Chapter 81
Ling Yin made an appointment with the professor on the last day of the holiday.
We were supposed to meet, but he knew so little that he wouldn't be able to explain anything, so I could only ask him casually.
He took advantage of the last two days of his vacation to go back home. He had wanted to ask Qu Xing if he could come, but the mother and son stopped him as soon as he opened his mouth. They wouldn't let him go, so Ling Yin had to go back alone.
That’s good, it’s a good opportunity to avoid chatting about the stars.
An Yining sat on a single sofa half a meter away from her son, wearing a silk nightgown. Ling Song had carefully spread the excess hem of her skirt on either side of the sofa, leaving it trailing lazily like an elegant daffodil growing on the sofa. Ling Song, fearful of disturbing his wife's skirt, reluctantly chose a seat on one arm of the sofa.
Now Ling Yin was being stared at intently by this loving young couple.
An Yining moved and slowly raised his head, "Hasn't the attack come yet?"
Ling Yin leaned back, too lazy to speak.
He just asked a few random questions, but the two of them acted like they were facing a major enemy, even putting off their work for the day. They had been staring at him since early morning.
After waiting for a while, I didn't get a call from the professor, but I got a call from Yu Dun first.
Ling Yin was stunned and quickly picked up the phone.
"Fuck." Yu Dun's voice trembled slightly. "I figured it out! I figured out what's wrong with Qu Xing. I'm really... I'm so stupid. I didn't even notice it was so obvious."
Ling Yin's hands also trembled with his voice, and he sat up straight, breathing hard: "You say."
Yu Dun: "Let me tell you first, what happened at that time."
Ling Yin was almost suffocated by the beating of his heart in his chest: "Yeah."
"When his grandmother fell ill, it was basically confirmed that she wouldn't live long. Qu Hongfei contacted us and said he had better medical resources, very advanced, and that they could allow the old lady—well, to be honest, the old lady wasn't that old—to live her last days comfortably. He wasn't lying."
"What do you mean?" Ling Yin asked, "What's so good about this?"
"Yeah, that's what we all thought at the time. It's only natural for a son to treat his mother," Yu Dun said. "But actually, I now suspect Qu Hongfei's goal wasn't to treat Grandma, but to get Xingxing to come to him."
Ling Yin frowned, not quite understanding: "Will he just not care if there are no stars?"
Yu Dun: “Yes.”
Ling Yin: "What?"
Yu Dun said: "We agreed to it because we believed that grandma was Qu Hongfei's biological mother."
Ling Yin's eyes trembled slightly: "What do you mean? Isn't she my biological mother?"
Yu Dun: "Forget about my biological mother, she's not even my cousin. They have no relationship at all!"
“…”
Ling Yin took a deep breath.
Yu Dun: "Qu Xing and I never knew about this. We always thought she was Qu Xing's biological grandmother. Do you know what his grandmother's name is in our minds?"
Ling Yin vaguely felt that this was a very terrifying answer.
"What……"
Yu Dun: "Cun Ziying."
!
As if his throat was being grabbed, Ling Yin struggled for a long time before squeezing out a few words: "Cun Ziying is not..."
Yu Dun: "The name of his murderer mother."
“…”
Yu Dun: "I know his mother didn't really kill anyone, but that..."
Ling Yin understood why the name "Cun Ziying" was so difficult for Qu Xing to say. It was the name of a person who wanted to kill him, and it involved the face of a person who had been with him for more than ten years.
Yu Dun paused before saying, "His mother is definitely not a normal person. When Qu Xing was very young, she tried to kill him several times. His grandmother, who had been with him for more than ten years, used a fake name for him, and it was the name of someone like that."
"Neither of us knew anything," Yu Dun said. "Qu Xing came back home after grandma passed away, and somehow he found out about it."
Ling Yin only felt a sharp pain in his heart.
His grandmother had just passed away, and before he had time to accept the departure of a loved one, he suddenly found out that his grandmother had "lied" to him for more than ten years, and even her name was fake.
How devastated will he be?
"What's scary is..." Yu Dun continued, "Qu Xing was very, very calm. He came to my house first."
"He was so calm," Yu Dun emphasized again. "Do you understand how terrifying that scene was? He was like that. Looking at his expression, I thought he was going to ask where we were having dinner today, but he just started asking my mom, 'Is grandma fake?' I thought he was telling some ghost story and was scared to death."
Yu Dun suddenly choked up. "My mom didn't admit it at first, but Xingxing was so calm, as if she'd forgiven everyone from the start. Just by looking at my mom, she let everything out."
Yu Dun: "My mother doesn't know how the two Cun Ziying met. She only knows that my grandmother was a friend of one of my mother's elders. She never married or had children. One day, my grandmother suddenly brought home a dying child. She said his mother was in a bad mental state and she was helping to take care of her for a while."
Yu Dun: "In the beginning, I only helped with the child's injuries for a while. After the child's injuries were mostly healed and his mother seemed to be recovering, I sent him back."
Ling Yin didn't dare to think about it, how could he dare to send it back?
Sure enough, Yu Dun continued, "More than a month later, grandma learned that Xiao Xingxing was in the hospital and almost died."
"The grandmother took the child back to someone else. His mother cried and said sorry, sorry, but the grandmother refused to let him go and said she would find the child's father."
But my father is Qu Hongfei.
Yu Dun: "How is that possible? His mother absolutely refused to let him go. She threatened to commit suicide if he dared to contact his father. Grandma had no choice but to say, 'I'll give you a year. You go see a doctor and I'll take care of the child. Once you recover, you can take the child home.'"
"But his mother always seems to be the same. She even spent some time in a mental hospital. Grandma is probably a playful person and not very willing to take care of children. She is always anxious to send Xingxing back. At first, she probably didn't think she would leave any trace in Xingxing's memory. I don't know why she casually said her name was Cun Ziying. Maybe she also wanted to restore Cun Ziying's image in the child's mind."
"But every time grandma wanted to send him back, she felt that his mother's condition was too dangerous for Xingxing, so she didn't dare to send him back. As a result, Xingxing remembered the name Cun Ziying. It was the first name he called out."
Yu Dun: "But grandma still wanted to leave. She felt that she had inexplicably given birth to a child. She thought about giving him to relatives, sending him to an orphanage, and even leaving him to us. Anyway, she tried every possible way. On the surface, she played with Qu Xing every day like a grandson, but in fact, she had been planning to leave for thirteen of the eighteen years. She kept lying and raised Qu Xing until he was old. Even the household registration book still lists Cun Ziying and Qu Xing as the only two people. Cun Ziying never really left and always stayed by Qu Xing's side, acting as a neighbor who was neither too far nor too close."
Ling Yin let out a trembling breath: "So, all these stars know?"
"Yes," Yu Dun said, "He knows everything. Of course, my mother didn't say that at the time. Qu Xing asked her one question at a time. This is the version I put together."
Ling Yin's long-held questions were now answered. Why did Qu Hongfei have that kind of personality, and why did his grandmother raise a grandson with this kind of personality? So this was it. Qu Xing's grandmother, who had nothing to do with his father, was actually a "fake" grandmother. It turned out that Xingxing's excited words, "Don't lie to him," were just this kind of deception.
Yu Dun: "After asking, he left. He didn't lose his temper, didn't cry, and didn't say anything. I was wondering how Qu Xing could be so strong mentally. I was scared to death, but he didn't react at all. Who knew——"
"For two months, he ignored us. We tried everything to coax and persuade him, but he wouldn't even see us."
Yu Dun said, "The next time we heard about him, he was suddenly out and about on a skateboard, being chased by fans. He was trending on social media, with people speculating whether he would return to play competitively. There were also rumors that he was going back to his father's house to inherit the family fortune. I was terrified at the time, thinking he was really desperate and planning to go back to inherit the family fortune. I hadn't spoken to him in a long time by then, so I mustered up the courage to call him. That's what I want to tell you, this is what's so strange about it."
Ling Yin whispered, "What?"
"He accepted," Yu Dun said. "His attitude was very natural, as if the grudges were over. I was so happy. When I heard him say he wanted to go back to playing, it felt like he was embracing a new life."
Ling Yin: "Isn't it strange that he behaves so naturally?"
Yu Dun said, "Yes. It was so natural. When I think about that conversation now, it doesn't feel like the grudges are over, but rather like they never happened."
Ling Yin's head buzzed.
"He even talked to me about Qu Hongfei. He hadn't talked about Qu Hongfei since his grandmother passed away. But when I asked him casually that day, he actually started talking about him. He said Qu Hongfei seemed a little scary."
Yu Dun said, "Did you notice his choice of words?"
"'like'."
"I was so happy that he finally paid attention to me that I didn't notice this at all. You know, he learned about Qu Hongfei before my grandmother passed away. Why did he use the word 'seem'? It sounded like he had just learned about Qu Hongfei. It sounded like..." Yu Dun said horrifiedly, "It's like the memory in the middle is blank."
Ling Yin repeated softly, "Empty?"
Yu Dun: "Yes. His current state gives me the same feeling. He seems a little empty. So maybe he doesn't care anymore, or has he completely forgotten about it."
Ling Yin: "Maybe."
Yu Dun: "Do you feel the same way?"
Ling Yin's voice was soft and trembling: "He just told me a few days ago that if you don't think about many things, you can't remember them."
Yu Dun's voice suddenly changed: "So he felt it himself?!"
"He should..." Ling Yin lowered his head and slowed down: "I don't quite know why this happened."
“…”
After a long silence, Yu Dun said anxiously, "What should I do? What should I do?"
“…”
Ling Yin suddenly remembered: "Where's the star man? Shouldn't he be with you?"
"His brother is looking for him." Yu Dun said absentmindedly, "It's the last day. He wants to see his brother one last time before he goes back. Otherwise, I wouldn't dare tell you so openly."
"..." Ling Yin stretched his legs and lowered his eyes and said, "I'll find an opportunity."
Yu Dun: "What?"
Ling Yin: "Find a chance to ask him if he's willing to have psychological counseling."
"Maybe it's not as exaggerated as we think." Ling Yin paused and lowered his voice: "Let's not speculate for now..."
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