As soon as he left the safe zone, he was hit by the rampant fluctuations of mental energy that surged everywhere.
Aside from the mental energy waves, he was utterly stunned to find that it looked like a wildlife documentary unfolding outside.
There were lions, tigers, elephants, giant pythons, spotted deer... almost everything.
These animals were both avoiding the assaults of the mental energy and running around, seemingly searching for new places that could serve as safe zones.
The little child stood still. The mental energy didn’t scare him, but the sight of those massive wild beasts certainly did.
After being frozen with fear for a moment, he finally gathered his courage and began sneaking his way up the mountain.
He needed to find the uncle!
Dust clouds rose wherever the beasts ran. The little child squinted, barely able to keep his eyes open. With his tiny legs, he sprinted forward as fast as he could. Somewhere in the distance, he thought he heard someone calling him, but there were only wild beasts here now—no humans at all.
The sound scared him even more, and he picked up his pace. After falling flat on his face several times, he finally reached the mountain.
"Uncle!"
The little child’s cheeks were flushed red, either from exhaustion or from crying, and his eyes were rimmed with tears. His voice trembled as he pleaded, "A tiger was chasing me! Save me!"
The little child, who had initially come to help treat the uncle’s mental energy, now begged for help first: "There was also a big snake! I’m scared!"
Never in his life had he seen so many wild beasts, especially ones that actually chased after him.
Terrified out of his wits, the little child clutched his chubby bottom tightly, worried that one of those beasts might take a bite out of him.
His dad had said before that his flesh was soft and would be easy to bite.
Frantic to find a hiding place, the little child kept looking for a hole, afraid that once he got there, he wouldn’t have anywhere to crawl into.
Luckily, the frightened little child finally found a hole big enough for him to squeeze into. Without wasting a second, he wriggled inside and immediately started shouting for his uncle.
“Wahhh! Savi lied to me! Savi said the tigers here don’t eat children!”
If they didn’t eat children, then why did they chase him when they saw him?!
The little child was so frightened by the pack of beasts that he felt his soul was about to fly away. Wiping his tears with one small hand, he wandered around looking for his uncle.
After searching for a while, he found himself in front of a wall.
"Uncle, open the door for me," he said.
He knew the uncle was inside, but if his uncle didn’t open the door, he wouldn’t be able to see him.
Inside, the man was indeed there, his face twisted in pain. Half-kneeling beside the bed, veins bulged on his forehead, and his hands pressed tightly against his temples.
The torment brought by his raging mental power was becoming increasingly unbearable. Clutching his temples, his mind was already contemplating how to put an end to this agony once and for all.
His life was tethered to his wife’s. Only she could soothe and stabilize the turbulent domain of his mental power. Aside from her, no one else could cure him.
With his wife gone, he felt there was no reason to continue living.
Yet, a faint glimmer of hope lingered in his heart. As long as he stayed alive, maybe—just maybe—one day his wife would return from the dead to take him home.
It was this absurd thought that became his sole reason for willingly enduring his current state of slumber.
Amidst his painful struggle, in his dazed and muddled state, he vaguely heard the sound of fists pounding against the wall. Along with the pounding, a soft, childish voice called out: “I’m back! Open the door for me!”
The man: “…”
For a brief moment, the man’s mind seemed to clear, but that clarity did not last long.
He quickly slipped back into his foggy consciousness.
Unable to get in, the little child huffed and said in his soft babyish voice, “If you don’t hug me, how can I heal you?”
To stabilize an episode of mental breakdown like this, the child needed to be picked up and have his forehead pressed against his uncle’s.
Since he couldn’t get inside, the little child had no choice but to press his forehead against the wall and release a small tender sprout.
The little sprout gently calmed the overflowing mental power around them bit by bit, but this method wasn’t a permanent solution.
After initially pacifying the outflowing mental power, the little child began pounding on the wall again.
“Let me in!”
The little child shouted, “How come you’re capable of making me do homework but not capable of opening the door?”
This was the child’s attempt at reverse psychology, a tactic his dad had used on Uncle Ling Qi before!
With his exceptional mimicry skills, the little child imitated his father’s tone, hoping the uncle would finally open the door.
The little child didn’t know how long he had been making a fuss, but he actually managed to smash the door open a little.
Staring at the small hole he had made, the child didn’t think twice before starting to squeeze through. The hole was a bit small, but it didn’t matter—he was soft and squishy, so he was sure he could fit.
The child had seen palace cats squeeze through tiny gaps in glass, just a few centimeters wide. If those chubby cats could make it through, he thought, then surely he could too.
Confidently, the little child thought about the cats squeezing in and out, then looked at his own plump waist. He wasn’t worried at all.
A few minutes later.
Stuck in the hole, the little child realized something was wrong. He tried his best to push forward, but couldn’t move.
Trying to back out didn’t work either.
The stuck child struggled back and forth, and his chubby little face turned bright red from the effort.
He tried even harder, but the harder he tried, the worse it got.
In the end, completely stuck and unable to move, the little child let out a wailing cry: “Help me! My tummy hurts!”
His poor little belly, trapped in the hole, was getting scraped and rubbed. How could it not hurt?
The child cried loudly, lifting his chubby face in sadness and pity.
The man lying slumped at the bedside was jolted awake by the child’s loud cries.
The man’s gaze was still blurry, and his body wobbled a bit as he got up.
His eyes searched around for a moment, and then he spotted the stuck child.
It wasn’t surprising at all that the chubby child had gotten stuck trying to squeeze through such a small hole.
The man walked over. He didn’t move his hands, but his powerful mental energy reduced the hole trapping the child to dust in an instant.
Finally, the child’s poor tummy was free from further scrapes. He got up and, still crying, hugged the man’s leg.
“Why didn’t you open the door for me!”
The little child’s babyish voice was full of reproach. If the uncle had just opened the door, he wouldn’t have gotten stuck.
Now his poor tummy was scraped raw!
The man listened to the child’s complaints but didn’t respond.
Just as the child was about to cry harder and lift his shirt to show his injured tummy, the man in front of him suddenly buckled at the knees and collapsed to the ground.
The little child was completely pinned down.
“Cough, cough cough.”
Struggling to kick his legs, the little child finally managed to free himself. He glanced at the man with tightly shut eyes, and his crying stopped abruptly.
Now was not the time to cry—if he cried, no one would comfort him.
He needed to treat Uncle first. Once Uncle was better, then he could cry again.
Thinking of this, the little child held back his grievances for the moment. He wiped his eyes, then hugged Uncle’s head and pressed his forehead against it.
The little sprout got to work.
