Chapter 5 Raising a Lop-Eared Rabbit

Chapter 5: Raising a Lop-Eared Rabbit

After that night's conversation, Yuan Che followed Yuan Simiao back to her room.

The wardrobe was open, and he folded each piece of clothing neatly, stacking them into the suitcase, aligning the edges perfectly. Three large suitcases—he knelt on the carpet, folding from dusk till dawn, while Yuan Simiao had collapsed into the big bed as soon as she entered and quickly fell into a deep sleep.

The morning light was glaring. Yuan Che woke up on the carpet, and the moment he opened his eyes, he found that the three packed suitcases beside him had vanished. He sat up groggily, looking around the empty room in confusion. It took him a while to piece together the fact that his sister had already left.

He sat there in a daze, his gaze sweeping every corner of the room, hoping to find a note, a letter—any trace left by his sister. But there was nothing. Only the string of numbers written in ballpoint pen on the inside of his arm made the vague conversations of the previous night tangible.

He lowered his head, carefully read the string of numbers again, then cautiously pulled down his shirt sleeve to cover the only proof of the transfer of Lin Zaishan.

So now, his sister had clearly left, and it was a thorough, traceless departure. But how had she managed to vanish from this heavily guarded island in just one night? Even if she wasn't afraid of their father, how had she convinced Lao Ji to let her go?

With a stomach full of questions, Yuan Che suppressed a faint, inexplicable unease and got up to head downstairs.

Although Lao Ji had watched the siblings grow up, he had never shown any of the warmth expected from an elder toward children. From childhood to adulthood, he had always treated both Yuan Che and Yuan Simiao with a purely businesslike attitude. Yuan Simiao had once bluntly said that Lao Ji was just a watchdog left at home by Yuan Jingtian. In her words, as long as the two of them were still in the manor, whether they lived or died was completely irrelevant.

Now that his sister had run away, would the dog bark?

He gripped the stair railing and moved down step by step. When he reached the second floor, he felt that the entire house was eerily quiet. Peering down from the railing, the first floor was empty. The sunlight outside was especially bright today, pouring in through the huge glass windows, illuminating the interior so clearly it was like a sunroom. From there, he could see the main door wide open, but there was no one on either side. Yuan Che was holding the railing, about to lean forward for a better look, when suddenly a voice came from behind—

"Young Master!"

The voice was soft but unusually loud. Yuan Che turned around and saw the servant who had handed him berries on the open-air balcony yesterday. The person stood at the boundary between light and shadow in the hallway, looking somewhat frail.

"Young Master," the servant called again, standing still, his volume noticeably higher than that day, "Mr. Lin's car is already waiting downstairs, and your luggage is packed. May I ask... when would you like to set off?"

"Mr. Lin?" Yuan Che repeated, puzzled.

The servant paused, then quickly nodded.

"My husband?" Yuan Che finally realized.

"Ah?" The servant couldn't hide his surprise, then quickly corrected himself, "I-I should say Miss's husband."

Hearing this, Yuan Che couldn't help but frown. The servant immediately read the expression and added cautiously, "I'm sorry, Young Master. I'm new here and don't know the island's rules. But outside the island, in this situation... we usually call him brother-in-law."

Brother-in-law? Yuan Che was thoroughly displeased. He had been folding clothes all night, so how was Lin Zaishan still his brother-in-law?

"Speak clearly! What do you mean by brother-in-law?" He stepped forward, looking down with barely suppressed irritation in his voice. "And where is my sister?"

"Young Master... Miss left with Mr. Lin yesterday. Didn't you know?"

"Left?"

"Yes... yes." The servant became timid again, his voice, which had just risen, dropping back down.

"Did you see it with your own eyes?"

"No, no... that's what the butler said."

"What else did he say?"

"The butler said that Miss had been picked up by Mr. Lin. This morning, Mr. Lin's side called and instructed that... you should also be taken over."

After hearing this, Yuan Che was completely stunned. Clearly, his sister had used some method to fool Lao Ji as well. But how had she contacted Lin Zaishan? And why was Lin Zaishan now coming to pick him up? Countless questions swirled in his mind, tangled together without any clue.

"Where's Lao Ji?" He began looking around. "Why don't I see him?"

"The butler went to the Institute of Correction..." the servant answered carefully. It was evident that, despite being a bit scared, he deliberately raised his voice so Yuan Che could hear clearly.

"What is he doing there so early in the morning?"

"This..." The servant cautiously glanced at him, then shrank back. "I..."

"You!" Yuan Che was thoroughly impatient. "Can you just say it all at once?"

"I'm sorry, Young Master!" The servant immediately bowed, nearly burying his head in his chest. "I really don't know the specifics. I only heard rumors..."

"Rumors about what? Do I have to ask one question at a time for you to answer?"

"No, no..." The servant quickly shook his head, seeming to make a great decision before speaking rapidly. "It's just that I heard... at the Institute of Correction last night, another child was born. So the butler was called over before dawn..."

Hearing this, Yuan Che understood half of it. His father probably had another new child. This was nothing new on the island. His sister had likely exploited this loophole to deceive Lao Ji. Now, only he knew that his sister had never left the island with Lin Zaishan.

So the remaining question was just one: How had his sister informed Lin Zaishan? Obviously, no one in the manor knew about his impending marriage to Lin Zaishan. So what method had his sister used to convince Lin Zaishan to come pick him up?

Most importantly—did Lin Zaishan know he was going to marry him?

"Where's my old... my brother-in-law?" Yuan Che asked gloomily. The title felt extremely awkward to him.

"Mr. Lin's car is waiting downstairs," the servant said, unable to hide a hint of joy on his face. "When would the Young Master like to go down?"

The servant had a baby face and wasn't tall. When he smiled, the flesh on his face bunched together, making him look particularly childish. Yuan Che frowned at him and said gloomily, "Why are you so happy?"

"Because the butler assigned me to serve you, Young Master," the servant said with an excitement that came from being entrusted with an important task.

What's there to be happy about? Yuan Che looked at him with some confusion. He thought about asking but decided against it. The most important thing now was to get things sorted out quickly.

So without further delay, he turned and walked toward his own room. The servant immediately quickened his pace to follow.

Once inside, Yuan Che saw that his luggage had been neatly packed and placed by the door. He glanced around and found nothing particularly essential to take, but just as he turned to leave, a thought suddenly occurred to him—should he prepare a gift for Lin Zaishan?

When he was little, among all the teachers who came to the island to give lessons, his favorites were the ones who brought him gifts every time they arrived. Everything from outside the island was fresh and novel to him. Even the most ordinary candy could give him a taste of a different, distant world. But Lin Zaishan was already from outside the island—what would be considered rare to him? Looking at his almost empty room, Yuan Che fell into thought again.

"You're from outside the island, right?" He turned and asked the servant, who had been quietly waiting at the door.

"Yes, Young Master," the servant nodded. "But my home is just a small village on the outskirts of City A. It's not a big place..."

"Size doesn't matter. Don't be nervous." Yuan Che patted his shoulder, his tone gentle, trying to make the conversation easier. "I just want to ask, what kind of gifts do people from outside usually like to receive?"

This reassuring gesture visibly relaxed the servant. He blinked, thought seriously for a moment, and then spoke cautiously. "I think... the more valuable the gift, the more sincere it is. My dad once gave my mom a cheap scarf, and she got really mad. She didn't even eat dinner."

"Oh, really? That kind of thing happens?" Yuan Che covered his mouth in surprise. He had never heard of couples arguing over something like that.

"Yeah," the servant nodded, with a tone of someone who had experienced it. "So I think when giving gifts, you should pick the best you can within your means. Last Valentine's Day, I saved up three months' wages and bought my girlfriend a new phone."

At the word "phone," Yuan Che became alert again—it seemed his sister was right. Asking a husband to buy a phone was perfectly natural. That meant he might soon have a phone to contact his sister. But... he couldn't just ask his husband for a phone right off the bat. He needed to give something first.

"So if I want to give a gift to someone from outside the island, what do you think would be good?" He asked in a different way.

"To someone from outside the island?" The servant followed his gaze and also looked around the large but empty bedroom. "Well... I'm not really sure, Young Master. But I can ask my friend for advice."

"You have friends?" Yuan Che blurted out, with a hint of barely noticeable envy in his tone.

"Ah? You... don't?" the servant asked reflexively, then realized his mistake and quickly waved his hands. "Sorry, sorry! I didn't mean anything by that!"

"Mean what?" Yuan Che asked, genuinely confused. He really didn't catch any underlying meaning in the other's words.

Seeing that he wasn’t upset, the servant sighed in relief. "Nothing, young master. I just thought, since we're on a sea island, why not send something with a taste of the sea? People from outside will definitely like it!"

"Ocean flavor? Like what?" Yuan Che asked, eager to learn.

Taking advantage of this opening, the servant’s eyes quickly scanned the room and finally landed on a spot on the upper shelf. "That seashell! Young master, that seashell is quite beautiful!"

Yuan Che followed the direction of his finger and looked, but his heart sank halfway. It was a seashell ornament placed on the top shelf, larger than an adult's palm. On the island, a seashell of this size was not a rare treasure; its real beauty was the exquisite hand-painted design on the shell's surface—the work of Elizabeth, the French teacher who had taught Yuan Che painting since childhood.

Elizabeth was a well-renowned painter in France, with solo shows and published art books to her name, and after retirement, she came to the island to teach Yuan Che painting from the time he was seven. She was also one of the teachers who always remembered to bring him gifts.

This seashell was originally the two of them made together for his tenth birthday. Shortly after the birthday, the teacher resigned and returned to settle in France. The last piece before parting was extremely significant to Yuan Che. But on the day after his birthday, the seashell was snatched away by Yuan Simiao. He cried and made a scene to no avail, and in the end, his sister even gave him a couple of punches.

The sadness back then was real. He wrote a letter to Teacher Elizabeth in France as tears streamed down his face. It happened that during that period, the Education Institute was holding a large celebration, and after nearly two months of back-and-forth letters, he received a small package from France.

He carefully opened it with scissors and found a brand-new seashell lying inside.

As soon as he held it, he recognized it: it was the seashell gift he had given to Elizabeth at their parting. In just two months, this shell that she had taken off the island had crossed the ocean and returned. The only difference was a new hand-painting on the back of the shell—a rabbit drawn by Teacher Elizabeth herself. Its soft long ears drooped gently on both sides of its head, its light brown body lay plumply on the curved surface of the shell, with a fluffy cuteness.

Inside the package there was also a greeting card, with a little rabbit printed on the cover. When opened, it was a line of cursive English written by Elizabeth in blue ink:

"My sunshine, my sweetheart, seeing your red eyes from crying would break my heart. Now the rabbit has come home. Smile for me, okay?"

From then on, this rabbit seashell and the card were carefully kept by him. Only later did he find out through the grapevine that, in fact, before the "rabbit seashell" had even arrived on the island, Teacher Elizabeth had already passed away from illness. That rabbit was the last thing she drew before she died.

Therefore, this seashell in Yuan Che's heart had long surpassed the value of the object itself. The shell was a warm refuge, a silent farewell, and a longing that could never be conveyed. In his heart, it was absolutely worthy of being called "precious." So precious that... even if it meant giving it to his future husband, he felt a real pang of reluctance.

"Besides the seashell... is there anything else I could give?" he asked softly, somewhat hesitantly.

"I think this shell is perfect!" The servant answered unusually decisively this time, with a strangely sure tone. "Young master, look—this seashell is so beautiful, and it's a special feature of the island. People from outside love these little trinkets."

"But..."

"Young master," probably sensing his hesitation, the servant took a step forward and urged, "If you really can't make up your mind, how about picking something else next time? Mr. Lin's car has been waiting downstairs for a while now."

Hearing this, Yuan Che grew even more flustered. Once he left the island, he didn't plan to come back—how could there be a next time? Forget it. He made up his mind, turned around, walked straight to the bookshelf, opened the glass door, and carefully took out the seashell.

Since they were married, there should be no distinction between "you" and "me." A real man wouldn't quibble with his husband over such small matters. At worst, after he gets more familiar with his husband, he can ask for it back.

"Let's go." Holding the seashell in his hands, Yuan Che looked back firmly to signal the servant, then strode out the door.

"Sure!"

The servant, pulling a suitcase with one hand and carrying a bag with the other, scurried after him.