Ch 159: The Cannon Fodder Won’t Play Along Anymore [QT]

Later, Mu Xing was admitted to the best middle school and high school in Donghai City, winning the highest scholarship every year.

The children from the orphanage also did very well. At the end of each school year, they would bring back stacks of certificates, and Director Mei and the staff would smile so widely their faces could hardly close.

Little Jin was adopted by the Han couple. That too was fate.

Back then, the Han couple had actually set their sights on Mu Xing, but since Mu Xing didn’t want to leave the orphanage, in the end it was Little Jin who, by accident, stumbled headfirst into Li Mengyu’s arms—and just like that, bumped himself into a mother.

At eighteen, Mu Xing received an admission letter from the country’s top university.

By then, Hope Orphanage had already become a well-known institution in Donghai City.

At first it was because of the media report about Mu Xing, which drew a lot of public attention to the orphanage.

Later, people realized that the atmosphere here was completely different from other orphanages. The children were especially sensible and well-behaved.

The orphanage received a great deal of sponsorship. Many of the children were gradually adopted, finding new families.

Everything was getting better and better.

Mu Xing paid a visit to Capital City’s Third Psychiatric Hospital.

Xiang Shen and his wife had been living there ever since.

When the staff heard that he wanted to see Xiang Shen and Zhu Wei, their expressions turned a little strange.

They studied Mu Xing, as if trying to guess who he was, and then suddenly realized: “You… you’re that…”

Mu Xing smiled and said, “Their child, in the genetic sense.”

At once, the staff’s expression turned to pity.

When Xiang Shen and Zhu Wei were first admitted, their condition was terrible. They spent their days muttering about vengeful ghosts seeking revenge.

And unlike most other patients, they were criminals who had avoided prison only because of their illness.

Before long, everyone in the hospital knew: the crimes they had committed had something to do with abandoning their own child.

If there was a hierarchy of contempt among psychiatric patients, then the two of them undoubtedly sat at the very bottom.

The staff locked the iron gate and led Mu Xing inside, saying as they walked, “Those two… their condition is among the most severe here. You’d better… prepare yourself.”

He didn’t lead Mu Xing to a room, but instead to a large open yard outside.

It was July, and the capital was scorching hot. In the early afternoon, no one in their right mind would willingly come outside.

But the two elderly figures crouched back-to-back on the cement were the exception.

They looked like two wary, solitary animals, crouched low to the ground, their eyes darting around in constant vigilance.

The staff member sighed. He had worked here for many years. At first, when he heard about this couple, he had felt only contempt.

But very soon, that contempt turned into pity.

All these years, whenever he worked the night shift, he had never once seen them sleep through the night.

In the middle of the night, they would often break into screams, shouting about ghosts, smashing doors, running wildly through the halls.

They would wake all the other patients, throwing the entire ward into chaos.

Eventually, they were moved into a remote room with reinforced soundproofing. At night, the doors and windows were locked from the outside, and the room was monitored 24 hours a day.

They could no longer disturb anyone else—but the staff could still see their madness on the surveillance cameras.

The scenes were chilling, as if they truly saw some terrifying ghost.

Everyone who had witnessed those recordings could not help but develop a psychological shadow toward the room they lived in.

Their condition only grew worse. By now, they could barely sleep at all.

The staff led Mu Xing up to a balcony. From there, he could see them clearly, at a safe distance where they wouldn’t notice him.

“This is as close as we ever get,” the staff explained. “Their vigilance is extreme. If anyone comes within ten meters, they’ll go mad.”

Mu Xing calmly observed the two of them baking under the blazing sun. “Why do they crouch under the sun like that?”

The staff replied helplessly, “Because they believe the world is full of ghosts. That vengeful ghosts are coming after them…”

At that point, he cast Mu Xing a sidelong glance. In truth, the ‘vengeful ghost’ they spoke of was none other than the child they had abandoned.

The staff didn’t know the details. He only thought that the couple must have done something unspeakably cruel in the past, and their guilty conscience had twisted into delusions of their abandoned child turning into a ghost to seek revenge.

“At first they were only afraid of the dark, so they never turned the lights off at night. Slowly, it got worse. Eventually they didn’t dare to go near shadows even during the day. Then it got more and more severe…”

The staff pointed at the two figures. “Now they believe only under the sunlight do they have even the slightest sense of safety. They think vengeful ghosts can’t appear in daylight. The harsher and more blinding the sun, the better.”

So while everyone else hid inside with air conditioning during thirty-eight, thirty-nine degree heat, they squatted under the burning sun, deliberately avoiding any patch of shade.

At first, the staff had tried to stop them, but they became violently aggressive and even bit two people.

After that, no one interfered anymore.

Mu Xing turned and went downstairs, heading toward them.

The staff instinctively wanted to call him back, but then thought better of it. After all, this was their biological child. He couldn’t just watch them from a distance and leave, could he?

Mu Xing slowly approached.

Even from the balcony, he had noticed their hair was much whiter. But standing closer, he realized—it wasn’t just more white. Their hair was almost completely white.

At first, Mu Xing tried to recall their age. When they were conducting the experiments, they had just reached thirty. Now, they weren’t even fifty yet.

Their hair was a messy gray-white, clothes still long-sleeved and long-legged despite the summer heat. With their heads bowed, crouching on the ground, Mu Xing could clearly see sweat dripping from their darkened skin under the blazing sun.

Finally noticing someone approaching, the two raised their heads warily.

Mu Xing saw their faces clearly.

If he hadn’t been told, he would never have recognized them as Xiang Shen and Zhu Wei.

Their faces were lined and worn, their eyes clouded, their expressions numb.

How could they possibly look like people under fifty?

Even if someone said they were seventy, others would believe it.

Only eight years had passed.

Eight years ago, when they came to Hope Orphanage, they had been well-dressed, youthful, and full of confidence.

Mu Xing stopped in place, meeting their eyes with calm indifference.

The moment they saw his face clearly, the numbness in their eyes twisted into raw terror.

They let out guttural sounds, scrambling backward in panic.

“What are you doing here? Why are you here?”

“Even in the daytime now?!”

“We were wrong, we’re sorry, we were wrong! Please let us go, let us go!”

Clearly, they no longer knew the difference between reality and dream.

They thought the figure before them was the malicious ghost that had haunted them day and night. The ghost that grew stronger and stronger—so strong it could now find them even under the noonday sun.

Mu Xing looked at their pitiful state, and not a trace of pity stirred in his heart.

He said quietly, “Looking at you now, you’re nothing more than ordinary people. Frightened by illusions of ghosts. And yet back then, what gave you the right to think you could stand so high above, deciding the lives and fates of two children?”

They didn’t hear him. Or perhaps, they could no longer process normal words at all.

Suddenly Zhu Wei screamed, eyes wild as she stared at him.

“Kill me! Kill me! Give me a quick death!”

Mu Xing ignored her.

“I only came to tell you one thing,” he said. “I got into Huaxia University. So did my brother. We’re both going to live very, very well.”

“Your so-called experiment was nothing but garbage.”

He turned and walked away. Whether they heard him or not didn’t matter. They were still huddled there, screaming.

When Mu Xing stepped back into the shade, the staff member glanced at his face. Calm, untouched by sorrow. That was enough to know—this man felt nothing for the so-called parents who had abandoned him.

And really, why would he? They hadn’t raised him a single day.

Still, the doctors had something to say. They told him Xiang Shen and Zhu Wei’s health was failing. Years of sleeplessness had wreaked havoc on their bodies, not to mention their constant delusions and self-harm. Beyond accelerated aging, their insides were already deteriorating.

Mu Xing only said flatly, “Just treat them as usual. If anything happens… don’t bother notifying me.”

*

Not long after—barely half a year—Director Mei was on the phone one day.

“Xiang Shen’s dead.”

“Serves him right!” she cursed. “Scum like that—this is retribution!”

Zhu Wei didn’t last long after him.

Some of Xiang Shen’s relatives tried to contact Mu Xing—unaware there had been another child—but Director Mei chased them off with curses.

After graduating from university, Mu Xing stayed in Beijing for a few years, earned some money, then returned to Donghai for a quieter job.

He used his savings to renovate the orphanage.

Most of the children who had grown up with him had already graduated and found jobs.

Every New Year and festival, cars returned from all over, everyone gathering in laughter and noise.

Later, when Director Mei grew old, Mu Xing moved into the orphanage.

He resigned from his job and became the new director.

That was when he slowly came to understand the orphanage’s story.

Director Mei had once had a daughter. A car accident during a family trip took her daughter and unborn grandchild away, leaving her alone in the world. Broken, she happened to see a news report about abandoned children. She sold her house, emptied her savings, and founded the orphanage.

Uncle Li and Aunt Bai were her old friends. Their only son, a police officer, had died in the line of duty.

Uncle Wang’s daughter, a kindergarten teacher, had drowned while saving a child.

…

Each of them had known grief. But they chose to repay the world with love. They gathered here, in a place named “Hope,” to bring warmth to children who had also endured pain.

And there would always be someone willing to inherit their dream.

❣╰(⸝⸝⸝꒳⸝⸝⸝)╯❣

Sandy: 😭