The Top Scholar's Abandoned Son's Road to Comeback

Yu Shensi regained consciousness to the sound of weeping.

The first sensation he became aware of was that he was lying in an embrace that was not particularly warm. The feeling was strange: after years of illness, he was a thin, grown man, yet now someone was holding him like a child—it was awkward, something no one around him had ever done before.

Amid the sobs, he caught a faint scent of rice. The pain in his stomach, twisted from hunger, made him instinctively swallow. Something warm and thick slipped down his throat, settling into his stomach and bringing immediate relief.

"He swallowed! Yang’er swallowed! Big Sister, did you see? Yang’er took it down!" a boy’s tearful voice cried out in delight.

"Hurry! Give him a bit more. If he can eat, he can live."

Yu Shensi thought, Wasn’t I already dead? Are they calling to me—Yang’er?

Another spoonful of hot rice porridge came to his lips. The fragrance was too tempting to resist. As he greedily gulped it down, his eyes slowly opened.

Before him was a boy, just into his teens, face sallow and thin, hair tied up with a rag, dressed in a patched, ill-fitting cross-collared jacket. In his hands, he held a chipped earthenware bowl, loading thick rice porridge onto a rough wooden spoon and feeding it to him.

"Yang’er’s awake! Big Sis and Big Brother are both here. You’re safe now. Once you finish this porridge, the sickness will pass. You won’t feel bad anymore." The boy straightened in excitement, coaxing him gently as he raised the spoon to Yu Shensi’s