Chapter 1048: Chapter 1048: Shouldn’t Have Been There
She continued her usual work, being away from home month after month, with her child mostly being cared for by the house maid.
It wasn’t until Matthew learned to speak and began to show his dependence on his mother that Crystal, feeling guilty, chose to take her child with her to the set where she worked.
She wanted to use this opportunity to make up for the time lost and spend more moments at her son’s side.
But the work at the set was incredibly demanding, especially since it was a historical drama that required meticulous attention to costume and setting, which meant she rarely had the chance to truly take time out to be with her child.
Most of the time, she could only entrust her assistant with keeping an eye on him.
But one day, an accident happened.
Matthew, who was just three years old, went missing.
Surveillance footage showed him leaving the room by himself, only to be muffled and carried away by someone in the end.
And at that time, Crystal was sitting in the car back to the hotel, passing by her son who was being abducted without even realizing it.
It was in this brushing past, that mother and son were separated for a full four years.
The past events are vivid in memory, and the pain and regret are not something that everyone can easily empathize with.
"... It was after that, I made the decision to step back from the entertainment industry, focusing on charity while searching for Matthew. I’ve despaired, more than once I thought to myself, what if he can’t be found? What would I do? If only I hadn’t prioritized work over spending time with my son, none of this would have happened..."
The story paused here, and it was then that the livestream really quieted down.
Occasionally someone would comment, all were cursing the inhumanity of the person who had abducted the child back then.
Such tragedies should never exist in this world.
By now, some people could guess what Crystal meant at the beginning. Why the silent, dirt-covered child in the video was the Matthew of today.
A child of merely three years, whose memories were hazy, taken away by someone, without any means of resistance, could only cry day in and day out.
But this time, his cries did not bring the warm embrace of his mother, only the vicious curses and beatings.
Amid the frequent abuse, Matthew struggled to grow.
Those people forced him to wear rags, covered in filth, and sent him to beg in the streets.
Sometimes he was alone, and sometimes they paired him with a so-called "mother."
In Matthew’s eyes, blurry as his childhood memories were, he knew these demons couldn’t be his family.
He wanted to escape.
The closest he ever got to hope was when he grabbed a passing man, babbling ’help me’ in a barely coherent manner. The man seemed to understand, and just as he was about to ask more, those people arrived.
They dragged him away, apologizing to the man, claiming he was just a family child who hadn’t finished his homework and ran out after being scolded.
The man hesitated, and that’s when they seized the moment to whisk him away.
After this attempt, he was locked in a dark room for a whole month, without seeing the light of day. His daily ration was nothing but tough steamed buns and a bowl of water.
Whenever someone remembered him, what awaited him was another beating.
A month later, they took Matthew to another city.
A time when a child should have been carefree and playful, but the experiences he endured brought nothing but despair to Matthew. That fierce look in his eyes that belied his age was perhaps a silent rebellion against his wretched fate.
The days he was forced to masquerade as a beggar.
