Under the yellowish desk lamp, the blade gleamed dimly. There was the sound of a door opening. Qiao Qingyu quickly retracted the blade into its bronze handle and stuffed it into the drawer.
“Qingqing,” Li Fanghao pushed open the door moments later and poked her head in, “Come out and have some fruit.”
Her face was as dark as if it had been coated with charcoal. Qiao Qingyu thought it couldn’t just be from fatigue.
Sure enough, as soon as she sat down at the dining table and picked up an orange-yellow tangerine, Li Fanghao started berating her without a preamble.
“Couldn’t even stop by the shop to say hello before coming home. When did you get back from school? What lecture did you listen to? I bet that mouth of yours is lying again?”
Qiao Qingyu put down the tangerine: “It was a senior who got into Tsinghua a few years ago, called Ming Dai. Many classmates stayed to listen… I’ve been home for an hour, and because I was rushing to do homework, I didn’t go to the shop.”
“How is it another person surnamed Ming, a male?”
Qiao Qingyu remained silent.
“I’m asking you a question, gone mute?” Li Fanghao walked over and jabbed her finger hard at Qiao Qingyu’s left chest, “Your heart’s gone wild and floating, you know that?! Tsinghua? Do you think you can get into Tsinghua? What business do you have there joining the crowd?!”
Qiao Qingyu suddenly stood up, and amid Li Fanghao’s startled “What are you doing?”, she rushed to her room and slammed the door shut.
“Come out here!”
Li Fanghao wouldn’t give her a moment’s peace. In her rage, Qiao Qingyu’s actions outpaced her thoughts, doing something she’d never imagined herself doing before: she kicked open the plywood door leading to Qiao Jinyu’s side.
“Heaven help us!!” Li Fanghao roared, quickly advancing, “I’ll show you…”
“Don’t come any closer,” Qiao Qingyu climbed onto Qiao Jinyu’s desk and pulled open the cold aluminum window with a screech, “If you come any closer, I’ll jump from here.”
Suddenly, an extreme terror crawled across Li Fanghao’s face, making her look incredibly fragile and distorted.
“Qingqing, come down, be good.”
As she spoke, tears fell, and wanting to step forward but afraid of provoking Qiao Qingyu, she helplessly crouched down, like a suddenly collapsed building.
“Qingqing, be good, don’t do anything foolish…” Li Fanghao knelt, carefully inching forward while crying, “Qingqing, mama won’t scold you any more, won’t scold you…”
The cold wind brought Qiao Qingyu back to her senses, and the pitiful sight of her mother before her unconsciously brought tears to her eyes as well. So she withdrew her hand and sat on the desk with her feet dangling, feeling empty inside after the overwhelming emotions.
“Come, come,” Li Fanghao struggled to her feet, gently caressing her blank face, “Let Mama hug you, just a hug.”
Head buried in Li Fanghao’s chest, her nose filled with the greasy smell from the noodle shop, but it held a long-missing softness and warmth. Qiao Qingyu burst into tears.
“Mama spoke too harshly, mama knows you’re a good child, you’ve always been a good child,” Li Fanghao sobbed while comforting Qiao Qingyu, “Mama is just too worried, afraid you’ll go down the wrong path…”
Qiao Qingyu had never doubted whether she was a good child. However, what happened the following Saturday seemed to validate Li Fanghao’s uneasy intuition.
Black Brother and his gang came in the afternoon when Li Fanghao had gone home to check on Qiao Qingyu, leaving only Qiao Lusheng dozing at a table in the shop. He woke at the commotion. Seven or eight young men with variously colored hair surrounded him like dark clouds blocking the light above his head.
“Where’s your daughter?” the one in the black leather jacket asked, “Not the dead older one, the younger daughter, is she at home?”
Qiao Lusheng cautiously asked what business they had.
“She owes me money,” Black Brother grinned, pleasurably flicking cigarette ash onto the table, “Yesterday, she drank bubble tea I bought her.”
After finally getting rid of these people, Qiao Lusheng pulled the shop door closed and hurried home. While the couple whispered behind closed doors in their room, Qiao Qingyu anxiously paced in the living room—had her father encountered ghosts at the shop? Why was he so frightened?
Half an hour later, the couple emerged, miraculously restored to normalcy, as if nothing had happened.
“Qingqing, your studies are demanding, you don’t need to help at the shop anymore,” Qiao Lusheng kindly patted Qiao Qingyu’s head, “Your parents just discussed it, tomorrow we’ll have Qiao Huan come help. From now on, just bring breakfast in the morning, and after school go straight home. We’ll send dinner to you, stay away from the shop.”
“Sister Qiao Huan is from South Qiao Village, working here in Huanzhou. We’d been thinking of asking for her help anyway, there’s too much work at the shop,” Li Fanghao added, “With her here, mama can take time to send you to and from school.”
It was an announcement, not a discussion. Qiao Qingyu nodded silently.
She vaguely guessed it was because Black Brother had shown up at the shop. The next day, Qiao Huan’s arrival quickly confirmed her suspicion—Qiao Huan was an outgoing person who quickly made herself at home, sharing Qiao Qingyu’s bed that night. After just a bit of casual chat, Qiao Huan spilled the story about Black Brother’s gang eating and drinking at the shop without paying.
“Your parents didn’t want me to tell you, afraid you’d worry,” Qiao Huan seemed to enjoy whispering under the covers, her tone barely containing her excitement, “I mean, when I was sixteen, I’d already been working for two years, definitely not a child anymore~ You’re so clever, how could you not guess… That Black Brother came with three or four people to eat noodles at night and said they’d pay for it all together later. They’re gangsters, what can we small business owners do? Good thing it was just a few bowls of noodles…”
Qiao Qingyu just listened, making no argument. Qiao Huan was fat, and the already narrow bed now felt suffocatingly full, the air under the covers stifling. Finally, when Qiao Huan finished talking, Qiao Qingyu lifted the covers, gasping for air.
“My mom used to like eavesdropping when my sister and I talked,” Qiao Huan seemed to be enjoying herself, “Your parents are so good to you, thinking of you like this. My mom used to beat me with a stick.”
“What bad things did you do?” Qiao Qingyu stared at the ceiling in the darkness, asking emotionlessly.
“Stole money to buy food,” Qiao Huan giggled, “You can tell from my figure, that I’ve always loved snacks since I was little, but my mom thought I was too fat and wouldn’t buy them for me…”
As she spoke, her voice gradually grew quieter, followed by loud snoring. Qiao Qingyu continued staring at the ceiling, her already sparse drowsiness instantly scattered.
Why did everyone have to emphasize that her parents were doing this for her good?
She was the instigator, yet was forcibly isolated from the crisis at the noodle shop. She despised her parents’ self-righteous, tragic sacrifice.
I won’t feel moved or guilty about this, Qiao Qingyu told herself.
Qiao Huan’s arrival made the already cramped room even more confining. Upon learning that her parents, to save money her, had arranged for Qiao Huan to stay indefinitely, Qiao Qingyu felt as if her neck had been broken, unable to breathe freely anymore.
Li Fanghao kept her word, taking her to and from school every day. Qiao Qingyu didn’t like how her mother appeared punctually at the school gate, her ghostly gaze following or greeting her from behind the safety helmet. But she did like sitting on the back of the electric scooter, enjoying the dense airflow that pressed against her exposed skin like countless cold whips, and her ponytail dancing wildly in the cool breeze. Closing her eyes, she would imagine she was free.
When dismounting, the originally cold silver frames on either side of the seat would often be warm from her body heat. Li Fanghao always reminded her to hold onto her shoulder or waist, but Qiao Qingyu never complied. Moreover, as soon as she entered the school gates, she would remove Qiao Baiyu’s old pink cotton coat that she wore over her school uniform.
Before morning reading, she would longingly gaze at the glass windows several rows of desks away—a week ago, after the sports meet ended, the whole class had shifted, and she moved from the eighth group by the window to the fourth group in the middle of the classroom. Surrounded by people on all sides, she felt like a fish dropped in the desert. Looking at the windows, she would vividly imagine herself slowly breathing white mist onto the glass, then watch its ethereal form quietly disappear.
She survived through imagination. Life was an ice marsh ready to devour people at any moment, the thick fog making it impossible to discern direction. Fortunately, she walked barefoot, the cold from beneath her feet piercing into her body, keeping her alert. Though unsure of where it led, she firmly believed she was walking on ice crystals. Bone-chilling yet crystal clear, it was the cleanest path in this murky world.
The weekend after monthly exams, Qiao Huan took a day off to go shopping at the clothing market with her former factory girlfriends. Li Fanghao returned home Saturday afternoon, as usual, to accompany Qiao Qingyu while she did homework. Around five o’clock, she left a steaming bowl of noodles for Qiao Qingyu and went out.
Qiao Qingyu ate the noodles, washed the bowl, put on Qiao Jinyu’s black hoodie that had been carelessly tossed on the sofa, and slipped into the gathering dusk. Passing the newsstand, she tugged at the hood that already covered half her face, and seeing only five seconds left on the green light, rushed across to the other side of the street. Turning right for thirty meters, she stopped, hiding behind a bare phoenix tree to peer across the street.
The Qiao Family Handmade Noodle Shop squeezed among a row of storefronts, looked like an illuminated shoebox. Qiao Qingyu noticed for the first time how bright white the shop’s lights were. At that moment, three of the six tables were occupied.
The curtain to the kitchen was lifted, and Li Fanghao appeared, efficiently and smilingly placing a bowl of noodles in front of one of the customers.
“Take your time, here are the side dishes and chili sauce, and you can get more soup if needed.”
Qiao Qingyu could imagine Li Fanghao’s praised rustic warmth.
She began pacing slowly between two phoenix trees, occasionally glancing across. A few minutes later, Qiao Huan appeared carrying no less than five bags—she’d returned earlier than planned, and Qiao Qingyu was instantly grateful she’d come straight to the shop instead of going home first. Not long after Qiao Huan’s return, three young men with differently colored hair, each holding a cigarette, swaggered through the shop door.
Qiao Qingyu stopped pacing and hid behind the tree, carefully watching their behavior across the flowing traffic.
They sat at a table near the shop entrance, flicking cigarette ash on the floor while waiting for their food. The one with his back to her faced outward with legs crossed, occasionally whistling at passing girls. Soon their noodles arrived, and after hurriedly finishing, they waved to Qiao Huan, who quickly fetched a notebook and pen from the cash register.
One of them carelessly scribbled something. Qiao Huan put away the notebook, her face wearing a farewell smile.
After they left, Qiao Qingyu went home. The next day was Sunday, and after dinner, she repeated yesterday’s actions.
But this time she didn’t stay as long. As soon as the three differently-colored-haired youths entered the shop, she took out her phone and dialed 110.
Three or four days after calling the police, while the adults continued their busy routines as usual, the atmosphere at home grew increasingly anxious, like a snake that had slithered into the room in the night. Qiao Qingyu knew something major had happened.
Qiao Huan gave Qiao Qingyu a new, extremely oversized gray coat, saying she’d bought it specially for her, though Qiao Qingyu wondered why, if it was bought specifically for her, it hadn’t been given to her immediately and only presented after the tags were removed. Almost simultaneously, Li Fanghao put away Qiao Baiyu’s old pink cotton coat and several brightly colored old sweaters and gave Qiao Qingyu the black cashmere sweater that she’d worn for many years, saying it was warmer. Qiao Lusheng brought home a large cardboard box from somewhere and spent the night sorting out many “unnecessary” clothes from both rooms.
When Qiao Lusheng ripped open clear tape in the living room with a sharp sound, Qiao Qingyu had just finished her shower. Something was propping up the box lid—glancing in before entering her room, she was startled to find it was that deep red character plaque.
The uninterrupted sound of tearing tape was urgent, and sharp, piercing the quiet night, making Qiao Qingyu break out in a cold sweat for no apparent reason.
Qiao Huan couldn’t sleep, and neither could Qiao Qingyu. With a thud, Qiao Lusheng left carrying the box, and the house fell into silence. That’s when Qiao Huan softly told Qiao Qingyu she was returning to South Qiao Village tomorrow because—she paused—because Uncle Da Yong’s mad wife had died.
“She’d just started being able to walk around, and last time when she had that high fever, my Uncle Da Yong spent quite a bit on her medical treatment, everyone said it wasn’t worth it, even if she recovered she wouldn’t be fit to be seen in public…” Qiao Huan sighed, “Who knew she’d jump from the third floor yesterday, and die.”
“Why?” Qiao Qingyu stared at the ceiling.
“Ah, she was always crazy, just went mad,” Qiao Huan mumbled, “Her room, the windows had been sealed up long ago, who knows how she managed to climb onto the roof…”
“Why did they seal up the windows?”
“Years ago, the year her child died, she tried to kill herself several times,” Qiao Huan said, “They had to lock her in the house, even the pesticides were locked away. My uncle’s had such a hard life, working diligently, spending all his money on this wife, never enjoyed a single good day… She bore a daughter who died of high fever before turning two, and when my uncle wanted to try for another child, she would fight with him every day, and later completely went mad… Even then, my uncle was still good to her, getting her medical treatment and medicine when needed… Others all said, how could this be a bought wife, she was being treated like a Buddha to worship…”
“Bought?” Qiao Qingyu couldn’t help interrupting Qiao Huan, “Aunt Qin was bought by Uncle Da Yong?”
“Twelve thousand, twelve thousand twenty years ago,” Qiao Huan sighed, “They said she was educated, the whole family pooled money for uncle… My uncle was good in every way, except his looks weren’t good, too honest and uneducated, his family was poor, in his thirties and no girl willing to marry him… After several desperate years, they specifically went to rural areas elsewhere to ask around before buying her… Originally they just wanted someone who could bear children, but my uncle wanted the child’s mother to be educated, said it would be good for the child, that’s why they bought her, ah!”
Closing her eyes, Qiao Qingyu saw Aunt Qin wrapped in flames rushing toward her, the high flames behind her like burning wings. In the raging firelight, Qiao Qingyu only remembered a pair of eyes more blazing than the fire itself.
“Aunt Qin must have been very beautiful?” Qiao Qingyu opened her eyes, her voice as if soaked in water.
“She was good-looking, tall, fair and clean, an educated city girl,” Qiao Huan recalled, “From the north, with perfect standard Mandarin. When she first came, everyone said my uncle was blessed…”
“What was Aunt Qin’s daughter’s name?”
“I heard the adults mention it, seems like it was Panpan?”
“Panpan,” Qiao Qingyu said softly, “Skin as white as clouds in the blue sky, eyelashes softer, thicker, and more even than feathers, big eyes blinking and blinking…”
These were words often used by family members when talking about Qiao Baiyu as a child.
“That I don’t remember, I was only a year or two old then…”
“She was also a little angel,” Qiao Qingyu interrupted Qiao Huan, as if talking to herself, “So, they both returned to heaven.”
“They?”
A hot tear was about to breach the thin dam of her eyelids. Qiao Qingyu turned over with difficulty, letting it escape and silently fall onto the pure cotton pillowcase.