After receiving that order, I didn't return to the private dining room with Shen Ci. I grabbed my bag and left the studio, practically running away.
I really was exhausted. The moment my head hit the pillow, I fell asleep—and started dreaming.
At first, the dream was nothing but a murky void, black mist churning everywhere.
Then a long, slender hand tore through the darkness from somewhere, and light flooded in, so bright and clear it hurt my eyes.
Before me was Nam City ten years ago.
Shen Ci and I had first met because I returned a book to him, but that was where it ended.
He was the school heartthrob of the entire grade, topping the honor roll every year. The principal had once shed tears and proudly praised him as the school's pride during the school's centennial celebration.
A handsome, tall, brilliant young man—there was no doubt he was the dream of countless girls.
I had accidentally witnessed girls give him love letters more than once. He would usually keep his hands in his pockets and lean against the railing, listening in silence before lowering his head and apologizing.
Sometimes, I would stand at the very back and secretly rise onto my toes to watch, listening as he turned them down. Somehow, I always felt strangely relieved.
His classroom was right next to mine, so I would deliberately stay a few minutes late just to see him a couple more times, even if it was from a distance, surrounded by a crowd of girls.
I understood perfectly well that picking up and returning a book had only been a brief intersection between two parallel lines. Afterward, we would return to our own paths and never cross again.
Even though I had a little crush on him, I had never imagined I could reach someone like Shen Ci.
But fate loved to toy with people. One ordinary afternoon during my junior year, I began sliding helplessly toward him.
That day, while I was bent over taking notes, my homeroom teacher called me outside.
She offered a few words of comfort before slowly breaking the news:
“Jiang Chu, your mother was hit by a truck while she was out shopping. She died at the scene.”
For the sixteen-year-old girl I was then, it felt like a bolt of lightning out of the blue.
When I got home, the cramped house was packed with relatives discussing the burial and dividing up the money for the funeral expenses. Even my father, who had been missing for four years, had shown up, puffing on a cigarette in the corner and coldly waving a hand.
“Keep it cheap. It’s not like she had any money.”
In the end, my relatives agreed on the cheapest option—burying my mother in the same grave as my grandmother.
My grandmother had been cruel when she was alive, constantly cursing and egging my father on to beat my mother. My mother had resented her all her life, so if she knew this was happening, it would have caused her unbearable pain.
“Get out! All of you, get out! Nobody touches my mother!” I screamed, my eyes red.
The murmuring gradually died down. The looks they gave me were filled with pity, confusion, or mockery. No one listened to a child's voice anymore.
They stood on the high ground of “morality,” scolded me for being insolent, then locked me in a damp basement while they arranged a bare-bones funeral for my mother without my consent.
Three days after my mother was buried, my father—Li Jin—brought home a ten-year-old boy, claiming he was my younger brother, the mistress's son.
They had nowhere to live, so they simply took over my mother's house and stayed as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
As he moved their belongings in, Li Jin said:
“Your mother's dead. I don't have money to keep you in school anymore. Drop out and get a job to support your little brother. As long as one kid from this house makes something of himself, that's all that matters.”
I had just carried a platter of food to the table. The moment I heard that, I swept it straight onto the floor.
A beating followed immediately. His son—Li Yanming—held my arms tightly while Li Jin wielded a stick thicker than my arm and brought it down on my back again and again.
“You little brat! Think you're tough? How dare you knock over the table?”
I gritted my teeth and endured it, sneaking out around midnight to buy antiseptic.
I didn't have enough money. I apologized, took back the crumpled bills, and went to a park, where I curled up on a stone bench.
It was dark, with only the sound of insects around me. I trembled from the pain and cold, trying not to cry.
As my consciousness gradually blurred, I heard a clear young voice:
“Jiang Chu, what are you doing here so late?”
It was like light piercing the mist and driving back the darkness.
I looked up and saw Shen Ci crouching in front of me, his brows slightly furrowed, his dark eyes fixed on me.
I meant to smile and tell him I was fine, but my tears refused to obey me. They just kept falling faster and faster.
In the end, I gave up, buried my face, and sobbed.
He grew flustered, his voice stumbling:
“Uh... don't cry... Girls crying scares me the most.”
“If something's bothering you, go home and tell your parents. It's dangerous to be out this late at night.”
But the moment he mentioned “parents,” I cried even harder.
Helpless, he could only pat my back lightly, as if soothing a cat.
“All right, all right, don't cry anymore. I'll take you out for something good to eat.”
His hand accidentally brushed against one of my wounds, making me hiss. The sound reached his ears.
His gaze darkened.
“Who did this?”
He carried me straight to the nearest hospital.
On his back, my consciousness drifted in and out. All I could smell was a faint scent of mint and orange, like soap drying in the sun.
I vaguely heard the doctor ask:
“What are you to the patient?”
“I'm her brother.” He answered without the slightest hesitation.
It was three days before I returned to school.
My father came to make a scene twice, and the entire school learned that I had a hot-tempered, gambling father.
After that, whenever I walked by, my classmates always looked at me with pity.
My homeroom teacher called me into his office and said:
“Your father hasn't paid your tuition and plans to make you drop out. The school reviewed your grades and decided to waive your tuition, but you'll have to take care of your living expenses yourself.”