Sickly Wife, Childhood Sweetheart Raises Her - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Delicate (First Published on Jinjiang)

“Do you know who I am?”

When Su Tang finished making dinner, it was already nine o’clock, and grandpa still hadn’t returned.

The north wind blew the asbestos tiles on the roof so that they rattled noisily. Su Tang sat at the fading, old dining table, staring with his damp, wide eyes and biting his nails.

He was both cold and afraid.

The daytime was fine, but once he was left alone at night, Su Tang felt as though something could crawl out at any moment from the shadows where the lamplight couldn’t reach.

Especially when the wind was blowing, the howling wind added a few layers of spine-chilling coldness.

The freshly cooked stir-fried potatoes and stir-fried bean sprouts were steaming.

Su Tang sniffed his frost-reddened nose, but decisively covered the vegetable basins with lids.

He had to wait for grandpa to come back and eat together.

Resisting his hunger, Su Tang picked up the small stool from under the table, pocketed his keys and flashlight, hurriedly locked the door, and ran toward the stone bridge outside the servant residential area.

That place had an open view, allowing him to see the lights of one household after another in the residential area, as well as the figures walking back and forth. It was colder than being inside the house, but he could see people.

——It could give Su Tang a little sense of security.

He sat properly right beside the bridge pier under the bright street lamp, gazing longingly at the opposite bank of the stone bridge, waiting for grandpa’s figure to appear. Occasionally, he pulled out a small handkerchief from inside his bosom, covering his mouth to cough a few soft times.

Just as he was concentrating completely on looking at the opposite bank, a tyrannical force suddenly struck from behind, fiercely knocking him over to the ground.

Everything happened too fast, completely taking him by surprise.

The moment he fell, Su Tang instinctively protected his head, but he was still knocked dizzy with blackness dancing before his eyes.

He propped himself up against the ground and climbed up slowly, his blurred vision gradually clearing. At the same time, harsh laughter violently stabbed into his ears:

“Don’t kick him to pieces, take it easy!”

“Can’t he hear us walking up?”

“I think this little brat is not only a fool, but also deaf!”

Su Tang glared at them angrily.

But more than that, he was afraid.

At this moment, he actually felt that being at home was better instead—he would rather run into ghosts than encounter them.

This was not the first time Su Tang had been kicked by them.

The first time was also on this stone bridge, when they forcefully kicked him down from the bridge pier where he was sitting, proclaiming that this was their territory and that sitting here meant paying a fee.

Ever since then, Su Tang never sat on the bridge pier again, and every time he came, he only obediently held his own little stool.

He hadn’t expected that he still couldn’t escape a kick.

Su Tang finally understood clearly: they were simply looking for trouble on purpose.

“He still dares to glare at us!”

“That’s right, big brother, he just glared at you!”

“Damn it, is this brat a big-eyed frog spirit or something, he’s actually kind of cute. But no matter how cute he is, he can’t glare at me. You guys move aside, I’m going to set some rules for him!”

The three of them were in full swing, one acting as the straight man and the other as the comedic foil, rolling up their sleeves and getting ready. When they turned their heads to look, Su Tang had already hugged his stool, his little arms and legs running away with a scampering gait.

“Short legs run pretty fast, stop him!”

The three of them instantly got excited again and chased after him with high-spirited vigor.

Just as they were about to catch Su Tang.

Unexpectedly, Su Tang twisted his body and drilled into a stone cave within the rockery by the riverside.

All three of them were older students, much larger in size than the six-year-old Su Tang—some fat, some strong—and the tiny stone cave instantly blocked all of them outside.

With no other choice, they took turns squatting at the cave entrance, angrily hurling lumps of mud inside.

Ten minutes later, the three of them were panting heavily and unable to straighten their backs.

Seeing that their efforts were in vain, they had no choice but to give up with a huff: “Forget it, forget it, let’s retreat for now. Next time we catch him, we’ll settle the new and old accounts together!”

Before the three of them could even move away, the tall guy with the best eyesight excitedly pointed at the bushes and shouted: “Look over there! There’s a cat, do you guys recognize it?”

“Yo, isn’t this that little beast that the little stutterer secretly feeds!”

The three of them immediately changed targets and tacitly surrounded the startled cat.

The tall guy picked up the desperately struggling cat and triumphantly shouted toward the cave:

“Su Tang.”

“Under the bridge is also our territory. You sat there just now, so you need to pay the ‘occupation fee’.”

“If you still don’t come out and pay up, we’ll show you what it means to ‘let the cat pay for a human’s debt’!”

Su Tang, curled up inside the stone cave, trembled slightly.

He perked up his ears and sure enough heard the cat’s panicked cries coming from outside, mixed with low hissing sounds.

Su Tang tightly clenched his small hands and asked softly, “If I come out… will you guys stop beating the little cat?”

“You come out and pay the money, and we won’t touch it.”

“But I don’t have money…”

“Then it’ll be our turn to beat you up.”

Su Tang supported himself against the rockery and crawled out of the cave entrance.

Before he could even stand steady properly, he was immediately pushed down into the muddy ground by two people.

Su Tang struggled a few times, but his whole body was limp and weak, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get up, so in the end he failed to rise.

Thus, he stopped trying.

He thought of his mother.

In the past, his dad would also hit him like this. His mom wouldn’t let him fight back, telling him to endure it a little, otherwise dad would beat him even harder.

He had learned to hold his breath at moments like that, curling up into a ball like a piece of insensate stone. It was as if as long as he was quiet enough and obedient enough, the storm would pass a little faster.

After his dad finished beating him, his mom would hug him in her arms, crying while trembling as she praised him: “Good boy… Look, dad has already calmed down, he’s not hitting anymore, not hitting anymore…”

So Su Tang understood that as long as he endured until the other person’s anger subsided, everything would end.

At this moment, he told himself the same thing. He no longer looked at those three excited and distorted faces, but instead turned his head to the side, blankly gazing in the direction where the cat had just fallen. His eyes were empty, as if waiting for a rain that was bound to end.

Yet no one expected that the little cat, which had just narrowly escaped and was trembling with fright, upon seeing him curled up in the mud, would suddenly arch its thin back, all the fur on its body standing on end. It bared its tiny sharp teeth, let out an almost miserable screech, and then, like a gray streak of lightning, dashed back regardless of everything, actually trying to use its tiny claws and teeth to protect him.

In his anxiety, Su Tang could only blindly shove the little cat into his own small embrace.

However, his frail body couldn’t even protect himself.

Let alone protect a cat?

For a moment, mud splattered everywhere, the cat’s sharp screeches and the boys’ even more excited jeering mixed together, and the scene completely spiraled out of control.

“So noisy.”

An unfamiliar voice, wrapped in undisguised coldness and impatience, like a hard stone, suddenly smashed through this viscous and clamorous chaos.

The three boys’ movements froze simultaneously, and they turned their heads in unison.

Only to see across the bridge, a figure walking over at a leisurely pace. He was even half a head taller than the tallest guy, and his clothing material was exquisite and very well-fitted, just like tailor-made. Under the dim street lamp, it exuded a “luxury style” completely out of tune with this chaotic environment. There wasn’t much expression on the boy’s face, only a bit of gloominess from being disturbed.

He looked to be about the same age as these few boys, perhaps a bit older, but an invisible, extremely oppressive aura enveloped his entire person, making him look not like a peer, but rather like a majestic lion that had suddenly charged into a flock of sheep.

When they saw the newcomer’s face clearly, the arrogant and overbearing aura on the three boys’ faces froze instantly, and then rapidly dissolved, turning into panic and fear that they could no longer conceal.

——It was Li Xingchuan.

Among the children in the servant area, there was not a single one who did not recognize this face.

And not a single one who dared to provoke him—the villa owner’s only son, whose identity was already separated by a chasm. What’s more, Li Xingchuan was notoriously “sick in the head.” If one offended him, how was that any different from voluntarily offering one’s own neck to the blade’s edge?

The “local tyrants” who had just been arrogant and invincible could not even dare to raise their eyes to look directly at Li Xingchuan now, each shrinking their necks and wishing they could shrink themselves into cracks in the ground.

“Get lost.”

That icy voice fell at the bridgehead, without any extra words.

The few boys, granted amnesty and acting like startled birds, scattered in all directions like a flock of startled birds in an instant, disappearing into the heavy night in the blink of an eye, running away without leaving a single one.

The area under the bridge suddenly quieted down, leaving only the north wind howling past the withered trees.

Su Tang laboriously lifted his face from the icy muddy ground, tried hard to open his mud-smeared eyes, and looked toward the tall figure standing at the boundary of light and shadow.

The cat also raised its head from Su Tang’s embrace, humanely sticking out its tongue to lick Su Tang’s dirty face over and over again. While licking, it let out “meow meow” cries toward Li Xingchuan’s direction. Acting spoiled, yet also like an accusation.

One person and one cat, covered in filth, clung tightly to each other in the biting early winter cold wind, like two tattered cloth dolls casually discarded near a ruin, only able to draw a trace of meager warmth from each other.

Su Tang blinked his damp eyes, staring fixedly at Li Xingchuan without blinking.

Li Xingchuan’s gaze also landed on this small, battered figure.

Yet that gaze didn’t seem to truly focus on Su Tang.

It was more like piercing straight through him, landing directly on that equally filthy little cat in his arms.

The look in his eyes was very pale, without much temperature, yet faintly revealing a hint of elusive interest.

But it was only a glance.

Immediately afterward, Li Xingchuan withdrew his gaze, took a stride, and walked away directly.

“Don’t, don’t go…”

Su Tang’s voice was as weak as a thread of gossamer, yet it carried a desperate urgency as it broke through his dry throat.

The departing footsteps did not pause at all.

Su Tang collapsed on the icy muddy ground, all his strength seemingly drained away, unable to prop his body up no matter what. A massive panic gripped him, and he could only exhaust his very last bit of strength to shout toward the back that was about to vanish into the night: “Brother! Big Brother!”

Li Xingchuan’s voice drifted over along the cold wind, devoid of any emotion: “Do you know who I am? Calling out randomly.”

Su Tang coughed heavily several times, panting intermittently: “I-I don’t know.”

“However, you’re taller than all of them.”

“And you scared them all away.”

Enduring the pain screaming throughout his body and wave after wave of blacking out from dizziness, he spoke word by word, slowly and with incomparable seriousness, carrying the clumsy logic unique to a child: “You saved me… You are a good person.”

He raised his dirty little face, his damp eyes filled with pleading: “Good person big brother, can you help me again?”

As his voice fell, he couldn’t control himself and coughed violently again, his thin shoulders heaving intensely as if he were about to cough his lungs out.

Su Tang knew he shouldn’t pester this kindhearted big brother.

But he had no other way.

If possible, he really wanted to clean himself up before grandpa came back. So that grandpa wouldn’t be able to tell that he had been beaten again.

Su Tang looked longingly at the “big brother’s” back and prayed.

This effort didn’t seem to be in vain.

——Those footsteps that were about to leave paused, and after all, they turned back.

Li Xingchuan stopped in front of Su Tang, his tone carrying a trace of interest: “Help you beat them back?”

Su Tang weakly shook his head, and then actually managed to tug open a somewhat foolish yet completely shadow-free smile: “I just want big brother to help me stand up, is that okay?”

Li Xingchuan was somewhat disappointed.

After looking at him for a moment, he finally lowered his hand down: “Grab on.”

Su Tang reached out and tried to grab a few times, but his fingertips always fell just a little short, making his eye sockets well up with moisture from anxiety.

“So delicate.”

Li Xingchuan muttered lowly, saying no more, bent down, and hauled the person up from the mud in one go.

The little cat in Su Tang’s arms was forced to the ground, let out two dissatisfied “meows,” whipped its tail, and drilled into the nearby withered grass, out of sight.

Su Tang, who had been abruptly lifted off the ground, like a fledgling chick shivering after being thoroughly soaked, instinctively stretched out his arms and clung tightly to Li Xingchuan’s shoulders. His consciousness was already blurred, and he muttered vaguely: “I-I can’t stand.”

Immediately afterward, he used those soft, boneless fingers to stubbornly point in the direction of the lights not far away, pleading in a weak voice: “Brother… send me home…”

Before Li Xingchuan could refuse.

Su Tang let out an uncomfortable whimpering sound from his throat, his voice soft: “…I beg you.”

He was truly muddled.

Completely unaware of what kind of astonishing, unreserved reliance filled his damp big eyes, making him look like someone about to drown in a torrential rain who had grabbed onto the only piece of driftwood.

Even less did he know—

The “good person big brother” he was trying his utmost to grab onto at this very moment was, a mere half hour ago, a character of such merciless violence.

Li Xingchuan had just used the most brutal method to literally kick and snap a third-grade student’s leg bone. The inner garden of the Li family’s estate was currently in an uproar because of his disappearance, with servants pacing back and forth, searching every single corner in a blanket fashion.

The head of the Li family had finally exhausted his last bit of patience this time, dropping an unprecedented harsh decree: If he is caught this time, there is no need to resort to family rules anymore.

Send him directly to the hospital for “treatment.”

——Send him to that iron-walled, special psychiatric hospital dedicated to curing “stubborn ailments.”

He wouldn’t be able to injure people without reason anymore, right?

Whenever his “illness” was cured, that was when he would come back out.

If he couldn’t come out, they would just consider that the Li family had never given birth to this son.

Author’s Notes:

New story is out, send flowers~ Daily update time is 9 PM, other times belong to extra updates~

Bringing along a sweet pet novel pre-release:

Will a sickly little fool also be pampered?

A pretty little fool recently arrived in the old street district.

Pale, quiet, picking up food to eat from garbage piles, frail and thin, as if he would shatter at a single touch.

He wouldn’t cry even when beaten, only flashing silly smiles at people with a soft voice.

That smile actually possessed a heart-stopping, shattered kind of beauty.

Aunties in the alley would occasionally give him a bowl of hot soup, and the security guard next door had also once chased away ill-intentioned hooligans for him.

Yet that was all they could do.

Everyone shook their heads and sighed: This child probably won’t survive this winter.

On the night before the first snowfall, a Beijing-A consecutive-number Maybach rolled over the frost-covered streets.

The man who stepped out of the car knelt in the cold wind, wrapping him tightly inside an expensive overcoat.

Warm palms cupped a cold little face, his deep, cold voice trembling: “…Found you.”

When people saw that little fool again, it was in an exclusive interview.

The pitiful little darling washed away the dust and stood in front of the camera.

His foolish illness seemed much better now, his starry eyes swirling and shining brighter than a celebrity.

Standing behind him, the fabulously wealthy and ruthlessly skilled Beijing financial tycoon acted like a guardian angel, watching him quietly as he waited.

——The once feeble smoke and dust turned out to be someone’s precious pearl in the palm, lost and found again, so noble it was beyond reach.

[Daily Sweet Pet Little Confectionery]

Gentle overbearing gong x early-stage foolish, later-stage recovering pitiful shou