The father and son exchanged a glance and immediately split up, one looking for a pen and the other for paper. Chen Ke frowned as he looked at the thick stack of white paper in Ding Jianguo's hand. "You don't mean to write an autobiography for me to take back, do you?"
"Hehehe, how could that be? I, I just... feel like I have a lot to say to them, but... when my uncle went back, my mother was probably still a child, right? To her, I'm just someone who doesn't exist at all. Thinking about it like that... I feel like saying anything would be superfluous."
Unlike Ding Jianguo, Ding Qiangguo didn't feel the same trepidation of returning home. While Ding Jianguo was pondering and hesitating about how to begin, Ding Qiangguo had already finished writing a page in a flash. He was utterly shocked when he looked up and saw that his father hadn't written a single word.
"Dad, Uncle said there's not much time left, why aren't you writing anything instead of just spacing out?"
Upon hearing this, Ding Jianguo looked even more astonished at the densely packed page of writing his son had filled, and asked, "What did you write that filled an entire page? And your handwriting... it's like a dog's scribbles! What if your grandma saw it—"
"Hey, stop talking nonsense and start writing! Your uncle will be gone soon and you still haven't written a single word!" Ding Qiangguo interrupted Ding Jianguo impatiently, then buried his head and began writing furiously again.
Seeing this, Ding Jianguo dared not delay any longer and began to write.
Seeing this, Chen Ke could only let the father and son write letters quietly while he wandered around the room.
The room was decorated in a traditional Chinese style, with antique ornaments everywhere, which Chen Ke recognized because they were all fakes he had made back then…
After thinking for a moment, he finally couldn't help but ask, "These antiques are all fake. They were made because of the special circumstances at the time, to help you get through that difficult period. Why did you keep them?"
Upon hearing Chen Ke's question, Ding Jianguo explained without looking up, "Because these 'fake antiques' were all painstakingly collected by my second uncle, one by one. At first, the family didn't quite understand. With the situation so tense at the time, we couldn't comprehend why he would go to such great lengths to find fake antiques. It wasn't until before my second uncle passed away that he revealed that those antiques were all made by you, my eldest uncle..."
At this point, Ding Jianguo looked at Chen Ke, his voice choked with emotion, "Uncle, after you left, Second Uncle collected everything related to you. He carefully preserved it, saying that if you ever came back and saw these things... you would be happy, because no matter why you disappeared or how long you disappeared, there were always people who cared about you."
Chen Ke's eyes trembled with grief. His heart, which had been calm for so long, felt as if it had been gripped by a large hand, and the pain came in waves that could not be relieved.
If he could, he would immediately return to the alleyway where he disappeared that night, hug Chen Zhuo tightly, and tell him that he hadn't been abandoned, that he loved him, that he was loved, and that he deserved to be loved...
Chen Ke braced himself against the wall with one hand, the unfamiliar heartache making him panic and feel a little lost for the first time.
His soul was severely damaged. In each world, he could inherit the original owner's identity, experiences, and even emotions, but the one thing he could never experience was emotional fluctuation, let alone feel heartache...
"Master, your soul sea is fluctuating abnormally. Why don't we just leave this world and go back to the void space to recuperate for a while?" The system had never seen Chen Ke in this state before. Since binding with Chen Ke as his master, he had always been calm and composed. The people in the mission world could not affect his emotions at all. So this obviously unexpected situation made the system a little worried.
After all, their primary goal was to complete the world mission and obtain the Soul Liquid to repair Chen Ke's damaged soul. Although he kept pestering Chen Ke to use the Soul Liquid to buy him a bio-intelligent brain, it was all just talk, because he always put his master first.
Chen Ke's safety is the most important thing to him.
Chen Ke clutched his heart, shaking his head with a determined look. "No need. It's probably just the original owner's emotions affecting me. After this world is finished, you need to thoroughly investigate your internal programs. The timing of that virus's appearance is too suspicious. As for its purpose... it couldn't possibly be just to disrupt time and space, giving me a day trip to the future, could it?"
"Yes, Master."
Neither Ding Qiangguo nor Ding Jianguo noticed Chen Ke's unusual behavior while they were engrossed in writing. Ding Jianguo, halfway through his writing, suddenly looked up as if remembering something. "Oh, right, Uncle, there are photos of Second Uncle and the others in that room. You could..." Ding Jianguo hesitated, unsure how his uncle, who had traveled through time to a strange future, would feel seeing portraits of his deceased relatives...
But before Ding Jianguo could even decide what to do, Chen Ke had already strode over and pushed open the door.
Chen Ke had assumed the room contained everyday photos of Zhou Shanhuai, Song Xiaowen, and Chen Zhuo, but he was surprised to find that the walls were covered with black and white... memorial photos.
At that moment, Chen Ke's hand, which was resting on the armrest, trembled slightly.
For him, it was as if the person who was all smiles and laughter yesterday had become a cold black and white photograph hanging on the wall today. The feeling of emptiness and loss in his heart was indescribable, yet it brought tears to his eyes and reminded him of all the sad things in the world.
My gaze swept over the first photo, which showed Song Xiaowen dressed as an old lady. The old lady in the photo probably didn't want future generations to see her as sad and heartbroken, so she was smiling happily. Her already wrinkled face had even more deep wrinkles because of this big smile.
Chen Ke remembered that when Song Xiaowen was young, her eyes would crinkle into crescent moons when she smiled. But in this photo, her eyes are almost just slits. Time has loosened her skin and taken away those crescent-shaped eyes...
The gaze shifts back to Zhou Shanhuai's portrait.
Zhou Shanhuai was a gentle and humorous man, but his portrait shows him as serious and unsmiling, though his gentle eyes remain unchanged.
Chen Ke still remembers the scene of them setting off firecrackers together in the small Western-style house on Wutong Road in Shanghai on New Year's Eve that year. They were standing on the steps, and the moment Zhou Shanhuai struck a match in the snow to light the firecracker, he pretended to be very scared and backed away in a big way, which made Song Xiaowen on the steps laugh mercilessly. But through the crackling fireworks, Zhou Shanhuai always looked at them with happiness and tenderness in his eyes.
The next one is Chen Zhuo.
But this doesn't seem to be a specially taken funeral portrait. It's a candid photo with altered colors, because Chen Zhuo is standing in front of an iron gate, holding a cigarette in his hand. His expression is decadent and desolate in the smoke, and his eyes seem to be looking over in a daze, unfocused, empty and blank.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
