Chapter 9

At that time, Jing Miao had been locked in the basement of some house, only waiting for nightfall to be taken to the airport.
Then Su Wan received a call from Xi Yucheng: their son was attempting suicide.
Just listen to how unfamiliar those words sounded—
Xi Siyan was attempting suicide.
Su Wan’s mind turned into mush. When she rushed back to the Xi residence, what she saw was her son holding a sharp Swiss army knife and driving it into his own thigh.
She screamed in terror.
Xi Siyan had deliberately worn white trousers; when the blood seeped through, it was horrifyingly obvious.
He moved too fast, leaving his parents no time to negotiate.
“Mom. Give Jing Miao back to me.” His face was deathly pale, yet his voice was calm.
Su Wan begged him to stop, begged him to let her bandage him, begged him to wake up.
Xi Siyan didn’t budge. He only repeated the same sentence:
“Give Jing Miao back to me.”
He didn’t ask where she had taken him.
He didn’t ask why she had done it.
He only demanded that she return Jing Miao.
Xi Yucheng, voice trembling with tears, called Wang Song and another close friend of Xi Siyan’s, Gan Zisen, because he no longer knew how to make Xi Siyan calm down. He could only plead with people of Xi Siyan’s own generation.
“Xiao Yan! Miaomiao isn’t here. Dad really doesn’t know. Can you let us bandage you first?”
Xi Siyan just smiled. “I know Dad doesn’t know. That’s why I’ve been waiting for Mom.”
Their house had surveillance everywhere. When Xi Siyan came home and found Jing Miao missing, he checked the cameras. Combine that with the scene half a month earlier—Su Wan bursting out after seeing the two of them together—and it wasn’t hard to guess who had done it.
Su Wan felt her heart stop.
Xi Yucheng looked at his wife, utterly confused.
“Mom,” Xi Siyan asked, “what will it take for you to give him back?”
Wang Song and Gan Zisen lived nearby. They ran over in minutes—only to watch their worldview crack.
Xi Siyan’s left leg bled. With one hand he held the blade to his own throat.
The action was deranged, yet his expression was eerily composed.
It was beyond strange.
“Mom, you don’t have to send him away. It’s such a hassle.” Xi Siyan smiled faintly. “He’s an orphan. No social ties. If he dies, no one would even care.”
He spoke as if he were saying class had been exhausting today.
“But he’s still alive, so I can’t die. Don’t torture me like this. If you want to end it, then end it—put his body in front of me, and I can be done too.”
Su Wan had raised her son for twenty-six years. She had carried him, given him her blood, watched him grow.
Now he was calmly saying he didn’t want to live anymore—saying he wanted to follow Jing Miao into death.
“Mom… please have mercy on me.”
Only when blood began to bead at his throat did Su Wan finally give in.
She cried as she called for people to bring Jing Miao back.
In those ten-odd minutes, she seemed to age ten years.
Gan Zisen came from a family of doctors. The moment he saw Xi Siyan’s bleeding leg, he had his family deliver a full set of emergency supplies. When Su Wan relented, Xi Siyan finally lowered the knife.
Gan Zisen and Wang Song were so frightened they could barely speak. They pinned Xi Siyan down and treated the wound.
After cutting open the pant leg, Gan Zisen let out a small breath of relief—thank god Xi Siyan hadn’t stabbed deep, and it hadn’t hit a major artery.
He babbled reassurance, “It’s okay, it’s okay. Not deep. It just looks scary—”
Xi Siyan laughed lightly. “I know. I didn’t really put force into it.”
After the initial bandaging, a taxi finally arrived with Jing Miao.
That was the second time they saw Xi Siyan truly lose control.
Jing Miao had been mistreated on the way back. The bruising and swelling should have made him look terrible, yet his face remained painfully, unbearably beautiful—almost more so than when he had been unharmed.
With blood at the corner of his mouth, his skin looked even whiter. His collarbones were delicate. His legs were long and straight. His waist was narrow.
To some people, he looked like someone worth violating.
Those men were shameless, and their thoughts went dirty.
Jing Miao’s mind was only that of a seven-year-old, but he understood shame, and he understood danger.
He fought with everything he had and tried to run—only to be yanked down the stairs, his leg breaking from the fall.
They mocked him. In the blinding pain of the fracture, Jing Miao could only call for gege again and again.
Only after Su Wan called and ordered them to bring him over did the worst of those intentions fail to happen.
They couldn’t openly appear in a villa district full of powerful families. So they shoved Jing Miao into a taxi, paid the driver a large bribe, and sent him off.
Half-delirious, Jing Miao was brought back to the Xi residence.
The driver tried to help him out, but Jing Miao screamed and wouldn’t let anyone touch him.
He crawled.
From the taxi, step by step, he crawled toward the inner room where the adults were gathered.
One leg was broken. He couldn’t stand. His clothes were torn. He cried and called for Xi Siyan.
Su Wan was stunned by how shattered he looked. She had only hit him a few times—how could it become this?
Xi Siyan didn’t even care about his own wound. He rushed over, stripped off his outer clothes, wrapped Jing Miao up, and lifted him into his arms, voice breaking as he asked what had happened.
“Leg… leg hurts, gege. My leg hurts. Don’t not want Miaomiao…”
Gan Zisen ran over. He only pressed Jing Miao’s kneecap once before his face changed.
“It’s a fracture. Now. Call an ambulance!”
Xi Siyan froze, watching with terrifying calm as the ambulance took Jing Miao—who was already fainting—away.
Then he picked up the Swiss army knife again.
Xi Yucheng’s eyelids twitched. He pulled Su Wan behind him. “Xi Siyan! Are you insane?!”
Wang Song grabbed at him. Xi Siyan didn’t move. He only pointed the knife at Su Wan—his own mother.
“A mother’s debt, a son repays. Natural law,” he said. “My mother’s sin—I’ll carry it.”
Like a madman, he raised the knife to drive it into his thigh again.