The misty night enveloped the entire city, with neon lights outlining the sharp geometric shapes of buildings, blurring the city’s contours. As Lian Hui turned her car into the underground parking garage, she glimpsed a tall, cold figure in the rearview mirror, leaning against a magnolia lamp post at the entrance of the residential complex. The biting wind lashed at his face, his soft hair fluttering, accentuating the clean, sharp lines of his features. His knee-length black down jacket nearly vanished into the night, with only a hint of white from the fully zipped sports jacket at his neck visible.
Lian Hui noticed him because of that small patch of white. Her temple throbbed inexplicably, and she immediately hit the brakes, parking in a spot at the side of the road.
Lian Hui walked over, her high heels echoing in the empty street. Her steps were elegant, unhurried. As she approached, she asked, “How did you find this place?”
Chen Luzhou didn’t answer. He kept his head down, seemingly absent-mindedly scuffing something with his toe. After a long moment, he looked up and asked bluntly, without emotion, “It’s Fu Yuqing, isn’t it?”
Lian Hui’s mind buzzed, and she stared at him, stunned.
Meanwhile, Xu Guangji finished cooking and brought out the last dish of stir-fried mushrooms and greens from the kitchen. He closed the sliding kitchen door, placed the dish in front of Xu Zhi, and said with a smile, “Did Chen Luzhou ask you to come and ask?”
Xu Zhi’s chopsticks froze midair, suddenly realizing that Old Xu might not be foolish, but rather wise in his simplicity.
“You knew all along?”
Xu Guangji smiled as he pulled out a chair and sat down. He unhurriedly took out a glasses cloth from his pocket, removed his glasses, and while cleaning them, said, “I know everything about you, from the intestines in your belly to the worms in them. Remember when you didn’t like wearing the clothes I picked out for you? You were afraid of hurting my feelings, so you’d change into clothes hidden in your schoolbag once you left home, then change back before coming in. Did you think I didn’t know?”
“I had no idea. I thought I hid it well,” Xu Zhi sighed, putting down her chopsticks. “So, is Uncle Fu Chen Luzhou’s father?”
Xu Guangji sighed too, feeling both melancholic and reflective. “It’s been a while since all this happened. Your mother knows more about it. She and Uncle Fu were very close before. I met Uncle Fu because of your mother. At first, I didn’t like him much. He was very handsome when he was young, loved cars, and had many girls who liked him. He changed girlfriends frequently.”
“How did Uncle Fu and Mom meet?”
“Uncle Fu’s family background was complicated, involved in both legal and illegal businesses. I’m not too clear on the details. When I first met him, while dating your mother, his family was involved in some shady businesses. Your mother was a university student then. You know your grandmother’s health has always been poor, with ankylosing spondylitis and various other ailments. Your mother worked part-time while studying, using her earnings not just for her tuition but also to send money back to your grandmother occasionally.”
The room was quiet, with only the sighing voices of father and daughter.
Xu Guangji continued: “Your grandmother may have a sharp tongue, but she’s soft-hearted. To be honest, I deeply admire that old lady. Things were different back then. Nowadays, college graduates are everywhere, but in our time, people struggle to eat and dress warmly. Even if someone got into university, their family might not have cared much. After your mother got into university, people in the village mocked your grandmother, saying studying was useless. No matter what others said, your grandmother was determined to let your mother go to university.”
Xu Zhi had always known that her grandmother was blunt and expressed her emotions directly.
Xu Guangji went on: “While in school, your mother worked at a video store. Uncle Fu was a regular customer there. He was a director or some big shot at a film dubbing factory, I’m not sure. He told your mother she had a good voice and asked if she wanted to do dubbing work, promising higher pay. Your mother agreed, and that’s where she met Uncle Fu’s girlfriend from the Communication University, who is Chen Luzhou’s mother.”
“Her voice was very similar to mine, and later we trained under the same dubbing coach. Gradually, even our way of speaking and our breath control became increasingly alike. But our personalities didn’t match. She studied architecture and was very straightforward. Sometimes when we encountered some unsavory big shots, the girls at the dubbing factory would be angry but dare not speak up. She, however, would pour water in their faces directly, which caused Fu Yuqing to offend quite a few people. I admired her, but I also disliked her.”
The two of them stood motionless like wooden posts in the biting wind, their hair whipping in the breeze, their expressions equally numb.
Chen Luzhou’s phone in his pocket kept vibrating. He took it out and saw it was Zhu Yangqi. He immediately pressed the silent button and put it back in his pocket.
Lian Hui continued her story: “But Fu Yuqing appreciated her. For a while, I thought they might have some unclear relationship behind the scenes. I broke up and got back together with Fu Yuqing many times. Until Qiu Die found a boyfriend, Dr. Xu. At that time, the four of us were quite close. Fu Yuqing didn’t have many friends, mostly just fair-weather friends. His only true friend was Lin Qiu Die. Qiu Die probably thought I had caused too much trouble, so she stopped contacting Fu Yuqing much later until Fu Yuqing and I broke up for good.”
“What was the reason? Did he cheat?”
Lian Hui: “At that time, I wanted to get married, but he said he had no plans to marry.”
“Why have a girlfriend if you don’t want to get married? I didn’t expect Uncle Fu used to be such a scumbag! I’ve seen him these past few years, living such an ascetic life, I thought he wasn’t interested in women,” Xu Zhi put down her chopsticks, her heart sinking like a stone, blurting out without thinking, “I originally thought Uncle Fu was an unassuming gem in this materialistic world.”
Xu Guangji smiled, took a sip of wine to moisten his throat after talking so much, and continued: “The words ‘unassuming’ have nothing to do with your Uncle Fu.”
“What happened next?” Xu Zhi asked curiously.
Xu Guangji scratched his head and said: “I’m not too clear on the details after that. Your mother and I broke up after college graduation, and it was over a year before we got married. By then, Lian Hui had disappeared for a long time, and your Uncle Fu got into trouble not long after. He had offended quite a few people at the dubbing factory. He got into a car accident while racing. When he was in the hospital, his father was arrested. At that time, your mother wasn’t in touch with him much because of the situation with Lian Hui. We didn’t know then that Lian Hui had given birth to a child.”
Hearing this, Xu Zhi understood that Chen Luzhou was Lian Hui’s biological son. Actually, since that summer when Lian Hui had talked to her, she had sensed something. Lian Hui’s feelings for Chen Luzhou were very special. At the time, she didn’t think much of it, assuming it was normal even for an adoptive mother of over a decade. But thinking back carefully, Lian Hui’s suppressed expectations and unspoken “maternal love” for Chen Luzhou always hid some secrets.
As an outsider, such secrets might seem poignant to hear.
Xu Zhi, who wasn’t particularly empathetic, felt a chill in her heart when she heard this secret. The owner of this secret was Chen Jiaojiao, who was extremely empathetic and could cry for days over a movie, inconsolable.
Xu Guangji took another sip of wine to calm himself and continued: “Your Uncle Fu had just brought the child back for less than a month when the accident happened. His mother wasn’t in a good mental state, so she sent the child to an orphanage. When your Uncle Fu woke up in the hospital and went to look for the child, the child’s appearance had changed, and he couldn’t recognize him at all. He went to find Lian Hui, who was so angry she slapped him several times and said she never wanted to see him again. I’m not sure about what happened after that, but your Uncle Fu’s personality changed from then on.”
Xu Zhi thought carefully and suddenly felt something was off. “Dad, Chen Luzhou’s birthday is November 11th, and mine is July 8th. Logically, I was born a few months earlier. If Ms. Lian Hui disappeared after giving birth to her child, shouldn’t he have been born before you got married? Shouldn’t he be older than me?”
“You’d have to ask Auntie Lian Hui about that. I don’t know.”
“Wait, hasn’t Uncle Fu been looking for his son all these years? Did he just give up after losing him?”
“He couldn’t wait to get rid of him! I’ll never forget the look on his face when he found out I was pregnant. He couldn’t even remember your birthday,” Lian Hui, after all these years, still couldn’t calm down when talking about this man. She was gritting her teeth with hatred. The cold wind howled, her face was already frozen, but it couldn’t cool her down. The anger in her heart was still burning fiercely, impossible to extinguish. “The date on your ID card is your real birthday. The records at the orphanage were filled in randomly by the director. When his mother sent you there, she could barely speak clearly, let alone provide your exact birth date and time.”
Lian Hui had lied to him back then, saying she changed the date to March for early school enrollment. In those years, policies weren’t so strictly enforced, and many parents would change the date on ID cards to the first half of the year to enroll their children in school earlier.
The road on both sides was quiet, with occasional cars passing by, their headlights flashing over the two of them, their expressions obscure. The street lamp above them seemed to be reaching the end of its life, flickering feebly.
“So what now?” Chen Luzhou leaned against the lamp post, arms crossed over his chest. He suddenly laughed numbly, his eyes as dead as still water, looking at her without a ripple of emotion. “Does he want to acknowledge me now?”
“No, I was the one who found him.”
Lian Hui felt somewhat unbalanced. During that summer, Chen Luzhou had been secretly working various jobs to earn money for tuition and living expenses. This decision had been weighing on her mind for a long time. It wasn’t until New Year’s Day when Chen Luzhou called to wish her a happy new year, the lonely silence on the phone, that this thought became like the fangs of a poisonous snake, occasionally scraping her raw in her already bloody life.
Could it get any worse than this?
“So he never looked for me, not even once.”
“Can we stop this now?”
A young man in his early twenties, who should have been full of sharp edges, had eyes filled with undisguised fatigue and helplessness. All his edges seemed to have been worn smooth by life. Lian Hui felt as if someone had punched a huge hole in her heart. She knew that similarly, there was such a hole in her son’s heart, perhaps one that could never be filled, never be complete.
She finally understood why he liked that girl so much.
Xu Zhi and Lin Qiu Die had very similar personalities, sometimes so straightforward it was hard to handle. Even at their first meeting, when Lian Hui had gently suggested they were too young and just being impulsive.
She would tell her directly.
“Auntie Lian, Chen Luzhou, and I aren’t being impulsive. I truly like him.”
At that moment, Lian Hui’s heart ached deeply. She realized that an open and blatant love could make a hidden love seem timid and small.
Chen Luzhou—”
Xu Zhi pushed open the door and looked around. The lights were on and the windows were open, but no one was there. He must have left in a hurry.
Xu Zhi sat on the sofa and called him, but there was no answer. She tried again, but still nothing.
“Zhu Yangqi, do you know where Chen Luzhou is?”
“No idea, I just tried calling him too, but he didn’t pick up.”
“Li Ke, is Chen Luzhou with you?”
There was a noticeable pause on the other end before a nervous reply: “No way! I’m not even close with Chen Luzhou. Why do you keep asking me when your boyfriend goes missing?”
Xu Zhi, unusually flustered, said, “Stop joking around, I’m looking for him. He’s not at home, and I don’t know where he’s gone.”
Li Ke finally got serious, “Ah, well, he’s not here. I’m in my hometown.”
Xu Zhi then got Jiang Cheng’s number from Zhu Yangqi.
“Jiang Cheng, is Chen Luzhou with you?”
Jiang Cheng hesitated for a moment, then said firmly, “Yes, he’s here with me.”
Xu Zhi’s heart leaped, her eyes lighting up with joy: “Then let him come to the phone, I need to talk to him.”
After Xu Zhi spoke, she heard Jiang Cheng move the phone away and call out with no acting skills whatsoever, “Chen Luzhou! Chen Luzhou! Ah, he’s in the bathroom.”
Xu Zhi: “…”
Xu Zhi tossed her phone onto the coffee table, expressionless. After this incident, she realized that Jiang Cheng was the most “loyal,” and his cover-up skills were practically second nature.
Xu Zhi first tried watching a movie on the sofa while waiting, but with such a big issue weighing on her mind, the wait became unbearable. She couldn’t even focus on the movie, so she went to wait by the door instead. Every time she heard the elevator running or footsteps in the stairwell, her heart would inexplicably race, her ears perking up as she stared intently, holding her breath. But each time, her hopes were dashed.
In the end, she was almost dozing off leaning against the wall when she heard the elevator ding. Without much hope, she glanced up reflexively and suddenly saw that familiar tall figure. She instantly snapped awake. Before he could speak, her anxiety from waiting had already drained her patience. She wanted to scold him, her eyes blazing, but seeing him standing there so determined and full of hope, like the neglected ashes of a grand and brilliant firework scattered on the ground after the show, Xu Zhi knew he must have gone to see his mother.
Xu Zhi walked over to him, full of sympathy, and embraced him. The words “Where’s your phone” that she had planned to say were swallowed back bitterly as she let out a long, endless sigh in his arms.
Chen Luzhou hugged her back, his heart already overwhelmed like a tidal wave, drowning him completely, leaving him powerless to resist. If this was another abyss, he might die in it.
…
The lights were on inside, the curtains undrawn. The air conditioner hummed outside, while the TV broadcast the cold, formal news in perfect diction—
“A significant increase in affordable housing—Implementing the new era’s strategy to strengthen the military through talent—”
The two of them were almost devouring each other in a storm of passion as they pushed open the bedroom door. Clothes were carelessly strewn along the way. Chen Luzhou had one hand on the side of her face, his clean, long fingers tangled in her black hair, while his other arm wrapped around her waist. He deeply kissed her in the bedroom, his tongue thoroughly exploring her mouth.
They kissed against the door for a while, the room’s temperature rising rapidly, their breaths hot and chaotic, hearts pounding like drums. Finally, they fell onto the bed together. The TV’s sound was no longer clear through the thick wall, but the host’s rigid, calm voice could still be faintly heard, buzzing and mixing with her heartbeat, drumming in her ears. Chen Luzhou kissed her ear, then stopped at her collarbone. His breathing was unprecedentedly heavy as he rested his forehead against her neck. His fingers skillfully unbuttoned her jeans, asking with a half-smile, his voice low in her ear, “Hm?”
Xu Zhi held up one finger.
And so, that wall came crashing down, the air filled with thick dust, everything hazy and unclear.
Xu Zhi remembered her near-drowning experience when she went to see the sea. Qingyi was by the sea, and they usually went there to watch the ocean during holidays. In recent years, hardly anyone played in the water at the beach anymore. When she was little, the beach was always crowded on weekends, with people watching the tides come and go. Some got carried away, recklessly slapping the water surface with their palms, stirring up higher and higher waves, letting them crash over her one after another. But that person wouldn’t save her, wouldn’t let her go, the sound terrifying.
“Chen Luzhou, when exactly is your birthday?”
“She said it’s the one on the ID card, March 17th,” he replied, fully focused.
They continued chatting intermittently.
“So your birthday is coming up again?” Xu Zhi was shocked.
He laughed, his expression arrogant and teasing. He looked up at her brazenly, breathing heavily, “Yeah, want to make me another villa with a garden? This time I want a parking lot too.”
“Get lost,” Xu Zhi said, unable to tolerate it anymore. She tried to kick him but missed, then pushed his sweaty head.