CH 33

Chapter 33 – In the City (5)

Chen Yulian kept on repeating Shuangming has a mother but not a father and although he was young, he still understood the meaning of her words.   His eyes turned red and he grabbed his mother’s hand and asked.

“Mother, do I have a father?  Where is my father?  Can you bring him back?  I’m not a child without a father…….”  Tears streamed down his face as he spoke.

“Hmph!  Of course, this little bastard doesn’t have a father!  Can it be he was conceived with some random man?!”

When she heard the child speaking, Chen Yulian showed a smile and started to verbally stab at the child’s fragile heart to hurt him even more severely.

“Who says he doesn’t have a father?!  I’m his father!”

Just as Li Jing’er was in a dilemma and thinking about how to explain the fact that the child has no father, an angry male voice pierced through the shop like a great bell.

“Xiao…….Xiao Erlang?!”

Chen Yulian widened her eyes in disbelief and stammered.

“You’re my father?”  Shuangming’s tears stopped.

Both the adult and child were obviously hostile towards each other but at this moment, Xiao Jingfeng felt sorry for the child who was treated unjustly.  He lifted the child high up and placed him on his shoulders.

“That’s right, I’m your father.”

“Then why do we have to call you ‘Uncle Xiao’?”

This uncle turned into his father?

“Because your Mother was angry with your Father and refused to allow all of you to acknowledge me.”

Jing Niang, God is helping me.  Just admit it and stop the persistent struggle!

“Mother, why are you angry with Father?”

Why?  Why……..

Children always have thousands of ‘why’ questions and this 5-year-old Shuangming is currently in the ‘why’ phase.

Pei!  Look at how proud you are!  It’s just because you had taken advantage of a loophole!

“Uh, your Father………has too many rotten peach blossoms.”

“What are rotten peach blossoms?”

Is it peach blossoms that have gone rotten after being picked and left for too long?

“Where did the peach blossoms come from?  It’s a misunderstanding, your mother is very jealous.”

Such a great grievance!  He had guarded himself like a piece of jade and never flirted with other women!

(Guarded himself like jade means to guard one’s chastity.)

“Misunderstanding, misunderstanding……..Mother’s fault.”

Little Sister Yue who seemed to understand nodded continuously and knotted up her eyebrows into a frown like an adult and it made the adults burst into laughter.

“Stinky girl!  You have only seen your Father a few times and your heart is already biased toward him, little heartless brat!”

She feels really sad………it’s a waste to raise this child!

“Heartless, heartless…….I’m heartless.”

Little Sister Yue pointed to herself cheerfully.

“Daughter, let’s hear you call me ‘Father’.”   Xiao Jingfeng looked at his daughter eagerly.

“Guo-Guo?……..”  Little Sister Yue looked at her brother.

A pair of eyes landed on Shuangming’s face and he blushed slightly.

“Father……..”

“Mm, I’m your Father.”  Xiao Jingfeng laughed in his heart.

The awkward boy finally gave in without him making any effort at all.

“Father……..”  When Little Sister Yue saw her brother calling Xiao Jingfeng, she did not want to lose out and shouted as well.  Her voice was as fluffy as candy floss and a feeling of sweetness spread in the people’s hearts.

“Good, Father’s good……..good daughter…….”

Xiao Jingfeng’s eyes turned red, his nose felt sour and he was overcome with both happiness and sadness.

His daughter never called him ‘Father’ until she was almost two years old.  He had missed her birth and her babbling when she started to learn her first words.  Fortunately, he is able to reunite with his wife, otherwise, when would he be able to hear the child call him ‘Father’?

“Father…….”  The small voice came from the shy Shuangzhen.  She was holding candied hawthorns in one hand and with the other hand, she was grabbing her mother’s dress and appeared to be nervous.

“Mm, I’m the father of one son and two daughters…….I have children.”

Looking at the trust in the eyes of the children, his heart turned as soft as a puddle of mud.

Some people felt happy while some were sad.

On one side, a great reunion was happening with endless and harmonious cries of ‘Father’ and ‘Mother’.  The adults and children started to talk and laugh and gathered together as a family in happiness.

On the other side, the crows seemed to be crowing, snow and rain were falling and the atmosphere was overcast with dark clouds.  It was so silent that even if one sneezed, the moisture would condense into frost.

Cold winds seemed to be blowing continuously and the air turned gloomy while a haze seemed to have descended.  It was so gloomy and cold that if one stretched out his hand, he would not be able to move his five fingers as they would be frozen stiff.

Chen Yulian, who originally had a twisted personality, glared at the woman who had snatched her man.  It was clear that the man was her target but before she could even make her move, that woman had snatched him away.

He is hers!  Hers!

Father?  Children?  All those are lies!  The truth is that woman wants him!

Initially, Chen Yulian looked at Li Jing’er with disgust and dislike but now it had turned into hatred, full of hatred.  She wished Li Jing’er would die and never be reborn.  She wanted to burn her flesh and reduce her bones to ash and let the cold winds blow them away.  From then on, her soul would be scattered and it would be difficult for her soul to become one again.

When Chen Dasheng saw his brother reuniting with his family, he rubbed his nose and decided to pull his sister away to avoid any embarrassment.

Unexpectedly, she completely ignored him and instead slapped him away.  With hatred in her eyes, she walked to Xiao Jingfeng which caught Chen Dasheng off guard.

“How can you be his father?”  It was a questioning tone similar to that of a wife accusing her husband of doing wrong to her.

“I am 25 years old this year.  It’s not unusual to have a 5-year-old son.  My third brother’s child is even older than my son.”

If it was not because of the imperial court’s conscription, his parents would not have allowed him to get married.  It was just that they were afraid something might happen to him and wanted to leave him a descendant, so a marriage was arranged for him.

Therefore, he did not know whether he should be thankful for the imperial court’s conscription which enabled him to have a family, or whether he should blame the war for separating him from his family and nearly causing them to split up.

“I’ve clearly investigated that you don’t have a wife and there’s no one waiting for you in your hometown.”

Her money must not be spent in vain.  If the source was incorrect then she had definitely suffered a loss.

“Why did you investigate me?  I’m only a Baihu with a hundred households.”

He is neither a rich man nor a high-ranking official, so what is the concern about?

When he heard that someone investigated his past, Xiao Jingfeng, who felt strangely uneasy, revealed a trace of impatience and disgust.

“Because I want to marry………”  ……You.

She thought that it was a great honor to condescend him this small favor.  He should feel very grateful and prostrate on the ground to thank her and hold her in his palm like a treasure.

But Chen Yulian was one year older than Xiao Jingfeng.  Women tend to age faster and after giving birth to a son and daughter, she appeared to be a woman in her 30s with fine lines appearing at the corners of her eyes.  She put on layers upon layers of powder and heavy makeup.  People only saw her radiant makeup and did not pay much attention to the lines beneath her makeup.

“Yulian, did you enter my study?”

Chen Dasheng interrupted his sister angrily.  She had embarrassed herself enough.

Chen Yulian turned away and averted her eyes.

“Where can’t I go in the house?  Before Father and Mother passed away, they told you to take good care of me.  I just wandered around the house, does that make you unhappy?  Can it be you no longer want me, this younger sister?”

He truly did not want her.  If it was not for the fact that they came from the same mother, he would not have cared about her a long time ago.

“Didn’t I tell you there’re a lot of military confidential documents kept in my study?  No one can enter without my approval, even if you’re my biological sister.  If there’s any suspicion of leakage, you’ll be dealt with accordingly.”

Not everyone inside Sanhe Guard Base is his own people.  To prevent anyone from getting information to hold against him, Chen Dasheng would take home the documents he deemed as important and confidential to keep in his study.  In the dead of the night when all is silent, he would go over the documents and after reading them, he would lock them in a secret cabinet that only he knew about.

There are times when he would accidentally bring home letters that belong to Xiao Jingfeng and the others because the letters would be sent to him first before they were distributed to everyone.

There was one time he saw Xiao Erlang’s letter was opened and thought that it was because the letter was not sealed properly, so he resealed it with some glue.

Thinking about it now, it must have been Yulian who did it.  She often ignored what he told her and did whatever she wanted without thinking of the consequences.

“Elder Brother, can you stop being so fierce to me?  I am already so old, do I still need you to teach me?  As my elder brother, you should be siding with me.  I am being bullied, so you should stand up for me and arrest the culprit who doesn’t have a sense of propriety.”

A cold glint flashed in her eyes as she glared at the woman who made her unhappy.

“Hmph!  With this temperament of yours, who can bully you?  You shouldn’t make use of my name to embarrass other people.  If you’re in the right, I’ll help you but if you’re unreasonable you should hurry home.  The soldiers under me are not for you to randomly order around.”

When he returns home, he must issue a military order that in the future, all orders can only be carried out with his approval.

“Who said I’m in the wrong?  It’s her!  Look at my hand, my wrist is already red after she grabbed it and she wanted to hit me too!”

Chen Yulian pointed at Li Jing’er and showed a fearful expression in pretense.

She pulled up her sleeve to show her plump fair wrist which had a bright red bruise.  Finger marks were visible and it could be seen how much force was exerted.  With a little more force, the wrist might be broken.

The complaint was justified.

“Shuangming, tell Uncle Chen what that auntie with a white face wanted to do to you just now.”

Children would not lie and their hearts were like mirrors.

As soon as the words ‘that auntie with a white face’ was said, even the shopkeeper of the cloth shop could not help but laugh.  The people sighed silently and agreed the description was truly appropriate.   It was only that the auntie herself refused to admit that she is a middle-aged woman and became angry again and rolled up her sleeves intending to hit someone once more.

“She was so fierce…….she keeps scolding me and then said she wanted to beat me to death.”

Now that he has a ‘father’, Shuangming became more confident and puffed up his small chest as he sat high on the shoulders.