Jin Qiang’s apartment had only two bedrooms. Even though Xin Jin was nearly eight years old, she still shared a room with her parents. The other small room became Jiang Mu’s sleeping quarters.
After a long day, she surveyed the room of less than ten square meters. There was a wooden desk, completely bare as if deliberately cleared. A large dartboard hung on the wall with three darts stuck in the bull’s-eye. Two boxes of clothes and supplies that Jiang Yinghan had sent ahead were neatly arranged against the wall.
She wasn’t sure if Jin Chao had carried them up, but she pictured him hauling the boxes up five floors in one go.
The white latex paint on the walls had yellowed slightly, but the low bed was clean, smelling of sunlight. Jiang Mu wondered if this might be Jin Chao’s bedroom.
But if she was staying here, where would Jin Chao sleep?
That evening, Jiang Mu specifically opened her door to look around and found that Jin Chao wasn’t home—he seemed to have gone out. The gift box she’d given him sat unopened on the living room display shelf, which left her somewhat disappointed.
The next day, Jiang Mu went to school with Jin Qiang. The junior high wasn’t particularly close to Jin Qiang’s home; she followed him rather confusedly through two bus transfers before they arrived.
It was quite strange. When she was younger, whenever there were parent-teacher conferences or school activities requiring parents, Jiang Yinghan always attended. For Jin Chao’s school matters, Jin Qiang would go. It had become an unwritten rule in the family.
As a result, even after her parents’ divorce, Jin Qiang never had many opportunities to participate in her school activities. At every year’s arts festival when parents were invited, it was always Jiang Yinghan who attended. When she was young, even if she worked hard to achieve first school place, Jiang Yinghan wouldn’t lavish praise—at most, she’d reward her with KFC. Seeing other fathers lifting their children onto their shoulders, did she feel envious? To some degree, yes, but she would never show it in front of Jiang Yinghan.
Unexpectedly, after all these years, she was being led to school by her father to meet teachers. The feeling was quite peculiar.
Tonggang Junior High was even larger than Jiang Mu’s previous high school. As soon as they entered the school gates, Jin Qiang told her: “Your mom called me, so I made a trip here earlier. I spoke with Jin Chao’s former homeroom teacher, Teacher Ma. He saw your past grades were quite good and helped quite a bit. Be polite when you meet him.”
Jiang Mu glanced at the items wrapped in several layers of red plastic bags in Jin Qiang’s hand, unsure what was inside. Hearing his words, she asked with surprise: “Brother, you mean Jin Chao used to attend high school here?”
“That’s right.”
Jiang Mu probed carefully: “I heard he stopped after high school. Why?”
Jin Qiang glanced at her, nervously fidgeting with the plastic bag in his hand, and mumbled vaguely: “He couldn’t continue studying.”
Jiang Mu looked at the red brick teaching building with its school motto hanging outside: “Small things achieve great things, attitude determines the future.” The twelve characters gleamed brilliantly in the sunlight.
She couldn’t understand how Jin Chao had been unable to continue studying. It seemed that in those nine years, she had missed, he had completely transformed into another person.
Jiang Mu followed Jin Qiang to the office and met Teacher Ma, a middle-aged man around forty. His appearance was quite distinctive—he had a huge mole beside his nose with visible hair growing from it that would quiver with his facial movements when he spoke, making it difficult to look away.
While processing the paperwork, Teacher Ma asked about Jiang Mu’s previous academic performance: “I see English and Chinese were your strong subjects. How did you slip so much in the college entrance exam?”
Jiang Mu casually replied: “I didn’t perform well.”
Unexpectedly, Teacher Ma suddenly mentioned Jin Chao: “You should learn from your brother. His mental fortitude—why, the day before an exam, his right arm was dislocated in a fight. After being on an IV drip all night, he still managed to place in the top ten of his grade using just his left arm.”
Jiang Mu was stunned. Teacher Ma continued muttering: “Though you don’t look much like your brother.”
Jin Qiang stood by with a polite smile but didn’t respond. Jiang Mu also kept her head down without saying anything. In the past, she might have retorted, “We looked quite alike when we were young,” since that’s what everyone in the neighborhood used to say, but now she couldn’t bring herself to say it.
After finishing the paperwork, Jin Qiang told Jiang Mu to look around the school while he chatted with Teacher Ma.
Jiang Mu went down to the second floor and stood by the window, looking out at the vast playground with a basketball court to the right. Due to the holiday, there weren’t many people around. The blazing sun’s halo spread across the playground—everything marked a new beginning.
She turned to see display cases in the corridor and strolled over to stop in front of them. They showcased student competition information and past school events, complete with text and photos.
Surprisingly, she spotted a familiar figure among those photos. It was from a relay race, capturing the moment a boy on the track turned back to receive the baton from the next runner. The scene was permanently frozen here—the youth’s muscles tensed, his eyes showing unstoppable momentum. The sunlight was perfect, youth overflowing. Students at the sidelines had all jumped up with raised hands; it seemed like you could still hear the frenzied cheers through the photograph.
The Jin Chao in the picture was exactly as she had imagined him. What could have happened to make him abandon his studies so soon after?
Jiang Mu stood there for a long while. When she returned, she saw Jin Qiang taking out what was wrapped in many layers of plastic bags—two cartons of Huazi cigarettes. He tried to push them into Teacher Ma’s hands. Teacher Ma refused several times, so Jin Qiang simply placed them on his desk, turned around, and called for Jiang Mu to leave.
Jiang Mu recalled what Jiang Yinghan had told her before leaving the country.
“I wanted to give your living expenses to your father, but he wouldn’t take it. Don’t spend his money when you go there, so he won’t have a chance to say behind my back that I’m unreasonable.”
Jiang Mu didn’t understand what her mother meant, but she remembered the instruction not to spend her father’s money.
On the way back, she mentioned: “How much were the two cartons of cigarettes? Mom said if you need money for anything, I should give it to you.”
Jin Qiang let out a scornful grunt: “This is why your mother values money above all else. Tell her I’m not as narrow-minded as she is.”
Jiang Mu still didn’t understand—how was offering money narrow-minded?
Seeing her remain silent, Jin Qiang later added: “Don’t think too much about it. Teacher Ma helped your brother a lot a few years ago. I owe him a favor—it’s not entirely for you.”
Jiang Mu wanted to ask what had happened to Jin Chao a few years ago, but Jin Qiang had to go to work and left her at the entrance to the residential complex. This sparked enormous curiosity in her about what had happened to Jin Chao, especially remembering the bearded man’s words from the previous night. It made her uneasy.
When she returned home, Zhao Meijuan opened the door and told her there were dumplings in the pot that she could help herself to.
Jiang Mu had been a picky eater since childhood. Before her parents’ divorce, only Jin Chao could coax and trick her into eating properly. He would turn all the vegetables she disliked into fairy tales, feeding them to her while she was absorbed in the stories.
After Jin Chao left with their father, even Jiang Yinghan couldn’t handle her. The more she scolded, the less Jiang Mu would eat. Those unpalatable vegetables, having lost the soul her brother had imbued them with, became impossible to swallow. When transitioning to junior high, Jiang Mu became malnourished, causing Jiang Yinghan to frantically take her to various traditional Chinese medicine doctors.
Though she improved somewhat as she grew older, she still strongly disliked eating wheat-based foods. Since arriving here, she’d had one meal of noodles and two meals of dumplings, leaving her feeling quite unwell.
She felt too embarrassed to order takeout in front of Zhao Meijuan, so she could only serve herself five dumplings and sit alone at the table to eat.
Zhao Meijuan sat at the other end of the table, teaching Xin Jin math. After ten minutes, they were still stuck on the addition problem 4 plus 7. Zhao Meijuan was clearly about to explode, her voice getting increasingly louder until she shouted: “Look at that brain of yours, so slow! Did your brains grow on your skull?”
“???”
Having grown up in the South, Jiang Mu rarely heard such peculiar insults. From the corner of her eye, she saw the little “monster” looking dumbfounded. She felt nervous for the little girl and, while reaching for a tissue, held up two fingers.
The little “monster” indeed glanced at her and said: “4 plus 7 equals 2.”
“…”
Jiang Mu promptly got up, went to the kitchen to wash her plate, and returned to her room.
All afternoon, she could hear Zhao Meijuan’s furious shouting from outside. Accompanied by this lioness’s roar as background music, she managed to take a nap. Dinner was dumplings again, and Jiang Mu painfully forced down another five. Jin Chao hadn’t returned all day; when Jiang Mu casually asked during dinner, Jin Qiang only said: “He’s busy with things, don’t worry about him.”
That night, Jiang Mu tossed and turned in bed. She kept thinking about the words she’d heard in the corridor the previous night: “You’re going? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
So where was Jin Chao going? What was he planning to do? The bearded man deliberately didn’t come inside, clearly not wanting Jin Qiang and the others to know. Could it be something dangerous? What did Jin Chao do all day now that he wasn’t in school?
A flood of questions left Jiang Mu wide awake. She took out her phone, opened WeChat, and clicked on “Add Phone Contacts.” Sure enough, she found Jin Chao’s WeChat account. His name was simple and direct—just the character “Chao.” His profile picture was a cool-looking bottle of alcohol.
She hesitated for a few seconds before pressing the “Add Friend” button, then waited quietly. Five minutes passed with no response. Jiang Mu recalled Teacher Ma’s words from earlier that day about Jin Chao dislocating his arm in a fight, and she suddenly felt anxious. What life-threatening thing was he planning to do? He wasn’t going to commit murder or arson, was he?
Thinking this, she frantically clicked “Add” several more times. After half a minute, there was finally a response—her phone dinged with a notification that her friend request had been accepted, followed immediately by “Chao” sending a question mark.
This question mark left Jiang Mu at a loss. How should she respond? Would it be strange to ask “What are you doing?” out of nowhere?
She agonized for a while, thinking about how to get Jin Chao to talk. After carefully composing her message, she finally replied: Where are you?
At that moment, Jin Chao was at a barbecue stall in Ye Alley’s back street, discussing matters with Jin Crazy and his group. The conversation had been quite serious until Jin Chao’s phone suddenly dinged. He ignored it, but soon it began buzzing incessantly. Everyone at the table of men stopped talking and turned their attention to Jin Chao. Frowning impatiently, he took out his phone and saw a friend request. Opening it revealed a series of request notifications from a woman. He was about to lock his phone again when he suddenly brought it closer to look at the WeChat name: “Heavy Sleeper,” with a profile picture of a cartoon moon-wearing bunny ears.
He lowered his head to scan through the requester’s Moments, which showed only the last three days’ content. There was just one post: “Goodbye, my great Suzhou” with a photo of Suzhou Station.
Jin Chao exited and accepted the request, sending a question mark in response.
…
After Jiang Mu said “Where are you?” it took another two minutes before Jin Chao replied: Still not sleeping?
Jiang Mu glanced at the time on her phone—it was almost midnight, indeed quite late, but she couldn’t sleep at all. She decided to send a casual message: Hungry.
Jin Chao kept glancing down to reply to messages. His brothers couldn’t stand it anymore and changed the subject, joking: “You’ve got alcohol, who are you texting?”
Another person chimed in: “Could it be a girl? You got something going on?”
Jin Chao didn’t respond. He locked his phone and suddenly stood up, leaving the others bewildered. He waved his hand to pay the bill and told them: “Keep drinking, I have something to take care of.”
With that, he walked to the alley entrance and hailed a taxi.
…
When Jiang Mu hadn’t received a reply from Jin Chao for a while, she tried to check his Moments to see what his life was like, but found his privacy settings restricted access—she couldn’t see anything.
Jiang Mu rolled over in bed, and although she had just been making conversation, after sending the message she did feel hungry. Her stomach growled, making her realize five dumplings truly weren’t enough.
She lay in bed rubbing her stomach and had just resigned herself to more dumplings when her phone suddenly dinged again.
Chao: Come down.
Jiang Mu jumped up from bed barefoot, pulled back the curtains, and looked downstairs. In the bright moonlight, a dark figure stood by the bike shelter, his steady gaze fixed on the upper floors, a spark glowing faintly in his hand.