Chapter 9

Her uncle’s words won instant agreement from her mother, and the two of them launched into a tag-team lecture.

In the end, Wen Yan really couldn’t stand it anymore, so she escaped straight into the kitchen.

The kitchen door shut softly behind her, putting a little distance between her and the sweet, syrupy concern in the living room, blurring it into something indistinct.

Wen Yan leaned against the door and closed her eyes.

The air was thick with the rich medicinal scent of angelica and astragalus stewing with chicken, along with the sweet aroma of white radish boiling away.

It was the smell unique to Wen Xinjian’s kitchen; year after year, it had become a safe harbor of his own.

"Yan Yan?" Wen Xinjian turned from the stove, soup ladle in hand. "Why’d you come in? Outside..."

"I needed some air." Wen Yan walked to the sink and turned on the tap.

Cold water rushed over her fingers. She squeezed out some hand soap and washed slowly.

Once, twice; between her fingers, around the nail edges, not missing a single detail.

It was a doctor’s habit, and also the way she calmed herself.

Wen Xinjian looked at her, as if he wanted to say something but held back.

He turned to stir the pot, his voice folding into the bubbling boil. "Your mom... what did she say this time?"

"Nothing much." Wen Yan shut off the water and picked up the greens on the counter, stripping off the leaves. "Same old."

She didn’t say exactly what.

Those words came in like the tide; each wave carried pretty much the same thing, yet every time it still soaked her ankles.

Her maternal grandfather had come from the Air Force; he’d flown fighter jets and fought in real combat.

His medals were locked away in a drawer, but the chauvinism was carved into his bones and laid bare on the table.

Wen Xinjian’s parents had died young. He’d originally worked in research.

Later, after winning Old Master Wang’s favor, and because Wen Xinjian himself liked Wang Manyu, they married smoothly.

The Wen family’s business survived mostly on Wang family projects.

It was called the Wen family company, but it was really more like a subsidiary of the Wang family; or perhaps a branch family.

In the Wen household, anything from the Wang family always came first.

Even so, Old Master Wang still felt his daughter had married out, and that a granddaughter was even farther removed.

Wen Yan remembered that when she was little, her New Year’s money was always half of her brother’s; at the reunion dinner, she was always seated at the women-and-children table.

Her grandfather would pat her brother on the head and say, "You’ll serve the country someday," but when he turned to her, all he said was, "Girls just need to be quiet and proper."

The family that truly had old ties with the Jin family was the Wang family.

Back then, when the Jin family wanted to choose a marriage partner from among the Wang family, her grandfather couldn’t bear the thought of any Wang child "marrying in," so he simply sent over all the profiles of the Wen family children.

Old Madam Jin took a liking to the title of "professor of geology," and so the marriage landed on Wen Chen.

Her mother, Wang Manyu, had perfectly replicated her father’s pattern.

She was the eldest daughter, with only one younger brother beneath her.

From childhood to adulthood, the thing she heard most was, "You have to let your younger brother have his way"; after marriage, it became, "You need to support your family of origin."

Anything her younger brother Wang Jinyu asked for, she never refused.

Wen Yan and Wen Chen were twins, separated by only seven minutes.

But in Wang Manyu’s heart, those seven minutes drew a line.

The elder brother was the eldest son; the one to rely on.

The younger sister was a daughter; sooner or later, she would belong to someone else’s family.

Wen Yan had known since she was a child that the same report card, brought home by her brother, would earn praise for being "smart," while she would only get, "Girls don’t need to work so hard."

As a teenager, she had felt wronged by that.

She would hide under the covers and cry, writing out the reason in her diary.

Later, she went to medical school; bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate all on one continuous track; then entered the orthopedics department at North Hospital, standing by the operating table for more than ten hours a day.

After getting used to seeing life and death as unpredictable, those childhood grievances were slowly diluted, like overly concentrated salt water being endlessly thinned.

She learned how to let go.

Let go of fantasies about maternal love; let go of her obsession with fairness.

Like dealing with necrotic tissue, once debridement was needed, you had to cut it out; otherwise it would infect the healthy tissue.

But letting go didn’t mean becoming numb.

Just now in the living room, her mother had held her hand while looking at her uncle, her tone wearing that familiar, eager-to-please warmth. "Your uncle is right. Yan Yan, you have to listen to your uncle."

"Hurry up and contact an overseas clinic; do IVF and get pregnant with Zijin’s child. While you’re still young..."

Beside her, Wang Jinyu nodded repeatedly, every wrinkle on his face spelling out, I’m doing this for your own good. "That’s right, Yan Yan. With a family like the Jin’s, how can you not have a child?"

"Zijin is an only daughter; someone will have to inherit the family business in the future. Once you have a child, you’ll have done your part; the rest of your life will be secure."

Wen Yan looked at her mother’s hands, painted with bright red nail polish.

Her nails were delicate, the edges smooth.

Those hands could make pastries, arrange flowers, move tiles around at the mahjong table; but they had never sat by her bed all night when she had a fever, nor given her a real hug when she was accepted into medical school.

She found it irritating. She simply pulled her hand away and stood up. "Where’s Dad?"

"In the kitchen. Zijin’s coming today, so he’s cooking personally."

"Okay." Wen Yan turned. "I’ll help."

Now, she stood in the kitchen, the greens already sorted in her hands; a small pile of yellowed leaves sat nearby.

She turned on the tap to rinse them, water rushing loudly.

Wen Xinjian silently stir-fried the dish.

After a long while, he suddenly said, "Yan Yan... your mom can be blunt sometimes, but she means well."

Wen Yan didn’t answer. She put the washed greens into the draining basket.

"You’ve always been..." Wen Xinjian paused. "Less lively than your brother, a little quiet, and you’re a girl. Being able to marry Zijin now is your blessing; you should cherish it."

Wen Yan lifted her eyes.

Wen Xinjian avoided her gaze and focused on turning the vegetables in the pan. "It’s not easy for two women to be together."

"Even if the law allows it, it still looks different to outsiders; having a child tied to you would be better."

He turned off the heat and plated the vegetables, continuing in a stream of fussing. "Your job is too exhausting; standing for more than ten hours at a time, and dangerous too. You should quit."

"Just stay home, take care of your health, and give Zijin a child. The Jin family doesn’t lack money; you don’t have to work yourself so hard..."

Wen Yan stood where she was.

The draining basket in her hand was light, yet her arm felt heavy.

She thought of many years ago, on just such an evening.

She had brought home the first-place certificate from the national physics competition, full of anticipation, and handed it to her father.

Wen Xinjian had looked at it, nodded, and said, "Not bad," then asked, "Where’s your brother? How did he do?"

She was thirteen then and still capable of being hurt.

Now she was thirty, and had already learned to flatten her emotions into neat slices, to examine them under a microscope.

Oh, this is unmet expectation. This is childhood trauma. This is society’s systemic devaluation of women.

The analysis was perfectly clear.

But it was still exhausting.

Why had she softened back then and come home to fill this hole?

That bastard Wen Chen.

He clearly didn’t want to live under this kind of arrangement, this kind of scrutiny, so he pushed her in here to clean up his mess.

And he even called it, very nobly, "help me take this marriage on for me."

Wen Yan set the draining basket down on the counter with a soft clack.

She turned around, wanting to say something.

But when she opened her mouth, she found the words stuck in her throat, turning into a thorn she couldn’t swallow.

Just then, the doorbell rang.

"Ding-dong—"

The crisp sound pierced through the door and shattered the silence inside.

Immediately after, her mother’s voice rose sharply from the living room, far too enthusiastic: "Oh, Zijin! You’re finally here! Come in, come in!"

The shoe cabinet opened and shut; footsteps followed.

Wen Yan heard Jin Zijin’s voice.

Cool, steady, carrying just the right amount of distance: "Mom."

A one-word address; polite and detached.

Then she asked, "Where’s Yan Yan? She’s not back yet?"

Wang Manyu hurriedly laughed. "She’s back, she’s back; she’s in the kitchen helping her father..."

Before she could finish, the sound of high heels came toward the kitchen.

Tap, tap, tap.

The heels struck the floor in a crisp, steady rhythm, unhurried and unbroken.

Wen Yan turned her head toward the kitchen door.

The doorknob turned.

The door opened.

Jin Zijin stood in the doorway.

Today she was wearing a smoke-gray cashmere set, impeccably tailored. Over it was a long coat of the same color, left open to reveal a white silk shirt beneath.

Her long hair was gathered into a low bun at the back of her head, with a few loose strands falling beside her cheeks.

Light shone from behind her, giving her a soft halo.

Jin Zijin smiled, her eyes curving as a trace of teasing intimacy slipped into her voice. "What, is my wife cooking today?"

Wen Yan: "..."

She looked at Jin Zijin.

At her smiling eyes, the slightly upturned corners of her lips, the way she stood there like a tropical plant that had suddenly wandered into a greenhouse, carrying its own sunlight and vitality.

For a few seconds, Wen Yan couldn’t speak.

All those heavy, suffocating thoughts in her head seemed to ebb away like a tide.

Looking at Jin Zijin’s vivid, bright face, there was only one thought in her heart: fine, she forgave them.

Forgave them for being so unreasonable as to have given birth to her, and then nitpicking and lecturing her as if they had every right, for making her take her brother’s marriage in his place.

Because the person she was marrying was Jin Zijin.

Because her wife was Jin Zijin.

So she chose, for the moment, to forgive everything.