Two days later, the sound of a car engine announced Gu Wei Hei's return. Huang Jia Li's heart, which had been steady, began to pound with a mix of anticipation and a deep-seated dread she tried to quell. She waited in the formal living room, a son cradled in each arm, bathed in the soft afternoon light filtering through the large windows.
Gu Wei Hei entered, his posture weary from travel but his face lighting up with a genuine smile for his wife. "Jia Li, I'm back. How are you feeling?" he asked, his voice warm with concern as he approached. "And the babies, let me see—" His words died in his throat, cut off as if by a blade. His eyes, initially soft, snapped to the infant in her left arm. His smile froze, then twisted into a mask of confusion and disbelief. He took an involuntary step closer, then stopped dead.
"What... what is this?" he demanded, his voice dropping to a low, strained whisper that seemed to suck the warmth from the room. He stared at Gu Lang Ying as if confronting a ghost.
"This is our son," Huang Jia Li stated, her voice calm but with an undercurrent of steel. She held the baby a little tighter. "Your second son, Gu Lang Ying."
Gu Wei Hei's gaze darted rapidly between the two infants. In her right arm lay Gu Lang Yuan, with his head of dark, downy hair, his features a perfect, lovely blend of his parents. A normal, beautiful baby. In her left arm lay a child who looked like he had stepped out of a myth. The shock of silvery-white hair, the piercing, impossibly bright blue eyes that were open and eerily aware, the pale, luminous skin. It was a contrast so stark it was violent.
"That's impossible," Gu Wei Hei stated flatly, the words leaving him like a curse. His businessman's mind, trained in logic and tangible facts, rejected the evidence before him. "He looks nothing like us. Nothing like any human child I have ever seen! This is some kind of... of deformity!" The last word was spoken with a mix of revulsion and fear.
"He is not a deformity," Huang Jia Li shot back, her own fear transforming into a protective fury. "He is our child, Wei Hei. I gave birth to him. Right here, in this house. Auntie Li was there. Lan Ting Er, Doctor Ang, half the household staff—they all witnessed it. You can ask any of them."
"This is a trick!" he insisted, his voice rising slightly. "A sick joke! Or... or someone switched the babies!" His mind raced through ludicrous, panicked scenarios, unable to accept the truth. The vague, troubling rumors he'd dismissed about strange occurrences on the night of the birth now flooded back with horrifying clarity.
"There was no switch. This child came from my body," Huang Jia Li said, each word deliberate and heavy. "The doctor has examined him. He is perfectly healthy. He is just... unique."
"Unique?" Gu Wei Hei spat the word, a harsh, mocking laugh escaping him. "He's a freak of nature, Jia Li! Do you have even the slightest idea what people will say? The whispers, the stares, the ridicule? What this will do to our family's reputation? To my standing in the business community? They will think we are cursed, or that you—" He stopped himself, but the implication hung foul in the air.
"He is a baby!" Huang Jia Li's composure finally shattered. Tears of anger and profound hurt welled in her eyes, but she did not look away. "He is your flesh and blood! He needs his father's love and protection, not your... your disgust!"
"Love?" Gu Wei Hei's laugh was bitter now. "How can I love that? Look at him, Jia Li! Really look! He's not normal! He will be an outcast, a spectacle his entire life! And he will drag A-Yuan down with him! Is that what you want for our firstborn? To be forever shadowed by this... this abnormality?" He gestured wildly at Gu Lang Ying.
A cold, hard certainty settled in Huang Jia Li's heart. "So, what is your solution?" she asked, her voice dangerously quiet.
Gu Wei Hei ran a hand through his hair, pacing a few steps before turning back to her. He spoke quickly, as if voicing a plan he'd just formulated but that felt inevitable. "We say he was stillborn. A tragic loss. We mourn privately. Then... we arrange for him to be taken care of. Somewhere discreet, far from here. A specialized institution where he can be with... others like him. Where he won't be seen."
The chill that ran down Huang Jia Li's spine was arctic. She stood up slowly, carefully, her body trembling not with weakness but with a rage so pure it gave her strength. She held both babies close to her chest, a lioness guarding her cubs.
"Never," she whispered, the word slicing through the air. "I will never let you take my son away. If you are so ashamed of the child we created, if your reputation means more to you than your own blood, then you should leave. But A-Ying stays here. In this house. As a rightful son of the Gu family, with all the love and belonging that entails."
"You are being irrational! Sentimental and foolish!" Gu Wei Hei shouted, his face flushing with anger. "Think with your head, not your heart! Think of A-Yuan's future! Think of our future! Having a sibling like that will ruin everything!"
"A-Ying will ruin nothing!" Huang Jia Li roared back, her voice stronger than it had been in days. "He is a blessing! His birth was accompanied by wonders you cannot even comprehend! Flowers bloomed out of season for him! The moon itself bore witness!"
"Wonders? Or omens?" Gu Wei Hei countered, his own fear palpable now. "Thunder that shook the house, winds like a gale, the earth trembling... those aren't blessings, Jia Li! They are warnings! That thing is not of this world! It's unnatural!"
As if in response to the rising tension, Gu Lang Ying, who had been quiet and watchful, began to cry. But it was no ordinary newborn's wail. It was a clear, resonant sound that seemed to vibrate in the very air around them. For a fleeting second, the lights in the ornate chandelier above them flickered and dimmed.
Both adults fell into a stunned silence, staring at the baby. Gu Wei Hei took two stumbling steps backward, his anger eclipsed by primal, superstitious fear. The strange occurrence confirmed his deepest terrors.
Huang Jia Li looked from her husband's terrified, repulsed face to her son's extraordinary, innocent one. In that charged silence, a chasm opened between them, wider and deeper than any mere disagreement. She saw the man she had married for who he was at his core: a man who prized societal approval and sterile normality above the mysterious, challenging, and unconditional truth of family.
She wiped her tears with the back of her hand, her expression hardening into one of unshakeable resolve. Her voice, when she spoke again, was cold, final, and carried the authority of a mother defending her young.
"Get out," she said.
"What?" Gu Wei Hei breathed, incredulous.
"Get out of this room. And out of our lives until you can look at your son and see not a monster, but a child. A beautiful, unique child who is a part of you. Until that day, you are not welcome near him. Or near me."
He stared at her, his mouth agape, shocked by her absolute defiance. This was not the gentle, accommodating wife he knew. This was a woman transformed by motherhood into something formidable. He opened his mouth to argue, to command, to reassert his patriarchal authority, but the words died under her unyielding gaze and the unsettling, luminous stare of the silver-haired infant.
With a final, convulsive look that mixed fury, betrayal, and sheer terror, Gu Wei Hei turned on his heel and stormed out of the room, slamming the heavy door behind him.
The sound echoed through the spacious room, then faded into a heavy silence. Huang Jia Li sank back into the chair, her body finally admitting its exhaustion. She rocked Gu Lang Ying gently, humming the same soft tune until his strange, resonant cries subsided into quiet hiccups. Auntie Li, who had been waiting anxiously in the hallway, rushed in moments later, her face etched with worry.
"Mistress, I heard—"
"He has made his choice," Huang Jia Li interrupted, her voice weary but unwavering. "He may come to regret it, or he may not. But my sons will know love. They will know they are wanted. They will never doubt that." She looked down at Gu Lang Ying, who had quieted and was now staring up at her with those profound, knowing blue eyes. "The world may fear you, my little wolf cub," she whispered, an endearment that rose from a place deeper than memory. "It may not understand you. But your mother will always be your home. Your shield. Your first and fiercest protector."
In the days and weeks that followed, a glacial silence descended upon the Gu mansion. Gu Wei Hei buried himself in work, leaving early and returning late, avoiding the nursery wing entirely. Huang Jia Li, in turn, poured every ounce of her being into her children. Gu Lang Yuan thrived, a happy, gurgling baby who brought her immense joy.
But Gu Lang Ying was different. He was serene, observant, his developmental milestones arriving just a touch sooner than expected. He rarely cried, but his watchful eyes missed nothing. And sometimes, in the deep quiet of the night, when Huang Jia Li checked on them, she would see a faint, silvery luminescence—like captured moonlight—softly glowing from within his crib, outlining his tiny form before fading away.
The strange tale of the Gu family's second son became a carefully guarded, whispered secret within the mansion's walls. A seed of awe and dread had been planted, its true nature yet unknown.
Far away, across the veil separating realms, in a palace of ice and sorrow, a mother in red wedding robes felt a faint, comforting echo in her spirit. Her sacrifice was complete. Her son was safe, loved, and alive. The game was indeed far from over; it had only just begun. And the boy named Ying, who held storms in his cry and moonlight in his hair, slept peacefully, unaware of the legacy in his blood and the destiny that patiently waited for him to grow.