MAMA-09: Meat to eat every day.
“No,” Jian Wanji didn’t refuse to answer Mi Shanxin’s questions either. She led the person out of the car. “You can leave your backpack in my car.”
Mi Shanxin made an “Oh” sound and followed her. “We’re eating here?”
It wasn’t the fancy restaurant she’d imagined. It looked quite ordinary.
Jian Wanji hummed. “My usual place, been eating here since I was a kid.”
Mi Shanxin said, “I don’t eat fast food.”
The woman laughed. “Don’t worry, it’s not fast food. Made fresh for you.”
“I just asked on WeChat. They have all the dishes you ordered.”
“They can make Sprite Bitter Gourd too?” Mi Shanxin asked.
“Of course, but you eat that yourself. I don’t like that dish.” After saying this, Jian Wanji let out an “Ah,” and spun around to look at Mi Shanxin. “You’re not going to force me to eat it, are you?”
Her coat had an excellent cut, and her brooch matched her temperament perfectly.
Mi Shanxin never knew that a silk scarf—a staple of middle-aged tourist groups—could become a button accessory, adorning Jian Wanji brilliantly without a trace of vulgarity.
“If you say so…” Mi Shanxin pretended to consider. The woman hurriedly cut her off, “Pretend I didn’t ask.”
Mi Shanxin followed her into an alley. Cars couldn’t drive in here; they had to park on the street.
It was less than three weeks until the New Year; the streets were already decked with lanterns and festoons.
Mi Shanxin glanced at the map on her phone and found this place was even further from her home.
“Have you eaten it?” Mi Shanxin asked.
Sprite Bitter Gourd was a dish most people considered a horror story upon hearing about it.
Mi Shanxin only started eating it after her parents divorced and she lived with her grandparents. They said it was a “cooling, detoxifying, benevolent dish” taught by a friend.
Mi Shanxin didn’t understand how a dish could be “benevolent,” but after resisting and refusing, one summer was all it took for her to accept it.
When both grandparents were gone, summers no longer had the constant presence of Sprite Bitter Gourd. Her time seemed to stop too; no one needed her anymore.
“I’ve eaten it. My parents both loved it.” The woman matched Mi Shanxin’s pace, walking very slowly. She always felt Mi Shanxin was excessively pale, like she might faint after a few steps. Several times during class, her body had swayed, making Jian Wanji worried she would collapse.
Window paper was probably thicker than Mi Shanxin. Worrying was only human. Perhaps this was a child whose parents weren’t around and whose elders didn’t care.
“You’re lying,” Mi Shanxin stopped, standing right under a streetlight, her pair of eyes fixed on Jian Wanji. “Your friend said your mom and dad died when you were very young.”
Jian Wanji let out an “Huh?” “Can’t I have memories from before?”
“Besides, they passed away when I was in elementary school,” Jian Wanji reached out as if to pull Mi Shanxin along, but held back, mindful of the “sexual harassment” accusation. She retracted her hand into an inviting gesture. “Let’s go.”
“I’m sorry.” Mi Shanxin apologized quickly. Jian Wanji watched her lower her head, smiled, and said, “It’s fine. Just don’t make me eat Sprite Bitter Gourd later. I really can’t handle any bitterness.”
“My grandmother does love it though.”
“Oh.”
The small eatery Jian Wanji took Mi Shanxin to was incredibly simple, as if it had been open for decades. At the entrance was just a standing advertising board marked “Chunhua Restaurant.” The tables on the first floor all had old-fashioned tablecloths pressed down with glass tops. The menu hung on the wall; the cooler wasn’t far away, its light on, filled with fresh vegetables and meat.
Seeing Jian Wanji, the boss holding the order pad let out an “Ah!” “You’re here?”
“Sister Yu, I’ll take my usual private booth. Did you save it for me?” Jian Wanji didn’t step forward. She stood beside Mi Shanxin, guiding her to follow. “Sorry for the short notice.”
The boss, a woman with a ripple perm, smiled and said, “Of course there’s a spot. Go on upstairs yourself.”
Mi Shanxin dreaded this kind of small talk the most, following Jian Wanji closely. The boss, of course, wouldn’t let a new face brought by Jian Wanji pass unnoticed. “Who’s this? Never seen her before.”
If it were business, Jian Wanji wouldn’t bring someone here.
People in the company often asked what the boss was doing, never at the office all day. Truth was, pulling in business was the boss’s most vital task. Who knew how many fruitless drinking parties she’d rolled through; many leads were sifted from seemingly idle chatter.
Anyone Jian Wanji brought here was an old friend in the boss’s eyes.
Mi Shanxin was very afraid of dealing with overly enthusiastic people, whether neighbors or schoolmates. Overly enthusiastic people made her panic. Even if the intentions were mostly good, she still dreaded reciprocation.
After all, things her own family couldn’t give her, if non-family wanted to give, she’d have to calculate over and over.
Jian Wanji was also one of these overly enthusiastic people she feared, her enthusiasm so fake it dripped with strong ulterior motives. It seemed all adults were like this, knowing the words weren’t true, the smiles were fake, yet still interacting this way.
Between Jian Wanji and the restaurant owner she was meeting for the first time, Mi Shanxin could only stay closer to Jian Wanji.
“Not at all, Sis. You must have seen her before.” Jian Wanji’s words surprised Mi Shanxin. The owner, upon being questioned back, was stunned for a few seconds and looked seriously at Mi Shanxin. But the other party wore a mask, revealing only half her face. She hesitated too. “…She does look a bit familiar. A relative of yours?”
This restaurant had been open for many years but had relocated, passed down two generations now. They did both local cuisine and Suzhou dishes.
The older generation made Suzhou noodles, later they only did home-style cooking.
The boss’s parents’ generation also knew Jian Wanji’s grandmother; they were all former neighbors and naturally knew about Jian Wanji’s parents.
“Yeah.” Jian Wanji rested one hand on Mi Shanxin’s shoulder, but the weight of her arm didn’t truly press down—just hovering lightly, as if deliberately avoiding something, leaving Mi Shanxin with a mildly unsatisfied, unscratched itch.
“Looks like my mom, doesn’t she?”
The boss: …
After a few seconds, she lightly swatted Jian Wanji’s back with her ordering pad. “What kind of joke is that? Your mom and my mom are about the same age, how could she possibly…”
Jian Wanji dodged, not forgetting to pull Mi Shanxin along, laughing as she headed upstairs, yet still poking her head back to ask: “Really not even a little resemblance?”
The boss ignored her and went to settle a customer’s bill.
Mi Shanxin thought: How can a person be this rambunctious?
She followed Jian Wanji to the private booth upstairs. Just the two of them at a luxuriously large round table felt inevitably empty.
“Sit, sit anywhere.” Jian Wanji opened the window. Outside were low old houses, and further away, the city’s high-rises stood like a lit trapping net; anyone passing through would fall inside.
“It’s too big.” Mi Shanxin chose a seat quite far from the stool where Jian Wanji hung her coat.
But as soon as she sat down, Jian Wanji sat down right next to her. “Anything else you want to eat? Order yourself.”
The menu was placed in front of her. The woman handed over the pen. “Don’t be satisfied with just two dishes.”
Mi Shanxin still had her mask on. Jian Wanji had rinsed the bowls and chopsticks, refilled the tea. “You can take off the mask now, right? Is my perfume really that overpowering?”
She still sniffed, puzzled. “You’re the first person to say that.”
Mi Shanxin: “Then your social circle is too poor.”
Jian Wanji paused for two seconds, then burst out laughing. “And what are you to me, to be so bold?”
The girl didn’t answer, looking at the menu without raising her head, asking: “If we can’t finish, can we pack the leftovers?”
Jian Wanji: “Sure.”
The girl: “I am your mother.”
Jian Wanji: …
Only then did Mi Shanxin turn her face to appreciate Jian Wanji’s speechless expression.
Her eyes were much like an apricot, the outer corners naturally alluring. With better color and a bit more flesh, they might resemble a peach.
At this age without makeup, her complexion should be decent; blush came naturally, steamed into vitality by the heating.
Yet Mi Shanxin looked even lower energy than Jian Wanji. A full day of calligraphy classes, mornings and afternoons, left her nearly power-drained. Coupled with poor sleep, by the time she got home, she was generally like a wandering ghost, then cycle back into insomnia until dawn the next day.
Jian Wanji poured herself a glass of water too. “Since you put it that way, I’ll take it as your agreement.”
“I didn’t agree.” Mi Shanxin shook her head. “You treated me to dinner, so I came.”
Having long experience living with the elderly, she asked: “Your grandmother hasn’t gone to bed yet at this hour?”
“Nope, the News Simulcast hasn’t even started. Earliest would be after that finishes.” Jian Wanji watched her finish selecting dishes, not minding how many Mi Shanxin ordered. “You also want to pack some to go? Going back to share with family?”
The last part was completely probing. She had a hunch.
“For myself.”
“Your parents?”
“Divorced.”
As expected. Jian Wanji opened the door, gave the menu to a server who happened to be delivering dishes to another booth upstairs, closed the door again, and asked: “Who do you live with then?”
Mi Shanxin was looking at the phone map, searching for Anning Hospital, and said offhandedly: “My grandparents.”
The dishes she ordered were indeed very elderly taste. Jian Wanji had reached the age for health preservation; her appetite wasn’t what it used to be, yet she still found these dishes excessively bland. “Packing for grandparents? Isn’t Sprite Bitter Gourd a bit too vegetarian?”
The young girl sitting beside her said flatly: “They’re both dead. I’m eating it myself.”
Jian Wanji was silent for a few seconds. “When did that happen?”
“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. I was just asking casually.”
Mi Shanxin still kept her head down. She closed the map and opened her vlog, running for a week now, still abysmally performing.
Jian Wanji had watched it last night. Such boring editing; she’d wanted to switch it off after three seconds.
Hardly any comments either; the ones there were system-generated, practically gifted.
“You want to know?” Only then did Mi Shanxin look up. The woman was holding her cup in one hand, just watching her.
Mi Shanxin’s previously non-concrete dreams now had a physical form. She’d always known she craved the embrace of an older woman, perhaps the compensation she wanted for being abandoned. But the dreams never had a specific face before.
Jian Wanji had no connection to her mother whatsoever, and the ages didn’t match.
She could be an older sister, an aunt, a cousin—just couldn’t be a mother.
But still, she appeared in Mi Shanxin’s dreams, like a sleep fairy from a fairy tale, leaving her refreshed and invigorated.
Rather than liking Jian Wanji, Mi Shanxin liked this feeling.
But being clear-headed was one thing; getting bashful making eye contact was another.
She couldn’t manage a cold, hard separation just yet.
“Of course. The more we understand each other, the better for the cooperation.” It was Jian Wanji who looked away first, making room for the cold dishes arriving. “But since I’m the one asking you for a favor, whether you want to talk or not depends on your mood.”
Mi Shanxin let out an “Oh.” “Senior year of high school.”
Jian Wanji smiled. “In a good mood now?”
The Braised Pork arrived too. The girl finally took off her mask, stared at the steaming Braised Pork for a long moment, and let out a rarely heard, delighted sound.
Jian Wanji coaxed gently: “Then agree, and you’ll have meat to eat every day.”
Mi Shanxin was completely mesmerized by the aroma, her words slipping out unfiltered: “What kind of meat?”
————————!!————————
Someone, coaxing gently, dug herself a huge pit. [Cai Gou meme] Bitterly regret it later.
