This World Has Gone Crazy

Qi Le opened the door. “Who is it?” Suddenly, he saw the person clearly and was shocked. “Mom?”

Gu Bai had seen her too and was somewhat surprised. He hurried forth to invite her in. From the current situation, it looked like Mother Qi must’ve rushed on the flight here yesterday and arrived in C city last night. She probably didn’t come until today morning for fear of disturbing their rest.

Mother Qi’s eyes were red. She sat on the sofa and looked at the unfamiliar boy over there. She had already gotten a general idea of what was going on from her husband and knew that he was probably her own son.

Qi Le looked at her silently, moved his lips and choked out, “Mom.”

Mother Qi froze slightly, her eyes reddened again, but she soon forced herself to calm down. “Is it really you, Xiao Le?”

Qi Le had tears streaming down his face. “Mmm!”

Mother Qi tried to keep her voice normal. “Then let me ask you a few questions.”

Qi Le knew that his mother was careful. As a mother, she inevitably had a special feeling towards her children. He nodded and waited quietly.

Mother Qi looked at him. “When you were eight, one night, you suddenly had a nightmare, cried miserably, and almost fell sick. You scared your dad from his sleep and rushed into our bedroom. After waking up, you insisted on sleeping in the same room as us, didn’t you?”

“Mmm.”

“What was your dream about? You should still remember it since we joked about it before your operation.”

Qi Le pursed his lips and looked at Gu Bai. “Why don’t you go to class?”

This was an important moment. Of course, Gu Bai couldn’t leave. But now it seemed that... he was about to uncover some unexpected surprises? He smiled. “I’ll go later.”

“...” Qi Le looked at his mom again and said weakly, “I dreamed I was... kidnapped by aliens, locked in the house and had to wash the toilet every day – ten full rows of the toilet...”

Gu Bai, “...”

Mother Qi’s tears gushed down in that instant. She quickly wiped them away. “You weren’t healthy. When you entered junior high, your father and I were afraid of you would fall in love too young but we didn’t dare ask you about it. Instead, your father asked if you received any love letters and you said no. Then, you saw your father laughing so happily and thought that he was laughing at you. What did you do?”

“... I wrote several love letters to myself, all under different names, and took them to dad to show off.” Qi Le was silent for a moment and said pitifully, “He really laughed at me this time because the names were Shangguan Guoer, Ouyang Shier, Dongfang Tianer, Zhuge Caier... When I realized you knew, I felt so embarrassed I packed my bags and ran away from home. I sat at the overpass nearby to beg for food. In the end, I was carried back by dad. You felt that dad hurt my young heart and punished him by kneeling on the washboard for two hours.”

“...” Gu Bai really felt that his decision not to leave was the the right one. He was able to hear a lot about his wife.

Mother Qi cried again and choked, “On the second day of that lunar new year...”

“Mom-“Qi Le rushed over. “Stop asking. Leave me some dignity.”

Mother Qi paused slightly and thought that these were enough to show that person in front of her was her son. She hugged him. “Son!”

Qi Le cried, “Mom—!”

“I heard from dad that you’ve suffered these past few weeks!”

“It’s nothing. I’m fine. Where’s Dad?”

" I made him stay to take care of your brother and kneel on the washboard for two hours. Who asked him not tell me such an important thing immediately?”

Qi Le, “......”

Gu Bai saw that they had reunited and looked at the time. He said a few words and rushed off, driving all the way to the laboratory building of his school, where parked his car and went in. He also sent a text message to his wife. “I’ve arrived.”

At this time, Qi Le was already on the verge of restoring his calm and quickly replied. “So what if you’ve arrived? What has that got to do with me?”

Gu Bai raised his eyebrows slightly, knowing that Qi Le wasn’t very happy that he heard his secrets. He comforted him with a few words. “You’re really smart to be able to remember the names in the letter after such a long time.”

“No, connect the last few words together and what you get is ’is a genius’.”

Gu Bai, “...”

Qi Le put down his cell phone and looked at his mother, who took his hand and chatted with him while she wiped her tears away. Seeing her like this made him sad too. He hugged his mother and acted spoiled. He had a class in the second period and couldn’t accompany his mother. She went downstairs with him and told him she would go get groceries and prepare food for him at noon. After she sent her son down, she thought for a moment and asked, “Xiao Ying doesn’t know about this yet?”

Qi Le froze, then nodded and glanced at his mother’s expression. “You don’t have to help me, I’ll tell her myself.”

Mother Qi was silent for a moment before answering. She watched him leave, then sighed slightly. She was a woman; of course, she could tell that Xiao Ying liked Gu Bai. At the beginning, the child had agreed to be with her son only to fulfill his wish. Xiao Ying’s intentions hadn’t gone unnoticed and Mother Qi was very grateful for it. She didn’t tell her husband about it, because if he knew, he would look at Xiao Le with pity in his eyes. Xiao Le would surely see the problem since he was so smart.

Now, her son was lucky to still be alive. Although Xiao Ying didn’t know that, her son did like her after all, especially since she was his first love. Her son would probably come clean to her sooner or later and would surely be hurt when he knew the truth... Mother Qi took a deep breath and decided to try her best to enlighten her son during this period of time so that he could successfully walk out of the pain later on.

Gu Bai still had classes, so Qi Le didn’t ask him to pick him up. Instead, he took the bus to his school and arrived at the station 20 minutes later. He slowly walked to the school gates. Just then, he heard a familiar voice from the flower bed on the right. “Go home with me.”

He couldn’t help turning his head only to see an elite comrade standing with his back towards him. In front of him was a certain idiot. He was wearing a shirt but the first button was unbuttoned, and there were some red marks on his exposed skin. He grabbed the grass. “Home? I should’ve died a long time ago. I was killed at school, and now I’m back here, waiting to die again. I’ve decided I’ll die here. Go.”

“Stop it. Let’s go home.”

The idiot ignored him, silently nestling in the grass as he whispered, “Bok choy ah, yellow in the ground ah. Two or three years old ah, mom is gone ah...“

Lu Yanbin, “......”

“...” Qi Le bowed his head hastily, keeping a low profile and slowly making his way inside to avoid being seen by a certain someone, but he was really unlucky. He heard a certain someone shouting before he even took three steps. “Zheng Xiaoyuan! Stop!”

Qi Le, “......”