The two had just arrived at the sports center when Sun Jingcheng was pulled away by someone asking him to play tennis for a while. Zhou Yu stood outside the court watching, unconsciously comparing the men inside. Apart from the professional coaches, Sun Jingcheng had the best physique. The others weren’t bad either, of course—after all, they all exercised regularly.
Tennis involved large movements. Sun Jingcheng’s every action receiving the ball was so agile—wide strides, sharp turns, swinging the racket, serving. The beauty of his movements was no less than that of a professional coach.
She was enjoying the pleasant sight when someone handed her a flyer for the gym inside the center, saying they were running a promotion with great discounts for both membership cards and personal training. Zhou Yu looked at the flyer while the young man persuaded her, saying the gym had aerobic Latin dance, Pilates classes, kickboxing classes, jazz dance… at least two classes opened every day. Then he complimented her as a voluptuous beauty, saying kickboxing and Latin dance would especially help with body sculpting.
Zhou Yu handed the flyer back to him. “I don’t live here. I’m just visiting a friend.”
“No problem, miss. There’s a Latin dance class starting right now—would you like to try one session for free?”
Zhou Yu seemed hesitant.
Seeing her hesitation, he urged enthusiastically, saying how amazing the lead dance instructor was! Zhou Yu figured she had nothing else to do anyway, so she went with him. The gym was on the second floor. From the corridor, you could see Sun Jingcheng swinging his racket downstairs.
Zhou Yu already had a dance foundation. After standing to the side and watching for a while, she merged in and followed along. Dancing, she lost track of time. When the class ended and she came out to lean on the railing and look, Sun Jingcheng’s shadow was nowhere to be seen on the tennis court.
She thought Sun Jingcheng had gone home first and wasn’t in a hurry. She slowly walked back following the route in her memory. Arriving upstairs, the door was locked. The doorbell went unanswered, and she didn’t know the password, so she could only stand there waiting. When they’d come out to exercise, naturally neither had brought their phones.
After waiting for over half an hour until she was nearly frozen to death, Sun Jingcheng finally emerged from the elevator. Seeing her, the first thing he asked was where she’d gone—he and his friend had searched the entire complex.
Zhou Yu urged him to open the door. “I’m a grown adult—could I get lost?”
“Don’t you know to say something before leaving?”
“I was just in the gym upstairs.”
“But how was I supposed to know you were in the gym?”
“Fine, I know for next time.” Zhou Yu’s attitude was perfunctory.
Sun Jingcheng was very angry, obviously trying to control it. He put down his racket and went to the master bedroom to shower. Zhou Yu wanted to shower too, but she had no change of clothes here. She was left stranded in the living room. She forcefully suppressed the urge to return to their marital home and silently went to the balcony, staring blankly at the building across the way.
Sun Jingcheng came out drying his hair. Seeing her leaning on the balcony, he muttered, “You’re the one angry? I was worried sick looking for you. And you say I leave without telling you.”
“If you hadn’t left me hanging there, I wouldn’t have gone to the gym with that person!” Zhou Yu glared at him fiercely. “Every single time it’s like this—you say you’ll take me out, to meet your friends, but every time you bring me over and leave me hanging while you go off and do your own thing!”
After saying this, Zhou Yu went downstairs and took a taxi back to their marital home. She didn’t want to see him for even one more moment.
Last year when they drove themselves to the beach to camp and barbecue, because she was afraid of water and didn’t dare go into the sea, Sun Jingcheng and his friends went out to sea with fishermen in the evening and didn’t return until nearly dawn. There were quite a few people camping at the beach, but Zhou Yu didn’t know any of them. She just sat by the tent waiting for him. Only after he returned, with his accompaniment, did she find a place to use the restroom.
The more she thought about it, the more regretful she felt. Why make such a fuss over nothing? She’d endured for three years—why be unpleasant at the time of divorce? Acting like he was so important. It was also undignified.
By the time she reached the residential complex, that anger had gradually dissipated. Passing by a convenience store, she saw someone hunched over eating instant noodles, so she bought two packages planning to cook them at home. At checkout, looking at the bagged noodles in her hand, she went back and exchanged them for several boxes of the most expensive instant noodles.
From childhood she’d been influenced by Feng Yiqun—comparing prices at three stores, budgeting carefully. Before marriage, Sun Jingcheng had even laughed at her, saying her approach to daily life was like his mother’s.
Arriving home, she opened a box to cook. Watching the palm-sized noodle cake slowly expand, she still felt it wasn’t cost-effective—she should have bought the bagged noodles. Just as she was cooking, Sun Jingcheng came home. He stood at the kitchen doorway for a while, scratched his eyebrow, then went to the bedroom to change into house clothes.
Actually, Zhou Yu wasn’t hungry. She only felt hungry when she saw others eating, but when it was actually cooked, she had no appetite. Following the principle of not wasting, she picked at it twice, completely ignoring the person rummaging through the refrigerator in the kitchen.
After rummaging for a long time, Sun Jingcheng came out and asked her, “Is there more?”
Zhou Yu ignored him.
He didn’t find it awkward either. He sat down and ate her leftover noodles, consuming both noodles and soup completely clean. Zhou Yu ignored him from start to finish, brushed her teeth, washed up, and went to bed.
At noon, Sun Jingcheng was too lazy to eat outside food and made a big detour from the new district back to the clinic. Upstairs, Mother Sun was in the kitchen criticizing him. “The day before yesterday when your sisters-in-law came up from the clinic, your dad told them off.”
“Told them what?” Sun Jingcheng pinched fried fish balls from the dining table to eat.
“Not to come upstairs through the clinic…” Mother Sun saw him picking up the balls with his hands and slapped his shoulder. “Can’t you be a bit hygienic and use chopsticks?”
“Nearly forty years old and still can’t behave properly.”
“Open your eyes and look at people your age—they either have successful careers or happy families with children. Just you, still not settled down properly.”
“I used to think Jingfei was the most rebellious, but now I see she’s better than you. Among you siblings, she’s the most directed and promising.”
“Last week you were praising eldest brother like this…”
“Eat, eat, don’t talk to me. I get upset just seeing you.” Mother Sun stuffed a whole sheep eyeball into his mouth.
Sun Jingcheng’s mouth was blocked, naturally unable to speak.
“Fighting with Zhou Yu, aren’t you?” Mother Sun’s tone contained barely detectable schadenfreude. “Usually you never listen no matter how much I talk—now you’re suffering the consequences, right?”
“Anyway, you two can fight behind closed doors all you want. I’ll pretend not to know. Whether you live well or badly is your own business. Parents can’t follow you for a lifetime.” Mother Sun warned in advance, “If you really can’t make it work anymore, don’t come back through this door. Even if I wanted to let you in, your dad would stand there blocking it.” As she spoke, she grew sad. “You’re all old enough now—be sensible and don’t make both sets of parents worry.”
“There are so many people in their thirties and forties on the street, all living their lives steadily. Which one is like you…” Mother Sun said while wiping tears. “I’ve never seen a child as rebellious as you.”
Sun Jingcheng stood there dumbly, preparing to return to work. Mother Sun, exasperated at his failure to meet expectations, called him back. “You want to starve to death?” Seeing him turn back around, she stuffed another sheep eyeball in his mouth and filled a bowl with noodles covered in meat sauce.
Sun Jingcheng loved eating sheep eyeballs. Whenever the family cooked sheep head meat, the pair of eyeballs was always his.
After Mother Sun finished the kitchen chores, she brought him a jar of stewed preserved meat. “Take this home and put it in the refrigerator. Later when you and Zhou Yu don’t want to cook, just boil some plain noodles and scoop out a spoonful of meat. It’s better than anything outside.”
“You listen too—settle down and work properly. Don’t run around the world anymore. The day before yesterday when your dad heard you went to Huangshan, he was quite upset. Once you’re married, you need to take care of your family. You can’t just do whatever you want like before marriage.”
Sun Jingcheng came downstairs and stood idly on the roadside. The street was cold, and they said there would be snow tonight. Sun Youping returned from the public restroom on the left, passed by him as if he were invisible, went back to the clinic, put on his white coat, and continued sitting there seeing patients.
Sun Jingcheng’s foreign trade business wasn’t doing well—barely hanging on, enough to support the family. In his parents’ eyes, that wasn’t a proper job.
What was a proper job?
Sun Youping would say it was being a doctor, police officer, teacher… at the very least, an ordinary civil servant. Because these were within reach of common people, practical and realistic. Mother Sun believed it was doing business, like the second son—working in the food industry, opening several restaurants would be enough for a lifetime. Because food is essential to the people… food is essential to the people. Every time she passed by the second son’s bustling large restaurant, her heart felt comfortable and content.
Both second daughter-in-law’s medical aesthetics center and Sun Jingcheng’s foreign trade company were things she couldn’t understand. The medical aesthetics center was too grand—a place where rich people came. That money always felt insecurely earned. As for Sun Jingcheng’s small company, just those two rooms with a few people sitting there. This year she’d been following the news closely. The pandemic was more severe abroad, so naturally foreign trade was difficult too.
Zhou Yu returned to teach on Monday. With final exams approaching, teachers couldn’t take leave. The school had also handled Jiang Yuan’s matter—they paid compensation, and the parents took the child to Beijing for treatment. The school had also installed surveillance cameras in every classroom and every corner, except in the restrooms—everything could be checked.
Teacher Hu at Zhou Yu’s desk said: “Having surveillance is good—it saves us teachers some worry.”
“Didn’t your class students protest?” Teacher Su asked.
“No, they just made a dismissive sound and didn’t react much.”
“My class was great—the first day after installation, they covered it with a plastic bag. I heard the entire third-year grade had no reaction. Older students are just different.”
“That’s because they’re all busy preparing for exams,” the grade leader said as she passed by. “Each one completely absorbed in their studies. I was eating in the cafeteria and saw the effort those top third-year students were putting in—I felt ashamed myself.”
“I observed that too,” Zhou Yu agreed. “Those students don’t even get full meals—they only eat buns and steamed rolls, changing up the flavors. One person packs four or five, eating while walking, and after finishing, they go straight to class to continue doing practice problems.”
“This isn’t unusual—happens every year,” Teacher Hu said matter-of-factly. “Any third-year student sitting in the cafeteria with soup, meat, and vegetables, eating leisurely, basically has no hope for the college entrance exam—they’ve given up on themselves.”
“Come eat—time to eat!” The PE teacher passing by in the corridor shouted into the office. “If you go late, there’ll be no meat left!”
“Teacher Xiao Wang, Teacher Xiao Wang…” Zhou Yu hurriedly called out to him. Before she could say anything, Teacher Wang spoke first: “Sister, you’re too late. The math teacher already borrowed my class.”
…
“Both classes this week were borrowed?” Zhou Yu asked.
The PE teacher snapped his fingers. “The other one was borrowed by the homeroom teacher long ago. Reserved a month in advance.”
…
Zhou Yu returned to the office. Teacher Hu quietly advised her, “Next time, reserve a month ahead and cast a wide net—borrow from PE, music, and art teachers. Don’t just ask to borrow—treat them to a meal in the cafeteria.”
…
Zhou Yu wrapped her scarf, put on gloves, and prepared to leave work. Teacher Hu asked her, “Not eating in the cafeteria?”
“Not eating.” After Zhou Yu spoke, she received a WeChat message from Sun Jingcheng saying he’d be staying in the new district tonight after finishing work late.
Zhou Yu didn’t reply. This was already his third day staying in the new district this week. Since that night returning from the new district, the two hadn’t seen each other. She still happily left work and arranged to eat hot pot with eldest sister-in-law. A while ago she’d asked eldest sister-in-law for help and had been saying she’d treat her to a meal in return.
The two ordered a pot, had the dishes served, and ate while chatting at a leisurely pace. Eldest brother had no set work hours, so eldest sister-in-law generally didn’t wait for him. After eating most of their meal, eldest sister-in-law mentioned that a couple nights ago, eldest brother had received a phone call from Sun Jingcheng late at night, asking if it was possible to remove his name from the household registry.
“Your eldest brother said only dead people could be removed. Fourth brother Cheng probably said it in anger, saying to just consider him dead. Later your eldest brother took the phone outside to talk—they talked for half an hour before he came back.” Eldest sister-in-law said carefully: “I thought fourth brother had been drinking too much, but your eldest brother said it was nothing—he doesn’t drink.”
Eldest sister-in-law was habitually cautious. Originally she shouldn’t have said this much—it had the suspicion of prying into people’s private lives. Those with narrow minds would think she was enjoying their misfortune. These past few days she’d been thinking it over and finally decided to say a few words to Zhou Yu. Among the three sisters-in-law, she liked Zhou Yu the most and hoped most that she and fourth brother could live well together. She didn’t want to encounter another difficult sister-in-law like second daughter-in-law.
This year she’d clearly sensed something wasn’t right with these two. Whether a woman in a marriage was doing well or not simply couldn’t be hidden. From her every smile and frown, her eyes and state—it was all obvious. But they were all intelligent people. If someone wanted dignity, and you insisted on stripping it away, that showed you were tactless.
“He’s been working late these past few days, sometimes staying in the new district,” Zhou Yu said. “If you hadn’t mentioned it, I really wouldn’t have known about this.”
“I only mentioned it just now while eating. The subway construction where you are has been going on for a year—no word on when it’ll be finished. Yesterday I went to handle some business and got so turned around.” Eldest sister-in-law continued along with her topic.
“The pandemic caused another work stoppage in the first half of the year. They say it won’t be finished until before May Day next year,” Zhou Yu said.
“So Jingcheng will have to detour for another half year coming home?” eldest sister-in-law asked.
“Right. Usually it’s twenty minutes at most, but now everyone has to detour, traffic is congested—forty minutes is considered fast.”
Eldest sister-in-law seemed to remember something and said to her: “Let me tell you something interesting. Have you noticed that at family dinners, among the men, only fourth brother and Dad never miss one?”
“Second brother’s mouth runs wild—every time in the group chat he says he’ll come, but out of ten times he makes it maybe twice if we’re lucky. Jingfei is the same. Only fourth brother participates every single time without fail.” Eldest sister-in-law said: “Among the four siblings, I’d say fourth brother has the most family responsibility. Those three just pay lip service with no actual action.”
…
“I think eldest brother is very good. It’s just that his work is special—everyone understands when he can’t come.” Zhou Yu thought of something. “During summer vacation, there was one time I saw eldest brother on the street. He was buying flowers, asking what kind of flowers would make a woman happy when she saw them. The florist was quite witty and replied, ‘having money to spend.'” She laughed as she finished.
Eldest sister-in-law also laughed heartily, her expression full of tender affection as she said: “Now that you mention it, I remember. That day he rarely had time off. The two of us took Yanyan out to play. We bickered a couple times on the road and parted unhappily. It wasn’t until evening that he came back clutching a bunch of flower stems…” She gestured with her hands. “A bouquet of flowers with only a few yellow flower centers left.”
“Later he explained to me, saying he’d bought flowers intending to come back and apologize, but on the way he was suddenly called to a task. When he ran back to the bureau, the flowers were upside down in his hand swinging back and forth—all the petals got shaken off.”
After the meal, eldest sister-in-law was picked up by eldest brother. Zhou Yu was too lazy to take a taxi and walked along the roadside toward the subway entrance. Because she was focused on thinking, she didn’t hear the honking behind her. Not until Sun Jingcheng’s car pulled alongside her and he rolled down the window to call out did she notice him with a start.
“Get in the car, I’ll give you a ride.”
“You go ahead with your work. I’ll take the subway.”
“Still angry?”
To prove she wasn’t angry, she got in the car.