Luo Wencheng almost jumped up.

Anyone would have been startled by such a cold, silent stare, as if looking at a dead man, not to mention the fact that the other party had only one eye!

Oh, it should be said that only his left eye was exposed, and his right eye was covered by an eye patch.

The night, the cold wind, the imposing one-eyed man who casually said he wanted so-and-so’s life.

Even the car accident underneath might have had something to do with him.

Luo Wencheng had the feeling that he would be silenced forever in the next moment.

He felt that his luck was simply awful.

If he had known he would run into something like this, he might as well have resigned to being stripped naked and thrown out into the street by Luo Wenjun.

There was a dead silence.

Three seconds later, Luo Wencheng moved first, stuttering hoarsely in embarrassment, “Um, hello… Do you have anything to eat?… May, may I ask you for something?”

He looked at the bag the man was carrying in his hand that didn’t hold the phone as if he hadn’t heard the previous passage, and gulped eagerly and helplessly.

The one-eyed man looked at him for a while, hung up the phone and put it back in his pocket, then took a step towards Luo Wencheng, who couldn’t help but scuttle back. But he had squatted too long and his legs went numb. He bumped into a raised slab of concrete and fell back in a somewhat comical manner.

The two carved wooden walnuts fell out of the paper bag and one of them rolled up to the man’s feet.

The man paused, bent down to pick it up and realised that it was a walnut. But on closer inspection he noticed it was a fake, carved from ordinary wood. The lines were simple and natural, and it was round and lovely to touch, just like the real thing.

“Did you make it yourself?” He suddenly asked. His voice was actually very calm, without the fierceness of his earlier tone.

Luo Wencheng was surprised. Asking for food was just a desperate measure; he hoped to show weakness to the other party and make the man look down on him and let him go.

He didn’t expect to receive a response.

He nodded, “Yes, I’ve been carving them for almost a year. I was going to give them to someone, but I didn’t expect that…” Luo Kaifang liked to play with walnuts, especially lion heads (a sort of walnut that looks like this; very expensive ones). Luo Wencheng couldn’t afford them, so he carved out such a pair. The moment before he was reborn, he had given them as a gift, and as a result they were tossed away by Luo Kaifang in disgust.

For Luo Wencheng, it was a memory of more than ten years ago, but the embarrassment of being trampled on still remained in his heart. Cold indifference flashed in his eyes, but he spoke with sadness and anxiety: “Do you like them? I’ll give them to you, just, just give me something to eat.”

The man didn’t like this kind of small objects to play with. In fact, he didn’t have any hobbies; but the person behind the trash can was skinny and shivering, wearing an overly large suit like a child who had stolen an adult’s clothes. Even more coincidentally, at this moment his stomach rumbled, and he blushed, shrinking even smaller, at a loss for words.

The man suddenly remembered the old cat at home. When he had picked up that cat, the little thing was also cowering in a ragged cardboard box, meowing and whimpering, its head tucked into its hind legs. When it heard footsteps, it stuck its head out quietly and looked at him with wet, miserable eyes, expectant and cringing.

But the old cat was old and grumpy now, and if the man didn’t come back by nightfall, he’d get a good scratch when he did come back.

The man was not in a good mood tonight; but at this moment his gaze softened slightly and after some thought he walked over.

Luo Wencheng didn’t get a response for a long time. He secretly wondered if he was pretending too much. When the sound of footsteps suddenly got closer, he hoped that the other party would walk past, despising him, ignoring him… just keep walking!

But then the pair of expensive leather shoes stopped in front of him, and Luo Wencheng’s heart halted. There was a soft rustling sound of plastic, and a bag appeared in front of him.

Luo Wencheng looked up in amazement. The man standing tall in front of him slightly bent over, and when his hand opened, the wooden walnuts fell onto Luo Wencheng’s lap along with the bag.

Luo Wencheng caught everything dully and saw a bag of cat biscuits, a packet of dried fish and a bag of milk.

They were all for cats.

Although they were for cats, the brand was particularly expensive. When Luo Wencheng was still Luo Ershao, he followed Luo Kaifang to a family friend’s house, and the cat that the friend’s wife raised seemed to eat this brand of cat food. The reason he still remembered it was because he had secretly snatched it from the arrogant Persian cat.

He remembered it tasted pretty good.

“For, for me?”

Luo Wencheng was a bit confused; instead of silencing him for overhearing his conversation, kicking him or giving him an icy look and walking away, this cold and mysterious one-eyed man actually gave him something to eat?

Even though it was just cat food.

Incredulous, Luo Wencheng glanced at the man again. He didn’t know that his eyes were shining in the darkness, making him look like a little animal confirming whether it was dangerous or not, with a vigilant and silly expression. 

The man hooked his lips, “If you don’t want it, forget it.”

“Yes! I want it!” Luo Wencheng no longer hesitated, opened the milk and took a big gulp. The cold liquid pouring into his stomach made him shiver, but it did taste good. He opened the biscuit bag and grabbed a handful. It tasted a bit strange, but it was pleasant to chew.

He hadn’t eaten much in the last few days. Probably knowing that he was about to get out of prison, his cellmates that had been causing him trouble for three years tried to make his life exponentially more difficult. In the past, he would fight them to the end, fiercely and desperately. But since he was about to get out, he didn’t dare to cause any trouble, so he could only endure, practically starving.

When he got out of prison today, he only had a hundred yuan in his pocket that he had saved from his hard work in prison. He bought a delicate paper bag for the wooden carvings and found a bathhouse to wash his hair and take a shower. The rest of the money was used to take a taxi, because the prison was too far from the Luo family’s house and he was eager to return home.

When he arrived at the villa, he had to wait a long time, and then chickens flying and dogs jumping started. He didn’t even have a sip of hot water. If not for his determination, he would have passed out from hunger long ago.

The one-eyed man leaned against the railing opposite him, watching with interest as Luo Wencheng devoured his food, inexplicably feeling that his mood, like a curled and wrinkled leaf, was stretching out little by little.

Luo Wencheng filled his stomach not caring if three times seven was twenty-one (casting all caution to the wind) and only then did he remember that there was another person standing opposite him. He raised his head and found that the man was looking at him. He didn’t know if it was because of the light behind his back, but the man’s single visible eye seemed bottomless and unfocused. Although he was looking in Luo Wencheng’s direction, it didn’t seem he was seeing him.

Luo Wencheng suddenly felt that this man, who was dressed in expensive clothes, looked extraordinary and seemed to be of great status, at this moment appeared very lonely, with a cold and quiet aura emanating from him, making him look as if he didn’t belong to this world.

After eating the man’s food, Luo Wencheng couldn’t help but ask, “Sir, are you unhappy about something?”

The man slowly withdrew his gaze. His one eye faintly looked at the person who tilted his head and asked him a question. Although the young man was skinny and wretched, it could be seen that he was good looking. His light amber eyes were clear and pure, and he actually had some resemblance to that person in the man’s memory.

But that person’s eyes were a little darker and brighter than the ones in front of him…

The man thought to himself that he must be unaccustomed to using one eye, so he was seeing things.

He joked, more like saying to himself, “I’m waiting for someone. But unfortunately I’ll probably always be waiting in vain.”

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