Chapter 58

“I don’t know.” Yu Min shook her head. “I haven’t decided yet.”

“When did she arrive?”

“Yesterday afternoon.”

“Where’s she staying?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”

They were talking in the car. Yu Min was driving, and Lin Baixin sat in the front passenger seat. There was a traffic jam ahead; Yu Min was in the middle lane, boxed in by cars on both sides. Her eyes stayed on the road, her tone light and flat, with not even a trace of emotion.

No complaint, no blame, nothing else.

Lin Baixin couldn’t read her mind, so she asked, “Do you want to go?”

Yu Min gave the same answer again. “I don’t know.”

“She came all this way. It wasn’t easy for her,” Lin Baixin said, suppressing the faint, nameless unease in her chest and forcing herself to sound as calm as ever, without letting on what she shouldn’t have been feeling. “If you want to go, then go. Don’t overthink it.”

“I’ll see,” Yu Min said, tightening her grip on the steering wheel. “Whether I go or not doesn’t really matter. She and I… don’t get along very well. Whether we meet or not, it’ll probably be the same.”

“You decide for yourself. Just don’t put too much pressure on yourself.”

“I won’t.”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“Mm.”

Yu Min hadn’t told the whole truth. She actually knew where Zheng Qing was staying: a hotel near X University. Zheng Qing had sent the address as soon as her plane landed, along with the room number. She was very self-aware; she had guessed that Yu Min definitely wouldn’t agree to meet her so easily, so she didn’t push. She told her daughter she would be in Kyoto for ten days, and if Yu Min wanted to come during that time, she would be there whenever she was ready.

If Yu Min didn’t want to go, that was fine too. Zheng Qing was much more “open-minded” now; not meeting was understandable. After all, she had been in the wrong first. It was only natural that Yu Min wouldn’t want to see her now.

Zheng Qing and her boyfriend—no, to be precise, her ex-husband—had divorced too. She had also reached the age where she began to see the warmth and coldness of the world more clearly. In a little over a year, Zheng Qing seemed to have realized that romantic entanglements really weren’t that important; hatred took far too much energy to sustain, too. She was tired and no longer had the spirit to keep making a fuss. She couldn’t bring herself to hate Yu Shengyu or anything connected to the Yu family anymore. She and Yu Shengyu had actually reached what could only be called a grand reconciliation of the century. Before coming to Kyoto, the former pair, who once seemed like they’d rather flay each other alive, had even sat down for a meal together, and the whole thing had been so peaceful it was almost unnatural.

This time, she came not only to see Yu Min, but also because there was something very important she needed to do.

Zheng Qing refused to explain it clearly over the phone. She deliberately played coy and insisted on waiting until she saw Yu Min before she would say anything.

Yu Min didn’t buy it. Whatever earth-shattering matter Zheng Qing had, she didn’t care. She had told Lin Baixin about it because she truly felt lost and couldn’t make up her mind.

If this had been during those three years of high school, she would have gone to see her no matter what. Back then, deep down, she still held on to a great deal of hope for Zheng Qing. Even now she didn’t want to admit that, but times had changed. She genuinely didn’t know what attitude she should take when facing Zheng Qing.

Traffic crawled along at a snail’s pace.

Yu Min followed along, thinking for a moment before asking Lin Baixin again, “Do you think I should go?”

Lin Baixin was even less certain. If this had happened before, she probably would have supported Yu Min going. After all, Zheng Qing was Yu Min’s biological mother; if Yu Min didn’t want to go, she wouldn’t have brought it up at all. The fact that she was hesitating meant she must be able to go.

But now Lin Baixin couldn’t offer advice. Somehow, she was even more avoidant of reality than Yu Min; she felt a certain resistance to all of this.

“It’s up to you,” Lin Baixin said vaguely.

“Do you want me to go?” Yu Min asked.

A car ahead honked, the sharp sound abrupt and harsh. Lin Baixin was drawn by the noise and didn’t answer that last question. After the car had moved on a little farther, she finally said, “Watch out; the car in front is about to change lanes.”

Still no answer. On this matter, she never got involved; her silence was even quieter than silence itself.

After that conversation in the car, Yu Min never brought it up in front of Lin Baixin again. Whatever decision she made, whether she went or not, she wouldn’t tell Lin Baixin anymore.

Maybe she just didn’t want to burden Lin Baixin, or drag her into the same internal struggle. In front of Lin Baixin, Yu Min still acted as she always had, as though nothing had happened.

Lin Baixin had once caught Yu Min making private phone calls twice; most likely she had been contacting Zheng Qing. Yu Min made a point of avoiding Lin Baixin and keeping it from her.

The apartment was well soundproofed, so Lin Baixin couldn’t hear everything they talked about. Still, from a few scattered words, she could tell that Zheng Qing wasn’t as gentle as Yu Min had described. Even if Yu Min didn’t go see her this time, Zheng Qing would probably still come to Kyoto again to look for Yu Min, and keep coming until Yu Min agreed to meet her.

There was also the fact that it wasn’t only Zheng Qing who had come to Kyoto this time; Yu Shengyu had come as well. The two of them weren’t here simply to see Yu Min. There had to be something urgent.

“What else could it be?” Lin Qi said at once, cutting straight to the heart of it. “They probably regret it now and want to make up for it. Isn’t it always like this? When they got married, they didn’t think about the child. Then one day, after they’ve made a mess of everything, the two crazy people start trying to fix things and want to go back to the way it was. Divorce is the same as marriage, honestly; whether you marry or divorce, it’s not necessarily the best choice. Reality isn’t that simple. Especially when the fundamental problem can’t be solved, in the end everyone just ends up going in circles. How could marriage and divorce possibly solve anything?”

There was too much in that speech. Lin Baixin barely took in two sentences. She hadn’t cared much about Zheng Qing and the others to begin with, but after hearing Lin Qi, she couldn’t help frowning; a vague irritation rose in her chest.

On Friday night, they had arranged to go see a stage play. Yu Min had bought the tickets, and they sat in the best seats in the house. Lin Baixin liked stage performances, but this time she couldn’t really focus.

The actors were actually performing quite well, and the production was solid, but Lin Baixin’s mind wasn’t on it. Her gaze kept drifting sideways to the person beside her.

Yu Min, on the other hand, watched with complete concentration. She was so absorbed that she didn’t even notice her phone screen lighting up several times.

There were messages on WeChat. After the play ended, Yu Min opened the screen and scrolled through them, but didn’t reply to a single one. Lin Baixin had glanced over by accident and caught the contact name: Zheng Qing.

“You need to watch out. Be careful they might take Mingming away,” Lin Qi had said during the day. “Though, in theory, if they want to take her away, that’s only fair. After all, she is their daughter. But she’s been raised here for so long; not just you, even I’ve gotten attached. If she really got taken away, I’d have a hard time accepting it too.”

On the way back, Lin Baixin kept thinking about those words. Neon lights flashed in a riot of color outside the car window; she leaned against the glass. Yu Min called her twice before she finally turned her head. “What?”

“I’m going out for half a day tomorrow,” Yu Min said. “The caregiver will come earlier in the morning. She’ll stay with you during the day. Is that okay?”

She didn’t explain what she was going to do, but Lin Baixin understood perfectly well what she meant.

“It’s fine. Go take care of your business; don’t worry about me,” Lin Baixin said softly.

The next morning, before eight o’clock, Yu Min was already out the door. The caregiver arrived at seven-thirty; only after the caregiver came in did Yu Min feel reassured enough to hand Lin Baixin over and go do her own thing.

By then, Lin Baixin was already awake. Probably because she had been going to bed early every day lately, she’d slept too much, and her sleep that night had been terrible. After waking, she didn’t go out. She listened to the sounds outside until she heard the door close and confirmed that Yu Min had left. Only then did she turn on the light and sit up in bed.

The caregiver knocked and came in to help her get dressed.

Lin Baixin refused. “I can dress myself. It’s fine.”

The whole morning was especially hard to get through. Originally, she had planned to stay home for half a day, but she couldn’t sit still. In the end, she still had the caregiver drive her to the shop; she had to find something to do there.

Lin Qi was practically torn between laughter and tears when she saw her, and said helplessly, “Please, even a workaholic has limits. You’re already like this—why not stay home and rest? You come in here more faithfully than I do every day. I can’t even compare to you. If you hadn’t put your arm in a splint, who would’ve guessed you were the patient?”

Lin Baixin hadn’t gone there to work; she’d gone to kill time. Once she arrived, she didn’t actually do any work. She wandered around here and there, making the employees think she was there for an inspection. None of them dared let their guard down; they all looked as if they were on high alert around her.

“You’re scaring them. Enough already; go back,” Lin Qi said, merciless as ever. “What is wrong with you? Your face is so dark. Who pissed you off?”

“No one,” Lin Baixin said. She didn’t think her face looked dark at all. “Does it?”

Lin Qi conjured up a mirror out of nowhere and held it in front of her. “Take a look. Someone who doesn’t know better would think somebody borrowed your money and never paid it back.”

Lin Baixin couldn’t see it herself, and she was unaware of it. She felt Lin Qi was exaggerating and that she wasn’t like that.

Lin Qi gave up on her completely. “I’m too lazy to talk to you. You’re just a dead duck with a hard beak; nothing gets through to you.”

A little later, after hearing the reason, Lin Qi reacted even more strongly than Lin Baixin had. Her eyes widened in disbelief. “Did you ask her? Are you sure she went to see her parents?”

“I didn’t ask,” Lin Baixin said. “She probably did. If not, what else would she be doing?”

“Maybe some classmate or friend invited her out. It doesn’t have to be the two of them.”

As if. If she hadn’t gone to see Zheng Qing and Yu Shengyu, then what else could she possibly have gone to do?

It was a holiday, and the classmates Yu Min was close to had all gone home. The ones left in town were people she wasn’t familiar with. As for her friends, Jiang Zhou and the others were still traveling out of town and hadn’t come back yet, so it was even less likely that she had gone to see friends.

“Fair enough,” Lin Qi said, nodding in agreement. “Sigh… so she really went. I thought she wouldn’t.”

Lin Baixin said, “It’s normal if she wants to go.”

“Normal is normal. I didn’t say it wasn’t normal. It’s just…” Lin Qi sighed and looked at Lin Baixin. “You’re willing to let her go?”

Lin Baixin countered, “What difference does it make whether I’m willing or not?”

“True. They’re the real family of three.”

“Mm.”

“If it were me, I wouldn’t be willing,” Lin Qi said. “I’m selfish; I wouldn’t do it. I definitely wouldn’t agree so easily to let them meet. Seriously, you didn’t just raise Mingming for a year or two, did you? Back then you were the one taking care of her, weren’t you? On the surface, she was staying at your foster father’s place, but how many people actually looked after her? Weren’t you the one worrying about everything? After all that time, what’s the difference between that and raising half a daughter?”

Lin Baixin defended herself, “I didn’t do that much. It’s not that serious.”

“You’re generous,” Lin Qi said, clearly displeased with Zheng Qing and the others. “Anyway, I couldn’t do it. If it were me, I’d definitely follow Mingming there and yell at those two as hard as I could.”

“I can’t concern myself with that.”

“Don’t they deserve to be yelled at? Those two absolutely do. What kind of people are they? Now that the kid’s grown up, they know to come pick the fruit from the tree.”

Lin Baixin didn’t like speaking ill of people behind their backs, so she stopped Lin Qi and wouldn’t let her continue.

A little later, Lin Qi sent Yu Min a WeChat message, testing the waters by asking what she was doing.

Yu Min replied quickly enough, but she didn’t say exactly what she had gone out to do.

If she wouldn’t say it plainly, then it had to mean she had gone to see those two people. Otherwise, she would have said so.

Lin Qi sent over a photo: it was of Lin Baixin at the shop.

—Your sister’s here. When you get back, come find her here.

Yu Min replied at once: —Okay.

“Don’t be such a pest; people will start hating you,” Lin Baixin said, frowning. “I’ll be back later anyway.”

Lin Qi raised an eyebrow and drew out an “oh.” “Then should I tell her not to come?”

“Forget it. Since you already said it, don’t keep bothering her.”

“Fine, fine. You don’t want her to come back early; I was meddling and bothering her.” Lin Qi laughed and deliberately said it with a mocking lilt. “Keep pretending, then. Why didn’t you stop me when I sent the message just now? Now that it’s sent, you’re suddenly not mute anymore.”

Lin Baixin didn’t argue. She walked off as if she hadn’t heard a thing.

Sometime after three in the afternoon, Yu Min finally took a taxi over. She was carrying a bouquet of flowers, one of the same kind Lin Baixin had bought before—the flowers Lin Baixin liked.

Lin Qi’s teeth ached from the sweetness of it all, and she teased, “Oh, my. Where’s mine? Why did you only buy one bouquet? Mingming, did you forget about me?”

“I forgot,” Yu Min admitted frankly, smiling. “I’ll bring you one next time.”

“Next time I want a big bouquet. I want sunflowers.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t forget again.”

“I definitely won’t.”

Whether she had gone to see Zheng Qing and Yu Shengyu that morning, Yu Min still refused to say. She kept it hidden the entire time. On the way back to the neighborhood, the elevator was crowded. Yu Min shielded Lin Baixin behind her to keep anyone from bumping into her injured arm. Maybe because there were people around, they were especially quiet; neither of them said a word. Even after they got inside and closed the door behind them, they were still subdued, and no one broke the silence.

Then, as always after coming home, they went through the same routine: washing up, tidying things, with Yu Min staying by Lin Baixin’s side and taking care of her up close.

After she finished tidying up, Lin Baixin’s hair was a little messy. The damp ends clung to the white skin of her neck. Yu Min lowered her eyes and reached out to brush them aside. Her fingertips touched her skin, lingering in a few fleeting strokes.

Lin Baixin stood there and let her.

After brushing away the wet hair, Yu Min’s fingers still didn’t leave Lin Baixin right away. Her gaze stayed fixed on Lin Baixin’s face, taking in every reaction. When she saw that Lin Baixin didn’t avoid her, her fingertips slid down the side of her neck, lightly pressed there, and moved lower inch by inch.

Lin Baixin’s legs seemed to root themselves to the spot; she couldn’t move at all.

Her fingers slipped down to the rising and falling curve, then a little higher. Warm fingertips pressed against equally warm skin, stroking it little by little; they rubbed Lin Baixin’s fair flesh until it turned red before finally stopping.

“You didn’t dry off,” Yu Min said in a low voice after a very long time.