SES Chapter 37 V2

She shook her head. “Couldn’t sleep. Luo Ren, talk to me.”

Then added, “Turn off the light, it’s hurting my eyes.”

Luo Ren rummaged through his duffel bag and pulled out a single-person inflatable mattress, folded down to the size of a heavy coat. As he took it out, a small object tumbled out and rolled across the floor.

He picked it up and handed it to her. “Something fun.”

Mu Dai pushed the sliding door open a little more and reached out to take it. It was a thumb-sized miniature monocular telescope, no bigger than a tiny pill bottle. It had “made in Russia” stamped along the rim and a steel wire loop on one end, just big enough to hook over a finger.

As Luo Ren inflated the mattress—it puffed up surprisingly full from such a thin package—Mu Dai peered through the telescope. The room was too small; through the optics, all the furniture looked distorted and monstrous.

When the lights went out, she thought to herself: Luo Ren does carry the weirdest little gadgets.

The mattress lay flat on the floor. Luo Ren lay down, hands behind his head. As his eyes adjusted, the darkness slowly gave way to shapes. To the left, Mu Dai’s glittering eyes peeked from the wardrobe, reminding him for some reason of a little mouse sneaking oil. To the right was the window facing the interior courtyard.

Windows facing the street had glass, but those facing the courtyard were still papered over for a rustic look. Fan-shaped, with diamond patterns. Right now, the outside was brighter than the room itself. The white, misty paper looked like a draped curtain marked with rippling lines.

Luo Ren asked, “Want to talk about what happened today?”

Mu Dai didn’t answer directly. “Luo Ren, what do you do? You’ve been digging into that Luoma Lake case for two years now. Don’t you have a job?”

A job? Luo Ren chuckled softly.

Mu Dai seemed to realize something. “Oh, right—you’re rich.”

What did that have to do with anything?

He gave a faint smile and stared up at the ceiling, not quite sure where to begin. “I lived with my uncle’s family for over six years. Then my dad came and brought me back.”

Some bonds, once broken, never mend—especially at that age, when you’re at your most rebellious.

“I didn’t get along with my dad. Strangely enough, that distance extended to my mom, too. We weren’t close. Then there was my stepmom, always putting on airs in front of me. Oh, and a little brother my dad adored.”

Compared to living at Ping Ting’s house, it was night and day. Who would want to return to a home like that?

He didn’t even like talking about it. He deliberately avoided being home, tried to make as many friends as possible—anyone who’d keep him occupied. Sometimes, to prove his loyalty, he’d even get into fights. The harder he fought, the more they accepted him.

His father eventually snapped and beat him a few times. The man had his methods—he found a bamboo stick, split into thin strips at the end, which made a loud cracking sound when it hit skin. Each strike left a bloody welt on his back.

All the while, he used him as a warning to his younger brother: “Don’t turn out like this good-for-nothing!”

Bleeding and silent, Luo Ren would smile at the strange boy who called his father “dad,” smiling like none of it mattered, until the boy shrank away in fear.

His stepmother worked hard. The kid was barely ten and already wore glasses thick as bottle bottoms. Studying all day—classics, strategy, governance. All to inherit the old man’s legacy?

“I had a hundred ways to drive my dad up the wall. For exams, I deliberately failed every subject. My dad figured, fine, at least let him get a degree. So he paid a fortune to get me into a school—a school you had to pay your way into.”

In the dark, Luo Ren laughed quietly. “Looking back now, I was pretty childish.”

Mu Dai leaned against the wardrobe frame. “Then what?”

“After I graduated, my dad got sick. My mom begged me to come back and stay by his side. I didn’t. I went to Southeast Asia with a few friends, and had the time of my life. The day I was supposed to fly home, my dad called—an international call. Later, I found out he’d nearly died once already. They resuscitated him. I guess coming that close to death made him rethink some things. Maybe he figured I wasn’t worth the trouble.”

So he made that call—cut off his money, cut him out of the will, told him never to come home again.

Just what Luo Ren had wanted. He did it on purpose. He thought it was best for everyone: “My dad could let go of his disappointment, my stepmom could finally breathe, my brother didn’t have to keep watching his back, and my mom—well, it gave her one last slap in the face.”

“What does your mom have to do with it?” Mu Dai said. “She already put up with so much. You doing that must’ve broken her heart.”

Luo Ren turned to her and smiled. “You’re a little sealed-up pouch of purity, huh? You think all those near-accidents—almost getting run over, poisoning, stomach pumping—were all my stepmom’s doing?”

Could it be…

Mu Dai was struck speechless. Could it have been… Luo Ren’s mother?

That couldn’t be possible… could it?

…

Neither of them noticed the eerie shadow that silently slipped past the paper-covered fan window.