41: Chapter 41 Rejecting Internal Friction

Under the dim light, hot steam rose from a chipped, coarse porcelain bowl of plain boiled water.

The room fell into silence.

The two sat by the Eight Immortals table, deadlocked for five minutes, neither speaking first.

Wang Hanmei's rough hands nervously rubbed against the hem of her old cotton-padded jacket.

Her lips moved a few times, but she didn't know where to start asking.

She wanted to ask if her son had suffered outside, and wanted to ask what was up with that black car outside.

She even more wanted to ask this calm man before her why such a change had occurred.

Sitting opposite her, Shen Du remained silent.

His eyes reflected the flickering tungsten light.

He was clear about the turmoil in his mother's heart.

But he could not explain "rebirth" to a farm woman, nor could he lay the capital-driven slaughter of Shanghai before her.

In the end, it was Shen Du who spoke first.

He seized the excuse most capable of putting a mother at ease, and also the most irrefutable one.

"Mom, after the New Year, let's find some people to renovate this house."

Shen Du's voice was steady.

He paused slightly, looked at his mother's stunned expression, and threw out his reason:

"This house is too dilapidated, it leaks wind on all sides.

If I have a wife in the future, there won't even be a place to sleep when I bring her back."

Hearing the word "wife", a glimmer of light flashed in Wang Hanmei's eyes.

For a widowed mother who had struggled through half her life.

What trouble her son had caused outside, or how much money he had earned, was too distant and ethereal.

But "marrying and having children" was a top priority engraved in her bones.

Before Wang Hanmei could recover from this sentence.

Shen Du reached into his inner coat pocket and pulled out a bank card.

He pushed it onto the mottled lacquered surface of the Eight Immortals table.

"There is enough money in here, the password is your birthday."

Shen Du's tone was flat.

He did not explain which short-selling position this money had been cut from.

Nor did he leave any room for his mother to decline.

He stood up, tapped his fingers on the table, and set the rules:

"Time is tight before the New Year, I will first find people to fix the leaking spots, and then buy some appliances to make do for the New Year.

As for the renovation, we'll start after the New Year."

After explaining these trivial matters.

He tried to use these daily arrangements to dilute the shock brought by the bank card.

To anchor the topic on the level of ordinary people's lives.

He did not intend to impose pressure beyond her cognition on his mother's nerves on this winter night.

After giving instructions, Shen Du turned to walk towards the west room to rest.

Watching her son's upright back, Wang Hanmei's fingers pinched the hem of her old cotton-padded jacket.

The bank card on the table, along with the aura her son displayed tonight.

Was like a key, prying open the black box sealed in her heart for twenty years.

If her son were still the timid, poor student from before, she would have taken the secret to her grave.

But now, her son had clearly already touched that world.

Just at the moment Shen Du was about to step into the room.

Wang Hanmei could not suppress her struggle, and beckoned towards that back.

"Du'er..."

She spoke, her voice hoarse.

It seemed abrupt in the quiet room, carrying a tremor.

Shen Du's footsteps halted.

Wang Hanmei took a deep breath, stared at her son's back, and asked that taboo that had been suppressed for a full twenty years:

"Have you never been curious... why your grandparents both have the surname Wang, yet you yourself... happen to have the surname Shen?"

Shen Du's steps towards the west room paused, his figure solidifying in front of the door.

The lamplight hit his back, pulling out a silhouette.

In this instant, his thoughts surged.

In fact, from the moment he examined this home and the logical loopholes behind the character "Shen" while in the car, he had been carrying doubts.

However, when he turned around and faced his mother's face filled with wind, frost, and forbearance.

Reason overcame curiosity.

As a reborn person, Shen Du had his own "anti-internal friction rule".

In his logic.

To pursue a twenty-year-old broken account, to tear open his mother's scars.

There was no gain in the business landscape, it was instead a form of emotional internal friction.

If this "Shen" character really involved that abyss that made Wang Hanmei tremble.

Then for him now, the most important thing to do was not to question, but to become stronger.

Shen Du restrained the sense of scrutiny all over his body, and a gentle smile curled at the corners of his mouth.

"Mom, let the past be the past."

Shen Du's voice was cold and clear:

"Before, I didn't have the ability, and let you suffer grievances."

"But now and in the future, nothing makes me happier than you being able to live a peaceful and comfortable life."

With these words, he didn't use a businessman's calculations, nor did he use coercion.

Instead, as a son's promise, he naturally sealed that secret back up again.

In Wang Hanmei's astonished gaze, Shen Du reached out and patted the old door frame.

Isolating this family from those unknown bloodline shackles.

"Go to sleep early, Mom.

Tomorrow morning, I still have to find someone to fix the house."

After finishing, Shen Du turned and walked into his own room.

Following a soft sound from that drafty wooden door.

He closed the door, also blocking out that wind and snow from twenty years ago.

The wooden door closed.

The living room fell into silence again.

Wang Hanmei sat by the Eight Immortals table, watching the tightly closed door.

Her tense shoulders slumped, and she let out a turbid breath.

Her son's words just now smoothed out the panic and anxiety in her heart.

She cast her gaze on the bank card on the table, and her withered fingers grasped it in her palm.

At this moment, she chose to accept the fatalism of "children and grandchildren have their own blessings".

As a mother, she decided to completely let go.

Not to ask about the origin of this money.

Nor to delve into how that once timid youth had transformed into this stature.

As long as her son is safe and sound, those rotten accounts of the past are not worth mentioning.

However, when Wang Hanmei stood up, her gaze unconsciously looked towards the northern direction.

In her murky eyes, a flash of determination flickered.

"Du'er, since you have chosen this path, Mom will not stop you..."

Wang Hanmei murmured in her heart.

Having hidden in these remote and barren deep mountains for a full twenty years, she knew better than anyone how deep the waters of Shanghai were.

But she was even more certain of one thing:

If one day in the future, her son poked a hole in the sky in that vanity fair, and encountered a monstrous disaster that could shatter him to pieces at any time...

She, a widow in the mountain gullies, had a way to save his life.

That was her deepest trump card.

It's just that the price was too cruel for her.

It meant she had to lower her head.

To walk back into that "former home" she had sworn never to step into again even if she died.

That taboo whose name was not even allowed to be publicly discussed in the entire Shanghai power circle.

The winter morning in the mountain village was permeated with a damp cold that could freeze the marrow of one's bones.

Shen Du, who was used to large flats.

Did not sleep well this night.

The gaps in the old wooden window were like a drafty bellows, pouring cold wind into the room.

The old wooden bed beneath him was hard and uncomfortable; every time he turned over, it would make a "creaking" sound.

It wasn't until the sky turned a greyish light that Shen Du finally closed his eyes.

However, not long after he closed his eyes.

A burst of noise exploded outside the courtyard!

"You shameless jinx!"

"Not only did you kill my son, but you also won't let my grandson take our Wang family name. Today I will tear your mouth apart, and beat you to death, you curse!"

Bang!

Accompanied by the courtyard gate being kicked open by someone.

The Wang family old woman's harsh cursing tore through the silence of the mountain village morning.

Piercing into the bungalow.

Inside the dim west room.

Shen Du, lying on the bed, opened his eyes abruptly.

In those black pupils, there was not a trace of the grogginess or astonishment of being woken up.

Nor was there the weakness and fear when facing the oppression of elders in his previous life.

What replaced it was absolute coldness.

In this world, Wang Hanmei was his reverse scale.

That word "jinx" ignited Shen Du's emotions.