After leaving the convenience store, he went back the way he came, raised his hand, and pressed the doorbell with his frozen red fingertips.

A hurried sound of footsteps in slippers came from inside, and then the door in front of them was pulled open.

"Pei Ke, you're finally back! We've been waiting for you." Yang Luonian happily ran over to open the door and took the snacks from the person outside.

The two walked inside together, and the warmth inside dispelled the chill from their bodies.

A quick glance inside revealed two boys their age sitting on the sofa. The movie projected on the wall was frozen in place. Yang Luonian then switched on a row of switches on the wall, darkening the entire room until only the light from the projector remained.

It seems they really are waiting for him.

Yang Luonian's parents went on a trip, so they invited a few of his close friends over to their house. That evening, the group suddenly decided they wanted to watch a movie, but they were short of snacks. Since he wanted to get some fresh air, he volunteered to run an errand for them.

I never expected to encounter what just happened.

He had to admit that for a moment, the girl made him think she had really come back; her features were very familiar, but the unfamiliar aura emanating from her made him unsure.

He suddenly thought that if it really was her just now, then wouldn't this mean that the two of them missed each other again? He didn't even have a chance to ask her for her current contact information.

But if it was her, why did she act as if she didn't know him and just leave? Even if she was angry, shouldn't it be him who was angry?

What reason did she have to be angry with him?

She was the one who vanished without a word back then, while he was just a pitiful wretch cruelly abandoned, and he hadn't even questioned her yet.

Over the course of four years, he wondered countless times what had happened to Su Xun, why he had suddenly left, and why he hadn't told him about any difficulties he was facing.

He was left alone, helpless, anxious, and filled with wild speculation.

The movie in front of him was a very popular American superhero film series in recent years, but he didn't pay attention to it at all.

It's already been so long, and you still want to disturb his thoughts. It's terrible and extremely annoying.

S City High-speed Railway Station

On the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, people returning to work gradually arrived from all over the country and temporarily gathered at the high-speed rail station. The entire hall was crowded with people of all kinds carrying large and small bags.

Su Xun pulled a small suitcase, carrying not much stuff, which made it quite easy, but moving forward in the surging black crowd was still very difficult.

The journey from Huaicheng to S City takes about ten hours by bus. She specifically bought a ticket for a train departing at around 10 p.m., so she could arrive the next day at noon and rest on the train.

My phone rang in my pocket.

She took it out of the side pocket of her clothes and pressed the answer button.

"Xiao Xun, you should have gotten off the high-speed train by now." It was her mother calling. She had told her family in advance about her train's arrival time.

"Yeah, I just got off. I guess it'll be hard to get a taxi later, so it might take a while." She glanced at the dense crowd around her.

"I came here to talk to you about this. Your Uncle He knows you're coming back today, so he drove over to pick you up. We'll go home together for dinner later. Send him a WeChat message to let him know."

"Okay, I understand." His expression immediately softened.

It's really not easy to get a taxi in this situation, so it would be best if someone came to pick her up.

The moment I hung up the phone, a message popped up on WeChat—it was Uncle He sending me his location.

She replied to the message and quickened her pace toward the parking lot.

A black Cayenne was parked in front. Su Xun squinted at it for a while, and only after confirming that it was a familiar license plate did he walk up and knock on the car window.

Hearing the noise beside him, the person inside opened the car door, and the warm air from inside rushed out, colliding with the cold outside. The man was around forty-five or forty-six years old, wearing a well-tailored suit, and his smile revealed a few fine lines at the corners of his eyes; he seemed very kind.

"Xiao Xun, you've been back for quite a while this time. How was it? Did you have fun?" He opened the trunk of the car, put the luggage in, and chatted with him.

His tone was familiar and warm, yet restrained and polite, which made people feel very comfortable.

Su Xun stood by and helped, using both hands to protect the suitcase from hitting the car body.

"It's warmer over there, so I stayed there for a few more days."

Since that incident, my mother took my brother and me to countless cities, and it took almost a year before we finally settled in S City. After my father paid off all the debts he had incurred, there was no longer any need for him to hide. For the past two years, she has gone back to visit her old relatives during the Spring Festival.

My mother would only stay there for two or three days each time before taking my younger brother back here. She always didn't know she was going back to S City until almost the start of the school term. She had a lot of special feelings for that city, after all, she had lived there since she was a child.

In truth, the reason the three of them were able to settle down in a place like S City is thanks to their mother's old classmate, He Chengzheng. He has helped them a lot over the years and can be considered their benefactor in life.

Uncle He treated them very well, so well that she suspected he had ulterior motives. But they were in dire straits at the time, and her mother was doing odd jobs to earn their tuition. She also worked two part-time jobs after school every day. Later, her mother met He Chengzheng while cleaning floors at a hotel.

The man recognized the mother and, after learning about their family's situation, immediately helped them pay off the huge debt and even brought them to S City.

Ever since her father's incident, Su Xun has been hesitant to trust others. When Uncle He offered her help, her first reaction was resistance. It wasn't until she discovered that he was the same person her mother had regretted from her student days that she understood why she trusted him so much.

However, they are ultimately outsiders. In short, they owe He Chengzheng a huge favor, a debt they can probably never repay in this lifetime.

The car was well-heated, and she had only dozed off a little while lying in the seat last night. Now that she was relaxed, she was actually quite tired.

She slept all the way home, and her mother had to wake her up.

A blast of cold air rushed in, making her shiver and clear her head a bit. She got out of the car and dragged her luggage into the building.

Uncle He wanted to park the car in the parking lot, leaving only her and her mother to go upstairs.

My mother kept nagging along the way, just like before, except that she had gone through a period of hardship, and her skin was no longer what it used to be, and her hair had turned quite a bit white.

Fortunately, the hardest days are finally over. After arriving in S City, my mother refused Uncle He's unconditional help and rented a small apartment, continuing to work odd jobs. Then, she had a stroke of luck and earned a small sum of money.

They used some of their savings from the past few years to rent a small shop near their neighborhood to sell flowers, and finally they were able to live a normal life.

Seeing her mother's increasingly peaceful face and her life returning to normal, she felt a sense of happiness, as if she had survived a disaster.

Apart from his biological father, there is still no news of him.