Why is This Clingy Snow Leopard Acting So Innocent? - Chapter 29

Chapter 29: Kiss—The Sound of a Heartbeat

Village Committee, Mediation Room.

A man and a woman sat on the opposite side of a long table. The woman, slightly older with sharp, upturned eyes, looked as if she had a lot to say.

The man beside her was slumped in a wooden chair, playing a game on his phone. The sound effects from the game echoed throughout the room.

The back of the wooden chair consisted of two horizontal bars, which looked quite uncomfortable. The man shifted his body, propping his arm against the backrest, but he didn’t stop playing; he couldn’t pause the game.

The woman, startled by his slight movement, hurriedly stood up and ran outside. When she returned, she was carrying a folded blanket. She approached and carefully tucked the blanket behind the man. Once he seemed comfortable, she turned and sat back down.

Yun Shu sat silently across from them, saying nothing.

Before long, with a creak, the aging door was pushed open. A man with graying hair entered, followed by another man and woman.

Yun Shu stood up. Before he could react further, the woman at the table rushed forward. “Village Chief.”

The village chief was around 60, but his deep wrinkles and white hair, combined with a current illness, made him look well over 70. He didn’t speak; he simply waved his hand, signaling her to return to her seat.

Then, the mediation began.

The man, who was roughly the same age as Yun Shu, remained unresponsive throughout. The woman was the one leading the charge.

Her demand was simple: Yun Shu had to pay back the costs of raising him for over a decade. Only then would he officially no longer be a part of their family—even though he had moved his household registration out long ago.

To achieve this goal and get the money—and preferably a bit extra—she had prepared her speech thoroughly. It was as if she had rehearsed it with someone.

“Back then, you were just an orphan, wandering on the mountain,” she said. “If it weren’t for us adopting you, you would have died in the snow long ago.”

Everyone in the village knew this story. Years ago, several herders gathering caterpillar fungus had found Yun Shu in the snow, half-dead from the cold. His hair was white, and even the color of his eyes was different from a normal person’s.

Being kind-hearted, they saved the child and took him to the village doctor. Since there were no orphanages in the village and his parents couldn’t be found, the village chief took him to the police to register him.

This child not only couldn’t speak but also couldn’t understand human speech. Even his eating habits weren’t normal; for a child who looked over ten years old, he didn’t know how to use chopsticks. He would bury his face in the bowl, eating until his face was covered, much like a wild animal.

The village chief wanted someone to adopt him, but at that time, every family had three or four children of their own to raise. It was a struggle to feed their own kids; who would take in another mouth? The chief’s own family was in the same boat.

No one was willing. Just as the chief was thinking of making the long trip to send him to a distant orphanage, this family showed up.

“Back then, no one wanted you. If it wasn’t for us, you’d still be a wild child.”

“We raised you for over ten years,” she said with absolute self-righteousness. “You must repay us.”

As she spoke, Yun Shu showed no reaction. Instead, the two mediators pulled from the village ranks looked at each other uneasily.

This was a strange affair that deserved deeper scrutiny.

While it was true that no one wanted the child at first, later on, people had actually fought over the chance to take him home. The reason was simple: the town government had announced a subsidy for adopting the child—20,000 yuan a year.

Today that might seem like a small amount, but over a decade ago, it was a fortune.

Because of that money, many people came forward. Yun Shu’s adoptive parents were one of those families, and in the end, they won. It was simple: they only had one child of their own, so they seemed more capable of fulfilling the promise to “raise the child well.”

However, as time went on, their own child grew sturdier while the adopted child grew thinner. Within a few months, he looked like a stick. When people mentioned it, they would say the child was terrifying, not like a human, and had no manners when eating.

“He even bites!” They would show people the marks on their arms. “He’s a wild child, a monster. He bit my child, and he’s practically tearing my house down.”

They would shake their heads and say, “I’ll keep raising him for a bit. if he doesn’t tame, I’ll give him to you and let him bite you instead.”

People avoided them like the plague, no longer wondering why the boy was so thin. They were just glad they hadn’t adopted him for the sake of 20,000 yuan; it felt like a narrow escape.

After a while, the village chief spoke to the woman: “Back then, we gave you 20,000 yuan every year.”

“What is 20,000 yuan enough for?!” the woman shouted. “It cost us way more than that to raise him! We even sold our cattle and sheep so he could go to school!!”

At this, the female mediator couldn’t take it anymore. “Weren’t those cattle and sheep squandered away by your husband?”

Yun Shu remained silent from start to finish, listening without refuting or explaining.

Seeing this reaction, the woman’s slight nervousness vanished. “What do you know, you outsider? Yun Shu knows the truth.”

“Anyway, now you have to pay at least 20,000 a year, for ten years. I’ll give you a discount on the extra two years.”

200,000 yuan.

Yun Shu stood up, turning to leave. He had only come out of respect for the village chief, but enduring this any longer was worse than leaving.

The woman scrambled up, lunged around the table, and grabbed him by the collar. “What are you doing?! What are you doing?!”

Yun Shu’s voice was flat. “I gave you all the money. I have none left.”

“What money?! Those few thousand you gave? That counts for nothing!” She gripped his collar tightly. “Your brother needs to get married! You must give me this money!!”

Yun Shu was almost at a loss for words. After a long while, he patiently replied, “Where do you expect me to find that kind of money?”

The woman’s eyes darted around, looking at her son who was scrolling through his phone, then at Yun Shu. Finally, she said, “Aren’t you being kept by that celebrity? He used to give you everything. If you ask him for 200,000—no, even 300,000—he’d give it to you, wouldn’t he?”

Oh, so that was it.

Suppressing his rage, Yun Shu tried to pull his clothes back. The village chief sat there, slapping the table three or four times, but he couldn’t regain control of the situation.

Finally, the woman swung her hand. Slap! The sound echoed, and the entire room went silent, except for the noise of the video game.

Then, the woman suddenly let go and fell to the floor.

“He’s hitting me! Help! He’s hitting me!!”

Before Yun Shu could even react, her son, who had been sitting there playing games, suddenly rushed over to “seek justice” for his mother. He didn’t go to help his mother off the floor; instead, he lunged straight at Yun Shu and threw a punch.

THUD.

Yun Shu didn’t feel the pain. He was merely pulled back, stumbling two steps.

Someone had stepped in front of him.

…

Once the dizziness faded, Su Wen recovered. When he opened his eyes, the man who had thrown the punch was on the ground, clutching his stomach. The woman was helping him up, preparing to demand an explanation.

Su Wen steadied himself, moved the arm that was supporting him, and wiped a trace of blood from the corner of his split lip with his thumb.

The anger that had been interrupted surged back instantly. “You hit me?! You dare hit me?!”

He lunged forward to kick the man, but was held back by force. Song Nan was terrified, fearing Su Wen would do something drastic, and Yun Shu wasn’t exactly stopping him either.

Song Nan hurriedly pleaded, “Hey, Xiao Su, Xiao Su! Calm down, stay calm! Let’s solve this rationally!!”

The others finally snapped out of it and rushed to hold him back, pulling him to a seat at the table.

Once he calmed down, the two sat across from them again. The mediators returned to their spots, and several more villagers entered, whispering in the local dialect.

Su Wen leaned back in his chair and said to the man opposite him, “Tell me, why did you start swinging?”

The man lowered his head, then quickly retorted in somewhat fluent Mandarin, “Counterattack! Understand? Counterattack! If you hadn’t rushed over, that would have hit him!”

Su Wen touched his throbbing face, deeply annoyed. “Why hit him?”

“He hit my mom! Am I not allowed to hit him back?”

The hand on Su Wen’s shoulder tightened. Su Wen patted it gently but ignored the man, looking instead at the village chief. “Grandpa Village Chief, when did Yun Shu hit his mother?”

The village chief, who had been staring blankly, snapped out of it. His voice was slow, carrying a noticeable trace of illness, but it remained authoritative. He looked at the woman. “Zhuo Yan, did Yun Shu hit you?”

The woman shrunk back slightly before finally answering, “No… no.”

“Since he didn’t,” Su Wen looked at the man beside her, “why did you throw a punch?”

He remained defiant, pointing at Yun Shu. “He owes us 200,000 yuan!”

Su Wen turned back to look at Yun Shu, who was standing behind him. “You owe him 200,000?”

Yun Shu’s face was dark, his brow furrowed as if he were deep in thought. It wasn’t until Su Wen patted his hand that he snapped out of it and replied, “No.”

Su Wen turned back, his tone calm and steady. “Did you hear that? He doesn’t owe you a cent.”

The man wanted to say more, but his mother tugged hard at him. She whispered a reminder in the local dialect: “Stop provoking him, or we won’t get the money. Your father is coming out soon; wait for him. He says he has a way.”

The matter was settled for the moment. Even after they returned home, Su Wen was still confused. Those two difficult people had suddenly agreed to a reconciliation, even claiming they wouldn’t bother them again.

Almost instantly, they had become sincere, even apologizing for accidentally punching him. Su Wen accepted it; after all, Yun Shu had given the guy a kick in return, so they were even.

Before they left, the village chief stopped Su Wen, looking him up and down with an unreadable, complex emotion in his eyes. He seemed to want to say something, but in the end, he only sighed and said nothing.

…

After dinner, the two were sitting in the living room. Instead of sitting on the sofa, Yun Shu insisted on sitting on the floor, leaning against the edge of the wooden sofa—which was hard and uncomfortable.

Su Wen remembered something and leaned in to ask, “The village chief is old enough to be a grandfather; why does his son look younger than you?”

Yun Shu didn’t answer, whether because he didn’t hear or was intentionally staying silent.

Su Wen leaned forward to look at him, and just as he was about to say something, he saw Yun Shu’s head bowed. Tears were falling, one by one, splashing heavily onto his clothes.

Su Wen was suddenly at a loss. Aside from the time he had teased him into tears, this was the first time he had seen Yun Shu crying like this.

He froze for two seconds, then stood up and sat down beside him. Su Wen reached out, using his knuckle to gently wipe away a tear that was about to fall from Yun Shu’s cheek. His voice softened:

“Why are you crying?”

Yun Shu looked up at him, his voice choking slightly. “Does… does your face still hurt?”

The skin around his eyes was faintly red. Moistened by tears, his beautiful eyes looked like the clearest of gems.

Extraordinarily beautiful.

Su Wen didn’t hear what he was saying. He only felt an inexplicable surge of energy crashing through his body until it snapped his thread of reason.

In the next second, his lips touched something soft and moist, which seemed to be trembling slightly.

Su Wen pulled back from his lips and rested his forehead against Yun Shu’s. Both were plunged into a strange sensation, as if they had been pulled away from the world.

The temperature in the room spiked in an instant. The sound of a heartbeat thudded against his eardrums, one after another.

Looking into Yun Shu’s beautiful eyes, misty with tears, Su Wen pressed his lips against his again.

Deeper this time.