Chapter 714: Paranoid Yu Dong
After the child was buried everyone returned home, because it was a solemn day no one in the village lit up their stoves to cook and stayed in their house to respect the death of a child who was killed at the hands of an elder. Small lore was handed to the villagers by their elders that a child who died an unjust death will come to knock on the doors of the villagers if they were to disrespect its passing.
Instead of lighting the stoves, the villagers instead lit lamps outside their houses in the belief that the child will be guided to the path of the underworld and would not feel scared. Of course, there was one house that did not participate and that house belonged to none other than Old Man Tong who stubbornly persisted that he had no oil to light a lamp for an entire night.
The women of the villagers almost beat that old mer to the ground but then the fight was averted by Ye Liu who said that he will fill the lamp with oil for Old Man Tong's. It was not that Ye Liu was scared of Old Man Tong or that he wanted to avert a quarrel but he believed that the old rituals were more important than fighting with a petty mer but of course, he only filled the lamp's storage enough to burn for a night and a drop more which made Old Man Tong's face drop as he expected the lamp to be filled to the brim.
" What a miser!" Old Man Tong cursed under his breath as he took the lamp from Ye Liu and walked to his house, he could not care about the child that was dead but since his daughter told him that they should not make a fuss in such a solemn atmosphere he was willing to listen to her. That was the only reason why he was lighting up the lamp for that cursed child.
If not he would not have wasted a drop of this precious oil.
Ye Liu, of course, heard what Old Man Tong said about him but for once he did not get into a quarrel with the stubborn old mer. He did not want to create a ruckus at such a heavy moment which was why he silently closed the door and walked inside the house where he found Chen Mi who was coaxing a fussy old bun who refused to eat his meal.
" Come on bun bun, don't be like that, you need to eat, I know you are upset but you can't starve yourself," Chen Mi softly coaxed his son since Yu Dong was in her room with Fang Chi who was still not showing any signs of waking up.
He has always known that little bun was smarter than other babies since he was Yu Dong's son but sometimes it was this smartness that became a curse. The little child knew that he lost someone important having carried the small bowl in his hands and begin taken to the graveyard by Yu Mai and now he refused to take a bite because of how upset he was and Chen Mi has been trying to coax him for hours but the little thing was just silently crying instead of eating anything.
It only made one's heart ache even more when they saw him cry like this, little bun was an active child who cried so loudly that he shook the entire house but now he was weeping silently as if he was worried that he will disturb his mother who was grieving.
Little Bun did not open his mouth as he turned his head to the side, he did not understand a lot of things but he understood that the wooden box that he buried today had something important to him. Maybe call it his instincts or it was the blood relationship that he shared with his little sister but he could feel that someone very important was lying in the wooden box and when he saw the box being buried that made him cry and even now even when he wanted to stop crying he could not stop.
He was crying so hard that he was hiccuping making Chen Mi feel worried for his son, he wished he could coax his child but had no idea how to do that —— the little thing has been crying so hard and yet he was showing no signs of stopping.
" There, there." He placed little bun on his shoulder and patted him on the back trying to calm the latter down. "It's all right, you are all right..you still have a little brother, don't cry bun bun."
Little Bun hummed in a low voice as he cried with his tears trickling down his cheeks that were yet to lose fat but they were now so red that it made one think that he was suffering from a fever.
" Should I take him outside?" Ye Liu asked in a soft voice when he saw Chen Mi having trouble with the little bun.
"It is not going to work, I have done that already," Chen Mi shook his head as he continued to rub the back of his son. " He is just upset, you know how smart he is because of everything that he inherited from wife. He understands everything better than other kids and the solemn atmosphere is only making him more stuffy."
The house was too quiet usually it will be filled with Yu Mai's laugh and Lang Hui playing with them, while Grandma Fang and Grandma Yu watched the kids play and laughed along with them but tonight everything was silent so silent that it was eerily quiet and that was bound to make a child feel a bit troubled that too who was this small.
Ye Liu did not say anything but he could not watch little bun cry as well, in the end, he could not help but say, " Should I ask Aunt Wang to take care of little bun and Mai? They are still too young it is not right for them to stay at home when everything is a mess like this."
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