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◎Legend◎
Sometimes, Mu and Qing resent knowing too much about things she doesn't want to know. For example, she knows too much about every classmate she had in high school.
But now it seems that she didn't actually understand.
She had no idea that her high school classmate, Li Shi, had such bizarre parents who openly complained that their grandson was too ugly.
She wasn't very interested in any of that; what she wanted to know was, where was the bride at the wedding? Was she the missing girl?
"When does the wedding start?" Mu Heqing asked.
Uncle Li said, "It'll be soon. The wedding will be held after you finish talking with Li Shi."
"What do I need to say to him?"
Yijuan glared at Mu Heqing with her slanted eyes, her voice urgent and sharp: "Tell him to hurry up and reincarnate!"
What? Reincarnation?
Mu Heqing wondered if she had misheard. If she wasn't mistaken, reincarnation meant letting someone die.
Do they want their son, Riz, to die?
"Hehe, it's not what you think, Xiao Mu. Our family is a bit special." Uncle Li still smiled. "It's for everyone's good. You seem like a kind-hearted child, so you'll definitely understand."
No, she didn't understand.
But Mu and Qing were too lazy to explain. She wanted to end this farce. She had wasted her time attending this boring wedding and had had enough of their nonsense.
Mu Heqing said frankly, "I probably can't do that. Let me see the bride and groom once and I'll leave. I'm just here to attend the wedding."
"This may not be up to you."
Uncle Li casually shoved the child in his arms into his wife's hands. He still had that chubby face, but his smile was somewhat sinister.
Mu and Qing knew that once she got involved with her high school classmates, even normal people would become abnormal, especially since they were Li Shi's parents.
"Uncle, Aunt, what do you want?"
She didn't think Li Shi was willing to listen to people.
"I'm begging you, please persuade Li Shi to reincarnate quickly. It's for everyone's good, okay?"
This is so illogical. Why would she persuade a high school classmate she hadn't seen for seven years to reincarnate, especially at the request of his parents?
Mu and Qing were troubled, which was why she had been hiding for seven years. Her common sense and understanding had been completely shattered, as if the world she knew in the past was all fake.
"Stop wasting your breath on her, lock her up here! Until she agrees!"
Yijuan screamed; she was so excited that she almost dropped the child.
She didn't seem to care about the child at all.
Uncle Li said, "Xiao Mu, we didn't want this either, but if you really don't want to, we have no choice but to leave you here."
"This is illegal," Mu Heqing warned.
The two remained unmoved; one smiled, the other was angry, clearly having lost all sense of reason.
“If you still refuse, we’ll lock this child up with you. There’s no food here. Can you bear to watch a child starve to death in front of you?” Uncle Li told Yijuan to put the child on the ground.
Babies get hungry quickly, and being placed on the ground only frightens them further, causing them to cry loudly.
Mu and Qing found it amusing; they didn't even care about their grandson, yet they expected her, an outsider, to care.
"Isn't he your grandson?"
"Not the grandson we wanted."
"So what kind of grandson do you hope for?"
Uncle Li and Yi Juan suddenly laughed and said in unison, "The grandson we hope for is Li Shi after he is reincarnated."
This couple, who are of different heights, weights, and personalities, expressed the same wish at this moment.
What the hell!
These two are so annoying; they annoy her.
"And what about him?" Mu Heqing pointed to the child on the ground.
Uncle Li said coldly, "If you can live, then live; if you can't, then die."
The atmosphere suddenly turned cold. It seemed that this eccentric couple was determined to have Mu and Qing talk to Li Shi.
Mu and Qing didn't know how to start the conversation. Should she say, "Li Shi, it's been a long time. Could you please reincarnate? Your parents want you to be reincarnated!"
"don't want!"
A figure suddenly rushed over and picked up the child from the ground.
The person holding the child was a young man. The man's face resembled that of Uncle Li and Yi Juan. This man seemed more like their child than Li Shi.
"Li Yu! Didn't I tell you to keep an eye on Li Shi? What are you doing here!" Uncle Li's face showed genuine annoyance when he saw the young man.
"Dad, please don't take it out on the child. He's my child."
A pleading look appeared on Li Yu's face. He was pale, thin, and his lips were deathly white.
Uncle Li cursed, "Useless thing!"
Li Yu flinched, holding the child, and looked at Mu Heqing: "You're Mu Heqing, right? I'll take you to find Li Shi. Dad, leave it to me, trust me one more time."
Uncle Li and Yi Juan did not stop Li Yu from leaving with Mu and Qing.
The two stood still, one tall and one short, their eyes fixed on Mu and Qing's departing figures.
Mu and Qing were naturally happy to leave this eccentric couple, as their son seemed much more normal now.
Li Yu was very familiar with the roads of the manor, and he led Mu and Qing through a maze of turns to another place.
The baby in his arms kept crying, and he actually pulled a baby bottle out of his pocket. The bottle contained prepared formula, and he started feeding the baby while rocking him.
Although Li Yu's face was as thin as Yi Juan's, his eyes were round like his father's, making him seem much easier to get along with.
After feeding the child, Li Yu said apologetically, "I'm sorry, I must have scared you. You must think our family is strange."
Mu Heqing asked, "Is this your child? Where is the child's mother?"
Li Yu's face was contorted with pain. He sighed softly, his eyes seeming to look through the child and into the child's mother. He said, "I know what just happened is hard for you to understand. To be honest, when I first found out, I couldn't believe it either, but let me tell you."
"Okay," Mu Heqing agreed; she wanted to know too.
"Thank you, thank you so much. It wasn't my parents' intention to involve you in our family matters. They were driven crazy." Li Yu touched the baby's face. After the baby was full, it didn't cry or fuss. Instead, it grinned and looked quite cute.
Li Yu continued, "Let me tell you a story passed down in my family. It is said that in ancient times there was a scholar who was poor and destitute and repeatedly failed the imperial examinations. In despair, he was about to hang himself in his room when a beautiful woman suddenly appeared."
"This story is somewhat similar to 'Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio'," Mu Heqing commented.
"Yes, but what follows is not the story of the scholar falling in love with the woman. The woman tells the scholar that there is a way for him to become the top scholar in the imperial examination and become extremely wealthy. Upon hearing this, the scholar naturally asks what the method is."
The woman told him to marry a widow who had lost her husband many years ago at the village entrance, and then to take good care of their first child. The scholar did as she asked, and sure enough, he had a son with the widow.
The boy resembled neither a scholar nor a widow, but rather…
Mu Heqing: "Like the beautiful woman who appeared at the beginning of the story, right?"
Li Yu nodded: "That's right. The scholar and his wife followed the woman's advice and took good care of the boy. Sure enough, the following year, the scholar became the top scholar in the imperial examination."
Then, the scholar had a second child, who married and had another child. At this time, the scholar's first child died, and the child born to his second child, who was the scholar's grandchild, was born with the same stunning beauty as the woman who appeared in the first part of the story.
From then on, the scholar's family prospered for generations. As long as there was a child in the family who resembled the woman who first appeared, their family would never decline.
"That's amazing?" Mu Heqing asked doubtfully. "If this story is true, then the scholar's family should still exist now, right?"
Li Yu shook her head: "It won't last forever. The more prosperous the family becomes, the more they will need to provide for their children, until they can't bear it anymore."
Mu and Qing understood: "You mean, Li Shi is the beautiful child in the story, and your family is a family of scholars, and you can hardly afford to support him anymore."
This is slightly different from the Li Shi that Mu and Qing remember.
“No, we can afford everything Li Shi needs. He wanted to leave on his own initiative. You can tell from my child’s appearance that he doesn’t want to stay with us anymore, which is why my parents are acting so desperately,” Li Yu said bitterly.
When his child is born, Rish should die and enter into a new life.
This is what is known as "reincarnation".
Li Yu: "Once the family can no longer support the child, or the child does not want to stay in the family, the next child born into the family will not have a beautiful face, and the family will decline. After the decline, all members of the family will die in the most tragic way. This is the price, the price of prosperity."
Mu Heqing now fully understands. Although it sounds absurd, she knows that this world is indeed a world of nonsense.
She believed Li Yu.
But she said, "I probably can't help."
What can she do? What can she change? And what does it have to do with her?
Anyone who gets involved with those guys will not have a good ending, including her.
Li Yu looked at the child blankly and said, "Ten years ago, Li Shi suddenly disappeared. We couldn't find him no matter how hard we looked. Three years later, seven years ago, he suddenly came back. He said he went to high school, he said he didn't want us to support him anymore, and he said he wanted to leave this place."
"Has he left?" Mu Heqing asked.
“No, he said he needed to find someone, and he wouldn’t leave until he found that person. That sentence was like a sword hanging over our heads; we worried that one day he would leave. When my child was born and my parents saw what the child looked like, they went completely mad. They got a name from Li Shi, and that’s your name, Mu Heqing.”
"Really? Where is he now?" Mu Heqing asked indifferently, as if the person Li Yu was talking about wasn't her.
Li Yu asked, "Don't you care? Or do you also want him to join your family?"
Mu Heqing smiled. Her smile was like a pool of spring water—gentle and harmless.
“I don’t have a family. I only have a small family of three, my parents and me. I love my family very much, and I don’t want a stranger to become my family.”
"Take me to Li Shi now. Where is he? Didn't you want me to go and persuade him?"
Li Yu nodded blankly, holding the child tightly in his arms. "He's in the auditorium, having dinner."
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