Malevolent Entity

But how was she supposed to tell Fu Siwen about this? She couldn't exactly say that she could hear Su Leyun's thoughts, and that Su Leyun said there was something unclean on Chu Xuan...

Fu Siwen couldn't hear Su Leyun's thoughts. To her, this would simply sound utterly absurd!

While Su Minghui was still thinking, Fu Siwen had already settled the child and returned. She led the mother and son to a guest room on the second floor, right beside the master bedroom. "If you need anything, just come find me. You've had a tiring day too, so I won't disturb your rest."

Fu Siwen turned to leave, but Su Minghui made up her mind and grabbed her.

Fu Siwen asked, "What is it?"

Su Minghui had no confidence in what she was about to say, but she had to say it.

Not only because Fu Siwen was a trustworthy friend who had stood up for her many times during this period, but also because, as a mother herself, she knew that losing a child would truly kill them.

She was a little nervous. "How is Xiaoxiao? He's all right now, isn't he?"

At the mention of Chu Yanxiao, Fu Siwen finally showed a worried expression, though she was still apologizing. "I'm so sorry. He's usually not like this. I don't know what happened to him today."

Su Minghui pulled Fu Siwen over to sit on the bed, carefully choosing her words. "Have you ever considered that children are very spiritually sensitive? I've heard that children as young as Xiaoxiao can see things that we can't."

As she spoke, Su Minghui watched Fu Siwen's expression. In the end, she got to the point. "Do you think that when he suddenly saw Chu Xuan and started crying, it might have been because there was some malevolent entity on Chu Xuan that we can't see?"

The evening breeze drifted in through the open window, carrying a faint chill.

Su Minghui did not feel cold at all. Instead, her palms were sweating from nervousness. She feared that Fu Siwen would curse her for wishing ill on Chu Xuan, and she feared that Fu Siwen would look at her as if she were insane. But what she feared most was that Fu Siwen would not believe her at all.

She wanted to save Chu Xuan. She did not want her friend to suffer the pain of losing a child. But if Fu Siwen did not believe her at all, how could she save him?

Yet none of the scenes she had imagined happened. Fu Siwen's expression could even be described as calm.

"Actually, we considered what you said too. Chu Xuan wasn't born like this. Before he was three, he was a very healthy child."

As the eldest son of the Chu Family, Chu Xuan had originally received plenty of attention. But because of his health, he rarely appeared in public, so rumors spread throughout their circle that Chu Xuan was a sickly child with a congenital weakness.

But the truth was that Chu Xuan's condition had taken a sharp turn for the worse when he was three years old. Back then, he had fallen seriously ill. Fu Siwen had stayed by his side day and night. Though he eventually recovered from that illness, his health only worsened afterward.

All it took was for a child at kindergarten to sneeze in his direction, and he would return home with a fever that lasted an entire day and night. The couple no longer dared to send him to kindergarten, so they could only hire teachers to teach him at home. That continued for eight years.

"At first, my husband and I took Xuanyuan everywhere. As long as a doctor was famous, whether they practiced Chinese or Western medicine, whether they were domestic or foreign, we went to see them. But after all the examinations, they only said that Xuanyuan was a little weak and that there was nothing seriously wrong."

"Later, friends in our circle introduced us to some feng shui masters. We held one ritual after another, but none of it did any good."

"Now, neither of us hopes to cure Xuanyuan anymore. As long as he can stay with us, that's enough. We occasionally visit temples to pray, donate incense money, and we even established a public welfare children's foundation to raise money for sick children. It may not do much, but we treat it as accumulating virtue and praying for blessings for Xuanyuan."

Fu Siwen spoke of these matters with a calm expression and even a faint smile, but only Su Minghui, also a mother, knew that Fu Siwen must have endured an incredibly difficult time. She had probably blamed herself countless times for not being able to give her child a healthy, strong body.

Before Su Minghui could offer any comforting words, Su Leyun had already pieced together the whole story. So the faint golden light he had seen earlier was the merit these parents had accumulated for their child.

[What a pity, the hearts of parents everywhere are the same. But what you did wasn't in vain. Without the merit you accumulated through doing good deeds, Chu Xuan probably wouldn't have lived past the age of six.]

Six years old...

Su Minghui still remembered something about that.

By then, she had already married Zhou Guomin and had just given birth to her second child, Su Yibei, not long before. Then she heard that something had happened to Fu Siwen's child.

Although they had not kept much in touch by then, Su Minghui still cherished their years of friendship and had planned to find a time to visit her.

But when she mentioned it to Zhou Guomin, he said that he had already looked into it. Chu Xuan was fine and in good health, and if Su Minghui went to see Fu Siwen at that time, she would only get in the way of Fu Siwen caring for her child.

At the time, Su Minghui and Zhou Guomin were deeply in love. She believed whatever he said. On top of that, Su Yibei was still young, and as one thing led to another, the matter was delayed and eventually forgotten.

Thinking about it now, Su Minghui felt terribly sorry.

"Maybe it did help after all? I remember that something seemed to have happened to Xuanyuan when he was six, didn't it?"

At the mention of that incident, Fu Siwen still felt lingering fear.

"Yes. It happened around this time of year too, not long after Xuanyuan had turned six..."

Back then, there had been an artificial lake in the Chu Family's yard. Fu Siwen had raised a few ducklings and goslings to keep Chu Xuan company. One night, no one knew how Chu Xuan had slipped outside, but he had actually fallen into the lake.

When Fu Siwen discovered that her child was missing, she called people to search with her. By the time they pulled Chu Xuan out of the water, he had already stopped breathing.

Given Chu Xuan's condition, everyone believed he would surely die that time. Fu Siwen was so frantic that she fainted on the spot. But unexpectedly, he pulled through. Although he spent several days in the ICU and his health became even worse after he was discharged, at least he was still alive.

Su Minghui's heart ached as she listened. She held Fu Siwen's hand. "See? Isn't that heaven protecting him? Everything you've done has been repaid."

Fu Siwen gave a bitter smile. "If it really worked, then why did we hold so many rituals, yet Xuanyuan's health still hasn't improved?"

"That's definitely because all those people before were frauds!" Su Minghui said with absolute certainty. "Leave this to me. Tomorrow, I'll ask around about which temples are effective. If temples don't work, we'll try Taoist temples. I'll go through every single one with you!"

Fu Siwen did not understand why Su Minghui was taking this so seriously, but Su Minghui's attitude moved her. Chu Xuan's condition had worsened recently, and even the family doctor was helpless. If there truly was still a sliver of hope, then she had to seize it for him.

"Okay!" she agreed.