Page 44

Nightmares repeatedly assailed his mind. Little Ye Mingzhao had no way of knowing whether, in the next nightmare, those stray dogs would choose to save him or eat him, nor could he know whether the old scavenger would appear in time.

He was still too young, without enough wisdom to distinguish nightmares from reality.

But one thing was eternally unchanging: every detail of how his biological mother had abandoned him at the dump.

That cycle of nightmares continued until the orphanage director found him a new family.

Little Ye Mingzhao was carefully held in the arms of his elegant, noble new mother, while his tall new father tucked a fluffy toy puppy into his hands and said with a smile, "Let's go home."

At that instant, Ye Mingzhao seemed to hear a click beside his ear. The clock that had been stalled for so long finally began to move slowly.

He was given a new name: Ye Mingzhao. Bright and radiant, like the shining sun.

He had a new mother. When nightmares woke him, she would hold him in her arms and soothe his frightened cries with gentle kisses.

He had a new father. After work, he would bring him gifts, lift him high into the air, and ask whether he had obediently taken his medicine that day.

He had a new older brother. After school, he would rush eagerly to his bedside to share interesting things from school, new toys, and even a small piece of cake he had deliberately saved from lunch.

Ye Mingzhao often thought that his life had truly begun at the age of three. All memories from before he was three should have been sealed away. After all, most people only began forming lasting memories between the ages of three and six.

Yet eighteen years later, the figure that had faded frame by frame from his memories appeared before him once again.

"I've seen your photo." Ye Mingzhao smiled faintly at the woman kneeling on the floor, his tone calm. "You're Jiang Shangyun's mother."

"I saw your family portrait in his social media posts."

At the mention of Jiang Shangyun's name, the woman's expression suddenly turned panicked. She struggled to raise her head and looked up at Ye Mingzhao, but all she could see was a dark silhouette shrouded in light.

He stood against the light. Ruan Cuimei could not make him out at all.

The four members of the Ye family sitting nearby were completely bewildered. Mrs. Ye asked, "What Jiang Shangyun? Zhaozhao, do you know this woman?"

"Mm!" Ye Mingzhao nodded at Mrs. Ye. Stepping past the distraught woman kneeling on the floor, he walked over and sat beside Mrs. Ye. "Jiang Shangyun is a contestant in the fashion design competition. He's been filming with the production team."

Naturally, the Ye family knew about the two design competitions Ye Mingzhao had organized in the production team's name. Hearing this, they nodded absentmindedly and remarked on how small the world was.

Ruan Cuimei felt the world was small too. For one brief moment, she even regretted it.

Ye Mingzhao's gaze fell on the woman. After a thoughtful moment of silence, he suddenly asked, "Do you love your child?"

Before Ruan Cuimei could react, Ye Mingzhao added, "I mean Jiang Shangyun."

Ruan Cuimei seemed to misunderstand something. Upon hearing Ye Mingzhao's words, she suddenly grew agitated. "Don't—"

Before she could finish, a rapid knock at the door interrupted her.

The person knocking seemed to be in a hurry. Without waiting for permission from the room's occupants, they impatiently twisted the doorknob.

Jiang Shangyun appeared in the doorway, panting heavily. Behind him were the production team's explosively curious, peering gazes.

"Mom, why are you here?" Jiang Shangyun stared straight at the woman kneeling on the floor, his gaze shocked and direct. Confused, he asked, "Why are you kneeling on the floor?"

The instant the words left his mouth, Jiang Shangyun understood. Every sentence he had said while chatting with Ye Mingzhao on set sprang from the depths of his mind.

[The truly cruel arrangement would be for the villain's biological parents to both be ordinary good people.]

[They could possess every virtue in the world, and still abandon their own child without any burden.]

[As long as the abandoned child failed to meet their expectations.]

"So the person who abandoned Ye Mingzhao back then..." Jiang Shangyun swallowed hard. After hesitating for a moment, he still asked with a numb expression, "It was you, wasn't it?"

Faced with her son's questioning, Ruan Cuimei opened her mouth, yet could not say a single word.

Jiang Shangyun's interrogation was too blunt, ruthlessly tearing away the past she had always concealed and refused to face.

She lowered her head in embarrassment. Though before coming here, she had already prepared herself mentally.

Ruan Cuimei had imagined every possibility in which she knelt before Ye Mingzhao to beg for forgiveness, only to be rejected. She had also prepared herself for Ye Mingzhao's frenzied revenge. But she had never imagined that these questions would come from the mouth of her other son.

The atmosphere in the lounge became stifling and heavy.

Ye Mingzhao sat steadily on the sofa, watching everything unfold before him with great interest. Clearly, he was the person at the center of this turmoil, yet his attitude made him seem more like a bystander unwilling to be dragged into it.

Even when Jiang Shangyun asked in anguish, "Why did you abandon your child?" Ye Mingzhao adjusted his sitting position, taking on a more relaxed posture as he admired the confrontation between mother and son.

Every one of those reactions made Ruan Cuimei feel angry and humiliated. As she felt too ashamed to show her face, resentment quietly began to grow deep within her heart.

Ye Mingzhao knew that emotion well.

When people faced something they found hard to accept, they usually protected themselves by directly resorting to denial.

It was the most basic and primitive defense mechanism in psychology.

"I did nothing wrong," "Everyone else is at fault," "Things aren't the way you think they are"—

"Things aren't the way you think they are!" Ruan Cuimei grabbed her son's hand and anxiously defended herself. "I had my reasons."

Her gaze unconsciously turned toward Ye Mingzhao. Yet she found him resting his chin on his right hand, lost in thought.

The emotions Ruan Cuimei had spent so long building up suddenly caught in her throat. To her surprise, every one of Ye Mingzhao's reactions since they met had exceeded her expectations.

Twenty-one years later, facing the biological mother who had abandoned him, Ye Mingzhao seemed to feel nothing at all. There was no resentment, no hatred, no agitation, no confusion, not even the most basic curiosity.

The way he looked at Ruan Cuimei was more like he was looking at a clown making a grand entrance. He was enjoying her performance, but he did not take it to heart in the slightest.

"What's wrong?" Noticing the sudden silence in the room, Ye Mingzhao came back to himself and nodded at the conflicted-looking Ruan Cuimei. "Please continue."

To ease the awkward atmosphere, Ye Mingzhao even thoughtfully added, "We're all very curious why you abandoned your own flesh and blood back then."

Hearing Ye Mingzhao's question, which sounded almost like narration, Ruan Cuimei's expression suddenly became difficult to describe.

She suddenly realized that this biological child she had abandoned more than twenty years ago did not seem to care about her at all.

"Please don't speak to me with that attitude." Ruan Cuimei wept silently. Like a mother unable to bear the blow, she humbly pleaded with her rebellious son, "I know you hate me. But I hope you can give me a chance to atone—"

"Sure!"

The overly straightforward answer not only shocked Ruan Cuimei, but even the Ye family looked over in surprise.

Under everyone's gaze, Ye Mingzhao calmly stated, "[Article 261 of the Criminal Law: Whoever, having the duty to support an elderly person, minor, sick person, or another person incapable of independent living, refuses to provide support under serious circumstances shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years, criminal detention, or public surveillance.]"

His gaze then fell on Ruan Cuimei's face as he asked amiably, "Would you like to turn yourself in now, or wait until the paternity test results come out before turning yourself in?"

Ruan Cuimei's mouth fell open as she stared at Ye Mingzhao in shock.