"I was lucky to survive, and it was she who told me to endure it," Gao Zhijun roared at the crowd.
"If she hadn’t told me to endure it, I would have dragged all of you down to hell with me long ago." Gao Zhijun spoke very softly, but his words sent a chilling shudder through everyone who heard them.
To think he was only five years old back then, yet harbored such terrifying thoughts. If it weren’t for... then they... Just the thought of it now filled them with lingering dread. If that person hadn’t stopped him...
"Zhijun, killing is illegal. Don’t do anything rash." Now the crowd was truly terrified and panicking.
"Heh, illegal? Didn’t you all murder an orphaned woman back then, torturing her so brutally before she died? You aren’t human. You’re animals." Gao Zhijun was beginning to lose control.
Whenever he recalled the events of that year, he wished he could eat their flesh and drink their blood. However, the years of education and the careful guidance of his teachers had finally helped him suppress the hatred in his heart. If he hadn’t run away quickly back then, who knew what he would have done.
He had learned about his true parentage at the age of five, and afterward, he had sneaked out to see her a few times. No matter how severely injured she was, she always wore a smile when she saw him. When she realized he intended to avenge her and take her away, she had stopped him. If it hadn’t been for her, he would have sent this pack of animals to hell a long time ago.
Bai Jiu had just started her shift at work when someone informed her that the elders of the Gao family had gone to her house. She hurriedly dropped her farm tools and sprinted home. Arriving out of breath, she heard him furiously berating the group.
Perhaps noticing her, he opened his mouth to speak but closed it again, taking a deep breath instead. "Just leave. I don’t want to bring up what happened back then ever again. Let the deaths of those two be considered their atonement to her." He still found it difficult to speak about these things in front of Bai Jiu.
In truth, Gao Zhijun was afraid that she would look at him differently once she learned the whole story, or that her feelings toward him would change. That was the last thing he wanted. He loved her, but he didn’t need her pity or sympathy.
The Gao family hadn’t expected him to keep the events of the past buried in his heart for all these years.
"Zhijun, it’s all in the past now. As you said, your mother and Zhi Guo are gone too, so let this matter rest," a hunchbacked old man said shamelessly.
Although Bai Jiu had no idea what was going on, she walked straight up to Gao Zhijun. For some reason, she felt that he really needed her right now. Stopping beside him, she took his hand without a word and gave him a gentle smile. "Don’t be afraid. I’m here."
Perhaps she truly gave him strength, because Gao Zhijun’s visibly tense and rigid body softened. "I’m fine," he said, squeezing her hand tightly.
"Leave, and don’t ever appear in front of me again." He hadn’t wanted to rip open this old wound, but they just had to provoke him. It only ended up hurting everyone involved.
The Gao family elders glanced at the couple, nodding in helplessness and defeat. "Fine, we’ll go. But no matter what, your surname is Gao. Don’t forget that," another old man couldn’t help but add.
"Heh, I’ll go change my surname tomorrow." He had never wanted the surname Gao.
Hearing this, the Gao family members, who had been about to leave, stopped in their tracks.
"You better think this through, Zhijun. No matter what happened back then, your father still raised you and made you into the successful man you are today. A person shouldn’t forget their roots," the hunchbacked old man said, clearly displeased. The Gao family had finally produced someone successful; he wasn’t willing to just let him go. Besides, although he knew about the events back then, he wasn’t one of the perpetrators. He didn’t want to completely burn bridges with him.
"What a joke." Gao Zhijun was genuinely amused by their sheer audacity. "Go ask around the village and see what kind of life I lived at home. Ever since I was old enough to understand things, I had endless chores every single day. I even served Song Caihua during her postpartum confinement. It’s truly ridiculous." He remembered very clearly that he was only a four-year-old child at the time.
If he hadn’t learned the truth later on, he probably would have continued treating a family of wolves as his own flesh and blood.
"Never mind getting a full meal—even when I was so starved I had to eat dirt, I had to dig it up myself." Gao Zhijun showed them absolutely no mercy. "Don’t you dare bring up the fact that he’s my father. He’s not worthy."
"You..." The old man had never imagined that Gao Zhijun would harbor such hatred even for his own father. But wouldn’t any normal person feel resentful? Not to mention someone like Gao Zhijun, who had grown up enduring everything in silence.
"Get lost." He didn’t want to say another word. He was afraid. Afraid that she would look down on him.
This time, the Gao family finally left.
Once they were far away, Bai Jiu pulled him into the house. The two children had cried until their eyes were red. Although they didn’t understand what had happened, they knew those people were bullying their father.
"There, there, don’t cry." Seeing the children, Bai Jiu let go of Gao Zhijun’s hand and helped wipe away their tears. "Go into the room. Mommy and Daddy need to talk for a bit, okay?" She felt she had the right to know some of the inside story, so she wanted to have a proper talk with him.
After comforting the children, Bai Jiu poured a glass of water for Gao Zhijun.
"Can you tell me about it?"
Gao Zhijun looked at her, and it took a long time before he finally spoke. "I’m not Song Caihua’s child, but I am Gao Xingrong’s son." His smile was so bitter and sarcastic that it made her heart ache. This was the first time she had ever seen him so vulnerable.
"My mother was an orphaned girl who wandered here. At least, that’s what she said.
"She was very beautiful and gentle. She looked a lot like you did when I first met you," Gao Zhijun recalled.
Back then, for some unknown reason, Gao Zhijun’s birth mother had arrived at Gaocun Village. The famine had just passed, and everyone was struggling to get by, so no family was willing to take in such a woman. Yet, somehow, she eventually ended up living with the Gao family. However, the good times did not last. A few months later, the woman vanished.
Many people in the village assumed she had simply left or found her relatives and gone back home. The Gao family also told outsiders that she had left, claiming they didn’t know where she went.
Heh, what a load of bullshit.
The woman hadn’t left at all. Instead, she had been locked up by that animal, Gao Xingrong, in a thatched hut on the back mountain where hunters usually rested. Why would a man lock up a woman? Simply because he lusted after her beauty and her body. And so, the tragedy unfolded.
At first, Gao Xingrong treated her very well. But she wasn’t someone who could be easily bullied; having suffered such a great injustice, she naturally wanted to escape. Yet, as a weak woman trapped deep in the mountains, she had nowhere to run. It wasn’t until she realized her belly was growing larger day by day that she gave up the idea of escaping. She hated Gao Xingrong, but she loved the child growing inside her.
She had originally been separated from her family and trafficked to this area. She had barely managed to escape, only to find herself jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.
When Gao Xingrong saw her growing belly and realized they had a shared hope for the future, he had actually considered settling down and living a good life with her. But this was also when all the misfortune truly began.
How could Song Caihua allow herself to be abandoned? She shadowed Gao Xingrong every day, making him feel increasingly suffocated at home, which drove him to run off to the mountain every few days. Naturally, this aroused Song Caihua’s suspicion. A woman’s intuition about a man was always dead on.