On the night after the college entrance examination, Qiao Qingyu was awakened by the sharp siren of an ambulance. The flashing lights on top of the vehicle filtered through the newspaper-covered window glass, creating undulating patterns on the plywood that made her feel as if she were lying at the bottom of a wave-filled lake.
She heard a woman’s hysterical cries, alternating between “Old Wang!” and “Mu Mu, come back!” She kept her eyes open until the sirens faded away, the crowd dispersed, and the night returned to silence.
Wang Mumu was probably out celebrating with her classmates. Qiao Qingyu felt sick thinking about how, just as Mumu had finally shed the burden of the college entrance exam, life had immediately dealt her another heavy blow.
As she imagined the various possibilities of Wang Mumu’s father’s condition in the hospital, an uninvited thought crept in—that it might be better for Wang Mumu and her mother if he simply passed away. The moment this thought surfaced, Qiao Qingyu suppressed it, condemning herself for being cold-blooded, even evil.
While happiness was worth pursuing, could one justify sacrificing a life in its name?
Even God couldn’t make such a brutal choice, Qiao Qingyu thought. Then she remembered Mingsheng’s grandfather, someone who had voluntarily given up his life. She recalled Mingsheng’s initial rejection and felt a deep resonance. Wasn’t life itself hope? Why give up on life? She couldn’t understand.
But Mingsheng had accepted it now. He had come to understand that a person, unwilling to live as an “empty shell without self-awareness,” could entrust the power over their life to someone they completely trusted. Was that it? Qiao Qingyu pondered. Had Mingsheng actively embraced his grandfather’s philosophy, or had he merely resigned himself to an unchangeable fact?
For some reason, Qiao Qingyu leaned toward the latter explanation. Memories were like stones rolling down the river of time, ultimately unable to escape the deep sea of emotions. Mingsheng’s longing for his grandfather could make him identify with everything about him. Yes, perhaps memory wasn’t about capability but about love—more precisely, about emotions.
Just like how when she thought of Qiao Baiyu now, the melancholy flowing through her heart had long since drowned out her previous resentment—discovering the truth and wanting justice for Qiao Baiyu was certainly one reason, but more importantly, Qiao Qingyu felt it was because she remembered her sister’s face lighting up with joy at the sight of her from very early on, and the hand that always held hers tightly wherever they went.
That was a sister’s love for her younger sibling—innocent, simple, and pure.
She was grateful to have captured these seemingly insignificant, fleeting moments. They were like fish scales or silk, fragmentary yet brilliant, forming the ocean of her memories of Qiao Baiyu. She didn’t want to recall the later conflicts between them; they seemed as insignificant as stones sinking into the deep sea.
What stirred her was only the tide—
Three days after the ambulance incident, Wang Mumu knocked on Qiao Qingyu’s door. It was Wednesday, and because Qiao Qingyu had classroom duty, she arrived home twenty minutes later than usual. Coming up the stairs, she found Wang Mumu sitting on the steps with her knees pulled to her chest, looking as if she had been waiting for a long time.
Li Fanghao asked Wang Mumu if she had eaten dinner; she said no.
“Then I’ll bring two portions.”
This time, Wang Mumu didn’t refuse. After they went inside, Li Fanghao left, glancing back at them several times before closing the door, clearly worried. Qiao Qingyu shared Li Fanghao’s concern—Wang Mumu’s anxious, dispirited appearance made her uneasy. So, as soon as Li Fanghao left, she asked Wang Mumu what was wrong.
“Just sit with me for a while,” Wang Mumu gave her a bitter smile. Though the weather was warm, she still wore long sleeves, which made Qiao Qingyu worry even more.
They sat there until Li Fanghao returned. During dinner, Li Fanghao got straight to the point, asking about Wang Mumu’s father’s condition.
“Late-stage liver cancer, gastric bleeding,” Wang Mumu replied briefly, staring at the noodles in her bowl. “He survived, thankfully.”
“That’s good, that’s good,” Li Fanghao said with forced lightness to comfort Wang Mumu. “Now he just needs to focus on recovery.”
Wang Mumu responded with a grunt and began eating her noodles with unprecedented roughness. Li Fanghao collected laundry, folded clothes, took their empty bowls, and left for her shop. After the door closed again, Wang Mumu’s eyes immediately reddened.
“Qingqing,” her voice full of tears, “my father is dying.”
Qiao Qingyu opened her mouth but hesitated. Under such a cruel reality, all words seemed powerless.
“If he gets chemotherapy, he might last a few more years,” Wang Mumu continued. “Without it, he only has days.”
“Mm.”
“To be honest, I’ve wished for his death more than once,” Wang Mumu bit her lip as tears fell. “Now that it’s happening, I have no idea how to face it. My father suddenly became a different person, saying he shouldn’t waste away, that he’s not afraid of pain, that he wants to live to see me graduate from university, wants chemotherapy. But my mom says chemo won’t cure him, that we’re already in debt, that chemo is expensive, and that I’ll have to repay all the borrowed money in the future… They argue in the hospital, calling each other heartless, making me make the final decision… How am I supposed to know what to do, Qingqing? What should I do?”
Qiao Qingyu listened, feeling breathless.
“Yesterday at the hospital, I couldn’t sleep all night,” Wang Mumu continued sobbing. “I thought about my childhood, so many memories, how good my father was then, how happy I was… I wondered what made him give up his stable teaching job to go into business, and what made him rise so quickly in the business world only to fall into an abyss overnight… The more I thought about it, the more I felt he was ruined by his ever-expanding ambition… Ambition plus bad luck… I thought and thought, and realized my life is very similar to his—he enjoyed everything and then lost everything, never recovering… I’m his child, so my life will probably end up like his, in tragedy…”
“It’s not like that, Sister Mumu.”
“Do you know how much debt my family has now?” Wang Mumu looked at Qiao Qingyu with tear-filled eyes. “Yesterday, after the college entrance exam, my mom finally told me… When my father was in business, he borrowed high-interest loans for investment, lost everything, and now owes millions… Our house was mortgaged long ago, my mom didn’t tell me because she didn’t want to affect my studies, but actually, we pay rent to live here… The place I grew up in hasn’t been ours for a long time… When I think about somehow having millions in debt on my shoulders, I lose all hope for the future…”
“But your father’s loans shouldn’t have anything to do with you, you were so young then,” Qiao Qingyu held Wang Mumu’s hand. “Do you have to repay them?”
“Isn’t it natural for children to repay their parents’ debts?” Wang Mumu asked in return. “I’m his only child, who else would they look for?”
Qiao Qingyu had her doubts but stayed silent, letting Wang Mumu continue pouring out her grief and hopelessness.
“I don’t want to hurt either my father or my mother, and later I thought, actually making both sides happy is possible,” Wang Mumu smiled bitterly. “I just need to completely forget about myself. First borrowed money for my father’s chemotherapy, then worked desperately to shoulder all the debt so my mother wouldn’t worry, not caring whether life was happy or not anymore. After the debt is paid off, I’ll leave this world.”
The last sentence made Qiao Qingyu’s breath catch. “Sister Mumu,” she shook her head very seriously, “that would make me very sad.”
Wang Mumu slumped down, then suddenly hugged Qiao Qingyu tightly and broke into loud sobs—
To help ease Wang Mumu’s burden and answer her questions, the next day at noon, Qiao Qingyu walked into the computer room adjacent to the reading room. Unlike the usually empty reading room, the computer room had few seats and was often full. Qiao Qingyu had already delayed her lunch until last, and when she came to the computer room afterward, she found almost every computer occupied.
Only the computer nearest to the door was empty, but there was a casually placed English book titled “U.S. History” on the corner of the desk, seeming either forgotten or left by someone who had temporarily stepped away after claiming the seat. Uncertain, Qiao Qingyu went to the reading room and checked back every few minutes, frustrated to find that everyone in the computer room seemed rooted to their spots, with no one leaving.
Only that seat remained empty. It must be that someone forgot their book here, Qiao Qingyu convinced herself, after all, if someone had just stepped away temporarily, why would the desk be empty and the computer turned off?
So she sat down in that spot, turned on the computer, and typed searches for “inheriting father’s debt,” “children’s responsibility for father’s high-interest loans,” and “late-stage liver cancer chemotherapy costs,” opening webpage after webpage. There was encouraging information—according to several online cases, the common saying about children inheriting parents’ debts had no legal basis, and Wang Mumu had a good chance of legally separating herself from her father’s debts through court. There was also discouraging news—each chemotherapy session cost tens of thousands of yuan, the process was painful, and had significant side effects for patients.
“The elderly father said no more treatment, leaving the money for his two children’s education. Thank you, doctor.”
At the end of a post asking whether liver cancer could be cured, Qiao Qingyu read this final comment.
She suddenly remembered the red figures in Li Fanghao’s account book: “Baiyu’s Provincial First Hospital expenses total: 158,000 yuan.” A terrifying possibility struck her—158,000 yuan had clearly reached the family’s limit, but did her parents have a choice then? Was it possible that, for the sake of her and Jinyu, who was younger, her parents had been unwilling to risk exceeding that limit when treating her sister? Just like how they had initially let go of Baiyu to take care of her and Jinyu? AIDS was terminal—what meaning would life have for a girl who was so emotionally damaged that she only dared to trade beauty for affection, and then contracted AIDS? Was that how her parents thought?
I know nothing about AIDS, Qiao Qingyu immediately told herself, as if making excuses for her parents. Her thoughts frightened her; it felt as if her mind had been struck violently by a hammer several times, leaving her dazed.
“Hey, classmate, classmate,” from across the aisle, an unfamiliar male student sitting at another computer leaned toward her, urgently waving and whispering, “Hey, Qiao Qingyu.”
Still not having recovered her senses, Qiao Qingyu looked at him uncomprehendingly.
“Quick, get up.”
Seeing Qiao Qingyu’s confusion, he grew anxious and pointed his finger behind her, indicating she should look for herself. When she turned around, her pupils dilated instantly—leaning against the doorframe, wearing loose black sportswear, one hand in his pocket and the other holding a phone, the tall, slim silhouette was unmistakably Mingsheng.
She stood up without thinking. Turning away from the seat, she suddenly remembered she hadn’t closed the webpages, and feeling she should return the seat to Mingsheng exactly as she’d found it, she turned back to shut down the computer. As she bent down to quickly click the mouse, a black shadow loomed beside her—Mingsheng reached out to take the English book from the desk corner, his shoulder blocking the screen from view, nearly touching her nose.
Qiao Qingyu could even feel his breath just above her head.
She froze, and he withdrew, the entire interaction lasting only three or four seconds. She understood he no longer wanted the seat but wasn’t sure if he was giving it to her or if he felt the seat had been contaminated by her presence and was fleeing. Her ears burning and thoughts in chaos, she couldn’t bring herself to claim this suddenly vacant “throne.”
So she left too, returning to her rightful place in the reading room—
After crying to Qiao Qingyu that day, Wang Mumu didn’t show up for three days, only knocking on Qiao Qingyu’s door again on Sunday night. During this time, Qiao Qingyu had considered visiting Wang Mumu’s father in the hospital, but Li Fanghao immediately vetoed the idea.
“The hospital is such an unlucky place, why go there?” Li Fanghao said. “Our family doesn’t even know their family. Wang Mumu is your friend—when she comes here, we’ll treat her well, that’s enough to fulfill our duty.”
The word “duty” sounded cold-blooded, making Qiao Qingyu disgusted. The thoughts she’d had in the library days ago resurfaced, and she had to forcefully suppress them to stop herself from viewing her parents with critical eyes. That feeling of groping through a tunnel returned, just like last year when she desperately sought to discover whether Qiao Baiyu had contracted AIDS, but unlike then, this time she lacked the determination to face everything head-on, even if it meant breaking completely.
Instead, she was afraid. She understood what Sun Yinglong had once said—sometimes, “revelation” causes more harm than “concealment.”
So she accepted Li Fanghao’s words, telling herself that no news was good news and that her role was simply to listen and comfort Wang Mumu when she came, not to visit the hospital and probe at family wounds that weren’t meant to be shown.
When Wang Mumu arrived, her complexion was better this time, though her expression was complicated. As soon as she entered, she pulled Qiao Qingyu to sit on the sofa.
“Qingqing, after thinking it over, I should tell you,” she looked steadily at Qiao Qingyu, “my father has agreed to chemotherapy.”
Qiao Qingyu nodded in agreement, somehow feeling relieved.
“We don’t have money,” Wang Mumu paused, then continued explaining, “Asheng’s family lent us money. Yesterday, Asheng came to the hospital to find me, said their family isn’t in a hurry to use the money, and told me not to worry, to put my father’s health first.”
Qiao Qingyu nodded again: “Mm.”
“To be honest, I wanted to give up,” Wang Mumu’s tense shoulders dropped, “I told Asheng my thoughts, but he disagreed. He said since my father wants to live, we should respect that. He said he’s helping because his parents only agreed to lend us money after he brought it up…… I couldn’t have asked his parents for money…”
Qiao Qingyu continued nodding: “Mm.”
“These three days, Asheng has come to the hospital every day to see me and my father,” Wang Mumu lifted her head, carefully studying Qiao Qingyu’s expression, “maybe he was worried I might do something stupid because I was in such a bad mood. He talked to me a lot, probably more than we’ve talked in the past few years combined… I was quite surprised, it’s because of his grandfather…”
She suddenly paused for two seconds before continuing, “Because of what happened with his grandfather, his understanding of life is much deeper than mine… I now realize that besides the familiarity from childhood, I don’t know him any better than other classmates do, or maybe even less, because childhood memories always constrained me… He’s growing at light speed, not just externally but internally too. Don’t you think he’s very proper and restrained now? I feel like his rebellious phase is over, his grandfather would be proud…”
“Mm.”
The air grew quiet, and Qiao Qingyu’s heart slowly sank. The secret about his grandfather that Mingsheng had kept in his heart—he must have told Wang Mumu too? He had taken back the “privilege” of knowing the secret that he had once forced upon her.
“I told Asheng that you didn’t make the call, that I called Dr. Lin,” Wang Mumu spoke, her voice full of apology, “I thought he would be upset, but he didn’t say anything.”
“Of course, he wouldn’t say anything,” Qiao Qingyu forced a laugh, “I think he’s full of humanitarian concern.”
“Humanitarian?” Wang Mumu also laughed, gentle yet puzzled, “Is it that lofty? I feel like he’s just remembering our old relationship.”
That doesn’t prevent him from wanting to be a hero, Qiao Qingyu thought but didn’t say aloud, because these were words Wang Mumu had used before, and responding with them would become an obvious taunt about her and Mingsheng, which seemed cruel. Qiao Qingyu didn’t understand why Mingsheng’s kindness would trigger such a dark, cold side of herself; she didn’t like the sharp thorns suddenly sprouting in her chest.
“We also reminisced about childhood,” Wang Mumu continued, the smile not leaving her lips, “Only after talking did we realize there were so many memories. I always thought constantly remembering childhood had ruined me, but now…”
“Childhood memories can save you,” Qiao Qingyu interrupted.
“Yes.” Wang Mumu smiled faintly, turning her head to look toward the balcony opposite.
Wang Mumu telling her everything was a sign of trust. Looking at the bigger picture, she had a safe friendship, Wang Mumu’s father was getting treatment, and Mingsheng had completely let go of his obsession with her—this was the best arrangement life could offer.
After that, Wang Mumu never came again. When the college entrance exam results came out, Qiao Qingyu heard from Qiao Jinyu, who had heard from Mrs. Feng at the newsstand, that Wang Mumu had performed slightly below expectations, not making it into Peking or Tsinghua University as she’d hoped, and could only go to Fudan or Renmin University. Qiao Qingyu threw herself into studying with unprecedented determination, working day and night, and achieved her best-ever result of 78th in the grade in the final exams two weeks later. Li Fanghao was very satisfied—maintaining a position in the top hundred at No. 2 Middle School meant being able to go to those well-known universities.
On the last day of tenth grade, it rained heavily, and Li Fanghao took Qiao Qingyu on the bus instead of riding the electric bicycle. After getting off the bus, they passed the unusually empty newsstand, and catching sight of the new issue of “Sprout” magazine covered in clear plastic, Qiao Qingyu stopped.
She explained to Li Fanghao that this magazine was very helpful for improving essay writing, and since the school library would be closed for summer vacation, so…
“Several Chinese teachers come to buy it!” Mrs. Feng’s voice cut through the rain curtain, crossing between them. So the mother and daughter walked under the newsstand’s awning, one paying, one taking the magazine. As if parched during a storm for days, Mrs. Feng could barely contain her excitement at seeing them approach.
“Have you heard?” she widened her eyes dramatically, adopting a mysterious pose, “Old Wang passed away this morning.”
“Which Old Wang?” Qiao Qingyu asked quickly, though her heart sank with a thud as if something heavy had fallen.
“The one who would get drunk and beat his wife,” Mrs. Feng watched her face with satisfaction, “Your good friend, Mumu’s father.”