Near the Spring Festival, Chen Xuan received a call from his son.

Chen Keyao asked him on the phone if he would like to take a trip to another place for the New Year holiday.

Chen Xuan was confused for a moment, but after Chen Keyao gave a place name coyly, it dawned on him immediately.

Then he told his silly son that he had something at hand and couldn’t leave. At last, he again reminded Chen Keyao to say hello to his two in-laws.

Chen Keyao’s attitude towards him had been a bit awkward all these years.

He knew the reason more or less. Chen Keyao had always felt that Yao Lan had suffered in those years. This child was obviously closer to him when he was a boy, but as he grew up, he began to feel sorry for his mother. Probably because human feelings always tended to tilt towards the weak side.

Chen Xuan did not feel much aggrieved about this. After all, finally out of that failed marriage, he gradually realized that he had made too many mistakes.

But Chen Keyao still cared about him after all.

Compared with Yao Lan, Chen Xuan could be considered a lone old man now. It didn’t quite matter in the other times, but for the Spring Festival time, Chen Keyao didn’t want him to be alone.

The father and the son lived in the same city and could see each other from time to time on weekdays, but Rong Yi, who lived in a city far away from his hometown, could only take the opportunity of festival times to go back to get together with his family. Chen Keyao couldn’t leave either side alone, so he wanted to take him along as a tourist.

When the young lovers travelled together, Chen Xuan, as an elder, was too embarrassed to follow as an extra person.

After being turned down, Chen Keyao was still hesitating.

He said to Chen Xuan, “Dad, are you worried that Rong Yi might not be happy for you to join us? It’s OK. I’ve mentioned it to him. He said he didn’t mind at all.”

This child, so silly and yet so nice.

“I really can’t take the leave,” Chen Xuan said. “Don’t worry, Feifei will come to keep me company on New Year’s Eve. Don’t worry about me any more.”

Chen Keyao stopped talking immediately.

Chen Xuan was just making it up at that time.

Mo Yufei had been very busy recently. He had received invitations from several satellite TV stations to record New Year’s Eve party shows for everyone in the country. And the film shooting that he was working hard on was now in a total mess because of some mistakes made by the investors.

These were what Mo Yufei said in the video chat with him the other day. Originally it was just a phone call. In the middle of the conversation, Mo Yufei suddenly said he wanted to show him the big black circles around his eyes without any makeup.

In the video, he put his face in front of the camera, poked his hand under his eyes, and then grumbled loudly, “Look, uncle, I’m miserable. I’m so tired. I’m f*** missing you.”

He then paused, and corrected himself in a low voice, “Uncle, I’m missing you so much.”

Chen Xuan couldn’t help laughing at him.

“Have a good rest. When you are free to come back here, please tell me in advance. I’ll prepare some of your favourite dishes.”

Mo Yufei nodded fiercely in the video, which looked as adorable as ever.

.

In fact, Mo Yufei’s surname was not Mo. On his ID card, he was still surnamed Han. But nowadays, few people called him Han Yufei. In the early years, he went to the police station to change it, but it did not meet the requirements and didn’t get approved.

Chen Xuan, who was with him at the time, was even more disappointed than himself.

“In fact, it doesn’t really matter,” Mo Yufei, who was just turning into an adult at that time, comforted him instead. “If there is a choice, actually I’d like to take Chen as my surname.”

Once this child got an idea, it was difficult to stop him. He almost wanted to use the name of Chen Yufei when he first started his show biz career. But fortunately, he was willing to listen to Chen Xuan.

But obedience did not mean that he was not aggrieved.

“I don’t feel like being treated as your own child.” He said.

Chen Xuan rewarded him with a flick on the head.

“How can you say such a heartless thing. I don’t want such a child either.”

Mo Yufei covered his head and pursed his lips, then he said something that surprised Chen Xuan.

“I know, uncle, you want my surname to be Mo because you want to find my mother’s shadow on me.”

Then he quickly smiled under Chen Xuan’s bewildered eyes.

“I don’t mind,” he said, “I hope you like me as much as you liked her.”

After a brief consternation, Chen Xuan finally returned to his senses and then steered away his gaze.

“Nonsense.” He said.

In fact, Mo Yufei became more and more like his father as an adult.

Only when he smiled, the arc between his eyebrows would bring up some of the most beautiful images in Chen Xuan’s memory. He loved it, so he didn’t dare look.

But unlike now, he looked very similar to his mother in his childhood. So much so that when Chen Xuan first saw him, he did not hesitate to identify him.

He was stunned to see the child sitting on a small stool with his hands holding his chin, staring at the sky quietly in the dark.

After he finally calmed down, he went up to chat with him.

“Kid, why are you sitting here alone at such late night?”

The child didn’t look at him, his face still turned up: “I’m looking at stars.”

So Chen Xuan lifted his head up too.

In the thick clouds and the city’s heavy light pollution, a cloud of grayness, nothing could be seen, and even the moon was hazy.

“Where are the stars?” He asked.

“I don’t know,” The kid shook his head and said, “Uncle, if you see any, please tell me.”

Chen Xuan couldn’t help smiling.

He crouched down and asked: “Why are you here alone watching stars? Where’s your family?”

Then he saw the child lift up his hand and point to the dark sky.

“My mother should be there, but now she’s gone.”

Chen Xuan looked up again, following his finger, but still couldn’t see much.

Then he looked down and asked: “Your name is Han Yufei, right?”

The child finally moved his eyes on him: “You know me?”

Chen Xuan pointed to the sky: “I know her.”

The child looked at him with a frown, confused.

“Where’s your dad?” Chen Xuan asked, “It’s so late. Why did he let you come out alone? Have you eaten dinner?”

The boy showed a bit of distress when he heard this.

“My father……is busy.”

Mo Yufei’s home at the time was an old house with very poor soundproof. Chen Xuan was led by him through a twisted, shabby hall and stopped in front of an old wooden door eventually.

“He’s in there. But you’d better not knock now. He’ll be angry.” Little Mo Yufei kept his voice down and told him, “When my father gets angry, it is very frightening!”

Of course Chen Xuan wouldn’t knock.

He even wanted to take the child away at once when he heard the apparently ambiguous voices and the foul language from inside. He had heard before he came that the man was a bad character, but he never expected it to be so bad.

But Mo Yufei, then a small boy, did not mind that much.

Or, maybe he had got used to it.

After feeling surprised and angry, Chen Xuan took the boy away from that old lane.

“Are you hungry,” He bent down and asked him. “Uncle will take you to eat some nice food, OK?”

The big black eyes in front of him immediately brightened up. Chen Xuan left Mo Yufei with his mobile phone number before he left that day, telling him to contact him any time.

Two weeks later, he suddenly realized his mistake.

This kid didn’t have a mobile phone. He didn’t necessarily have a landline phone at home either. When he took him to dinner that day, he even told Chen Xuan that he had no allowance at all.

Chen Xuan wanted to give some money to him, but he wouldn’t accept. He said it’d be taken away if his father saw it.

He didn’t seem to have the condition to contact him at all.

So, as he did last time, Chen Xuan went all the way across nearly the whole city to find him.

But by then, the family had moved out of the building.

The old granny next door checked up on him several times and asked: “Young man, you’re not here to collect debt, aren’t you?”

She told Chen Xuan that the man was taken away by the police a week ago for drug possession. His young son appeared to have been taken away by a distant relative of their family. The granny didn’t know anything about the family, except that she found their accent and clothing didn’t look like city residents.

For Chen Xuan, there was no clue at all.

.

He spent half a year in fear and worry and suddenly received a strange call one day.

The number was a fixed number, and Chen Xuan thought it was going to be a spam call before he answered.

After he pressed the answer button, a background noise was heard across the line, giving him a slightly uncomfortable feeling. Just as Chen Xuan wanted to hang up, a timorous voice came through the line.

“Uncle, do you remember me?”

Chen Xuan felt a strong delight after feeling a big relief.

“Where are you, Feifei?”He asked.

After a two-hour long coach bus trip, then a mini bus trip, and then a half-hour walk down the dirt road, Chen Xuan finally saw the little child that he had been worried about.

He always remembered how Mo Yufei cried with a runny nose when he saw him.

Whenever he, as any inappropriate middle aged parent would do, told the boy himself about this embarrassing childhood moment, Mo Yufei, by then already a high school student, blushed visibly.

Then he whispered: “Uncle, don’t laugh at me. I really missed you.”

Chen Xuan, who was just teasing, became serious instead.

“I wasn’t sure if you remembered me……I wanted to call you all the time but I didn’t dare. I kept that piece of paper like a treasure. I took it out every day to read it, and didn’t want to throw it away even after having memorised the number on it.”

Chen Xuan coughed: “It’s all over now. Let’s not talk about this any more.”

Mo Yufei didn’t want to stop.

“Although we had only met once before that, uncle was the nicest person to me in the whole world.”

Chen Xuan couldn’t speak.

He only took him to a meal, chatted with him, and didn’t even manage to give him any pocket money.

His little bit of kindness looked so great only because it was set against a lot of bad.