Barmaid Tang Ming hastily pulled out her cellphone and wrote down two numbers, then looked at Tang Ming gratefully, "Thank you so much, I will make a call right now."
"Heh, you girl, you said earlier you didn’t care about them, but now you can’t wait, won are indeed insincere," he teased playfully.
Tang Ming teased her with fun.
"I, I just ca to ask, I haven’t said for sure that I will recognize them."
Barmaid Tang Ming’s face turned slightly red, and she hurried to the side to make a call.
"This is all good karma."
The old orphanage director sighed with relief, "Every ti I see parents and children reuniting, I am happy for them as an old man."
"Yes, thinking about her family reuniting, I’m happy for her too."
Tang Ming nodded and then sighed, saying enviously, "I don’t know where my parents are now, whether they are looking for just like her parents."
"Don’t worry, there are no parents in this world who don’t care about their children, I believe your parents miss you a lot too."
The old director yawned and said apologetically, "However, our orphanage really doesn’t have an orphan of your age who is also nad Tang Ming, I can be sure of that."
"After your reminder last ti, I no longer hold hope of finding my origins using my na, as I probably got the na ’Ming’ from my adoptive father," Tang Ming sighed. Finding his origins had just beco even more difficult.
"Ming? How old are you this year?"
The old director was montarily stunned and looked intently at Tang Ming.
"Eighteen, why, did you rember sothing?"
Tang Ming looked at the old director puzzledly.
"Eighteen years old?"
The old director furrowed his eyebrows and while recalling, said, "Eighteen years ago, there was no orphan nad Tang Ming, but there was a little fellow we called ’Ming’ who appeared briefly in our orphanage!"
"What?"
Tang Ming was utterly confused, not understanding what this brief appearance ant.
"Cough, I’m just overthinking it, you’re probably not that child, and who knows if that child is even still alive," the old director sighed, shaking his head worriedly.
"Don’t, don’t stop there, tell more about this, it might be related to my past!"
Tang Ming, now eager, grabbed the old director’s arm and pleaded, as he wouldn’t miss any information that could possibly relate to his origins.
"Hahaha, talking about this doesn’t hurt, consider it a story to listen to," the director said, filled with eagerness as he lit a large tobacco pipe and began to smoke while reminiscing.
Eighteen years ago, the director was not yet the director but a regular staff mber at the orphanage, on a night filled with thunder and lightning, soone frantically banged on the orphanage’s door.
The old director, who was on the night shift, got up to open the door and found a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes on the doorstep.
"Was there any information about the baby’s identity in the swaddling clothes?"
Tang Ming asked curiously.
"No, but the small blanket wrapping the baby was embroidered with a sun and a moon pattern, so I nad the child ’Ming,’ which matches the sun and moon pattern perfectly,"
The old orphanage director smiled proudly and introduced, "Most children who enter our orphanage don’t have their own nas; we are the ones who na them. Then, we make a naplate for them and carve their nas onto it. Generally, these nas do not include surnas until they are adopted and assu the surnas of their adoptive parents."
Hearing this, Tang Ming furrowed his brows. If that was the case, then it would make perfect sense for the old man to have the last na Tang, and to have nad him Tang Ming after taking him from the orphanage.
"Director, what happened to the child afterward?"
Tang Ming stared at the old director nervously, perhaps driven by an eager desire to find his mother, and he felt it was very likely that he was that child.
"Soone took him away."
The old director pursed his lips and said gloomily, "The child was brought in that evening. I had just finished his naplate and hung it up when, before dawn, a man claiming to be the child’s father took him away. The man was extrely powerful; he could shatter the main gate with a single palm strike, and I didn’t dare to stop him."
"Do you rember what that man looked like?"
Tang Ming asked eagerly.
"I actually tried to forget, but that man made such a profound impression on that it still sends shivers down my spine."
The old director shivered and said apprehensively, "That man was covered in blood, with many bleeding wounds, his gaze as fierce as a wild beast’s, with a hooked nose and penetrating eyes. The most terrifying part was a ghastly, bleeding gash across his face, which I guess would leave a conspicuous scar even after healing."
Hearing this, Tang Ming was disappointed because this description did not match the old man at all, especially the scar on the face. Although the old man always wore a sleazy expression, his skin was well-maintained, almost youthful; otherwise, how could he flirt with the village matrons?
Though the man who took the child didn’t match the old man, Tang Ming still felt the child must be related to him and couldn’t help but continue, "What happened next?"
"There was no next. I never saw that man or the child again."
The old director took a drag of his chilly cigarette, saying worriedly, "Given the situation, that man was being hunted, already severely injured, and with a child, chances are they t an unfortunate fate."
"Well, do you rember if there was any characteristic mark on the child?"
Tang Ming asked persistently.
"A mark?"
The old director thought for a mont, then suddenly looked up, "Yes, there was a mark. When I handed the child to the injured man, I saw a black pentagram on the sole of the child’s foot."
"A black pentagram?"
Tang Ming quickly sat down, took off his shoes and socks, and then was stunned because there indeed was a black pentagram on the bottom of his foot.
"That’s not right, the old man said it was ford from practicing Poison Skill as all the toxins in my body converged at my feet, supposedly acquired later."
Tang Ming stared at the mark on his foot with a conflicted face, slowly looking toward the old director, "Is this the type of mark you saw?"
"Yes, yes, exactly like that."
The old director pushed up his glasses, looked a few more tis, and nodded repeatedly.
"Could I be the child from back then?" asked Tang Ming uncertainly as he looked at the old director.
"It seems not, I rember the child had the pattern on the left foot, but yours is on the right. Could it have shifted?"
The old director shook his head, puzzled.
"How could it possibly shift?"
Tang Ming rolled his eyes, finding the old director too playful.
Then, Tang Ming took off the shoe and sock from his left foot, and both he and the old director were dumbfounded—there was a black pentagram on the bottom of this foot too.
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