Chapter 8

At first, she didn’t care much about this nominal adopted son.
She did what was necessary for appearances: make sure Jing Miao had food and clothes and couldn’t become a public scandal.
The rupture point came when Xi Siyan suddenly stopped erupting and started treating Jing Miao well.
Too well.
Her son—whose brain she joked was worth a hundred million—suddenly became some kind of full-time domestic caregiver, wanting to handle everything about Jing Miao personally, as if he’d do even bathing himself.
And somehow, Jing Miao became spoiled under his care.
If Xi Siyan wasn’t there, Jing Miao wouldn’t touch his food.
If Xi Siyan didn’t come home, Jing Miao wouldn’t take medicine or sleep.
When Xi Siyan went to school, Jing Miao would hide in his room and cry all day, no food, no water, no communication.
At first, Su Wan didn’t let anyone tell Xi Siyan.
He had an important seminar at the time; she didn’t want him distracted.
A week later, Xi Siyan suddenly confronted the cook, demanding to know why Jing Miao had lost weight, saying his waistline had shrunk by at least four centimeters.
When he was angry, he was terrifying.
The cook could only shake and tell the truth:
when Xi Siyan was out during the day, Jing Miao barely left his room.
Xi Siyan had a huge fight with Su Wan.
Su Wan, who believed she was acting for her son’s sake, laughed in anger:
“Is he starving to death? I was protecting your focus! Your seminar was so important!”
“Mom, his health is already fragile. If he skips meals and drops that much in one day, give it more time and starvation is entirely possible.”
Xi Siyan’s voice was cold.
Su Wan snapped back, “Did that fool complain to you?”
Xi Siyan laughed coldly.
“If he knew how to complain, he would have done it on day one. I was the one negligent. I didn’t ask every day what he ate. I assumed this family was trustworthy.”
He had no interest in arguing principles with her.
A few days later, while she was out at a beauty appointment, Xi Siyan packed up and moved with Jing Miao to an apartment near campus.
In those few days, he had bought and fully set up the place—daily necessities, surveillance, security, everything.
Then he left the Xi family residence with Jing Miao.
Su Wan, in fury, began sensing something worse.
As Xi Siyan’s mother—and as a sensitive woman—she feared something terrifying might be happening.
At the time, Xi Yucheng comforted her:
“He’s grown up. He needs personal space. If he won’t live in dorms, living near school is fine.”
Su Wan couldn’t refute that.
Xi Siyan had always had his own mind. They were never able to easily control him.
But she still felt uneasy.
The look on Xi Siyan’s face when angry.
The way he said Jing Miao had lost four centimeters at the waist.
How did he know Jing Miao’s waist measurement?
Was he measuring him every day?
As feared, what Su Wan worried about became real.
In the third month after Xi Siyan moved out, she couldn’t hold back.
She estimated Xi Siyan’s class hours, got a key to his apartment, and planned to sneak in and look around.
But that day happened to be unlucky:
Jing Miao had caught a chill and was running a slight fever. Sick Jing Miao was especially clingy—if he couldn’t see Xi Siyan for a moment, he cried. So Xi Siyan had taken leave to stay home with him.
Su Wan opened the door like a thief and saw her son holding that “fool” on the couch, watching TV.
While watching, Xi Siyan shelled boiled peanuts and fed him.
Jing Miao rubbed his forehead against Xi Siyan’s face smiling.
Xi Siyan pinched his ear to tease him, then held him to his chest and rubbed his back.
That intimacy was seamless.
She nearly fainted.
After returning, Su Wan began planning to send Jing Miao away.
Her hand shook while dialing calls, yet she was strangely calm.
Deep down she knew where the problem lay, but she couldn’t bear to place that sin on her own son.
She sent people to stake out the apartment for half a month.
Finally they caught a time when Xi Siyan was away—and abducted Jing Miao directly.
Later, when Su Wan looked back on that time, she felt not only regret, but unwillingness.
The plan was to seize him and send him to Italy immediately.
Before departure, she wanted to say a few words to him.
In the days after, before she had fully processed things, sometimes she thought she should never have said those words—she should have sent him away directly. If she had, would everything that followed have been avoided?
More often, she regretted every single thing she had done.
Over the previous year, Jing Miao had called her “Auntie.”
She tried to make him call her “godmother,” but he was stubborn:
“You’re gege’s mother, so I should call you auntie.”
She had spent decades in business and seen every kind of scene.
To send him away openly, she would still need to do it transparently and cleanly, otherwise Xi Yucheng’s political career could suffer.
So she took a darker path and hired men who were not good people.
They were not gentle with Jing Miao.
When she saw him, he was still tied up roughly, wrists and ankles rubbed bright red, face wet with tears.
Su Wan thought:
At first, she had really liked Jing Miao.
He had saved her son.
Though mentally seven, he was obedient and sensible, and beautiful—beautiful even in misery.
Perhaps outsiders would even praise her for “raising sons so well,” two boys like rare jewels.
But fate played cruelly.
All because of her.
If she hadn’t forced Xi Siyan from the start to become a “responsible adult,” if she herself had borne this responsibility instead, then perhaps…
Perhaps she wouldn’t have lost one normal son, and after growing attached, might even have gained another beautiful one.
“I’ll have people care for you for life. Let my son go.”
Jing Miao cried and shouted, “Gege! Gege save me!”
She lost control and slapped him hard.
Blood appeared at the corner of his mouth.
His face went numb with pain, but that couldn’t suppress his fear.
“Please, auntie, give gege back to me. Please, auntie. Miaomiao will be good. I won’t steal candy anymore. Please, auntie!”
“Your gege doesn’t want you anymore. Stop calling him.”
She said it coldly while he cried and kept calling out.
She had never hated like this before.
All her resentment spilled out in one slap after another.
Five times?
Six?
Su Wan couldn’t remember.
She only remembered calming down a little when Jing Miao’s face was swollen beyond recognition.
At that moment, a vicious thought crossed her mind:
It was this face.
All this was this face’s fault.
If this face were destroyed, Xi Siyan might wake up.