Chapter 280: You Don’t Understand Our Sadness

Gu Qingsong strode up to Gu Baozhu, his gaze rippling with emotion. He wanted to pick her up but was afraid of scaring her, so he crouched down in front of her, meeting her eyes at the same level. He softly asked, “Baozhu, did you come… to find me?”

Gu Baozhu took a closer look at him. The unkempt beard on his face made him appear especially scruffy, and the scar on his nose looked fierce. Yet, the way he gazed at her was gentle, just like the way her mother looked at her.

She nervously fidgeted with the hem of her skirt. If Mother Gu or Su Wan had been there, they would have immediately recognized this as a sign that Gu Baozhu was anxious and uncertain.

Gu Baozhu blinked, her tear-filled eyes threatening to overflow, making her look pitiful and vulnerable.

“I… if I didn’t come to find you, wouldn’t you come to find me?”

Gu Qingsong shook his head, his heart melting into a mess of tenderness. “I would come to find you.”

“Then why did I wait for so, so long, and you still didn’t come to find us?”

Gu Baozhu bit her lip and stretched out her hand, counting on her fingers one by one. “Big Brother wasn’t in good health and was always taking medicine. It was Sister-in-law who cured him. Second Brother was also in poor health when he was young. Aunt Wang said that Mother worried so much about him that she cried secretly every night. She cried so much that her eyes became weak. When the wind blows, her eyes tear up, and at night, she can’t see things clearly.”

“Mother took Second Brother to get treatment, and Aunt Wang looked after me. I only had rice soup to eat. Mother said that when I was three years old, I finally started growing hair because I didn’t have milk to drink, so my hair wouldn’t grow.”

Gu Baozhu grabbed a handful of her hair and showed it to Gu Qingsong. “Look, my hair is still yellow even now.”

“And also, the people in the village all cursed Mother, saying she had a hard fate and that she jinxed you to death. That’s why Big Brother and Second Brother were in poor health. The kids in the village wouldn’t play with me or my brothers, afraid we would jinx them too, and they often bullied me.”

Gu Baozhu lifted her bangs, revealing a smooth forehead and pointing to a scar caused by Su Wan’s earlier actions. “They hit me with a slingshot. Second Brother stood up for me and got beaten so badly his face turned blue, and blood came out of his nose. Mother said that Father was all-powerful and a great hero. Back then, I really hoped Father would appear like a hero.”

Gu Baozhu intentionally said these things to let Gu Qingsong know how much her mother had suffered for him. Yet as she recounted these past events, she couldn’t stop her tears from streaming down. “It was Mother who showed up.”

Gu Qingsong felt as though a knife had plunged into his chest, twisting violently and leaving a bloody hole behind. The veins on the back of his hand bulged, his muscles trembled, and his jaw tightened as he clenched his teeth hard.

“I asked her if Father was someone she had jinxed to death, and if I was a fatherless wild child. Mother said I wasn’t a fatherless wild child, that Father had gone far away to help those in need.”

Gu Baozhu sniffled, her face full of confusion as she asked Gu Qingsong, “Mother never told me what ‘jinxed to death’ means. Do you know?”

Gu Qingsong’s throat tightened, and Baozhu’s words robbed him of his ability to speak. He couldn’t utter a single word.

“You don’t know?” Gu Baozhu stared at the tear tracks in his eyes and wiped away the tears on her face with her sleeve. “When I grew up, I understood. I knew that my father wasn’t someone Mother jinxed to death; he died in the mouth of a wild beast. I stopped envying others for having a father, and I no longer wanted one.”

“Baozhu…”

“Because I have an amazing sister-in-law. She married Big Brother and is so good to me, Mother, and my brothers. She’s the reason we can eat our fill, wear warm clothes, go to school, and even fight off those who bully us. Our family is living a good life now, and everyone envies me for having such a wonderful sister-in-law.”

Gu Baozhu’s face lit up with a sweet smile. “I hope our family can stay like this forever. In the future, there will be little nephews and nieces, and a second sister-in-law. I don’t want anything else.”