Chapter 95
On Jiang Chenyin’s birthday, just like last year, everyone gathered at the old Jiang residence. It seemed that nothing had changed because of the absence of one person.
The Jiang family’s eldest grandson, Jiang Yixuan, had gone to university. When the elders were drinking, he also joined in, and Old Master Jiang gave him a few words of advice.
Tonight, it was still Jiang Gaojun who was cooking. It was just that there was no longer a Meng Yi’an to tell Jiang Chenyin after dinner that his culinary skills had improved, nor was there a girl who would make Jiang Chenyin’s heart soften whenever she thought of her, waiting in her room.
Snow was falling in the night sky. Ye Xialan and Lan Yuxin were in high spirits from drinking. The two women took a few bottles of wine and some snacks to a table in the corner of the banquet hall, and after sitting down, they put their arms around each other’s shoulders and started chatting.
Ye Xialan was drinking, and she put her arm around Lan Yuxin and said in an ambiguous tone, “Friend, if you’re looking for a partner, you can count on your Sister Ye!”
Lan Yuxin blinked several times. “No… Sister Ye, although I’m interested in women, you have a family, after all. This is not very good…”
Ye Xialan looked at her in a daze, then burst out laughing. “What are you thinking! I’m talking about giving you some advice, not about doing that with you!”
“Oh, oh, oh, you scared me!” Lan Yuxin scratched her head, hugged the wine bottle, and snuggled up to Ye Xialan. “Hey, why are those big men over there so noisy? Can’t they be as elegant as us?”
Ye Xialan glanced at the men who were having a drinking competition around the long table not far away, let out a “tch,” and said, “Aren’t they always like this when they’re together? I think none of them will be able to leave tonight. They’ll probably all have to stay over.”
Lan Yuxin took a sip of her wine and said faintly, “I don’t like this fruit cake tonight. Ice cream cake is better.”
Speaking of cake, Ye Xialan sighed. “If my daughter were here, she would love any kind of cake. In previous years, when there was a cake for Teacher Jiang’s birthday, she would always eat the most. This year, she’s too busy with work to eat it.”
“Why does the little block of wood love cake so much?” Lan Yuxin muttered with a frown. “I was busy filming and making money before, so I didn’t have much time to play with Teacher Jiang. I’ve only seen the little block of wood a few times. I didn’t even know she loved cake.”
Ye Xialan said with a beaming smile, “She doesn’t just love cake. She loves anything sweet, like candy and snacks. It’s just that now she’s grown up and busy, so she’s not always holding snacks like when she was a child.”
Lan Yuxin suddenly turned her head and smiled at Ye Xialan. “I know about that. Before, when I bought a late-night snack to eat at Teacher Jiang’s house, she asked me to buy sweeter flavors, saying that the little block of wood liked it.”
After she finished, she was taken aback for a moment, as if she had missed something.
That’s right. The relationship between Jiang Chenyin and Bo Muyu seemed to have cooled down at some point. She didn’t know the specifics, but she had an inexplicable feeling, because after Bo Muyu had moved out of Jiang Chenyin’s house, an invisible distance had appeared between the two of them. And then, with what had happened on the night of Ye Xialan’s birthday, she always felt that there was something wrong between the two of them.
She had been very busy later, so she hadn’t thought about it. The way the two of them had acted after Bo Muyu had called out to Jiang Chenyin that day was very strange. Jiang Chenyin had even coldly told her to go first.
She had had a little too much to drink that day, and her head was very uncomfortable. She had waited for Jiang Chenyin in the garage for a long time. She remembered that when Jiang Chenyin had entered the garage, her steps had been very slow, her face calm. This was nothing in itself, but Jiang Chenyin had not said a word to her on the way back, and her replies to her had been so concise that they were cold. This was a very rare situation.
Lan Yuxin shuddered and accidentally bumped Ye Xialan’s head.
“Why did you bump me?” Ye Xialan asked with a frown.
“Sister Ye, there’s something wrong!” the more Lan Yuxin thought, the more she felt that something was not right, and she slapped her thigh.
“Speak properly. There’s nothing wrong with me.”
Lan Yuxin quickly explained, “No, I’m not saying there’s something wrong with you. I’m saying…” she abruptly stopped, the rest of her words stuck in her throat. She licked her lips and then quickly changed the subject. “I think there might be something wrong with the TV at my house. I want to get a new one, the one with the biggest screen now.”
“I thought it was something serious. You’re so jumpy. Come on, let’s drink,” Ye Xialan said and then clinked her wine bottle against Lan Yuxin’s.
Lan Yuxin clinked her bottle with Ye Xialan’s in a daze. As she drank, her eyes darted around, her thoughts no longer on the wine in the bottle.
She looked around, and her gaze finally caught Jiang Chenyin, who was standing on the balcony with her back to the banquet hall.
Jiang Chenyin had been standing on the balcony for a long time, drinking a glass of fruit juice. The juice was sour and sweet, mostly sweet, but with every sip, she felt an unbearable sourness.
Snowflakes were falling on this winter night. Her gaze passed through the drifting snow and landed on some unknown corner outside. The banquet hall behind her was noisy, but it was as if she were the only one in the world.
She had had a very hard day today. It had been like this when she was working in the morning, when she was eating lunch, when she had returned to the office in the afternoon, and when she was driving home from work. Every time she was quiet, she would think of the text message she had seen after she had gotten up in the morning, the name she had been thinking of for several months.
Bo Muyu had sent her a text message. There was no salutation and no extra words, only a timely “happy birthday,” which she had received in the dead of night.
She had not replied. She didn’t know how to.
Today was the first time she had almost been late for work. She had sat on the edge of her bed for a long time, thinking of what Bo Muyu had looked like before she had sent that text message. Had she considered it for a long time, hesitated repeatedly, and even wanted to give up? And had she been restless, afraid that she would be angry if she saw it, and also afraid that she would feel disgusted?
Thinking of this, a multitude of emotions piled up in Jiang Chenyin’s heart, and her heart ached.
At her age, she had seen a lot and had also experienced storms. She had been kind to others for many years, and the last thing she wanted to do was to hurt others. But now, she had personally hurt the child she had doted on for so many years. It was she who had abandoned that child.
At this thought, Jiang Chenyin’s whole heart trembled, and her hand, holding the cup, turned white.
Her emotions were unstable, and it was not convenient for her to stay at the old residence. After the banquet, she left.
It was only when she got back to her residential complex that Jiang Chenyin remembered that she had forgotten to buy new toiletries. She rubbed her head, and after parking her car, she walked to the small supermarket in the complex.
It was snowing on Christmas Eve, and many people were at home, unwilling to go out. It was already very late when she got back to her residential complex. The light from the streetlights merged with the color of the snow, and even the snow scene had a hint of loneliness.
She hadn’t bought toiletries for herself in a while. Before this, it had always been Bo Muyu who had paid attention to these things. Even the pair of toothbrushes had been bought as a set, light blue and light pink.
It was just that the light blue one had always been left there, and no one had replaced it with a new one.
She shook her head and stepped into the small supermarket. The next moment, she was taken aback.
Beside the checkout counter was a man in a wheelchair, and at this moment, a man in a suit was leaning over and kissing him. Their posture was natural, not sudden, but that of a couple who had been together for a long time.
Jiang Chenyin took a deep breath and turned to the side to avoid this scene.
She heard a deep and steady male voice say in a low voice, “You can go back first. I’ll be back after I’ve closed the shop.”
After a moment of silence, another man said softly, “Okay.” It was a very young voice.
It was only when the footsteps had faded away that Jiang Chenyin walked into the small supermarket to pick out her things. She looked around. There was no one inside. No wonder they had been so unrestrained. When she had picked out what she needed and was at the checkout, she subconsciously glanced at the owner in the wheelchair. She had talked to him before when she was shopping, but she had never paid attention to him like today.
The owner, who was putting her things in a bag, suddenly said, “I’m sorry. I’ve made a fool of myself.”
Jiang Chenyin smiled. “It’s okay.”
Seeing her kindness, the owner took the opportunity to explain, “It’s Christmas Eve today. He still had to work overtime and just got back. He saw that there was no one in the shop, so he got carried away.” As he spoke, he paused in his action of picking up things, a smile on his face. “Young people always have a hard time controlling themselves.”
Jiang Chenyin was taken aback when she heard this. She remembered that the man’s voice just now was very young, and the owner in front of her should be about her age.
“You… is there a big age gap between you?” she couldn’t help but ask curiously, but the next second, she felt that she had been rude. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that.”
The owner shook his head and said to her, “It’s okay, Miss Jiang. You’re a resident here, and we’ve had some dealings.” He paused, then changed the subject. “I’m fourteen years older than him.”
Jiang Chenyin was so surprised that she stared at him. “Fourteen years?”
The owner nodded with a smile, seeming to have no complaints about the age gap. “I didn’t live here before. Many years ago, he was a classmate of my neighbor’s younger son.”
Jiang Chenyin became more and more curious. “Is that how you met?”
“Mmm, yes,” the owner lowered his head slightly and put the pair of light blue and light pink toothbrushes that Jiang Chenyin had bought into the bag, his tone filled with reminiscence. “We’ve known each other for twelve years, and we’ve been together for eight. I’m forty now, and he’s twenty-six. I was almost thirty back then, but he wasn’t even an adult yet.”
Jiang Chenyin asked softly, “Was it smooth between you?”
“Of course not. I knew that that year,” the owner smiled again, sighed slightly, and turned his wheelchair out from behind the counter, stopping beside Jiang Chenyin. “I was under a lot of pressure. Even though I was very young at that time, I couldn’t avoid that kind of mentality. Because we were of the same sex, and I was much older than him. And my legs… but he was still so young. He should have a better future when he grows up, not stay by my side and take care of me, and watch me grow old before him.”
“You were moved,” for some reason, Jiang Chenyin always felt that his hesitation was not because of a lack of feelings, but because of the huge age gap and the fact that they were of the same sex.
“You seem to see it very clearly,” the owner suddenly smiled at her.
“No, I was just…” Jiang Chenyin was at a loss for words. She pressed her lips together and thought for a long time, then sighed with a laugh, “A gut feeling, I guess. If you weren’t moved, then you wouldn’t have imagined so much, and you wouldn’t have been under pressure.”
The owner nodded and continued, “I struggled for a long time. During this time, he was growing up, and he was also persistent. His family background was better than mine. After I finally made up my mind, all he had left was this place, and then we moved here together.”
Jiang Chenyin couldn’t help but ask, “I’m very curious about the reason that made you make up your mind.”
A relationship with such a large age gap, it was not just a fluttering heart that could make the older party decide to start. To bear such a heavy relationship was not something that a couple of a similar age could feel. Only the older party could taste the torment.
“The reason was the worst-case scenario,” the owner smiled at her. “If we weren’t together, then the worst-case scenario would be either that this feeling would fade, or that we would disappear from each other’s lives, and live the rest of our time alone, only to regret when we’re old why we didn’t give it a try.”
He stopped, and Jiang Chenyin asked, as if to him, and also to herself, “What if it fades?”
The owner quickly shook his head, a deep, gentle light in his eyes. “I couldn’t bear for it to fade.”
Jiang Chenyin’s heart skipped a beat, and she suddenly felt a lump in her throat, unable to speak. She looked at the price displayed on the computer and silently took out her phone to pay with WeChat.
Before she could say goodbye, the owner said thoughtfully, “You don’t seem to be just curious.”
Jiang Chenyin shook her head and lowered her eyes to pick up her bag.
Snow was still falling outside the door. Jiang Chenyin smiled faintly. “Thank you for satisfying my curiosity.” She paused, then murmured to herself, “But all this is too far away for me.”
After she finished, she nodded goodbye to the owner and strode into the wind and snow.
