Chapter 2

Yu Shengyu didn’t stay long. He was swamped with work and left after taking a call partway through. He didn’t even tell Yu Min himself; it was Zhou Jin who let her know he’d already gone back.

“Uncle said he’ll come in a couple of days. He’s got something to deal with, and he’ll come see you then,” Zhou Jin relayed word for word. “Looks like he went to a meeting. They were hounding him pretty hard.”

Yu Min was used to it. Back home, it was always like this; both her parents were workaholics, and once they got busy, forgetting about her was normal.

“There’s a family dinner tonight. Third Uncle booked a table at Hongxing Restaurant. I’ll call you when it’s time to head out; we’ll go in one car,” Zhou Jin said, then passed on his mother’s message too. “Grandpa and Grandma came over this afternoon. There are a lot of people here, everyone’s around.”

Yu Min gave a quiet mm and agreed.

“Okay.”

“Leave at five.”

“Got it.”

The family got together here now and then. The older generation of the Yu family loved arranging these meals to show off the family’s harmony. In the past, Zheng Qing had always taken Yu Min along. This time, Zheng Qing would definitely not show up, and Yu Min didn’t want to go either; still, she had to. As long as they were free, all the younger generation had to attend. She couldn’t make herself the exception, or she’d ruin the old people’s mood and make things even more awkward.

Besides, tonight’s dinner was probably meant to deal with her parents’ marriage crisis. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have thrown something together at the last minute. Before, meals were usually announced several days in advance.

Ever since the couple had fought, Zheng Qing had disappeared; she hadn’t gone back to her parents’ home, and no one had been able to get in touch with her.

Zheng Qing had a fierce temper. She hadn’t left empty-handed either; she’d taken all the property deeds, bank cards, and even the factory seal. Yu Min tried to find her, worried she might do something extreme in a fit of impulse, but not a single call went through.

Maybe because she thought Yu Min would be Yu Shengyu’s messenger, helping him deal with her, Zheng Qing had acted decisively and ruthlessly, cutting off all ties with this side in one stroke.

In her hurry to leave, she had even forgotten her phone.

Yu Min still refused to give up. She checked twice more, rummaging through the side pocket of her backpack until she reached the bottom, thinking she must have brought it; in the end, she hadn’t.

She wanted to call Zheng Qing again, but she didn’t know whether Zheng Qing had removed her from the blacklist yet. Yu Shengyu was in the car, so it wasn’t convenient. Without her phone, she couldn’t make a call right then; she could only wait and find time to go back and look for it later.

The live-in maid brought things into the room, setting a few essentials on the table and reminding her of a few things. Her attitude was rather distant, all business.

Maybe it was just Yu Min’s imagination, but the maid didn’t seem to like her much. Only after the woman finished speaking did Yu Min remember that the maid was a distant relative from her own family; by seniority, even Aunt had to address her as Cousin Aunt.

Since she was a relative of the Yu family, it made sense that she might not warm to the daughter of Zheng Qing.

Sending her to Aunt’s house had been Yu Shengyu’s own decision. Aunt and the others were already unhappy about it; when the siblings discussed it, the phone was on speaker, and Yu Min heard every word from the side.

Zheng Qing could keep a man on the side in secret and still do something this decisive; she must have been plotting it for a long time. Whether Yu Min was even Yu Shengyu’s daughter was still up in the air. They had never done a paternity test, so who knew whose child she really was.

“If you need anything else, just come downstairs to find us,” the maid said politely enough; there was nothing to fault in her words.

Yu Min turned her back and tidied the drawers. Inside was a remote; she took it out and put it on the cabinet, growing even quieter.

When she went downstairs again, there was only Aunt’s family of three on the first floor. Lin Baixin was nowhere to be seen.

After looking around, Yu Min lowered her eyes and asked Aunt if she could be sent home a little later so she could get her phone.

These days everyone used electronic payment. She didn’t have any cash on her, and she hadn’t brought a card either, so she couldn’t withdraw money. Other than asking the adults for help, there was no other way.

“Maybe in a couple of days. I don’t have time today,” Aunt said, thinking she was just bored and wanted something electronic to play with. “I have to pick up your grandparents tonight, and your uncle won’t be free either. There’s a computer on the third floor; you can use that for now.”

Yu Min wasn’t one to make a fuss. A couple of days was fine; it didn’t matter.

Her uncle, caught in the middle, smoothed things over. He was quite considerate of Yu Min and didn’t mention anything he shouldn’t, keeping his usual good-natured image.

The dinner that night was destined to be dull. The private room’s table was even bigger than the guest rooms on the third floor. Everyone there was a relative from the main branch. Family disgrace was not to be aired in public; Third Uncle, who was hosting, was a real tactician, and anyone who shouldn’t be invited had been excluded. Those who came were the ones who could speak up and offer ideas.

Unlike the treatment she had once received at the center of everyone’s attention, Yu Min was relegated to the sidelines tonight. When Grandpa and Grandma came in, she stood up obediently and greeted each of them politely.

The two elders were full of worry, their faces tight. Yu Min couldn’t say where Zheng Qing was, and the whole family assumed she was deliberately hiding it. The old people couldn’t mask their resentment, and it inevitably showed on their faces.

Yu Min was arranged to sit in a corner by the wall, far away from the two elders. Out of sight, out of mind; it also spared the old people from getting so upset they made themselves ill.

Zhou Jin was thoughtful. He went over to the elders and said a few nice things to cheer them up, then took the seat beside Yu Min’s left hand and let out an exaggerated sigh as if by accident. “Sigh, my sister didn’t come, so she missed this whole table of good food.”

Whether Yu Min cared or not, Zhou Jin kept talking, tossing out one topic after another like shaking beans from a sieve. “She went to see her classmates and made plans to go shopping. I wanted to go too, but she wouldn’t let me, said I was annoying.”

Middle schoolers were on summer break, and university students were too. Lin Baixin was about to start her first year of grad school; this year she was twenty-two, seven years older than them. The gap between an adult and a bunch of kids who hadn’t even finished growing was huge. Zhou Jin had been hoping to use the summer break to shadow his sister and go have some fun, but Lin Baixin didn’t like hanging around children. She only came home once in half a year, and when she did, she shook Zhou Jin off wherever she went.

Stuck at home all day, Zhou Jin envied Lin Baixin’s freedom. Aunt watched him strictly, and he didn’t even dare to rebel; when he got the chance to complain to Yu Min, he still couldn’t do it too openly.

Lin Baixin’s father had been Uncle Xiao’s best friend. Around their age, her parents had both died in a car accident. The Lin family didn’t have any other elders, and Uncle Xiao had taken Lin Baixin in more as a way to help her when things happened. He hadn’t really contributed all that much. After her parents died, Lin Baixin inherited a large fortune, and Uncle Xiao had even less say over her. If she didn’t come to tonight’s gathering, no one could force her.

Lin Baixin didn’t live with Aunt’s family. She had her own house, right next door; the detached house beside Aunt’s home belonged to her.

This morning Lin Baixin had just come back from Kyoto to Siping. She’d been free in the daytime and came over for a visit, only to run into Yu Min and the others by chance.

It wasn’t certain how long she’d stay this trip. By custom, it was usually about half a month, never more than a month.

Yu Min couldn’t speak for anyone else, but Zhou Jin truly treated Lin Baixin like family. He was talkative and always rambling. Yu Min hated messy family gossip, and maybe because the dinner itself was even more irritating, she let Zhou Jin chatter on while she answered only occasionally, listening from the side.

The meal dragged on until well past midnight before it finally ended. Yu Min hadn’t absorbed a single word from the elders’ conversation. On the way back, passing the house next door, she couldn’t help glancing over a few more times.

The neighboring house was dark. It was almost midnight; the owner probably had already gone to bed, or perhaps hadn’t returned yet.

The night wind brushed lightly past, carrying the lingering heat of the day.

The small room on the third floor faced that direction. Once she was back in the room, switched off the lights, and lay down, she could turn over and see the opposite house through the window.

Yu Min was picky about where she slept and wasn’t used to staying in someone else’s home. The cramped room seemed to close in on her in the dark, and the thin blanket pressing against her chest made it hard to breathe. She was clearly very sleepy, but no matter how much she tossed and turned, she couldn’t fall asleep.

Her mind was in chaos; the more awake she became, the more restless she felt.

Then a light came on in the second floor of the house across the way.

The distance between the two buildings was too great for the glow to reach here. This side remained pitch-black; the white light on the other side looked almost blinding.

Someone was home.

Yu Min instinctively reached for her phone to check the time, then remembered half a minute later that she hadn’t brought it.

What time was it?

One? Or two?

It was late, anyway.

The curtains on the other side hadn’t been drawn. From this distance she couldn’t make out details, only a vague human silhouette.

Lin Baixin was alone; the classmate or whoever it had been wasn’t there.

Very soon, the light went out.

Yu Min stared blankly for a while, lost in thought. When she finally came back to herself, her original tangled worries no longer connected properly in her head. She shifted under the covers, pulled the blanket tighter, and kept trying to coax sleep into coming.

She didn’t sleep soundly in the second half of the night and dreamed. When she woke, it was past nine. The downside of not drawing the curtains was that the morning sun slanted straight into the room. Even with the air conditioner running, she woke up damp with sweat.

By this hour Aunt had already gone out to work. Uncle and Zhou Jin weren’t around, and no one had told Yu Min where they’d gone or what time they’d be back.

The upstairs and downstairs were both silent, empty.

The small room on the third floor didn’t have a private bathroom like most of the other rooms, so Yu Min showered in the shared area on the first floor. She had no change of clothes and made do with yesterday’s outfit.

After washing up, she went to the convenience store outside the neighborhood and borrowed the clerk’s phone to make a call. On the surface Yu Min looked perfectly composed, but in truth her ears were burning with embarrassment. She promised that once she got money, she’d pay the clerk’s phone bill. The clerk was a kind young woman and generously said, “It’s okay; my calls are free. Don’t worry about it, just use it.”

Zheng Qing’s phone still didn’t go through. It was switched off. Yu Shengyu didn’t answer either; he was so busy he couldn’t spare even the time to pick up.

The clerk was a young woman and assumed Yu Min’s phone had died, which was why she was borrowing one to contact her family. Seeing that she still hadn’t managed to make a single call, the clerk said, “I don’t have a charger here. How about I lend you a power bank? You can charge right here, and just give it back when you’re done.”

Yu Min shook her head and didn’t borrow it. Even if she did, it wouldn’t help.

“I’ll try again later. They probably have something going on.”

The clerk was warm-hearted. “Then sit for a bit; you can use my phone again later.”

Trying again still wouldn’t get through; it was useless.

Feeling bad about bothering her too much, Yu Min went back first. Aunt’s family still hadn’t returned by the time afternoon faded into night. She was the only one in the house. Even after dinner time passed, not a single member of the family had come back.

The maid was off today, and Yu Min couldn’t even find a living soul to talk to. She sat in silence watching TV for several hours until her eyes hurt too much to bear it, then went outside to wander around and get some air.

She wasn’t familiar with the area, and once it got dark she didn’t dare run around randomly; she was afraid of danger, so she didn’t even dare walk far from the house. Her stroll was basically just pacing in place.

Tired, she sat down on a wooden bench without caring about appearances. Stretching out her toes, Yu Min absentmindedly nudged the fallen, decaying leaves on the ground, one lazy tap after another.

.

Next door.

Lin Baixin had been writing her thesis for half the day. She went into the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee to perk up, and on her way back she accidentally caught sight of a familiar figure under the streetlight.

The girl sat alone, small and lonely, head bowed, both hands braced on the edge of the bench, looking depressed.

Lin Baixin no longer wanted the coffee. She frowned slightly, slender pale fingers wrapped around the cup, rubbing over it unconsciously a couple of times.