Chapter 53

Yang Jie stood from a different perspective. Hearing Ding Ya say that made her even more uneasy. “Then what do you even like about him? Couldn’t it be that his kindness towards you is all a deliberate act?”

Ding Ya had never told her family about any relationships before. The ex-boyfriend phase practically equated to nothing; Ding Ya could barely be bothered to even mention it.

Now, she clearly understood Yang Jie’s meaning. She put down her chopsticks with one hand, reaching under the table to tug at Shu Chi’s clothing.

Lowering her head, Shu Chi didn’t understand the intention.

Ding Ya, however, took her hand and wrote in her palm while speaking: “I like his seriousness towards me.”

Stroke by stroke, she wrote the word ‘like’ onto Shu Chi’s palm.

A feeling as though struck by electricity coursed through Shu Chi’s entire body—tingling and numbing.

She desperately wanted to grasp Ding Ya’s hand but ultimately didn’t hold it.

Ding Ya cupped her own face, looking at Yang Jie said, “Mom, think about Sister Little Qiao. She got divorced this year.”

“And Little Aunt Chen, she’s about your age. Her husband cheated. She spent so many years alone and only just started over again last year.”

“I know you’re not rushing me into marriage, but take Sister Little Qiao’s husband—he’s exactly the type you like, right? Prestigious university graduate, handsome, a dual-income family, and he had a secure, iron rice bowl job. No real pressure, right?”

Sister Little Qiao lived in the same apartment building as Ding Ya, three years her senior. From childhood, she had been the ‘other family’s child’ everyone talked about.

At most, Ding Ya was cute with a sweet tongue. The other girl ranked top few in the entire city for grades.

Such a template of a life. Even the marriage had to be foolproof. Everyone who saw them declared it a match made in heaven.

Yet this year, she got divorced.

Incompatibility. The split was also very ugly.

Yang Jie sighed. “That’s just an isolated case.”

Ding Ya: “But I don’t want to have regrets, Mom.”

Propping her face up, she still vaguely showed the innocent naivety of her childhood. Shu Chi quietly went to cut fruit, perfectly losing her sense of presence.

Yang Jie, however, was quite clear. She tapped Ding Ya’s forehead with her finger. “I can never out-argue you.”

Ding Ya: “Mom can’t out-argue me because she wants me to live a good life.”

She smiled, then looked over at Shu Chi, who was bringing out the freshly cut fruit. “Right, Sister Shu Chi?”

Shu Chi nodded.

Ding Ya’s approach had always been like this—deflecting weighty matters with simple ease combined with sweet talk, making it easy to fudge things over.

Yang Jie looked at Shu Chi. “What about Little Shu? Have you ever been in a relationship? At your age, your parents must have urged you too, right?”

Shu Chi could tell Yang Jie wasn’t the typically feudal, conservative type of parent. She wasn’t authoritarian either, just concerned about these matters.

Most people in small places, once they found stable work, were generally urged to marry.

Life followed a set sequence: study, work, marry, have children, raise children, children marry, help children with their children…

This cyclical repetition could be considered a version of a comfortable life. Some people couldn’t even attain that. At the very least, Shu Chi hadn’t had it so smooth—she hadn’t even finished school.

“I haven’t been in one before. Of course, my family urged me.”

She sat down beside Ding Ya and asked, “Are you full?”

Ding Ya nodded. “It was delicious. Make it for me again sometime, okay?”

Her tone was utterly unceremonious.

Yang Jie felt the atmosphere was exceptionally strange.

A little like how her older son and daughter-in-law acted together.

For a moment, Yang Jie didn’t even know what to say.

“Then, Little Shu, aren’t your parents anxious?”

Shu Chi mm-ed. “They’re anxious. When I was sixteen, they started making arrangements for me.”

After these words, Yang Jie paused, stunned. “Sixteen? Wasn’t that during school time?”

Shu Chi didn’t rush to clear the dishes. She brought over a freshly brewed pot of flower tea and said, “I didn’t go to university. I went out to work very early.”

Yang Jie let out an ‘Ah.’ She thought of the hometown Shu Chi mentioned. That place was indeed a major labor-export province with a high early-marriage rate.

Shu Chi didn’t seem particularly sad about it.

Above the dining table in Ding Ya’s one-room apartment, the overhead light resembled dried grass. The light it cast seemed fragmented as well.

The radiance spilling onto Shu Chi seemed shattered, yet her life was something she had pieced together from shards into something ‘passable.’

Yang Jie asked cautiously, “Do you have other siblings at home?”

Her impression of Shu Chi mostly came from Ding Ya, and Ding Ya had only mentioned her during occasional calls, briefly bringing her up when talking about work.

As a result, Yang Jie’s impression of Shu Chi was jarring: from a stranger delivering a dog, to a collaborating company boss, to someone with whom Ding Ya celebrated her birthday.

This child indeed carried a profound weight.

At this moment, Yang Jie heard Shu Chi hum in agreement. “Two older sisters, one younger brother.”

After the meal, Ding Ya started eating fruit again. The fruit platter was freshly cut, perfectly showcasing Shu Chi’s skill, but Ding Ya was eating too much. Shu Chi took away her bamboo skewer and handed her a cup of tea.

Ding Ya accepted it.

A child from such a family is indeed a bit more considerate.

Yang Jie finished this thought, then found her own notion somewhat absurd. Ding Ya’s partner wasn’t even Shu Chi.

“Then after coming here, do you rarely go home?”

Shu Chi nodded. “Go back for matters or New Year’s.”

She mentioned home without any special emotion, like someone who had been buffeted by life for many years and long held no expectations.

Didn’t attend university, dropped out of senior high to work, ran a stall…

Yang Jie sighed and instinctively took hold of Shu Chi’s hand resting on the table. “Is your relationship with your family good?”

Startled at having her hand held, Shu Chi felt the woman’s hand was very warm. When holding it, it didn’t feel like when Ding Ya held it. Instead, it felt… tolerant.

Shu Chi had forgotten what it felt like to be comforted by a mother.

Her mother was someone purely worn down by life. Shu Chi’s most vivid emotional memory of her was the day her younger sister died.

Yet, by the next day, her mother had returned to normal.

Shu Chi went mute, couldn’t speak. At that time, she couldn’t write many characters either.

But she knew her mother knew. Yet the passing of a life seemed like a single grain of sand scattered into a pond—it sank without anyone knowing.

The shallow sands were also treated as the base sediment at the bottom.

No one cared to discern the difference, or perhaps it was a willful ignorance, knowing the truth inside.

Shu Chi: “It’s alright.”

She gave Yang Jie a smile, seeming overwhelmed by the unexpected affection of such warmth.

Ding Ya had seen that kind of smile before. But now, sitting beside her, watching Shu Chi’s cautiousness, she only felt heartache.

Just how much hardship has this person endured to show an expression close to tears just from a brief touch?

Shu Chi looked unlike someone who cried easily. And yet, it was Yang Jie who cried first. Her tears fell abruptly, startling Shu Chi into standing up to find tissues.

Ding Ya: “Right in front of you.”

She looked at her own mother, finding it both funny and moving. And she thought: What to do? How to say it?

“Just thinking about it seems hard. Building from nothing, Little Shu, it must have been very tough, right?”

Yang Jie patted Shu Chi’s hand while looking at Ding Ya. “Our Ding Ya is different. She didn’t study well, and she’s lazy. In her final senior high year, she was still playing on the computer every day. She almost didn’t get into university and had to repeat a year before she passed.”

Recalling this part, Yang Jie still sighed. Shu Chi was slightly surprised. “Played on the computer?”

She glanced at Ding Ya, reminded of their somewhat similar online romantic experiences.

Before, it was a case of shared misery. Now, it stung a little.

Just a bit.

Shu Chi thought to herself: I must be magnanimous. I did the same thing myself.

Ding Ya, however, felt her brow twitch. She had a feeling something bad was about to happen. She quickly said, “Don’t bring that up anymore. It’s all in the past. Honestly, digging up old accounts now.”

Yang Jie seemed to have a vivid memory of the trouble Ding Ya caused. She had never once enjoyed the occasion of attending a gathering of her daughter’s friends.

When Ding Ya was in university and she went to drop things off, she had only met Shen Mu.

Shen Mu was sweet-talking but young—nowhere near the urge Shu Chi inspired to chat and open up.

Even if Shu Chi didn’t always catch the ball, she gave the feeling of truly listening.

Yang Jie: “Speaking of playing on the computer, her father and I were very busy with work back then. Then we discovered this child was spending her allowance extraordinarily fast…”

Ding Ya: “Mom!”

Yang Jie: “Leave me be.”

Shu Chi was almost amused by this mother-daughter duo. She refilled their tea and asked, “What happened then?”

Ding Ya rarely spoke of her past with her. Mainly because the two of them hadn’t talked that much.

Hearing about a person from those close to them was often the best way.

Initially, Shu Chi had been very nervous. Now, she felt such an opportunity was to be cherished dearly.

Yang Jie had already sunk into reminiscence. Her tone held no complaint. “Her allowance was always more than other kids’. It was one thing if she read comics or bought magazines, but she even spent money in games.”

Shu Chi nodded. “I know, like topping up diamonds and that sort of thing.”

Yang Jie laughed. “You young people just understand. She also played dress-up games, but for a little girl, that’s normal.”

Shu Chi froze. “Dress-up games?”

Ding Ya had no chance to stop her. Yang Jie had already finished speaking.

Clutching a teacup with one hand, Ding Ya’s originally calm heart felt like it was boiling. She was so tense her leg went numb.

Yang Jie pondered those years, without any blaming intention either. “It was all sorts of little dresses, right? That kind where you pay for clothes you can’t even touch. Before that, I discovered she was asking her brother for money.”

After the initial shock passed, Ding Ya felt she could smooth this over. “Just one of those 8k8k browser-based dress-up games. Lots of people played it.”

Shu Chi was somewhat puzzled and asked, “You didn’t need to charge money for that one, right?”

Yang Jie gave an ‘Ai,’ rubbed her forehead, and looked at Ding Ya. “Stop lying to me. Your brother already confessed everything. We just didn’t say anything because we were afraid of hurting your pride back then.”

Ding Ya thought to herself: Saying it now also hurts my pride a lot.

Shu Chi felt she had missed something.

She asked, “Does Auntie know the name of that game?”

Ding Ya quickly cut in. “How could my mom know? She doesn’t play computer games.”

Back then, the computer at home was mostly used by Dad for reading documents, but later he had a laptop and rarely used it. Yang Jie just watched some dance videos.

She hadn’t expected that today, her mother would be particularly competitive, perhaps provoked by her. “Of course I know.”

Yang Jie declared the game’s name, wearing an expression of refusing to be seen as old.

Ding Ya also hadn’t expected her mom to actually know the game’s name. It must have been something Ding Shuqing said back then.

So many years had passed, Ding Ya felt somewhat dazed.

Shu Chi, however, seemed frozen in place. After nearly a full minute, she turned blankly to Ding Ya. “You played it too?”

Ding Ya had countless ways to talk her way out, but her mother today seemed determined to go against her. “Who knows if it’s a teenage thing. Her brother told me she was doing daily tasks every single day for some limited edition dress.”

Ding Ya looked at Shu Chi, her heart racing with nervousness. Yet, she managed an unaffected smile on her face and asked in return, “You played it?”

Yang Jie was still nattering. “Her brother thought Ding Ya wasn’t eating lunch at school just to save up for a dress, but Ding Ya told him someone else sent it to her.”

Parents usually worry about teenage girls starting early romances.

But Yang Jie had never worried about that. Ding Ya had once bluntly stated the boys in her class were all monkeys. What she hadn’t expected was that online games could also be addictive.

But Yang Jie had been too busy back then. By the time Ding Shuqing mentioned it, Ding Ya had already failed her college entrance exams.

Ultimately, she was sent to a repeating school, cut off from the internet and all entertainment until she finished her exams and the ban was lifted.

After Yang Jie finished speaking, she noticed Ding Ya had her head lowered, while Shu Chi was staring blankly.

Her mother asked, “What’s wrong? Are you embarrassed because I hit the mark?”

Yang Jie took a sip of flower tea. She still wanted to ask about that boyfriend, but her phone rang. It was a colleague calling.

Yang Jie: “You’ve already set off for the high-speed rail station? Okay, I’ve finished eating. I’ll leave now.”

Finishing the call, she looked at Ding Ya. Ding Ya’s palm had broken out in a layer of sweat.

This couldn’t be smoothed over. It was too much of a coincidence.

One coincidence could be explained away, but the same experience of an online romance was already a coincidence.

Two coincidences were mostly not coincidences at all.

“Today’s too rushed. I have to go.”

Yang Jie stood up and looked at Shu Chi again. “Thank you, Little Shu. Your cooking skills are really excellent.”

She then looked at Ding Ya with a sense of frustration over her lack of improvement. “Stop always eating takeout. Find some time to learn cooking from her.”

Ding Ya nodded. She stood up to see Yang Jie off, but Yang Jie waved her hand. “No need to see me out.”

As Shu Chi was tidying the bowls and chopsticks, she said, “Let’s see you out. It’s just a few steps.”

She cleaned up the dishes very efficiently. Yang Jie said to Ding Ya, “Don’t you make her wash the dishes.”

Ding Ya gave a hum of agreement. “Mom, I’ll walk you out.”

As she stood up, Shu Chi smiled at her—

“Go see her off. I’ll wait for your return.”

Ding Ya was certain she had been completely exposed. Guiltily averting her face, she hummed an acknowledgment.

The door closed. Shu Chi placed the bowls into the sink. The sound of running water could barely mask her complex, turbulent emotions.

She bowed her head.

So coincidental?

But all the pieces of the past, when strung together, told her—

You were deceived.