Chapter 44 [VIP]
Lin Langli hugged the person in his arms even tighter and kissed their hair tenderly.
"Lin Langli, you said you would take me back to see... Mom and Dad, what kind of people are they?" Chenmian suddenly asked as she was being hugged and comforted.
Lin Langli pondered for a moment, recalling the kind, gentle, and pitiful couple from his memory, and sighed.
"Your parents are very good people. Your grandma is also at home. If you stay at home, they will love you very much."
In the afternoon, the driver took the two to the train station. Lin Langli carried their luggage and naturally took Chenmian's hand and led him inside. The boy's fingertips trembled slightly, but he did not pull away, allowing Lin Langli to be so intimate with him in public.
My hometown is more than 800 kilometers away from City A, a province I've never set foot in.
The high-speed train journey took four hours, and he remained silent the entire way, only occasionally glancing at the unfamiliar scenery rushing past the window. As he approached his destination, a mix of fear and inexplicable unease began to creep into his heart.
The reason he fought with Lin Langli before was ultimately because even if he went back, no one in the Lin family would accept him. Lin Langli, on the other hand, was the only son of the Lin family. After his parents passed away, he was accepted into a wealthy family.
The two were worlds apart. At that time, Chen Mian was only thinking that he couldn't be kicked out of the Shen family, otherwise he would have no home.
Lin Langli held the boy's hand, letting the somber atmosphere linger between them. Returning to his hometown, he also felt a rare sense of melancholy and loss.
Stepping off the high-speed train, a damp, slightly chilly air hit me. The taxi I had called in advance was already waiting. As I sat down, I felt strangely invigorated and couldn't resist pressing my face against the window to look at this place that should have been my hometown.
As the car drove towards the small village below the town, Lin Langli asked the driver to stop when they passed the only relatively lively street in the town.
The young man went to buy joss paper for ancestral worship, a string of firecrackers to be set off before the New Year, and two buckets of fireworks.
As Chenmian looked at the yellow paper money for the dead in the red bag, he suddenly felt a sense of suffocation. These unfamiliar rituals were meant to commemorate his own parents.
It's so unfair. Lin Langli still has biological parents, but he doesn't.
After paying the bill, Lin Langli carried his bags back to his car and silently put them away. The drive continued for another twenty minutes, winding through several dirt roads, before finally stopping in front of a slightly dilapidated two-story building.
The courtyard wall was low, and the iron gate was locked and already showing signs of rust. Lin Langli took out the key, which made a rattling sound as it turned, indicating that no one had opened the gate in a long time.
Pushing open the creaking iron gate, a mixture of old wood and a faint musty smell wafted from the courtyard. Chenmian frowned subconsciously, but seeing Lin Langli walk in with a normal expression and place his things on the entrance hallway, he could only follow him in.
"Let's go see them first." Lin Langli's voice sounded particularly deep in the empty courtyard. He pulled Chenmian along, opened the front door leading through the courtyard, and entered the main room.
On the altar in the main room, two black and white portraits are placed side by side.
The moment his dormant gaze fell upon the photograph, his body jolted violently, and his breath caught in his throat.
The woman's silhouette and the man's features in the photo were strikingly similar to his. A resonance, stemming from their shared bloodline, struck him unexpectedly.
Lin Langli silently lit incense, divided it into three sticks, and handed them to Chenmian. He himself took three sticks and bowed deeply before the portrait.
“Mom and Dad, this is Chen Mian,” Lin Langli’s voice was dry and his tone was choked with emotion, “Your own son.”
Chenmian held the incense sticks and awkwardly bowed, imitating his gesture. His fingers trembled as he lit the incense. He looked at the two figures in the portraits, his eyes already brimming with tears.
Why do they look so tired and old? They should be about the same age as Su Yueqiu and Shen Mianjun.
Are these his biological parents?
Sleeping in her heart, she asked herself one question after another: Did they know that Lin Langli was not their biological son? Did they know that their biological son had actually been living away from home?
Was his and Lin Langli's identity swap intentional or accidental?
Chenmian recalled his frail body when he was young. At that time, his family was worried that he would die at any time. He underwent many surgeries and now he has a healthy body that is almost the same as that of a normal person.
Did Mom and Dad deliberately switch him because they were worried they couldn't support him?
With a heavy heart, Lin Langli simply paid his respects to the Lin family couple. It was already completely dark outside. He went to knock on the door of his neighbor's house and returned with a bunch of vegetables and a few scallions in his hand.
“It’s time to eat in town,” Lin Langli said casually, leading him to the kitchen. “Right now, I can only cook you a bowl of noodles. How many eggs would you like?”
The gas in the kitchen had long been shut off, but fortunately the old-fashioned stove was still there, with some firewood piled up next to it. The water and electricity had been restored ahead of schedule. Lin Langli washed the pots and started the fire with smooth movements.
Chenmian sneezed, rubbed her nose, and only then did she belatedly realize the chill in the unheated room.
Lin Langli looked up at him and said, "Sleep with me tonight." After a while, he called to him again, "Come sit behind the stove, it's warm here."
The flickering firelight in the stove did indeed dispel some of the chill. Chenmian sat down, hugging her knees, staring at the flickering firelight in the small opening, her heart filled with mixed emotions.
The noodles were cooked quickly, but Chenmian had little appetite. He poked around in the bowl with his chopsticks, picking out two fried eggs lying at the bottom. He looked up at Lin Langli beside him, who also seemed to have little appetite.
"Lin Langli," he asked softly, "how did your father, mother, and grandmother... pass away?"
Lin Langli gently pushed the fried egg that Chen Mian had picked out back into the noodle soup with his chopsticks, picked up a small piece, and held it to his mouth. "We'll talk about it tonight. Eat more first, noodles aren't very filling."
The water heater was turned on ahead of time. Chenmian sat at the desk in Lin Langli's old room, watching him unfold the quilt and make the bed.
The room was small, only about ten square meters, and simply furnished with a bed, a table, and a cabinet. There was no air conditioning, but Lin Langli said there was a small electric heater so people could warm up after showering.
Chenmian took a change of clothes, took a quick shower despite feeling extremely uncomfortable, and returned to her room while drying her hair.
Lin Langli took out a hairdryer and dried the boy's hair. He played with Chenmian's damp hair, watching the soft hair flow through his fingers. As the hairdryer buzzed, he looked down at Chenmian's weak and thin shoulders.
She's still so frail and weak, can't do any housework, and isn't very smart or clever.
He used to think it was unfair, but now seeing Shenmian so sad, he felt relieved. Otherwise, would Shenmian have grown up in a family like the Lin family?
Perhaps, given his frail body from his childhood, he would never have grown up.
With his hair mostly dry, Lin Langli slid his hand down and gently pinched the boy's soft earlobe.
“Mianmian, there’s no one in the world closer to us than the two of us right now.” The hairdryer was put down, and Lin Langli wrapped his arms around the boy’s shoulders from behind in a possessive gesture. “We share two families, Mianmian. You know, I can’t fully integrate into the Shen family. I only have you. And you, your only thought for the Lin family is me.”
He looked at the slightly trembling lips of the boy he was holding from behind and smiled gently, "Mianmian, so we're a match made in heaven, destined to be entangled together for life, right?"
"I...I don't know..."
On their first night back at the Lin family home, the two slept in each other's arms, and the dependence that Chenmian showed on Lin Langli was far stronger than ever before.
Even when he needed to get up in the middle of the night, Shenmian insisted that Lin Langli accompany him.
During the journey to the restroom in the main room, Chenmian huddled in the young man's arms, not daring to look at the two silent portraits on the shrine.
Lin Langli breathed into his ear, coaxing him not to be afraid.
Before dawn, a rooster crowed in the distance, and Chenmian suddenly woke up, but it was still early, only a little past four o'clock.
He recalled the arrangements Lin Langli had told him last night: first, to visit some unfamiliar relatives, and then to come back and fold paper ingots to prepare for tomorrow's ancestral worship.
Then, for the next two days, we'll be eating at other people's houses—at this point, Lin Langli paused, then added with a smile, "If you don't like the food here, I'll take you to town to eat tonight."
Chenmian thought to himself, "No way, this should be his hometown, shouldn't it?"
It was still early before dawn. After a while of wandering thoughts, he felt sleepy again. He snuggled closer to Lin Langli, but still felt insecure, so he wrapped the young man's arms around his waist, forming a tight embrace.
In his daze, he wondered what his parents would think if they could see the forbidden relationship between their adopted son and their biological son.
If they had to choose which child they disliked, would they dislike Lin Langli, the adopted son who excelled in every way, or would they favor him, their biological child?
Chenmian hoped they would favor her and blame Lin Langli instead.
If they hadn't switched places back then, then his name in slumber should be Lin Mian. No, it might not be that name. What about Lin Langli?
If there's no mistake, then he and Lin Langli are truly like an insurmountable chasm. He definitely wouldn't be able to get into the current university. Could he get into the second-tier university next to the school?
That should be fine, right? In that case, he can meet with the Shen family again.
A note from the author:
Mian: The Shen family must favor me because I was raised by you; the Lin family must also favor me because I'm their blood relative!! (Domineering Little Mian)
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