Sun Jingfei had been very busy these days—busy handling miscellaneous procedures, busy buying bedroom furniture and changing curtains. This noon she’d just lain down to rest when several children in the living room were crying their hearts out. Her head ached terribly. She went out to ask what was wrong.

Thirteen-year-old Sun Jiaxing pointed at seven-year-old Sun Jiarui, saying his younger brother had cried after seeing Ke Yu’s social media post—saying Uncle and Auntie had taken Ke Yu and Yuyi skiing!

Sun Jiarui was crying heartbreakingly. The other even smaller one wasn’t crying but had his head squeezed between the balcony railings, pitifully looking outside. Sun Mother was a bit angry, scolding Sun Jingcheng for being worthless. As she spoke, she scrolled through social media, scrolling again and again, asking them: “Where? Your Ke Yu didn’t post anything?”

Several children crowded over—instantly stirring up a hornet’s nest, crying even more painfully. “He deleted it! He deleted it! He was afraid we’d see it so he deleted it again!”

Sun Mother scolded them, then looked at Sun Jingfei. “The fourth took them skiing?”

“I’m not sure.” Sun Jingfei distanced herself. “I’ve been busy the whole time.”

Sun Mother dialed Sun Jingcheng’s phone while scolding Sun Jingfei: “You siblings are both worthless—acting like this as uncle and aunt. Aren’t these your real nephews? Don’t you ever get sick of being despised?” The call connected and she scolded Sun Jingcheng again, then hung up and had the grandchildren put on clothes and scarves—she’d ride her elderly electric scooter to take them.

“Forget it Mom, I’ll take them.” Sun Jingfei said.

Sun Mother wore her down jacket, ignoring her.

“You don’t even know the way…”

“Can’t I look at navigation?!” Sun Mother glared at her fiercely.

…

Sun Jingfei chased down, saying buying tickets at this hour wasn’t cost-effective. She’d take the children shopping at the mall first, then find time to go skiing later.

Sun Mother ignored her, untying her scarf and going upstairs. These siblings—whenever they came back from business trips their hands were empty, never even buying the children a single candy. Last time when several people ditched them to go eat, Sun Jiarui had cried and called his mother, saying Uncle and Auntie had taken so-and-so to eat hotpot without him. Right then the second daughter-in-law came over and took them to eat.

Thinking about this, she started blaming Zhou Yu again—the fourth didn’t understand but couldn’t she understand? Every time only taking the eldest and third families’ children out—could the second be comfortable with that?

…

Because of this incident, Zhou Yu also forgot she was having a tiff with Sun Jingcheng, casually saying to him: “I said we should bring Jiaxing, and you still weren’t willing.”

“Jiarui doesn’t even have a phone, how could he see my social media?” Ke Yu said with certainty: “It must be Sun Jiaxing who saw it and then instigated Jiarui to make a fuss.”

“We should have brought Jiaxing along. That way Grandma wouldn’t be in a difficult position, and Second Aunt wouldn’t say anything.” Sun Yuyi said worriedly.

“Why would Grandma be in a difficult position?” Ke Yu didn’t understand.

“Of course your grandma would be in a difficult position—she’d worry Second Aunt would overthink it.”

“Tsk, you girls really have so many thoughts.”

“Even if I told you, you wouldn’t understand.” Sun Yuyi said in a mature manner: “Anyway, we should have brought Jiaxing or Jiarui.”

Zhou Yu glanced at her in the rearview mirror, feeling she not only resembled the eldest sister-in-law in features but also spoke in her tone. Unhurried and slow, gentle.

Sun Jingcheng didn’t think this was a big deal—just bring them next time.

Zhou Yu squinted, wanting to doze for a bit. Just as she closed her eyes, she felt someone scratching the back of her hand with claws. She looked at that shameless person—he was concentrating on driving.

She turned her back, too lazy to pay attention to him.

The two in the back seat whispered to each other, slowly starting to debate. Ke Yu asked Sun Jingcheng: “Uncle, tell me, what is an independent person?”

“Not blindly following, having one’s own value judgment. Not what others tell him to do, but understanding what he should do after self-awakening…” As Sun Jingcheng spoke, he fell silent himself.

“Isn’t economic independence important?” Sun Yuyi asked.

“Economic independence is the simplest.” Sun Jingcheng said very lightly: “As long as you want to be independent, just go find work.”

That’s not right. Uncle was wrong, but she was too inexperienced to refute him. She felt true economic independence was the hardest. In the family, aside from Auntie who truly relied on herself, her father, like Second Uncle and Fourth Uncle, all had their first house payments made by Grandpa.

Like her roommates in the dorm—using high-end skincare products bought by their parents, new electronic products, chatting about their families’ multiple properties, yet complaining their parents interfered too much. She used to most disdain this behavior, but these past two days her mindset had undergone a great transformation. Ever since Grandma was going to transfer the apartment to her, she had an irrepressible joy. She was so conflicted—happy on one hand yet despising herself on the other, while having to pretend to be indifferent.

She hated herself like this—vain and hypocritical just like them. Her previous false aloofness was just to protect her so-called “self-esteem”—in reality everyone was the same. Thinking of this, she felt an indescribable sadness. People were really, really so complex.

As evening approached near the clinic, Sun Jingcheng received a call from the second brother. The second brother asked what was going on with Sun Jingfei. He’d just gone to the clinic to pick up the child and saw Ke Yong’s car—Sun Jingfei had blocked him from getting out.

Only after arriving at the clinic and watching Ke Yu go upstairs did Sun Jingcheng give the second brother standing by the curb a look. The two stood far to one side to chat. After chatting for a while, they called the eldest brother, briefly explaining the situation. When their own sister was wronged, the brothers naturally couldn’t sit idly by. Originally the eldest also wanted to come but was persuaded by the second, saying his status would be knowingly breaking the law. He and the fourth would handle it—if anything happened, he’d deal with the aftermath. The three brothers coordinated and arranged to meet Ke Yong.

Upstairs was lively—three children took turns showing off, saying what Auntie had bought them, that she’d taken them to an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet, that tomorrow Dad would also take them skiing… blabbering on and on. Ke Yu was already annoyed, and smelling a stinky foot odor, he said they didn’t bring them to play precisely because they were dirty!

Zhou Yu saw Sun Jiarui sitting on the sofa wiping tears and asked what was wrong. Sun Mother was also annoyed in her heart, saying: “Don’t mind him. I’ve never seen a child who cries this much—he won’t amount to anything when he grows up!” As soon as the words fell, she saw the second sister-in-law come up. She said nothing, just took Sun Jiarui’s hand and went downstairs.

It took Sun Mother a long time to react. She threw down the cleaning cloth—let everyone do whatever they want! Helping with the children only brings a bellyful of anger. Then she criticized Sun Jingfei, scolding her for having no brains—who takes children to an all-you-can-eat buffet? How could they possibly eat their money’s worth back?

Sun Jingfei was in an even worse mood, replying: “I have money, I’ll spend it however I want.”

“Hurry up and move out, I get annoyed just seeing you!” Sun Mother said to her.

“You can close your eyes and not look.”

Mother and daughter went back and forth, neither giving in. Zhou Yu felt awkward and went to Ke Yu’s room to check his homework, also sending Sun Jingcheng a message urging him to come back early.

Sun Jingfei was annoyed seeing Ke Yong; Sun Mother was annoyed that Sun Jingfei hadn’t let Ke Yong come up after seeing him.

“Let her hear if she hears—how big of a deal is it?” Sun Jingfei said.

“Didn’t you see her leave with the child without even a greeting?”

“What did you want her to say?” Sun Jingfei said: “If she said something, you’d feel even worse.”

“Go, go, go—get as far away as you can!” Sun Mother chased her away.

“Second sister-in-law isn’t that petty, it’ll be fine tomorrow.”

“So I’m the petty one?”

“You really aren’t that magnanimous.”

Sun Mother pulled a long face, kicked the laundry basin at her feet, cursed at Granny Wan, turned and went back to the living room. Sun Jingfei took over and continued hanging laundry. After finishing, she went to Ke Yu’s room and asked him: “Is your phone off?”

“Forgot to charge it.” Ke Yu responded.

“Your dad just came and said he’ll take you back to Grandpa’s house for the Lantern Festival.” Sun Jingfei said.

“Oh.”

“Does ‘oh’ mean going or not going?”

“I’ll go.” Ke Yu didn’t look up, working on problems.

Sun Jingfei glanced at Zhou Yu who was grading homework, gently closed the door, came out and said to Sun Mother who was busy in the kitchen: “I’ll wash up later, you go play mahjong.”

Sun Mother ignored her. An hour ago someone had invited her to play mahjong—by now they’d long had enough people.

Sun Jingfei stood by the street smoking. Sun Youping came back from the public toilet and grunted as he passed her. Sun Jingfei asked him: “Dad, what are you grunting about?”

Sun Youping went straight back to the clinic.

Sun Jingfei followed behind him. “Dad, if you’re dissatisfied just say it—what’s with the grunting?”

Sun Youping put on his white coat.

Sun Jingfei found it odd. “There’s a toilet upstairs you don’t use—why must you go to the public toilet? And every time you go, you take off your white coat. Isn’t that troublesome?”

Sun Youping still didn’t acknowledge her.

Sun Jingfei found it boring and went back to smoke under the plane tree by the street.

Upstairs, Ke Yu cried silently as he wrote, tears dropping onto the test paper. Zhou Yu also said nothing, standing by the window looking outside—Sun Jingfei and Sun Jingcheng were standing under the tree chatting.

Her relationship with Sun Jingfei as sisters-in-law was just that—a sister-in-law relationship. Usually, aside from gathering at the Sun family home, they’d never privately gone shopping or had coffee together. First, they were each busy; second, they weren’t the same kind of people.

What could be said, what needed to be said carefully—it required great discretion.

Sun Mother often scolded Sun Jingfei for having no brains, but in Zhou Yu’s view, this wasn’t true—otherwise she would have made a huge fuss long ago about her husband’s affair. Precisely because of this, she couldn’t meddle in matters between mother and son—like why Ke Yu was crying.

Sun Jingcheng came back and ran into Sun Jingfei. The siblings stood by the roadside chatting briefly. Before long, the eldest and second brothers also called one after another to chat with her. Sun Jingcheng looked up and saw Zhou Yu at the second-floor window, waved at her, then immediately went upstairs. Going up, he was caught by Sun Mother who interrogated him, asking what was going on between Sun Jingfei and Ke Yong.

Sun Jingcheng carefully gave a simple explanation. After listening, Sun Mother was silent for a long time. After a while she urged them to go home, saying it was too late. Tossing and turning all night unable to sleep, the next morning she took the bus to Ke Yong’s workplace, carrying cheap paint bought from a street stall, found his car and splattered and smashed it.

Afterward Zhou Yu said to him: “Your sister hid this for so long—maybe she just didn’t want you to get involved.”

“Don’t worry, Mom knows what she’s doing.”

“If she wanted to make a fuss, your sister would have done so long ago.” Zhou Yu said: “She must have some plan.”

“She finds it shameful—don’t air dirty laundry in public.” Sun Jingcheng wore rubber gloves, washed the dishes, scrubbed the pot, and also cleaned the dining table. Seeing a stain on the floor, he took a kitchen paper towel, dampened it with water and wiped it clean. When everything was tidied up, he sought credit from the person practicing yoga: “Teacher Zhou, I helped you wash the pot and the dishes.”

Zhou Yu felt something was off about this statement but couldn’t immediately figure out what, so she replied: “Should I praise you?”

“Doesn’t it deserve encouragement?”

“Mm, you’re really great.”

“You’re so perfunctory.” Sun Jingcheng sat cross-legged beside her.

Zhou Yu smiled and ignored him.

Sun Jingcheng looked at her and said from the bottom of his heart: “Wife, lately whenever I think of you I feel very at ease.” Sure enough, the first half sounded good, the second half was irritating: “Although you love making trouble for no reason, I still feel very at ease.”

…

“I already make so much trouble for no reason, and you can still feel at ease?”

“See, see… you’re starting to look fierce and roll your eyes.”

“Get lost!” Zhou Yu cursed at him.

Sun Jingcheng laughed heartily. Then, in no hurry to go to work, he chatted with her: “Wife, do you feel I’m caring about you more and more?”

…

“Wife, sometimes when I think of you, I really want to pluck a beautiful star for you! But sometimes when I think of you, I grit my teeth wanting to hit you.”

…

“Early in the morning… there’s something wrong with you.”

“That’s being insincere.” Sun Jingcheng looked at her. “You clearly love hearing it.”

…

“Who loves hearing it?” Zhou Yu was too lazy to deal with him.

“When you’re happy, your eyes sparkle.” Sun Jingcheng was very pleased with himself, as if he’d discovered something extraordinary.

Zhou Yu stopped practicing—his emotional intelligence was beyond saving. She got up and went back to the bedroom to put on makeup. “Did people write you love letters when you were in school?”

“Yes, tons.”

…

“You must have read them aloud in public plenty of times.”

Sun Jingcheng caught on, too lazy to deal with her. “I’m not stupid—don’t girls need face?”

“Not stupid, and you know to save people face.” Zhou Yu praised him.

Sun Jingcheng didn’t argue with her, asking: “Are you going to school?”

“School’s about to start. Going to do some preparatory work.”

“How so?” Sun Jingcheng inexplicably threw in a line.

“How so what?” Zhou Yu looked at him.

“Should I move the piano over?” Sun Jingcheng leaned against the bedroom door, moving his fingers. “Haven’t practiced for days, my hands are getting rusty.”

“We’ll see.”

“You’re afraid I won’t take you, right?” Sun Jingcheng called her out.

Zhou Yu simply admitted it: “You’ll get tired of it after half a month at most.”

…

“How about I get you a new energy vehicle? No restrictions either.”

Zhou Yu thought about it, still that same phrase: “We’ll see.” Then she urged him: “Go to work.”

“I’m not in a hurry, I’ll take you to school first.”

Zhou Yu just focused on her makeup, ignoring him.

Sun Jingcheng watched her for a long while before slowly speaking: “Teacher Zhou.”

“Speak.”

“What if I lose my job?”

Zhou Yu pressed her lips together applying lipstick. “The coffee shop downstairs is hiring a pianist.”

…

“I thought you’d say you’d support me.” Sun Jingcheng snorted coldly.

“You wish.” Zhou Yu glanced at him. “Midlife crisis over? Done being melodramatic?”

Sun Jingcheng thought about it and replied: “Not yet, still being vulnerable.”

Zhou Yu put on her coat and went out with him. In the elevator, Sun Jingcheng put both hands in his suit pockets, feigning casualness as he asked: “How about I take the medical practitioner qualification exam?”

Zhou Yu also feigned thinking for a long time before solemnly saying: “Good, the more skills the better.”

Sun Jingcheng nodded, saying nothing more.

The two didn’t get along for more than two minutes…

Getting in the car, Zhou Yu told him to “get lost.” Because that person with a face asking to be scolded said: “Wife, I think when you’re good you’re really good. When you’re mean you’re really mean!”

He also corrected her that someone who plays piano isn’t called “a piano player” but—a pianist. Same level as her, both with a “specialist” title.

He also said she couldn’t glance at people with her eyes—it made her seem petty, would drag down her refined lady demeanor.

Before getting out of the car, he thought her lipstick was too dazzling and boldly gave her a solid kiss. And Zhou Yu, to maintain her image of gracious propriety in public, showed him a smile with eight teeth visible, waving her hand with murderous intent in her eyes.

Sun Jingcheng laughed heartily.