When the door opened, Jin Qiang stood up from the sofa to take the box from Jin Chao’s hands. He peered at Jiang Mu behind him, imagining there would be an emotional scene between father and daughter who hadn’t met for years—at least a long-awaited embrace, with Jiang Mu tearfully calling out “Dad.”
But none of that happened. The anticipated scene never materialized. Jiang Mu was no longer the clingy girl from before; more often now, she kept her emotions buried deep inside. Jin Qiang merely politely invited her in. Despite their blood relation, they felt like strangers meeting for the first time.
A slightly plump middle-aged woman emerged from the kitchen. Her skin was rather dark, and she wore a red floral apron. Her appearance was somewhat disheveled. Jiang Mu met her eyes and awkwardly called out, “Auntie.”
Zhao Meijuan responded with a barely courteous nod: “So you’re here.”
Then she said to Jin Chao, “Take out the noodles.”
As Jin Chao went to serve the noodles, Jin Qiang rubbed his hands together nervously, glancing at the sofa before saying to Jiang Mu, “You must be tired. Sit down and rest.”
Jiang Mu tried to put on a smile, but since she rarely smiled, the expression looked even more stiff.
She quickly surveyed the room. The living room had a three-seater sofa with camel-colored cushions. To the left was a rectangular wooden dining table, with one corner propped up by folded paper. In the corner of the living room stood an old high chair, seemingly unused now and piled with miscellaneous items, making the already small living room feel more cramped.
Just as Jiang Mu was about to sit down, she caught sight of a child running out of a room, crashing straight into her. Jiang Mu stumbled from the painful impact, barely maintaining her balance as she steadied the child. To her shock, she saw what appeared to be a monster—hairless, with large white patches all over its head and face. She let out an involuntary cry of surprise.
Zhao Meijuan came out from the kitchen, Jin Chao looked up from serving noodles, and Jin Qiang quickly pulled the child away. Everyone’s eyes fixed on Jiang Mu’s horrified expression as time seemed to freeze.
Suddenly, the child burst into tears without warning. Zhao Meijuan rushed over, shooting Jin Qiang a fierce glare before carrying the child back to the room. She slammed the door shut, making Jiang Mu flinch.
Jin Qiang awkwardly rubbed his head and explained to Jiang Mu, “Xiao Xin developed vitiligo a few years ago. She’s still receiving treatment. Did she frighten you?”
Jiang Mu quickly tried to hide her shocked expression, feeling completely out of place. She suddenly realized her startled cry had put everyone in an uncomfortable position.
Just as she was at a loss, Jin Chao turned around, placed an empty bowl on the table, and said to her, “Wash your hands and come eat. Serve yourself as much as you want.”
Jiang Mu gratefully took this opportunity to escape the awkward situation. She went to the kitchen, turned on the tap, and splashed water on her face. She supported herself on the sink for a while before regaining her composure.
When she emerged from the kitchen, her panic was well-hidden. She instinctively glanced at the tightly closed door—the crying had subsided, and Zhao Meijuan hadn’t come out.
Growing up in a single-parent household had made Jiang Mu particularly sensitive to interpersonal relationships. Distracted, she picked up an empty bowl and began using chopsticks to transfer noodles from the large bowl to the small one.
Jin Chao turned around to see Jiang Mu absent-mindedly taking noodles from his bowl. He raised an eyebrow and asked, “What are you doing?”
Jiang Mu looked up bewilderedly and replied, “Serving noodles.”
“If you want to serve yourself, get it from the pot. Why are you taking from my bowl?”
Jiang Mu stared at the large bowl blankly and asked hesitantly, “Isn’t this… the soup bowl?”
Jin Qiang and Jin Chao were momentarily speechless. Finally, Jin Qiang spoke up: “Mu Mu, that small bowl in your hand is for garlic.”
Jiang Mu noticed that Jin Qiang also had a similarly large bowl in front of him. Embarrassed, she was about to return the noodles to Jin Chao when he blocked her with his hand and said, “Just eat it.”
He then served himself another bowl and sat down not far from Jiang Mu. There were only two dishes on the table: braised lamb bones and vermicelli stewed with Chinese cabbage. Unlike at home, where even for just her and her mother, Jiang Yinghan would prepare three dishes and a soup served on elegant plates, the bowls containing these two dishes seemed to Jiang Mu barely smaller than washbasins.
The vermicelli had been out of the pot for a while and had clumped together. Jiang Mu tried to pick some up with her chopsticks but failed. Seeing this, Jin Qiang used a spoon to heap a large portion of the noodles in her bowl, completely overwhelming Jiang Mu. She stared blankly at the portion before her, which was three times her usual serving, not knowing where to begin.
Just as Jin Chao was about to eat his noodles, he noticed Jiang Mu staring at her bowl as if it contained some prehistoric creature. He put down his chopsticks, pushed his untouched noodles toward her, and pulled the bowl loaded with vermicelli toward himself.
Jin Qiang saw this and questioned Jin Chao: “Why did you switch bowls for no reason?”
Jin Chao replied flatly: “She has hands. She can serve herself.”
Jiang Mu remained silent as Jin Qiang encouraged her: “Don’t be shy.”
Jiang Mu nodded and began eating, but since she wasn’t used to scallions, ginger, and garlic, she could only pick them out and place them at the edge of her bowl.
Jin Qiang noticed this and took a sip of soup. Seemingly reminded of some unpleasant memory, he suddenly said, “Just like that mother of yours. She’d argue with me even if I used a slice of ginger when cooking. Such a poor person with expensive tastes.”
Jiang Mu choked, stopping her task of picking out scallions. Jin Chao tapped the edge of his bowl with his chopsticks and looked up expressionlessly, saying only two words: “Eat now.”
The room door suddenly opened, and Zhao Meijuan came out holding Xin Jin’s hand. Jin Qiang said to Xin Jin, “Xiao Xin, this is your sister. Say hello.”
Although Jiang Mu didn’t want to look directly at the strange-looking little girl, politeness compelled her to put down her chopsticks and raise her eyes. Only then did she notice the girl’s pointed face and protruding ears. Perhaps due to her shaved head, her eyes appeared particularly prominent and eerie, reminding Jiang Mu of Dobby, the hairless creature from “Harry Potter.”
The little girl ignored Jin Qiang and went straight to Jin Chao, not even glancing at Jiang Mu.
Jin Qiang scolded her sternly: “I told you to greet her!”
Before he could finish, Zhao Meijuan shouted: “Can’t you see the child was scared earlier? Why are you yelling? She doesn’t know who this person is.”
An awkward atmosphere filled the air. Jiang Mu didn’t mind whether the girl greeted her or not; she just worried the child might start crying again. However, Jin Chao pulled the little girl onto the chair beside him and said coldly: “Greet her.”
As these two words pushed the awkward atmosphere to its peak, Jiang Mu was about to say “Never mind” when the little girl suddenly called out while looking at her swinging feet: “Sister.”
Jiang Mu was somewhat surprised. She could tell the little girl didn’t particularly like her, but she listened to Jin Chao.
After Xin Jin sat down, Jin Chao went to wash his hands, then grabbed a lamb bone and began tearing off small pieces of meat into an empty bowl. Jiang Mu watched him absent-mindedly. At home, her mother would cut up ribs and similar dishes into very small pieces for convenient eating, so when confronted with such a whole bone, Jiang Mu had no idea how to approach it. As a result, she only ate the noodles in her bowl without touching any of the dishes.
After Jin Chao finished pulling off all the meat, he placed it next to Xin Jin. Only then did Jiang Mu realize he was picking meat for his sister. This scene felt both familiar and utterly foreign, like fragments of an old dream magnified before her. Though her expression remained unchanged, an inexplicable emotion stirred within her.
Jin Chao looked up and met Jiang Mu’s vacant gaze. He lowered his eyes and casually grabbed a clean empty bowl, poured more than half of the lamb meat from in front of Xin Jin into it, and slid it along the wooden table toward Jiang Mu. The bowl glided perfectly to rest against hers with a clear “ding.”
Jiang Mu was slightly stunned, looking at the lamb meat in the bowl before her. Just as the irritation in her heart began to subside, she heard Xin Jin across the table complain: “Why does she get more than me?”
Jin Chao replied without even lifting his eyelids: “She’s a guest.”
Those two words—”a guest”—suddenly pierced Jiang Mu’s heart, and the recently subsided irritation surged back.
That single phrase silenced Xin Jin, but Jiang Mu didn’t feel any better. Then she felt a gaze fall upon her face, and as she looked up, she met Jin Chao’s eyes. He ate quickly; his large bowl was already empty. He was leaning sideways against the chair back, his gaze seeming to pierce through to her soul. Jiang Mu’s face flushed, and she looked away.
After dinner, Jin Qiang asked Jiang Mu to give him her documents so he could submit them to Tonggang Junior High School during his lunch break tomorrow.
Jiang Mu took out the document folder from her luggage, placed it on the table, and began removing the materials one by one. When she turned back, she saw Xin Jin on the floor with her identification documents, about to fold them into paper crafts.
Jiang Mu’s face went pale as she was about to rush over, but suddenly a figure appeared before her, lifted Xin Jin from the ground, and placed the identification documents on the table. Jin Qiang had just come over to look, and in that instant, the character “Jiang Mu” in the name field caught everyone’s attention, seeming to remind them all that she was no longer part of their family.
However, Jin Qiang said nothing more, just sighed and collected the documents.
Before coming, Jiang Yinghan had prepared some high-quality tea leaves and a learning device for Jiang Mu to give to her half-sister, since they would be imposing for a while.
She distributed the gifts, with Jin Qiang offering polite thanks, while the little “monster” showed no reaction—neither saying thank you nor showing any particular joy.
Just then, someone knocked on the door. A young man came looking for Jin Chao; everyone seemed to know him. Jin Qiang invited him in to sit, but the man didn’t enter, instead standing at the doorway saying, “No thanks, Uncle. Just called You out for a smoke.”
Jin Chao went out with him, the door partially closed. In her suitcase, Jiang Mu still had a gift she had secretly prepared for Jin Chao, tightly wrapped in black camouflage paper. After waiting a while and seeing that Jin Chao hadn’t returned, she took out the gift, glanced at the half-open door, and went outside.
The corridor was filled with cigarette smoke. She held the special gift with mixed emotions. Before she reached the stairwell, she suddenly heard a man speaking in a low, agitated voice: “You’re going? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
With a “snap,” the corridor’s motion-sensor light suddenly came on. Jiang Mu’s footsteps broke the darkness. Before her, Jin Chao was leaning against the corridor wall with a cigarette between his lips. Hearing the noise, he turned his head slightly, his brows furrowing as he stared at Jiang Mu, who had her hands behind her back.
In front of him stood the thin, tall man who had come looking for him earlier, wearing shorts and slippers, unkempt with a beard.
Their conversation abruptly stopped. The bearded man sized up Jiang Mu lazily. She wore a white chiffon blouse and high-waisted wide-leg shorts in beige. Her cold white skin housed the small frame typical of Jiangnan women, and her features were delicate and refined, catching the eye.
The bearded man showed an interested smile and asked Jin Chao: “Your relative?”
Jiang Mu’s gaze slowly fell on Jin Chao; she wanted to hear how he would introduce her to others. However, Jin Chao said nothing, merely jerking his chin toward the stairwell. The man sighed resignedly: “Alright, think it over again. I’m leaving.”
As he finished speaking, he turned his head to look at Jiang Mu once more and said, “Come out to play next time, pretty lady.”
Before Jiang Mu could respond, Jin Chao raised his eyes and shot him a cold look. The bearded man left with a swagger down the stairs.
The corridor returned to silence. Jiang Mu wordlessly watched Jin Chao finish his last drag of the cigarette. His side profile revealed a sharp, smooth jawline that extended to a distinct Adam’s apple. The messy corridor became a backdrop, his silhouette tinged with dim light like a frame from an old movie. This version of Jin Chao was completely unfamiliar to Jiang Mu as if he were surrounded by an impenetrable barrier of thorns.
When the corridor’s motion sensor light automatically turned off, a spark flashed in the darkness as Jin Chao extinguished his cigarette. He slowly turned his head and spoke: “Looking for me?”
When the light came back on, his dark, intense gaze had already locked onto her. Though it was just a simple matter of giving a gift, Jiang Mu felt awkward in every way. She took two steps toward him and brought out the wrapped gift from behind her back, saying, “This is for you.”
Jin Chao’s gaze lowered slightly to the rectangular box, taking it with one hand while keeping his eyes on Jiang Mu. He said flatly, “Don’t waste money buying things for us.”
Jiang Mu’s gaze also lingered on the rectangular gift box as she replied with slightly shifting eyes: “It’s necessary, after all, I am a guest.”
As she finished speaking and raised her eyes, she saw Jin Chao turning the long box in his palm, a barely perceptible smile playing at the corners of his eyes.