Having the Same Name as the Demon Lord of the Abyss
Murder
Ye Zun was completely unaware of what horrifying plot they were planning. In order to cope with the crazy shopping desire of his two parents, he was overloaded with filming work every day.
Suddenly, one day the couple changed their minds and returned to the house of the man’s parents, along with Ye Zun and the gifts they bought, one for each person.
The woman even went into the kitchen to help lay out the bowls.
When the man was nagged by his father, he was not as rebellious as in the past. Instead, he sat upright and nodded in affirmation.
Every hair on Ye Zun’s body stood on their ends by this behaviour.
But the old couple felt that things were finally turning out for the better. The two kids finally grew up and understood their responsibilities. The prodigal son turned around, and they were so moved they almost cried.
“Dad, Mum, we know how ridiculous we acted in the past. Seeing our child growing up day by day, we can’t let him be like us, so we want to discuss his enrollment.”
Their coffins are worthless, but at least they are willing to put on a show, and they feel relieved.
The old couple felt that even if these two simply wanted to cheat them out of their retirement money under the excuse of sending Ye Zun to school, they were at least willing to put on a show, and they also felt gratified.
Because the two seemed to have really turned around.
The man looked guilty and uneasy, and rubbed his hands. “We also know that Dad and Mum have no money now, and the retirement pension has been given to us. We will work hard in the future.”
With this kind of excessively normal behaviour, the old couple finally felt that the situation was a little bit serious, and asked them what happened to them.
After hemming and hawing for a long time, the two finally confessed that they owed a large amount to loan sharks.
A back and forth argument ensued, mixed with disputes, scolding, crying, and swearing to the heavens to repent.
In the end, the old couple knew the virtues of their son and daughter-in-law, and insisted on holding tight, not letting them sell the old house. They just had them sell the new house that the old couple bought for them when they got married, and the old couple brought Ye Zun and them to live in their house.
As for the old house under the name of the old couple, they intended to leave it to Ye Zun in the future.
The young couple didn’t mess around this time, and agreed when they found that they couldn’t resist.
After they moved in with Ye Zun, they were indeed a lot more honest for a while.
The woman still put on her live broadcasts, and the man sent Ye Zun to kindergarten, picking him up after school and taking him for photoshoots as a child model. They all had something to do.
Ye Zun was nervous for a long time and constantly kept his eyes on them, but he didn’t notice any unusual behaviour from the two.
Until three months after they moved in, when the old couple began to encounter accidents one after another.
One day, before the sun was up, the old man went out for his morning exercises and to buy groceries as usual, but was hit from behind by a biker.
The accident happened in a remote area, and no one noticed him for a long time. In the end, the old man was found and sent to the hospital, paralysed and unconscious.
Followed by the old lady, who had been running between home and the hospital for days, when she accidentally fell in the bathroom and suffered a heart attack. Because no one noticed it in the middle of the night, she did not take the necessary medicine in time and passed away.
But the truth was, on the night the old lady died, everyone was awake.
Ye Zun became suspicious of the young man after the old man was hit.
It was a Friday the night before the old man was hit, and the young man and Ye Zun were on site for shooting overnight to catch up to setbacks. When it was almost dawn, the man did not stay put to play games on his phone like he usually did, but left with an excuse to buy breakfast for everyone. It was a long while before he came back, a perfect amount of time for him to pull off a crime.
Although everything was Ye Zun’s speculation and he had no evidence, under the sense of crisis, Ye Zun still found an opportunity to write his concerns to the old grandma and show her in private, telling her to be careful when it came to those two people.
Although the old grandma didn’t want to think so badly of her son, in the end she was still vigilant in her heart after Ye Zun’s warning. However, she was still unable to guard against them.
The soup that night was a little salty. They had bought a watermelon and everyone ate some before going to bed.
Watermelon, with a lot of water*.
[T/N: I forgot what the english term is for 利尿, but basically drinking a lot of water and needing to go to the toilet]
The old lady got up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet, but the floor of the bathroom was covered with the oily sewage from washing laundry.
Her faint cries for help went unanswered.
Ye Zun kept his worries in his heart and was never able to fully fall asleep. When he heard the sound of the old lady getting up at night but not coming back after a long time, he had a bad feeling and immediately got up to check. However, he was grabbed and taken back when he stepped into the living room.
In the darkness, the young man and woman did not sleep.
Ye Zun’s arm was twisted by the young man to prevent him from going out. His mutilated vocal cords tried to make a sound, hoping that someone upstairs or downstairs could hear him.
The woman sat on the bed in the dark bedroom and played with her phone, turning up some music to cover up Ye Zun’s faint whining and the old lady’s cry for help.
But their attention was obviously focused outside of the bedroom, waiting with bated breath for the old lady to die.
Ye Zun struggled desperately but failed, so he bit down on the man’s hand ferociously, intentionally provoking him to have the man kill himself, hoping to reload the file and start over.
Under his sudden and fierce attack, the man whose nerves were strung to the extreme grabbed his neck and slammed his head against the wall.
The child’s young and thin neck snapped with a single twist.
【 Ding dong, you died. 】
【 Automatically loading save file, you have three attempts left, please cherish it. 】
Ye Zun opened his eyes again, where he stood in the dark living room. He ran to the front door before the man came out to grab him.
But the old anti-theft door was still difficult for a three year old child to open. He slammed on the door vigorously, knocked down various furniture, and made harsh sounds in an attempt to lure people over to investigate.
Very quickly, the man rushed out and lifted him.
The woman scolded in a low voice from behind. “What kind of garbage are you? You can’t even catch a child.”
The racket Ye Zun made really did alarm the neighbours.
Someone came out and knocked on the door. “What’s going on? Did something happen?”
The man was flustered and exasperated, spitting out swear words in a low voice, then pretended to apologise, saying “I’m very sorry ah, my child suddenly became hysterical.”
The neighbours naturally knew the virtues of the son and daughter-in-law, and also knew that the old man had an accident and was hospitalised, so they had secretly held some doubts about the two of them. “Really? It can’t be that the old lady fell in the middle of the night, can it?”
At this time, the young woman went to the bathroom to check. She was obviously smarter than the man and immediately screamed in panic, contributing a performance that can give her the title of Drama Queen. “Mum! Mum! What happened? Is anyone there ah, my mother fell down in the bathroom! Hurry and call an ambulance!”
With his hands busy and his legs twisted, the man had a helpless and cowardly ‘what to do’ appearance, and in the end the neighbour couldn’t continue seeing things go like this and went to call the emergency services first.
“You open the door first, we’ll help!”
“You can’t, my mum isn’t dressed yet!”
“Then get your wife to put it on quickly ah, what are you waiting for?”
The woman gestured to the man towards the bathroom, winked and grinning, and shook her head.
The man who was stalling for time immediately smiled, then frowned deliberately. He first grabbed Ye Zun back to the room and tied him up haphazardly, letting the woman keep watch to prevent him from making trouble again.
Then he went out and into the bathroom with the neighbour who had been pressing him outside the door to lift the old person up.
In the end, although the ambulance came quickly, the doctor declared on the spot that the old lady had died.
Afterwards, the man and the woman even shamelessly said that the neighbour’s blind orders during the chaos messed with the patient, and that the delay had harmed his mother, using this as an excuse to extort a large sum of money.
This move caused the residents in the old community, which originally had a good atmosphere, to become a little alienated from their neighbours. Everyone no longer dared to meddle in other people’s affairs.
They obviously hadn’t shown this side of them on the day of the incident, and the two dutiful children and one grandson howled loudly, alarming the entire community.
They scolded the ambulance for coming too slowly, then turned around to call the funeral home, creating a loud ruckus.
In the end, the old lady’s funeral was solved in the simplest and cheapest way.
In the dark room, Ye Zun was tied up and starved for one day and one night.
“If you dare spread a word outside about what happened today, Laozi will poke your eyes blind, understand?” The man spoke in a rough voice, threatening Ye Zun’s eyes with the tip of a knife.
The woman said angrily, “He’s only been to school for a few days, and only knows how to spell a few words, not to mention that he’s mute. How will he tell other people? If he’s blind, how can we make money?”
“That’s true.” The man reluctantly let go of Ye Zun.
“Hurry up and let him go. I’ll use makeup to cover the bruises. We didn’t shoot all day today, we need him to make up for the delayed work.”
……
Ye Zun stood at the foot of the old man’s bed.
After the old lady passed away, the two went to the hospital to make a fuss, claiming that the doctor didn’t let the old man leave the hospital because they wanted to cheat them out of money, and took the old man home by force.
After losing his wife, the old man’s spirit worsened. He instantly aged beyond recognition, and began to develop dementia.
Because of Ye Zun’s actions last time, the young man kept a very close eye on Ye Zun, but he still took Ye Zun out to shoot for the sake of making money.
It finally gave Ye Zun a chance to run out.
If the child model for the shooting disappeared, the boss and the photographer were afraid of being responsible and would definitely call the police.
Amidst the sound of sirens, Ye Zun remained hidden and did not come out. Finally, he spotted a police officer who looked responsible and careful. He ran out when she was on duty, pulled the police officer’s hand, and persistently wrote in her hand: “They killed grandma”, “save grandpa”!
He wrote for a long time. The police officer couldn’t see what he wrote at first, and she didn’t expect how such a young child could write so many words, but from his face, she was alerted to the hidden secrets.
The police officer immediately took him to a nearby milk tea shop and found a pen and paper for him.
After Ye Zun reported to the police, the young man and woman’s malicious murders of their relatives was finally exposed.
The fact that they bought a short-term high-cost life insurance for the old lady was pulled out of investigations.
Who knew if it was because they were lacking intelligence, both stupid and poisonous, or if they simply didn’t trust each other and took precautions to prevent the other party from killing them in order to keep them silent, but the two recorded videos of the other on their phones. It was of a discussion that took place after killing the old lady, of them planning to smother the old man to death.
Conspiracy to murder, there was more than enough evidence.
But after the two were put in prison, the old man’s health also deteriorated.
One old and one young, with no guardian, but no one around wanted to be infected by this family.
At this time, a distant relative appeared and was willing to adopt Ye Zun.
This distant relative was the old man’s cousin*. Following the woman’s wishes, Ye Zun called her ‘great aunt’, gu-laolao*.
[T/N: older female cousin]
[T/N: 姑姥姥/Gu-laolao, sister of the grandfather]
Gu-laolao was also getting older, and her body didn’t look to be in the best of health. She wept for a long time at what happened to the old man, scolded the vicious nephew and niece, and arranged for the old man to be sent to a nursing home.
She was accompanied by two young women and a slightly older-than-young man.
The man said respectfully, “Mum, do not worry, I have arranged everything. Great uncle’s* retirement money was all spent by those two people. We will be responsible for the expenses from now on.”
[T/N: 舅老爷/jiu-laoye]
Gu-laolao did not approve. “Isn’t there still this house?”
“This was notarized in the will for the child, no one else can touch it. His guardian can rent it out, but we are not short of that little money.”
Gu-laolao nodded. “You are right. “
Ye Zun originally suspected that they adopted him for the old man’s inheritance.
But after being brought back to his great aunt’s house by them, he found that although this house did not belong to some wealthy man, it was worth far more than the old man’s house. Indeed, they really didn’t think much of that house.
Gu-laolao’s house was somewhat old-fashioned, a villa that was not too big or small.
In the living room.
His great aunt showed some kindness on her face when looking at Ye Zun, but it seemed to be superficial politeness, neither deep nor shallow.
“Laolao* will introduce you, let you get to know these people.” She nodded to the man who looked the oldest of the three. “This is your Er-gufu*, this is your Er-gugu*.”
[T/N: shortened from Gu-laolao]
[T/N: 二姑父/second uncle, husband of paternal aunt; 二姑姑/second aunt, paternal aunt]
Er-gugu was one of the two young women who came with Gu-laolao that day.
She wore makeup and looked like a mature and professional woman, capable and smart. She smiled and handed Ye Zun an extravagantly-wrapped gift. “This is a gift from Gugu, do you like it?”
Ye Zun nodded his head.
“This is your San-gugu*,” Gu-laolao said to Ye Zun as she pointed to the youngest woman.
[T/N: 三姑姑/san-gugu, paternal aunt]
This woman was also someone who accompanied her that day.
Looking at her, San-gugu seemed to be unmarried. She had thin skin and subconsciously frowned slightly, always as if she was in a bad mood and wanted to find fault with others and quarrel at any time. Although she had a good appearance, her temperament was a bit gloomy and unpleasant.
She forced a smile, patted Ye Zun’s head once, then withdrew her hand. The curve her lips formed also disappeared.
Compared with the kindness of the second aunt, the third aunt doesn’t seem to like children very much.
Then, Gu-laolao took Ye Zun to an empty room with a mourning hall and a memorial tablet.
The man in the black-and-white photo had a heroic and prosperous aura, with a dignified appearance. Very young and handsome, but he evidently suffered misfortune and died young.
“Go. Kneel and kowtow, burn incense. This is your Baba.”
Gu-laolao obviously adopted Ye Zun for the sake of her son, who died young.
Ye Zun didn’t say anything. He just followed orders obediently.
Gu-laolao showed a trace of satisfaction, with a slightly stern look on her face.
“You must remember, from now on, the person here will be your Baba. Although your uncle and aunties will take care of you and treat you as their own, this person is your Baba. You must remember this clearly, do you understand?”
Ye Zun looked into her eyes and nodded seriously, expressing that he would remember this.
“In this family, you can’t use your old name anymore. From now on, your name is Chengting, Ye Chengting*. Have you memorised it?”
[T/N: 叶承庭, same surname (Ye) as his own. His first name, 承庭 (Chengting), could be from “幼承庭训”/you cheng ting xun, which means ‘having a good family education, and receiving it from a young age’]
A name with a very feudal legacy, it’s quite hard to believe that such a name still existed in this day and age.
Ye Zun didn’t care about the new name. What he cared more about was what kind of horrors hidden in this new environment will threaten his life.
Having the Same Name as the Demon Lord of the Abyss
Murder
Ye Zun was completely unaware of what horrifying plot they were planning. In order to cope with the crazy shopping desire of his two parents, he was overloaded with filming work every day.
Suddenly, one day the couple changed their minds and returned to the house of the man’s parents, along with Ye Zun and the gifts they bought, one for each person.
The woman even went into the kitchen to help lay out the bowls.
When the man was nagged by his father, he was not as rebellious as in the past. Instead, he sat upright and nodded in affirmation.
Every hair on Ye Zun’s body stood on their ends by this behaviour.
But the old couple felt that things were finally turning out for the better. The two kids finally grew up and understood their responsibilities. The prodigal son turned around, and they were so moved they almost cried.
“Dad, Mum, we know how ridiculous we acted in the past. Seeing our child growing up day by day, we can’t let him be like us, so we want to discuss his enrollment.”
Their coffins are worthless, but at least they are willing to put on a show, and they feel relieved.
The old couple felt that even if these two simply wanted to cheat them out of their retirement money under the excuse of sending Ye Zun to school, they were at least willing to put on a show, and they also felt gratified.
Because the two seemed to have really turned around.
The man looked guilty and uneasy, and rubbed his hands. “We also know that Dad and Mum have no money now, and the retirement pension has been given to us. We will work hard in the future.”
With this kind of excessively normal behaviour, the old couple finally felt that the situation was a little bit serious, and asked them what happened to them.
After hemming and hawing for a long time, the two finally confessed that they owed a large amount to loan sharks.
A back and forth argument ensued, mixed with disputes, scolding, crying, and swearing to the heavens to repent.
In the end, the old couple knew the virtues of their son and daughter-in-law, and insisted on holding tight, not letting them sell the old house. They just had them sell the new house that the old couple bought for them when they got married, and the old couple brought Ye Zun and them to live in their house.
As for the old house under the name of the old couple, they intended to leave it to Ye Zun in the future.
The young couple didn’t mess around this time, and agreed when they found that they couldn’t resist.
After they moved in with Ye Zun, they were indeed a lot more honest for a while.
The woman still put on her live broadcasts, and the man sent Ye Zun to kindergarten, picking him up after school and taking him for photoshoots as a child model. They all had something to do.
Ye Zun was nervous for a long time and constantly kept his eyes on them, but he didn’t notice any unusual behaviour from the two.
Until three months after they moved in, when the old couple began to encounter accidents one after another.
One day, before the sun was up, the old man went out for his morning exercises and to buy groceries as usual, but was hit from behind by a biker.
The accident happened in a remote area, and no one noticed him for a long time. In the end, the old man was found and sent to the hospital, paralysed and unconscious.
Followed by the old lady, who had been running between home and the hospital for days, when she accidentally fell in the bathroom and suffered a heart attack. Because no one noticed it in the middle of the night, she did not take the necessary medicine in time and passed away.
But the truth was, on the night the old lady died, everyone was awake.
Ye Zun became suspicious of the young man after the old man was hit.
It was a Friday the night before the old man was hit, and the young man and Ye Zun were on site for shooting overnight to catch up to setbacks. When it was almost dawn, the man did not stay put to play games on his phone like he usually did, but left with an excuse to buy breakfast for everyone. It was a long while before he came back, a perfect amount of time for him to pull off a crime.
Although everything was Ye Zun’s speculation and he had no evidence, under the sense of crisis, Ye Zun still found an opportunity to write his concerns to the old grandma and show her in private, telling her to be careful when it came to those two people.
Although the old grandma didn’t want to think so badly of her son, in the end she was still vigilant in her heart after Ye Zun’s warning. However, she was still unable to guard against them.
The soup that night was a little salty. They had bought a watermelon and everyone ate some before going to bed.
Watermelon, with a lot of water*.
[T/N: I forgot what the english term is for 利尿, but basically drinking a lot of water and needing to go to the toilet]
The old lady got up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet, but the floor of the bathroom was covered with the oily sewage from washing laundry.
Her faint cries for help went unanswered.
Ye Zun kept his worries in his heart and was never able to fully fall asleep. When he heard the sound of the old lady getting up at night but not coming back after a long time, he had a bad feeling and immediately got up to check. However, he was grabbed and taken back when he stepped into the living room.
In the darkness, the young man and woman did not sleep.
Ye Zun’s arm was twisted by the young man to prevent him from going out. His mutilated vocal cords tried to make a sound, hoping that someone upstairs or downstairs could hear him.
The woman sat on the bed in the dark bedroom and played with her phone, turning up some music to cover up Ye Zun’s faint whining and the old lady’s cry for help.
But their attention was obviously focused outside of the bedroom, waiting with bated breath for the old lady to die.
Ye Zun struggled desperately but failed, so he bit down on the man’s hand ferociously, intentionally provoking him to have the man kill himself, hoping to reload the file and start over.
Under his sudden and fierce attack, the man whose nerves were strung to the extreme grabbed his neck and slammed his head against the wall.
The child’s young and thin neck snapped with a single twist.
【 Ding dong, you died. 】
【 Automatically loading save file, you have three attempts left, please cherish it. 】
Ye Zun opened his eyes again, where he stood in the dark living room. He ran to the front door before the man came out to grab him.
But the old anti-theft door was still difficult for a three year old child to open. He slammed on the door vigorously, knocked down various furniture, and made harsh sounds in an attempt to lure people over to investigate.
Very quickly, the man rushed out and lifted him.
The woman scolded in a low voice from behind. “What kind of garbage are you? You can’t even catch a child.”
The racket Ye Zun made really did alarm the neighbours.
Someone came out and knocked on the door. “What’s going on? Did something happen?”
The man was flustered and exasperated, spitting out swear words in a low voice, then pretended to apologise, saying “I’m very sorry ah, my child suddenly became hysterical.”
The neighbours naturally knew the virtues of the son and daughter-in-law, and also knew that the old man had an accident and was hospitalised, so they had secretly held some doubts about the two of them. “Really? It can’t be that the old lady fell in the middle of the night, can it?”
At this time, the young woman went to the bathroom to check. She was obviously smarter than the man and immediately screamed in panic, contributing a performance that can give her the title of Drama Queen. “Mum! Mum! What happened? Is anyone there ah, my mother fell down in the bathroom! Hurry and call an ambulance!”
With his hands busy and his legs twisted, the man had a helpless and cowardly ‘what to do’ appearance, and in the end the neighbour couldn’t continue seeing things go like this and went to call the emergency services first.
“You open the door first, we’ll help!”
“You can’t, my mum isn’t dressed yet!”
“Then get your wife to put it on quickly ah, what are you waiting for?”
The woman gestured to the man towards the bathroom, winked and grinning, and shook her head.
The man who was stalling for time immediately smiled, then frowned deliberately. He first grabbed Ye Zun back to the room and tied him up haphazardly, letting the woman keep watch to prevent him from making trouble again.
Then he went out and into the bathroom with the neighbour who had been pressing him outside the door to lift the old person up.
In the end, although the ambulance came quickly, the doctor declared on the spot that the old lady had died.
Afterwards, the man and the woman even shamelessly said that the neighbour’s blind orders during the chaos messed with the patient, and that the delay had harmed his mother, using this as an excuse to extort a large sum of money.
This move caused the residents in the old community, which originally had a good atmosphere, to become a little alienated from their neighbours. Everyone no longer dared to meddle in other people’s affairs.
They obviously hadn’t shown this side of them on the day of the incident, and the two dutiful children and one grandson howled loudly, alarming the entire community.
They scolded the ambulance for coming too slowly, then turned around to call the funeral home, creating a loud ruckus.
In the end, the old lady’s funeral was solved in the simplest and cheapest way.
In the dark room, Ye Zun was tied up and starved for one day and one night.
“If you dare spread a word outside about what happened today, Laozi will poke your eyes blind, understand?” The man spoke in a rough voice, threatening Ye Zun’s eyes with the tip of a knife.
The woman said angrily, “He’s only been to school for a few days, and only knows how to spell a few words, not to mention that he’s mute. How will he tell other people? If he’s blind, how can we make money?”
“That’s true.” The man reluctantly let go of Ye Zun.
“Hurry up and let him go. I’ll use makeup to cover the bruises. We didn’t shoot all day today, we need him to make up for the delayed work.”
……
Ye Zun stood at the foot of the old man’s bed.
After the old lady passed away, the two went to the hospital to make a fuss, claiming that the doctor didn’t let the old man leave the hospital because they wanted to cheat them out of money, and took the old man home by force.
After losing his wife, the old man’s spirit worsened. He instantly aged beyond recognition, and began to develop dementia.
Because of Ye Zun’s actions last time, the young man kept a very close eye on Ye Zun, but he still took Ye Zun out to shoot for the sake of making money.
It finally gave Ye Zun a chance to run out.
If the child model for the shooting disappeared, the boss and the photographer were afraid of being responsible and would definitely call the police.
Amidst the sound of sirens, Ye Zun remained hidden and did not come out. Finally, he spotted a police officer who looked responsible and careful. He ran out when she was on duty, pulled the police officer’s hand, and persistently wrote in her hand: “They killed grandma”, “save grandpa”!
He wrote for a long time. The police officer couldn’t see what he wrote at first, and she didn’t expect how such a young child could write so many words, but from his face, she was alerted to the hidden secrets.
The police officer immediately took him to a nearby milk tea shop and found a pen and paper for him.
After Ye Zun reported to the police, the young man and woman’s malicious murders of their relatives was finally exposed.
The fact that they bought a short-term high-cost life insurance for the old lady was pulled out of investigations.
Who knew if it was because they were lacking intelligence, both stupid and poisonous, or if they simply didn’t trust each other and took precautions to prevent the other party from killing them in order to keep them silent, but the two recorded videos of the other on their phones. It was of a discussion that took place after killing the old lady, of them planning to smother the old man to death.
Conspiracy to murder, there was more than enough evidence.
But after the two were put in prison, the old man’s health also deteriorated.
One old and one young, with no guardian, but no one around wanted to be infected by this family.
At this time, a distant relative appeared and was willing to adopt Ye Zun.
This distant relative was the old man’s cousin*. Following the woman’s wishes, Ye Zun called her ‘great aunt’, gu-laolao*.
[T/N: older female cousin]
[T/N: 姑姥姥/Gu-laolao, sister of the grandfather]
Gu-laolao was also getting older, and her body didn’t look to be in the best of health. She wept for a long time at what happened to the old man, scolded the vicious nephew and niece, and arranged for the old man to be sent to a nursing home.
She was accompanied by two young women and a slightly older-than-young man.
The man said respectfully, “Mum, do not worry, I have arranged everything. Great uncle’s* retirement money was all spent by those two people. We will be responsible for the expenses from now on.”
[T/N: 舅老爷/jiu-laoye]
Gu-laolao did not approve. “Isn’t there still this house?”
“This was notarized in the will for the child, no one else can touch it. His guardian can rent it out, but we are not short of that little money.”
Gu-laolao nodded. “You are right. “
Ye Zun originally suspected that they adopted him for the old man’s inheritance.
But after being brought back to his great aunt’s house by them, he found that although this house did not belong to some wealthy man, it was worth far more than the old man’s house. Indeed, they really didn’t think much of that house.
Gu-laolao’s house was somewhat old-fashioned, a villa that was not too big or small.
In the living room.
His great aunt showed some kindness on her face when looking at Ye Zun, but it seemed to be superficial politeness, neither deep nor shallow.
“Laolao* will introduce you, let you get to know these people.” She nodded to the man who looked the oldest of the three. “This is your Er-gufu*, this is your Er-gugu*.”
[T/N: shortened from Gu-laolao]
[T/N: 二姑父/second uncle, husband of paternal aunt; 二姑姑/second aunt, paternal aunt]
Er-gugu was one of the two young women who came with Gu-laolao that day.
She wore makeup and looked like a mature and professional woman, capable and smart. She smiled and handed Ye Zun an extravagantly-wrapped gift. “This is a gift from Gugu, do you like it?”
Ye Zun nodded his head.
“This is your San-gugu*,” Gu-laolao said to Ye Zun as she pointed to the youngest woman.
[T/N: 三姑姑/san-gugu, paternal aunt]
This woman was also someone who accompanied her that day.
Looking at her, San-gugu seemed to be unmarried. She had thin skin and subconsciously frowned slightly, always as if she was in a bad mood and wanted to find fault with others and quarrel at any time. Although she had a good appearance, her temperament was a bit gloomy and unpleasant.
She forced a smile, patted Ye Zun’s head once, then withdrew her hand. The curve her lips formed also disappeared.
Compared with the kindness of the second aunt, the third aunt doesn’t seem to like children very much.
Then, Gu-laolao took Ye Zun to an empty room with a mourning hall and a memorial tablet.
The man in the black-and-white photo had a heroic and prosperous aura, with a dignified appearance. Very young and handsome, but he evidently suffered misfortune and died young.
“Go. Kneel and kowtow, burn incense. This is your Baba.”
Gu-laolao obviously adopted Ye Zun for the sake of her son, who died young.
Ye Zun didn’t say anything. He just followed orders obediently.
Gu-laolao showed a trace of satisfaction, with a slightly stern look on her face.
“You must remember, from now on, the person here will be your Baba. Although your uncle and aunties will take care of you and treat you as their own, this person is your Baba. You must remember this clearly, do you understand?”
Ye Zun looked into her eyes and nodded seriously, expressing that he would remember this.
“In this family, you can’t use your old name anymore. From now on, your name is Chengting, Ye Chengting*. Have you memorised it?”
[T/N: 叶承庭, same surname (Ye) as his own. His first name, 承庭 (Chengting), could be from “幼承庭训”/you cheng ting xun, which means ‘having a good family education, and receiving it from a young age’]
A name with a very feudal legacy, it’s quite hard to believe that such a name still existed in this day and age.
Ye Zun didn’t care about the new name. What he cared more about was what kind of horrors hidden in this new environment will threaten his life.
