Chapter Sixty-Four: The Past

Chang Punchao's emotions experienced a rare fluctuation. Huo Yan sat up straight, seemingly worried that his excessive excitement might provoke some sudden, drastic action.

Ning Shuyi appeared much calmer than him. Signaling to Huo Yan that there was no need to worry, she stood up, poured a glass of water, and placed it in front of Chang Punchao.

"Carrying so many things in your heart all by yourself for all these years must have been very exhausting, right?" she sighed. Instead of interrogating him, she spoke to the man before her in a tone filled with understanding.

Chang Punchao's eye rims turned red in an instant, visibly moistening.

He nodded, taking a shaky, deep breath to steady the sudden emotional turbulence threatening to slip out of his control.

"No one was ever willing to listen to me talk about these things, and talking about them wouldn't have changed anything anyway. Besides, back then, there were many things I couldn't even figure out clearly myself.

I just felt a deep sense of grievance, unable to understand why, though we were all children of parents, other people's parents cherished their kids like precious treasures, while with me, I wasn't even treated as well as someone else's pet dog in my own parents' eyes.

It wasn't until the truth came to light that I finally understood—it was because the two of them felt a guilty conscience, which was why I had to endure so much suffering all those years!

It turned out they merely wanted to steal a retirement tool for themselves. Who on earth would ever invest genuine affection into a tool?"

"When you say you endured a lot of suffering over the years, what do you mean?" Huo Yan asked him.

Chang Punchao slowly closed his eyes. "From the time I was little until I grew up, I always had this feeling of drifting from place to place, never truly settled, until we finally moved to the city, which was when we could supposedly live in one place for a longer period.

When I was a kid, I didn't understand why we always had to keep moving, or why they wouldn't allow me to have contact with outsiders. It wasn't until later that I found out it was because I was a child they had stolen, and they were terrified my real family would find me.

I used to have a red birthmark on my back; I had seen it myself in the mirror when I took a bath as a child.

I even told them that one of my classmates had a birthmark on their shoulder too, and the classmate's grandmother joked that this mark was called 'the unlosable sign'—anyone who wanted to steal her grandson just had to look at his shoulder and they'd recognize him instantly!

I even proudly told them that I had an 'unlosable sign' on my back as well, and if anyone ever dared to kidnap me, they could just find me through the 'unlosable sign' on my back!

I was just casually chatting away, never expecting that their guilty consciences would be pricked by my remark, making them feel threatened enough to actually come up with the idea of pouring boiling water over my back, deliberately scalding the exact spot where the birthmark was.

Afterward, they refused to take me to the hospital to treat the scald, nor would they apply any ointment for me. In the height of summer, sweating was inevitable, and the burns on my back quickly festered into pus, sending my fever soaring.

Fearing that I might die—which would mean all their previous efforts would go to waste and leave them with no one to care for them in their old age—they finally took me to the hospital. Even then, they didn't follow the doctor's instructions to properly clean my wound.

In the end, a massive scar was left on my back, and the two of them were utterly thrilled because my 'unlosable sign' was finally gone forever, and no one could ever track me down through that birthmark again!"

Regarding how the scar on Chang Punchao's back had come to be, Ning Shuyi had previously formulated similar speculations, so hearing his account did not come as a shock. Yet, even though she had guessed it herself, actually hearing the parties involved narrate such an ordeal still struck a deeply emotional chord.

"How did you find out you were a child they had stolen?" Huo Yan asked him.

"I overheard it by accident," Chang Punchao gave a bitter laugh. "If I tell you, you'll probably both laugh at how spineless I was.

Back when I had just graduated from high school, they refused to let me continue my education. I bounced around between several factories for a while, and that period was quite rough—my work was unstable and my pay was low.

Deng Qingrong also held a lot of resentment toward me on a regular basis, which put a tremendous amount of pressure on me. One night, when I couldn't sleep and got up to go to the restroom, I overheard the two of them complaining in their bedroom, saying that since they had stolen such a good-for-nothing like me, hopefully I wouldn't end up utterly incapable of supporting them in their old age, and on top of that, in a few years they wouldn't have to shell out their own money to help me marry a wife and settle down.

At that moment, it felt as though I had been struck by lightning; I stood frozen in the hallway for the longest time, completely unable to move."

"Since you knew so early on that you weren't Deng Qingrong and her husband's biological child, and that you were a child stolen by the two of them, why didn't you leave them and try to seek help to find your real family?" Ning Shuyi asked.

"Because I was a fool," Chang Punchao said with self-deprecating bitterness. "Ever since I was little, their favorite thing to do was to suppress me, belittle me, and paint me as entirely worthless.

Even on that night, when they had shut their bedroom door to whisper in secret, they didn't forget to step on me a few times just the same.

They said they wouldn't have to live in hiding or act so sneakily anymore. They claimed that if I had actually turned out to be successful and promising, they would have worried sick that my biological parents might try to snatch me back.

Now, with the useless state I was in, they figured that after all these years, my real family had probably long since had another child, raised them up well, and seen them achieve great success—who would ever want such an extra burden back just to bring trouble upon themselves!"

Huo Yan frowned and shook his head. "You actually believed talk like that? You were kidnapped by them, not abandoned by your true family—how could they possibly look down on you?"

"Right, wasn't I stupid?" Chang Punchao sighed. "For all those previous years, I was simply as if bewitched by a ghost, completely failing to realize that I had been beaten down to the point of losing all sense of self by those two.

I genuinely felt that what they said made total sense, and that things having come to this, no one else in the world would accept me except the two of them!

That included later on when I brought my girlfriend home. Originally, I thought that while other people's parents were always pressuring their kids to find a partner and get married, they should have been quite happy when I brought my girlfriend home.

To my surprise, the moment Deng Qingrong heard that my ex-girlfriend also came from an ordinary family with little money, she picked faults and nitpicked everything about her from head to toe.

She even laid down a string of outrageously harsh demands, such as our family being unable to provide a bride price, but the bride's family having to bring a dowry that couldn't be less than a certain exorbitant amount.

After marriage, my wife would have to live together with my parents-in-law, doing the laundry, cooking, and waiting on them hand and foot.

She even made sarcastic remarks mocking my ex-girlfriend's appearance and figure, upsetting her so much that she left in a rage before she could even finish her meal.

After that, I had a couple more very brief relationships, all of which were directly ruined by Deng Qingrong right at the stage of meeting the parents.

That was when it finally dawned on me, in hindsight, what those whispered words they had spoken in their bedroom that night really meant!

It turned out that all those vicious things they said and all those cruel things they did were simply driven by the fear that not only would I lack sufficient money to support them until their dying day, but I would even drain their pockets to help me marry a wife and have children!"