Chapter 286 - I'm a bad person

"Zhihao!" Xiao Lei gasped. "How could you think like that... They were innocent!"

Xiao Zhihao laughed sadly as he shook his head. "You must have thought that I'm a bad person, right, Mum? Perhaps I'm---" 

"No, never!" Xiao Lei replied vehemently, cutting off whatever self-deprecating words that her son might utter. "You're not a bad person... But you're not being you either..."

"Ever since Dad's gone," he looked at her and said, "I can't be myself anymore." 

He pulled his knees up and wrapped his arms around his knees as he mumbled, "I don't care if everyone hates me, Mum; I just want him here..."

He knew he was being a jerk. He was proud of his father, of course. He knew that his father was a hero, of course. But even with what he knew, he still wanted his father to be here with him. He still wished that his father was a normal man with normal courage. At the very least, he would be home safe and sound. 

Xiao Lei stared at her son and noticed that he was holding his tears back again, and a pained expression appeared on his face as he bit down on his arm to redirect the pain from within elsewhere.

Xiao Lei reached over and hugged him. "So do I, kid... So do I... This doesn't mean that you're a bad person, Zhihao. I know that your Dad's death has caused a huge toll on you and that's why you didn't want to admit to the truth, that he's gone and no longer with us. I also know you don't mean what you said. You're just in pain now..."

She saw how her son treated Little Monkey, Jack, and Kai Xin during the funeral ceremony. Even though he barely talked to them, he never showed any hostility to them. So she knew that whatever he was feeling now was something that he was bottling down and kept to himself... and that he was about to explode from it. 

Her son had always been closed to her and her husband, but he was especially close to Xiao Yunjie. When Xiao Yunjie first went missing, Xiao Zhihao tried his best to take care of his mother. He never cried about it, and he was sure that his father would return one day once he took care of whatever he had to do. He did whatever he could to take on the role of the man of the house. 

So she knew. She knew that Xiao Yunjie's death had taken a toll on the figurative wall that her son built for himself and that her son was in an extremely bad state at the moment. He was having trouble keeping everything together. Xiao Lei doubted that an a.d.u.l.t could take on so many losses at once, what more a kid his age. 

Xiao Zhihao lay in his mother's arms for a long time. 

"Zhihao..." Xiao Lei patted his back as she said, "I'll always be here with you. Even without Yunjie, we can still live happily together."

Xiao Zhihao grabbed onto his mother's arm and buried his face in her shoulder as he nodded. His body was shaking, as if he were crying but did not want her to see.

"I d-don't want this..." he cried. "He's supposed to come to my university graduation... I'm going to graduate top of my class, and we are going to take a family photo then and that he will frame it up in the biggest frame. He promised me..."

Xiao Lei's tears slowly fell down her cheeks as she tried to comfort her son wordlessly. They had made plans for every major milestone in Xiao Zhihao's life and what they were going to do... Things that they couldn't do with their own parents, they wanted to do it with their son... and now, these plans would never come to fruition.

"I know... I know I'm a mean person... I like Jack and Little Monkey, and I'm glad that nothing happened to them... But at the same time, I want my dad here with me. They have their dad... Why did mine have to die for them?" he cried as he held his mother tighter. "Dad has such a bad start in life, and it ended just like that? And Yun Qi too... Why? Why is God so unfair? Why didn't God protect them?"

Xiao Lei shook her head dejectedly. "I have no idea..."

Xiao Zhihao hugged his mother tightly as he cried his heart out. Not once did Xiao Lei tell her son to stop crying. Instead, she just kept quiet as she let her son cry his heart out. She knew that he had been bottling all his unhappiness. Going to a new school that was extremely different from his previous school, getting bullied without being able to retaliate, losing Yun Qi and his father... 

Never once did he tell anyone about his unhappiness, and she knew that it was because he wanted to protect her and did not want her to be upset by it. 

"He's only twelve..." Xiao Lei thought sadly as she held her son quietly. She silently prayed in her heart, for things to turn better for her son. 

....

Once he cried his heart out, he felt a lot better albeit tired and sore. He then looked at his mother with an embarrassed expression and sniffled. "I'm sorry... about what I said earlier at school... I didn't mean it... I'm just--" 

"That's alright..." she said softly as she patted his knee. 

"But I still don't like Han Ye..." Xiao Zhihao admitted after a while. He wanted to make it clear to his mother.

"Do you want to talk to me about it?" Xiao Lei asked calmly. 

Xiao Zhihao hesitated for a moment before shaking his head. "No."

"You don't hate me?" Xiao Zhihao asked as he released his mother and looked her in the eye. "Because I don't like Han Ye." 

Xiao Lei smiled teasingly and ruffled his hair. "Of course not... You're my son; I can't even love you enough, how could I bear to hate you?"

"But..."

"Zhihao, you're not a young child anymore, and I can't expect you to accept just about anyone who came into our lives. You have the right to decide who to like. But even so, I hope that you would be nicer to Han Ye. He has gone through a lot, and right now, he's the only friend that I can truly trust. Please trust me; there's nothing between me and Han Ye other than friendship."

She then added, "If you want, we can move elsewhere..."

Xiao Zhihao thought about it, but in the end, he shook his head. "No... I know what it's like to have no friends... I-I don't want you to be alone..."

"Zhihao..." 

Xiao Zhihao just shrugged. He wiped his tears and snot away with the back of his hand. He then looked down at his feet for a moment before asking, "You haven't told me about your past. Is your past equally as painful as Dad's?" 

Xiao Lei nodded. "It's not something that I would wish upon anyone else. I'll tell you everything you want to know." 

And she did. She told him about her real identity and what happened to her before that landed her in such a state now. So that he would be less hostile against Han Ye, she told him about her childhood time with Han Ye and how she used to pick on him, as well as how he had been helping her ever since he knew who she was. 

When she was done, Xiao Zhihao gasped, "So you didn't compare me to a random stranger before... You were comparing me to my grandfather." 

Xiao Lei chuckled. "Yeah..."

She gently patted his head and said, "You are as handsome as your grandfather and father. You would grow up into a fine young man one day."

Xiao Zhihao fell into deep thought. All his life, he thought that he was just a poor kid with two loving and beautiful parents, but now, he felt as if he had to think thoroughly about his life again. His parents' lives were filled with too many secrets... and his mother's past with Murong Yu made him conflicted.

"Zhihao, you mustn't tell anyone about my identity, or you'd be in deep danger," Xiao Lei warned. "Right now, other than a handful of people, no one else knows about my real identity. We have to be careful. You are the last rightful heir, so they won't just let it be."

The teenager nodded. He then asked, "Are you going to claim back your birthright?"