After Reborn, I Became the Bigshots' Beloved-Chapter 397: The Fruit Knife Held High

Hearing someone call her name, Shi Luochen finally stopped spacing out. When she saw it was her mother calling her, she instinctively walked toward Lin Fangling.

Shi Erya noticed Lin Fangling’s sudden arrival and asked, "Sister-in-law, what brings you here so late to see Chenchen? Is something wrong?"

However, upon hearing the question, Lin Fangling’s face changed. Unhappy, she retorted, "I’m his mother. Do I need a reason to see my own son? Do I have to consult you first?"

"No, that’s not what I meant, sister-in-law..." Shi Erya immediately stood up, flustered. She began explaining helplessly.

Her question was simply due to the fact that, every night, the two children were looked after by the nanny and put to bed.

It was already almost eleven o’clock now, and she assumed Lin Fangling had gone upstairs to sleep with her brother. But Lin Fangling had come to find the child, and she had called only Chenchen.

Yet in the Shi Family, Shi Chengyun had always disliked Shi Erya, and as a result, Lin Fangling’s attitude toward her stayed distant as well.

Shi Erya was trying to ease the tension, but every small remark like this seemed to lead to misunderstandings.

Seeing her son come to her side, Lin Fangling lost interest in continuing the exchange with Shi Erya and pulled Shi Luochen away.

Watching them leave, Shi Erya could only sit back down in her chair.

Lu Sheng frowned slightly but didn’t say anything. She simply returned to the earlier topic, asking, "Auntie, what did you mean when you said Chenchen can’t talk?"

"Oh... that," Shi Erya sighed, "Chenchen can’t speak because he has an intellectual disability."

"An intellectual disability?" Lu Sheng was taken aback.

Shi Luochen—a child so beautiful he resembled an angel—actually had an intellectual disability?

"Yes," Shi Erya confirmed. "Luoyu and Luochen are twins. They were born less than a minute apart. But Luoyu was already calling ’Mom’ and ’Dad’ by the time he was eight months old, whereas Luochen hadn’t uttered a single word by the age of two."

"At first, everyone in the family thought he was just a late talker. But when Luochen turned two and a half and still hadn’t spoken a word, my brother and sister-in-law got worried and began suspecting he might be mute."

"Later, they took Chenchen to the hospital for tests. The doctor said that Chenchen wasn’t mute but had an intellectual disability where his brain lacked the ability to process language. They said his intelligence might remain frozen at a level similar to a child’s for the rest of his life."

"And that’s exactly how it played out. Chenchen is already ten years old now, but he always seems so dazed, completely different from Luoyu. Honestly, I don’t even know if he can understand what we’re saying most of the time."

... So that was the reason. freeωebnovēl.c૦m

After hearing Shi Erya’s explanation, Lu Sheng couldn’t help but recall Shi Luochen’s appearance earlier and felt deeply moved.

Although Shi Chengyun treated her badly, those grudges among adults had nothing to do with an innocent child. If possible, Lu Sheng still hoped Shi Luochen could recover and live a normal life.

But intellectual disabilities aren’t the same as physical illnesses.

Physical illnesses might be treatable with medicine, but even Lu Sheng couldn’t make a child’s brain fully develop to overcome an intellectual disability.

A few minutes later, a servant arrived to escort Shi Luoyu away as well. After finishing acupuncture therapy for Shi Mingxiu, Lu Sheng bid Shi Erya goodnight and returned to her room to rest.

But upon entering her room upstairs, Lu Sheng immediately noticed a faint, elusive fragrance lingering in the air—something absent when she had left the room earlier in the afternoon.

Lu Sheng instinctively frowned.

Scanning the room for the source of the scent, her gaze fell on a small, antique bronze incense burner placed atop her bedside table.

Wisps of smoke curled out from the burner, carrying the faint aroma into the room.

—Incense?

This hadn’t been here earlier. Who placed it here, and when?

Ever since her meeting with Chen Shu at a restaurant half a year ago—where she inhaled the incense Chen Shu brought, fainted on the spot, and suffered subsequent memory loss—Lu Sheng had developed a strong aversion to incense-like substances.

Just then, a servant happened to pass by outside. Lu Sheng stepped out to intercept her and asked, "Aunt Chen, right? Did you place incense in my room?"

"Yes, Miss Lu Sheng," Aunt Chen answered, somewhat puzzled. She nodded and explained, "Earlier this evening, the Third Miss said that since it was your first night here, you might not sleep well. She specifically instructed me to light some soothing incense in your room to help you rest peacefully."

—So Shi Erya had arranged it.

Upon hearing this, Lu Sheng’s frown relaxed slightly. She sent Aunt Chen away and returned to her room, though her suspicion hadn’t fully dissipated.

Lu Sheng knew Shi Erya genuinely cared for her. To even consider such small details was proof of her attentiveness. But given the presence of two demons in the Shi Family household, sleeping too soundly wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

Lu Sheng walked over to her bedside table, poured some water from the glass into the incense burner, extinguishing the flame. Then she opened the windows to ventilate the room and disperse the lingering scent.

She wasn’t sure whether she had inhaled some of the incense already or if she was simply too exhausted from the day. Either way, after showering and changing into her sleepwear, she felt her eyelids grow heavy and drowsiness begin to wash over her.

She mustered her energy to call Li Muchen back in Jiang City before sleep overtook her completely.

—

Shi Muchuan entered the living room by unlocking the door with a password right at midnight.

He had attended a dinner party earlier that evening and then returned to his office to prepare the necessary documents for tomorrow’s court session. After finishing all his tasks, he finally made his way back to the Shi Family’s old residence.

Though Shi Muchuan couldn’t understand why his father had insisted on renovating their original home and ordered the entire family to temporarily reside at the old residence during this period, he didn’t think much of it.

Since his father wanted everyone to move into the old residence, Shi Muchuan complied willingly. Spending more time with his recovering grandfather wasn’t a bad idea anyway.

The faint scent of alcohol still lingered on his body from the drinks earlier. Unlike his prim-and-proper daytime look—slicked-back hair, gold-rimmed glasses, tailored suit—Shi Muchuan now looked more casual, his hair slightly disheveled, tie loosened, and the top two buttons of his shirt undone.

His room was on the third floor.

As he climbed the stairs from the ground floor to the first landing, he suddenly noticed that one of the rooms on the second floor had its door partially ajar, soft light escaping from the gap.

He remembered that this was supposed to be Lu Sheng’s room, the new addition to their household.

During the height of summer, the old residence’s gardens—lush with various flowers, plants, and trees—attracted plenty of mosquitoes indoors. Leaving a door open like this was bound to invite quite a few pests inside.

Since the light was still on, it was likely the resident of the room hadn’t gone to bed yet. After hesitating briefly, Shi Muchuan decided to stride over and knock on the door to remind her.

But as he approached the room, Shi Muchuan realized the door wasn’t merely ajar—it was open wide enough to easily glimpse the scene inside.

Before he could restrain his gaze, his eyes inadvertently caught sight of the interior, and what he saw made them widen in shock.

In that instant, Shi Muchuan thought his alcohol consumption was playing tricks on him.

Inside the room, he actually saw his ten-year-old younger brother standing next to the bed with a sharp fruit knife clutched tightly in both small hands, raised high in the air as if about to plunge it into the sleeping girl’s chest.