Zhao Ping Jin stayed in the hotel for two days, and Huang Xi Tang never contacted him.

He passed by the street where her family lived, but for some reason, felt an inexplicable timidity in his heart. He didn’t dare go in to find her under the pretext of eating noodles again. He could only look from across the street for a while. The small noodle shop was still operating as usual in the morning, but Huang Xi Tang was nowhere to be seen, so he had to walk away.

On the evening before he was scheduled to return to the city, he went by her house again, thinking about taking her back tomorrow. After all, there were some important matters to discuss, so he walked a bit closer.

The small shop entrance was closed, already done for the day. Zhao Ping Jin stood for a while, then quietly walked to the door and peered in, discovering that it was only partially closed. Zhao Ping Jin was just mustering the courage to knock when he heard faint sounds coming from inside.

The sound was very weak. The entire house was shaped like a long rectangle, with a deep interior room. It resembled a long, dim train carriage. Without careful attention, one couldn’t hear the sounds from inside the doorway. Zhao Ping Jin moved closer to the door, his heart suddenly leaping, and immediately pushed the door open and went in.

He vaguely seemed to hear—Huang Xi Tang’s crying.

The front hall of the house was dark, with only a hanging lamp in the corridor, deep and silent. He lightened his footsteps as he walked inside, his heart anxious, unable to care about the consequences.

After passing through the front hall and kitchen, he entered a small courtyard with two lush pomegranate trees. In the back courtyard were two rooms, one with its door open. Looking through the window, he could see shadows moving.

Huang Xi Tang’s crying came from there. She was crying loudly, desolately, helplessly.

Zhao Ping Jin quickly crossed the courtyard, feeling an unprecedented panic.

Xi Tang’s mother looked at her daughter before her with desperation, her voice desperate with anger: “I would rather you died! Than go out and do such shameful things!”

Xi Tang didn’t know how long she had been crying, only feeling her throat choked, unable to catch her breath: “Mom, I was wrong.”

The woman’s voice was sharp and hoarse, mixed with wheezing sounds. Zhao Ping Jin couldn’t hear clearly from the other side of the courtyard: “I told you not to associate with such people, but you just wouldn’t listen to me! How did you come back that year? How did you come back? Lying in this courtyard for an entire year! Unable to even walk! Wasn’t that lesson enough for you to understand? Today I would rather beat you to death than have you return like that again!”

Xi Tang covered her face and screamed: “Mom, I’m sorry!”

Zhao Ping Jin could no longer care about anything else and rushed across the small courtyard. He had already seen the scene in the room clearly—Huang Xi Tang kneeling on the floor, her mother standing by the bed, using a yellow ruler to strike her harshly.

In that instant, Zhao Ping Jin felt a surge of hot blood rushing to his head, a buzzing sound echoing in his brain, and a sharp pain unexpectedly piercing through his heart.

As he stepped onto the stairs, his legs weakened, and his body swayed violently.

Huang Xi Tang’s mother, with disheveled hair, was shouting like a madwoman: “Did you remember what I told you? Today I would rather beat you to death than let you go out again!”

“Mom!” Xi Tang’s tear-stained face was a mixture of distress and shame. Kneeling on the ground, she moved a couple of steps and grabbed her mother’s waist. The ruler struck hard on her back, but she only cried quietly, her heartbreaking, yet she remained motionless, her head buried in the middle-aged woman’s embrace, holding tighter.

Zhao Ping Jin’s throat burned, but he couldn’t speak. He bit his lip and staggered in, his arm blocking Xi Tang’s shoulders.

The ruler struck his arm with a loud snap.

The two women in the room, both with tears on their faces, looked up at him simultaneously.

Xi Tang, with half her mind shattered, felt afraid and flustered upon seeing him: “What are you doing here?”

When Xi Tang’s mother saw him suddenly break in, she showed no surprise. The tears in her eyes receded, her sunken eye sockets suddenly dry, her face becoming like a frozen river.

It was as if she had expected this confrontation would come sooner or later.

Zhao Ping Jin’s voice trembled: “Auntie, please don’t hit her anymore.”

Xi Tang’s mother put down the ruler, raised her hand to tidy her disheveled hair, and slowly sat on the edge of the bed. She slightly raised her head, her expression proud and inviolable: “This is a family matter.”

Zhao Ping Jin quickly apologized: “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend. I’m Xi Tang’s friend. Could you—talk things over calmly?”

He gradually found himself unable to speak.

Because Huang Xi Tang’s mother was raising her head, slowly, slowly, examining him from head to toe. Her gaze was like a flashlight beam, moving from his forehead to the corners of his eyes, to every inch of his skin, to his body, his arms, his feet—that beam of vision inspected every inch of him meticulously. The expression in her mother’s eyes—that bone-deep anger, heartache, resentment, grief, passion—that delicate-featured but increasingly aging woman ultimately just trembled all over, tightly gripping her own hands.

Zhao Ping Jin felt his entire back as if it had been scalded in boiling water, or as if it had been soaked in frost, his whole body alternating between hot and cold.

Xi Tang’s mother gradually calmed down, with a hint of fatalistic despair, and slowly began to speak: “Since you’ve come in, I’ll say a few words—although Xi Tang grew up without a father, she is still a child I raised on my own. In the palm of my hand, she is also a bright pearl.”

“Auntie, please don’t say that. I know…” Zhao Ping Jin’s worldly sophistication, practiced on various social occasions, was of no use at this moment. He felt a bit flustered, trying to ease the atmosphere. After hesitating for a few seconds, he was immediately stopped by her mother’s gaze.

Xi Tang’s mother’s voice returned to its normal tone, but her demeanor became increasingly cold: “From childhood, I’ve supported everything she wanted to do, but I only had one requirement for her—to be an honest and upright person. A girl, if she doesn’t respect and love herself, if she’s ambiguous, will only ruin her future. If she takes the wrong path, then I must correct her. This is our family matter, and outsiders have no right to interfere. Please leave.”

Huang Xi Tang didn’t dare say a word, still kneeling on the ground, her head deeply bowed, tears falling like pearls off a broken string.

Yet there was no sound from her.

Zhao Ping Jin’s complexion, already not good, now grew paler by the minute.

Huang Xi Tang’s hands, placed on her knees, were red and swollen, with crimson streaks of blood spreading.

At the bus station in the morning.

Xi Tang carried her backpack and two boxes, slowly moving with the crowd.

In front of the long-distance bus station, her mother stood among the crowd, wearing a black silk blouse with subtle patterns, short in stature, with some white showing in her hair.

Mom had risen early to make her breakfast, had cut cold meats and placed them in a food box, and had accompanied her to the station. As they parted, Xi Tang was about to cry again. Her mother had aged considerably overnight, the dark yellow under her eyes particularly noticeable. Those gentle, loving eyes looked at Xi Tang. Her daughter, with tears in her eyes, looked back at her mother repeatedly. This daughter had grown so beautiful, yet her temperament was so much like her mother’s. She called out to her: “Meimei.”

Xi Tang immediately turned and ran back to her mother. She heard her mother say softly: “I’m sorry. Mom just wants you to understand that this path absolutely cannot be taken. I’ve suffered this way, so I will never let my daughter make the same mistake.”

This was her strong-willed mother, who had endured for a lifetime, speaking about the family’s past for the first time, so implicit and gentle, yet so bone-deep in pain.

Xi Tang nodded with tears in her eyes.

The way her mother looked at her was with a gentleness that came from the depths of despair: “This kind of suffering will ruin your entire life.”

Xi Tang tightly embraced her at the station.

The small bus to the city stopped and started, picking up passengers along the way. At the town’s fork in the road, it stopped again, and a person got on.

A tall, handsome, slim man wearing a black shirt and dark blue jeans struggled to squeeze through the crowd from the door into the carriage. The ticket seller handed him a small stool and shouted: “Move to the back, move to the back.”

It was Zhao Ping Jin.

His complexion was unnaturally pale. There were no seats left on the bus, so he squeezed into the aisle. This man with such severe cleanliness issues sat in the crowded aisle with more than a dozen passengers. The carriage was filled with various strange odors. Halfway through the journey, someone started vomiting, someone took off their shoes, and the stench was overwhelming.

When Zhao Ping Jin boarded the bus, he silently confirmed with a glance that Xi Tang was sitting in the back row, then said nothing more, simply sitting down in silence.

The bus stopped at the Hangzhou coach station. Zhao Ping Jin went to get her backpack, but Xi Tang shook her head.

Zhao Ping Jin looked at her hand and said neither lightly nor heavily: “I’ll take it.”

Xi Tang had no choice but to give it to him.

He looked down at her. After a few days at home, her chin looked sharper, her eyes were still red and swollen, and her face was without makeup, listless. He silently stood beside Xi Tang, his arm slightly raised to create a space barrier behind her back, shielding her from the crowd.

Xi Tang glanced at him quietly and couldn’t help asking: “Are you alright? Your complexion is so poor.”

Her voice was muffled.

Zhao Ping Jin said gently: “I’m fine.”

The high-speed train back to Shanghai was in a business class carriage, with comfortable lighting and a clean environment, all around quiet and peaceful.

Zhao Ping Jin went to the bathroom for more than ten minutes. When he returned, his shirt sleeves were spotted with water, probably from washing his hands several times. He lowered the table beside the seat, turned on his work phone, put on his usual black-framed glasses, and then asked Xi Tang: “What was the name of that stutterer’s hotel again?”

Xi Tang asked puzzledly: “Why are you asking about that?”

Zhao Ping Jin frowned: “Tell me.”

Xi Tang said: “Fu Yuan Hotel.”

Zhao Ping Jin said nothing more.

They were the only two people in the row of seats.

Zhao Ping Jin had hot milk, bread, and coffee brought to her but didn’t touch anything himself. As soon as he boarded the train, he opened his laptop for a meeting.

An hour passed quickly.