"Drink up quickly, drink it and go to sleep."
Adults could barely handle it, and the child was even more exhausted.
Zhouzhou hugged his milk bottle and chugged away, while Shen Zhiyu took her pajamas and headed into the bathroom.
Not long after she went in, her phone rang.
Hearing it while wandering around with his milk bottle, Zhouzhou ran toward the phone. Seeing his father's WeChat profile picture, he grabbed the phone and sprinted toward the bathroom. "Mom, Dad is video calling."
The apartment had no soundproofing, so not only could Zhouzhou's voice be heard, but the video call ringtone as well.
With a calm expression, she spoke to Zhouzhou outside: "Mom is busy right now, Zhouzhou can answer it for Mom, okay?"
"Okay. Zhouzhou isn't answering this in secret, oh, Mom told me to." Zhouzhou hugged the phone and walked back to the bed.
The bed was custom-made and a bit high, so he couldn't climb up.
However, that couldn't stop him; he used a stool to help himself up.
By the time he scrambled onto the bed bottom-first, the WeChat video call had already disconnected.
Zhouzhou stared blankly at the lock screen that had returned to view: "..."
He felt a bit wronged, a bit sad, and a bit upset.
He was just a little slow, why had Dad hung up so fast?
Unlike Shen Zhiyu, Zhouzhou wasn't reborn, and he still deeply admired and looked up to Lu Yunzhan as his father.
The screen lit up again, but this time it wasn't a call from Dad.
He knew whose it was—Dad's assistant uncle.
He often saw Dad contacting this assistant uncle and recognized his profile picture.
Why was the assistant uncle calling Mom?
Did something happen to Dad?
Filled with worry in his little head, he pressed answer.
As soon as the video connected, Lu Yunzhan's face appeared on the screen, and baby Zhouzhou cried out in pleasant surprise, "Dad!"
"Zhouzhou." Seeing his son, Lu Yunzhan glanced behind him. The background wasn't at home, and Shen Zhiyu was nowhere to be seen, so he asked, "Where's Mom?"
Zhouzhou pursed his lips. It was always like this.
Every time, Dad asked about Mom first.
"Dad, why don't you ask about me?" Little Zhouzhou pouted in dissatisfaction, but still answered honestly, "Mom is taking a bath."
Lu Yunzhan let out a hum and asked again, "Where are you right now?"
Mentioning this, Zhouzhou forgot his exhaustion and chatted endlessly with his dad, sharing everything he had seen and heard today.
Lu Yunzhan listened attentively, occasionally asking a question to keep the conversation going.
When Shen Zhiyu came out, Zhouzhou was lying on his tummy on the bed, clutching the phone and excitedly sharing today's events with Lu Yunzhan, his little bottom plump and sticking up in the air.
Shen Zhiyu walked over and couldn't resist letting her hand land on his bottom.
It bounced right back, and Shen Zhiyu couldn't help but give it another tap.
Zhouzhou put down the phone and covered his bottom. "Mom is so shy."
Shen Zhiyu withdrew her hand and smiled. "Zhouzhou, it's time to rest, oh."
Remembering that his dad was still on the video call, Zhouzhou said, "Mom, Dad, Dad was just asking about you."
"Do you want to see Dad?" Zhouzhou picked up the phone again.
Shen Zhiyu turned away. "Mom still needs to dry her hair, you chat with Dad."
Zhouzhou let out an "oh" and went back to chattering with his dad.
Lu Yunzhan, however, started spacing out.
Lately, Shen Zhiyu had been acting very strange.
Though his relationship with Shen Zhiyu wasn't as overly sweet and clinging as other couples', it had always been harmonious enough.
Right now, he felt like Shen Zhiyu was growing distant from him.
Why was that?
"Dad? Dad?" As Zhouzhou talked and talked, he noticed his dad hadn't paid attention to him for a long time. Looking closely, it seemed his dad was daydreaming.
Lu Yunzhan snapped out of it, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry, Zhouzhou. Dad might be too tired."
Zhouzhou was a good boy. Hearing that his dad was too tired, he told him to rest first and talk again after he was well-rested.
Lu Yunzhan was just about to ask if Mom had finished drying her hair yet—
The video call had already disconnected.
Lu Yunzhan: "..."
He didn't actually plan on resting just yet.
Zhouzhou hung up the phone and saw his mother wiping her hair with her back to him. He scurried over. "Mom, should I help you?"
Shen Zhiyu shook her head. "It's only a little damp. It's already dry." Mentioning drying her hair was just an excuse to fob Zhouzhou off; she hadn't wanted to answer Lu Yunzhan's call.
"Are you tired? It's time for bed."
Mentioning sleep brought on a yawn from Zhouzhou.
Covering his little mouth, he let out several yawns in a row, physiological tears welling up in the corners of his eyes. "Zhouzhou is sleepy."
"Go to sleep then." Tomorrow might be an early start.
Zhouzhou nodded. "Goodnight, Mom."
Zhouzhou was genuinely, truly sleepy.
He fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.
Shen Zhiyu looked at how easily he fell asleep and felt a bit envious.
[Host, I have something here that can help you sleep. Do you want it?] Xiao Bai's voice sounded.
"No need." She could also feel the fatigue; she should be able to fall asleep shortly.
Since she didn't want it, Xiao Bai didn't force the issue. [Alright.]
[Host, get some rest early. Tomorrow might be an early start.]
Shen Zhiyu lay down, reached out to pull her son into her arms, tucked the thin blanket around him, closed her eyes, and tried to drift off to sleep.
Perhaps because she had heard Lu Yunzhan's voice before bed, that night, she dreamt of her past life.
Zhouzhou had been sold to a remote village by human traffickers, his ankles locked with heavy iron chains. He grew up underfed and poorly clothed, scrawny and tiny, with hollow eyes.
Even after enduring countless hardships to grow up and being found by his father, he never received genuine kindness.
Instead, he was treated as a foil to be compared against the male lead, abused, and thus pushed onto a path of no return.
The final scene froze on the untethered, carefree smile Zhouzhou wore when he was executed by firing squad.
"Zhouzhou. Zhouzhou..." Shen Zhiyu woke up drenched in sweat.
She was holding a small heater in her arms—Zhouzhou had a fever.
Her mind was filled with Zhouzhou's suffering after her death, but she calmly got up to take his temperature: 38.7 degrees Celsius.
She gave him physical cooling measures.
Once Zhouzhou's fever broke, Shen Zhiyu finally had time to check the time.
Four-thirty-six in the morning.
Looking at Zhouzhou, who was sleeping restlessly and murmuring 'Mom' in his sleep, and thinking of his fate in her past life, tears streamed down Shen Zhiyu's face.
She gently patted Zhouzhou's small body. "Zhouzhou, don't be afraid. Mom is right here with Zhouzhou, oh."
The tender face before her overlapped with the face in her dream.
When he heard the gunshot of his execution, there had been no fear or terror, only relief.
Was he perhaps glad that this damn life of his was finally over?
Holding Zhouzhou, she silently vowed: In this life, Mom's Zhouzhou will only grow up happy and joyful.
Shen Zhiyu dialed her close friend who ran a detective agency.
"Help me look up someone."
"In the middle of the night, couldn't you wait until dawn to contact me?" Her friend, woken from a deep sleep, was extremely irritated. "Do you know I was just about to aggressively push someone down and sleep with them?"
Shen Zhiyu's voice was cold. "No."
"Right now," she repeated.
Sensing that something was wrong with the emotion in her tone, her friend suppressed the irritation of being woken up. "Fine. Who are you saying to investigate?"
"To investigate your husband? To see if he's cheating during the marriage?" There was even a hint of excitement in her tone.
No matter how busy a man was, he wouldn't be too busy to send a single message; the other party simply hadn't wanted to bother with her friend.
That was what she had said back then, but her friend hadn't believed it.
Now she knew to come begging for help?
"Not him," Shen Zhiyu denied.
"Then who?" The excitement in her friend's tone instantly dropped a few notches.