When Mu Lan finished reading the diary, it was almost midnight. She closed the diary and looked outside of the window. She put her hands above her head and leaned back on the chair. She was stunned by the discovery.
‘Oh my God! Auntie and big brother Xin’s father! Does that mean big brother Xin… no no, Xiao Jia clearly said that auntie gave birth to triplets, two daughters and one son. they were only two years older than me and big brother Xin is a lot older than me. She kept the eldest daughter which means my cousin Xiao Mei is the step sister of big brother Xin. The second child was another daughter who was sent to the orphanage and General Ru kept the son whose name is He Meixu. Wait, I know that guy… isn’t he big brother Xin’s subordinate. Does he know?’
Thinking all that, Mu Lan abruptly stood up. ‘Oh no, I cannot go out looking for a man in the middle of the night when that guy clearly has a thing for me. I’ll wait for tomorrow.’
She took a deep breath and calmed herself down. She changed her clothes and went to bed. ‘Xiao Jia, the information you gave me, you have no idea how much it will help me in the future. I can’t hate you anymore. Thank you so much. May your soul rest in peace.’ She closed her eyes to sleep.
While dreaming she recalled that she went to visit her grandparents when she was eight years old. She took the hand Osiris and walked in the street.
“Xiao Lan!” Someone cheerfully called her name.
Hua Lan turned to see the girl. It was none other than ten years old Han Jia. Seeing Hua Lan, she ran towards her happily. “Xiao Lan, where were you these past three years? I’ve been waiting for you!” She cautiously looked at Osiris and was in awe by his handsomeness. “Who is he?”
Hua Lan smiled seeing an old friend and said, “I was out of the country and came back a while ago. He is Osiris, my uncle.”
Han Jia blinked. “I never heard you mentioning that you had an uncle.”
“He is my father’s friend.” Hua Lan explained.
Osiris smiled and said, “Well, hello dear! You must be Xiao Jia I heard so much. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Han Jia was blinded by his sparkling aura. She instantly closed her eyes.
Hua Lan tugged her hand. “Come to my house.”
“Sure, let’s go!” The girls walked back home hand in hand. They went to Hua Lan’s grandparents house and played all day. In the house, there were many family pictures of Hua Lan’s mother hanging on the wall.
Han Jia looked at the pictures and commented, “Your mother and auntie are so similar. It’s hard to guess who is who.”
“They are twins. But you can tell who they are after you get to know them.” Hua Lan said. Her mother was intelligent and kind; whereas her auntie was greedy and jealous. They were quite opposite. She didn’t suffer under Zhuang Lei after she left her mother, she wouldn’t have known. She saw too much of the reality of the world that she couldn’t act spoiled like a normal kid around her age.
The next day, two friends sneaked out of the house and went to the festival. There, they met three child traffickers. While they tried to take eight years old Hua Lan and ten years old Han Jia with them, unexpectedly the little girl fight against them to let Han Jia run away and bring some people to help them. Hua Lan was trained martial arts back in the laboratory, but she was still a kid. She easily got tired and those three men beat her before taking her with them. She was locked in a room with a bunch of kids at her age. She tricked the traffickers and fled from there and went directly to the police station.
When Osiris came to save her, she wasn’t there. He turned the whole place upside down. When police went to catch the traffickers and rescue the kids, they only found a destructive place and children were all gone. It was Osiris who brought them back to their families. He already found out from the kids that Hua Lan escaped from there. Meanwhile, Hua Lan went to the Paektu Mountain and met Ru Xin for the first time. After she had a meal with him, she went back to the house and was embraced by Osiris. That day, he forced her to eat lots of food and in the end her stomach started to hurt.
The next day Mu Lan woke up after having such a dream. It was more like the recollection of her childhood memories. She yawned and freshened up. Afterwards, she took the canned food made by Carlo and warmed the food in the oven. After she was done with her meal, she went to look for Ru Xin.
She found him in the Paektu Mountain once again. “Do you come here every day?”
Ru Xin was startled seeing her here. He replied, “Whenever I have time. Why are you here?”
Mu Lan went directly to the business. “I have something to ask you about your subordinate He Meixu.”
Ru Xin was puzzled. He thought that she was here to take care of some business but he couldn’t understand what his subordinate had anything to do with that. He nodded. “Go on.”
“He Meixu is younger than you, right?” She tried to make it clear.
Ru Xin immediately replied, “Yes.”
She asked, “Do you know where he grew up?”
He answered truthfully, “He grew up with me. My father took her in after he was born. We knew that he was an orphan.”
She questioned, “Did your father say that?”
“Yes… but why are you asking about this?” He was now curious about her intention behind her interrogation.
Mu Lan took a deep breath before speaking slowly, “What if I tell you that he is your step brother?”
