OEBSAS |Chapter 3

“What is going on here?”

Cai Yalan glanced at the child on the ground, and a flash of anger passed through her eyes.

Shao Xian deliberately put on a wronged expression. “Mom, they were bullying people in our family’s garden and made the garden dirty.”

With just one look, Cai Yalan knew what had happened. She was about to answer when a finely dressed woman suddenly rushed out and said with a fawning smile, “Mrs. Shao, this is all a misunderstanding! It was just the children playing around.”

As she spoke, she signaled to Chen Yu with her eyes.

Chen Yu looked at her coldly and said, “Aunt Cai, we were just playing a game. The one who lost the game had to accept punishment. I’m sorry for dirtying your family’s garden.”

The other children also followed suit and apologized.

What a game punishment!

Shao Xian sneered inwardly. He stepped forward and yanked up the child’s shirt hem, revealing his abdomen covered in bruises, then covered it back up again.

“Mom, he got injured in our family’s garden. Let’s send him to the hospital first.”

Cai Yalan nodded and had the helper carry the child up.

“Who is the child’s parent?” she asked.

The woman who had just jumped out said, “It’s me, I’m his mother.”

“So it’s Mrs. Chen,” Cai Yalan said faintly. “The child was injured at our place, I’ll take responsibility.”

When Shao Xian heard this, he could not help looking at Mrs. Chen. Could she be Chen Yu’s stepmother?

Although he did not pay attention to Chen Yu, he had still heard quite a few rumors.

It was said that when Chen Yu was five years old, his father found him a stepmother to take care of him, and that stepmother also brought along a burden, seemingly a child born out of wedlock.

But later, that burden disappeared.

And later still, the Chen family went bankrupt, and the whole family lived quite miserably.

And the person who dealt with the Chen family was his mortal enemy, Fu Baizhou.

If it were not for Fu Baizhou, he would not have cared about a small character like the Chen family at all.

Cai Yalan had originally not planned to go to the hospital in person, but she could not resist Shao Xian insisting on going, so she simply took him along in the car.

Going together as well were Mrs. Chen, Chen Yu, and Qian Wenjie.

Qian Wenjie clung to Shao Xian and insisted on following him, and Wang Shufen had no choice but to let the driver take them there together.

Inside the Shao family car, the child was curled up in the back seat, his eyes unable to open, looking quite pitiful.

Shao Xian was using tissue to wipe the cream off his face.

Cai Yalan looked back and took one look, thinking with emotion that her son looked fierce and bossy on the surface, but his heart was very soft.

“What’s your name?”

Shao Xian’s childish voice came from the back seat, and Cai Yalan pricked up her ears to listen.

Only after quite a long while did another weak voice sound out: “Chen Baizhou.”

Just at this moment, Shao Xian wiped the cream from beneath the child’s left eye, revealing a tiny tear mole.

He suddenly froze, and a certain guess in his heart exploded with a bang, his face full of disbelief.

Chen Baizhou keenly sensed his stiffness. Just as his eyes were about to open, they squeezed shut again, and his heart sank into a desolate blankness.

He had long since gotten used to it. As long as people knew about his filthy identity, no one was willing to play with him anymore, and even touching him felt disgusting.

“Sorry.”

He curled up in a corner of the back seat, desperately reducing the space he took up, afraid of being beaten or scolded.

A sudden wave of bitterness rose in Shao Xian. He had only heard that Fu Baizhou’s childhood life was miserable, but he had never known exactly how miserable.

The Fu Baizhou in his memory was tall and cold, calm and steady, and during negotiations he could often leave the other side speechless.

He was completely different from the skin-and-bones child in front of him.

Fu Baizhou should have been full of spirit and vigor, not like this. Although he and Fu Baizhou were enemies in the business world, it did not stop him from admiring this opponent.

“How old are you?” he asked, his throat tight.

He wanted to confirm whether the child in front of him was really Fu Baizhou.

Before Chen Baizhou could answer, the car stopped.

“Xianxian, we’re at the hospital.”

Cai Yalan got out of the car and helped Shao Xian open the door, while the driver carried Chen Baizhou out from the other side.

The cars from the Chen family and the Qian family had been following close behind them the whole time. Mrs. Chen hurried over, her makeup exquisite, and was about to take Chen Baizhou from the driver’s arms.

Chen Baizhou subtly dodged, not daring to make it too obvious.

“Uncle Fang, put Chen Baizhou down. I’ll hold his hand and walk.” Shao Xian completely ignored Mrs. Chen.

Driver Fang put Chen Baizhou down, inwardly calling it a sin.

As a driver for the Shao family, he was fairly familiar with all the big and small matters in the villa district.

The Shao family did not pay attention to the Chen family, so they naturally did not know what kind of life the Chen family’s second young master was living.

He was old friends with the Chen family’s driver, and his old friend often sighed to him that rich people looked glamorous on the surface, but inside they were filthy and rotten.

Shao Xian did not know what he was thinking. He simply grabbed Chen Baizhou’s right hand and said, “You walk with me.”

Chen Baizhou’s icy heart started to leap again. He forced his right eye open and looked at Shao Xian holding his hand, feeling as if the pain on his body had vanished at once.

Mrs. Chen followed awkwardly behind.

Qian Wenjie dragged his mom over to Shao Xian’s side and said indignantly, “Chen Yu is really too much, actually bullying his little brother like this!”

Shao Xian: “…” Even without turning around, he knew what expression was on Mrs. Chen’s face.

Wang Shufen immediately apologized to Mrs. Chen. “Sorry, the child doesn’t understand, he’s talking nonsense.”

Mrs. Chen falsely said it was fine.

The few of them entered the consulting room, and the doctor first helped Chen Baizhou clean off the cream that had stuck to his left eye. After the cream on his eyelashes was cleaned off, Chen Baizhou opened his eyes.

His eyeball was completely red, clearly because the cream had gotten into his eye and caused a rejection reaction.

The doctor sighed and could not help muttering, “How are parents even taking care of their children? Don’t they want the child’s eyes anymore?”

He helped Chen Baizhou wash his eyes again, applied some medicine, and covered them with gauze.

“Uncle, he still has injuries on his body. Please take a look at him.” Shao Xian’s clear voice rang out in the consulting room.

The doctor frowned, lifted Chen Baizhou’s shirt to look, and his expression immediately turned cold.

The injuries on this child’s body were truly a bit frightening.

“I recommend doing a full-body examination.”

When Shao Xian heard this, he quickly looked up at Cai Yalan. “Mom, he needs an examination.”

No matter whether Chen Baizhou was Fu Baizhou or not, he could not just sit by and do nothing.

Mrs. Chen stood by the side, unable to say a word. Of course, she also had no face to say anything.

Her biological son had suffered prolonged abuse, and as his biological mother she could not shirk responsibility, but she really had no choice either.

Before Chen Baizhou even started the examination, he could not hold on any longer and fainted.

After a series of examinations, the doctor handed the report to Cai Yalan. Shao Xian leaned over, and the more he looked, the angrier he got.

“The child hasn’t eaten anything for nearly two days. He fainted from hunger,” the doctor said expressionlessly.

He was also very angry in his heart, but it was not good for him to show it.

“The child has quite a few old injuries on his body,” he said, pausing here and taking a deep breath. “I don’t know who hit the child, but as a parent, if you give birth to him and don’t raise him properly, then why did you give birth to him?”

He should not have said this out loud, but he really could not hold it in.

A ten-year-old child, thin down to nothing but skin and bones, his body covered in injuries. Any person with conscience who saw him would not be able to bear it.

“Thank you, doctor.” Cai Yalan said sincerely.

She also did not know the child had suffered so much.

Chen Baizhou was lying on the hospital bed receiving an IV drip, the needle inserted into his clearly visible vein, looking enough to make people’s hearts ache.

“Mrs. Shao, thank you today. Baizhou is my son, let me stay and take care of him,” Mrs. Chen said awkwardly.

If she had even half a bit of maternal love, Chen Baizhou would not be lying here.

Shao Xian deliberately shook Cai Yalan’s arm and acted spoiled. “Mom, I want to play with him.”

Qian Wenjie was very quick to follow suit and helped out, saying, “Aunt Cai, I want to too.”

“Baizhou still hasn’t woken up. How are you going to play?”

Cai Yalan was privately unwilling to let Shao Xian get involved in other people’s family matters, but Shao Xian rarely took the initiative to ask for anything, and she could not bear to refuse.

“Then I’ll just wait until he wakes up,” Shao Xian said like a little adult. “I’ll help him watch the medicine.”

Right now Chen Baizhou’s left eye was covered by gauze, and his right eye was swollen blue, making it impossible to tell whether he was really Fu Baizhou.

He had to wait until he recovered before identifying him carefully.

Qian Wenjie immediately took a side, “I’ll come too!”

Wang Shufen tugged his ear and looked at him speechlessly.

With Shao Xian’s pair of big eyes staring at her, Cai Yalan simply could not resist. She smiled apologetically at Mrs. Chen. “The doctor said that when Baizhou wakes up later, he can drink some porridge. Mrs. Chen, why don’t we go back first and make preparations? Don’t worry, I’ll call someone over to help take care of him. After all, Baizhou was injured at our place.”

Mrs. Chen: “…Then I’ll trouble you.”

Soon after, a Shao family nanny rushed to the hospital, and Cai Yalan and the others left the hospital together.

Qian Wenjie finally could not hold it in anymore and whispered into Shao Xian’s ear, “Isn’t Aunt Chen Chen Baizhou’s biological mom? Why does it feel weird?”

Shao Xian raised an eyebrow and said, “If you think it’s weird, then you’re right.”

Mrs. Chen was called Bai Meijuan. She had originally been a migrant girl from a mountain village. It was said that her original name was Bai Hong, and later she felt it was tacky, so she changed her name to Bai Meijuan, though she did not seem much more elegant anyway.

Qian Wenjie was childish-minded, and when he heard other people call her “Mrs. Chen,” he assumed her surname was Chen.

One night, Bai Meijuan slept with an unknown man, and then became pregnant with Chen Baizhou. A few years after giving birth to Chen Baizhou, she ran into Chen Changjian, that is, Chen Yu’s father, and the two got together.

Although Chen Changjian did not mind that she had had a child before, he was very cold toward Chen Baizhou.

Bai Meijuan had no real standing in the family. She herself was bullied by Chen Yu, let alone Chen Baizhou. Even more than that, she intended to curry favor with the Chen father and son by abusing her own child.

Before, Shao Xian had only heard that the Chen family’s stepchild lived badly, but he had no direct sense of it. Now that he had seen it with his own eyes, he only felt an unbearable sourness in his heart.

Qian Wenjie was young and could not really understand the examination report, so he asked, “Is he badly injured?”

“Pretty badly.” Shao Xian sighed. Seeing Qian Wenjie stare at him in surprise, he could not help asking, “What is it?”

“The way you just sighed, it was like my dad.”

Qian Wenjie was astonishingly blunt.

Shao Xian rolled his eyes at him and said no more, instead looking at Chen Baizhou’s exposed arm.

There were some faint scars on the arm, as if they had been left by cigarette burns, and who knew how many years old they were.

These external injuries could still slowly fade with time, but the wounds inside, after accumulating day after day, would only become more and more rotten and decayed.

It was indeed quite serious.

Most people in the circle envied Fu Baizhou, but at the same time they also liked using the fact that Fu Baizhou went to see a psychologist once every month to mock him, as if doing so could make them superior.

Fu Baizhou really was sick, and quite seriously ill at that.

His gaze landed blankly on the child’s face. Suddenly, the child opened his right eye, and the two of them looked at each other for several seconds.

Shao Xian’s heart stirred, and he showed a friendly smile. “Are you hungry? There’ll be porridge to drink in a bit.”

Chen Baizhou quietly gazed at him, as if a hot seed had fallen into the center of his heart and was slowly taking root and sprouting.