Oversized clothes and shoes, a dirty little face, clear eyes full of surprise — the child was hiding behind the old woman's clothes, only half his face peeking out.
"You can hear me?" Chen Ge set down his backpack and gently extended both hands toward the child. "Don't be scared. I won't hurt you."
The child hiding behind the clothes in the wardrobe stared at Chen Ge timidly. He looked at Chen Ge's hands, hesitated for a long time, then slowly reached out his own.
The ice-cold little hand settled into Chen Ge's palm, and the long-lost warmth made the boy's eyes gradually widen.
"Have you been here the whole time?" Chen Ge pointed at the ground beneath their feet. He was trying to ask whether the boy had been behind the door the entire time, but the boy misunderstood his gesture and waved his hands wildly, miming with all his might.
After watching for a while, Chen Ge finally understood — the child had been playing a game with his friends. They were playing hide-and-seek, and he had hidden here to avoid the others.
Watching the little boy struggle to communicate, Chen Ge shook his head gently. Those kids had no intention of finding him. He was nothing more than the target of their teasing.
He had hidden inside the wardrobe with absolute earnestness, and the one who eventually opened the door and found him probably wasn't one of the other children at all — it was most likely the homeowner calling him out for a meal.
"Have you ever thought about making more friends? Have you ever thought about opening the window and seeing the world outside?" Chen Ge had found the key figure behind the door — Jiang Ming — but he couldn't figure out what the relationship was between this Jiang Ming and the Jiang Ming on the other side.
The Jiang Ming inside the door might be the hearing the Jiang Ming outside had lost, but the odds of that were slim.
Judging from the available clues, the door only appeared when the Jiang Ming outside was fast asleep. So the Jiang Ming inside the door was very likely Jiang Ming's own consciousness.
"In this imagined world, every action and every person is connected to reality. Jiang Ming, carrying the desire to play with his friends, has hidden himself in the room he feels is the warmest. This is probably his most beautiful memory."
Chen Ge wanted to say something more, but the look in Jiang Ming's eyes suddenly changed — from surprise to terror. Tears nearly burst out in an instant.
"He's looking behind me!"
The smell of alcohol flooded his nostrils. Without a second thought, Chen Ge pushed off the ground with both legs and dodged to the side with the little boy in his arms.
The wine bottle smashed against the wardrobe, sending shards of glass flying, but not a single sound was produced.
Bulging veins stood out on the face of the hopelessly drunk monster, who had crept over at some point. He must have heard Chen Ge talking.
"This guy really is relentless. The most annoying part is that he can't be killed." Chen Ge gripped the Skull Crusher in one hand while holding the little boy with the other. The child was terrified, trembling like a battered kitten, his whole body shaking uncontrollably.
"The fear of his drunkard father is rooted deep in his heart, and it's precisely this fear that keeps fueling the drunkard's power, making him stronger and stronger." A plan formed in Chen Ge's mind. "If I can help the boy overcome his fear — show him through actions that his drunkard father isn't invincible — things should start to improve."
Easier said than done. Changing memories that had taken root that deep was incredibly difficult.
"Jiang Ming, don't be afraid. I'm right here. No one can hurt you." Chen Ge set the child down on a chair and gripped the Skull Crusher with both hands. "At the rate he's been powering up, I can still hammer him to death ten times over."
Steel yourself and ready to strike, Chen Ge was about to move when the rental apartment's door suddenly swung open. A white-haired old woman walked in carrying a bowl of noodles.
The old woman was hunched over, at least seventy years old.
Her expression was gentle and kind, but the moment she laid eyes on the drunken man, her face changed in an instant. She set down the bowl brimming with noodles, grabbed the cane by the bedside, and swung it straight at the drunkard.
The originally terrifying drunkard panicked when he saw the old woman, looking flustered and completely off his game.
Having his skull caved in by the Skull Crusher hadn't made him feel a thing, but after a few strikes from the old woman's cane, he couldn't take it anymore and fled the apartment in a panic.
The old woman chased him outside with her cane for quite a distance before finally returning.
She shut the rental apartment's door in a huff, then walked into the bedroom, approached the child, and gently ruffled Jiang Ming's hair.