After a day of such chaos, I was exhausted. Having reconciled with the Big Boss and cleared up our emotional misunderstandings, I felt a sense of happiness and peace. Without a hint of pickiness, I used his lap as a pillow and drifted off to sleep. When I woke up, it was two in the morning. Old Liu’s lap was gone; I was resting on the hard hospital bench, my head throbbing. I got up to look for him and noticed the door to my father’s ward was slightly ajar. Peeking inside, I saw my roommate standing by my father’s bed, his hand plunged into the old man’s body, stirring things around. When he finished, he withdrew his hands, clutching a mass of dark, steaming gunk, which he tossed directly into the trash can. I realized that the world of a Big Boss was truly beyond the comprehension of a mere "Main Squeeze" like myself. Nevertheless, I still sternly and righteously rejected his impulsive urge to touch my face afterward, telling him to get lost and wash his hands.
Early the next morning, the old lady arrived, weeping. Her hair had gone completely white, and she looked incredibly frail as she clutched a thermos. My heart ached for her. Seeing the mess her son-in-law had caused, I almost wanted to give him a beating myself. The crux of the matter was that he had cured my father’s illness, but the hospital didn’t know, the old lady didn’t know, and my father certainly didn't know. I was so anxious I felt like my hair was going to fall out. Having a God’s-eye view is hard, you know? It’s not any easier than being a normal human. To do a good deed, you have to hide your noble intentions and make it look like a total coincidence. So, I had to rack my brains to persuade the old lady to get the old man checked again. "Do a full panel. Maybe try a bone marrow match. I heard that’s how they treat leukemia."
"How could a bone marrow match be that easy..." the old lady sighed.
My intention was just to trick them into getting his vitals checked so the results would come back normal and we could go home. But I couldn't put it that way. I don't know why I brought up bone marrow matching—I don't know the first thing about it, I was just talking nonsense. "Don't worry, I'm my father's biological son. I'll definitely be a match."
The old lady’s lips trembled as she looked at me. "You were... picked up from a trash can."
Comrades, friends, do you have any idea how shocked I was to hear that news? I thought the "picked up from a trash can" thing was just a widespread myth. Yet, at this life-or-death moment (not really), my mother actually stabbed me in the back while weeping: the tragedy of my childhood was actually true! I really was picked up from a trash can!
Later, we consulted the doctor and found that in my father's situation, the success rate for a father-son bone marrow match was very low anyway. My mother was filled with regret; she felt that I, this bratty child, had bullied her for being uneducated and tricked a secret out of her. She feared I would now abandon my adoptive parents to go roam the world like a dog, leaving the two of them to spend their twilight years in misery. My mother was so terrified by this imagination that she lost her wits. I had to cry with her for half the day until she couldn't take it anymore and tried to hit me, which finally settled the score. I acted as if I hadn't heard a thing, letting them continue being a happy old couple.
Just then, the doctor came for rounds. He looked at the data and felt something was off. He went back to the office to get the previous test results, and then things felt even more wrong. I figured my roommate must have altered my father's records. Doctors aren't fools; if you change everything to "normal" overnight, they'd be crazy to believe you. They wheeled my father out for another blood test. Yesterday, my dad had been carried in; today, the old man was vigorous, walking so fast the average nurse couldn't keep up. When the results came back showing absolutely nothing wrong, my parents were furious. They started a row with the hospital, demanding compensation.
Knowing the truth, I couldn't bear the torment of my conscience, but I couldn't tell the truth either. I just tried to persuade them: "As long as you're okay, as long as you're okay..." But my parents, having returned from the gates of hell, were clearly overexcited and ready to storm the heavens. They even questioned if I was their biological son. What kind of talk was that?! I clearly wasn't! You guys literally said I was from a trash can! I couldn't stop them, so my roommate stepped in. Since past events had proven that Big Brother Liu could solve basically anything, I had total faith in him and stood aside to watch the show. He approached as a bystander, stepping between my crazed parents and the doctor with a powerful aura. Then, he opened his mouth and said: "As long as they're okay, as long as they're okay..." How the hell was that any different from what I said?!
He was even worse than me. My dad immediately grabbed him by his shirt collar. "Who are you?"
My Big Brother Liu was born billions of years ago. He had fought his way to the throne of the Big Boss step by step through the storms and lava oceans of the Hadean Eon. Since then, he had commanded the wind and rain, an invincible master of the third planet of the solar system. He had never encountered anyone who dared to grab him. Even those who dared to challenge him to a solo duel had all turned into petroleum by now. So, my Big Brother Liu was a bit dazed. "Ah... I, I'm Ye Xiao's boyfriend."
My dad got even angrier. "After all that, you actually went after my son!"
And so, my Big Brother Liu attracted the full firepower of my parents. My dad handled the physical output while my mom handled the mental attacks. Hair-pulling, face-scratching—they used it all. In the end, he even got me dragged into kneeling on a washboard with him. Once the kneeling was over, life went on. My roommate and I were still together. We went home for a meal, and my parents let us go back to our room. I told him to entertain himself while I went to the master bedroom to see my mom. She was looking at my childhood photos, her eyes red.
"What did I look like when I was picked up from the trash?"
"Ugly," the old lady sniffed.
Fine, I already knew I wasn't biological, but Mom, could you at least try to sugarcoat it a little?!
Me: "How ugly?"
Mom: "It was freezing cold, and you looked like a red-skinned rat. Small, wrinkled, ugly, and dirty."
Enough...
Mom: "You were only about the size of a piece of toilet paper. Now I've raised you to over 1.7 meters, so you're not quite a 'third-class cripple.'"
I hugged my mom, and she hugged me back.
Me: "Did I have anything on me to prove my identity? Like a little handkerchief embroidered with the name 'Ye Xiao,' or a blood-letter written by my birth mother biting her finger?"
Mom: "Nothing. You weren't wearing any clothes. You were tucked inside a foam box."
To the person who abandoned me: where is your humanity?! Tell me!
However, I also had a feeling that my origins were quite significant. My roommate insisted on being with me for no apparent reason and wanted to have a bunch of who-knows-what with me. Before coming here yesterday, Zhang Litian told me he worked for me. Now, my last ironclad bond with the normal world—blood relation—was completely severed.
And then there was my heart...
In the end, I was the one with the most mysteries.
I went to ask my roommate.
Then, something very eerie happened.
I blacked out.
Usually, when my roommate spoke to me, he used Mandarin with a heavy Northeastern accent mixed with various local dialects; he had washed too many dishes in restaurants, so his accent was a bit of a jumble. But when he spoke properly this time, what I heard was a very deep, very eerie voice, and I couldn't understand a single word he said. The more he spoke, the more my head ached. I fell over dizzily onto his shoulder, feeling as if I were under a nightmare spell.
We were both sitting on the edge of the bed. My roommate was facing the headboard, while I was leaning on him, looking at the mirror on the desk at the foot of the bed. In my daze, I saw the person in the mirror smile at me.
I woke up instantly, drenched in a cold sweat. I thought, *What kind of thing has the guts to mess with me right in front of my roommate?* I grabbed his shirt collar and said, "Old Liu, there's something in this room. Behind the mirror."
My Old Liu was busy smoothing my hair. "There's nothing."
I got anxious and tried to reason with him. "Old Liu, you might be a big deal, but you can't be arrogant. I was just under a spell, a nightmare spell! I was terrified."
Old Liu said, "Fine." Then he made all the mirrors in the room disappear.
I asked him again what he had just said, but Old Liu looked annoyed and refused to speak further, simply pinning me down. But this wasn't our school. While we were "busy," my dad knocked on the door, scaring Old Liu so much he shivered—and then it was over in just a few minutes. It was simply hopeless. He told me miserably, "It's not good here."
I think *you're* not good, Liu Wukong! I've checked online; other people's "tops" aren't like this. Other people's tops are well-endowed and skilled, seven times a night, wild and free. But when it comes to me, it's not like that at all. My top is clearly the most badass, so why is his "badassery" so lacking? I'm practically in tears. I need to have a talk with him about this sometime. If the performance is poor, there's no happiness to be found.
My roommate circled around me, his eyes sparkling. "Come back to the Abyss with me."
I sternly rejected him. If I go there, can I still come back and be a happy human?
"It's not safe here. You are currently..." My roommate touched my navel, looking very shy. "I want to take you to my territory."
"But I don't want to go to the Abyss... I'm scared."
"Why?" My roommate tilted his head. "Isn't it good to go home?"
I spent a vast amount of time telling him that my home was here and that I didn't dare go to the Abyss. My roommate sighed deeply. "Then, before you... that, you must at least stay in a place I've chosen. In the future, we will live in the human world for six months and in the Abyss for six months every year, okay?"
"I don't want to go to the Abyss!"
My roommate coaxed me, "Hey, hey, don't be difficult, little one."
In the end, we bargained down to living in the human world for eight months and the Abyss for four. Furthermore, since I'm the one having the kids, I'm the boss. I'd stay with him before the birth, but after the birth, he has to follow me back to the human world. No matter what, our sons will receive the nine-year compulsory education. Although my roommate thought the education in the Celestial Empire was complete nonsense, he still took the initiative to handle the "husbandly" duties of buying a school-district house and sorting out the household registration. The next day, we left my parents' home and moved to the place he had chosen to protect my pregnancy.
When I returned to that national highway, I was stunned. My roommate, carrying our suitcases, introduced someone to me. "This is the butler."
I didn't even know what to say anymore.
I was standing in front of that abandoned highway toll station. The ghost who had lost his head and hands last time—the one I had snatched the flute from—was standing respectfully amidst the overgrown ruins, bowing to me.
I was not okay.
I'm pregnant, and you're making me stay in this place that left me with such traumatic memories?! As far as the eye could see, there were only peasant straw huts. The most prestigious building for a hundred miles was that shabby little inn with a double bed only 1.5 meters wide! Liu Wukong, how many lifetimes of poverty have you endured to treat your wife's pregnancy like this?! And the butler is a ghost! Can we please discuss going back to the Abyss to have the kids?!
But my roommate didn't give me the right to refuse; he pulled me straight inside. As it turned out, it was a case of "beyond the dark willows and blooming flowers, another village appears." The national highway I had once walked with twelve-thousand percent terror had turned into a path through a garden. Both sides were lined with landscaped plants trimmed into various animal shapes—clean, tidy, fragrant with flowers, and even a bit cute, like the artificial landscapes in a Western European castle. The further in we went, the higher the terrain became. I saw a small villa on the hillside with a swimming pool, a wooden swing, a fully transparent balcony on the first floor, and what looked like a BBQ area on the second-floor balcony. A few cats were crouching on the grass playing with balls; they hissed and puffed up their fur when they saw my roommate. As I got closer to the villa, I discovered that the other side of the hill faced a deep blue sea.
"Do you like it?"
It was amazing... I just loved this kind of simple, unpretentious ocean-view house that brought warmth and comfort...
"When did you prepare this? What is this place exactly?"
My roommate’s face remained calm. "This is one of the borders of the Abyss. Occasionally, one can stumble into this place from the human world, but it can't be mapped. I sometimes come here to catch my breath. Since you like it, I will freeze time for this stretch of sea and give it to you."
I just loved this kind of simple, unpretentious, pure, and sweet love. No money, no cars, no watches, no designer bags—nothing to do with those vulgar things. My roommate just held me gently and said, *I give you an eternal sea.* That was enough! My life was worth it!
"Brother Liu, I'm going to bear you moths! So many moths!"
My Big Brother Liu replied with one simple, clear word: "Bear~"
