Jiang Yue's attention was diverted by her son's words, and she really couldn't think of her mother at the moment.

After deleting the text message, Zhou Zhengchu returned her phone. She held the phone, still somewhat conflicted, and unconsciously pouted, her bright red lips looking very alluring. She wasn't actually talking to Zhou Zhengchu, but muttering to herself, "If I call him while he's in a meeting, will it make me seem annoying? Inconsiderate?"

"But I'm not exactly a perfect wife either. Is that alright?"

Will he hate me? Or will he like me?

She didn't need an answer; the answer was already in her heart as she muttered these words.

After she finished talking to him, she dialed her husband's number.

The phone rang a few times before the person on the other end answered.

She knew she had to keep her phone call with her husband private, not wanting anyone to hear. She turned around, ran to the bedside, and her voice sounded sweet and coquettish.

They would say things like, "Do you really have a lot of work?" "Do you really have that much to do?" "When are you coming back?" "I miss you."

Zhou Zhengchu watched as she carefully held her phone, her face slightly lowered. The light and shadow framed her profile, making the tip of her nose appear translucent and pinkish-white in the golden light from the window. Her lips were bright and beautiful, and her childlike words sounded like water that could nourish parched trees.

Like a peaceful and serene time.

Zhou Zhengchu didn't listen anymore, and left his mother's bedroom and went downstairs.

Upon seeing the young master, the butler immediately stepped forward and replied, "The person has been apprehended. He's outside."

Zhou Zhengchu nodded and gave a faint "hmm".

Even after being detained, Sun Chengfeng continued to cause trouble. Although the bodyguards managed to restrain her, they couldn't control her mouth.

She continued her incessant tirade, "What you're doing is illegal!? Who gave you permission to do this!? Let me tell you, my daughter is your wife. If you dare offend me, I'll have her fire you all."

"You heartless bastards, preventing a mother from seeing her child, you are utterly depraved and despicable."

Her insults became increasingly offensive.

The bodyguards blocking her way were like stubborn rocks, seemingly deaf and dumb, unable to hear anything.

The moment Zhou Zhengchu appeared, Sun Chengfeng shut her mouth. She recognized him and her shouts turned into soft murmurs. She was a shrewd person after all, knowing what she could and couldn't do.

Sun Chengfeng still felt guilty thinking about the bad things she had done when the child was still young.

She often encouraged her daughter to abuse this child when she was young.

They say children need to be disciplined, otherwise they won't listen to you.

Sun Chengfeng gradually fell silent, but after a while, she shamelessly spoke again: "I came to see your mother. I heard she is sick, and I am very worried about her."

Zhou Zhengchu chuckled.

When Sun Chengfeng heard him laugh, she felt even more frightened. To be honest, she was genuinely afraid of him. Her daughter was easy to fool because he was a fool.

This child is not easily fooled.

She's unresponsive to both gentle and forceful approaches, and completely impervious to both oil and salt.

Zhou Zhengchu looked down at her and said, "You don't need to bother contacting her. I won't let her see you again."

Sun Chengfeng immediately lost her composure.

Jiang Yue is her cash cow. She has been able to live such a glamorous life all these years, with money to gamble and wear gold and silver, all thanks to this daughter.

Of course, Sun Chengfeng hasn't forgotten to instigate Jiang Yue to do some stupid things, hoping that Zhou Ji will quickly come to hate her.

She's really lucky.

Despite making so many mistakes time and time again, Zhou Ji was still able to tolerate it.

Even Zhou Zhengchu didn't resent her all these years.

"What are you saying?! I can't even see my daughter?! This is outrageous! Don't take advantage of her being mentally challenged."

"You know perfectly well who bullied her."

That's a long story.

Sun Chengfeng, who was originally very confident, suddenly lost her arrogance.

Zhou Zhengchu still felt angry when he thought about that incident, and his gaze towards her became even colder.

He was still young then, in junior high school.

The mother was easily lured out by Sun Chengfeng's few words and tricked into going to the casino, where she was asked to pay money.

My mother didn't have her bank card with her, and those people actually detained her.

What good stuff could you find in a casino? They almost ripped people off.

Sun Chengfeng, full of wicked schemes, decided to play along and trick her into spending the night with her creditor.

When her father finally found her, she had been starving all day and had been threatened all day. She had never been so pitiful.

So pitiful.

The casino closed afterwards.

Those guys were also given a severe beating.

"Why are you holding a grudge against me?! Even your mother doesn't hold a grudge against me." Sun Chengfeng said, her voice tinged with resentment, "What's the use of protecting her like this? She's an ingrate. She doesn't acknowledge me as her mother now, how can she take care of you, her son? She's also mentally challenged, she has some kind of problem. If it weren't for me..."

The rest of the sentence was not finished.

Sun Chengfeng was slapped. She seemed stunned by the blow, or perhaps she didn't expect Zhou Zhengchu to personally deliver such a heavy slap.

Perhaps it was because the young man's eyes were too cold.

After being slapped, Sun Chengfeng dared not make a sound again.

It was only then that she remembered that Zhou Zhengchu hated it when people treated his mother like a fool.

Sun Chengfeng's face burned with pain, and even after recovering, she was still speechless for a long time. Her hand, which was pointing at him, was trembling, but she dared not utter another sound.

Sun Chengfeng not only failed to gain anything from her visit today, but also suffered a great loss. She was still shaken after being kicked out, as she had never been so humiliated in all these years.

But the thought of the look she had just seen in Zhou Zhengchu's eyes filled her with fear.

Sun Chengfeng gritted her teeth and had to swallow her anger. She really didn't expect that even though she had instigated Jiang Yue to do so many things and succeeded every time, her husband and son could still let her do whatever she wanted without any resentment all these years.

Sun Chengfeng felt even more resentful.

The only thing that could comfort her was that her biological daughter had lived a good life for most of her life.

*

Zhou Zhengchu reprimanded the man and then went home as if nothing had happened.

Jiang Yue had finished her phone call with her husband, and it was dinnertime. She was feeling down and didn't have much of an appetite.

My husband doesn't come home at night.

Her mother stood her up again for no reason, which was really annoying.

Zhou Zhengchu could tell at a glance that his mother was unhappy, and he could guess what was going on. He sat down in front of her and saw the untouched food in front of her.

"Aren't you hungry? Aren't you going to eat?"

"I have no appetite."

“I made them redo it.”

"I can't eat anything right now, not even the most delicious food."

She is unhappy when she is unhappy, happy when she is happy, likes when she likes, and dislikes when she dislikes. All her emotions are on the surface; she neither hides them nor cares to.

Zhou Zhengchu also had little appetite, didn't touch his chopsticks, and didn't eat anything.

Jiang Yue looked at him. Only in quiet moments like this, when she had nothing else to do, would she really take a good look at him.

Her face seems a bit thinner.

She was already very thin.

It's still very beautiful, just colder.

Jiang Yue doesn't have any close friends now, and she doesn't have many people to talk to. She thinks that her son has already graduated from high school, so he must be an adult now.

She looked at him and asked, "Why is your father's work always more important than mine?"

Zhou Zhengchu couldn't answer her; over the years, he had rarely been unable to answer a question.

He thought for a moment and said, "It's probably because I have to support my family."

Jiang Yue frowned and said somewhat awkwardly, "But I can also avoid spending so much money. I can stop playing cards and not buy expensive bags."

She actually started to think about this issue seriously, and began to calculate it very carefully: "Raising me won't cost much money. I'm very easy to take care of."

Zhou Zhengchu's thoughts were somewhat blank; his mother was not easy to raise.

Delicate and fragile.

It takes money to make up for it, and time to heal it.

When the wind blew, the petals fluttered away.

Zhou Zhengchu couldn't bear to look into his mother's dark eyes. She would still have moments of complete lucidity, however brief, perhaps only a dozen minutes. She would realize that she was sick, that she was married, had a husband, and had children.

I can recall so many years of married life.

At that time, she would just quietly look out the window, saying nothing, or just look at him and murmur that she had forgotten something very important.

As for what it is...

She herself couldn't explain it clearly.

That quiet mother was not what Zhou Zhengchu wanted; she was like a porcelain vase that could shatter at any moment, empty and desolate.

"Yes, you're very easy to take care of."

He echoed these words as if they came from the heart.

Her topics always come and go in bursts, like the wind, quick to arrive and quick to depart, leaving no trace.

Shortly after dinner.

Zhou Zhengchu brought the warmed milk upstairs. She had trouble sleeping and often woke up in a fright, her face covered in tears. She would bite the blanket and cry, which would break anyone's heart.

Besides, it was him.

So I added some sedative and sleep-inducing drugs to my milk every night. It's harmless to the body, and even long-term use is fine.

However, tonight, perhaps because she had experienced a lot during the day and was already very tired, when Zhou Zhengchu went upstairs and gently pushed open the door, his mother was quietly nestled in the blankets, looking as if she had already fallen asleep.

She was still holding an unfinished book in her hand; her fingers were slender, and her nails were pinkish-white, but they felt a little cold to the touch.

Zhou Zhengchu placed the milk on the bedside table, then gently took the book from her hands and tucked her hands under the covers.

The master bedroom light was still on.

She probably fell asleep while watching.

They even forgot to turn off the lights.

Zhou Zhengchu stood by the bed, watching his mother sleep. He fell into a long silence. After a while, he reached out and turned off the bedroom light, but remained standing by the bed. Through the boundless darkness, he could almost see the person on the bed.

He was able to perceive it earlier and more keenly than anyone else.

My mother is sleeping more often now than before.

I used to sleep only eight or nine hours a day, but now I probably sleep ten hours.

Perhaps he was being paranoid; he didn't think it was a good thing.

His father seemed unaware of this subtle change.

In the darkness, the young man murmured goodnight before quietly leaving the bedroom.

That night, the Zhou family's servants busied themselves in the middle of the night.

The wife in the master bedroom had another nightmare. Surprisingly, she didn't lose her temper. Instead, she stared with her dark eyes wide open, silently shedding tears, biting the corner of the blanket and sobbing.

One minute she'd say a ghost was coming to find her.

One minute he's saying he's going to be poisoned to death.

Then she said someone was going to murder her.

He was talking nonsense and his words were incoherent.

However, the servants who clean up the mess were already used to it.

When a wife is not in a good mental state, she is prone to having nightmares, or when her husband has something to do at night and cannot come home, she is prone to waking up in fright from her dreams.

No matter how she tried to comfort her, she couldn't stop crying.

No one could get close; his dark, round eyes watched them all warily, and he gripped the blanket tightly.

The servants tried to persuade him sternly, but to no avail. In desperation, they went to tell the young master.

Late at night, the Zhou family's house was brightly lit.

Zhou Zhengchu, wearing pajamas and a coat, went to his mother's bedroom. When he saw her red eyes and fearful gaze, his heart clenched.

Fortunately, it's alright.

She didn't recognize the other servants, but seemed to remember him as her son.

Slowly, she was willing to put down the blanket she was clutching tightly. Although her eyes were still filled with fear, she was much better than before when no one could get close to her.

"Did you have a nightmare?" Zhou Zhengchu's voice was very soft. He always had the best patience for his mother. He paused for a moment, then continued, "Dreams are all fake, don't be afraid."

The tear tracks on her face had dried, and she had regained some composure. She said, "Someone wants to kill me."

She still believes there's a ghost in the bedroom.

There were still so many ghosts.

After saying that, she asked, "Did you see that?"

The servants felt a chill run down their spines and naturally shook their heads violently, saying there was nothing to say.

This room faces the sun, so it gets plenty of sunshine every day. Even if there were ghosts in the world, they wouldn't dare to come near it.

She started sobbing again, not caring about saving face or looking embarrassed, and said, "I'm scared."

"I want to call my husband."

Zhou Zhengchu sighed helplessly and reminded her, "Father should still be on the plane right now."

The journey took more than ten hours.

It won't end so quickly.

He said, "I'll stay here with you. Even ghosts wouldn't dare come near you. If they wanted to eat you, they would eat me first."

His mother, who had always been reluctant to spend much time with him, finally agreed.

It seems they don't want to get rid of him before dawn.

Zhou Zhengchu took out several quilts from the wardrobe and made a makeshift bed on the floor in the bedroom. The light was left on, not turned off.

It seems like there's an extra person.

She felt safer.

She shrank back under the covers, and before closing her eyes, she muttered to what she couldn't tell was a god or a little devil: "Don't eat me."

After a pause, he added, "It's probably best not to eat him; he seems to be just a high school student."

It sounded like he was speaking reluctantly.

But it wasn't that difficult.

After making her wish, she opened her eyes again, as if she had just remembered that her high school birthday was coming soon.

So she asked directly, "Is your birthday coming up soon?"