke of a finger, it was broken.
He laid near the window, stretched his head forward and peered through the small hole with one eye.
After stripping his outerwear, numerous bruises could be seen on Second Pup’s body. When he pulled down his pants, bruises could be seen on his thighs too.
Who was Chen You? Having gone through so many mission worlds, one look at the wounds and he could tell what happened. His heart now contained anger with nowhere to vent, he resembled those parents who couldn’t tolerate their child being bullied. He turned around and ordered Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter to go investigate.
In less than two hours, the situation has been investigated.
South of the city, several local ruffians were surrounding a young woman in a corner, taking liberties as they touched her.
When Chen You passed by, he happened to see this scene and the sense of justice in his body exploded with a ‘bang’. By the time he realized it, he’d already rushed up. “Hey, what are you doing?”
Before the local ruffians even made any moves, the young woman was already pulling on her clothes. With a dissatisfied tone, she said, “What is it today? This morning there was a little fool being a busybody and ruining Laoniang’s4The counterpart of Laozi. An arrogant way to refer to oneself for women. business, now, there’s a big fool. Do you really think you’re a hero?”
Chen You, “…”
Aiyo, Second Pup, you nearly got raped for intervening and even went back full of injuries, yet, it was all for this prostitute. Seriously, look at yourself, how can you be charmed by beauty at such a young age?
He took a glance at the young woman. Still not as pretty as Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter ne.
If Second Pup were to know that he had disrupted this Big Sister in doing business, he would probably vomit blood in anger.
The local ruffians entered the scene and walked towards Chen You. “Who’re you?”
Chen You gave each of them a single kick and they all fell to the ground. “Get lost!”
The local ruffians immediately scrambled to their feet and charged up fiercely.
Chen You once again gave each of them a single kick, himself cutting a dashing figure.
This time the ruffians did not get up again. Instead, they crawled on the ground, spat out a mouthful of blood and with a tilt of their heads, fainted.
Chen You turned his head and noticed that the young woman’s eyes seemed to sparkle. He left without saying a word, maintaining a very unfeeling demeanor while releasing his domineering aura as he walked.
The young woman clung to him and said with a loving smile, “Young Master, my clients have fainted because of you, how about you keep me company instead?”
Chen You threw her an imperious look. “Lady, the little fool who rescued you this morning is my son and the big fool in front of you is his father.”
The smile on the young woman’s face froze. “How unlucky.”
Pei, I’m the one who’s unlucky. Chen You strode out of the alley. On the way back to Qing Feng Lou, he coincidentally saw the young woman again. She had just walked out of a medicinal shop.
It was unknown if water had entered his brain, but Chen You decided to follow the young woman all the way to a small yard. He then watched the other party push the door and walked in.
Conversations could be heard from the courtyard followed by the continuous sound of someone coughing.
While spurning himself, Chen You couldn’t help but step forward lightly to listen. He could sniff the smell of a past story on the young woman, and a particularly dense smell at that.
There were two voices coming from the inside, one male and one female. The male voice was very weak and sounded like a sick person. The female voice came from that young woman just now. When she talked, her voice had a very… how to put it… a very affectionate feel to it.
Chen You eavesdropped for a while. Basically, the man asked the woman to stop buying medicine since it’s not only expensive but also useless. However, the woman said that she doesn’t lack money. She added that the owner of the medicine shop she buys from was a pretty nice guy and he frequently gives her a discount.
It was obviously a lie, but the man somehow believed it. He was either too deeply in love or he hadn’t been in touch with the outside world for a very long time and was not aware of the going-ons outside.
The system suddenly explained, “She is Second Pup’s mother.”
Chen You was shocked. “What the hell? Are you kidding me? She’s so young, how can she be so young…”
His voice spontaneously came to a halt. Ancient women seemed to get married and have babies very early. If Second Pup was four or five years old, his mother should be in her early twenties.
Then, it all made sense.
