Feng Yuan’s dirty little face leaned in, his lips puckering as he gave a noisy kiss.
“Smooch.”
That clear sound, along with the lingering damp and heated sensation on his face, made the originally malicious Li Ting’s expression freeze instantly.
Feng Yuan wasn’t satisfied with just kissing Li Ting’s right cheek.
He was fair in his affection. His chubby little hands cupped Li Ting’s handsome face, and he planted another noisy kiss on his left cheek.
After he was done kissing, his little dirty face bloomed with a sweet smile.
“Little Uncle, you’re amazing!”
The strength that sent the bad guy flying with just one kick left Feng Yuan in absolute awe.
Meeting Feng Yuan’s bright, sparkling little eyes, Li Ting averted his gaze, letting out a cold snort. His tone still carried no warmth.
But standing nearby, Qin Xun, sharp-eyed, caught sight of the tips of Li Ting’s ears turning quickly and completely red.
Qin Xun stared at Li Ting’s ears for a few seconds, then finally relaxed, no longer paying attention to the interaction between uncle and nephew.
He walked over to the man on the ground, lifted his leg, and viciously landed a few more kicks.
If not for this man, Feng Yuan wouldn’t have ended up falling and getting all covered in dirt, nor would his little calf and knee have gotten scraped.
Qin Xun had his back to Feng Yuan as he delivered the kicks to the man.
So at this moment, Feng Yuan didn’t see just how terrifying Qin Xun looked with that shadowed expression on his small face.
Only after he had stomped the man enough did Qin Xun use his smartwatch again to contact the police.
He had already reported it while they were on the road earlier.
By his estimation, the police should be arriving right about now.
Qin Xun’s calculation wasn’t wrong. Just as he held the smartwatch and was about to redial, the police had already found their way over.
The officers who got out of the car immediately locked onto the man lying on the ground.
Though the man on the ground looked rather miserable, the veteran officer at the lead, relying on his years of case-handling instincts, caught at a glance the aura of “bloodlust” lingering on him.
His gaze turned sharp, and he cuffed the man’s hands.
Seeing the man get restrained, Qin Xun added, “Feng Yuan and I saw him by the pond. He was standing there by the water. I don’t know what he was doing.”
“After he spotted Feng Yuan and me, his eyes turned vicious. He wanted to catch us.”
Qin Xun calmly laid out the entire sequence of events, making everything clear and precise.
He also pointed out where the pond was.
The old officer patted his shoulder and praised him: “Good child. Leave the rest to us. You can go back with the adults and get some rest.”
The police then took the small path to search for the pond.
Qin Xun lifted his head, looked at Li Ting who was still holding Feng Yuan, and stretched out his hands. He said, “Give Yuan Yuan to me.”
Li Ting: “……”
Li Ting raised an eyebrow and asked mockingly, “Do you think I actually want to hold him?”
This little brat was like a solid weight, clinging to him and not behaving at all.
So young, yet already going around kissing people. Clearly, he hadn’t been taught properly.
After Li Ting said this, Qin Xun didn’t get angry.
He just kept his arms out, still asking for the child: “Since you don’t want to hold him, then let me carry Yuan Yuan.”
Li Ting didn’t loosen his hold.
He let out a cold laugh and asked, “Why should I give him to you just because you said so?”
He narrowed his eyes at Qin Xun’s small face, not feeling the slightest bit that it was improper for a grown man to be bickering with a child.
Even more, he treated it seriously, spitting out a few cold words: “I just won’t give him to you.”
Qin Xun didn’t respond to him but instead looked over at Feng Yuan.
Feng Yuan, sitting in Li Ting’s arms, was blinking in confusion.
He had also heard what Li Ting said.
But in his little head, he only felt that it must be that Li Ting wanted to hold him.
“Qin Xun, my junks…”
Feng Yuan wasn’t worried about who would carry him; what he worried about was the junk he had picked up: “I already collected half a bag.”
That half-bag of junk could at least be sold for one whole yuan.
Even when he was running just now, he couldn’t bear to throw it away!
Seeing how anxious he was, Qin Xun retraced a short stretch of the road and found his bag of junk.
It was a fertilizer sack sewn shut with a drawstring, washed so much it had turned a bit whitish.
Qin Xun lifted his hand and handed it over to Feng Yuan, who was waiting eagerly.
Unfortunately, before Feng Yuan could take it, his little body was pulled aside by Li Ting.
“What do you need that for?”
Li Ting looked at the fertilizer sack of junk in Qin Xun’s hand, wishing he could keep as far away from it as possible. His brows furrowed tightly, and he rejected it outright: “Hurry up and throw it away.”
“No, no, don’t throw it.”
Feng Yuan hurriedly blocked, panicking: “Don’t throw away Yuan Yuan’s junk!”
“Uncle, this is the junk Yuan Yuan picked up. It can be sold for money.”
Of course, Li Ting knew junk could be sold for money.
Though he was the young master born of an old family, it wasn’t as if he had no knowledge of everyday life.
He simply despised the junk itself.
“Is Li Sheng living so miserably now? He can’t even afford to raise his own son?”
Li Ting glanced at the junk, then at Feng Yuan, who had only gotten into danger earlier because of picking up junk, and seized the chance to fire off some mocking remarks at Li Sheng: “To live like this, might as well be dead already.”
But before his sneering words were finished, Feng Yuan’s little hand slapped over his mouth.
“Little Uncle, don’t say that.”
Feng Yuan, putting on the air of a little grown-up, coaxed him: “My big daddy is your older brother. If he dies, then you won’t have a brother anymore.”
Li Ting: “……”
Li Ting pulled his face back a little: “I don’t want one anyway.”
Feng Yuan immediately covered his mouth again.
“You do, you do. You want a brother, and you want Yuan Yuan too!”
Feng Yuan forcibly made Li Ting acknowledge wanting his brother.
And to make Li Ting show at least a little love toward his brother, Feng Yuan even brought up his own dad as an example: “My dad is also a brother. He had a younger brother who did really, really bad things. Dad beat him to death, and he still wasn’t angry.”
Li Ting: “???”
Li Ting practically doubted his own ears. It took him several seconds before he asked Feng Yuan for confirmation: “Your dad… beat your uncle to death?”
Feng Yuan: “Mm-hm.”
Feng Yuan lifted his round little chin, even sounding a bit boastful: “Yuan Yuan made a funeral wreath for Uncle—a really, really big one!”
For once, Li Ting was struck speechless.
After learning about Feng Yuan’s existence, he had investigated the father who raised him, Feng Qi.
Feng Qi’s photos were easy to obtain.
He had received a whole stack of Feng Qi’s photos, along with detailed information about him.
Feng Qi was a beauty whose looks stood unmatched even among the dazzling stars of the entertainment industry.
But though beautiful, his body was frail.
In several of the photos Li Ting had received, the beauty’s complexion looked as if it held no trace of blood.
The person reporting back to him hadn’t forgotten to spill a bit of interesting gossip either—
That Feng Qi had recently appeared at a film and television base.
Some of the big shots in the industry, whether they had discovered him themselves or had him recommended to them, had already set their eyes on this newcomer beauty.
In the entertainment world, despicable tricks were countless.
A beauty who looked like he had no background falling into this circle, one could imagine well enough what he might encounter.
Li Ting, however, didn’t bother with that gossip.
His interest in Feng Yuan far outweighed that in Feng Qi.
But now, suddenly hearing from Feng Yuan’s own mouth something like this that Feng Qi had supposedly done, Li Ting thought it over carefully and still found it hard to believe.
With Feng Qi’s frail body, forget killing someone, he probably even had difficulty slaughtering a chicken.
What children sometimes said was nothing more than nonsense.
Once Li Ting concluded that Feng Yuan was spouting nonsense, he pushed down any speculation about Feng Qi, held Feng Yuan, and turned to leave.
Qin Xun, carrying the fertilizer sack and his delicate face darkening, followed after them.
“Uncle Li!”
Qin Xun called out to Li Ting, asking him to hand over the child.
The Li family all grew tall. With Li Ting’s long legs striding forward, his pace was much faster than Qin Xun’s.
Chasing after him, Qin Xun’s fists gradually clenched tighter.
Finally—
Li Ting stopped at the side of a wide road, in front of a silver-white sports car.
He never used a driver when going out.
Just as he was about to get in, Feng Yuan clung tightly to his neck, his soft, dumpling-like face pressing against him, eyes squeezed shut in fright.
“Uncle, don’t drive…”
Feng Yuan’s tender little voice trembled: “Yuan Yuan is afraid of crashing.”
Li Ting: “It won’t crash.”
Li Ting was very confident in his own driving skills.
Some time ago, the reason he had crashed was because someone had tampered with the car during maintenance. That account had already been settled.
Now that he was out of the hospital and driving again, there wasn’t the slightest shadow left in his heart.
Holding Feng Yuan with one arm, he neatly opened the back car door.
Once the door was open, he patted Feng Yuan’s chubby little bottom and reminded him, “Get in.”
But Feng Yuan didn’t want to.
So the big one and the little one just stood there under the sun by the roadside, with a sullen-faced Qin Xun trailing right beside them.
Even the cicadas in the trees, watching the stalemate between the adult and child, seemed to soften their chirping a little, as if they didn’t dare disturb them.
Li Ting’s oppressive aura had no effect whatsoever on Feng Yuan.
Feng Yuan was truly not afraid of him.
After the standoff dragged on for quite a while, Li Ting’s handsome face darkened. He pulled out his phone to call for a substitute driver.
Before long, the driver who had taken the order arrived in his work uniform.
With a beaming smile, he slid into the driver’s seat, promising that he would get them to their destination safely.
Seeing someone else driving, Feng Yuan finally loosened his little hands and climbed into the back seat by himself.
“Little Uncle, Qin Xun, come sit!”
He patted the spot beside him, inviting the two outside as if he were the little host.
Li Ting got in, but he didn’t let Qin Xun in.
“I’ll take Yuan Yuan back. You don’t need to come along.”
After saying that, Li Ting tilted his head toward Feng Yuan’s ear and whispered a made-up excuse: “Yuan Yuan, I’m taking you back because I’ve prepared a gift for you. This gift… only you can see.”
Fooled by Li Ting’s coaxing, Feng Yuan actually believed him.
“Qin Xun, I want to go to Little Uncle’s house.”
Stepping on Li Ting’s leg, Feng Yuan leaned against the window and said to Qin Xun outside: “I’ll come back and play with you later. Mhm, you can even sleep with me, too.”
Hearing his promise, Qin Xun still didn’t want him to go.
But in his heart, he knew clearly that with Li Ting there, Feng Yuan was bound to be taken away.
Li Ting had come on this trip with the sole purpose of taking Feng Yuan.
Qin Xun pressed his lips together and didn’t try to forcefully keep Feng Yuan behind.
As soon as the sports car carrying Feng Yuan drove off, Qin Xun stood where he was, his face expressionless, and dialed Li Sheng’s number.
He was going to tattle.
Sitting in the car, Feng Yuan had no idea that Qin Xun was reporting on him.
Right now, he was busy playing with Li Ting.
There were no toys in the car.
Feng Yuan stretched out his chubby little hands to play a hand-slapping game with Li Ting.
He tried to slap Li Ting’s hand, but Li Ting pulled it away each time, not letting him hit it.
Such a simple, repetitive game had Feng Yuan laughing in delight, giggling nonstop.
He kept stretching out his little hands to slap at Li Ting’s. Even though he hadn’t hit once, he never tired of trying again and again.
Li Ting leaned back against the seat, one hand resting loosely, the other hand teasing Feng Yuan.
He felt that he was merely teasing this little brat, like playing with a sparrow.
But in Feng Yuan’s eyes, this was Little Uncle playing with him.
The substitute driver drove very steadily.
With the navigation system guiding him, he followed the route smoothly until they reached their destination.
Li Ting lived in a private villa as well, though his was in a quieter location, with no other households nearby.
After playing all the way in the car, Feng Yuan’s little face now showed some drowsiness.
And whenever he got sleepy, laziness followed.
Even though the car had already stopped, he wasn’t willing to get out by himself.
“Little Uncle, carry me.”
Sitting in the car, Feng Yuan let out a lazy little yawn, rubbing his eyes as he asked to be carried.
Li Ting gave him a sidelong look, his tone blunt and unkind in critique: “Lazybones.”
After his comment, he bent down, his handsome face still cold, and picked up the little lazybones.
In his heart, Li Ting told himself that he hadn’t gone soft for this brat, nor had he been bewitched by him—
Right now, he was only pretending to indulge the child’s request.
Once they got home, he would show this brat how he planned to bully him.
Feng Yuan, of course, knew nothing of Li Ting’s inner thoughts.
His little head leaned against Li Ting’s chest. He was about to close his eyes and fall asleep. But the closer Li Ting got to the villa’s front entrance, the stronger the smell became. It didn’t smell right at all.
So heavy, so suffocating.
Such a thick, oppressive ghostly aura!
The moment that ghostly energy hit him in the face, Feng Yuan’s little nose twitched, and he instantly woke up.
He straightened his small body in Li Ting’s arms, the drowsiness on his little face replaced by alertness.
“Little Uncle, your house has ghosts!”
In a serious, childish voice, Feng Yuan issued his warning: “You can’t live here. Hurry and come stay at Yuan Yuan’s house instead.”
His big daddy’s house was very, very big—big enough for Little Uncle to live in, too.
Li Ting didn’t care in the slightest about Feng Yuan’s ghost warning.
Carrying him, he strode forward and gave a light, mocking snort: “If there really were ghosts, that’d be great. I can’t wait to meet one.”
Feng Yuan: “?”
Feng Yuan couldn’t understand Li Ting’s words.
His little head was filled with question marks, but now wasn’t the time for him to ask.
“Little Uncle, hurry and listen to Yuan Yuan, your house has—”
Feng Yuan was just about to say a whole lot of ghosts.
But the Li Ting holding him had already pushed the front door open.
The instant the door swung open, Feng Yuan’s chubby little body shuddered from fright.
Inside, he saw yellow paper spirit money scattered everywhere, candles set up, and half-cooked rice on the table…
All of it seemed deliberately arranged to summon ghosts.
Feng Yuan’s eyes widened, staring in disbelief at it all.
Last time, Feng Yuan had already seen ghostly energy clinging to Li Ting, but he had thought then that it was just something Li Ting had accidentally brushed against.
Now it was clear. Li Ting was deliberately summoning ghosts.
“Little Uncle…”
Feng Yuan’s childish voice even stammered a bit. Staring at the room filled with offerings and heavy with ghostly aura, he couldn’t hold back and, trembling, asked: “Y-you… is there a ghost you want to see?”
“Mm.”
Li Ting didn’t hide it at all. Holding the chubby little boy who was shivering against him, he walked toward the living room sofa.
On the coffee table in front of the sofa were many things laid out.
Some were for people to eat, and some looked like they were meant for ghosts.
Li Ting sat down, intending to put Feng Yuan on the sofa.
But Feng Yuan refused to let go.
He would only sit on Li Ting’s lap, not on the sofa at all.
“Little Uncle, don’t leave.”
Seeing that Li Ting seemed like he wanted to leave, Feng Yuan sat on his lap, tilting up his pretty little face, pitifully pleading: “If you leave, take Yuan Yuan with you, too.”
Li Ting: “What are you afraid of?”
His gaze swept around the room, brows furrowing: “There aren’t any ghosts here.”
He had tried all sorts of ways to summon ghosts, but not a single one had ever appeared.
Feng Yuan had no way to explain to him that there really were ghosts here.
Big and small, their eyes met. Li Ting could see that this little one was truly afraid.
After a few seconds of silence, he picked a piece of fruit from the coffee table and stuffed it into the child’s hands.
“Eat.”
While saying that, Li Ting casually explained a bit about the situation in the house: “I had a boyfriend. Two years ago, he died. I didn’t see how he died.”
“So, I wanted to try and see if I could summon his ghost, to ask him a couple of things.”
In just a few words, Li Ting left Feng Yuan staring blankly, dumbfounded.
When Feng Yuan first saw all the ghost-summoning setup in the house, he almost thought his Little Uncle was a pervert.
Who would’ve thought. Little Uncle wasn’t a pervert at all. He was actually so pitiful!
“Little Uncle, don’t be sad. Yuan Yuan isn’t afraid anymore.”
Feng Yuan climbed off Li Ting’s lap and sat on the sofa by himself, his chubby little face firm: “Yuan Yuan will definitely help you.”
The ghost Little Uncle wanted to find wasn’t that his Little Auntie?
He was afraid of ghosts, but he wasn’t afraid of Little Auntie!
Volunteering himself to help, Feng Yuan sat on the sofa, darting his eyes around left and right, not sure what idea he was brewing.
Seeing him able to sit still for once, Li Ting stood up.
“Sit here. I’ll go get your gift.”
After saying this, Li Ting left. Before going, he unhurriedly rolled up his sleeves, pulled the phone out of his pocket, and casually placed it on the coffee table.
He hadn’t been gone long.
Just as Feng Yuan’s eyes lit up with a new idea and he was about to climb down from the sofa—
The sudden ringing of a phone broke out abruptly.
Startled by the sound, Feng Yuan’s chubby little foot slipped. He landed squarely on his bottom.
Sitting on the floor, he rubbed his sore backside, then grabbed the still-ringing phone.
On the caller ID, there were two characters noted—
Old Man.
Feng Yuan squinted hard to recognize the words, then answered the call.
“Hello, heeey~”
