Sun Jingcheng was preparing to return to the new district when he ran into Mother Sun coming back after dropping off the children. Mother Sun was carrying several bags of groceries, pounding her waist as she sat at the dining table sorting through them.
“Should I hire a housekeeper for the family?” Sun Jingcheng said.
“Money to burn?” Mother Sun said. “I’m just making them a meal—how tired could I get?” She then pointed to a dining chair. “Sit down. Mom wants to discuss something with you.”
Sun Jingcheng sat down.
“Years ago when we were getting houses for you three brothers, your dad and I kept something in reserve—we got ourselves a unit too, thinking we’d give it to whoever was most filial in the future.” Mother Sun said while sorting vegetables. “This year, your dad and I have been thinking about giving this house to your eldest brother. You all know eldest brother’s situation. Your eldest sister-in-law’s family… better not mention it. Two public servants raising two children—how much money can they have left?”
“Fine, I have no objection,” Sun Jingcheng stated his position.
“You have no objection, but can your wife have no objection? Your dad and I discussed this for a very long time. We’re not worried about your second brother—he’s better off than any of you. He wouldn’t even look twice at one house. We’re not worried about Jingfei either—even if her own daughter loses out, she’ll handle it and won’t take offense. Plus she’s better off than you too…”
“Mom, get to the point,” Sun Jingcheng interrupted her.
“I’m talking about you and you’re still unhappy?”
“Would you be happy if Dad talked about you?” Sun Jingcheng asked back.
Mother Sun slapped him. “You’re the most unfilial.”
“I can be filial, I just can’t be obedient,” Sun Jingcheng tilted his head away.
“Your dad and I discussed giving your eldest brother the upstairs and downstairs of the clinic. The other house we’ll leave to you. It’s also in the new district, seems like it’s in your same complex? At the time your sister took us to buy it. I was so confused I couldn’t tell which was which—back then it was wilderness and I didn’t think much of it. Your sister said it had the most potential… and looking at it now, she was right! The price has gone up several times! That unit is even bigger than yours—it has four bedrooms!”
“There’s another consideration for leaving the clinic to your eldest brother—it’s in a school district, convenient for Yanyan’s schooling in the future. Your marital home is also in a school district, plus you have your wife, so your family won’t worry about education. I’ll talk to your second brother later. Once we’ve discussed it, your dad and I will make a will. It’s best to plan these things early.”
“I don’t want it,” Sun Jingcheng refused outright.
“Why are you so ungrateful?” Mother Sun scolded him. “I’m giving you a safety net, in case in the future you can’t make it…”
“Mom, my life is really quite good,” Sun Jingcheng was exhausted. “It’s not as hard as you all think.”
“You can’t always compare me with second brother. I can’t live second brother’s life, and second brother can’t live mine. People have different aspirations and different paths.”
“What kind of path is yours, a rat’s path?” Mother Sun said to him.
“Mom, am I really such a failure?” Sun Jingcheng looked at her.
Her son’s gaze made her heart ache, but it also made her feel wronged. “I’m your mother—would I harm you? I’m just afraid you’ll end up as nothing in the future. One more house gives you one more guarantee!”
“I’m giving you a house and I have to beg you with sweet words? What kind of logic is that! You just don’t know how good you have it. You’ve had it too comfortable from childhood—you don’t know how to be grateful to your parents…”
“Fine, fine, fine. I’ll take it, I’ll take it,” Sun Jingcheng compromised.
Mother Sun got upset just looking at him and took the vegetables to the kitchen to sort. While sorting, she said: “I’ll tell your sister tomorrow, tell your eldest brother, tell your second brother—no one finds having an extra house burdensome. How many people get divorced because they can’t afford to buy a house, can’t stand being poor…”
Sun Jingcheng went downstairs. Sun Youping was at the hundred-drawer cabinet getting Chinese medicine, having it prepared for decoction. Sun Jingcheng didn’t leave but sat down by the heater. He picked up a cicada shell that had fallen under the chair, blew off the dust, and placed it on the back of his hand. After playing with it for a while, he placed the intact cicada shell on the counter and turned to leave the clinic.
Sun Youping watched Sun Jingcheng standing under the plane tree by the roadside. He methodically finished preparing the medicine, then looked up again—the person had already left. He gently picked up the cicada shell and put it in the hundred-drawer cabinet, took off his white coat, and went upstairs, saying to Mother Sun: “He’s in his thirties or forties—stop managing him like he’s a little kid all day long.” After saying this, he went back downstairs.
Mother Sun found it baffling and didn’t know what he was talking about. Only after a long while did she realize he was criticizing her for managing Sun Jingcheng too much. Instinctively she went downstairs wanting to argue with him a couple times, but seeing there were patients, she went back upstairs resentfully. Before, he said she was too lenient, said she didn’t know how to raise children, said a kind mother spoils her children. Now he was criticizing her for being too controlling. He’s the only one with a mouth—he has something to say about everything.
That evening Zhou Yu was dizzy with busyness. At eight o’clock she received a WeChat message from Sun Jingcheng: “Why aren’t you home yet?”
Zhou Yu found time to reply: “Evening study supervision, grading papers, making up exams.”
Sun Jingcheng asked: “What time do you finish?”
Zhou Yu replied: “Ten o’clock. Don’t reply anymore, I’m busy.”
Sun Jingcheng didn’t reply again. Instead, he turned and asked his mother-in-law: “Mom, is there still dinner?”
Feng Yiqun replied: “Yes, come over.”
Sun Jingcheng was preparing to drive to the family compound, then realized at this hour the roads would be congested and there wouldn’t be any parking spaces, so he simply rode Zhou Yu’s little white electric scooter. By the time the wind on the road had frozen him into making faces, he suddenly understood why that little woman didn’t ride it—facing the headwind, it was really too cold, too cold!
Arriving at the family compound, he was blown silly by the wind. He rubbed his frozen face and bounded up the stairs two steps at a time. Feng Yiqun made him a bowl of sesame leaf mixed noodles. The house always kept dried sesame leaves and sweet potato leaves—Grandma loved eating them, and Sun Jingcheng loved them too.
While eating, Sun Jingcheng asked: “Mom, did you just cook this?”
Feng Yiqun didn’t answer, only saying: “There’s plenty in the pot. When you finish, go get more.”
“Okay.” Sun Jingcheng buried his head in the noodles. This was also the first time he realized—was he really too self-centered? Coming whenever he was hungry, regardless of whether it was past mealtime or if he was causing trouble for others.
Grandma was sitting there soaking her feet. Rarely lucid, she asked why Little Yu hadn’t come. Sun Jingcheng said she hadn’t finished work yet. Grandma dried her feet, shuffled in her slippers slowly back to the inner room, and after a long while came out clutching a plastic bag that she secretly gave to Sun Jingcheng, telling him to take it back to Zhou Yu, but to be quiet about it—don’t let Zhou Qi know.
Zhou Qi was Zhou Yu’s deceased older brother.
After Sun Jingcheng solemnly put the plastic bag in his pocket, Grandma sat back down to continue soaking her feet and watching TV. Sun Jingcheng felt sad for Zhou Yu. Grandma was always lucid when she wasn’t around, but often when she was right there, Grandma couldn’t recognize her.
After Feng Yiqun finished in the kitchen, she came to sit down and asked him: “How has Zhou Yu been lately? I heard the school let her rest for a few days.”
“She’s already finished resting and taught for four days. She says final exams are next Tuesday,” Sun Jingcheng said.
“That’s good.” Feng Yiqun nodded. She had excellent posture. Even sitting in a dining chair, she habitually kept her legs together and her back straight. Zhou Yu was very much like her in this regard.
When the two got married, everyone praised Zhou Yu for having the temperament of a refined lady—standing with proper posture, sitting with proper posture, smiling with proper posture, with a bearing so good it made people overlook her features. Even now it was still like this. In the relatives’ circle, whenever someone’s family was looking for a daughter-in-law, the elders always used Zhou Yu as the standard.
Sun Jingcheng also often felt confused, always feeling Zhou Yu had a split personality—one way in front of others, another way at home. At first when he mentioned it she’d get angry. Now gradually she’d also thickened her skin, with a thoroughly broken jar attitude, occasionally extending her long-waiting claws to scratch him. And her tongue had become quite sharp too—when angry she’d bare her fangs and bite wherever she could reach.
Thinking about this, Sun Jingcheng felt a chill down his back. He also remembered a case his eldest brother had solved—a wife had drugged her husband’s food and dismembered him, with methods so cruel they were outrageous… Thinking of this, he couldn’t eat anymore. His mind was filled with images of Zhou Yu calmly wielding a knife.
Learning that he’d ridden the electric scooter, Feng Yiqun went to the room to get one of Zhou Yu’s red cashmere scarves, then saw him downstairs. Sun Jingcheng wrapped the scarf well and urged her: “Mom, go back up. Zhou Yu and I will come see you this weekend.”
“Drive slowly.”
“Okay.”
“If Zhou Yu hasn’t cooked, just come over.”
“Okay.”
Sun Jingcheng rode for a bit, then pulled the large scarf open and simply wrapped it around his head like a mother hen, exposing only his eyes. The route home to the marital home necessarily passed by Zhou Yu’s school. He also timed it right, planning to give her a surprise.
Zhou Yu actually recognized her own little electric scooter, but she didn’t want to acknowledge the person on it. She pretended not to see and said goodbye to her colleague before heading home. The school was only four or five hundred meters from the marital home. In winter she always walked to and from work. Sun Jingcheng was a bit angry and followed behind, saying to her: “I’m embarrassing you, is that it?”
Zhou Yu slowly turned her head and pulled down the scarf covering half his face. “Oh, what are you doing here?”
“Go ahead and pretend! I froze to death waiting here an hour for you, and you come out acting like I’m embarrassing you!”
“I really didn’t recognize you. You misunderstood.”
“Misunderstood my ass!”
Zhou Yu sat on the back seat to keep the peace and urged him to go.
“Feeling guilty now, aren’t you? If I’d really wronged you, wouldn’t you jump up and bite me?” Sun Jingcheng couldn’t let it go.
…
“Alright, alright. Don’t be so unforgiving when you’re right.” Zhou Yu looked at the thermos in the basket. “Did you go to the family compound?”
Sun Jingcheng ignored her.
Zhou Yu wrapped her arms around his waist. “Did you go to the family compound?”
“Mom packed food for you,” Sun Jingcheng said. After saying this, he deeply criticized her: “You’re just hypocritical!”
“I’m hypocritical, I’m hypocritical.” Zhou Yu admitted it and kept urging him to hurry home—she was freezing to death.
Sun Jingcheng’s spirit had suffered blow after blow. Even after getting home, he was still gloomy.
Zhou Yu poured out the sesame leaf noodles from the thermos and sat there eating after adding a small spoonful of chili oil. She hadn’t had time to eat dinner earlier, only eating a chocolate.
“Go ahead and eat. Don’t complain about a sore throat afterward,” Sun Jingcheng said, looking at her noodles with chili oil.
Zhou Yu had lectured all day and her throat was already uncomfortable. She hesitated and pushed the noodles aside, then poured out another bowl. Seeing this, Sun Jingcheng sat down to eat. The two ate their own food without speaking.
Neither was a talkative person, especially Zhou Yu. She felt like all her words were used up in the classroom. At home, she just wanted to let her mouth rest. Sun Jingcheng was the same—after working all day in a noisy environment, at home he just wanted to be quiet.
This was the only area where the two were in sync—neither minded that the other didn’t talk much.
After washing up and getting into bed, Sun Jingcheng remembered the plastic bag Grandma had given him. He went to the living room to dig it out. Inside the plastic bag was a small piece of red hawthorn cake. It looked like it had been there for several days and was completely flattened.
“My mom probably took her to a banquet. This kind of thing is only available at banquets,” Zhou Yu licked it. “I loved eating this when I was little, but I don’t eat it now.”
After the two settled into bed, Zhou Yu said: “When I was little, I lived in the countryside with Grandma for a year. Back then, whenever there was a wedding or funeral in the village, she’d take me along. Seeing that I loved eating this, she’d put several slices of hawthorn cake from the plate on my bowl.”
“Later when I returned to the city and went to a wedding banquet with my mom, when this dessert was served I immediately took several slices for my bowl first. When we got home, my mom severely criticized me. She said it was very ill-mannered behavior.”
“My mom was like that too. She’d tap my sister’s hand with chopsticks.”
“Why didn’t she tap your hand?”
“Because I didn’t take any,” Sun Jingcheng said. “When I was little, I wasn’t interested in food. I only liked playing piano.”
“So you grew up eating air?” Zhou Yu asked.
…
“I’m not going to argue with you.”
“It’s your expression that’s the problem.”
“You’re a teacher—I can’t out-talk you,” Sun Jingcheng said with his hands behind his head. “Out-talking you isn’t something to be proud of anyway. You’re not a foreign prime minister.”
“Then when we argue, you shouldn’t talk back?”
“That won’t work. Arguing is another matter. Out-arguing you isn’t something to be proud of, but it’s satisfying,” Sun Jingcheng said contentedly.
…
“People say good marriages nurture you, bad marriages kill you. They kill the self that had beautiful expectations of love before marriage. That’s why there’s a saying: marriage is the grave of love,” Zhou Yu said. “This year I’ve almost become a shrew.”
“That’s not right,” Sun Jingcheng refuted her. “Love that can’t withstand the mundane can only be called passion. Real love is when, after the passion fades, it can still withstand life’s trivial daily routines.”
“I think marriage, besides love, also needs righteousness, understanding, courage, kindness, gratitude, familial affection… The ‘love’ of the passionate period is the purest and fullest, but slowly it will wane like the full moon, and what wanes will gradually transform into righteousness, courage, kindness, familial affection… various deep emotions that blend and interweave, fusing into bone and blood. That’s ultimately what’s called never leaving, never abandoning.”
He’d originally wanted to say a lot more. As he spoke, he fell silent, then looked at Zhou Yu. “Good night.”