Chapter 117

Chapter 117

As soon as they entered, Wen Miao called out, “Director Mom,” then, as if she knew the place by heart, found the cups and the hot-water kettle in the office and poured a glass of water for both herself and Nan Mu.

The two of them had only just sat down when the Director finally straightened up. “Wonderful. Found it.”

Holding a stack of yellowed documents, she sat down across from Wen Miao and Nan Mu, then pushed the files in front of them. “These are the records for all the orphans admitted that year.”

The Director could not remember exactly which month it had been, so they had needed to search a bit.

Fortunately, Wen Miao’s batch had been rather unusual because there had been six of them. After looking for only a little while, Wen Miao found it.

The records here were fairly detailed, thanks to Happiness Orphanage’s requirement that adopted children continue to be tracked through follow-up visits. They were usually checked on once a year, so the file in Wen Miao’s hands covered almost all the information on the adopted orphans.

For example, the file Nan Mu was currently holding, which concerned Gu Zhishu.

When Gu Zhishu was still at the Orphanage, his nickname had been Xiao Shu. It was only after he went to the Gu Family that he was given his new name. Attached behind his personal information was a stack of follow-up records, the contents of which included, but were not limited to, the adoptive family’s current financial situation, the child’s physical health, and other miscellaneous details.

Gu Zhishu’s follow-ups had clearly all been conducted at the end of the year, so the records noted that Gu Zhishu had fallen ill, but there was not yet any mention of his disappearance.

Nan Mu turned another page. The next person was Zhaodi.

It was only when Wen Miao saw the name on the file that she suddenly remembered. “Right! I remember now. She was called Xiao Hua.”

There were many children at Happiness Orphanage. Almost every month, someone new arrived or someone left. If they had seriously tried to give every child a carefully chosen name, never mind whether the children themselves could remember them-even the childcare teachers probably would not have been able to keep them straight.

So when naming the children, it was impossible to pick and choose with painstaking care every time. Most of the time, the childcare teachers would ask the children what they had been called before, or even ask what name they wanted for themselves.

But what could children possibly understand? The names they gave themselves were usually just things they could see. Xiao Hua, Xiao Cao, Xiao Shu…

For instance, Wen Tangtang’s name came from the crabapple flowers at the entrance of the Orphanage. Wen Xin’s nickname had actually been Xingxing, but later, when they were registering him under the collective household registration for school, the staff member handling the paperwork felt that a little boy would definitely regret being called Xingxing when he grew up, so they changed it to Xin, the character made up of three gold radicals.

This was the first time Nan Mu learned that their names actually had this layer of meaning and history behind them. He could not help becoming curious about Wen Miao’s name.

“Then how did the Miao in your name come about?”

That name, at a glance, clearly did not belong in the same category as trees, flowers, stars, moons, and the like.

Wen Miao had not expected Nan Mu to suddenly ask such a question and froze. Her eyes darted away, subconsciously avoiding Nan Mu’s gaze as she began to hedge and change the subject.

Nan Mu did not understand what there was to be embarrassed about when it came to a name. It was the Director who burst into laughter first before explaining to him, “Wen Miao’s nickname was Xiao Niao. But when she was little, she couldn’t distinguish between m and n. When people asked, ‘What’s your name?’ she would foolishly say, ‘I’m Xiao Miao.’ Over time, everyone started calling her Xiao Miao.”

With the Director exposing her embarrassing childhood story, Wen Miao’s face flushed red at once. Her expression turned a little unnatural, and she could only pretend not to care as she looked out the window.

Nan Mu smiled and nudged her elbow. “So our genius girl wasn’t smart from birth after all, huh?”

Wen Miao pouted and silently cursed him in her heart. Annoying.

Seeing Wen Miao’s blushing face, the Director only assumed she was thin-skinned, so she tried to smooth things over. “Oh, that was all when you were little. But there’s nothing wrong with having an accent. Do you still remember Xiao Ji?”
Wen Miao froze.

Something from when she was six or seven-honestly, she could no longer remember it all that clearly. But now that Director Mom had brought it up, a few hazy memories about Xiao Ji suddenly drifted back to her.

Seeing that there was another story to hear, Nan Mu settled in and waited with perfect composure.

The Director was still lost in the past. “It was that boy-the one who came in with your group. There was a little boy who insisted on naming himself Xiao Ji. We tried to change it for him, but he cried over it. Later, for a while, we arranged for him and Xiao Miao to sit together at meals. Back then, Xiao Miao always pronounced the ‘ji’ sound as ‘qi,’ so every day she called him Xiao Qi, Xiao Qi… The little boy corrected her and got angry, but Xiao Miao just couldn’t change it. Then, slowly, whether it was because the little boy was forgetful or what, he really started thinking his name was Xiao Qi. He stopped asking people to call him Xiao Ji… Hahaha, whenever we talked about it, everyone said it was all thanks to Xiao Miao. After all, Xiao Ji really wasn’t a very nice name…”

Nan Mu lowered his head and gave Wen Miao a big thumbs-up. “That really was a great achievement. You saved a boy’s dignity.”

Blushing, Wen Miao pushed his thumb back down. Then she shifted the file in his hands toward the center and said through gritted teeth, “Read the file.”

Seeing that she was about to fly into embarrassed anger, Nan Mu stopped teasing her. He flipped a few more pages and reached Xiao Qi’s page.

Xiao Qi was the last of the six children from Wen Miao’s group at the orphanage.

“Xiao Qi was adopted too. Since our follow-up visits were usually conducted directly with the adopters, we didn’t speak with the child. So his last follow-up record should be from several years ago. After that, because his adoptive parents died in an accident, and because he had already turned eighteen, we stopped conducting follow-ups. But I heard his adoptive parents left him enough money to live on, so I believe he’s capable of living independently.”

As Nan Mu listened, he studied the person in the photo carefully.

He had already met all five of the other children from Wen Miao’s group. So he was rather curious about what the remaining Xiao Qi looked like.

In the ID photo box on the file was still a picture of Xiao Qi from when he was five or six. He looked like a thin, lanky little boy.

After hearing Director Mom talk about Xiao Qi earlier, Wen Miao already had a faint impression of him. Now that she saw this photo, the memories buried deep inside her suddenly surged up, and many familiar scenes floated through her mind.

She let out a soft cry. “Oh, so it was him… It really has been so long.”

As Wen Miao spoke, she turned to the next page.

The following page contained information about Xiao Qi’s adoptive family, along with some follow-up records.

Out of curiosity, Wen Miao read it carefully. But when she saw the home address and the name written there, her hand suddenly stopped mid-turn. It was as if a bolt from the blue had struck her head-on, or as if someone had poured a basin of ice water over her from head to toe. Her entire body went numb.

Nan Mu saw Wen Miao’s movements abruptly freeze. The hand lifting the page had tightened so hard that her knuckles had turned white, and her fingertips trembled faintly.

He couldn’t help but pause. “What’s wrong?”

He saw Wen Miao turn back to look at him. Her eyes were filled with boundless terror and panic. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

Nan Mu’s gaze slowly moved from Wen Miao’s face to the paper in front of her. It was Xiao Qi’s information.

When he saw Xiao Qi’s name in his new family, his entire body stiffened too, and even his breathing slowed. In disbelief, he pulled the file closer to himself, trying to prove that he had only misread it because it had been too far away.

But when he clearly saw it again, he felt the muscles in his cheeks twitch faintly. A chill ran down his back, and cold sweat instantly soaked through his clothes.

How could it be him?

How could Xiao Qi…

be Su Yu.