To hide the Nokia N95 given by Ming Sheng, Qiao Qingyu carefully cut open the lining of her backpack and sewed an inconspicuous hidden pocket inside. The noodle shop kept Li Fanghai busy, leaving early and returning late daily. Since coming to Huanzhou, she hadn’t searched Qingyu’s backpack, but Qingyu remained vigilant—Li Fanghai’s trust was crucial for her to move forward safely.
Copying homework proved more time-consuming and expensive than anticipated. Due to Ming Sheng’s high standards, Qingyu had to send picture messages for any questions she couldn’t answer. Ming Sheng typically replied with picture messages as well. The high data usage quickly depleted the new number’s balance before the weekend arrived.
Qingyu regretted not including phone credit in her initial request. Although she wanted to ask Ming Sheng to top up the balance, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Eventually, she made a tough decision and used all her savings—100 yuan of pocket money from the past year—to recharge the phone.
It pained her, but she had no choice. If all went well, she could complete her plan this week, return the phone to Ming Sheng on Monday, and end the arduous task of copying homework.
Qingyu had never looked forward to a weekend with such determination. On Saturday, she woke up before dawn, sitting up instantly at the sound of her parents closing the door.
After a quick wash, she turned on the desk lamp and diligently started her homework. Qiao Jinyu woke up four hours later, leaning against the doorframe while brushing his teeth, and mumbled a request to borrow money.
“I don’t have a single cent,” Qingyu replied without looking up. “Besides, when have you ever paid back what you borrowed before?”
“My classmates invited me to sing tonight. I should at least treat them to a late-night snack!” Jinyu grumbled. “Otherwise, it’s not right!”
“If you don’t have money, don’t try to show off,” Qingyu glanced at him disapprovingly. ” I need your help with something tonight.”
“But I want to go,” Jinyu protested, retreating to the bathroom.
After washing his face, he found Qingyu sitting properly in the living room, staring intently at a light green hardcover notebook on the coffee table.
“What’s wrong?”
“Come here,” Qingyu said, assuming a sisterly tone. “I need to tell you something.”
As Jinyu reluctantly agreed to help, frowning with displeasure, Li Fanghai called.
“I’ve been busy until now. Why aren’t you here yet?”
Qingyu suddenly remembered she had forgotten to go to the shop for breakfast.
“What about Xiaoyu? Is he up?”
Jinyu immediately closed his eyes.
“He’s still sleeping,” Qingyu lied.
“Come quickly,” Li Fanghai’s voice was filled with annoyance. “It’s already 9:30!”
Qingyu didn’t dare delay. She hung up and prepared to put on her shoes, but Jinyu followed her, pleading, “Sis lend me some money.”
“I don’t have any.”
Dejected, Jinyu’s eyes suddenly lit up. “Can I borrow that camera phone you have? I’m going out with friends later, and it’d be perfect for practicing…”
“What’s there to practice about taking photos?” Qingyu stood up. “I’ll give it to you tonight.”
“Who lent you a phone, sis?” Jinyu blocked her way. “Did you make friends at school? Do you have a boyfriend?”
Qingyu glared at him fiercely. “I earned it through my hard work. Do you think I’m like you, always looking for handouts? And no matter what, you can’t tell anyone about me borrowing this phone, understand?”
“Alright, I was just asking,” Jinyu retreated. “You’re always so fierce…”
As she ran down the stairs, Qingyu faintly heard Jinyu mutter, “No wonder no one’s chasing after her.” Her heart tightened as she thought of Ke Kai’s letter that Ming Sheng had taken. She was so angry she almost shouted.
She had to get that letter back—
Compared to the busy and dragging Saturday morning, the Saturday night at the Qiao family’s handmade noodle shop usually ended hastily and abruptly, especially this Saturday. There were no customers after 8 PM, so the Qiao couple finished counting and cleaning up early, returning home by 9 PM.
It was still early, so Qiao Lusheng leaned back on the sofa, switching from CCTV news to the provincial cultural channel. Qingyu listened intently from inside the room—Tan Jiazhen, the founder of modern genetics in China, had passed away at the age of 100; the Mao Dun Literature Prize was about to be held. Then it switched to the popular TV drama “Detective Di Renjie.” The theme song played for quite a while, indicating that Qiao Lusheng had put down the remote.
Meanwhile, Jinyu was fiddling with the N95, muttering praises incessantly. Suddenly, he aimed it at Qingyu and took a picture with a click.
“What are you doing?!” Qingyu’s face paled with fright. “Can’t you turn off the sound?”
“I don’t know how,” Jinyu came closer, looking smug. “Sis, look, I took such a nice picture of you…”
Qingyu shushed him, held her breath for ten seconds, then turned to Jinyu and gave him a meaningful look. “Mom’s gone to take a shower. Go.”
As Jinyu stood up, she glanced at the alarm clock on the bedside table. “Don’t forget, you have only ten minutes. No matter what, be back in the room before 9:30.”
“I know,” Jinyu said. “You could be a detective.”
He walked out without closing the door. The TV was still on “Detective Di Renjie,” and the sound of the shower could be heard from the bathroom. Jinyu called out “Dad” and sat down next to Qiao Lusheng.
“Yuanfang, what do you think?” Jinyu imitated the tone from the TV. “My lord, I think there’s something fishy about this.”
Qiao Lusheng laughed heartily.
“Dad,” Jinyu said seriously, “Our teacher said they made a mistake when filling out my student information at the beginning of the semester. They asked me to bring our household registration book back to school to double-check. We have it here, right?”
“Yes,” Qiao Lusheng nodded. “Such important documents always travel with us. Wait for your mom to come out, and she’ll give it to you.”
“Dad, can you get it for me now? I was already asleep, but I suddenly remembered this. We have a school trip tomorrow, and we need to leave early. I want to go back to sleep soon~”
“Alright, wait here.”
First came the creaking of the old sofa springs, then the sound of the bedroom door opening. Qingyu jumped up, ran into the living room, and saw Jinyu with his ear pressed against their parents’ closed door, giving her an “OK” gesture. She then ran into the kitchen, took a cup in her left hand and a kettle of hot water in her right, closed her eyes, and poured water onto her hand.
“Ah—” A heart-wrenching scream echoed from the kitchen to the bedroom, and Qiao Lusheng immediately rushed out.
“Qingqing! What happened, Qingqing?”
Qingyu’s face was contorted in pain, the kettle lying on its side at her feet. Her lips trembled, and painful whimpers escaped her throat. The purple sleeve on her left wrist was already soaked with water.
“Did you get burned?” Qiao Lusheng rushed forward. “Quick, rinse it with cold water!”
He turned the tap on full blast, pulled the grimacing Qingyu over, and put her hand under the running water. The cool water eased the terrible burning sensation, but Qingyu had already started crying from the pain. “It hurts so much.”
“How could you be so careless? You’re not a little kid anymore…”
Seeing the concern in Qiao Lusheng’s eyes made Qingyu unable to hold back her tears. “Dad,” she sobbed, breaking into loud cries.
It felt so unfair.
“At least it’s your left hand,” Qiao Lusheng gently patted her back as a form of comfort. “It’s not a big deal… Be more careful next time. How did you manage to burn yourself just pouring water?”
Amid her cathartic crying, the kitchen light suddenly came on, and Jinyu walked in from the doorway.
“Sis, you don’t need to save electricity like this,” he said, reciting the lines Qingyu had taught him earlier. “You should get into the habit of turning on the lights.”
His appearance quickly brought Qingyu back to her senses: This kid was pretty fast.
Right after, Li Fanghai squeezed into the kitchen while drying her wet hair. After a glance at Qingyu’s red wrist, she turned and walked out without a word.
“I’m going to the pharmacy to buy some medicine now,” she called out while putting on her shoes. “Lock the door later. Old Qiao, wash the clothes after you finish your shower!”
After Li Fanghai left, seeing that Qingyu had stopped crying, Qiao Lusheng told her to keep rinsing her hands and left the kitchen.
“Nothing,” Jinyu whispered before Qingyu could ask.
“Nothing?”
“The safe has Shun Yun’s household registration book, property deed, shop contract, two passbooks, an account book, some letters, mom’s gold necklace, gold earrings, and gold bracelet,” Jinyu counted on his fingers. “But there were no lawsuit documents or your medical record book.”
“So you didn’t get any photos?”
“There was nothing to photograph!”
“Shh—”
“Sis,” Jiao Jinyu sighed dejectedly, looking at Qiao Qingyu’s injured left hand with a hint of guilt in his voice, “Our family is really poor.”
“Did you check the passbooks?”
Jinyu nodded. “And the account book. Sis, did you know? Our family is in debt.”
Seeing Qingyu’s silence, he added, “Big sister’s treatment cost a lot of money.”
“I didn’t know,” Qingyu whispered. “Mom and Dad never talk about these things.”
“You were right,” Jinyu’s face was unusually serious. “Mom and Dad are hiding something about a big sister from us.”
“Hiding what?”
“I took photos of the account book,” Jinyu said. “You’ll see when you look at them.”
Hearing this, Qingyu immediately turned off the tap and retreated to her room.
The five-megapixel camera captured every number in the account book. Jinyu had photographed three pages from back to front, showing monthly family income and expenses. Each year occupied one page, with totals at the bottom. Red ink indicated expenses, and blue ink for income. In the last photo, the January 2006 page, the red expense figure was noticeably longer than others.
Qingyu’s gaze was drawn to the note in parentheses at the end.
“Baiyu Provincial First Hospital fees: 158,000 yuan.”
Provincial First Hospital, she thought, recalling Director Wen’s gaze, filled with what she now recognized as pity. He must have known everything. The director had seen thousands of people; it was unlikely that Qiao Baiyu’s face alone would have left such an impression.
“Mom and Dad lied to everyone,” Jinyu said quietly. “Even Grandpa and Grandma think big sister died because Weiai Hospital was irresponsible!”
“What else could they do?” Qingyu replied. “Tell grandpa and grandma that big sister died of AIDS complications? She’s gone; there’s no need to burden the elders. I can understand Mom and Dad’s decision.”
“That’s strange. Why is Dad suing Weiai Hospital then?” Jinyu voiced Qingyu’s doubts. “Shouldn’t he be suing Provincial First Hospital?”
“We don’t know the details,” Qingyu shook her head while continuing to examine the other photos. “Besides, it seems the lawsuit against Weiai Hospital wasn’t successful.”
“What? But Dad said we won!”
“If we’d won, they would have compensated us,” Qingyu explained. “Look at the income over these years. Except for February 2006, it’s been about the same. Even since coming to Huanzhou, we’ve only been earning about 2,000 yuan more per month, just enough for rent…”
“What happened in February 2006?”
“It says here,” Qingyu laid the phone flat. “‘Baiyu’s burial in an ancestral grave, received 33,080 yuan in condolence money.'”
As she spoke, she noticed the expense note for March: “Baiyu’s burial in Anling Park, 30,000 yuan for a public cemetery.”
“What’s Anling Park?” Jinyu asked, puzzled.
“The public cemetery by Qinghu Lake,” Qingyu was nearly speechless. “Mom and Dad secretly buried big sister in Huanzhou.”
The next morning, Qingyu struggled out of a strange dream, only to feel suffocated by the heavy darkness in the room. She jumped out of bed and fled from the windowless room as if escaping danger.
The air outside the balcony was a crisp gray as if stained with diluted ink. After staring for a long while, Qingyu realized it was raining outside.
She wore only a thin short-sleeved nightgown, yet was drawn to the coolness beyond the balcony.
Directly opposite, on the third floor, a warm yellow light seeped through the perpetually closed, thick curtains. In the drizzle, this light flickered like fireflies about to disappear deep in a forest.
It took Qingyu a moment to realize that the light in Ming Sheng’s house was on.
Is Ming Sheng behind those curtains?
Since Mrs. Feng asked if she had seen Ming Sheng, Qingyu had never paid attention to whether anyone was across the way. Recalling their first meeting on that scorching afternoon, Qingyu oddly felt that Ming Sheng, invulnerable in public, preferred to shield himself in private. Otherwise, why wear long sleeves and a hood, hiding in a tree on a perfectly normal day?
The image of a widely admired boy harboring secret thoughts, seemingly invincible yet inwardly dependent on the tree’s shelter, seemed poetic. But Qingyu knew that for Ming Sheng, it wasn’t quite like that.
To her, the world was a tangled, waterlogged ball of yarn, growing heavier and more confusing. To him, it was a shadowless glass bottle, every corner bright and open, ready to be shown to the world—just like him, unafraid to do anything, even admitting his reasons for wrongdoing, as if his heart couldn’t harbor any darkness, transparent in its brightness.
He didn’t have any secrets, did he?
Qingyu couldn’t help but wonder how Ming Sheng would react if he were in her situation. Surely he wouldn’t resign himself to a life shrouded in fog, nor would he let unspoken resentment fester silently. He’d likely turn the world upside down first, consequences be damned.
Afraid of others pointing fingers after learning family secrets? No, he wouldn’t care about hiding himself or what others thought.
Qingyu recalled an incident shortly after school started. The English teacher, Ms. Wu, had publicly criticized Ming Sheng for being perfunctory in his essay writing. “The topic was ‘Childhood,’ but you wrote about a tree. It’s completely off-topic, but that’s beside the point,” Ms. Wu had said. “The problem is you copied yourself, recycling an essay you published in the English newspaper a year ago! It’s outrageous! Instead of copying, you could have written a few sentences yourself. Are you incapable of that?”
This rebuke didn’t embarrass Ming Sheng. He confidently walked to the podium, took the exercise book from Ms. Wu’s waving hand, and began reading his essay aloud.
“You…” Ms. Wu’s face turned ashen. “Stop, stop it!”
Ming Sheng ignored her, calmly finishing his recitation without missing a word. It was a lyrical essay, praising a tree throughout. However, the tree-related vocabulary was too unfamiliar for Qingyu to understand fully.
“You think you’ve written well?” Ms. Wu said angrily. “This is an attitude problem!”
“When I was little, I loved climbing trees. My parents thought it was dangerous and strictly forbade it,” Ming Sheng answered irrelevantly, scanning the classroom. His gaze landed on Qingyu’s face, paused, then continued with slightly more emphasis, “But my grandfather took me climbing the old tree by the canal. Sometimes he was even more mischievous than me, like a playful old child.”
“The camphor tree is an important part of my childhood memories,” Ming Sheng added. “It deserves my repeated, loud praise.”
Camphor tree. Qingyu’s enlightened gaze fixed on Ming Sheng, catching his fleeting, blatant disdain. He was that kind of person—maintaining his proud demeanor while making his displeasure crystal clear to those he disliked. He didn’t like hiding.
Open and direct, Qingyu analyzed objectively. It was a good quality, in a way.
Now she believed that when Ming Sheng had initially used Qiao Baiyu’s situation to blackmail her into doing his homework, it was more reckless than malicious. After all, he didn’t seem willing or inclined to discuss others behind their backs. Most likely, in his view, the fact of Qiao Baiyu’s death from illness would eventually spread from Shunyun to Huanzhou anyway. So after being “educated” by Li Fanghai and Qingyu’s refusal to do his homework, his revenge was casual and guilt-free.
She thought again of how Ming Sheng had covered himself up when they first met. It was just to avoid being recognized by neighbors, right? Or maybe to look cool. He was a person without secrets, right?
As her thoughts wandered, Qingyu caught herself and muttered a self-rebuke. What was the point of speculating about him so much?
After standing on the balcony for a short while, her shoulders were dampened by the fine mist drifting in. Goosebumps rose on her arms, and her nose began to feel stuffy. The late autumn chill was no joke, so Qingyu hugged herself and retreated indoors.
As she changed out of her nightgown, she glanced at the alarm clock on the bedside table. It was already 10 AM. Strange, Li Fanghai hadn’t called to urge her today.
Using the same excuse of needing to research at the library, Qingyu left the noodle shop after brunch that Sunday. She had originally planned to investigate Anling Park, but the rain grew heavier with no sign of letting up. After spending some time in the school library, Qingyu returned to the empty classroom and diligently completed Ming Sheng’s homework. As she placed the black folder containing the homework on Ming Sheng’s desk, she hesitated, deciding against returning the phone at the same time.
I’ll return it to him tomorrow, Qingyu thought. When he sees my scalded hand, he shouldn’t mind that I’ve stopped doing his homework.
It was 4 PM when she returned home, and it was still raining. The house was even darker than in the morning, with a motionless figure sitting on the sofa.
“Mom?”
No answer. Li Fanghai’s face was frighteningly dark.
“Mom, did you come home to rest?”
“Where have you been?”
“At school,” Qingyu cautiously eyed Li Fanghai’s profile. “I needed to research for my English essay online…”
“Come here.”
The flat tone of voice scared Qingyu breathless. She put down her backpack and nervously approached Li Fanghai on the sofa.
“Sit.”
Li Fanghai pointed to the small stool beside the sofa. Qingyu obediently sat down, looking up at her mother, extremely uneasy.
“Tell me,” Li Fanghai’s chest heaved violently for a moment, “When did you learn to lie?”