CHAPTER 2: THE FUZZY MEMORY OF MOTHER

Upon hearing this, Chen Ze felt deeply embarrassed. He immediately pulled Hu Zi along, and together they repeatedly performed deep bows, lowering their waists as much as possible.

"Forgive us, immortal! We won’t make that mistake again."

When Qin Shan heard the term "immortal," his icy expression finally softened. After most of the youths had chosen their rooms, he casually waved his hand.

"Get lost."

Chen Ze, feeling as though he'd been pardoned from death, exhaled in relief. He quickly bent down once more to show his respect before grabbing Hu Zi's hand and hurrying away.

However, this delay had cost them, as most of the rooms were already occupied. Starting from the first room, Chen Ze and Hu Zi asked around, but after searching for a long time, they couldn't find a vacant one.

Moreover, Hu Zi’s previous words and actions had angered many people. From the glares they received, Chen Ze knew that even if there were any available spaces, no one would want to share a room with them.

By the time night fell, Chen Ze finally spotted a room at the far end of the row, devoid of any light. He hurriedly led Hu Zi inside, groping around to find a flint stone on the table to light the oil lamp. After a moment, the lamp flickered to life, and he carefully surveyed the room.

The roof was in disrepair, with many tiles missing. Thankfully, it wasn’t raining; otherwise, they would’ve had no hope of getting a good night’s rest.

The walls were bare, and along one side of the room was a sleeping mat, though it was piled high with five blankets. If five people slept there, it would be cramped, but for two people, it was spacious enough.

It was autumn turning to winter, and the cold outside was creeping in. If they slept outside, they might freeze to death. Despite the condition of the room, it was better than nothing, and the blankets offered some warmth. It was, at least, a small blessing in the midst of misfortune.

Just as Chen Ze sighed in relief, he heard hurried footsteps approaching the door, and before he could react, the door was kicked open with a loud crash.

"Dammit, I refuse to believe there's no place to sleep here!"

Chen Ze spun around to see Yang Hong, the tall youth who had previously scolded Hu Zi, along with his lackey, Li San. His brows furrowed instinctively as he cursed his bad luck.

Yang Hong, two years older than him, often bullied others along the journey, relying on his height and strength. Naturally, the weak and naive Hu Zi and the frail Chen Ze were frequent targets of his harassment, and their food was often stolen by him.

Li Changqing, the one in charge of the group, never interfered. Sometimes, he even seemed to enjoy watching them fight over scraps of food.

The bond between Chen Ze and Hu Zi was, in part, forged by Yang Hong’s constant bullying.

The first time Yang Hong had stolen all of Chen Ze’s food, Hu Zi, even though simple-minded, had stubbornly refused to give up the last bun, even after being beaten senseless. Chen Ze, unable to watch Hu Zi suffer, had helped him by gathering some herbs in the forest to treat his wounds.

Hu Zi, grateful, had shared half of his last bun with Chen Ze.

From then on, they had become friends. Even though their food was often taken, they always shared whatever little they had, each getting half.

"So it’s you two. Not bad, not bad. Looks like the days ahead won’t be too boring," Yang Hong said with a smirk, his eyes narrowing in amusement.

Without even taking off his shoes, he jumped onto the sleeping mat, sprawling across it, occupying nearly half the space by himself.

Li San also grinned maliciously, jumping up and claiming the rest of the space, tossing two blankets off the mat onto the floor.

"Big brother’s afraid of getting cramped. You two can sleep on the floor. No objections, right?"

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Chen Ze didn’t respond. Instead, he quietly gathered the blankets and laid them on the floor, signaling to Hu Zi with a finger over his lips, indicating that he should remain silent.

Seeing that they were so obedient, Yang Hong lost interest in further provoking them. He raised his fist and hammered it against the wall a few times.

"Damn it, no food either. What kind of place is this?"

Chen Ze and Hu Zi had been left behind because of a minor mistake in their speech, which caused them to miss out on choosing a room.

Yang Hong and Li San, on the other hand, had no one willing to share a room with them due to their bullying behavior.

If it had been any other time, Yang Hong might have resorted to violence, but since this was their first day at the Moji Sect, he didn’t dare to make a scene without fully understanding the situation.

Thus, by an odd twist of fate, Chen Ze found himself sharing a room with the last people he wanted to see.

Whether it was Yang Hong, who frequently bullied him, or Li San, who liked to play dirty tricks, both of them were sources of constant trouble for him.

Now, with no other rooms available, Chen Ze had no choice but to put up with them.

Probably because he was hungry, Yang Hong didn’t waste time making trouble. He pulled up the blankets and immediately lay down to sleep.

Li San cleared his throat softly and pointed to the oil lamp on the table across the room.

Chen Ze, picking up on the hint, stood up to blow out the lamp before returning to the bed.

"At least you’re considerate," Li San said with a smirk, kicking off his shoes and tossing them to the floor, yawning as he crawled into the blankets.

Whether intentional or not, the foul-smelling shoes landed right in front of Chen Ze.

The stench was unbearable. Chen Ze quickly covered his nose and pulled the blanket over his head, feeling his stomach churn.

Only when the sounds of Li San and Yang Hong's snoring and farting filled the room did Chen Ze muster the courage to stretch his hand out from under the blanket and push the offending shoes away. He finally peeked his head out, taking a deep breath of fresh air.

"Disgusting," Hu Zi mumbled, waving his hand in front of his nose. Then, he quietly poked Chen Ze, lowering his voice, "Chen Ze, why aren’t they letting us sleep on the bed?"

"The floor’s bigger, we don’t have to squeeze with them," Chen Ze replied gently, trying to soothe Hu Zi’s confusion.

"Oh," Hu Zi murmured, rubbing his growling stomach. "Then why didn’t they give us dinner?"

Chen Ze whispered back, "Just sleep. You won’t feel hungry when you’re asleep. We’ll have food tomorrow."

Hu Zi immediately pulled the blanket over his head and fell asleep, snoring softly. Though simple-minded, he could tell who treated him well, and since Chen Ze was the only one who never rejected him, he always obeyed whatever he was told.

As for Chen Ze, sleep eluded him. His stomach growled in hunger, but more than that, his heart was filled with unease.

He didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, but judging from today’s events, things didn’t look good.

Thinking about this, he couldn’t help but feel a surge of resentment toward his gambler father.

While other people’s fathers worked hard to support their families, his gambler father spent his days hanging around with thugs, always at the gambling table. Because of his addiction, there was never enough money for food, and they rarely had three full meals a day. If it weren’t for the constant charity of their relatives in the village, they would have starved long ago.

Not only that, but his father also drank heavily, and whenever he lost at gambling, he would come home drunk and beat him mercilessly.

As a result, Chen Ze had grown accustomed to enduring pain and mistreatment, simply to survive.

Compared to the abuse from Yang Hong, these daily hardships seemed trivial.

As for his mother, his memories of her were hazy.

Given his father’s character, no one would want to marry him, so his mother had likely been a woman rented by his father during one of his gambling “successes.” She had stayed for two years, bearing him as a child, then left when her time was up.

He had never blamed his mother for abandoning him. He understood her pain—being forced by her husband to live with a gambler like his father for two years must have been incredibly difficult.

When he was young, his mother would visit him occasionally, but every time she came, his father would lash out at her. Eventually, she stopped visiting, only sending him word that he could visit her when he had the chance.

When he was older, he made the long journey to see her several times. Though her home was far away, he never complained; seeing his mother and eating the meals she cooked brought him joy.

However, his mother’s husband, who had three daughters with her, was never fond of him. Every time he visited, the man would drag her into the house, and when she emerged, there were always bruises on her face.

At first, Chen Ze thought it was an accident. But as he grew older, he realized that the man had been hitting her in front of him, just to make him suffer.

At the age of eight, he understood the reason behind the abuse: he was his mother's son with the gambler, and that made the man angry. To protect his mother, Chen Ze stopped visiting her, severing

all ties with her.

Now, four years had passed since he last saw his mother.

Chen Ze raised his hand, gazing at the copper coin tied with red string around his wrist, its faint glow casting shadows through the broken window.

This was the only thing his mother had left him. He carried it with him at all times, even though there were times when their family went hungry. He never once thought of using the coin to buy food.

As he gently rubbed the coin, his anxious heart slowly calmed down, and he drifted into a restless sleep, murmuring in his dreams.

"Mom..."

He didn’t know if he would ever have the chance to see his mother again, but in his dreams, she was always there.