The deep, secluded alley, rainwater seeping into the moist muddy ground.

Uncle Tang supported his lower back, sprawled by the well moaning in pain.

After the stone fell to the ground, Lu Xiaorong’s held breath finally relaxed, and she gasped for air through her mouth.

Looking down at the person on the ground, Lin Shilan laughed coldly.

“Mom, did you see? Uncle Tang isn’t scary at all. I’m not afraid of him.”

Yes. What else could Lu Xiaorong say—her daughter wasn’t even afraid of her own mother anymore.

Lin Shilan bent down and easily pulled out the stack of money her mother had given from Uncle Tang’s pocket. Without leaving him half a cent, she took it all clean.

His yellow teeth ground together with a crunching sound, but when she glanced at him sideways, he fell silent again.

“We’re relatives after all. When you need funeral expenses, come ask me for them anytime.” Her tone was chilling, her pitch-black large eyes devoid of emotion, like a ghost crawling out from the bottom of a well.

Uncle Tang dared to be angry but didn’t dare speak.

“Let’s go, Mom,” Lin Shilan helped up Lu Xiaorong, whose legs had gone soft: “We didn’t eat enough at dinner, let’s go get some late-night snacks.”

Lin Shilan rode the electric scooter with Lu Xiaorong sitting in the back seat.

It was raining, so they wore a double raincoat. The so-called double raincoat was one large raincoat with two places for heads to poke through.

The front raincoat was big, for an adult, and the back raincoat was for a child.

Now with them, it was reversed.

Lu Xiaorong had never ridden on Lin Shilan’s scooter before. She drove fast, frighteningly fast. The electric scooter sped through the dark night, and Lu Xiaorong gripped the back seat’s handle tightly, her heart panicking.

From her angle, she could only see the raincoat, not Lin Shilan’s expression. Her daughter’s earlier crazed appearance made Lu Xiaorong develop a feeling that “she’s deliberately driving fast to crash and kill us both together.” She wanted to say something to persuade her, but was afraid of saying something unpleasant that would upset her. With various emotions jumbling in her mind, while having to maintain stability with a pounding heart, Lu Xiaorong sniffled and suddenly felt a strong wave of helplessness.

Lin Shilan was focused on finding a place that served late-night snacks.

Their small town couldn’t compare to a big city—shops still open after nine o’clock could be counted on one hand. If she was slow, they could only go home and eat leftovers, which she wasn’t willing to do.

To be honest, after being blown by the wind, Lin Shilan had already forgotten about what just happened.

Her mother’s and Uncle Tang’s behavior belonged to their basic operations that were nothing surprising. Her mind was filled with the approaching flood, the recent abnormal rainfall, and Tan Jin—so much Tan Jin—that she had no extra mental energy to feel disappointed in her mother.

Hearing her mother sniffling several times behind her, Lin Shilan thought she had caught a chill.

“You can hide inside the raincoat and hug me. Don’t stick your head out, and you won’t be cold.”

Lu Xiaorong didn’t follow her suggestion.

Lin Shilan continued: “When I was little, I really loved doing that—hugging you inside the raincoat.”

Little Shilan in childhood loved rainy days the most.

When it rained, Mom would always come to the school gate to pick her up.

Getting on the electric scooter and hiding in the big double raincoat, she would enter an independent orange-yellow little world.

This was her air-raid shelter. Here was Mom’s body warmth, Mom’s scent, with all the rain shut outside. Little Shilan didn’t need to poke her head out—she would just curl up in the raincoat, lean against Mom’s back, and sleep peacefully.

Her words made Lu Xiaorong think of another scene.

Once when it rained, after picking up her daughter from school, they went together to a small supermarket to buy groceries. The tiny daughter insisted on not taking off the raincoat. Having no way to deal with her, she could only go into the store together wearing the raincoat. After buying a round of things, Lu Xiaorong discovered her daughter was missing. She searched left and right, even walking to the supermarket entrance without seeing her.

So she anxiously shouted “Lin Shilan,” and her daughter immediately answered “I’m here.” Lu Xiaorong turned her head—little Shilan was like a well-behaved penguin, following behind her penguin mother’s bottom.

Turns out her daughter was behind the raincoat—she herself had forgotten. Lu Xiaorong couldn’t help but laugh: “This raincoat is really good, mother and daughter connected. If we could wear it forever, I’d never lose you again.”

Mom sniffled for the fourth time.

Lin Shilan realized her mother was suppressing her crying.

“If you want to cry, you don’t need to hold back.”

The electric scooter flew along the empty road, facing the wind, her heart floating.

“Mom, you can cry, it’s okay.”

Lu Xiaorong said in a low voice: “Only the weak cry, and crying is useless.”

This phrase—Lin Shilan heard it often. This was why her mother hated her crying.

“It’s useful.” She said.

“When you cry, you breathe in air.”

The electric scooter swam past several streets and happened to pass by a ramen shop that hadn’t closed.

Lin Shilan slowed down and steadily stopped the scooter at the shop entrance. When getting off, she didn’t look at her mother’s face, deliberately giving her time to compose herself.

Seeing them come in, the owner specifically greeted her mother.

“You know the owner?” Lin Shilan helped her mother pull out a chair.

“Mm,” Lu Xiaorong sat down listlessly: “This shop, I used to come here often with your dad.”

“Oh.” Lin Shilan opened the menu: “What did Dad love to eat?”

She answered quickly: “Braised beef noodles.”

“What do you love to eat?”

Pausing, Lu Xiaorong said: “I love to eat his beef, then order a meat sandwich.”

Lin Shilan laughed: “Then your meat sandwich had very rich meat content.”

So they ordered a meat sandwich and braised beef noodles.

Learning from her father, Lin Shilan also transferred all the beef from her noodles to her mother.

Slurping down a few mouthfuls of noodles, Lin Shilan wrinkled her brow. Beef noodles without beef were impossible to eat—the noodles tasted bland and flavorless when chewed, no different from plain boiled noodles.

—So strange, could this be the taste her father loved?

Lu Xiaorong was quite satisfied with her meat sandwich. Tasting the familiar flavor, many past events surfaced in her mind.

“Beef with soup paired with the sandwich, I just loved eating it this way. Your dad also loved beef noodles, he always brought me here, and we ordered these two things every time.”

“At this shop, we ate here from dating through marriage. Your dad was ten years older than me. After I married him, he doted on me like a child. Before he passed away, everything at home followed his decisions. He also took care of all the housework—I never managed anything.”

Thick nostalgia showed between her brows: “If he were here, he wouldn’t let me suffer hardship. I might still be living that kind of life.”

Frantically adding chili peppers and vinegar to her noodle bowl, Lin Shilan listened and suddenly had an epiphany.

She understood.

—Braised beef noodles weren’t what her father loved to eat, but what her mother loved to eat, and she was picky, only eating the meat. He ordered this every time to give the beef to her, but her mother had never thought of it that way.

Lin Shilan thought to herself: Mom thinks that after Dad left, she grew up and became a mother. Actually, she never grew up at all—she’s still that little child.

Mom hates her crying, probably because Mom herself loves to cry.

Mom doesn’t dare provoke Uncle Tang because she feels that without relatives helping her, she can’t do anything well.

Deep inside, Mom wants to be a child, wants to be taken care of, so she places all her hopes on her daughter.

Mom is very weak. Her self-righteousness and unreasonableness originate from seeking aid from the outside world without results, while her inner self is hollow and fragile. Mom can’t support herself—she was forced to grow old, but her thinking is far from mature.

And the source of her own suffering is that Lin Shilan has always been trying to obtain understanding and support from her mother, without considering whether her mother has the ability to “give her strength.”

After Dad died, Mom already had her hands full taking care of herself, while starting to raise a child and pay off debts.

Lin Shilan was constantly pushed by her mother to be excellent, to be strong. Because Mom urgently needed a powerful helper, not a daughter…

The noodles with added seasonings tasted much better, and Lin Shilan ate them clean.

In the time it took to eat this bowl of noodles, she had thought through many things very clearly in her mind.

Walking out of the small shop, her stomach was warm, and when blown by the moist outdoor breeze, her whole person felt refreshed.

“Let me ride. You drove too fast.” Lu Xiaorong also recovered from her low mood, preparing to walk toward the front seat that controlled the direction.

“No, I’ll carry you. I can drive slower.”

Taking the key to unlock the scooter, Lin Shilan decisively kicked up the footrest, leaving no room for bargaining.

Seeing this, Lu Xiaorong silently sat in the back seat.

Lin Shilan spread out the double raincoat. Same as when they came, she wore the big raincoat in front, and Mom wore the small raincoat in back.

“Mom.”

After sitting properly, Lin Shilan called out to her.

Having just put on the raincoat, Lu Xiaorong poked her head out from the small hood: “Huh?”

With both feet supporting the scooter, Lin Shilan turned her head to look at her.

—She had tried various methods to make them get along harmoniously as mother and daughter, but Mom remained unchanged. Perhaps it was because Mom herself didn’t know how they should be if they were to change their mode of interaction.

So she told her…

“From now on, you be the daughter, and I’ll be the mother.”

Lin Shilan’s words came out of nowhere, but for the first time ever, Lu Xiaorong didn’t ridicule her.

Staring blankly at her shoulders that were stretched out by the raincoat yet still didn’t seem broad enough, Lu Xiaorong asked: “Then you don’t need to have a mother anymore?”

“I’ve grown up.”

“I can be your mother, and I can also be my own mother.”

The young girl’s eyes curved with a smile, her beautiful face having shed the appearance of the little follower penguin from years ago. Lu Xiaorong’s heart was moved, her eyes stinging. Unable to count how many times today, she lowered her head and vigorously rubbed her nose.

Lin Shilan didn’t stare at her.

She turned back around and fastened her safety helmet.

The small electric scooter started its journey at a steady speed, heading in the direction of home.

Late at night, wind mixed with light rain.

Lu Xiaorong, with her head poking out of the raincoat, quickly developed a layer of goosebumps on the back of her neck.

It really was a bit cold. She tried pulling her head into the raincoat, and sure enough, it became much warmer.

Lin Shilan’s body was warm, and the long hair draped behind her gave off a comfortable fragrance. Lu Xiaorong’s face pressed against the back in front, hugging her daughter’s slender waist.

All the way home, she didn’t feel cold at all.

When parking the electric scooter downstairs at home, Lu Xiaorong came over and asked Lin Shilan whether she wanted to go on the trip four days later. Although she had asked at dinner, Lin Shilan seemed not very interested in traveling.

“Let me ask you again—you’re more decisive than me.”

“Let’s go.”

Lin Shilan’s attitude was more straightforward than last time: “Bring Jing Jing along too.”

Lu Xiaorong nodded, having no objection.