Chapter 22: MAMA-22 Part 1

Mi Shanxin followed behind Jian Wanji. The woman’s overcoat was likely too large for her, and draped over her shoulders, it made her look even more out of place in this environment. While waiting for the elevator, many people instinctively glanced at Mi Shanxin.

Mi Shanxin hated excessive staring, so she had to press closer to Jian Wanji. But she wasn’t tall; she tugged at Jian Wanji’s sleeve. When the woman looked down, she stood on her tiptoes and whispered her displeasure, “How am I a pervert?”

Jian Wanji smiled but didn’t answer, pushing the girl into the elevator and using her own body to carve out a relatively stable space. Mi Shanxin was a bit unhappy, her head lowered, staring at the hidden patterns on Jian Wanji’s coat.

Even if she’d never worn fine clothes, some materials were undeniably quality.

Jian Wanji’s temperament was more flamboyant than her attire, making it easy to overlook the thoughtful detail in her styling. This kind of coat didn’t suit Mi Shanxin. The scent it carried could disperse the human smells of the crowd, and Mi Shanxin couldn’t help but bury her face into the fabric.

Jian Wanji looked down just in time to catch the movement. Her lips pressed together, as if she wanted to say something, but swallowed the words back.

On the way here, she’d given Mi Shanxin the printed materials she had compiled about her own mother, gathered from her previous decision to find an actor.

Jian Wanji rarely dreamed of her mother, who had passed away many years ago. The woman had been too young when she left, younger than Jian Wanji was now.

Looking at it from the perspective of a thirty-nine-year-old, Wan Lingling had indeed married far too early.

But considering Wan Lingling’s circumstances, Jian Wanji could understand her escape.

In that timeline, it was indeed the most correct decision Wan Lingling had ever made.

The sole downside was that she wasn’t ruthless enough. She hadn’t eloped, and had still tried to gain her mother’s blessing, hoping to use her child to soften the disappointment. She’d believed that as the years passed, their mother-daughter relationship would become healthier.

Jian Wanji had personally compiled all these materials. She’d typed away at her computer, piecing together her mother’s past from scanned documents, childhood photos, and scanned PDFs of diaries. For countless days and nights, she’d sat before the screen, rubbing her temples.

Wan Lingling’s life hadn’t been glorious, nor had she achieved any great fame. A stable job, a family of three, three daily meals, health through the seasons—that was her heart’s desire. The first time Jian Wanji read her mother’s diary’s wish, she’d found it ordinary and dull.

Later, as she grew older, she began to understand the preciousness of that ordinariness.

Occasionally, she’d scroll past an obituary on her Moments feed. The moment it all stops, it’s the fairest. A life lived peacefully, that too was a remote, unattainable luxury.

If people can lie in their diaries, then when fifteen-year-old Wan Lingling wrote, Mom loves me a little too much, perhaps she was writing that to deceive Wan Qingqing, who would snoop on her daughter’s diary.

Her unhappiness had stopped in university.

Now, Mi Shanxin, playing the role of Wan Lingling, had changed into Wan Lingling’s clothes. It seemed to have drawn out the repressed sorrow Wan Lingling had hidden.

People got on and off the elevator at every floor. Amid the sounds of doors opening and closing, Jian Wanji lowered her head, nearly counting Mi Shanxin’s eyelashes. She could also see the girl’s lashes were unusually thick. From this angle, her face looked even smaller, her skin pale. She was like a bitter gourd brought to life, with no chance of growing up to resemble the peach-like Wan Lingling in the yellowed ID photo.

Jian Wanji’s search for an actor had gone through Zeng Baian, who had naturally seen the photos her friend compiled. In her eyes, Mi Shanxin and Wan Lingling were worlds apart. It was only after Jian Wanji pointed it out that she realized she wasn’t just looking at appearances.

Even though Wan Lingling had passed away very early, she was still Jian Wanji’s mother. The mother-daughter bond between them was thin, but there was some interaction, unlike Zeng Baian, who had never met her. Zeng Baian had only met Jian Wanji’s grandmother once and had nightmares for ages.

“What are you looking at?” Perhaps because Jian Wanji had been staring too long, Mi Shanxin looked up, her lower lashes just as distinct.

“Looking at Mama.” Jian Wanji sighed, her tone tinged with teasing. Just then, they reached their floor, and she guided Mi Shanxin out again. “Can’t I look?”

The floor housing the hospice ward was very quiet. Mi Shanxin instinctively lowered her voice to ask, “Don’t I look like her?”

The materials had only arrived today. She was unprepared, and she had to brazen it out.

Mi Shanxin took tasks very seriously. It was like how she’d only stare at the noodles when cooking them. Li Yin had once said she didn’t know how to slack off, subconsciously implying Mi Shanxin was a bit rigid.

It was the same when she taught at the training center. Her students were all little children, making the job more like a preschool teacher’s—it didn’t require such exhaustive effort. Yet Mi Shanxin still meticulously wrote her lesson plans, trying every means to impart something.

“You do.” Jian Wanji saw her unease and smiled. “You forgot, last time you didn’t change into anything, my grandmother still recognized you.”

“Don’t be nervous.” After saying this, the woman strode off to check on the ward. The caregiver saw Jian Wanji and came out to speak with her employer.

Mi Shanxin pushed the door open and went in. The old woman sitting on the sofa watching TV didn’t react.

When Mi Shanxin sat down next to Wan Qingqing, the aged woman slowly turned her head. Her eyes focused on Mi Shanxin’s face, like the final, life-giving dot in a painting, her soul seeming to return to her. She excitedly grasped Mi Shanxin’s hand. “Lingling, you’re out of school?”

Mi Shanxin had a general understanding of Jian Wanji’s family dynamic. She made a sound of agreement and answered with utter conviction, “I’m back, Mama.”

Even through the ward’s glass, Jian Wanji could read Mi Shanxin’s lips.

She stared at the scene inside as she told the caregiver, “From now on, I’ll bring her here every day. For dinner… let’s first see if she can eat the meal plan.”

Elderly meal plans were all too bland. Mi Shanxin was a hardcore braised pork enthusiast. Jian Wanji was more inclined to have a private home cuisine restaurant deliver food boxes daily.

Even though Jian Wanji had adjusted her workload, she couldn’t avoid sudden meetings, unexpected incidents, investors backing out, and the necessary wooing of Party A.

This was how Jian Wanji had spent all these years, and she was used to all emergencies.

Perhaps it was because she’d seen Sui Yuqian dumped for “working too much,” and witnessed the emotional breakdowns of colleagues and subordinates, that she understood how hard it was to balance work and feelings. Someone was destined to make the sacrifice.

Some might ask, why not just choose a partner who doesn’t mind the lack of attention? There must be someone willing.

Friends were like beta-testers for Jian Wanji. Sui Yuqian’s girlfriend, who had initially understood her work, had eventually cheated. Jian Wanji consoled her friend, saying she’d just met the wrong person, but she still lamented that this path seemed to lead nowhere.

No one wants to not be chosen. In work, Jian Wanji was the one doing the choosing, and the one being chosen.

Intellectually, she knew relationships were the same. Yet, she was a stubborn conservative, her soul still that of a greedy gambler, hoping for low risk and high returns in love.

Jian Wanji could guarantee her own absolute fidelity, but she couldn’t demand that of another person.

So she cast aside unnecessary personal feelings, thinking she could avoid that inescapable component of a relationship.

Now, with the Little Mother separated from her by a single door, it was the desire she’d detached from love yet couldn’t escape.

The one in need wasn’t Jian Wanji—it was Mi Shanxin.

At that moment, Mi Shanxin seemed to sense something. She looked over hazily.

Jian Wanji quickly averted her gaze and said to the caregiver, “The girl playing my mother isn’t in very good health either. I’ll have to trouble you to look after her more. I’ll increase your pay.”

The caregiver wasn’t surprised by Mi Shanxin’s arrival; Jian Wanji had briefly mentioned it before.

She asked her employer, “So you’ll just be dropping her off and picking her up?”

The caregiver had some idea of Jian Wanji’s financial power. The hospice ward was a huge expense, burning money daily. Ordinary families couldn’t afford it, preferring to care for the elderly at home.

Jian Wanji was the boss of a big company. Her clothes and accessories didn’t look ordinary. She could easily afford a driver, but most of the time, she preferred to drive herself, as if it gave her more freedom.

Jian Wanji also wanted to minimize her contact with Mi Shanxin this way. “I’ll hire a driver specifically to pick her up and drop her off.”

Even though Mi Shanxin had previously asked if a car would transport her, she hadn’t specifically requested Jian Wanji, which the boss considered a loophole.

Just then, a new message popped up on Jian Wanji’s phone. It was from Mi Shanxin, who had demanded she immerse herself to the point of changing her contact name to ‘Little Mother’—

Is Changchang your nickname, or your mom’s nickname? [T/N: Changchang literally means Intestines]

Jian Wanji stared at the message, hesitating for a long time. She didn’t reply to Mi Shanxin immediately. But soon, Mi Shanxin got the answer from Wan Qingqing herself.

The old lady’s memory and perception of time were scrambled. She treated Mi Shanxin as her daughter still in school, then occasionally jumped to a future timeline’s Wan Lingling, rambling and chattering.

“…A daughter is good. But isn’t the nickname Changchang a bit ugly? What family names a little girl that?”

Mi Shanxin couldn’t help but make a sound of agreement. Wan Qingqing’s eyes suddenly brightened a bit. “Right, Lingling?”

Mi Shanxin was starting to understand why Jian Wanji said her own name in such a roundabout, drawling way.

Maybe it was genetic, or perhaps she’d grown up with her grandmother and learned it naturally.

It was just that the old lady’s way of saying the name wasn’t frivolous at all—it was very affectionate. Unlike Jian Wanji, whose squinty eyes and surgical smile lip were overkill, making her look like bad news.

And this bad daughter still hadn’t replied to her message.

Mi Shanxin glanced outside again. The woman who had been behind the glass was gone.

The caregiver came in, but didn’t disturb them, going off to the side to tidy up.

Mi Shanxin hardly needed to respond. The old lady just looking at her gave her plenty to say.

She brought up her son-in-law, her son, and so on. Some words were spoken very softly. Before Mi Shanxin could even process them, it was on to the next paragraph.

Soon, the evening meal arrived. Jian Wanji followed it in. Seeing Mi Shanxin trailing behind the caregiver, trying to help, she pulled the girl out. “This isn’t your job.”

The woman was strong. Pulling Mi Shanxin was as smooth as pulling up a radish, easily drawing her into her own arms.

The heater was on inside the room. The hallway temperature was also average. The coat Jian Wanji had draped over Mi Shanxin’s shoulders before arriving was now lying on the sofa. Despite that, the mixed scent, like a lingering ghost, quickly wound itself around Mi Shanxin again.

The smell, which leaned toward sulfur soap, was much fainter now, blending with the fabric softener scent on the clothes. It had a cool detachment that was at odds with her presence.

Mi Shanxin sniffed again. Jian Wanji was exasperated. “If you like the scent that much, I’ll give you the perfume and fabric softener, okay?”

“I’ve never used fabric softener.” Mi Shanxin looked at Jian Wanji. “The washing machine at home is semi-automatic.”

That sounded very dated. Luckily, with the internet now, Mi Shanxin wasn’t unfamiliar with things like fabric softener or laundry pods. Perhaps she’d been mocked by her middle school classmates, so she’d frantically absorbed all sorts of knowledge she might never use in this lifetime.

She rarely felt inferior, but she would get frustrated over these small disconnects, even though she knew the fault for any ridicule lay with someone else.

“Don’t tell me it’s one of those washing machines where you have to spin-dry the clothes yourself?” Jian Wanji asked, straightening a shirt cuff that had poked out from her knit sweater. “Washing clothes in winter is such a hassle.”

“That’s why I don’t need it.” Mi Shanxin asked, “Are we eating this food together?”

“I’ll buy you a new one,” Jian Wanji said. “And deliver it with the fabric softener to your home, how about that?”

She didn’t forget to answer Mi Shanxin’s latter question. “Let’s try it first. If it’s not good, we’ll change to something else.”

Mi Shanxin stared at her hand, still tidying her cuff, for a long time. Jian Wanji didn’t know what she was hesitating about. “Have you gotten attached to the old washing machine?”

Mi Shanxin shook her head. “I’m just afraid my father will find out and stop giving me my living allowance. He’ll say I somehow have money to improve my life.”

If Jian Wanji’s family was a scripture impossible to liberate from, then Mi Shanxin’s collected all the worst family tropes. To truly have a father who’d lost all face, a mother who didn’t care, and still be poor was actually quite hard to achieve. It was no wonder Mi Shanxin had insomnia.