Chapter 6

After dinner, Fang Zhizhu returned to her own room. Chen Nian stared blankly at her retreating back, her feet inching forward of their own accord until Liu Chunhua grabbed her arm and yanked her back.

“Don’t you want to go home?” Liu Chunhua whispered. “Did you already forget what was said back in the office?”

Chen Nian bit her lower lip and hung her head, with no choice but to follow her parents out of the Welfare Institute.

If she were an independent adult right now, she would spend the night next door to Fang Zhizhu and start the adoption paperwork first thing tomorrow. But she wasn’t.

She was just a seven-year-old child. She shouldn’t even be running around on her own, let alone anything else—food, drink, and shelter all depended on her parents.

Chen Nian shrank back her arm, slipping free of her mother’s grip. At Liu Chunhua’s sharp glare, she quickly slipped her hand into her mother’s palm.

“I haven’t forgotten,” Chen Nian said. “I always keep my word.”

A child’s hand was small and soft; Liu Chunhua couldn’t stay angry with her. The three of them stood at the Welfare Institute’s entrance, waiting for a ride. The place was too remote for taxis, so Dean Su came out again. “Take the bus,” she suggested. “There’s one coming soon. Once you’re in the city, it’ll be easy to get around.”

“All right, thank you,” Chen Junjie said with a nod.

The dean saw them off, waiting until they had boarded before turning back inside.

The bus wasn’t crowded. The family of three took seats in the back row, with Chen Nian sandwiched in the middle.

Liu Chunhua kept a firm grip on her hand. A few minutes later, she turned to Chen Junjie. “What do you think Dean Su was getting at?”

Chen Junjie glanced at her, looking a little dazed. “Getting at what?”

Liu Chunhua frowned. “She went on like that, and you didn’t pick up on a single hint?”

Chen Junjie shrugged. “Everything’s got some kind of subtext these days. I can’t process it all. At work, it’s implications from morning to night. Go out for a chat with someone, and bam—more implications.”

Liu Chunhua snorted. “And that’s exactly why you’ll never get promoted.”

“Hey, how’d this turn into my problem again…” Chen Junjie grumbled, thoroughly exasperated.

Chen Nian frowned too. Her dad did come off as a bit dim. As a kid, she’d always seen him as the classic nice guy—no temper, always smoothing over conflicts, no big accomplishments, just quietly keeping their family afloat.

It wasn’t until she grew up and tasted the grind of work herself that she understood, sitting there with him over tea and chess. Her dad wasn’t clueless at all.

He just didn’t want to play that game.

Didn’t want to navigate all the unspoken hints and flattery for a higher position. Didn’t even care about achieving great things or reaching the peak of success.

Because anything worth having always came at a cost.

Whether that mindset was good or bad hardly mattered. Right now, Chen Nian had a head full of wants, and the only way to make them real was through her parents.

So she tugged her father’s sleeve with her free hand. “Dad, I think Dean Su was hinting that you should adopt Fang Zhi.”

Chen Junjie: “…”

Liu Chunhua swatted the top of Chen Nian’s head. “Don’t spout nonsense. If you want her, just say so—don’t put words in other people’s mouths.”

Chen Nian rubbed her smarting scalp and admitted it freely. “You’re right, Mom. I do want her.”

Liu Chunhua eyed her. “You’re just smitten because she’s pretty.”

Chen Nian blinked. What was it about Fang Zhizhu that drew her in? She hadn’t really pinned it down.

Fang Zhizhu was perfect, after all—everything about her was flawless. Pick any trait, and it was enough to make anyone fall head over heels.

Her other qualities hadn’t come into focus yet, though. And who didn’t love a beauty? Pretty was always a safe bet.

So Chen Nian owned up to it again. “Yes, Mom. I want a pretty big sister.”

Chen Junjie suddenly chuckled. “What about a pretty little sister?”

Chen Nian’s face scrunched up in horror. She bit back her first retort and tried a gentler tack. “Dad, do you think I’m pretty?”

Chen Junjie opened his mouth, but Chen Nian rushed on. “As pretty as half of Fang Zhi?”

Chen Junjie snapped his mouth shut. Message received.

She was saying he couldn’t produce a sister that gorgeous.

Liu Chunhua burst out laughing. “Lucky our little Niannian takes after me and turned out halfway decent. If she’d gotten your looks, think of the teasing she’d endure.”

Chen Junjie: “…”

Chen Nian pressed her advantage. “So, Mom, let’s adopt a pretty big sister!”

Liu Chunhua’s laughter faded, her expression turning steely. “Absolutely not.”

This wasn’t like buying a toy or adopting a puppy—a bit of cash and some care, and you were done.

They were talking about a child. A child with her own memories and independent thoughts. A child scarred by severe trauma and stress disorders. No one adopted a kid like that on a whim.

Children didn’t grasp these things. But a mother? She knew better than anyone.

The car drove quietly along the road. Liu Chunhua’s face was somber, and Chen Junjie occasionally tried to make small talk with her. Rejected though she was, Chen Nian neither cried nor fussed. She sat in silence, staring intently into the empty interior of the car, lost in a daze.

When they reached the city, they switched to a taxi and finally made it home.

At that time, Chen Nian’s family was still living in the apartment her father had been allocated by his workplace. The old neighborhood wasn’t terribly rundown yet, and their seven-story residential building loomed tall amid the shorter structures around it.

There was no elevator, and home was on the fifth floor. Chen Nian hadn’t climbed more than a few steps before the pain in her feet grew too intense to conceal.

She began to limp. Liu Chunhua spotted it right away, dropped to a crouch on the spot, pulled her daughter onto her lap, and slipped off her shoes.

“Where does it hurt?” she asked with a furrowed brow.

“It’s rubbed raw,” Chen Nian said, pointing to her heel.

Her socks were dark cotton, hiding the damage, but Chen Nian knew several spots on her feet were bleeding, the blood crusted to the fabric. Yanking the socks off now would be excruciating.

“Come back here and carry your daughter!” Liu Chunhua bellowed at Chen Junjie.

He hurried over, squatted down, and carefully hoisted Chen Nian onto his back before climbing steadily up the stairs.

With her cheek pressed against her father’s back, Chen Nian suddenly felt a wave of guilt toward her parents. But she had no choice—she could only keep drawing from them, siphoning their love and the energy she needed to survive.

By the time they reached the apartment, her tears had soaked a huge patch on her father’s shirt.

Her feet were still injured, and she was sobbing like this—Liu Chunhua hadn’t the heart to scold her. She knelt by the sofa, tending to the blisters and wounds on Chen Nian’s feet as gently as she could.

When she finally looked up, Chen Nian had slumped sideways on the sofa and fallen asleep.

A child’s energy was finite. Utterly spent, she plunged into slumber, her dreams as black as night.

The next morning, her mother woke Chen Nian. Breakfast was already on the table. They ate quickly, then it was off to school.

Before the age of eighteen, school was the be-all and end-all. Chen Nian didn’t dawdle. She washed up in record time and scarfed down her meal.

Her mother had already slipped on her shoes. Limping, Chen Nian turned back toward the house.

“What are you doing?” Liu Chunhua called from the doorway. “You left your backpack at school yesterday!”

A loud crash echoed from inside.

Liu Chunhua slammed the front door—which had been standing open—and rushed to Chen Nian’s room. “Did you fall?”

She hadn’t.

Chen Nian held a trash bin in one hand and a book in the other, using the book to sweep the shards of broken glass from the desk into the bin so she wouldn’t cut herself.

Liu Chunhua: “…”

Once the fragments were cleared, Chen Nian turned to the money scattered across the desk—the largest bills fifties, the smallest a single jiao, along with a pile of coins.

Liu Chunhua stepped closer. “Why’d you smash your piggy bank?”

“To get the money,” Chen Nian replied.

“What for?”

“To see the pretty big sister.”

Not a bit surprising.

After yesterday, Liu Chunhua had achieved total equanimity. Arms crossed, she watched her daughter count the bills one by one. Those pudgy little hands moved with surprising dexterity—she had real potential as a bank teller.

Chen Nian finished counting, folded the paper money into a neat stack, and tucked it into the inner pocket of her jacket. The coins went jingling into her pants pocket.

“How much?” Liu Chunhua asked.

Chen Nian patted her pocket. “One hundred ninety-eight yuan and fifty fen.”

Liu Chunhua whistled. “Wow, you’re rich.”

Chen Nian tilted her head back and beamed with pure, innocent delight. “Thank you, Mom. My classmates all say that once you hand your New Year’s money over to your parents, it’s gone forever. But my mom is the best—she gives me all my money back.”

Liu Chunhua quirked her lips. “If only you put this much effort into math exams.”

Math had always been Chen Nian’s weak spot. She’d crammed for two straight years in high school just to scrape by and make it into a top university.

At her current age, higher mathematics was beyond her, but second-grade arithmetic? That she could ace without breaking a sweat.

She swore right then and there: “Mom, I promise—next test, I’ll get perfect scores in everything.”

Liu Chunhua eyed her skeptically.

“For real,” Chen Nian insisted. “Let’s bet. If I don’t, all this money is yours.”

Liu Chunhua couldn’t shake the feeling that her daughter was gaming the system—even if she failed, she’d just forfeit the bet later and hand over the cash. Either way, Chen Nian was keeping it for now.

But surely a kid didn’t have schemes that devious… did she?

Liu Chunhua bundled Chen Nian out the door, wrapping her tightly in a big scarf before carrying her to the bicycle’s rear seat.

The bike cut through the dry, biting winter wind as Liu Chunhua pedaled along, lost in thought about her parenting approach.

She had graduated from high school, which made her one of the better-educated girls of her generation, but she had always regretted not getting into university.

Strong-willed by nature, she refused to follow most of the women around her into becoming stay-at-home housewives after marriage. She wanted to earn her own money, so no matter how exhausting it was to care for the children, she never gave up her sewing work.

Later on, she read plenty of books just to raise her daughter better. Her temper might have been sharp, but she always respected the girl’s ideas and tried to resolve their conflicts as equals.

That was why Chen Nian had grown up quirky and mischievous, her head full of all sorts of wild, unconventional notions. Liu Chunhua had been thrilled by it.

But now that her daughter’s eccentricity had spiraled into a major crisis, Liu Chunhua suddenly wasn’t sure whether she should keep indulging it.

After dropping Chen Nian off at school, Liu Chunhua’s face felt numb from the biting wind.

She rubbed her cheeks and turned back to lift Chen Nian out of the car, only to find the girl had already hopped down on her own.

“Doesn’t your foot hurt?” Liu Chunhua’s voice shot up.

“It doesn’t hurt anymore.” Chen Nian shook her head. “Mom, I’ll be careful.”

She unwound the big scarf from around her head and tugged at it. “Mom, lower your head.”

Liu Chunhua didn’t budge.

“Come on, Mom. Niannian will put the scarf on you.”

Liu Chunhua turned her face away, snatched the scarf, and wrapped it around her own neck. “What’s your plan for today? Still thinking of bolting from school?”

“No, I’ll sit through all my classes like a good girl.”

Liu Chunhua arched a brow. “And then?”

“I’ll go after school lets out this afternoon.”

Liu Chunhua fell silent.

Chen Nian patted her pocket. “I’ve got money. I’ll take the bus.”

Liu Chunhua fell silent again.

“I’ll be home before dark.”

Liu Chunhua let out a long breath and gave her a smack on the back. “Go on, get to class.”

The thick down jacket turned Chen Nian into a little cannonball, round and puffy as she waddled off.

She slipped into the Grade 2 Class 3 classroom without a glance at the odd stares from the other kids all around her. She plopped down at her seat.

Her deskmate was putting on a show of early morning reading from his textbook, though his eyes flicked to her face a dozen times.

Chen Nian fished her textbook out of her pocket and leafed through it. Too childish—way too childish. She could ace this stuff blindfolded, or even writing with her toes.

“Chen Nian, did you finish your homework?” her deskmate asked.

“What homework?” Chen Nian replied.

He pointed at the Chinese textbook. “Copying the new characters ten times.”

Chen Nian turned to him. “What’s your name?”

After yesterday’s chaos, he wasn’t fazed by the question. “Lin Tianyi!” he answered promptly.

“Oh,” said Chen Nian.

“Chen Nian, did you finish your homework? The group leader’s collecting them. We’ve got a dictation in Chinese class today.”

Chen Nian rummaged in her desk pouch and pulled out her Chinese workbook. Mimicking her own childish scrawl from years ago, she finished it in minutes.

Lin Tianyi’s eyes went wide. “!!!!”

“And math…” he added.

Ten minutes later, Chen Nian turned in all her workbooks.

Lin Tianyi: “!!!!”

Lin Tianyi was too stunned to speak. He could only gaze at Chen Nian in total awe.

Kids in this era had no phones or computers. The fun things to do at school were few and far between. Normally, Wang Xiaoming coming down with a fever yesterday would have been the talk of Grade 2 Class 3 for the entire day—the kind of thing they’d repeat to their parents three times at home. But Chen Nian’s dramatic escape, evading teachers, the director, and a swarm of older kids, had already turned her into a full-blown legend in the class.

Someone who could defy the whole school? She was incredible—terrifyingly so!!!

Lin Tianyi buzzed with excitement and nerves all day, just from sitting next to the legend. Chen Nian, meanwhile, was bored to tears, dying to dash out to the playground and run through a set of Tai Chi.

So boring. Elementary school lessons were painfully dull. The teachers’ awkward glaring and forced loud voices—cringeworthy. And the classmates… they were all so dim.

At long last, the afternoon bell rang for dismissal. Best of all, elementary school got out early.

The sun still blazed brightly overhead, the light abundant, the air laced with warmth.

Chen Nian shot out of line first, streaking toward the school gate under the horrified stares of her classmates.

Then Liu Chunhua blocked her path.

Chen Nian: “…”

Liu Chunhua: “…”

Chen Nian: “…”

Liu Chunhua: “…”

A flood of students poured out behind her, a mighty tide of little suns.

Tiny Chen Nian stood hemmed in by the crowd, looking frail, pitiful, and helpless. Her small single-eyelid eyes peered up at her mother.

Liu Chunhua glanced at her foot and patted the bicycle seat. “Hop on.”

Chen Nian: “Woo…”

“Look at the pretty sister,” Liu Chunhua said.

“Awooo!!!” Chen Nian cried out.