“Mo Chen! Mo Chen!”

  The cheers of the soldiers echoed across the training ground.

  Some were cpping, some shouting loudly, while others simply stared at the young man in disbelief.

  Nineteen years old. Long bck wavy hair and face as cold as ice. He is nothing like a child of his age just a trained soldier.

  Yet he had already defeated most of the fighters in the camp.

  Shen MoChen stood quietly in the center of the combat field. The defeated man slowly pushed himself up from the ground, groaning as he held his injured arm.

  “You brat…” the man muttered with a helpless ugh. “You didn’t even go easy on me.”

  MoChen said nothing.

  He simply stepped back and gave a small respectful nod before turning away. To him, winning was nothing special anymore.

  Outside the field, the leader watched everything silently.

  His gaze followed the young man carefully.

  Shen MoChen.

  The boy he had raised since he was two years old. The child left behind by his most trusted comrades.

  MoChen walked out of the field while the soldiers around him continued cheering.

  “Another victory!”

  “At this rate, he’ll surpass all of us soon.”

  The fatty soldier who had been eating earlier hurried over, still holding the half-eaten sausage.

  “MoChen! That was amazing!” he said excitedly.

  MoChen gnced at him briefly but did not reply.

  Instead, his eyes instinctively moved toward the leader standing near the gate.

  For a moment, their gazes met.

  MoChen tensed slightly, but there was still a trace of expectation in his eyes.

  “You did great. Very good.”

  The leader walked toward the field and patted his shoulder.

  MoChen was about to ask something, but the leader’s next words cut him off, shattering his expectations once again.

  “But you’re still young.”

  Then he turned and left the field, leaving MoChen standing there.

  Another day, another rejection.

  No.

  It wasn’t rejection.

  It was restriction.

  Shen MoChen stood alone in the empty training ground, staring at the pce where the leader had disappeared.

  Somewhere in the world…

  another boy carrying the same name woke up from his deep sleep.

  “You’re awake?” Lin Mo asked his older brother, Lin MoChen, who had fainted yesterday and had just woken up.

  The boy hurriedly rushed out of the room.

  Lin MoChen was still in a daze. His body felt as light as a feather. He didn’t remember exactly what had happened, but he had a clue.

  Huh… I fainted again.

  Although calling it morning would be deceiving himself. It was already noon, and the sun was shining brightly in the sky.

  Lin Mo, who had rushed out earlier, returned carrying a gss of water, a bag of nutritional solution, and a bowl of egg soup.

  Lin MoChen gulped down the whole gss of water and turned to his brother.

  Although he had already guessed that the elders must have made his little brother eat, and he had also guessed who had sent the soup, he still asked,

  “Did you eat? Who sent the soup? Are you hungry now?”

  After the series of questions, MoChen drank the soup and leaned back against the bed.

  “Brother… did you happen to remember something? You were sleepwalking the whole night and were looking at the moon! Are you okay? Should we go visit a doctor?” the boy murmured, seeing such a symptom for the first time.

  “No need, no need. Forget about it. This is nothing new,” MoChen said quickly, changing the subject. He didn’t want to dwell on these things any further.

  “We don’t have enough food left. Let’s go to the mart and buy something.”

  Although Lin Mo disagreed, MoChen dragged him out of the house anyway.

  But as they walked down the stairs, they encountered a boy he had never seen in the neighborhood before.

  The boy was wearing a round-neck T-shirt and short pants and looked a little confused.

  He was carrying a child of five or six years old in his arms.

  “Hello! Are you new here?” Lin MoChen walked toward him—almost bouncing.

  Lin Mo, who was walking behind him, face-palmed himself.

  He didn’t know whether to follow his extroverted brother and join the conversation or just stay back as the introvert he was.

  Huh… it’s hard to take care of a child.

  While the younger one stood there with old man thoughts brushing his nonexistent sweat away, the older one was already talking to someone who clearly wanted to disappear.

  Lin MoChen, after greeting him and receiving only a nod, was not satisfied.

  “I’m Lin MoChen. I live here on the fourth floor, second room.”

  His slender finger pointed upstairs before he turned back with shining eyes toward the person in front of him.

  His only motive was to adopt this introvert.

  Seeing that the opponent was thick-skinned, the other person was about to speak, but someone was faster.

  “I am Muyang! Six years old! This is my brother Mara, eighteen years old! Hello!” the enthusiastic Muyang shouted while clinging tightly to his brother.

  Lin Mo, who had previously moved closer to Lin MoChen out of fear someone might bully his brother, now looked toward the source of the voice—only to meet a pair of eyes mirroring his own.

  The introvert energy connected.

  So, for his first walk in the neighborhood, Mara was accompanied by a little “adult” enthusiastically introducing every corner of the area to him, while his little brother was happily taken away by someone else.

  Who was that person?

  Obviously—

  It was Lin MoChen..

  Mara, who had arrived in the suburbs today, had gone out for a walk and to buy some food for dinner. But now, a peaceful and solitary walk was no longer possible.

  He turned to look ahead and saw his baby brother in the arms of a stranger he had met only a short while ago.

  Then he looked down and saw another stranger beside him.

  His brother was ughing and giggling happily with the person. At this rate, it wouldn’t be long before he started sharing some of his precious little secrets as well.

  “I want to go to the supermarket,” Mara said to the boy walking beside him.

  “We’re going there now,” the little boy Lin Mo replied with the same bright energy.

  In the front, the conversation was full of flowers and petals floating in the air.

  Behind them, the atmosphere between the other two people was like ice and a snowstorm.

  Truly… what a perfectly banced walk. So comfortable.