HomeRebornChapter 41: The Maze

Chapter 41: The Maze

Wang Mumu knocked on the door early Saturday morning. Qing Yu jumped up from the sofa and ran joyfully to open it. Thanks to Wang Mumu, Li Fanghao no longer locked her in the house. Since the desk in the room was too small and the living room wasn’t quite enough, they decided to study at the dining table.

Around ten o’clock, Jing Yu walked out of his room and left after washing up, without disturbing them. After he disappeared, Wang Mumu looked up: “Your brother must be the most favored one in your family, right?”

“If letting someone do whatever they want counts as a favor,” Qing Yu also put down her pen, “then yes.”

“I noticed all his clothes and pants are Nike.”

“He only has two or three sets,” Qing Yu said dismissively. “Our family can’t afford to buy him brand names. But he cares a lot about face, so he insists on buying them.”

“Do you feel it’s unfair?”

Qing Yu thought carefully, slowly shaking her head: “The clothes don’t matter, I don’t care. I think pursuing clothes is too mundane. What I envy is his freedom.”

“But what use is freedom?” Wang Mumu smiled helplessly. “Can freedom feed you? Can it give you a big house and nice clothes?”

“Are big houses and nice clothes that important?”

“Aren’t they?” Wang Mumu countered. “Why are you studying so hard now? Isn’t it to get into a good university, find a good job, and have a high income? You’ve been repressed for too long, so you especially need freedom. It’s fine if you want to be above material pursuits yourself, but you think people who pursue material things are mundane. We’re all ordinary people, no one can escape that – don’t we all eventually return to the necessities of life? The economic foundation determines the superstructure. To talk about true freedom, you must first have no worries about food and clothing.”

The atmosphere turned somewhat tense, and Qing Yu instinctively retreated, saying nothing.

“I’m not just talking theory,” Wang Mumu continued in a slightly softer tone after a few seconds. “My family went from wealthy to poor overnight. I know too well the pain of having no money.”

That feeling of falling from heights must be terrible, Qing Yu thought. How happy Wang Mumu’s family once was made their current misery all the more painful for her.

“This psychological gap is the most tormenting,” Wang Mumu’s tone softened further, almost returning to her usual gentleness. “I understand one truth: people shouldn’t experience good things from the start. Either never have them, or have them in the latter half of life. Getting something and then having it taken away is the cruelest.”

Qing Yu nodded.

“It’s the same with feelings,” Wang Mumu suddenly turned her gaze to look across the street. “It’s too early at this stage – all the beauty of love is just an illusion.”

Following her gaze, Qing Yu saw that the window directly opposite had finally opened, with an unfamiliar middle-aged woman leaning halfway out to clean the glass.

“Grandfather’s house has been rented out,” Wang Mumu said softly as if talking to herself. “I thought Ming Sheng would never bear to rent it out… The piano, books, and paintings must all have been moved away.”

Qing Yu had already returned her attention to the English test paper before her. “It was not until…” she murmured the boring multiple-choice question.

“Qing Qing,” Wang Mumu’s voice was gentle, “do you blame me for persuading you to reject Ming Sheng back then?”

“No.”

“What if he was very serious about you?”

“No,” Qing Yu forced a casual smile, “How could he be serious? Didn’t you just say yesterday he was vain, shallow, a playboy…”

“But,” Wang Mumu interrupted, “what if what I said was wrong?”

“You weren’t wrong,” Qing Yu looked down with a small smile. “Everything you said was right. Yesterday, he went karaoke singing and specially invited Deng Meixi.”

“Oh.”

They fell silent until the clock struck twelve when Li Fanghao brought back two portions of noodles. Wang Mumu insisted on going home to eat, but Li Fanghao convinced her to stay. With Li Fanghao sitting nearby, they barely spoke while eating. After Li Fanghao left, Wang Mumu took out her phone, her expression serious and conflicted as she waved at Qing Yu: “Let me show you a photo.”

Qing Yu moved closer, curious yet apprehensive. At first, she couldn’t find the focal point, only seeing the psychedelic lights of some KTV. Then, under Wang Mumu’s guidance, she suddenly noticed Ming Sheng sitting behind a mess of beer bottles, holding a microphone. Once she spotted him, she couldn’t take her eyes off his face.

“I saw it on the forum last night,” Wang Mumu said. “There are many more, including quite a few clear close-ups.”

Qing Yu responded with an undisturbed “mm” and returned to her seat across the table.

“Do you want to hear him sing?”

Qing Yu carefully pondered Wang Mumu’s question, not answering immediately. Then Wang Mumu asked again: “They say he only sang one song. Do you want to know what song it was?”

“No.”

“Someone uploaded it to Youku, I downloaded it. Can’t play it on my phone, but your computer definitely can.”

“I don’t want to, my mom doesn’t let me use the computer.”

“It’s not you using it, I’m borrowing it. Even if your mom finds out, she won’t say anything.”

Qing Yu bit her lip, slowly shaking her head, though her inner defenses were crumbling completely. Just insist a little more and I’ll agree, she thought desperately.

But Wang Mumu just looked at her thoughtfully.

Qing Yu felt herself wilting rapidly. “Let’s do homework,” she said to Wang Mumu, her voice hoarse and weak.

“‘Just a Game, Just a Dream,'” Wang Mumu suddenly said. “You must have heard this song.”

Qing Yu across the table shook her head blankly.

“‘It was just a game, just a dream,'” Wang Mumu hummed softly. “‘Don’t leave this incomplete love here,’ you’ve heard it, right?”

The melody seemed to walk out of distant years. Qing Yu nodded.

“‘Why say goodbye, yet talk about being together, though you’re not here now, I’m still myself,'” Wang Mumu recited some lyrics. “‘Talk about eternal love, talk about being together…’ He’s heartbroken, he must be singing it for you to hear. Just listen once, okay?”

Her tone was full of melancholy and humility – it was a plea. Qing Yu felt a confused sense of being overwhelmed, stammering: “Mumu Sister, it’s not me… you might be mistaken, he went to KTV to sing, KTV has all kinds of songs… this is a classic song many people sing, it probably has nothing to do with me…”

“You’ll know if you listen,” Wang Mumu sighed. “Others might not know, but don’t I know?”

“I won’t listen.”

Wang Mumu seemed angry.

“That night, the night you went to grandfather’s house, did you say something to him? Something must have happened between you two. If you had rejected him completely from the start, he wouldn’t be this heartbroken, right?”

“I…”

“I’m not angry because I feel sorry for him and blame you, I’ve already said he’s not worth it. I’m a bit angry because you didn’t tell me the truth.”

But instinct told Qing Yu that Wang Mumu did feel sorry for Ming Sheng. A frightening thought quickly formed in her mind, with clear evidence, certain – that Wang Mumu liked Ming Sheng too. It was a deeply hidden, desperate kind of love, wanting to grasp everything related to him, helping him eliminate anything unfavorable to him, completely selfless, completely for him.

Like accidentally glimpsing the deepest secret in Wang Mumu’s heart, Qing Yu felt both panicked and guilty. New concerns surged up – how would Wang Mumu view their friendship? When she advised against accepting Ming Sheng, was it because she thought Qing Yu wasn’t good enough for him? But was she such a calculating person? Maybe her feelings for Ming Sheng were just like a sister’s love for a brother, a continuation of childhood intimacy that only seemed ambiguous now.

“Ming Sheng isn’t an indirect person,” Wang Mumu tried to maintain composure, though her gaze at Qing Yu still held uncontainable questioning. “You must have said or done something that made him misunderstand.”

“I don’t know,” Qing Yu said. “I didn’t promise him anything.”

Making Wang Mumu this unhappy was the last thing Qing Yu wanted to do. For a moment, she thought about simply telling Wang Mumu about giving Ming Sheng a hairpin, but after several attempts, she couldn’t get the words out. She knew she felt guilty. A girl giving her parents’ love token to a boy who loves her – this was a signal no one could misinterpret.

It was only now that Qing Yu realized she had once kindled Ming Sheng’s hopes, only to cruelly extinguish them herself.

“Then you must have said something that hurt him,” Wang Mumu seemed convinced by Qing Yu’s firmness and changed her approach. “Do you know how cruel you can be when you’re cold? At least I couldn’t expose my family’s shameful matters like that – you made yourself feel better but hurt your family.”

The words stung, making Qing Yu feel terrible.

“Maybe I am too cold,” she spoke, partly agreeing with Wang Mumu, truly criticizing herself. “That’s why I’ve never had friends from childhood until now.”

“We’re in the same boat,” Wang Mumu smiled warmly and kindly, returning to her usual friendliness. “I’m the opposite of you – I’m equally nice to everyone, so it’s also hard to make friends.”

That night after Wang Mumu left, Qing Yu couldn’t sleep. When she closed her eyes, she saw Ming Sheng holding the microphone, his face tense and controlled, his eyes unfocused. When she turned over, she saw Wang Mumu, her suspicious concern for Ming Sheng, and her uncontrollable dissatisfaction with Qing Yu.

Does she like him? Qing Yu asked herself repeatedly. She did not doubt Ming Sheng’s trust in Wang Mumu, perhaps the most trust in the world – otherwise, he wouldn’t have let Wang Mumu into his house late at night and told her without hesitation about liking Qing Yu.

If Wang Mumu revealed her feelings to Ming Sheng, how would he react? With the college entrance exam approaching, rejecting Wang Mumu would be sending her to hell, so he wouldn’t do something so cruel, right? No, Sister Mumu would never confess – she knew better than anyone what she should and shouldn’t do.

For a long time, Qing Yu’s thoughts kept colliding with these questions, like being trapped in a maze, exhausted but unable to find a way out. As her consciousness began to blur, she reached one conclusion: she absolutely couldn’t lose Wang Mumu as a friend.

A friend approved by Li Fanghao was a gift from heaven, while the name “Ming Sheng” was a curse. Her harsh words were saving her, while his sincere feelings were destroying her.

The truth was so plain – she absolutely must not get them mixed up.

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