Chapter 13: MAMA-13

MAMA-13: What if it’s not being a daughter, but being a wife?

Mi Shanxin suddenly became anxious to leave. Jian Wanji didn’t know what was wrong with her, attributing it to a child’s moodiness, a normal phenomenon.

“I’ll take you home.”

“No need.”

“Your backpack and the packed food are still in my car.”

“I’ll get them myself.”

Luckily, the elevator still needed waiting. Jian Wanji followed up and asked: “What’s wrong?”

Mi Shanxin: “Nothing much.”

The shoulder line of the girl’s hoodie was almost slipping to her elbow; she looked like a deflating helium balloon.

Jian Wanji thought for a moment and asked: “Still not willing to do it?”

“Did my grandmother scare you?” Many bargaining chips flashed through Jian Wanji’s mind, thinking about how to make the kid agree. After all, just from the old lady’s reaction, her judgment was clearly spot on.

She had also asked the doctor. The hospital didn’t interfere with companion behaviors during end-of-life care, as long as Jian Wanji processed the regular visitor information card for Mi Shanxin at the ward.

When a person was nearing death, everyone’s tolerance was very high.

“…It’s not that.” Mi Shanxin stared at the changing elevator numbers. “Stop asking.”

“Alright, I’ll take that as you agreeing.” Jian Wanji confirmed again.

“Mm.”

“Then what I promised you…”

“Next time.”

Mi Shanxin suddenly refused to continue the conversation. Jian Wanji had no choice but to stop nagging. She and Mi Shanxin went to the parking lot, then asked once more: “Are you sure you don’t need me to take you home?”

Mi Shanxin’s attitude was resolute. “No need.”

Jian Wanji couldn’t figure out why and had to compromise. “Then let me call a car for you, okay?”

The girl, who wasn’t exactly easy to deal with nor entirely difficult, nodded: “You should.”

“You really…” Jian Wanji carried her backpack, walking out while laughing. Mi Shanxin followed behind her. The hospital entrance was bustling at this hour. Many cars passed by the inpatient department level. At the bus stop not far away, people waited, and the smell of roasted sweet potatoes filled the air.

Mi Shanxin hadn’t expected Jian Wanji to order a premier ride for her and looked at the other in surprise.

Jian Wanji’s hair was casually clipped behind her head. Occasionally, the wind blew her stray hairs loose, and she would casually push them back. The woman saw Mi Shanxin into the car, smiling faintly: “It’s fine, I’m paying.”

“Should say…” Jian Wanji looked at Mi Shanxin through the car window, “From now on, all your expenses will be covered by me.”

This wasn’t right. Mi Shanxin asked: “You mean you want to keep me?”

Jian Wanji suddenly swallowed a mouthful of wind and coughed violently. The girl seemed to laugh, her smugness faint. “Jian Wanji, I have to go.”

“Send me a message when you arrive.” After saying this, Jian Wanji remembered this person still hadn’t accepted her WeChat request. “You can finally accept my friend request now, right?”

Mi Shanxin made an “mm” sound. The car quickly merged into the traffic and disappeared from Jian Wanji’s sight.

The woman standing in the wind glanced at the route on the app; the destination was quite far.

Jian Wanji was very surprised that Mi Shanxin lived in the city center district where land was worth its weight in gold. Just looking at the specific address, cars couldn’t drive right up to the door. That whole area was practically a scenic spot, old houses. A few years back, someone had looked for Jian Wanji to invest, asking if she wanted to start a homestay business.

Soon, a new WeChat notification popped up on her phone, a message from the WeChat user named Great Mercy:

[Do I have to come every day from now on?]

Jian Wanji walked back, replying via voice message: “Yes, I will adjust the schedule according to your calligraphy class times.”

Mi Shanxin had transcribed the voice message, but still wanted to listen to it, rummaging in her backpack for a while for her earphones.

Her phone was Li Yin’s old model. Li Yin had wanted to buy a new one to give Mi Shanxin, but Mi Shanxin refused. So Li Yin had to use the excuse of upgrading to a new phone to give her the old one. She said if you want to record vlogs, better to use mine.

Mi Shanxin had checked many guides online; they all said the same thing, so she accepted it.

To her, an eighteenth-birthday gift being an old phone wasn’t a big deal.

She herself was old and worn, unrelated to brand new.

Her parents had long entered new relationships. Her grandparents had passed on to the new world. Only she was trapped in this dilapidated tower, not knowing why she was still alive, yet unable to die.

Jian Wanji had quite a few phone messages, most work-related.

She knew many people and could gather quite a crowd for events, but the friends she’d maintained trust with until now were only Zeng Baian and Sui Yuqian.

One was heterosexual, the other homosexual. She was stuck in the middle, attribute unknown.

Someone had also diagnosed her as asexual and sent Jian Wanji a test, which Jian Wanji was too lazy to take.

Personality tests required for interviews were one thing. From her teens, she’d been uninterested in horoscopes, tarot cards, and metaphysics. She was the type to go to a temple, calmly donate, and ask for nothing.

Some time ago, during a company team-building event, the project team she led was very anxious about year-end performance. The manager didn’t follow the usual custom of visiting the usual temple and changed to another one, even asking Jian Wanji if she wanted to go.

That day, Jian Wanji had just returned from the hospital. The doctor said Madam Wan Qingqing’s condition likely wouldn’t last past the new year and hoped she would be mentally prepared.

The target clients of the hospice ward were end-of-life patients. Staying there was Grandmother’s choice back when she was still lucid.

She hoped to leave the world with dignity, unlike her husband, bedridden, covered in bedsores, moaning in the middle of the night.

She also repeatedly mentioned to Jian Wanji the state of her mother’s death—shattered was hardly enough to describe it. In the end, she added one more line: Your father died too easily. Hanging himself with one rope, he got off too cheap.

Jian Wanji didn’t remember if her mother was in pieces. Her final memory of her mother from childhood was of a made-up face on the body, pushed into the crematorium. Among the family on her side, only Uncle had cried; she didn’t know what Grandmother was laughing about.

Jian Wanji only remembered her father gripping her shoulder too tightly. It hurt. But when she looked up, the man’s lips were pressed tight, his eyes very red.

The next year, when he hanged himself, his death was horrifying. Elementary schooler Jian Wanji came home, stared for a long time without a sound, then went out to call the adults next door.

She understood very early on: people didn’t only die of old age step-by-step.

Natural and man-made disasters were unavoidable. Perhaps it was because the future was unpredictable that Grandmother made such a request.

She had lived long enough, so old her organs were failing, her skin crawling with age spots, yet still insisted on using Snow Flower Cream, its constant scent the smell Jian Wanji loathed most.

Blood ties were the sticky, stubborn data Jian Wanji found hard to escape. In the end, she still followed Grandmother’s requirements: hospice ward, high-level caregiver, designated meals… until death.

Mi Shanxin was outside the old lady’s arrangements, Jian Wanji’s own willful act.

Zeng Baian had scolded her, saying the person is about to go, what use is hiring actors?

Jian Wanji said it was useful, but couldn’t give any concrete reason.

She actually wanted to take advantage of Grandmother’s confusion to see how she actually viewed her mother.

Was it love, or hate?

Was it because she hated her that she treated me this way, or because she loved her that she hated me this way?

Or was it… she hated herself, that’s why she raised me this way?

In the past, money was the biggest problem troubling Jian Wanji. She needed a new backpack and had to save her allowance for a long time. At the tail end of her thirties, money was no longer so important. She could afford small-scale indulgences, but found it very hard to force another person to accept it.

Many feelings were out of sync.

For example, the adolescent girl’s secret worries, why she could never get first place in the girl’s school exams. Without first place, Grandmother wouldn’t give her a single cent during the holidays.

She had so many things she wanted to buy: pretty dresses, a cute thermos, the new magazines…

Now she had no secret worries, because worries floated to the surface and became problems needing solutions.

In the pending schedule list, in the messages and emails needing replies.

Like Mi Shanxin’s somewhat hesitant added condition.

~

The premier ride driver Jian Wanji called for Mi Shanxin was a middle-aged woman. She insisted on seeing Mi Shanxin right to her doorstep, saying the service included this item.

Mi Shanxin had no choice but to fight for the right to carry her own takeout boxes.

Clearly, she was the customer, but walking beside the driver, she looked like a thief caught in the act.

The driver escorted her to the foot of the building and only left after watching the little girl go upstairs.

The drive from the hospital to home took nearly an hour, but it was still faster than the subway.

The community where Mi Shanxin lived had mostly elderly residents. Many were already asleep by this time. She put the leftovers in the fridge and realized there was a missed call from her mother on her phone.

“Mom.” She called back. “What’s the matter?”

“Shanxin, is it okay if I give you that five hundred yuan next week?” The sound of a child crying could be heard in the background. Mi Shanxin could tell her mother was flustered. She replied: “That’s fine.”

“Thank you, baby.” The woman sighed. “I spent quite a bit recently. Your Uncle Lin is very tight on money lately…”

“He can’t even produce five hundred yuan?” Mi Shanxin asked.

There were even harsher words she left unsaid, like, then why did you marry him, Mom.

But all that would just be venting, and would only make Mom sad.

Her younger sister was already born. Mom alone would only be even more overwhelmed.

“Why say it like that? It’s not that he doesn’t give it to me, it’s just…” Mi Shanxin’s mother had her in college, so she was only a few years older than Jian Wanji, but lacked Jian Wanji’s relaxed demeanor, let alone her assets. “I also feel embarrassed…”

Embarrassed but still got married?

Mi Shanxin didn’t press further outwardly. “Do you still have enough money now?”

“I do. I still have my salary. I’ll transfer it to you when I get paid.” Mom was still coaxing her younger sister. “Your dad still isn’t sending living expenses for the holidays?”

Mi Shanxin made an “mm” sound. “He said paying my tuition is already good enough. He earned his own living expenses when he was in college.”

“Pah, don’t listen to his bullshit.” Mom hadn’t been this vulgar before. She exhaled. “He spent all your grandparents’ pension money. Even when he was out working, he was busy dating.”

Mi Shanxin wasn’t surprised: “And you were the one he dated.”

The woman on the other end was silent for a few seconds. “You child.”

“You still have to ask him for living expenses. You’re maintaining his house in China right now. You call and ask him.”

Mi Shanxin: “I did. His new wife told me not to contact Dad anymore and that she’ll send the school living expenses to me.”

“So shameless!” The woman cursed a few more times, followed by the baby’s loud wailing. Mi Shanxin’s ears hurt, and soon the call disconnected.

Mi Shanxin stared at Mom’s WeChat profile for a long time. The profile picture was a photo from Mom’s Spanish wedding. Back then, she thought her second marriage would be absolutely happy: sunset castle, lawn wedding, everyone envious.

Turned out, it was probably the same.

The friends’ group chat had new messages. Li Yin complained about the tedium of online classes, chatted with others about New Year plans, interspersed with some online shopping links. They were picking out clothes for the New Year.

Someone mentioned going to a temple to pray in the first lunar month, for finding an internship next semester. They seemed to remember Li Yin’s previous Moments post and asked if she’d gone with Mi Shanxin.

[Li Yin]: Yeah, I went with Shanxin. She asked for wealth and got a top-tier fortune stick.

Several “wows” followed. Someone else asked if it came true for Mi Shanxin.

[Li Yin]: Probably did. We went during New Year’s. Before the break, Shanxin got that tutoring job at the institution.

Mi Shanxin thought of the conditions Jian Wanji offered.

100,000 yuan deposit, 800 yuan per hour. Many times her tutoring rate. The deadline was the death of her grandmother, Madam Wan Qingqing.

Her financial luck seemed to have truly arrived.

But Li Yin wouldn’t agree. She would inevitably think it was a Pig Butchering Scam, worrying that Mi Shanxin would be scammed out of everything.

But Mi Shanxin had nothing to begin with.

The group chat kept updating, the same with or without her reply. Mom had a little sister needing her full attention. Dad had his desired son.

Home was empty and desolate; even wandering spirits didn’t visit.

Only Jian Wanji needed her, so much so that she’d accept whatever added condition Mi Shanxin proposed.

But Mi Shanxin still had something to confirm.

She followed her previous steps: washed up, got into bed, pulled up the covers.

Learning to please herself was very hard for Mi Shanxin. Before, she usually tired herself out just to fall asleep; the goal was to fall asleep.

Now, the goal was to feel pleasure.

Thinking of the teacher’s head pats and hugs no longer worked much.

Jian Wanji’s spicy perfume seemed to linger in her heart’s sea. Mi Shanxin closed her eyes, recalling the other’s smiling gaze, her lips glossy from lip gloss. Perhaps opening and closing them also carried a perfumed stickiness.

She tried for a long time, but something was still missing.

But she couldn’t call Jian Wanji now. After a while, Mi Shanxin opened WeChat. In the darkened room, only the faint light of the phone screen shone.

“Student Shanxin~ what is your added condition?”

This was the voice message Jian Wanji sent while Mi Shanxin was showering. Mi Shanxin hadn’t replied.

Now, she screen-recorded it and imported it into an audio software to loop playback.

Were frivolous people very experienced? At this age, not having a girlfriend now didn’t mean she hadn’t had one before.

She had a face that suggested many women, pretty and rich. Her car was the logo Li Yin said she’d want to cry sitting on top of. The number of people infatuated with her was surely not small.

Mi Shanxin let out an “mm,” blushing as she closed her eyes, imagining Jian Wanji’s appearance, until drowsiness and exhaustion swept over her. Only then was she satisfied.

Before sleeping, Jian Wanji checked her messages again. Mi Shanxin still hadn’t replied.

On the contrary, having heard the kid had an added condition, Zeng Baian said in the small group: “At your age, could you adopt a daughter? What if she wants to be your daughter?”

Jian Wanji laughed, her mouth full of toothpaste flavor, about to reply when another friend sent a message: “What if it’s not being a daughter, but being a wife?”

Jian Wanji rinsed her mouth and pressed the voice message button: “What are you thinking? At my age, even an old cucumber painted green can’t compare to a young college girl.”

“What wife? Becoming my old mother is the current urgent task.”