Viewing those around her with a sense of impending departure, Qiao Qingyu felt detached from their words and actions. Already on the periphery of this wedding, she now felt like an observer of observers, her disembodied soul unable to partake in the overwhelming joy.
“Eat up,” Li Fanghao urged, adding a spare rib to Qiao Qingyu’s bowl. Their eyes met.
“Perk up,” Li Fanghao frowned, turning away. “We’re not asking much of you. Just look cheerful!”
Unlike her usual casual style, Li Fanghao had carefully arranged her hair into a bun today. From the side, her smooth, rounded jawline mirrored Qiao Baiyu’s, with a few wisps of gray at her temples.
Mom is beautiful, Qiao Qingyu thought.
“Be alert and act accordingly,” Li Fanghao whispered, ladling soup for her. “You’re a grown girl now. Be sensible!”
These ordinary complaints and reminders sounded like parting words to Qiao Qingyu. She nodded silently, averting her suddenly sentimental gaze, feeling intense sympathy for the oblivious Li Fanghao.
Strangely, while her mother had been the first person she wanted to escape, she was now the one Qiao Qingyu worried about most.
After the meal, Li Fanghao adjusted Qiao Qingyu’s braided hair, repositioning a slightly askew pearl hairpin above her right ear.
“When your father brought the bride price to my family, most of it was useless stuff. This hairpin was the nicest thing,” Li Fanghao rambled, repeating what she’d said that morning. “He said it was expensive, bought from a department store in Shanghai after he left the army. I wore it on our wedding day but was afraid of losing the pearls, so I rarely used it. Today, you’re accompanying the bride, so you need to look presentable.”
“I understand,” Qiao Qingyu’s nose tingled as she softly but respectfully called out, “Mom.”
To Qiao Qingyu, joyous occasions were typically long and tedious, filled with frivolous rituals. Qiao Jinrui’s wedding was particularly so. After lunch, for the sake of photos, they gathered at the dilapidated ancestral hall at the village entrance. Tripods were repeatedly set up and reflectors positioned, all for a few wedding photos to satisfy Xiao Yun. After an hour of assisting with lighting and holding up the wedding dress train, Qiao Qingyu was yawning and exhausted.
Hold on, she told herself. The guest reception hasn’t even started yet.
Minutes later, Lingling, who had come to watch, rescued her. Handing the bride’s bouquet to Lingling, Qiao Qingyu excused herself, claiming a stomachache, and quickly left the hall.
Crossing the low stone bridge near the ancestral hall, she soon reached the old house’s courtyard. The dark windows of the old house remained, while directly across, on the second floor, rusty iron bars thicker than a finger firmly sealed another window.
Qiao Qingyu stood between the two windows for a long time before removing the corsage from her coat.
It was two small white roses, which she had requested from the wedding planners that morning, claiming her role as “half a bridesmaid” with Qiao Jinrui’s approval. Xiao Yun seemed particularly fond of white roses; the black wedding car was decorated like a carefully tended white rose garden. Carefully, Qiao Qingyu disassembled the bouquet, breaking the wire and rearranging it with the baby’s breath and lover’s grass.
She placed one white rose beneath Qiao Baiyu’s hollow window and the other under Aunt Qin’s barred window.
You deserve this, she thought.
With a series of “pop” sounds, golden streamers burst from the flower cannons into the sky. The crowd applauded as golden threads rained down. Qiao Qingyu followed the bridesmaid carrying the wedding dress train along the red carpet strewn with golden ribbons to the flower wall at the courtyard entrance. After the bride and groom took their positions, she instinctively returned the wine-red purse for red envelopes to the bridesmaid and stood behind her, continuously retrieving candy boxes from the cardboard box in the corner and passing them to the bridesmaid.
Qiao Jinrui gave her an approving glance. Qiao Qingyu smiled silently, closely watching the busy bridesmaid who alternated between reaching for candy, holding the bride’s bouquet, and posing for photos with guests. During photos, she would lean the wine-red purse against the flower wall, signaling Qiao Qingyu to keep an eye on it.
As guests kept arriving, the candy boxes quickly ran low. A young man removed the empty box and swiftly brought out two new ones, placing them side by side against the wall.
Qiao Qingyu quickly assessed the situation and opened the box with the sturdier exterior—the candies without notes.
However, Liu Yanfen immediately opened the other box containing the noted candies, smiling as she took extra candy for a guest’s child.
Qiao Qingyu noticed one child immediately opening the candy box, rummaging inside, and disappointedly sticking out his tongue upon finding only chocolates. He carelessly handed the open box to his father, who, busy chatting with Qiao Haisheng, absent-mindedly stuffed it into his backpack.
Her heart remained tense. Seeing Liu Yanfen approach for more candy, Qiao Qingyu quickly handed over the “clean” candies. After Liu Yanfen left, Qiao Qingyu continued distributing candy while contemplating her next move.
She realized she lacked the fearlessness she had anticipated. No, she didn’t dare to witness people discovering the notes, to see their expressions change from confusion to seriousness to surprise, possibly mixed with excitement. It wouldn’t bring her the satisfaction she had imagined. She needed to leave early.
Another photo session began. As usual, the bridesmaid placed the wine-red purse in a corner of the flower wall, gesturing for Qiao Qingyu to watch it. The hall clock struck four times, and Liu Yanfen entered the courtyard just as the rural bus appeared around the corner, set to stop less than twenty meters from the flower wall in half a minute.
This was the perfect moment. Pretending to tie her shoelace, Qiao Qingyu crouched down, using her bulky down jacket to shield the wine-red purse. She swiftly extracted a small stack of red envelopes from the bag and tucked them into her jacket’s inner pocket.
Standing up, she noticed no one had detected anything unusual. The rural bus slowly passed behind her as the newlyweds led another group in cheerfully shouting “Cheese!” Just as the bus stopped, the crowd dispersed, and the bridesmaid turned back to retrieve the wine-red purse.
More guests arrived, seemingly Qiao Jinrui’s middle school classmates. This time, Qiao Qingyu handed over a few boxes of the significant candies to the bridesmaid with a hint of solemnity. She then excused herself to use the restroom, leaving the flower wall.
She left through the back door of the new house, following the stone path around the enclosed side of the courtyard wall. Pulling her down jacket hood over her head, she hurried to the steps where the bus had stopped. The driver was closing the door. Qiao Qingyu, covering her nose and mouth with her sleeve, knocked, and the door opened again.
After rushing onto the bus, she walked straight to the last empty seat.
Through the glass, she faintly heard laughter erupting not far behind her. Checking the inner pocket of her down jacket, she confirmed everything was there: ID card, wallet, phone, notebook, and red envelopes. Looking back, the brightly lit new building and the gray exhaust from Qiao Jinrui’s minibus faded into the distance through the spotted window, quickly disappearing.
Her heart raced with anxiety. Qiao Qingyu pulled out her phone, trembling as she turned it off.
Though an hour earlier than planned, everything was going smoothly. She left Nanqiao Village at 4 PM, Qiaotou Town at 4:30 PM, and Shunyun City at 5:50 PM. By 7:30 PM, Qiao Qingyu arrived in Tongyang City in the neighboring province—a completely unfamiliar place in the opposite direction of Huanzhou.
This wasn’t her final destination. Although Tongyang was even less significant than Shunyun, it had a train station. A train from Guangzhou to Shanghai would pass through here at 9 PM, stopping for two minutes. Qiao Qingyu bought a ticket and waited in the modest station for nearly two hours before boarding the green-skinned behemoth, which was half an hour late.
In 93 minutes, she would disembark in Huanzhou for another brief stop.
The rhythmic clanking of the train lulled her to sleep several times. Having slept less than six hours over the past two nights, she was exhausted. Afraid of missing her stop and unwilling to turn on her phone to set an alarm, she forced herself to stay awake. Her ultimate destination was Shanghai, and stopping in Huanzhou was risky, but she had to go there no matter what.
To stay alert, she borrowed a pen from the conductor and began detailing her plan in the back of her notebook. She had opened and counted the eight red envelopes, totaling 4,208 yuan—enough for her first month’s rent and living expenses in Shanghai. She planned to find a job quickly, whether as a restaurant server, clothing store clerk, or apprentice at a hair salon. The key was to have income. After settling in, she would live frugally, work while self-studying, enroll in a vocational school, and learn a professional skill. And then… perhaps years later, her parents might forgive her for the trouble she was causing now.
The road ahead was bumpy and uncertain. Qiao Qingyu closed her notebook, recalling the award-winning calligraphy by Qiao Baiyu: “There will come a time to ride the wind and waves, to hoist the sail and cross the vast sea.” She could easily visualize each stroke of the characters, like a high-definition photo stored in her brain. Had her parents thrown away that piece? What a shame.
Anyway, Qiao Qingyu took a deep breath and reassured herself. Her sister Qiao Huan had gone to work in Huanzhou after finishing middle school, and she would be an adult in just a year. What was there to fear?
She suddenly realized she dared to write her thoughts in the notebook because she no longer had to worry about Li Fanghao seeing them. This realization filled her with joy, making her want to scream with happiness.
This was the freedom she had always dreamed of.
When she arrived in Huanzhou near midnight, most shops in the station hall were closed. Cold wind gusted in from distant exits, making Qiao Qingyu shiver. Starving and exhausted, she spotted a late-night eatery across the street and hurried inside.
As soon as the steaming noodles arrived, she realized something was wrong.
Two thugs at another table kept staring at her while smoking.
Noticing Qiao Qingyu’s awareness, one of them approached, sneering, “Little sister, running away from home?”
Before he could say more, Qiao Qingyu stood up and fled outside.
Across the street, a garish KTV loomed like a malevolent monster. Several burly men stood outside a small hotel, and a low-growling sports car suddenly tore down the road. The city at night seemed to have changed its face, with predators prowling about, making Qiao Qingyu feel wary and uneasy.
In comparison, the train station with its security guards seemed safer.
Most chairs in the arrival area were occupied, with people sleeping on them. Unable to find a seat after walking around, Qiao Qingyu leaned against a thick pillar and sat on the floor.
She was so tired that she could almost ignore the cold floor. She took out her phone, hesitated for a long time, then put it back in her down jacket’s inner pocket.
Hugging her knees, she buried her head deeply, curling into a ball.
“Just hang on for half a day more,” she encouraged herself. “In Shanghai, the first thing to do is find a hostel, take a good shower, have a good sleep, and eat well…”
Before she could fully imagine the fragrant rice in her mind, sleep consumed her consciousness.
When a security guard woke her, Qiao Qingyu’s head was pounding and heavy. Her neck felt like it was supporting a large rock, and she couldn’t react to anything. A distant voice kept telling her she couldn’t sleep there. After struggling for a while, she sat up, feeling cold on her chest. Looking down, she saw the zipper of her down jacket was wide open.
Qiao Qingyu gasped, quickly feeling her inner pockets.
“You can’t sleep here!” the guard growled fiercely.
Her wallet, red envelopes, and phone were all gone.
“I’m not going to drag you since you’re a girl, but get up yourself!”
Qiao Qingyu sat paralyzed. “All my money was stolen…”
The guard replied unsympathetically, “There’s a police post over there. When they start work, go report it yourself!” Turning away, he muttered, “That’s what you get…”
Qiao Qingyu stood up shakily, supporting herself on the pillar. Before she could steady herself, a wave of nausea hit her, making her dizzy.
She shouldn’t have stayed in Huanzhou, she cried out desperately in her heart, holding her burning forehead as large tears rolled down her cheeks.