As he spoke, Li Mo even gave what he considered a friendly smile.
The child was so frightened that his eyes rolled back and he almost fainted, but Zhong Mu caught him in time and comforted him, "Don't be afraid, don't be afraid, your brother will protect you!"
The child finally recovered from his fear. To see a monster that eats children come out of a book and roam the city in broad daylight was truly terrifying for the child, and there was nothing more frightening than that.
Li Mo, sitting opposite him, wiped the smile off his face in confusion. He had been trying to be friendly to the human cub, so why was the cub acting so scared?
Li Mo pursed her lips, stood a little further away unhappily, and watched Zhong Mu coax the child.
Perhaps because Zhong Mu was protecting the child with all his might and seemed completely unafraid of the monster, the child's emotions gradually calmed down. He huddled behind Zhong Mu, staring at Li Mo, still looking wary.
"Would you really eat children?"
Yes, I will.
"Then...then, would you eat adults?"
Just as Zhong Mu was about to answer no, Li Mo quickly interjected, "Yes, I ate it yesterday."
Zhong Mu's vision went black, and he prepared to continue coaxing the child, but this time the child was much calmer, staring straight at Li Mo with an incredibly clear gaze, "Then can you help me eat my dad?"
Zhong Mu was completely dumbfounded by this question. Looking at the little child huddled behind his legs, he felt an urge to get away from the child.
"Why?" Li Mo stared calmly at the human cub. "Why do you want me to eat your father?"
"Because my dad has turned bad." The child earnestly responded to Li Mo's gaze. "Mom said that when a man's heart changes, he's corrupted and can be thrown in the trash. Now Dad has not only forgotten Mom, but he's forgotten me too. It doesn't matter if a monster eats a dad like that."
His childish voice spoke a long string of words earnestly, and even Zhong Mu couldn't quite tell whether he was sulking because his father had forgotten him, or if he really felt that way.
Zhong Mu's head was spinning, but she still comforted him, "Your father only forgot you because of the curse of the Forgotten City. He is also in a lot of pain, so your father did not change his mind on his own initiative and cannot be thrown into the trash can."
The child pouted, "No, that's not true. Mom hasn't completely forgotten me. Sometimes she still thinks of me. The curse of the Forgotten City won't make Dad completely forget Mom. It's Dad who wants to forget us."
The small voice was firm and certain, which momentarily confused Zhong Mu.
"Where do you live? Let me take you back first." Zhong Mu is unfamiliar with this place and has been hiding the whole way. Being able to chat with the locals can help her get information.
The child lowered his eyes in thought, glancing at Zhong Mu and then at Li Mo, before shrinking back behind Zhong Mu again. "You can come, but he can't! Mom can't see him!"
The child was quite wary of this man-eating monster.
Zhong Mu glanced awkwardly at Li Mo, "Then, boss... why don't you wait at the door instead of going in later?"
Li Mo smiled without saying a word, but nodded nonetheless; it didn't matter where he stood.
Li Mo agreed, and Zhong Mu immediately took the child's hand and followed the direction he pointed out.
Just like yesterday, countless people squatted on both sides of the street, bewildered, trying hard to recall what they had lost, but they couldn't remember anything. They could only pound their heads in despair and then cry out, "I deserve to die! I deserve to die!"
"It's all my fault!"
Zhong Mu watched their frustration and self-blame with bewilderment, seeing them repeatedly think and recall, and then blame themselves. Recalling the child's previous evaluation of his father, he couldn't help but have a new guess about this forgotten city.
Is it really possible to actively give up memories?
But he also discovered a new problem: the emotions of those who squatted on the street and wept were different from those who went around looking for people to fight. They were both forgetting, but their reactions were different.
After Zhong Mu led the child to his doorstep, the sight inside reinforced his belief that memories could be actively abandoned.
This house may have once been beautiful, but now it's a mess inside and out. The flowers have withered, the ground is covered in dust, there are many knocking marks on the door frame, and even the windows are broken.
Looking through the half-open door, one could see a disheveled, sallow-faced, and emaciated woman sitting in a chair. She was sickly, and her weakness seemed to seep into her very bones. Her sunken eyes were filled with a dryness.
"Mommy, I'm home!" the child called out as soon as he reached the door, and then went inside.
Hearing the voice, the woman turned her eyes and looked over, smiling at the child. When she noticed the arrival of Zhong Mu, a stranger, she was taken aback at first, then politely put on a smile and tried to stand up from her chair to welcome him, but she was too weak and could not get up after a few attempts.
Zhong Mu quickly stepped into the room. "You don't need to get up, just sit down."
The woman ran her hand through her hair, looking flustered. "I'm sorry... We haven't had any guests in a long time, and I haven't really groomed myself. This is how I greet them."
Upon getting closer, Zhong Mu suddenly realized that the woman was very young, but illness had taken away all her vitality, making her look old and listless. However, even without the paleness and thinness, her face still showed few signs of aging.
"I'm sorry for the sudden visit." Zhong Mu stood in the house, feeling helpless. "I saw that it was dangerous for your child to be standing outside alone, so I thought I'd bring him back."
The woman smiled and nodded to Zhong Mu, then looked at the child, "Going to find your father again?"
"Yes," the child answered honestly.
"Did he remember me?" the woman asked again.
The child shook his head. "Not yet."
The woman showed neither excessive surprise nor distress, but simply nodded calmly, "As long as my illness persists, he probably won't remember me."
"Perhaps he will remember me at my funeral." The woman patted the child's head. "If he comes crying then, please help your mother chase him away. Your mother doesn't want to hear annoying noises while lying in the coffin."
The child nodded and carefully wrote it down.
Zhong Mu cautiously asked from the side, "He... wasn't he affected by the City of Oblivion and forgot you? Would he hate him this much?"
The woman looked up at Zhong Mu, her eyes gentle. "True feelings can't be affected by an invisible and intangible curse. Only when a person truly wants to forget can a curse take advantage of the situation, or perhaps use the curse to forget."
The woman smiled demurely and straightened her disheveled clothes. "It's normal that you don't understand us."
"I am sick, and there is no cure. It's the kind of illness that can only be dragged on. My illness has put a lot of pressure on him. Even before we got married, he said he would take care of me no matter what. But now that the real responsibility is on his own shoulders, he has started to regret it."
"Taking care of a patient day after day must be exhausting. He wouldn't have to do this if he married a normal wife."
The woman kept smiling, but her smile betrayed a deep bitterness.
As an outsider, Zhong Mu certainly didn't understand things as well as she had always been at the center of this family, so she didn't know what to say for a moment.
But the woman didn't need his comfort at all. After she finished speaking, she laughed and said, "Some people are taking advantage of the chaos in the Forgotten City to abandon their wives and children. I will try my best to live one more day until I hear the news of their death. This life is much more hopeful than before."