Muted/Mu Ran
As if to prove Xu Ran’s words, on the second day, Mu Ran stopped eating.
In the past, when Auntie[1] cooked a meal and brought Mu Ran to the dinner table, he would still pick up the dishes and chopsticks by himself. Although his appetite was small, at least he still had the instinct to eat. But sitting down this time, he only dazedly stared at the table full of dishes, without a single movement. The auntie tried to persuade him, but after seeing his lack of response, she became anxious and looked up at Yi Tian.
“You can go back first.”
Auntie looked at the table full of food with some hesitation, and Yi Tian could see what she was worried about.
“I will clean these up.”
Only then did Auntie nod, untie her apron, and leave.
After Auntie left, the atmosphere in the room became tense. Yi Tian looked coldly at Mu Ran as he slowly clenched his fist, the blue veins on the back of his hands bulging. He suppressed the impatience in his heart- Even losing his temper depended on the person. The Mu Ran from before would be panicked, afraid, and would yield. But the lifeless person sitting opposite to him now… Even if Yi Tian flipped the table and beat him, he wouldn’t give him the slightest reaction.
After a stalemate for a long time, Yi Tian took out his mobile phone and dialed Xu Ran’s number. After being connected, with no sound from the other side, Yi Tian rubbed his temples and said: “He won’t eat. Come tomorrow to look at him.”
Xu Ran snorted coldly, and Yi Tian continued: “Bring the medicine,” and without waiting for Xu Ran’s response, he hung up.
As time passed, the steaming dishes on the table slowly cooled. Yi Tian stood up abruptly, threw his phone on the table, and sternly furrowed his brows, sitting beside Mu Ran. Somewhat rudely, he turned around to face Mu Ran, picked up a fish roll with chopsticks, put it by Mu Ran’s mouth, and said in a cold tone: “Open your mouth.”
Mu Ran blinked, and his eyes moved, but when he met Yi Tian’s sight, his gaze was sluggish, without any response. Yi Tian didn’t anger, and instead took a deep breath and patiently repeated, “Open your mouth,” with his voice no longer so stiff.
In this way, after repeatedly persuading and emphasizing a few times, Mu Ran finally obediently opened his mouth and swallowed the fish roll.
Yi Tian looked at his slightly bulging cheeks as he chewed slowly, and felt that the softest part of his heart seemed to have been scratched by someone.
This experience was really quite novel. From youth to adulthood, he’d been the center of so many people- The slightest illness or injury would cause the people around him to be shocked- How could he have taken care of anyone else, much less feed another person? The Mu Ran in front of him was so fragile, without anyone he could rely on. If nobody took care of him, he wouldn’t even eat food. If Yi Tian left him, perhaps Mu Ran wouldn’t even survive for a minute. He couldn’t pinpoint why, but this acknowledgment slightly stirred his heart.
Just like this, bite by bite, Yi Tian would even help Mu Ran wipe the vegetable juice that accidentally stuck by his mouth. If Yi Tian’s friends were here, their eyeballs would probably pop out; Even if they were beaten, they wouldn’t believe that the always coolly indifferent and impatient Young Master Yi would personally feed others.
Mu Ran didn’t eat much, and Yi Tian didn’t force him either. After seeing that Mu Ran stopped opening his mouth, he put down the bowl. He himself had not eaten, and by this time, the dishes had mostly cooled down, though he didn’t care, and casually ate a bit.
Later, the potted plants that Yi Tian asked someone to send arrived. He’d been busy previously and hadn’t been in the mood. Now that he was free, he wanted to add some things to the greenhouse.
The weather was good today, and the sunlight was warm and basking, without harshly shining. Yi Tian opened the full-length windows, and led Mu Ran into the greenhouse and sat him down, then rolled up his sleeves and began to sort the potted plants.
In the greenhouse, by the wall, there was a varnished wooden bookshelf, while the other sides were clean and translucent glass windows. Underneath were all sorts of beautiful potted plants piled below. Mu Ran sat next to the bookshelf, with ivy draped on an iron trellis that almost hung to the floor. The sunlight hit him through the skylight, staining his surroundings with a warm halo of light.
It was just that he continued to sit in silence, without a single movement, fingers curled up stiffly, resting on his knees, gaze blankly staring into the distance, and lips a bloodless, stark white. In such a vibrant place full of life, he was as out of place as a decayed and rusted statue.
Yi Tian occasionally turned to look at him, and after seeing Mu Ran was quietly sitting, he would turn back around to continue working with his hands.
Su Wenyang came at this time, carrying a thick leather bag in his hands. Yi Tian steeped a cup of coffee and fed Mu Ran some water before sitting down and asking: “You finished checking?”
Su Wenyang put the leather bag on the table and pushed it in front of him.
“Everything I could find is here. I also sent the information to Miss Xu Ran.”
Yi Tian nodded, but he didn’t rush to open it.
He only said, “There will be a batch of Dehua red glazed porcelain at the Cultural Industry Fair in G City next week. Go and take a look, and if it’s okay, then collect it.”
In recent years, Dehua porcelain’s performance was very active. Although it couldn’t be compared with Jingdezhen porcelain’s market value, worth hundreds of millions of yuan, the value of the collection had lots of potential for growth.
Su Wenyang responded, “A group of people has already gone, and I will leave in a few days.” After a pause, he said, “There will be a cocktail party at the Lu family tomorrow night…”
Yi Tian lowered his gaze, stretched out a hand to pick up the leather bag, and said mildly, “Reject it ba.”
Su Wenyang was taken aback for a moment and then recovered an indifferent face. “I see.”
Since Yi Tian had taken Mu Ran home, he’d hardly attended any activities. Other than contacting He Xudong and Xu Ran, he hadn’t gone out with any of his friends. However, this was Yi Tian’s personal matter; On what Su Wenyang shouldn’t say, he wouldn’t say too much.
Yi Tian opened the bag, took out a thick pile of paper from the inside, rumpled his brow, and began to inspect it carefully. Su Wenyang stopped talking, and interestedly got up, and left. Before leaving, he glanced at the person sitting next to Yi Tian who hadn’t spoken a single word since he’d arrived, sitting dazedly. Thinking about the things that he’d found while investigating for the past few days, his frigid heart produced a few shreds of sympathy.
Yi Tian’s head was still lowered, inspecting the things in his hand, so he didn’t even notice when Su Wenyang had left.
There was no way to communicate at all with Mu Ran’s current state, and Yi Tian didn’t know him well. Without detailed information, Xu Ran wouldn’t be able to arrange future treatment at all, so she asked Yi Tian to find everything that could be found on Mu Ran from childhood to adulthood.
Mu Ran was born in the same city, in a small county town. He was abandoned in the hospital by his parents just after birth and was later sent to one of the county’s orphanages.
The orphanage was built by a local veteran with his life savings. The conditions were not very good, and it was difficult to maintain it, even on weekdays. Mu Ran was adopted three times, and on the third time, he met a couple with a tendency of violence, and he was often abused. At that time, it was also in the newspaper. The report stated that the hostess of this family often tied his hands to the railing of the balcony, whipped him through his clothes, and forbade him to cry and scream in pain. If he made a sound, he was not allowed to eat meals or go to school.
The orphanage was small in scale and privately run, unlike the regular government-quality ones in the country, and there weren’t return visits and investigations. He was abused without anyone to care about it. At first, there were a few neighbors around to persuade the couple with a few words, but then everyone sighed with pity, then turned around to continue living their lives.
It was also once that the beating was too serious, and a neighbor saw him with blood all over his head and worried that someone would die, before calling the police.
He was already older when he was sent back to the orphanage, and no one wanted to adopt him. But Mu Ran had always been competitive. Generally, children in orphanages left when they were fourteen, but he continued to study. Because of his good grades and special circumstances, the junior and high schools waived his tuition fees.
He kept all this in mind, calculated his tuition and sent it back to these schools after working, and even wrote them thank-you letters. It was a pity that the orphanage couldn’t continue to run, because of lack of funds, and the old man who was in charge had passed away a long time ago. None of the people Mu Ran wanted to repay could be found.
If he hadn’t met Yi Tian, maybe he would have continued working so hard and earnestly to live. Perhaps he would meet a kind-hearted girl who truly loved him. Perhaps he would have a lovely child. Perhaps he could have a happy home.
There were so many what-ifs, but time never allowed these possibilities to exist.
In fact, the kind of person Mu Ran was- how could he know how to drug him and take pictures? It was simply at the beginning, a ruffian who had commonly mixed in bars, who had worked together in the store with Mu Ran. After accidentally finding out about his circumstances, he encouraged Mu Ran and even gave him the medicine.
The first time Mu Ran had fallen in love with someone, he’d put all the expectations and desires he’d suppressed in the bottom of his heart from when he was a child on them. This strong emotion had burned his sanity and consciousness to the point where he couldn’t see anymore and had dazedly committed a crime.
In his life, Mu Ran had only done this one wrong act. Even though this matter was vile and filthy, under the deepest part of the filth, laid a true heart.
In this world, he only had himself, and later, he lost himself. He now truly had nothing left.
[1] Auntie: Not actually a blood-related aunt. This is an informal address for any woman of the “previous generation”, and can be used for non-related people (e.g. cleaning auntie).
T/N Note:
Wow, that hurt. A lot. I guess Mu Ran’s past has finally been revealed to Yi Tian. I’m offering hugs to all the people who cried reading this chapter, because I know I did TAT
Free hugs here —> (.づ◡﹏◡)づ.
Radish Thoughts Translations 
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