After half a day’s journey, before they’d even had much chance to talk, Ziqing’s group arrived at the Sheng estate.
Unlike the other Beast Clan families, who favored grand displays, the Sheng family kept a low profile—even their estate and gardens were tucked away deep within the mountain forest, far from any noise or bustle.
Everyone climbed down from the carriages, but Baili Xiaosheng alone clung tightly to Ziqing’s sleeve, showing no sign of wanting to get down.
A flicker of tenderness crossed Ziqing’s eyes. “You have a family now—what is there to be afraid of?” she said softly.
“I’m nervous!” Baili Xiaosheng said flatly. She wasn’t afraid, exactly—just nervous. It wasn’t that she was rejecting the Sheng family; she simply wasn’t prepared to face all of this.
“Feeling shy now, are we?” Ziqing teased with a smile.
“I thought about it once or twice, I suppose. I just never imagined I’d actually find them,” Baili Xiaosheng said.
That, perhaps, was the truest reflection of what she felt deep down.
Only children who had been thoroughly spoiled ever dreamed of running away from their parents, of leaving home. Children who had never known their parents from the moment they could understand the world always carried, deep down, a quiet longing, a private imagining of what it might be like.
Just as they were speaking, the two of them suddenly noticed how quiet everything outside had gone—an unsettling kind of quiet.
Ziqing and Baili Xiaosheng exchanged a glance and immediately climbed down from the carriage.
But the moment she stepped down, Baili Xiaosheng froze.
Not far away, at the entrance to the Sheng estate, stood a plainly dressed woman, supported by two maidservants, gazing at them from a distance.
Baili Xiaosheng’s features closely resembled hers—especially her eyes.
The woman’s face was ghostly pale, clearly the look of someone who had been gravely ill for years, unlikely to have much time left.
The moment she saw Baili Xiaosheng step down from the carriage, two lines of tears slid slowly down her face, silent and unbroken.
She said nothing at all, and unlike the elder Sheng, she didn’t rush forward in a burst of emotion. She simply stood there, watching Baili Xiaosheng from a distance, so quietly, the tears at the corners of her eyes never ceasing, flowing and flowing.
Silent tears, and a silence that seemed to still the whole world.
Wordless, soundless—and yet it carried a power that touched the heart all the same.
She didn’t need to say anything. Everyone already knew—she was the mother, Baili Xiaosheng’s mother.
Baili Xiaosheng stood frozen. She hated crying more than anything. And yet, for some reason, at this very moment, she suddenly, desperately wanted to cry.
Could she please not cry in front of her—it would break her heart.
Could she please not fall silent in front of her—it would leave her not knowing what to do.
The two of them gazed at each other, and all around, silence.
Ziqing sniffled, turning away, unable to keep watching, a memory surfacing unbidden in her mind—
The final moment before Lady Ci had passed.
Though not her birth mother, she had been, across two lifetimes of memory, the only mother Ziqing had ever known.
For an orphan, even a mother who wasn’t blood-related was precious all the same.
For the longest time, mother and daughter simply gazed at each other in silence, and no one noticed exactly when Baili Xiaosheng had begun to cry.
Not until Lady Sheng hurried forward, hands trembling as she wiped away her daughter’s tears, did everyone realize the child’s face was already streaked with them.
“Silly girl, you cried nonstop the day I gave birth to you, and all these years later, you’re still such a crybaby,” Lady Sheng said, laughing through her tears, crying through her laughter.
Baili Xiaosheng said nothing, but began to sob, tears streaming down her face, spilling from beneath her mask down onto her neck, soaking her collar.
At this moment, she no longer cared how sudden any of it was, no longer felt nervous, no longer thought of anything else at all.
When her father had called her “daughter,” she’d felt nothing much.
But now, with her mother standing right in front of her, looking at her with such gentleness, such tender love, she could no longer hold it back.
So she really did have a mother.
So she really did have a mother who loved her.
Her hands clenched into tight fists, and Baili Xiaosheng sniffled hard, trying desperately not to cry—but she simply couldn’t stop herself.
The more Lady Sheng tried to wipe her tears away, the harder they fell.
Her mother was right there, so close, so very close. She suddenly wanted so badly to be held, wanted so desperately to ask for an embrace.
Could someone please hold her? For over a decade, no mother had ever held her.
Why wouldn’t anyone hold her?
“Daughter… Mother… could I… could I hold you?” Lady Sheng asked, choking on her words, asking so carefully, so tentatively.
Something inside Baili Xiaosheng broke, and she finally let out a loud, uncontrollable wail, throwing herself into Lady Sheng’s arms. “Mother!”
Lady Sheng, too, wept without restraint, holding Baili Xiaosheng tightly, sobbing uncontrollably. “My daughter! My daughter, your mother searched for you for so, so long! I thought I’d never find you in this lifetime!”
The elder Sheng stood off to the side, tears streaming down his weathered face, no matter how many times he wiped them away.
By now, the entire Sheng household had gathered to watch. News from the Heavenly Lake had already spread through the family, and they all knew of Baili Xiaosheng’s remarkable origins.
At this moment, beyond the murmurs of discussion, what lingered even more was envy and hostility.
That this wretched girl, so young, already possessed everything the rest of them had spent their whole lives striving for and never achieved—how could that not stir jealousy?
Sheng Zimo watched from a distance. He knew that Baili Xiaosheng’s abduction all those years ago had been an inside job, and he suspected this girl’s future here wouldn’t be an easy one either.
Mother and daughter, recognizing each other so naturally—no matter how much of a stranger she might seem, blood ties ran deep, a bond of kinship that nothing could ever change.
Baili Xiaosheng had never cried like this before in her life. Once she let go and began to weep, she couldn’t stop, and it was only with Lady Sheng’s gentle comforting that she gradually began to calm.
Baili Xiaosheng buried herself in Lady Sheng’s embrace and wouldn’t come out, glancing over at Ziqing and Jun Beiyue, who could only shake their heads helplessly.
A child was, after all, still a child.
And a birth mother was, after all, still a birth mother.
However good they themselves had been to her as adoptive parents, they would always be outsiders in the end—unable to give her the one warmth she truly longed for.
They thought, without needing to persuade her at all, that Baili Xiaosheng probably no longer wanted to leave.
The head of the Sheng family stood before mother and daughter, looking somewhat awkward, but filled with far more hope than awkwardness.
“If your father hadn’t held on all these years, your mother would have long since…” Lady Sheng said, her voice breaking. They had no shortage of sons, but only ever the one daughter—and she was the one on whom they had lavished the most care and attention.
A daughter born late in life—how could they not dote on her?
Baili Xiaosheng, eyes brimming with tears, glanced at the elder Sheng, feeling suddenly, uncharacteristically shy.
The elder Sheng immediately grew anxious, pressing his lips together tightly, both eager and at a loss for words.
“Silly child, call him Father!” Lady Sheng urged, just as anxious.
Baili Xiaosheng hesitated for a long moment before finally speaking. “Fa… Father…”
The moment the word left her mouth, she immediately buried her face back in Lady Sheng’s embrace, so shy and endearing that everyone around them couldn’t help but laugh—least of all the head of the Sheng family, so overjoyed he didn’t know what to do with himself, snatching Baili Xiaosheng from his wife’s arms and holding her tight.
Everyone was laughing now—at Baili Xiaosheng’s childlike innocence, at the elder Sheng’s nervous excitement, and in sheer joy at this family’s long-awaited reunion.
Off to the side, Xiong Xiaobao, who rarely smiled, had somehow ended up draped lazily over Jun Beiyue’s shoulder. He still wasn’t smiling, eyebrow raised as he studied Baili Xiaosheng—but after a long moment, he let out a soft chuckle of his own, carrying a hint of wit far beyond his years. “So she’s not just a girl, but a crybaby too…”