CFRFGC Chapter 9

Thank you to 貝妮_Blazy for the ko-fi~

⌈Who was the child in his dream?⌋

The daylight was bright and the sun carried a scorching sensation unique to summer.

Shen Xingzhuo felt himself jump down from the steps and run into the courtyard.

The steps seemed unusually tall and so did the grass on the ground.

The arrangement of the courtyard was both incredibly familiar and strangely unfamiliar.

After staring at it for a while, Shen Xingzhuo vaguely realized that this seemed to be the old Shen family residence.

He had lived there until he was seven.

Later, after Old Master Shen fell ill and went to a care facility, the Shen family moved to their current villa.

Shen Xingzhuo jumped onto the grass and, with practiced ease, ran around to the backyard, heading straight for something.

By the railing in the courtyard squatted a little boy.

The boy looked about three or four years old, wearing a white T-shirt with a cartoon robot cat printed on it and blue denim overalls.

His black hair was fine and soft, clinging to his fair and tender skin, making him look like a little white and soft rice ball from a distance.

The boy’s small, chubby hands were gripping the railing tightly in front of him.

A yellow bucket and a small shovel were placed beside him, but his attention was entirely elsewhere.

His head was curiously pressed against the railing, looking at something beyond.

As Shen Xingzhuo got closer, he instinctively lightened his steps.

He tiptoed behind the little boy and suddenly reached out to ruffle his hair.

The boy jumped in surprise.

But when he turned around and saw it was Shen Xingzhuo, his large, bright black eyes immediately curved into a smile.

His eyes were big, with the corners slightly drooping like a puppy’s.

When he looked up, Shen Xingzhuo’s reflection filled his black pupils.

The boy wasn’t scared by Shen Xingzhuo’s prank. Instead, he mysteriously beckoned Shen Xingzhuo over.

In a slightly slurred baby voice, he whispered, “Shh! Brother, look!”

Shen Xingzhuo leaned in and saw that just outside the courtyard wall, a litter of stray dogs was passing by.

The mother dog in front was sniffing the ground for food.

Four little puppies trailed behind, already able to run, causing a bit of mischief.

The stray dogs were all different colors—black, yellow, and mottled.

One by one, they rolled around on their short legs.

“Brother.”

The little boy beside him asked in a quiet voice, “Can I pet the doggies?”

Shen Xingzhuo also wanted to pet them.

With his usual impulsiveness, he almost wanted to rush out and catch one to take home.

But hearing that slurred “brother”, Shen Xingzhuo forced himself to act serious and said, “Only the ones we own can be petted.”

The little boy looked a bit disappointed but also a little hopeful. He asked, “Then can we get one?”

“We’ll ask Grandpa later!” Shen Xingzhuo said.

“Mm!” The boy nodded enthusiastically.

His attention quickly returned to the dogs outside the railing.

Pointing at a little black dog, he said, “I want to keep that little black one. It’s small and the other dogs will bully it.”

Shen Xingzhuo didn’t mind which dog they kept.

However, a mischievous desire to tease the little boy surged within Shen Xingzhuo, so he deliberately twisted the conversation and said, “Let’s keep the yellow one. It’s the biggest and we’ll call it ‘Da Huang’!”

“I want the little black one!”

“We’ll keep Da Huang!”

The sound of the child’s protest gradually faded away.

Shen Xingzhuo, who had been asleep, woke up.

He sat up and wiped his forehead.

It seemed as if his palm still carried the warmth of the sunlight from the dream, along with the soft touch of the child’s arm.

Shen Xingzhuo wiped the sweat from his brow, stood up, and walked to the window to draw the curtains.

The morning light outside was already bright and it was getting late.

After a quick wash, Shen Xingzhuo went downstairs.

The second floor was spacious, with a living room.

Shen Xingran was in the living room eating breakfast.

Since that day…

They hadn’t dined in the first-floor dining room.

“Aren’t there no classes today? Why are you up so early?”

Shen Xingzhuo walked over familiarly and picked up a fried egg from the plate to eat.

Shen Xingran pouted, “Did you even wash your hands?”

Because of the dream he had last night, Shen Xingzhuo was in a good mood.

He didn’t care in the slightest about Shen Xingran’s annoyance and teasingly ate most of what was on the plate.

Hearing the word “brother”, he even chuckled, “When you were little, you couldn’t even say ‘brother’ properly. You kept saying ‘guo guo guo guo¹Chinese for brother is gege. Instead of ‘ge’, because the child wasn’t able to pronounce it properly, it became something like ‘guo’. I don’t know how to put it in English huhu. Any suggestions?‘, as if your brother was some kind of cooking pot.”

Shen Xingran didn’t understand what he was talking about and ignored him.

Once he had almost filled his stomach, Shen Xingzhuo looked around the second floor and asked, “Why is it just you at home?”

“Mom and Dad haven’t come back yet.” Shen Xingran poked his plate with a fork, “If you’re asking about Lu Ran, he took his yellow dog out early this morning.”

At this, Shen Xingran looked up at Shen Xingzhuo expectantly, “Brother!”

Shen Xingzhuo instantly understood what Shen Xingran meant.

He found it amusing. “Alright, I’ll take care of it today.”

Recalling the dream from the previous night, he curiously asked, “Didn’t you used to really like dogs when you were little? You even said you wanted to keep a little black dog. Why do you hate them so much now?”

“Who ever liked dogs?” Shen Xingran looked at him in confusion.

Shen Xingzhuo suddenly paused in the middle of eating.

From the moment he dreamed of that child, Shen Xingzhuo had always assumed that the child was Shen Xingran.

He woke up, went downstairs, and ate breakfast while chatting with Shen Xingran.

But now, Shen Xingzhuo suddenly realized that Shen Xingran had come to the Shen family when he was already five or six years old.

He had long passed the age of mispronouncing words.

And by that time, they had already moved out of the old house.

So…

Who was the child in his dream?

A wave of unease mixed with embarrassment washed over him.

Shen Xingzhuo suddenly found the food in his mouth tasteless and his stomach inexplicably churned in protest.

Seeing him freeze, Shen Xingran asked in confusion, “Brother, what’s wrong?”

Upon hearing “brother” again, the usual joy and comfort were still there, but now they were mixed with an indescribable sense of confusion.

“Oh, I just remembered I have something to do,” Shen Xingzhuo said as he turned to grab the jacket draped over the sofa’s armrest.

He put on the jacket and gave Shen Xingran a half-smile. “I’m heading out for a bit.”

Shen Xingzhuo drove away from the villa.

He didn’t have any pressing matters today.

A few wealthy young men had been caught in a hit-and-run scandal and his studio had gotten dragged into it. The business had never been great and now it was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

But Shen Xingzhuo wasn’t particularly concerned about that. The studio was more of a side project.

After turning eighteen, he inherited a portion of the family company’s shares. The dividends alone were enough to keep him worry-free.

He didn’t head anywhere specific, just aimlessly drove around.

After a while, he started to relax again.

It was just a dream, after all. There was no reason to believe it was based on real memories.

Shen Xingzhuo knew that he had a later start when it came to forming memories.

His elder brother, Shen Xingyu, had an extraordinary memory and could recall things as far back as his first or second year of life.

Shen Xingzhuo, however, could barely remember anything from elementary school.

This was why Shen Xingzhuo had little emotional connection with Lu Ran.

Even though he knew that Lu Ran was his biological brother who had been lost at a young age, Shen Xingzhuo still felt a stronger bond with Shen Xingran, with whom he had lived for over ten years.

As a result, he never really took a liking to Lu Ran.

He always felt that bringing Lu Ran back as an adult would jeopardize Shen Xingran’s interests.

In families like theirs, changes in members were not only complicated but also dangerous.

After all, the name “Shen Xingran” originally belonged to Lu Ran.

As his brother, Shen Xingzhuo naturally sided with Shen Xingran.

He couldn’t quite pinpoint when it all started, but perhaps it was from the moment Shen Xingran came to the Shen family that Shen Xingzhuo developed a deep conviction.

He had to protect his younger brother.

His mind swirled with chaotic thoughts.

By the time Shen Xingzhuo snapped out of it, he realized that he had driven all the way to the old Shen family residence.

The house, which had stood for many years, now seemed overly antiquated in this modern age.

Although someone was still maintaining it, without its owners living there, the house had fallen into even more of a state of disrepair and desolation.

Sitting in the car, Shen Xingzhuo hesitated to get out.

He couldn’t quite explain the reason for his hesitation.

He just couldn’t bring himself to open the car door.

But after only two seconds of indecision, Shen Xingzhuo stepped out of the car.

He had always been one to follow his impulses.

Only when Shen Xingran was around did he tend to be more cautious.

Once outside, he realized that from the outside, not much of the house could be seen.

The house was maintained by someone every year, but the intervals between the upkeep were long, and the courtyard was overgrown with weeds.

Climbing ivy and some unknown vines had wound around the outer railing, layer after layer.

Through the thick wall of greenery, nothing inside was visible.

Shen Xingzhuo wandered around outside for a while, feeling it was pointless. He couldn’t understand why he was wasting his time here.

Because of that ridiculous dream?

He turned to head back to the car, the door already open.

But then he froze and turned his head toward a path near the courtyard wall.

The path was narrow and the concrete on the ground was cracked.

In the middle of the path lay a familiar manhole cover.

In last night’s dream, he and that little boy had been lying by this very courtyard wall, watching those stray dogs, one by one, jump over the manhole cover.

That little black dog had even stumbled while jumping.

A sense of disorienting unreality, where dream and reality blurred, washed over him.

Standing beside the manhole cover, Shen Xingzhuo turned to look at the railing now covered by the climbing ivy.

Suddenly, he walked toward it.

Without hesitation, he began tearing away the vines with his bare hands.

The thorny stems scraped his wrists, leaving red marks, and some of the seeds flew up as he moved, sticking to his clothes and hair.

Shen Xingzhuo didn’t care at all.

He gripped the rusty iron bars, quietly climbed over the railing, swung himself into the courtyard, and landed lightly.

The ground beneath his feet was soft with dirt and fallen leaves.

The courtyard was completely empty. There was no lush green lawn, no scattered toys, and no soft, white ball of fluff crouched in the corner.

Shen Xingzhuo let out a self-deprecating laugh.

He walked around the courtyard.

Just as he was about to leave, his steps inexplicably took him toward a corner.

He wasn’t sure why he was walking there.

His body simply moved on its own.

He crouched down and started pulling away the weeds in the corner, haphazardly.

Then he dug at the dirt beneath.

Before long, his hand touched something hard—a wooden plank.

The plank was nearly weathered, blending into the dirt in both color and texture, fragile and soft.

Tiny bugs crawled in the cracks.

As Shen Xingzhuo continued, the bugs scurried away in all directions.

He dusted off his hands. When his fingers found a latch, he lifted the plank.

The latch, already rusted, broke halfway.

Shen Xingzhuo struggled for a bit but finally managed to lift the plank fully.

With a soft “click”, the door, sealed for over a decade, opened completely—and broke entirely.

Underneath the plank was a small “storage”.

Inside were a few building blocks and two identical rubber balls.

In the corner sat a small yellow plastic bucket and a matching little shovel, both quietly lying there.

In this forgotten corner, they had remained undisturbed for a very long time.

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  Chinese for brother is gege. Instead of ‘ge’, because the child wasn’t able to pronounce it properly, it became something like ‘guo’. I don’t know how to put it in English huhu. Any suggestions?