Chapter Twenty-One

Chengnan Steel Plant, Disposal Room No. 3.

Zhou Mo had never been here before. While riding the bus, she kept looking out the window, watching the scenery gradually change into something she couldn't recognize. If she didn't know that she hadn't left this place yet, she would have really thought she had moved to a different city.

If one were to describe the south of the city with a single color, perhaps only yellowish-brown would be the most fitting.

There are no towering buildings, perhaps they all collapsed in that natural disaster, but the utility poles lining the streets are covered in rust, some standing there half-fallen, and some already leaning against the rooftops.

Fortunately, the people here were no different. Zhou Mo asked an old man for directions and quickly learned the location of the steel plant. Before she even got close, Zhou Mo smelled a strong earthy smell that made her sneeze.

She covered her mouth and nose with her sleeve and began searching for the third treatment room.

The steel plant must have been abandoned for a long time, with machines and vehicles parked everywhere, covered in yellowish-brown rust. The desolation made Zhou Mo feel uneasy, and she couldn't help but quicken her pace.

Fortunately, the road signs in the steel plant were quite complete. Following the signs, Zhou Mo quickly located the third processing room. Before she even got close, she could hear the cheerful, clear voices of children coming from inside.

Zhou Mo stopped and peeked out. She saw a little child circling around a boy in a black coat, muttering to himself. The boy held the child's head down with one hand, and the child clung to the boy's leg as if being spoiled.

From Zhou Mo's angle, she could clearly see the boy's profile and the helpless doting look on his face. The boy picked up the child and let him ride on his shoulders, holding the child's wrists tightly to prevent him from falling. The child giggled contentedly.

The laughter was so jarring that Zhou Mo instinctively covered her ears.

She caught a glimpse of Yu Xi's side.

It turns out that Yu Xi knows how to be a considerate person. In fact, he has the potential to be a head of the household, but he has never shown it to her.

So that sticky note was the ending to this pretend game.

This was Yu Xi's final verdict in rejecting her from being the head of the family.

Perhaps she shouldn't have come here.

As Zhou Mo thought this, she walked forward and appeared in front of the child and Yu Xi. The child looked at Zhou Mo curiously, while Yu Xi was not surprised that Zhou Mo had found this place.

"Brother, who is this sister?"

"My name is Zhou Mo, hello there." Zhou Mo extended her hand to the child, who looked at her hand with a puzzled expression, then reached out and touched her hand with Zhou Mo's. "My name is Yu Qian."

"Tsk."

The child immediately changed his name, "My name is Yu Ning, Yu as in Yu Xi, and Ning as in peace."

Zhou Mo patted Yu Ning's head. "Okay, Yu Ning."

When the child heard Zhou Mo call him that, he couldn't help but smile and his lips curled up high.

Yu Ning is very pleasing to the eye. Although she looks a bit thin, her small face is chubby and fair, and she looks like she has been carefully taken care of.

Zhou Mo and Yu Ning exchanged a few more words. The child was naive, and Zhou Mo managed to extract a lot of information from him in just a few words.

Yu Xi didn't stop Zhou Mo, but just stood quietly to the side watching her.

After asking her question, Zhou Mo glanced at Yu Xi. She tilted her head to the side and walked out. Yu Xi followed without hesitation.

The two stood facing each other in silence; to an outsider, it would look like some kind of rendezvous.

Zhou Mo couldn't help but laugh first, and Yu Xi raised an eyebrow in surprise.

"What are you laughing at?"

"It's nothing, I just found it funny."

"What's so funny?"

“It just suddenly dawned on me that we really are still just two kids.” Zhou Mo lowered her head and scratched at the loose sand on the ground with her toes. “I’m not that mature, and my thoughts are sometimes childish, but I don’t admit it. So sometimes I naturally understand that you are a strange person. I selfishly brought you into my world, but I’m reluctant to go into your world to see you.”

“When you gave me the sticky note, I was very angry and furious. I wanted to drag you back, but I also felt very wronged. I thought we were family.”

“But I just saw how you treated that child, and I really don’t want to face it. We’ve known each other for months, and you’ve never smiled at me like that before. Then I thought about it, and it seems like you have no obligation to smile at me like that.”

"I'm sorry, Yu Xi, can you forgive me?"

Zhou Mo looked up at Yu Xi.

Yu Xi stood in the shadows, the light only touching his chin, but his eyes were bright enough for Zhou Mo to see clearly; they were full of smiles.

"You're being too unfair, Zhou Mo."

Upon hearing this, Zhou Mo smiled and took Yu Xi's hand for the first time. It wasn't about romantic feelings; it was a touch between family members. "Brother, let's go home."

Without a heated argument, Zhou Mo's apology resolved everything, and she successfully brought Yu Xi back to that courtyard.

From then on, Zhou Mo could always see a dim yellow light on when she returned from evening self-study.

Math tests are really torturous. A single question can go on and on. Zhou Mo's mind wandered for a moment and she couldn't find the inspiration she had just had. Her pale finger traced a line on the complex diagram. Following the angle of her fingertip, Zhou Mo immediately understood how to solve the problem.

Zhou Mo looked up at Yu Xi, "So amazing!"

"Didn't Zhang Xing tell you who my father is?"

This was the first time they had discussed the issue of privacy. Zhou Mo reached out to stop Yu Xi from saying anything more. Yu Xi leaned against the door, the lamp making his white mink sweater look even softer, and he seemed much gentler than usual.

"What? You don't want to hear it?"

Zhou Mo wrote furiously, "No, once I finish this paper, we can have a long talk by candlelight."

Yu Xi turned and went into the kitchen. He could now make stewed pears with walnuts. By the time Zhou Mo finished her test, the late-night snack would be almost ready. Zhou Mo went into her room and changed out of her blue and white school uniform into a pink and white coral fleece onesie. The onesie had a large hood with long rabbit ears hanging from it.

When Yu Xi brought out the late-night snack, Zhou Mo was already wearing a hat and sitting cross-legged on the sofa.

"Okay, I'm ready."

"Zhang Xingzhen didn't tell you?"

Zhou Mo shook her head. "At the time, he told me that your identity was a bit special, that your father was a professor. Later, he called me again and said that your father had some very important information that was now missing. They suspected that you had it, so they wanted me to get close to you to get it."

"So this thing really exists?"

Yu Xi looked at her with a half-smile, "You think you can just take it and leave?"

Zhou Mo picked up a long ear and slapped Yu Xi's thigh, saying, "So all my previous apologies were for nothing."

“Then you can’t leave.” Yu Xi leaned back on the sofa. “I was only eight years old when he left, and I don’t remember many things.”

Zhou Mo found it strange, "You were so young back then, if they really wanted to take something, it should have been easy for them to do so."

“He set a fire when he left, and I was in the house with all those things.” Yu Xi said this calmly. “When I was six or seven years old, he became mentally unstable. When he was in a good mood, he would teach me how to do my homework, and when he was in a bad mood, he would kick me out.”

“My mother died in childbirth, and my father disappeared after setting a fire. I was supposed to be sent to an orphanage, but then my maternal grandfather appeared. This courtyard was his. He raised me until I was thirteen and then passed away. I was neither adopted nor sent to an orphanage. I have been guarding this courtyard until today.”

Yu Xi looked at the clock. The second hand was moving every second, the minute hand moved a small increment every sixty seconds, and the hour hand would not point to the next number until after sixty seconds. He used to spend most of his time staring at the clock to pass the time.

The old man had a strange temper, but it was much better than his mentally unstable father.

It's just that he's not allowed to go to school. Not going to school isn't a big deal. At first, some people came to persuade him, but later, for some reason, the old man stopped urging them.

The old man wouldn't let him read books or teach him anything, so his literacy level remained at the level of an eight-year-old. There were many things he didn't understand, couldn't comprehend, and didn't know.

Later, one time the old man got drunk and fell asleep. He secretly ran out of here and saw a dog locked in a cage outside. It was barking, but I couldn't understand it. I spoke, but it couldn't understand me either.

He thought he must be the same kind as this dog.

It turns out he was a dog.

So he should learn to be like a dog, then maybe the old man will treat him better and smile at him. Perhaps it's because he doesn't understand that he's a dog that his father wanted to burn him alive.

Nine-year-old Yu Xi thought this way.

He did just that, and the old man actually laughed when he saw him barking like a dog. Then he didn't see the sun for a month.

It is certain that a person's cognitive abilities are developed around the age of ten.

He met his first group of 'friends' in his life. The old man left for a week for some reason, but before he left, he prepared a week's worth of pre-cooked meals and put them in the refrigerator. When Yu Xi was hungry, he could take them out and wait for them to thaw before eating.

The old man naturally assumed that Yu Xi would wait until it dissolved, but Yu Xi did not have this understanding.

He finally cried when a cold, hard piece of food knocked out his front tooth. Ten-year-old Yu Xi had so little; his front tooth was a precious treasure he could touch.

He cried sadly because his baby wasn't with him.

At that time, Yu Xi didn't have the concept of losing her teeth. She only wanted to put her front teeth back in. Her rough behavior didn't get the teeth back in place but instead caused her gums to bleed. The bloody reflection in the mirror brought back Yu Xi's vague memories from before she was eight years old.

He remembered his father being just as 'terrible' before, and then, not long after, the house caught fire.

Yu Xi was afraid of fire, so he ignored the old man's warning and forcefully broke down the door and ran out.

And so, Yu Xi met Qi Kai. He could clearly feel the difference between himself and Qi Kai, and it was through Qi Kai's words that he understood what a person is.

He is a human being.

It's not a dog.

His unfocused gaze slowly sharpened as some sound disrupted the rhythm of the second hand. He turned to look at Zhou Mo, who was silently weeping, tears streaming down her chin and falling onto the sofa.

There was no sound originally, right?

Yu Xi thought about it, but he did hear it.

"Why are you crying?"

"I'm sorry, Yu Xi."

"This time, it's really heartfelt."

Yu Xi gently patted Zhou Mo's back, "It's alright, it's all over now."