The book mentions that Xu Yanshu was only thirteen years old when her father brought her home, but at that time she already showed a calmness and wisdom that was different from her peers.
It all started when the teacher discovered that Xu Yanshu possessed an extraordinary sense of smell and a talent for chemistry. She paid out of her own pocket to enroll her in a youth competition sponsored by the Xu Group. As expected, after a short period of training, Xu Yanshu's performance far surpassed that of high school students who were seven or eight years older than her, and she won first place in the competition.
It was through this that she came into contact with Xu's father, who was originally a person who cherished talent, and Xu Yanshu's pitiful background reminded him of his own daughter.
They hoped that if their daughter were still alive, she could be adopted and cared for by a kind person, so with this prayerful heart, they adopted Xu Yanshu.
"Six months ago, your father participated in a charity project and brought back a little girl. She was very smart but also very pitiful. She lost her parents when she was very young." Xu's mother stopped to observe Xu Chacha's expression.
Instead of showing any sadness or rejection, Xu Chacha opened her eyes wide with curiosity and asked, "Did Mom take her in, just like my sister took me in?"
“Yes… Mom took her in, and she’s living with us now.” Mrs. Xu lowered her voice. “Will Chacha be sad? Mom absolutely did not mean to replace you with another child.”
“Chacha knows.” Xu Chacha stretched out her little hand and placed it on the back of her mother’s hand. “If it weren’t for my sister Chacha, I wouldn’t have met my parents. So Chacha thinks that my parents taking in that little kid is doing a good deed, just like my sister.”
When the original owner heard the news, she made a big fuss and even went on a hunger strike to protest. However, at that time, she was fifteen years old and Xu Yanshu was twenty-one. The latter had already begun to get involved in the internal affairs of the Xu Group, so Xu Chacha's protest was useless. Instead, it made Xu Yanshu wary of her, which foreshadowed their future falling out.
But Xu Chacha knew that Xu Yanshu hadn't done anything wrong at all. For so many years in the Xu family, she had been working hard and focusing on her studies, all in order to repay her parents in the future.
Moreover, Xu Yanshu initially intended to get along well with this younger sister, but after the other party kept mocking her for being an orphan and even stole a very important perfume formula, causing tens of millions of dollars worth of experiments to go down the drain, she finally couldn't help but fight back.
"I'm sorry, Chacha." Mother Xu held back her tears, speechless for a moment in the face of such a well-behaved and sensible girl as Xu Chacha.
She knew that children are sensitive, and said that she had been worried that Xu Chacha would have bad thoughts. She had mentally rehearsed countless times and thought of many tactful words, but she did not expect Xu Chacha to react like this in the end.
"Don't cry, Mom." Xu Chacha stood up, went around to her mother's side, and tiptoed to wipe her eyes with her hand. "Why cry when you've done something good? You should smile!"
"Okay, Mom, don't cry." Xu's mother forced a smile at her.
After calming down Parent No. 1, Xu Chacha sat back down and naturally transitioned the topic.
"Why isn't that little kid here today?"
"She lives at school and only goes home on weekends. Does Chacha want to see her?"
"Yes!" Xu Chacha nodded vigorously. "Chacha likes to play with other children."
"Can Mom pick her up this weekend?"
"Mmm!" Xu Chacha smiled like an angel. "I hope that little kid will like Chacha."
Chapter 10
The meal ended with Xu Chacha being so full she could barely walk.
"Come on, Mom will show you your room."
Xu Chacha wiped her mouth and hands clean, took two steps with her short legs, ran over and took her hand.
Xu Chacha's room has remained unchanged for the past four years. A cleaning lady comes every week to clean it, and Xu's parents update the furniture every year, just to prepare it to be ready to welcome its owner back at any time.
“Your sister’s room is right across the street,” Xu’s mother told her. “Your sister’s name is Xu Yanshu, you can call her Sister Yanshu.”
"Mmm." Then she pointed to herself, "So, is Cha Cha's surname also Xu now, and her name is Xu Cha Cha?"
"Yes." Xu's mother smiled with relief and patted her bangs. "Our baby is so smart."
"hey-hey."
Upon opening the door, Xu Chacha witnessed firsthand the Xu family's extravagance.
She suddenly realized that what was written in Mary Sue novels wasn't fiction at all. Just look at this room—the bathroom alone was bigger than her aunt's living room, and the bed prepared for a seven-year-old could easily sleep seven or eight adults.
She swallowed hard, mentally preparing herself to assume the role of "the richest man's daughter".
Ahhh, this is so much fun! It's so good to be rich! This happiness feels even more real after sleeping in the woodshed for a week.
"It's getting late. Mommy will give you a nice bath, and then we'll go to bed, okay?"
"You can wash the tea yourself."
"No, your Aunt Mu Bai specifically told me that you have many wounds that you can't get wet, so you have to be careful."
"Mu Bai... Auntie?" Xu Chacha asked in confusion.
“Oh right, you’ve always called her sister.” Xu’s mother picked her up and sat her on the edge of the bathtub, explaining to her, “Mu Bai’s father and your grandfather are of the same generation, but you are a generation younger than her, so you have to call her aunt.”
This sounded like a tongue twister, and it took Xu Chacha a while to understand. Even though the Xu family and the Wen family were not related, this circle paid great attention to seniority, so Wen Mubai, an eighteen-year-old girl, had to be addressed as "Auntie".
"It's okay to call her that in private, but remember to call her 'Auntie' in front of others; it's more polite." Xu's mother pinched her nose. "Got it?"
"I've got it..."
Xu Chacha's resistance was futile, and she finally succumbed to her mother's "clutches," having to be washed from head to toe.
When she came out, her innocent eyes had already lost their luster. Like a puppet, she was dressed in a pink pig-patterned nightgown that matched her slippers and carried to bed by her mother.
How long does she have to endure this cycle of having to take baths? Waaaaaah!
The delicate little baby lay on the bed, silently shedding tears.
"Goodnight, baby." Xu's mother lifted Xu Chacha's bangs and kissed her fair forehead.
Xu Chacha buried herself in the blanket until only her bright, blinking doe eyes were visible as she looked at her mother. "Goodnight, Mom."
With a kind smile, Xu's mother tidied the blankets for Xu Chacha, turned off the light, and finally turned away and shed tears as she left the room and closed the door.
She choked back tears all the way back to the bedroom and lay down next to her straight husband.
"You have no idea how much it hurts me. I just bathed Chacha and saw the injuries on her body—burns from cigarette butts, blows from wooden sticks, and three long fingernail marks on her arm." Mrs. Xu said in a low voice, "How could they do this to such a young child?"
Mr. Xu, with his back turned, spoke in a deep voice, “I have already sent a lawyer to handle this. I will absolutely not let those two off easily, and I will never settle.”
"Fortunately, we have all the evidence and testimonies now, so the case can be processed faster." Xu's mother composed herself. "Right now, I'm only thinking about how to make it up to my child. She's still so young; I hope she won't suffer any psychological trauma."
"..."
"We'll have a psychologist come and take a look at her another day."
"..."
"By the way, Mu Bai said this child likes Hello Kitty, I'll find some time to renovate her room."
"..."
Seeing that her husband hadn't responded, Xu's mother finally stopped nagging. Then, she keenly caught a faint sob in the quiet air.
"No way," Xu's mother sighed, "Are you crying?"
"A man doesn't easily shed tears." This implies that he didn't cry.
"Really?" Hearing the thick nasal tone that the straight man couldn't hide, Xu's mother took a tissue from the bedside and handed it to him. "Then please wipe your snot so it doesn't get on the new pillowcase."
"I didn't cry." Mr. Xu still wanted to maintain his domineering CEO image.
Want to get beaten up?
"Hmph—" Accompanied by the sound of snot flowing from his nose, a certain middle-aged man surnamed Xu couldn't help but speak up, "My poor little angel Chacha, it's Daddy's fault for not protecting you, it's Daddy's fault for being useless..."
—The father had a son in middle age, so he valued this daughter very much.
If Xu Chacha knew about this, she would probably ask in a friendly manner: Is this the same Xu father who insisted on kicking "me" out of the family in the original text?
"What did you just say our daughter like?"
"Hello Kitty".
"good."
Mr. Xu got up, put on his glasses, took out his phone, opened an orange-colored app, entered keywords, and filtered out "inferior products" priced below 5,000 yuan.
Buy the pink bed sheet with Hello Kitty printed on it!
Pink cat hair clip, my daughter looks so cute wearing one, I'll buy it!
Crystal Hello Kitty necklace, buy it!
Pretty little dress, I'll buy it!
I'll buy another big plush toy to keep my daughter company while she sleeps!
"Shut up. With your taste, you're lucky if you're not criticized. Didn't you see Cha Cha's expression when she wore those slippers?"
"Really?" Mr. Xu thought for a moment and handed the phone to his wife. "Then you can help me choose."
"What are you going to choose? I'm not going to." But Ms. Xu, though saying one thing, quickly sat up and her fingers nimbly swiped across the screen. "Don't buy this one with lace trim, it'll chafe a child's skin. And check the filling material of this cushion..."
So, in the middle of the night, the two people, whose combined age was almost 100, compared prices at three different stores and spent nearly three hours choosing items, only stopping when the order number reached 99+.
"It's been a long time since I've spent money like this." Xu's mother lay back on the bed, feeling a strange sense of satisfaction.
Mr. Xu turned off his phone. "Yes, spending money on our daughter—"
"So happy!" they both exclaimed in unison.
...
At the same time, Xu Chacha, whom Xu's parents thought was a good child, was not asleep. She lay quietly in bed and only got up after she felt that they were almost asleep.
Xu Chacha stretched out her toes on the carpet looking for slippers, but soon she remembered the "plop plop" sound of the slippers and gave up the idea of wearing them. So she tiptoed out of the bedroom door and slipped into the living room barefoot.
She saw a landline phone while eating earlier, which she could use to make a call.
She took out the paper that had been warmed in her arms and carefully unfolded and smoothed it out. Only then did she realize that the "paper strip" was much bigger than she had imagined, as big as a whole A4 sheet of paper.
There was a portrait drawn on the paper, showing her sleeping. Judging from the pattern on the blanket, it must have been drawn by Wen Mubai at the guesthouse last night.
Xu Chacha touched the painting, from the strands of hair to the shadows on the skin. Every stroke of Wen Mubai's painting was full of tenderness and meticulousness. Her fingers finally landed on the line of words at the bottom.
May you always be enveloped in light.
A phone number was written on the back of the paper, and it started with the city of A. Xu Chacha dialed the number one by one.
The phone rang for a while before someone answered. Xu Chacha asked softly, her voice low and strained, "Is this Aunt Wen Mubai?"
"What?" The other person seemed a little confused by the unfamiliar address, but quickly recognized the little boy's voice. She chuckled, "Did your mother tell you?"
"Yes, Mom said you should call me Auntie, it's more polite that way."
"It doesn't matter what you shout."
Wen Mubai had just finished showering, and water was still dripping from the ends of her hair. The water droplets gathered on her white T-shirt and slid down her smooth skin into her collar, but she ignored them all.
It was probably because the silence on the other end of the phone had been too long, and it was her turn, the one who didn't talk much, to start a conversation.