Quick Transmigration: What to Do When the Male Supporting Character You Saved Becomes Obsessed with

Chapter 418 "Infecting the World" - Male Mother (29)

He hadn't forgotten his kitten; he kept thinking about it.

Lu Liruan touched the cat bowl that was wiped clean, and suddenly felt a little sad.

The little boy is so young and he already knows what loss is, just like when I was a child, I knew what loss felt like at an age when I didn't understand much.

Liao Tingyuan noticed that Lu Liruan had stopped and looked somewhat unhappy.

Liao Tingyuan always felt that Lu Liruan was like a child, not only because she was indeed much younger than him, but also because of Lu Liruan's straightforward and lively personality.

She has a hard time hiding her emotions; her joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness seem to be written all over her face. Liao Tingyuan loves to see her lively and innocent side.

"What's wrong?" Liao Tingyuan walked up behind Lu Liruan.

Lu Liruan didn't hear his footsteps, so she subconsciously took a step back and turned her head, only to bump her head into Liao Tingyuan.

She raised her head with a look of accusation in her eyes, silently condemning Liao Tingyuan.

Liao Tingyuan: ...

"You seem a little unhappy." Liao Tingyuan reached out and rubbed the spot where she had bumped her head.

Lu Liruan blinked: "You're trying to scare me when I'm already unhappy?"

"I wasn't trying to scare you." Liao Tingyuan rubbed it a couple more times. "Did it hurt?"

"No." Lu Liruan laughed. She had just teased Liao Tingyuan because she saw his helpless look, to get revenge for Liao Tingyuan using her as an experiment earlier.

Liao Tingyuan paused for a moment, then sighed: "What's wrong? You looked a little sad just now."

“Look at that cat-shaped bowl,” Lu Liruan pointed.

The small, eye-protecting desk lamp, still on, seemed to hear Lu Liruan's words, flickered, becoming even brighter, and shone on the cat-shaped bowl.

Liao Tingyuan also reached out and touched the kitten bowl: "Are you unhappy because the kitten is missing?"

“Because the little boy lost his kitten…” Lu Liruan pursed her lips: “Will he remember his kitten for the rest of his life?”

"Probably." Liao Tingyuan thought for a moment: "He will probably remember his first kitten for the rest of his life. Even if he raises other kittens in the future, this kitten will always be in his heart."

"You used to answer kindergarten kids' questions like this too?" Lu Liruan felt that his tone was somewhat like telling a story to a child, gentle and slow in speech, with an indescribable doting.

"No," Liao Tingyuan answered readily.

"If a child asks me, 'Why did the kitten disappear?' I would probably answer that the kitten went to find its friends. The kitten has many friends. It came to visit its human friends, played with them for a while, and then went to find other friends."

Liao Tingyuan chuckled. This time he was really talking to a child. As he spoke, he gestured with his hands and even made a cat whisker motion, gesturing towards Lu Liruan's face.

"Ah! That kitten is so busy!" Lu Liruan cooperated with him, exaggerating her voice and imitating a child's voice in a childish tone.

This amused Liao Tingyuan, who smiled and leaned back on the table, his head slightly lowered, meeting Lu Liruan's gaze.

"The teacher has answered all the other children's questions, but what about Ruan Ruan's question? Why is Ruan Ruan unhappy?"

Liao Tingyuan felt that Lu Liruan's unhappiness was too obvious just now. Just looking at her back, she looked like a big rabbit with one ear drooping in frustration.

Lu Liruan thought she had gotten away with this problem, but she wasn't ready to tell others what was on her mind.

No one is obligated to listen to your complaints or unhappiness.

But Liao Tingyuan wasn't fooled by her.

Instead, he asked her more gently, and it felt like... he really cared about her and wanted to understand and care about her.

Lu Liruan glanced around and whispered, "I think the little boy will be very sad to lose the kitten. Loss itself is always a sad thing."

"Teacher Liao, is there a way to deal with the sadness of losing something?" Lu Liruan asked him.

I thought Liao Tingyuan would say something comforting, but after thinking for a few seconds, he said frankly, "No."

Lu Liruan: ...

"Don't think that just because I'm a big kid, you can give me such a perfunctory answer." Lu Liruan sat down next to him, their shoulders touching.

Although there was a strange sense of comfort in this setting, Lu Liruan had to admit that she really liked this moment.

"I wasn't just giving you a perfunctory answer." Liao Tingyuan shrugged his shoulders and nudged her.

"So this is your answer to me?"

"To be honest," Liao Tingyuan sighed, "I quit being a kindergarten teacher back then, so I guess you could say I lost that job."

"You got fired?" Lu Liruan asked casually.

"No."

"Then why did you quit?"

"Because I found a job with a higher salary." Liao Tingyuan's tone was clearly telling the truth.

Lu Liruan: ...

That's definitely a reason I couldn't refuse. If it were me, I wouldn't be able to refuse either!

"And then?" Lu Liruan wanted to hear what he was going to say next.

"I used to really like children, um... before I started working at the kindergarten." Liao Tingyuan seemed a little embarrassed.

Lu Liruan seized on the key point in his words: "What, you don't like working at the kindergarten anymore?"

Lu Liruan herself didn't have any particular feelings about children, but when she heard Liao Tingyuan say that he liked children, she thought it was quite normal. Liao Tingyuan gave people the impression that he was very caring, and if he liked children, then children probably liked him too.

"It's not that I don't like it, it's just that I feel very tired." Liao Tingyuan shook his head.

Lu Liruan spent some time with him and felt that although Liao Tingyuan was not a man of many words, he spoke very frankly and did not hide his thoughts.

He would readily admit that he just wanted a high-paying job and didn't have any lofty ideals; he just wanted to get by.

“I felt very tired at the time. When I changed jobs, I felt relieved. I could finally have some peace and quiet and I wouldn’t have to hear the children crying every day.” Liao Tingyuan turned to look at Lu Liruan: “At the time, I felt so relieved, but when I think back on it now, I still feel a little lost and nostalgic.”

"In the last class I taught, there was a particularly cute little girl with eyes like black grapes and soft hair. Her mother would braid her hair every day, but every time she woke up from her afternoon nap, she would mess it up completely." Liao Tingyuan patted Lu Liruan's hastily made bun to save time.

“Her hair is very fine, and I have to be very careful every time I comb it again.”

"Why don't you let the female teacher comb her hair?" Lu Liruan looked at Liao Tingyuan's slender fingers.

“She only wants me to comb her hair. If I don’t, she cries. It’s like she likes me a lot, but it’s also like she’s making things difficult for me.” Liao Tingyuan sighed. “Later, I became very good at combing hair. I even did a lot of hairstyles for her. Her mother even sent me a text message saying that she liked it very much and didn’t want to take it off when she went to bed at night.”

"You're happy, huh?" Lu Liruan tilted her head, watching the corners of his mouth curve up.

"Yes, I was very happy to hear it." Liao Tingyuan smiled even more after she saw him.

"After I stopped being a teacher, she asked her mother to send me short videos on WeChat several times, asking me why I didn't play with her anymore." Liao Tingyuan sighed again: "Then she stopped sending them. I guess she was having so much fun with her new teacher that she forgot about me." He said jokingly.

“I voluntarily lost a job, and I lost the opportunity to be her playmate. Now that I think about it, I feel a little sad.” Liao Tingyuan blinked and earnestly told Lu Liruan how he felt.

“I know her mother will braid her hair nicely, she will have fun with her new teacher, and she will grow up healthy and strong, but I will still feel a little sad. So you see, loss is sad, no matter who it is or what the outcome will be.”

Liao Tingyuan countered with, "Tell me, what's your plan to ease my sadness?"

Lu Liruan shook her head.

"So I can't solve your sadness, and you can't solve the little boy's sadness either. Once something is lost, everyone can only be sad." He said in a flat tone.

Lu Liruan felt that she was not unhappy after listening to his words.

On the contrary, it seems... I feel a little relieved.

what……

Even someone like Liao Tingyuan would feel bad!

She couldn't help but say it aloud.

Liao Tingyuan paused, then narrowed his eyes slightly: "What kind of person am I?"

Lu Liruan whistled guiltily, realizing she had been too relaxed and had blurted it out.

“An excellent, handsome, kind-hearted, and capable person!” Lu Liruan recited in a melodious tone.

"Hmm." Liao Tingyuan responded without any change in expression, with the blandness of a corporate slave reading people's lies.

“You'll be happy when you gain something, and sad when you lose it. Everyone is the same, regardless of gender or age. Some people experience more or earlier, some less or later, but everyone understands that feeling, so…” He looked at Lu Liruan:

"It's okay. When you're sad, think about the times you had it. The sadder you feel, the happier you were when you had it. Thinking about the happy times might make you realize that even if you're sad now, you don't regret having had it so happily."

Lu Liruan felt that this was the first time she had ever heard Liao Tingyuan say so much.

At first, Lu Liruan thought Liao Tingyuan was the kind of cold-hearted person who preferred silence to speaking.

That's also why his face is so deceptive.

But later, Lu Liruan discovered that although he didn't talk much, he was very caring and really had the feel of someone who had been a teacher. Lu Liruan wondered if it was because he was a child who had been a teacher, but he was more like a mother than a teacher.

He was telling himself stories to comfort himself, which didn't surprise Lu Liruan, but his words seemed to have a real effect on her, which surprised her.

"I understand, thank you, Teacher Liao." Li Ruan coughed lightly to cover her emotions and said in a drawn-out tone.

“Alright, little Ruan Ruan, if you have anything to say, you should tell your teacher.” Liao Tingyuan played along, saying something he would say when he was a teacher.

But then Lu Liruan looked up at me and asked, "Can I really say it?"

After asking the question, Lu Liruan suddenly felt embarrassed. Liao Tingyuan gave her a feeling of being too approachable and tolerant, and he himself was completely non-aggressive.

Therefore, it is easy for people to lower their guard and even want to get close to him.

Liao Tingyuan was obviously taken aback for a moment, but he quickly recovered and stood up straight, supporting himself on the table: "Okay."

"Oh," Lu Liruan responded, then turned around and began rummaging through other things in the room.

When people feel uncomfortable, they tend to pretend they are very busy.

Lu Liruan looked around the room for a while and found that it was just a child's room, and there was nothing wrong with it.

"Could it be that the mistress didn't want the children to worry, so there wasn't a single clue about the children's whereabouts?" Lu Liruan wondered.

Then I saw Liao Tingyuan pick up the child's diary that was on the table.

"Hey! It's the child's privacy!" Lu Liruan instinctively stopped her.

Liao Tingyuan then held the notebook above her head where she couldn't reach it and said calmly, "You could also say... a clue."

“You didn’t want anyone to read your diary when you were a child, did you?” Lu Liruan pointed at the tip of his nose.

“We don’t even know that child. Besides, after you’ve finished reading it, do you think you’ll tell his mother what it’s about?”

Lu Liruan: ...

Yes, that makes some sense.

The two of them are now, in a sense, "players" searching for clues in the "game".

"Well..." Before Lu Liruan could finish speaking, Liao Tingyuan was already looking at it under the light.

The clues fell right out when the diary was opened.

A Polaroid photo fell out.

Lu Liruan bent down to pick it up, turned it over, and saw a photo of a little boy holding a kitten.

Lu Liruan looked at the kitten and felt it looked familiar.

But it seems that many kittens look like this, calico, black, and white.

Lu Liruan stared intently, then handed it to Liao Tingyuan: "Are there... those kittens at our door?"

Liao Tingyuan looked closely and shook his head: "No."

"Does that mean the kitten is still alive?" Lu Li asked hopefully.

Liao Tingyuan didn't speak or answer. Lu Liruan knew what he meant. Even Lu Liruan herself inexplicably felt that this little cat was probably... doomed.

It seemed that most of the things that appeared in this space were permeated with an aura of death that only they could sense.

Lu Liruan didn't know how to express it, but that was roughly the feeling.

I felt like I was dying.

Lu Liruan sensed malice and death from the two human-shaped objects that appeared at the door.

Liao Tingyuan reads things very quickly, flipping through the diary page by page.

He quickly stopped at one of them.

Then, he gestured for Lu Liruan to come over and take a look.

Lu Liruan glanced at it; the child's handwriting was large, showing that he had written it with great care and in a neat and tidy manner.

On this page, a few lines in the middle read: "I asked my mom, where might the kitten have gone? Mom said... the kitten might have gone to grandpa and grandma's, and might be grandpa and grandma's kitten now."

“My mom always treats me like a little kid. I miss my grandparents so much, but I know they’re dead. I miss them so much, but I can’t see them anymore. They’re dead.”

"Did the kitten die after it went to its grandparents' house?"

One section of this page is wrinkled.