Chapter 109: Wentao’s Hidden Wound

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When Jiaoyan and Shaoyuan entered the room, they saw Wentao curled up in a corner at the far end of the kang, his expression dull and vacant. No matter what Gu Chengyong and Madam Feng said to him, he seemed unable to hear a word. His eyes remained unfocused and empty.

Gu Chengyong sighed. The child had probably been left with a lasting trauma. On ordinary days, he seemed perfectly fine, but the moment anyone mentioned his past, he became a different person. And it was understandable. Even an adult might not have been able to endure everything he had gone through at such a young age—his family being ruined, fleeing for their lives, and being separated from his parents. How much more difficult must it have been for a child?

During his time with the Gu family, Wentao had sincerely tried to forget the past. He truly wanted to live together with them as a family. His old wounds had merely been buried beneath deliberate forgetfulness. Once something stirred them, all that pain came rushing back at once.

Li-shi’s single insult—calling him a bastard—had directly awakened the emotions Wentao had kept suppressed inside. Thus, no matter how Gu Chengyong and Madam Feng tried to persuade him, he remained immersed in his sorrow, unwilling to return to his senses.

“Father and Mother have been talking to him for quite some time, but he’s still like this. He isn’t listening to anyone,” Wenxiu said with a sigh as he looked at Wentao.

Though Wentao had plenty of ill temper, and though his arrival had brought countless upheavals to the Gu family, Wenxiu and the others had already come to regard him as their own brother. Seeing him in such a state naturally made Wenxiu feel miserable as well.

Jiaoyan climbed onto the kang and came before Wentao. “Second Brother? It’s me, Jiaoyan. Look at me. I’m Jiaoyan.”

Wentao remained as dull and unresponsive as before, ignoring her completely.

Jiaoyan grew anxious. Surely the child had not been driven mad by grief? “Second Brother, you can’t go on like this. Uncle and Aunt Lin are still alive. They’re waiting for you to grow up and rescue them. If they knew you were like this, they would be heartbroken.”

She reached out, took Wentao’s hand, and raised her voice as she tried to persuade him.

Yet Wentao showed no sign of improving.

“Jiaoyan, don’t waste your efforts. Your mother and I have been talking to him for ages, but he’s still the same,” Gu Chengyong said with a sigh. “The child’s trapped in his own mind. This is an illness of the heart. He has to find his own way out of it.”

“Father, are we really going to let Second Brother remain like this? What if he can never get over it? Is he supposed to stay this way forever?” Jiaoyan was becoming increasingly anxious. This was no trivial matter. If something truly went wrong with Wentao’s mind, then everything they had done for him would be in vain.

“Go fetch your master and ask him to take a look,” Madam Feng suggested. “Perhaps he’ll have a way to help.”

Jiaoyan’s eyes lit up. Of course—she still had her master. He was a renowned physician and ought to have some way of helping.

“I’ll go get Master right now.”

With that, Jiaoyan hurried down from the kang. “Brother Shaoyuan, let’s go back and fetch Master together.”

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Shaoyuan shook his head. “There’s no need. I can cure him myself.”

Everyone in the room froze. It was common knowledge that Shaoyuan had never taken much interest in studying medicine. Since when had he learned to treat people? Was he joking?

“Shaoyuan, this isn’t a trivial matter. Stop fooling around,” Wenxiu said sternly.

Shaoyuan merely shook his head. Without even removing his shoes, he climbed onto the kang and reached out, dragging Wentao down from it. Shaoyuan was extremely strong, and he pulled Wentao to the floor without the slightest effort. Then, without bothering to check whether Wentao was wearing shoes, he seized him by the collar and dragged him into the outer room.

The outer room was more spacious. Shaoyuan gripped Wentao by the collar and stood facing him. Then, without a word, he punched Wentao squarely in the face.

“What do you have to be sad about? Your parents are still alive. They’re merely far away. At least they’re still alive!”

“Do you even know how good your life is now? You have my master and mistress doting on you, Wenxiu and the others protecting you, and a little sister like Jiaoyan caring about you. What more do you want? You’re already far better off than most people. And you’re still not satisfied? Someone says one lousy thing to you, and you turn into this pathetic mess? Are you unhappy that life in the Gu family is too comfortable?”

As he spoke, Shaoyuan continued throwing punches. One after another, he struck Wentao several more times.

“Do you know how many people envy the life you have? Hmph. You can’t even bear being called a bastard once. If you had been called that from childhood, if people had pointed at you everywhere you went and said you were a fatherless child, you would have hanged yourself long ago!”

The members of the Gu family were so shocked by Shaoyuan’s sudden attack that, for a moment, they forgot to separate the two boys. Only then did Gu Chengyong react. He hurried forward and pulled them apart.

“Shaoyuan, Wentao is upset. Don’t hit him!”

“I’m hitting him precisely so I can knock some sense into him. What an idiot—a blockhead with a dead-set mind! It was only one sentence, and he’s already acting like this. If the two of us switched places—if you had lost your father as a child and were despised everywhere you went, with people calling you a fatherless bastard behind your back—why, you’d have gone mad or become an idiot by now. You’re hopeless. Someone like you doesn’t deserve to be cherished and protected by Master’s family!”

Shaoyuan ignored Gu Chengyong completely and kicked Wentao again.

“If you have any ability at all, then open your eyes and apply yourself! Study when you should study, practice martial arts when you should practice. So what if people laugh at you? The more they mock you, the harder you must strive to succeed. When the day comes that you have real strength, let’s see who will still dare to insult or ridicule you!”

“With that useless temper of yours, unable to bear a single remark, running home to cry and pretend to be a madman—what kind of ability is that? You’re a coward. They were right to curse you. Your parents might as well stop waiting for you to rescue them. With your spineless, idiotic nature, what makes you think you can save them?”

Shaoyuan glared at Wentao, his vicious tongue showing no sign of stopping.

Gu Chengyong still had hold of Wentao, but the boy’s eyes had gradually regained their clarity. The vacancy had disappeared, and expression had returned to his face.

“You little bastard! How dare you hit me?” Wentao wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. “Fine. I’ll show you whether I’m a coward!”

Having recovered, he lunged straight at Shaoyuan. The two broke free of Gu Chengyong and immediately began wrestling and trading blows.

Gu Chengyong had never expected Wentao to regain consciousness at that moment, much less to start fighting Shaoyuan. He hurried forward to pull them apart.

“Wenxiu, quick—separate them!”

“Father, let them fight,” Jiaoyan said, stopping both Gu Chengyong and Wenxiu. “Second Brother needs to vent. Can’t you see that he’s come back to himself? He’s been holding everything inside. A fight may do him good.”

Everyone exchanged uncertain glances. It hardly seemed like a proper solution.

“Jiaoyan, what are you saying? What if one of the boys gets hurt?” Madam Feng cried anxiously as she moved to pull them apart.

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Before Madam Feng could reach them, the two boys—already panting heavily on the floor—had separated.

Dust clung to both Wentao’s and Shaoyuan’s clothes. Their faces were swollen and flushed, Wentao had blood at the corner of his mouth, and several red marks stood out across Shaoyuan’s face.

Wentao sat on the floor and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You hit pretty hard. Just wait. If I ever get the chance, I’ll beat you flat on your back.”

Shaoyuan was baring his teeth in pain. He was already carrying injuries, and fighting Wentao had pulled at his wounds. Now every part of him hurt terribly.

“So you’re not an idiot anymore? I thought you’d spend the rest of your life acting like that. And you call yourself a man? You couldn’t bear one lousy remark? I’ve lost count of how many times people have called me a bastard since I was little, and I never turned into this.”

The people standing nearby could not help feeling heavy-hearted when they heard that.

Seeing how casually Shaoyuan spoke of being called a bastard, Jiaoyan suddenly felt a sharp ache in her heart. The child must have endured countless hardships while growing up. If he had not been so strong-willed, optimistic, and cheerful, who knew what he might have become?

“All right, you two, get up already. Qin Shaoyuan, you’re injured, yet you still went and picked a fight. Just wait until Master hears about this—he’ll skin you alive.”

Jiaoyan felt sorry for all Shaoyuan had endured, but the chaotic scene before her still made her somewhat angry.

“Let me look at your injuries. Be careful not to reopen the wounds, or you’ll suffer for it.”

Shaoyuan only grinned impishly. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

At that moment, Wenxiu and Wenqi came over and pulled both Shaoyuan and Wentao to their feet.

Seeing their disheveled state, Madam Feng shook her head. “Go back inside and change your clothes at once. Not one of you is easy to look after. Just look at those clothes—how filthy they are! Jiaoyan, hurry and examine Shaoyuan’s injuries. When did you get hurt, anyway?”

Madam Feng understood perfectly well that without Shaoyuan’s beating, Wentao might not have regained consciousness so quickly. Still, fighting was ultimately not a good thing, so she could only put on a stern face and scold both boys.

Wenxiu and Wenqi led Wentao away to change his clothes, while Jiaoyan dragged Shaoyuan, her face cold, into the eastern room to examine his injuries.

Wentao glanced back at Shaoyuan and said awkwardly, “Hey, thanks. But don’t think I’m going to forget you beating me today. Just wait. When I get the chance, I’ll pay you back. You hit too hard.”

Shaoyuan shrugged, completely unconcerned. “Sure. That depends on whether you’re capable of it. Let’s see when you’ll be able to beat me.”

“Enough! You two are forbidden to fight from now on. How annoying!”

Jiaoyan was angry as she shouted at them, her face stern.

Shaoyuan could not help bursting into laughter. “Jiaoyan, you don’t scare anyone when you look like that.”

In Shaoyuan’s eyes, Jiaoyan’s face was flushed with anger, and her large eyes glittered with blazing fury. No matter how he looked at her, she was simply adorable—she possessed not the slightest power to intimidate anyone.