ALL NOVEL Chapter 28: The Old Man Leads the Way to Xinghua Village
Chapter 28: The Old Man Leads the Way to Xinghua Village
The note only contained the village name. His simple record reflected his lack of filial piety – in his previous life, he had never sought out his birth father.
Instead, he had stayed at the Su family, enduring their mistreatment.
And Su Ning, after going to the Su family, had never returned to see the people who raised him, let alone provide for them.
In his previous life, the last he’d heard was that Su Nuokang, his birth father, had died of illness with no one by his side.
Su Mu lowered his eyelids, his face showing deep sorrow.
After a moment, he composed himself. When he raised his head again, determination had replaced the sadness in his eyes.
He took a taxi to Xinghua Village.
Xinghua Village was a rural area near the capital’s outskirts, with better environment and fresher air than the city, free from exhaust fumes and filled with the fragrance of vegetation.
Compared to the city’s bustling noise, the tranquility and serenity here seemed to soothe one’s inner restlessness and anxiety.
It naturally slowed him down, and the worries and pressures since his rebirth seemed to dissipate in this vast landscape.
Su Mu thought: Sometimes slowing down isn’t bad. He had been too hasty in pursuing Chu Hanting before – he needed to take it slow, influence him gradually.
Walking on the cement path with his suitcase, the farmers in the fields noticed this handsome young stranger entering their village, occasionally casting sidelong glances.
After all, they had never seen someone so fair and clean-looking in their village – clearly a city person.
Ahead, he met an old man carrying a hoe. Su Mu ran up to him, smiling, “Sir, do you know where Su Nuokang lives?”
“Huh?” The old man pointed to his ear and waved, indicating he hadn’t heard clearly.
Su Mu moved closer, speaking loudly and clearly: “Su-Nuo-Kang.”
“Su?” The old man hadn’t caught the rest, but in Xinghua Village, most people were surnamed Zhang, some Li, and only one family surnamed Su – outsiders who had arrived twenty years ago, not locals.
Though his eyesight was failing, the old man looked carefully at Su Mu’s features, noting his resemblance to a younger Su Nuokang, and realized he must be a relative searching for him.
His face wrinkled with a smile as he beckoned Su Mu, “Come, follow me, I’ll take you there.”
Su Mu thanked him and followed with his luggage.
The old man walked slowly due to his bad legs, but Su Mu didn’t rush him, just quietly following like a shadow.
Along the way, the old man chatted, mixing dialect with broken Mandarin. Su Mu could barely understand the gist but just smiled at whatever the old man said.
The village wasn’t large. After several turns and paths, the old man stopped in front of a small cement single-story house.
Inside, the house had a vegetable garden enclosed by a fence, with an unlocked gate that could be pushed open.
The old man called from outside the yard: “Su family! Anyone home? You have a relative here! Su family?”
A middle-aged man with messy, unkempt hair came to the door.
He wore flip-flops, one hand propped against the doorframe, the other scratching his disheveled hair. He was dressed in beige linen shorts and an apricot-colored sleeveless undershirt. His arms were stained with black coal dust.
Judging from the smoke coming from the chimney, he had likely been tending the fire to prepare a meal.
The moment Su Nuokang saw Su Mu, he recognized him from those familiar features.
This must be the boy who had switched identities with Su Ning, he thought.
“Come in.”
Su Nuokang’s voice was deep, full of masculine power.
Su Mu replied “Alright” and pushed open the creaking gate to enter.
The yard had black soil ground, making it difficult to roll the suitcase, so Su Mu lifted it to his chest as he walked.
The old man who had led the way left with his hoe after seeing Su Nuokang emerge, returning to his own work.
Inside, Su Mu sat on a long bench, quietly looking across the square table at Su Nuokang.
Truthfully, Su Mu was surprised upon first meeting him, even thinking the old man had brought him to the wrong person.
From what he’d heard in his previous life, he had expected his father to be a thin, malnourished, sickly man.
But after getting a clear look past Su Nuokang’s messy long curls, Su Mu knew this was his birth father – they shared a resemblance.
Yet strangely, was this really the man who would die of cancer in two years?
Far from being small like most villagers, Su Nuokang was tall and muscular, with healthy tanned skin – he looked perfectly healthy.
However, Su Mu quickly guessed the reason – many cancers show no early symptoms and are undetectable.
The deterioration must have happened after the late-stage diagnosis.
While Su Mu pondered this, Su Nuokang was lost in his own thoughts.
He had believed his biological son would never seek him out. When Su Ning left, he had clearly seen the disdain in his eyes, even telling him that his real son despised this poor place and refused to switch back.
He hadn’t believed it at first, thinking his son would at least call or visit after learning the truth, but after waiting and waiting with no contact, he had started to believe Su Ning’s words about Su Mu not wanting to switch back.
“He likely thought Su Mu was the same as Su Ning. After all, he had raised Su Ning for over twenty years but never raised Su Mu for even a day. If Su Ning could be so cold, what could he expect from Su Mu?”
So when Su Mu suddenly appeared today, Su Nuokang was quite surprised.
The room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop, broken only by occasional birdsong from outside.
A simple dialogue began – the first confrontation between father and son.
“You came?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you here?”
“Am I not allowed to come?”
“Did the Su family drive you out?”
Su Nuokang had noticed Su Mu’s luggage, making him think he’d been forced to leave the Su family.
“No, I chose to leave the Su family myself.”
Seeing Su Nuokang’s puzzled look, Su Mu guessed what he wanted to ask and explained: “I know you think that because I didn’t come back all this time and stayed with the Su family, I looked down on this place and didn’t want to acknowledge you.”
“I won’t deny that when I first learned about my true identity, it was very hard to accept.”
“After all, the people who raised me for twenty years suddenly told me I wasn’t their biological son, and my real father was someone else. I went through a period of confusion, feeling like everything was unreal.”
“I didn’t come at first because my thoughts were in chaos. I needed time to process it, but it was never because I looked down on anything.”