Ch74 - Extra I: Sheng Min Ou x Lu Feng – The children’s home

When I was outside Qing Wan City’s Second Children’s Home, I dialed Wei Shi’s number.

“I’m right outside, yes, could you call the Director and have her tell the guard to let me through?” 

The truck’s engine was switched off as it remained parked outside. A short while later, a middle-aged woman in her fifties walked out from a building not far away. She was slightly overweight and styled her hair in curls. She waved at me with a smile on her face, then walked into the guard booth, and soon the gates slowly opened to the side. I restarted the vehicle and drove through the gate with a truck full of cardboard boxes before I parked in front of the building.

I leapt out of the driver’s seat, and the middle-aged woman followed the truck as she ran towards me.

 

 

“Are you Xiao Lu? Thank you, thank you, please thank Boss Wei for me, it’s the new year and he’s still out here making deliveries for us.”

“It’s what we should be doing. After Chu Qi, we’d be open for business anyways. Besides, the earlier we can get these clothes delivered, the earlier the children can start wearing them. Director Qian, do we just leave these at the door?” I walked to the back of the vehicle and dropped down the tray at the back of the truck, as I moved the large cardboard boxes one by one to the ground. 

“Oh, no no, there’s no need for you to unload all of this. You’ve already had to come all this way to deliver these boxes during the new year. Leave the rest of it to us staff members.” She had just finished speaking when several people came out of the building one after another as they began to transport the boxes on the ground and in the truck into the building.

 

Two days ago, the pawn shop had a new intake of items, which was roughly a thousand pieces of kids apparel. This was as the owner of a kids store had decided to close down, due to poor business results and wanted to switch over to a different market. However, he still had a large inventory of stock, which worried him to no end. When he saw the pawn shop, he came in and asked if he could sell the items he had on hand at a lower price, due to the pressure it placed on his inventory.

To be honest, I turned him down at first. The pawn shop wasn’t a Goodwill’s, so it wasn’t like we could just accept everything, let alone buy everything we came across. However, Wei Shi happened to be there as well, and told me to wait for a second as he went out to make a phone call, and then came back to say that he’d take all the articles of clothing.

As he had now found a place to rid all his stock, the boss’ expression naturally bloomed into one of delight as he packaged up the dozens of cardboard boxes and had them all sent over that day, for fear that we would renege on our deal.

 

I also was trying to figure out what had come over Wei Shi, as I asked him how he was going to sell all this kids apparel.

Wei Shi replied, “Don’t worry, I’ve already connected us with the buyer. Qing Wan City’s Second Children’s Home, it’ll be a good place for these items to go to.”

It turned out that a few days ago, Wei Shi was scrolling through his WeChat feed when he had seen a post from a staff member of the children’s home asking around for shops that would be selling children’s apparel at a cheap price, as they wanted to give the kids a surprise during the new year. At first, he didn’t pay much attention to it, as he simply liked the post and scrolled on, but as it turned out things just happened to work out, as thousands of kids’ apparel items chanced upon his door. When he left earlier to make a phone call, he was dialing the children’s home and was asking them if they still needed clothes. When the other side heard this, they immediately said that they would take it, so Wei Shi accepted the deal over here, and decided to not take any cut of profit as the middleman, instead choosing to put in time and money of his own as he delivered the items to them.

 

“I have thousands of people added on WeChat from all sorts of trades and backgrounds around the world. Each minute, there would be new posts populating the feed, so the fact that I had encountered their post asking for kids clothing was probably fate.” Wei Shi said, “I’ll just count this one as being a good person and doing a good deed.” 

For the sake of this fate which brought the two events together, Liu Yue, Shen Xiao Shi and I spent two days checking all of the items, and we were so tired by the end of it that we could see stars in front of our eyes. No wonder it was hard work selling all these clothes.

The style was truthfully a bit outdated, and the fabric wasn’t particularly soft or fitting either.  Fortunately, the material used was still solid, so there wouldn’t be any problems with staying warm.

After confirming a time on when to meet with the children’s home, Wei Shi rented a light truck, packed the things on and then had me deliver them there.

After moving all the boxes with the staff for quite some time, I had finally emptied it all from the back of the truck. Director Qian invited me in to take a break, have a cup of tea, and if I was willing, have a quick tour around the children’s home. 

At that point, I was feeling quite thirsty, so I readily agreed.

I followed in Director Qian’s footsteps up the staircases to the third floor and then along the corridor, before finally arriving at her office.

There were several classrooms on both sides of the corridor, and each of them had a dozen or so children aged between four and five, with most of them being girls.

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

I was curious and so were they, as they peeked at me. I smiled at them, and they blinked  before returning with smiles of their own. 

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I politely accepted it from her and thanked her.

“Most of the children here were abandoned, some because they are ill, and others because they have some kind of disability. Those who are healthy and can be adopted usually are adopted before the age of three.” Director Qian sat down on the sofa opposite me and smiled with a hint of wistfulness and reluctance, “This year marks my 30th year of working in this children’s home, and next year I will be retiring. How should I put it? Before I leave I want to do a bit more for these children, and give them as many chances to experience the warmth of other people as possible.” 

Which of the children were the most naughty, which were particularly sensible, and which were especially smart, she knew them all by heart, and it was evident that she cared about the children a lot.

After having our cup of tea, she offered to walk with me out of the premises and to also take me on a tour.

When I got up, I accidentally caught a glimpse of an old, yellowed and faded photo printed to about A3 size, hanging on the wall behind the seat. In the photo were children ranging from three, four years old to those in their teens. They were arranged from front to back according to their height and filled in several rows. The last row was full of adults, with some just standing by themselves, whilst others had their hands full with another young child in their arms. They stood in front of a building, which was exactly Qing Wan City’s Second Children’s Home.

“I took this picture when I first came to the children’s home. I’ve kept it on the wall behind myself due to how special it was. When I retire next year, I plan to take another picture like this, so that there is a beginning and an end.” Director Qian explained, as she saw me paying attention to the photo, and enthusiastically pointed to where she stood. 

On the edge of the last row, a thin and small figure stood, with two braids in her hair, looking to be in her early twenties.

“Director Qian was beautiful in her youth.” I said, flattering her as I quickly scanned the whole photo, before my sight suddenly became fixed on a three-year-old boy in the front row.

The photo had already become slightly blurry, but it couldn’t mask the boy’s exquisite beauty. Amidst a crowd of children that hadn’t even grown into their features, his existence stood out greatly.

“This boy…” My finger pointed at his face as I asked Director Qian, “He was also abandoned?” 

The little boy’s facial features were remarkably similar to Sheng Min Ou, and the maturity in his eyes being far beyond his peers was also in line with what he was like during his childhood. There were dozens of children’s homes in Qing Wan, so there was no way that things just happened to be so coincidental, right?

I hadn’t specifically asked Sheng Min Ou about what happened before he was three years old. When I was a child, I even was slightly against mentioning the time he had spent when he wasn’t part of our family. I always felt that if I brought it up or asked about it, it would be like reminding him that we weren’t actually bonded by blood. Now that I was older, I wouldn’t have such naive thoughts, but I had still never really considered asking him about his earliest days, so I had no idea which children’s home he came from.

“Oh, this boy. Are you asking because you’re surprised that there are parents out there who could so callously abandon such a beautiful child?” Director Qian’s memory was unexpectedly clear as she explained, “I remember him, he was the first child under my care to be adopted. He was adopted by a couple who had been unsuccessful in trying to conceive a child for many years.”

I opened my mouth, my throat becoming a little dry as I got inexplicably nervous, “Do you still remember his name?” 

“Hm, I can’t quite remember his name.” Director Qian squinted her eyes as she searched her memories for a while, “All I remember is that his name was quite nice, I think it was related to some sort of bird. The husband of the couple adopting him remarked that it was a wonderful name, I’m not sure if they ended up changing it in the end.”

Hearing this, I was already 80% sure that this was Sheng Min Ou. After all, his appearance, age, and name all matched up.

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I glided a fingertip across the boy’s cheek and asked the question that anyone would ask if they saw this photo, and also the one that had been buried deep in my heart for many years.

“Why was he abandoned?” 

Director Qian remained silent for a while before replying, “There usually is a reason for most of the orphans which have been abandoned here. Most of them usually have some sort of illness, but for some children, there seems to be no overt reason, and he was one of these cases.  When he was sent to the children’s home, his body was covered all over in injuries, and he wouldn’t cry or laugh, he wouldn’t even speak. I don’t know who it was that hurt him, but if it were his parents, then they were no better than monsters.”

My heart tensed, as I looked once again at the little boy in the photo who stared at the camera, his face devoid of expression.

 

“He was injured all over?”

“He was, his body was covered in shades of purple and green, some were from pinches and others looked like he had been beaten with a stick. At first we thought he might have mental issues or autism, but after coming here for about three months he slowly began to talk. I remember that day when I was dressing him and tying his shoelaces, he suddenly said ‘thank you’ to me. You have no idea how excited I was. I rushed to the Director’s office with him in my arms and told him to say it again.” Director Qian smiled, her eyes full of nostalgia, “Turns out that he not only had no intellectual problems, rather he turned out to be exceptionally smart. I have no idea how his parents could bear to abandon him here, seeing that he was such a good child. Fortunately, he later found an adoptive family and finally had family members that loved him, that would probably be the silver lining throughout all of his misfortunes.” 

It was him, a hundred percent confirmed. This boy was Sheng Min Ou.

I absent-mindedly followed Director Qian around the entire children’s home, and then she personally escorted me to the gates before thanking me again and then waving goodbye.

I went home after returning the truck and it was still early, so I sat on the sofa watching TV for a while, but I ended up accidentally falling asleep.

When I woke up again, my vision was hazy as I caught a blurry figure next to me, bending over as they picked up the remote next to my hand and turned down the volume. 

When he returned the remote control, I grabbed his wrist and refused to let him go.

Sheng Min Ou’s back was still bent as his gaze flickered down at me. His eyes were dark, cold and abstruse, a constant that had never changed much from his childhood to now.

“Kiss me and I’ll let you go.”

He stared at me quietly, without speaking, as if he didn’t intend to make a move. 

It depended on his mood at the time, and on the situation at hand. He wasn’t going to always meet all of my requests.

Though he didn’t say it explicitly, but based on my understanding of him, I guessed that he thought that unconditionally acquiescing to my various demands would lead to my requests escalating and myself becoming more like a cheeky child in need of a scolding.

In a way, he wasn’t wrong in his thinking.

However, I didn’t have a personality that would easily be discouraged. As they say, if the hill will not come to Mohammed, Mohammed will go to the hill. 

I tugged gently on his hand and Sheng Min Ou lost his balance as one knee landed on the sofa. I quickly leaned up and kissed him loudly on the lips.

“Ge, I missed you so much.” I wrapped my arms around his neck and clung on to him.

Sheng Min Ou had no choice but to reach out to support my back, while his other hand rested on the back of the sofa.

“We met just this morning.” He replied, a while after hearing what I said. 

“A day of absence is like the passing of three autumns, in this regard, we almost haven’t seen each other for at least one autumn.” As I thought of Director Qian’s words in the afternoon, I felt uneasy, as if there were needles prickling in my heart.

Whether it was the unknown abuse he received before the age of three, or the treatment he received after being adopted by our family afterwards, Sheng Min Ou had never really experienced a good life, which would explain why he was so weary towards this world.

 

So it was fortunate that he still has me, and we still have each other.

“Ge, do you remember anything that happened before you were three?” 

“Not much.” He seemed to find this a bit odd as he followed it up with, “Why do you ask?”

I didn’t answer as I hugged him even tighter and asked, “Then have you ever thought about finding your biological parents?”

“No need,” he replied, his response coming even faster this time, as if this was a question that didn’t require any thought.

I was relieved hearing this, because if his biological parents were powerless in protecting him, and instead only harmed him, then it would be better if he never found them. Just having me by his side was enough. 

I fell down again and he let go of my back as instead supported himself by placing both arms to either side of my body, enveloping me completely under his frame.

“Ge, I have a very wrong idea.” I said, raising my hand as I stroked his face.

He looked down at me, as he appeared to have no intention to get up anytime soon.

“Then keep the thought at the bottom of your heart and never say it aloud.” 

I pursed my lips as I pretended not to hear him.

“I want to thank the people who sent you to the children’s home, for whatever reason, because if they hadn’t done that, we would never have met, and you wouldn’t have been my ‘brother’.” I looked him straight in the eyes, and used my softest voice as I continued, “I will never betray you, and I will never leave you, I will love you more than anyone, and I need your love more than anyone. You are my brother, and you are my lover for all of eternity, you are my all, my everything.”

Men may say one thing and mean another, but they will never tire of sweet talk. Even though Sheng Min Ou seemed to dislike my cheesy pick up lines on the surface, he actually loved it when I pulled this on him.

For a few seconds, he seemed to be shocked by my romantic words, and he didn’t respond for a while. Afterwards, he looked down, his gaze sweeping past my lips, as he lowered his body and leaned in. 

“I know.”

He didn’t always respond to my asks, but if I could make him happy, then he wouldn’t shy away from fulfilling these requests as a way of rewarding me.

The difficulty in achieving this was asserted so boldly by him too.

I chuckled quietly as I tenderly met his kiss. The two of us rolled onto the sofa together, and the next time we got up again, it was already late at night. 

Jiraiya (translator): I love this chapter soo muchhhhh and this is 100% lu feng

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