“He was especially terrifying when he looked at Little Jue. I was always afraid that he would go berserk someday and strangle Little Jue, so I always hid Little Jue whenever he went berserk. When I was much younger, I suspected once too often whether this damn man was my father. I would rather he beat me and scold me than look at me with such cold, merciless eyes as though we were trash. I am afraid that your master is the only person existing in his world.”
He could not bring himself to say the term ‘mother’.
Mo Shitian’s world was so uncluttered and pure to the point he could not accommodate even the slightest imperfection. To him, the brothers were responsible for the death of his beloved, the betrayal of his love. He hence showed them nary any love.
“But you all still love him,” Eleven said. “Very few children really hate their parents.”
“Mmhmm, I don’t hate him,” Mo Ye said. ‘There are occasional grudges, though.’
“In that case, would you acknowledge my master then?” Eleven gently asked him. Mo Ye quietly hugged her. He had already rejected her since young and did not know how he would draw close to her since they were already this old.
Besides, she did not look particularly approachable…
“I don’t know!”
“You must acknowledge my master, or she will be very sad,” Eleven solemnly said as she turned to look at Mo Ye with a slight blush. “Since you like me, you must really like my master too.”
Mo Ye smiled and Eleven stepped on his leg. “Why so?” Mo Ye smiled as he asked.
“They say that I am from the same character mold as my master. That said, my master may be a tad more intense than me,” Eleven said. That was how Chu Li, Ye Wei, and the others described her.
“You two are completely different people with different characters that can’t be compared side by side. You can’t expect me to still hug her and call her mom, right?” Mo Ye broke into laughter and asked, “If I do not acknowledge her, what will happen?”
“What do you mean by ‘what happens’?”
“If I have to choose between my master and you?”
“My master, that’s for sure!”
“…Couldn’t you like, hesitate for the slightest moment?” Mo Ye felt dejected and oof-ed by how Eleven answered him so directly without making her answer that bit more palatable. It seemed like such a given to Eleven.
“Is there anything hesitation-worthy about this?” Eleven looked at him, at a loss.
Mo Ye sighed and kissed her lips. “Ah, forget it. I’ll stop talking to the little numbskull in you before I lose it.”
Thankfully, he was not like Mo Shitian. Otherwise, the two would have ended up fighting because of that statement. Mo Ye knew too well that he had to acknowledge his mother because of his wife. But that… What about his other mother?
“Eleven, what do you think would happen if Wei Wei and you took a liking to me?”
“How could that be? Wei Wei will never take a liking to you.” Eleven could not help but talk straight. As she said that, Mo Ye looked at her from the side. It was only then that Eleven realized she had said something wrong.
There seemed to be another meaning to that.
“Did you mean that I am worse than Little Jue, or that I have bad taste?” Mo Ye asked with a piqued interest while holding her waist.
Eleven held back her smile and pushed his hand away. “I am saying that you are not Wei Wei’s type. If you were, she would have taken a liking to Little Iron or Chu Li since a long time ago rather than now. We’ve lots of good men in our organization.”
Mo Ye raised his eyebrows. “If that’s the case, why didn’t you take a liking to Black J or Chu Li? Or to put it differently, did you once like them?”
Eleven was slightly taken aback. She blinked like an adorable rabbit that did not know it was being lured into a trap. “Please do not pick on my choice of words. Those are two completely different issues.”
“Answer my previous question then.”
“Such hypothetical questions do not exist, and I will not answer them.” Eleven turned her head around and ignored him.
“That will not do.”
“You’re so overbearing! Why can you ask when I can’t?” Eleven said. “Let’s stop harping on this question. We were talking about my master, so don’t you dare digress.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Mo Ye said.
“Thread carefully lest your old man shatter your bones,” Eleven said. Honestly speaking, Mo Shitian was extremely harsh toward them to the point he was not the nicest despite knowing they were her master’s children.
If their old man was way more concerned about how their master felt, chances were the sons would be a little off-whack nevertheless. Their old man was too biased.
Mo Ye coldly harrumphed and remained silent. Eleven’s words clearly worked.
“Calling her ‘mom’ is not difficult,” Eleven said. “If you don’t acknowledge her, my master will be sad, and your old man will be sad. We will all be sad and utterly judge you.”
Seeing Mo Ye remain silent, Eleven adjusted her posture in his embrace and slowly said, “We might be luckier than you and your brother. While Old Witch, in her extreme strictness, did scold and beat us, she did all those for our good. Her harshness from time to time was ultimately for our good. She had put in so much pain in raising her disciples to the point her disciples are better than those of Wolf’s. In case you were wondering, we were broken into two different batches which were under a different coach. Old Witch and Wolf each had a batch of children to train, and the differences were evident. If she did not take the pains to teach us, we would not be where we are today. We love and respect her much more than we do our mothers. While we do not know who our mothers are, they are never as close to us as Old Witch is. I do not know how your relationship with Old Witch is, and whether you feel the same too. In our case, we spent over ten years living with her. She risked her life and established Spec-Ops Island for us, established her power base, and returned us our freedom. None of our kin is closer to us than she is to us.”
“Therefore, I hope that my master will be fine and happy. I have never seen her smile in years, only how she occasionally moaned and groaned helplessly for years. While I can’t exactly recall what happened, these images appear in her mind and torment her time and time again. Now, the truth is wide open. Mo Shitian, your brother, and you are still present. If fate were playing a cruel trick on us for the past twenty-over years, I guess it’s about time it came to an end. The heavens have already returned her love, kinship, her husband, and children. If you’re still unwilling to acknowledge her or even hurt her, we will…”
Eleven paused and did not continue. These were some things that the Mo brothers had to learn for themselves after all. She had said all she had to say, and she had made her stand clear.
While Mo Ye was slightly affected, he was displeased at the last statement. Eleven meant that if he didn’t acknowledge his mother, then it was game over for them. F***, they were two separate issues.
Mo Ye coldly harrumphed and said, “She never had a son but gave her sons two good in-laws.”
Eleven was lost for words.
She paused before seriously saying, “If you’re not acknowledging her or loving her, you will not have an in-law!”
This time, it was Mo Ye who was lost for words.