Reborn in the 80s: Divorced and Spoiled by the Military Man

Chapter 160: What You Need to Learn Is to Accept Your Fate

Xie Yunshu paused. She hadn’t expected to hear something like that. No wonder he’d reacted so strongly just now-her joke really had been inappropriate. She quickly apologized sincerely, “I’m sorry.”

“You actually know how to apologize? Did the sun rise in the west today?” Ji Siyuan shot her a sidelong glare. “But you didn’t know, so you’re not to blame. No need to apologize.”

After saying that, Ji Siyuan didn’t continue the topic. Instead, he slowly drove the car out of the Construction Site. His expression, however, was clearly different from usual, carrying a faint heaviness and gloom.

Xie Yunshu wasn’t good at comforting people. She turned her head and noticed the red moles at the corners of Ji Siyuan’s eyes, then rather stiffly changed the subject. “Those two red moles of yours are actually pretty good-looking. At first, I thought you’d drawn them on yourself.”

On the portrait he’d drawn for her, he’d even deliberately added the moles.

Ji Siyuan held the steering wheel with one hand and touched the corner of his eye with the other. He let out a self-mocking laugh. “This is something my sister and I have in common. When I was little, my mom even dressed me in little skirts. Whenever she took us out, people said she’d given birth to two girls.”

He and Xinxin were fraternal twins. When they were little, they looked very much alike. Only when they got older did the differences become obvious. But those two red moles were in the exact same places, so others could always tell at a glance that they were siblings.

Xie Yunshu froze for a moment. So Ji Siyuan had been seeing her as his sister?

Sure enough, right after that, Ji Siyuan said softly, “Your eyes look a lot like Xinxin’s. You’re just missing those two red moles. But she was much more timid than you, and her health was weak. We all thought she’d grow up protected by the family…”

Xie Yunshu subconsciously touched her own eyes. All at once, she thought of the red moles on Xiaowei’s face-and Zhou Xinyue had also been abducted before…

“Your sister…” Xie Yunshu hesitated for a moment. She hadn’t wanted to continue this topic, but she kept feeling that it was too much of a coincidence, so she still asked, “Where was she trafficked to?”

Ji Siyuan’s brows drew together. “Why are you asking that?”

Xie Yunshu knew she was reopening someone’s wound. She fell silent for a while, then suddenly said directly, “The woman my ex-husband later married has a child with two red moles on his face, and she was trafficked too.”

The car abruptly braked to a stop in the middle of the road. Ji Siyuan’s expression darkened. “What are you trying to say? That woman might be my sister? When my brother and I rushed over back then, Xinxin had already been dead for two years. There’s no way we could have been mistaken.”

Of course that wasn’t what Xie Yunshu meant. Zhou Xinyue was two years older than her, and she didn’t have any red moles on her face either. “I’m talking about the child. He has red moles on his face.”

Ji Siyuan started the car again and flatly denied it. “Xinxin didn’t have any children.”

So was it really just a coincidence?

Seeing how cold Ji Siyuan’s expression was, Xie Yunshu knew there was no point in asking further. After all, there were far too many people with red moles on their faces. To say Xiaowei might be connected to the Ji family-or even to Xinxin-just because of two red moles was far too far-fetched.

Xie Yunshu looked out the window. She thought that perhaps she should find time to ask Xiaowei about it. That child had such a withdrawn personality, and he couldn’t even express himself clearly. She wondered if he was doing any better now. She didn’t want to meddle in other people’s business, especially since, in her previous life, Xiaowei’s existence had caused her no small amount of frustration.

But whenever she thought of that rainy night, of that tiny child’s numb face and empty eyes, she couldn’t truly stand aside. Perhaps Xiaowei in her previous life had merely been a pitiful, innocent victim as well.

She would just consider it meddling this once…

At the Haicheng Family Compound, Lu Zhixing brought Xiaowei back from the hospital by the hand.

He stood at the door without going in. “I’ll leave the child with you for now. I’ll make time to come see him during the day tomorrow. Treat him well.”

Zhou Xinyue nodded and stepped aside, revealing the cooked chicken drumsticks placed on the table. “Brother Zhixing, I made drumsticks especially for Xiaowei. In these last few days, I just want to leave the child with a good impression. Even if we’re separated in the future, when he thinks of me, at least he’ll have some good memories.”

When she finished speaking, she lowered her head and wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes, then forced a smile. “I knew a long time ago that I was wrong.”

Lu Zhixing sighed. “That’s good.”

With that, he nudged Xiaowei forward. “Don’t be afraid. Your mother knows she was wrong. She won’t hit you again.”

Xiaowei stood there without moving. The pain in his body seemed carved into his bones, leaving him cold all over.

Zhou Xinyue’s eyes flickered. She stepped forward of her own accord and took his hand. “Come on. Let’s eat first.”

The door behind them slowly closed. Xiaowei shrank helplessly and instinctively shut his eyes, but after waiting for a long while, the slap he expected never came.

Zhou Xinyue dragged him to the table, then let out a sneer. “What are you so afraid of? You should be thanking me. If it weren’t for me, you’d have died in front of your real mother’s grave long ago!”

Xiaowei bit his lip and said nothing. He was afraid that if he spoke, he would be beaten.

Zhou Xinyue, however, sat down at ease and pointed to the drumstick on the table. “Eat. Don’t worry. For these last few days, I’ll make sure you’re well fed and well treated.”

Xiaowei didn’t understand what she meant, but he didn’t dare actually sit there and eat.

Seeing that he wasn’t moving, Zhou Xinyue’s expression darkened. “Are you eating or not?”

Xiaowei trembled in fright and hurriedly reached out to grab a drumstick, taking huge bites out of it, not even daring to pause.

Only then did Zhou Xinyue smile in satisfaction. She picked up a piece of chicken herself and took a slow bite before saying, “You like Xie Yunshu quite a lot, don’t you? You want her to be your mother? What an ungrateful little brat. I raised you for more than a year, and all she did was give you a few candies, yet you treasure her like that?”

There were a few candies in Xiaowei’s pocket. Back during the New Year, when he had gone upstairs in the communal apartment block, Xie Yunshu had casually slipped them to him. But he had never been willing to eat them. Only when he was alone would he occasionally take them out, place them in his palm, count them one by one, then put them back in his pocket.

In his thin, faded memories, his mother had given him candy too. Though every time, it came with blood, it was still very sweet.

When Zhou Xinyue had nearly finished eating, she suddenly yanked Xiaowei over, dug the candies out of his pocket, and flung them hard onto the ground. “You treat a few lousy candies like treasure? Is she your mother? Since you want to acknowledge her so badly, I’ll grant your wish!”

“No.” Xiaowei’s small body struggled desperately under her grip as he fought with all his might to pick up the candies.

But Zhou Xinyue stepped on them instead. Only after watching the light in Xiaowei’s eyes go out did she laugh aloud. “That’s more like it. Don’t hold on to any hope. What you need to learn is to accept your fate.”

Xiaowei hung his head and said nothing.

“After dinner, how about I take you to the Packaging Factory’s communal apartment block?” Zhou Xinyue leaned closer to him, deliberately grinding her foot over the candies a few more times, then laughed softly. “Our bond as mother and son is almost at an end. As your mother, I should at least satisfy one tiny little wish of yours.”

Xiaowei, who had not spoken all this time, suddenly looked up. “No!”

He hadn’t been beaten recently and had rarely gone hungry, so a little flesh had returned to his face. He looked much more alive than before. When he said those words, there was a rare firmness in his voice. “Don’t go.”

She was a bad person. She would hurt people.

Zhou Xinyue jabbed her finger hard against his head. “I’m letting you go build some affection in advance, and you still dare say no? Once you’re with Xie Yunshu, you’d better watch that mouth of yours and not say a single unnecessary word. Otherwise, I’ll stick every one of those needles into you! That bargain-bin father of yours, Lu Zhixing, won’t be able to tell!”

Beside her hand lay a long syringe, glinting with a strange silver sheen under the light. Xiaowei was so frightened that he could not say another word.