311 Li Yuan Age: 9

His father's visits were old tales now and you would expect the Mansion to have gained some peace and quiet but that would be underestimating his guardians.

His father never mentioned anything and threatened the nanny to keep her mouth shut and avoided his son. Li Yuan kept it low too for the sake of the nanny.

When his father's visits ceased, his mother went nuts for months. In hysterics, she would beg him to come back on voice mails and almost turned AA with how she drank. His father in return did what he did best, turned a deaf ear to it.

The smug man that entered the dining room was a sign enough that it may be the end of her husband's visit but wouldn't be the end of men's visits in the Mansion.

He was smug to the point his feet weren't touching the floor he walked on, he practically glided. The man ego was lifted feet above the ground for what he had done.

The man raised an amused brow at the boy who was on the Head of the table with a slightly raised chair eating his breakfast poised with etiquette. The nanny glanced at the man who had entered the dining room unannounced with a frown.

He eyed the pretty nanny standing behind the boy with a suggestive look and piled food in a culinary he had served himself leisurely.

The boy lifted his wrist and indicated her to leave them without lifting his eyes from his plate, as if the man in front of him wasn't even present, "Get me dumplings and make it yourself. From the scratch." He ordered monotonously, with a bow, she excused herself.

The man eyed the dumplings that were served on the table then the nanny who obediently paraded the hall without batting an eye at the obscene request. Shifting in his seat, he turned a little away. The feeling of unease grew thicker, cold shivers ran down his spine.

Finding it strange, the man furrowed his bros quizzically at the boy who was eating with a stoic expression on his face. He had heard of the Young Master of The Li Household of course but had assumed how hard could he be when he was just a nine-year-old lad?

Just when he was about to avert his eyes to his food the boy looked up at him catching him off-guard with the darkness in the orbs of such a young boy. He felt like a deer caught in headlights.

The richly dressed boy placed his Silver chopsticks neatly beside his bowl and quirked a brow at him, "Was it good?" The coldness of the question caught the grown man unprepared.

He was breaking in cold sweats at the strange question, more so from the nine years boy who looked like an old soul caught in the body, "…What?" He was stuttering under the piercing glare of the young boy.

The boy stared at him with a deadpanned expression then scowled looking at the excuse of a man shaking in his shoes. Couldn't his mother have found a better clown to entertain her vanity?

"Was there anything else you did yesterday night?" The man looked at him horrified as if the reaper had come to demand his damned soul. And why wouldn't he? He was just caught in the act of dalliance and if it was to be out of the bag he would die a horrible death to be remembered.

The woman was the wife of the most dangerous man in the continent, shunned but still wife!

And hearing of such news would sure bruise a man ego who was living in a cot not to mention the man he had offended owned half the continent by default!

He turned pale with each passing second and thickness clawed his throat. With hoarseness, he stuttered out, "I…I don't know what you are…"

The boy's merciless eyes stayed glued to the man who was living inconspicuously his last hours, irrespective of how the conversation between them developed the man was going to be dead weight by the next morning.

Or perhaps if he proved to be a good pawn he would survive after all…

"I am talking about you f*cking my mother." The sharpness of the words hit the man tangibly, piecing his last shred of a silver lining, "So… was it good?" He asked him slowly, like asking about the weather.

"You! This…You are mistaken! I didn't…" The man was quick to deny. He was almost close to begging which was a good sign for his life.

If he was scared of them he was a good pet; a hundred days of a jackal it is.

But a servant never sat on his Master's table, they lived off their Master's scraps… Just how he liked it!

"Breathe." He said with a mocking look on his face at the man who looked ready to piss, "I don't mind. Serve her and leave but… if I hear your mouth was running anywhere, it will be the last time you had a tongue." He threatened as if he reported a fact.

The man was out of breath and on his knees kowtowing in front of the boy, "Ye…Yes Sir! I…I am grateful for your mercy!"

The nanny entered the dining, not at all surprised by the scene in front of her. With how much she had seen by her Young Master's side nothing surprised her anymore, though every day was jolting in its own sense.

With a kick, he pushed him away and scoffed at the once smug man, "Next time I don't want to see you lurking around till the breakfast." He turned to the nanny who was passively standing by the side and instructed coldly, "Hand him his plate and he will eat in the gardens on the grass without the use of his hands."

The nanny nodded and signaled the guards on the door but the man was already on his feet, too elated to have passed this with his head intact, "Ye…Yes, Sir! Yes!" He exclaimed like a good dog and was out of the door.

He smirked emptily and met the eyes of his nanny and directed, "Send a guard to see if he did as instructed." She affirmed and did as told.

He sighed and got out of the dining room. His Mom was sloppy even when she was trying to be immoral. He wasn't the first but he was first in his Mansion.

He could bet a hundred times, it was his mother's new tactic to bring his father home. It deserted him to see what was a family for him.

Yu Youhan's parents were too arranged couples but they were content, they lived together! He had a bastard brother too but after a couple of years, they reconciled in their relationship.

Last week when they had met, Yu Jian wouldn't stop talking about the fishing trip his father had taken them to and the biggest three-tiered Birthday cake his mother had promised to bake him herself next month. 

He envied them and even though he tried to mask it with nonchalance, Yu Youhan seems to have seen through him and always changed topics.

Li Yuan Birthday was a grand event with empty smiles and tables filled with presents he hadn't even unpacked from last year. He had never gone to a family outing and the last time he had space in his schedule was when his Grandfather had taken him to the port to show him how the shipments retrieval took place.

Unlike his cousins, what he had known in and out were ways of adultery and ignominious tryst. Even though the resentment buried in him, he wouldn't let his mother get disgraced. She was a fool and a gloomy fool and those tend to be sloppy and sloppy people died 'accidentally'.

Grandmother wasn't fond of his mother and wouldn't let her live if she knew...

With a heavy breath exhaled, he went into his room to change his attires to head to his Grandfather's state. He saw no point in his mother making him live here when he didn't see her weeks after weeks.

But whenever his Grandfather insisted on letting him live with him, she would burst out in tears and sob that she can't stay without him and she had no one but him; which may be true that she had no one but him but he didn't even have her...

Like always he masked his emotions like he was taught to and guided his nanny of what he would need for the day. He had been too good at masking his emotions behind his pride these days that he doubted sometimes that they were even his own. Miserable.

Just when he was on the doorframe about to leave his mother came running and stood in front of him with a vulnerable look on her face. Of course, the news would have reached her by now!

She gave a hard look to the young beautiful nanny. The nanny excused them and walked out of the way.

She looked at the boy she had given birth to and realized she didn't recognize him at all. His hollow stare, the decade-old child looked anything but a child. She tried to muster motherly affection and to her horror, it was unfamiliar territory.

"Li Yuan, Mr. Bi was…"

He cut her off before she could proceed with her sickly sweet fake tone, "Don't be a gaslighter, I know what I saw." 

His eyes burned but he hardened his expressions further. He wouldn't shed his heavy heart to a foreign woman he knew nothing about him but his age.

The woman was his mother and the only time she felt like having a conversation with him was when she thought he was going to spread her scandals. Wretched.

"You don't need to worry that I will tell anyone anything but if I were you, I would look out for that made who clean your room, she seems interested in your affairs."

Her composure broke and tears streamed down her face, "Baby…" After saying it, she realized the word sounded so wrong. The boy in front of her was more mature than a child his age should be. 

She had done this. She had made him vulnerable to the cold world around him. She had forced him to grow up fast...

She fell on her knees and tried to touch him and he slapped her hand away. Her heart crumbled down in front of her as a sob left her that she covered with the back of her hand, "I love you but…"

With them, there is always a 'but'. A big 'but' which blocked everything else to come back and forth between them.

She broke down hard in tears and breathed out, "…Your Mommy is too alone. When you grow up will understand me better. I... Your father..."

She wouldn't have been 'alone' if only she had confided in his son that she had given birth to appease her husband.

He understood her, at least to an extent but it didn't mean he despised her for eschewing his presence any less. She wasn't just supposed to be a wife, she was supposed to be a mother but in her desperation to be wife to a man who had a pendulum-affection for her, she reserved every other role in her life.

"I understand you good enough, any more would be toxic." He sharply interjected and walked past her ashen expression without a second thought.

Understanding her any further would be becoming her.