"But..." Su Nianyun looked at Xiao Changfeng in confusion, "How did this happen?"
"It started when I was six years old..."
Facing Su Nianyun's confused face, Xiao Changfeng fell into his own memories.
At that time, the young Xiao Hu had not yet accumulated many military exploits, and was just a small soldier in the army.
In his hometown in the south, his wife Zhao Yuan was pregnant with his second child.
But from the time she had a happy pulse until the birth of her second son, she never received a letter from her husband.
Thinking something had happened to her husband, Zhao Yuan asked people to inquire about her husband's whereabouts in the army.
Later, a fellow villager got information from the army for her and said that Xiao Hu had been promoted to general.
When Zhao Yuan was happy for her husband, a fellow villager went on to say that after Xiao Hu was promoted to general, he immediately married a noblewoman in the capital, and he should never come back to his hometown again.
This news was like a bolt from the blue for Zhao Yuan, who had just given birth.
She could never believe that her husband could be such a person.
So, she entrusted her eldest son Xiao Changfeng to a neighbor to help take care of him, while she went to the capital to find her husband with the unweaned child in her arms.
Her youngest son hadn't had time to choose a name yet. She fully wanted to ask her husband to name her son after meeting her husband. She was even more convinced that her husband's marriage to another man was just a misunderstanding.
However, after Zhao Yuan left, there was no news.
Xiao Changfeng lived in the neighbor's house until he was eight years old. Seeing that there was no news from the Xiao family, the neighbor really didn't want to take care of Xiao Changfeng, a loser, so he kicked him out of the house.
At that time, Xiao Changfeng had no relatives. Thinking that his mother had gone to the capital to find his father but never returned, he went to the capital begging for food.
In just two years, Xiao Hu has been promoted from deputy general to deputy general.
The little beggar Xiao Changfeng came to Beijing and asked someone at random, and he found out the location of Xiao Hu's mansion.
Having been dependent on others since he was a child, coupled with the bumpy journey from his hometown to the capital, eight-year-old Xiao Changfeng is extremely precocious.
He did not rush into his mansion recklessly to recognize his father after finding out his father's location.
Because he believed that his mother would not be in his father's mansion.
If the mother really finds the father and is with him, there is no way the mother will not come back to pick her up for two years.
Therefore, Xiao Changfeng monitored Xiao Hu's actions outside Xiao Hu's house while asking others about the situation in Xiao Hu's house.
Things turned out just as he thought. His mother was not in the Xiao Mansion at all. The person in charge of the Xiao Mansion was his wife Wei Shi, who was married to the media.
Wei Shi also gave birth to a son to Xiao Hu two years ago, and Xiao Hu loved this son very much.
At that time, Xiao Changfeng didn't have much resentment towards Xiao Hu who abandoned his wife and son.
Since he had no memory of his father who joined the army, Xiao Changfeng didn't really care whether he was his mother's husband or the husband of someone else's mother.
What he really cares about is where her mother and brother have gone.
So he begged in Beijing while looking for his mother.
In the Xiao Mansion, he did not relax. He repeatedly used money from begging to bribe the maids in the Xiao Mansion, trying to find out any information about his mother.
However, the financial resources he obtained through begging were limited, and the people he could bribe were all menial workers. He did not buy anyone around Webster.
The whereabouts of her mother and younger brother have become a mystery.
In the end, there was no news about his mother inside and outside the capital, so Xiao Changfeng had no choice but to sell himself into the Xiao Mansion.
At first, his purpose of entering Xiao Mansion was simple, that is, if his mother was delayed by something on her way to the capital, she would definitely come to Xiao Mansion after she had rested, so he waited for news in Xiao Mansion.
On the other hand, he wanted to see his father's attitude and whether he still remembered his wife and son who he abandoned in his hometown in the south.
However, both of his purposes for entering the mansion disappointed him in the end.
Because when Xiao Hu was at home, he never mentioned anything about his wife in his hometown. It seemed that he had completely abandoned that family.
Also, from beginning to end, neither mother nor brother appeared.
Xiao Changfeng couldn't help but feel discouraged. After working in the Xiao Mansion for more than half a year, he was even more shocked when he saw the intimacy between Xiao Hu and his son Xiao Lei, so he decided to leave this sad place and return to his hometown.
Things took a turn for the better on the night when he was packing his bags and preparing to leave.
Xiao Changfeng came to the backyard of Xiao Mansion for the last time, saying goodbye to everything familiar around him, and also wanted to take a last look at Xiao Lei, who was as old as his brother.
Without thinking, I saw Webster quietly leaving the house from the backyard and burning paper incense in an inconspicuous house.
Because there were guards around Wei Shi, Xiao Changfeng couldn't hear exactly what Wei Shi said. After they left, he slowly walked into the house.
The yard was empty and it looked like no one had lived in it for a long time.
The paper dust on the ground flew away, spinning on the ground, leading him into the main room.
Seeing the furnishings in the house, the young man Xiao Changfeng was stunned.
Because the arrangement of the items and utensils inside is exactly the same as that of my mother.
In particular, my mother is good at tailoring and uses scissors a lot, so she always wraps the scissor handles with soft cotton cloth several times so that her hands are not worn.
Although other women who make tailoring also have this habit, Zhao Yuan's method of tying cotton is different from others.
She likes to tie a red silk thread on the cotton strips when binding the handles of the scissors.
In the past, in her hometown, when a group of women were sitting together to cut clothes, they would easily pick up the wrong scissors, so she would leave a red thread on the handle of the scissors as a mark every time.
The moment he saw the scissors, Xiao Changfeng knew that this was the place where his mother had lived.
The next day, he began to inquire about the whereabouts of his mother and brother from his neighbors.
Everyone said that there was someone in this house three or four years ago.
Many people have no idea who lived in the house because the people who lived there rarely went out.
Finally, an elderly woman recalled, "There seems to be a mother and son living inside."
"Aunt, do you really remember that they were a mother and a son? Then do you know where they are now?"
The old woman shook her head, "I only remember that the child who was a few months old fell seriously ill one day... and then I heard the young woman say in despair that the child was gone... and I never saw her again after that!"
"The child... is gone?" Upon hearing the news, Xiao Changfeng's eyes widened in disbelief.
Could it be that when he saw Webster come to worship, it was his brother who was worshiping?
With this speculation, Xiao Changfeng temporarily suspended the idea of ​​returning to his hometown.
He went back to Xiao Mansion to work again and continued to inquire about his mother's whereabouts.
This time, he believed that Webster knew the whereabouts of his mother, so he went to work near Webster's yard.
Later, he spent all his wages to please a young girl next to Webster.
The girl finally revealed the secret to Xiao Changfeng, "Back then, a mother and son came to see the master, but the master was on an expedition at that time, and it was the mother and son who were received by the lady..."
"Later, I found out that the child died first, and the mother also died of depression before I could wait for the master to return to Beijing!"