She had secretly followed Gao Xingrong, which was how she discovered that the woman hadn’t left at all, but was instead locked up in the mountains. Never one to hold her tongue, she immediately picked a massive fight with Gao Xingrong back at the house. Taking advantage of the chaos, Gao Zhijun’s birth mother made a run for it.
But her good luck didn’t last. Shortly after she escaped, the couple caught up to her. Terrified that she would expose his secrets, Gao Xingrong and Song Caihua dragged her right back. No one knew what he said to Song Caihua, but she stopped kicking up a fuss after that. However, the captive woman’s nightmare had only just begun.
After she gave birth, Gao Xingrong unleashed his inner beast. He took the baby boy back home. At the time, Song Caihua had also just given birth to a daughter. Since times were tough for every household, Gao Xingrong simply brought the son home and gave the newborn daughter away. No one knew where she was sent. Even Song Caihua remained in the dark. Later, she fell pregnant again and gave birth to another daughter—Gao Yulan. Because of the first daughter she had lost, Song Caihua had always harbored a knot of guilt in her heart. Thus, she was overjoyed by her youngest daughter’s arrival, viewing the child as compensation from the heavens. Around that time, Gao Xingrong had suffered a scare from an accident and was plagued by endless nightmares. It was only when he held his youngest daughter that the night terrors finally ceased. Because of this, he doted on her with a special kind of affection. This was the main reason Gao Yulan was the most favored child in the Gao family.
But I digress. Back to the story.
After the captive woman gave birth, Gao Xingrong developed a sick pleasure in torturing her. He subjected her to constant beatings and verbal abuse, tormenting her in depraved ways. After a while, for whatever reason, he found it boring to do it alone. Looking at her lifeless face every day, he lost his initial thrill. As it happened, his two cousins discovered what he was doing. In for a penny, in for a pound, he simply roped them into joining him. The wretched woman never could have imagined she would become the plaything of all three men.
This hellish torment lasted for five years.
It was only at the end of her life that she finally laid eyes on the child she had given birth to all those years ago. She hadn’t wanted to taint him with these filthy truths, but unexpectedly, the boy overheard their conversation himself.
"Mom, you’re my mom, aren’t you?" The little boy had never understood why he was so disliked at home. Upon learning the answer, he felt a bitter sense of validation. At first, the woman refused to admit it, but she couldn’t withstand the child’s stubborn persistence. Terrified he would be discovered, she had no choice but to confess.
Yet Gao Zhijun never expected that before his fleeting happiness could even settle, he would face the darkest moment of his life. He watched with his own eyes as his father and two uncles brutally abused his birth mother. He saw that there wasn’t a single patch of unblemished skin left on her body, her lower half bleeding profusely. He waited until the men left before rushing over to her.
"Mom, I’ll take you to see a doctor. You’ll be okay." Young Gao Zhijun tried to carry the woman on his back, but he couldn’t even pull her up.
"Zhijun, listen to me. Don’t seek revenge. Pretend you know nothing. You must remember my words." Feeling her life slipping away, the woman used her last breath to teach her son how to survive.
"Why? Why?" Gao Zhijun sobbed, his tears flowing uncontrollably.
"Because you are small. You are no match for them. Remember, do not seek revenge, and never ask about this. My name is Su Yurong." With a faint smile, the woman closed her eyes forever.
Gao Zhijun held her lifeless body, weeping for a day and a night. It wasn’t until dawn the next day, when he heard approaching footsteps outside, that he finally got up and hid. Peering through a broken hole in the wall, he watched the men in the room and listened to their conversation. Realizing the woman was dead, the three men were terrified. They dumped her body deep in the mountains and never set foot in the back hills again.
Gao Zhijun fell severely ill upon returning home. Not only did no one in the family bother to get him treated, but they still ordered him around to do chores. Once he recovered, Song Caihua forced him to wait on her hand and foot while she was in postpartum confinement. He wasn’t even six years old at the time. From then on, Gao Zhijun became withdrawn and taciturn. He stopped communicating with the family, speaking so little that many assumed he had gone mute.
Having finished his story, Gao Zhijun nervously avoided her gaze.
Bai Jiu never expected such a tragic history. It only deepened her hatred for those three men from the Gao family; they deserved to die.
"Do you want revenge?" Bai Jiu was not someone who swallowed grievances. If this had happened to her, none of those three men would have lived to see another day.
Gao Zhijun hadn’t expected her to ask that. He looked up and, just as he suspected, saw pity in her eyes. "You already took revenge for me, didn’t you?" He now belonged to the nation and couldn’t lay a hand on them himself.
Bai Jiu looked at his smile; it was uglier than him crying. "Don’t force a smile if you don’t want to." Her heart ached for him. "My revenge was for myself, not for you."
She believed that repressing one’s feelings was unhealthy; it would only drive a person mad. The only satisfying way to live was to settle scores on the spot. Back then, he was too small and had no choice but to endure it, but now...
"If you’re worried about your uniform, why don’t I handle it for you?" she offered, figuring she might as well do a good deed.
"There’s no need to dirty your hands. They aren’t worth it." Hearing her words, he felt a surge of gladness, though it was tinged with anxiety that she might do something reckless. "Promise me you’ll pretend you don’t know about this."
He believed himself to be a coward. He was unfilial—forced to choose between avenging his birth mother and surviving, he had chosen himself.
"Can you really let it go?" With such a deep-seated hatred, she didn’t believe for a second that this man could just move on. Moreover, she didn’t think he was the type to swallow his anger in silence.
It was a good thing Gao Zhijun couldn’t read her mind, or else he would have grabbed her and kissed her three times in a row. The truth was, part of his reason for returning this time was to exact revenge. He just hadn’t had the chance to put his plans into motion yet.
"I’m fine. Just stay out of this matter." Gao Zhijun patted the top of her head, much like he would with Xiuxiu and Zhengyang. Her hair was incredibly smooth, without a hint of frizz.
It took Bai Jiu a moment to register what he was doing before she dodged his hand and glared at him. "I’m not Xiuxiu or Zhengyang. Don’t pet me." She finally understood why he had said he didn’t blame her, and why he refused to divorce her. Indeed, he owed her a debt of gratitude.
"I’m heading out to work. You stay home and watch the kids." Wanting to give him some space, she figured she’d better go do her chores. Comforting people really wasn’t her strong suit.
Watching her flee as if escaping, Gao Zhijun suddenly chuckled. Gazing up at the clear sky, he murmured, "Mom, I finally have the power to avenge you now."
He truly would never do anything to betray his country or its people, but there were other ways to settle scores, weren’t there?
Let it go? Hah. If Gao Xingrong hadn’t run away so quickly, he wouldn’t have minded sending the man straight to hell to keep Song Caihua company. Anyone who had walked off a battlefield had blood on their hands. He had never considered himself a kindhearted person. In the dead of night when dreams took hold, he would always see his mother’s blood-stained smile. How could he possibly let it go? How could he ever forgive them?