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Chapter 147: Chapter 147 What on Earth is Wrong with Third Brother
Lu Jingyan and Lu Siyan’s expressions changed drastically.
The year Lu Ziye turned six, he was once kidnapped by a human trafficker at an amusement park.
That year, Lu Jingyan was ten years old, and Lu Siyan was eight years old. Both were already in school, and they were very independent.
Lu Youming and Lu Youye were only just three years old. One of the twin brothers was too sickly, and the other too lively and mischievous, taking up much of Jiang Ting’s energy.
So, when Lu Ziye suggested he wanted to go to the amusement park that weekend, Jiang Ting let the household servants take him to play.
However, with just the time it took the servant to buy Lu Ziye a cotton candy—by the time he turned back, he discovered the young master who was supposed to be waiting on the bench was gone.
At the beginning, the Lu Family thought it was a kidnapping, but when no demand for ransom came through, they could only conclude that he had been abducted and gone missing.
At that time, the Lu Family mobilized all their connections, nearly scouring the entire Jiang City with the police, but they couldn’t find any trace of Lu Ziye.
The human trafficker who kidnapped Lu Ziye was a rural woman in her thirties.
She didn’t know that the child she had abducted was the third young master of the Lu Family. When she was looking for a target in the amusement park, her eyes landed on Lu Ziye sitting on the bench.
This little boy was so beautiful and looked so healthy that she knew he would fetch a good price, so without a second thought, she abducted him straight away.
It was only later when she saw the news that she realized she had abducted a child from an influential family, and she was full of regret, not daring to take any rash actions.
She didn’t dare return Lu Ziye, nor did she dare contact buyers to sell him. She had to keep him locked up, deciding to lay low for a while.
Thus, the six-year-old Lu Ziye was locked by that heartless, psychotic female trafficker in a small warehouse on a mountain for five whole days.
The small warehouse was devoid of any miscellaneous items and had no windows. It was a lightless, pitch-black space where one could not see their own fingers.
Because he couldn’t see anything, all his other senses were amplified. The only thing he could hear was his own breathing.
Even Lu Jingyan couldn’t imagine afterwards how such a young child had managed to survive so many days alone.
According to the psychologist, Lu Ziye would always curl up in a dark corner of the warehouse, and only when the woman came to bring food could he see a sliver of light filtering through the door.
Every time he looked up, the red dress the woman wore would appear even more vivid in that single ray of sunlight.
The nearly eye-piercing red color always inflicted a sharp visual impact on him after staying in the dark for so long.
Paired with the smell of the greasy soup-soaked rice, after the woman left, he would retch uncontrollably and his body would convulse violently.
Although Lu Ziye was young, he was much smarter than his peers.
He didn’t know where he was or when he could leave.
He was very afraid, but he was even more afraid that after a long time, his mind would become increasingly muddled; he would forget the concept of time, forget who he was, and forget his parents and siblings.
So later on, every time the woman brought a meal, he would use a sharp stone to cut a deep wound on his arm, marking the passage of time, and keeping himself alert.
This went on for five days until a turning point finally arrived.
One day when the woman came to bring food, he managed to break free from the iron chain that locked his right foot to the ground ahead of time and lunged at her.
A six-year-old child, mustering all his strength, was on top of the woman.
He repeatedly stabbed her neck with a sharpened chopstick, crying and stabbing.
Warm blood sprayed all over him until the woman stopped twitching on the ground, and only then did Lu Ziye throw the chopstick and scream as he ran down the mountain, subsequently fainting at the foot of it.
A passerby who saw this blood-covered child was utterly terrified, and they quickly took him to the hospital.
Lu Jingyan and Lu Siyan vividly remember seeing what their smart, handsome, lively, and adorable younger brother had become at the hospital.
He was so scared, constantly living in fear every moment of every day.
He feared the dark, the sound of a door locking, being alone, and the sight of someone wearing a red dress.
Spasms, retching, and unconscious pain occurred almost constantly, accompanied by manic symptoms and tendencies of self-harm.
This was, after all, just a six-year-old child.
With no other options, the Lu Family had to send Lu Ziye to a sanatorium for a year to receive treatment from a psychologist.
By the time Lu Ziye was brought back home, he seemed to have returned to normal, once again looking beautiful and polite.
As his older brothers, Lu Jingyan and Lu Siyan were of course very happy, but they always felt that their younger brother was somehow different.
The doctor said that he had taken measures to blur Lu Ziye’s painful memories of the darkness.
In other words, he could only vaguely remember bits of the experience, which might seem like a dream or a movie to him.
An event that had happened couldn’t be completely undone, but vague memories wouldn’t cast such a heavy psychological shadow and wouldn’t affect daily life.
As he grew up, those memories would become even more blurred, but it was crucial to avoid any stimuli that could trigger his psychological shadows.
For example, the psychologist had instructed Jiang Ting and Lu Chengye to never let Lu Ziye be alone in the dark, as it could cause him to become ill.
More importantly, under no circumstances should he see a woman in a red dress while in a manic state, as it would plunge him into an uncontrollable frenzy.
He would desperately want to kill that person, because in his manic state, he believed that only by killing the person in the red dress could he go home and escape danger.
Later on, Jiang Ting reminded all of the brothers, as well as Lu Qianrou at the dinner table, that they should stay with Lu Ziye in dark places, and never let him see a red dress.
Over the years, Lu Ziye appeared to be in good mental health, never having relapsed, so the Lu Family gradually let down their guard.
However, ever since the incident, Lu Siyan became extremely sensitive to red dresses. Seeing one would immediately remind him of Lu Ziye’s condition.
So at the party tonight, when Lu Siyan saw Lu Sheng in a red strap dress, he was subconsciously tense.
But later, when Lu Ziye saw Lu Sheng and had no unusual reaction, he too let his guard down.
But now—
Who would have thought the chandelier would suddenly explode, causing all the circuits to short circuit and the whole house to fall into darkness?
Lu Jingyan and Lu Siyan both knew that their brother was afraid of the dark, and could not be alone in it.
But just before, Lu Ziye was clearly in the Great Hall. When Yao Xuantong asked, they realized that their brother was gone.
If not in the Great Hall, where could Lu Ziye be?
Could this sudden darkness trigger a relapse?
Lu Jingyan and Lu Siyan were both extremely concerned, and Jiang Ting, realizing the situation, started frantically calling Lu Ziye’s name while searching for him upstairs.
The others didn’t know what was happening, but seeing Lu Jingyan and the others’ reactions, it seemed like something very serious, so they all joined in the search.
When they reached the third floor and found Lu Ziye’s room, they were all stunned by the scene before them.
—Lu Ziye’s door had been broken off.
It was kicked open from the inside, and from the marks left on the wood, it looked like it had been repeatedly punched and kicked, and there were bloodstains from forceful pounding with fists.
How could the door be forcibly kicked down, was it locked before?
Seeing the door that had been kicked down shocked Lu Jingyan and the others to the core, and only two words filled their minds—ruined.
However, just then, there came a loud "bang" from upstairs, as if something had hit a cabinet.
Upstairs, on the fourth floor.
The fourth floor housed only the music room, movie room, and Lu Siyan’s room, which should be empty at this time.
Suddenly, Lu Siyan’s eyes widened, his voice trembling: "Shengsheng is sleeping... she is wearing a red dress, and right now, she’s asleep in my room."
