Chapter 10

“I told you not to talk nonsense! I told you not to talk nonsense!”

In the spacious living room, the well-dressed woman and the younger woman chased each other around the sofa in a life-and-death sprint. Lin’s mother had a slipper in hand, and she was practically a furious lioness exploding in place.

Lin Yuewei ran for her life. She had been athletic since she was little; at twenty, she was in the prime of her strength and agility, while Lin’s mother lived a life of leisure, going out for tea, manicures, and shopping, or tending flowers at home. How could she possibly keep up? So while Lin Yuewei ran, she had the energy to look back and toss out a cool remark. “Mom, manners, manners. Barefoot in broad daylight at home—what kind of look is that?”

“Your mother is the manners. Stop right there!”

“I’m not stopping; what can you do to me?”

Lin’s mother chased her for a while, only to end up panting with exhaustion. Realizing she truly couldn’t catch her, she cursed that little brat in her heart ten thousand times over and had no choice but to stop. When Lin Yuewei saw her stop, she kept a three-meter distance from Lin’s mother, in case her mother was trying to trick her again and give her another scolding.

Lin’s mother pointed at her. “Can you be a little more innocent? What kind of filthy thoughts are rattling around in that head of yours? I sent you to college to study, and this is what you learned?”

Lin Yuewei said, “I was just making a joke. Who told you to make that expression? Anyone would have read into it, okay?” She muttered under her breath, “And what does college have to do with it? People who didn’t go to college would think the same thing.”

Lin’s mother flared up again, the slipper practically about to launch from her hand. “You still say!”

“I was wrong, I was wrong, I’ll never say it again.” Lin Yuewei tucked her tail between her legs and fled upstairs at top speed.

Lin’s mother’s liver hurt with anger. That brat was getting more and more outrageous by the day; she was already married, and still showed no sign of becoming steady. What if later on... what would she do then? Lin’s mother pressed a hand to her temple, feeling worry and frustration piling up in her chest until it was hard to breathe. She rubbed her hand down over her heart to steady herself.

The phone on the table started ringing. Seeing the caller ID, a complicated look flashed through Lin’s mother’s eyes, and she answered.

“Hello.”

“Qingqing.” Lin’s father’s voice, always full of enthusiasm and affection for her, sounded over the phone.

“Mm.” Lin’s mother replied lightly.

Lin’s father immediately noticed. “Unhappy?”

Lin’s mother said irritably, “Your daughter made me angry again.”

Lin’s father chuckled. “I thought so. Who else would dare make you unhappy? Wait for me to get back and teach her a lesson. I’ve still got three days before I’m home.” He covered the mouthpiece and pointed at a display cabinet, happily telling the clerk, “This one. Pack it up for me.”

Lin’s mother heard the noise on his end; there were people speaking all kinds of languages, from east, west, north, and south. She asked casually, “What are you doing?”

Lin’s father lied, “Finished dinner with a client. Just out for a walk.”

Lin’s mother: “Male client or female client? Walking around with the client?”

Lin’s father deliberately paused. Once Lin’s mother started getting anxious, he answered leisurely, “Male client. I’m walking by myself; I only brought an assistant. If you don’t believe me, I can hand the phone to him.”

Lin’s mother said, “No need. I was just asking. I’m not saying I don’t trust you.”

Lin’s father paid by card, took the gift bag from the counter, and when the assistant beside him reached out to take it, he shook his head and insisted on carrying it himself. Back at the hotel, he carefully packed it into his suitcase.

***

Three days later.

“I’m back.” Lin’s father had his suit jacket draped over one arm and a suitcase in his right hand. He stood at the wide-open front door and found, in a strangely eerie way, that not a single person had come out to greet him.

Where were his wife and daughter?

“Qingqing? Lin Yuewei?” Lin’s father dragged his suitcase into the house and saw a woman collapsed on the sofa with her hair in disarray. The shape of her figure looked very much like his wife, and when he brushed the tangled hair away from her face, it really was.

Lin’s father felt his soul leave his body by three parts at once. “Qingqing!”

Lin’s mother opened her eyes weakly. “I’m not dead yet. If you’d come any later, I really would have been.”

“What happened?”

“Ask your dear daughter.”

“She angered you again?” Lin’s father thought to himself; that couldn’t be. At home, Lin’s mother and Lin Yuewei were usually evenly matched. How had things gotten this miserable? Angered to the point of being sent to heaven and back?

Lin’s mother closed her eyes tiredly and didn’t want to respond.

Lin’s father asked, “Where is she?”

Lin’s mother said, “Out running wild. She’ll be back tonight. Let her tell you.”

“Fine; I’ll educate her later.” Lin’s father helped Lin’s mother sit up on the sofa, combed out her hair, wiped her face, then turned to open his suitcase and take out the gift he had prepared long ago. “Guess what I bought you?”

Lin’s mother had little interest. “What?”

“That thing you said you really wanted last time.” Lin’s father took a beautifully wrapped box from a logo-embossed bag. It was a watch box. “Open it yourself.”

Lin’s mother opened it and froze.

It was...

A deep-blue enamel watch dial, ringed with a circle of tiny diamonds; it was obviously expensive at a glance. On the face was a painted landscape of houses and mountains, with a small bridge spanning the center. On the bridge stood a boy and a girl holding an umbrella, and a silver moon hung above them. The tip of the girl’s umbrella was the hour hand; the boy was the minute hand. Every time twelve o’clock came around, the two would meet at the center of the bridge and kiss under the moonlight overhead.

The watch had a very romantic name: Lover’s Bridge.

Lin’s father said, “I had someone help me look for it, but I never managed to find one. This time I went to Dubai on a business trip, and it happened to coincide with a watch exhibition, so I thought I’d try my luck. I really did see it there. Luckily I moved quickly; it almost got sold out. Come on, let me put it on for you.”

A slender, pale wrist now wore the deep-blue watch; the boy and girl on its face were inching closer to each other, second by second.

Lin’s mother barely lifted the corners of her mouth, still looking gloomy.

Lin’s father tried to persuade her several times to no avail. When he asked what was wrong, she refused to say. In the end, he had no choice but to call Lin Yuewei straight back home from outside. Lin Yuewei stepped through the front door half an hour later. “Dad, you’re back.”

Lin’s father nodded faintly and jerked his chin toward the sofa. “Sit. I have something to talk to you about.”

“Mom told you?” Lin Yuewei was still a little afraid of her father. Hearing this, she sat down obediently, sneaking glances at her mother from time to time.

“She wants you to tell me yourself.”

Lin Yuewei looked at her mother in confusion, unable to understand why someone who usually discussed everything with her husband had, even after their argument had already passed, still restrained herself from pouring it all out to Lin’s father.

“Dad, I plan to take part in a program.” Since it was something she had already decided on, even with her father here, Lin Yuewei would never back down.

Lin’s father had not yet caught the implication behind her words. “What program?”

“A reality show with ordinary people,” Lin Yuewei said. “I plan to use it to officially enter the entertainment industry.”

“The entertainment industry?” Lin’s father’s business normally had nothing to do with showbiz, so he was momentarily baffled. What kind of circle was that, anyway? But half a second later, he reacted. The ever-composed Lin’s father showed a look of disbelief. “Say that again.”

Lin Yuewei took a deep breath. “I said I want to enter the entertainment industry. I want to become a big star. I want to act. I want to become famous.”

Lin’s father tried to use his gift for persuasion, speaking kindly. “Weiwei, listen to me. Let’s look at this from another angle...”

To cut off his brainwashing at the root, Lin Yuewei covered her ears with both hands and shouted, “I’m not listening to your reasoning! I’ve made up my mind, and I’m not changing it!”

“Nonsense!” Lin’s father’s face changed dramatically.

“I’m not being ridiculous. I’m already prepared; I even passed the final round. In a few days, the program will start filming.”

“When did you prepare this?”

“Over the past few months.”

“You—” Lin’s father finally understood why Lin’s mother had been driven so mad. “I already announced to the company that you’d be coming to the group to gain experience, and now you pull this on me?”

“I never agreed to that. That was your own decision.”

“In the Lin family, you’re the only daughter. If you’re going into that so-called entertainment industry, what happens to the family business?”

“You can do whatever you want with it!”

“Lin Yuewei!”

“Lin—Dad!”

Father and daughter each raised their voices louder than the other.

Lin’s mother had once naively believed that Lin’s father could talk Lin Yuewei down, or at the very least slow things down and then work gradually until she gave up the idea. Who knew she would be this determined, not willing to listen to a single word? She had argued fiercely with her mother last night, and today she seemed to be preparing for another full-scale battle with her father.

***

Gu Yanqiu checked the office lights one last time to make sure they were all off before locking the main door outside.

She was almost always the last one to leave work every day. The elevator was empty, and even a slightly heavier breath would echo in it. If it were another lone woman, she might have been so frightened her nerves would tremble; but Gu Yanqiu’s expression was calm, her gaze fixed ahead, no one knew what she was thinking.

Ding—

The elevator arrived at the underground level. Using the light from the parking garage, Gu Yanqiu found her car and drove away from the office building. High-rises stood packed together in the city, all steel and iron; Gu Yanqiu had been back in the country for a few months, yet she still often found the scene unfamiliar.

She didn’t turn on the navigation. Unknowingly, she veered off course; when she realized it, she simply let it be, opened the car roof, and let the evening wind brush across her face, ruffling her long hair.

Ahead of her, not far away, she saw a woman wandering aimlessly on the street. The figure from behind looked like Lin Yuewei.

Gu Yanqiu slowed the car.

A small sports car was following behind at a leisurely pace; Lin Yuewei noticed her too.

Their eyes met in a flash. Gu Yanqiu stepped on the accelerator and shot forward. With a dull roar of the engine, the empty road was left with only thick exhaust; it hit first like a wave, then seeped in little by little into Lin Yuewei’s nose, lingering long after.

Lin Yuewei: ?!!!

Author’s note: Little skit—Lin Yuewei: Is this fucking my destined woman?!!

Gu Yanqiu: Here, have your exhaust back ╭(╯^╰)╮

President Gu: Madly keeping score.jpg