Before returning to China, Jiang Mu still didn’t know where Jin Chao was and couldn’t contact him. But she knew he was there, somewhere, and he wouldn’t abandon her. She had to go back.
Nanjing held an irresistible attraction for Jiang Mu, though it was hard to explain why. Perhaps it was to fulfill a dream from years ago—people often develop a longing for places that hold their regrets. So she returned without hesitation.
After her plane landed in the capital, she didn’t linger but went straight to Tonggang. In just a few years, the small city had transformed. Commercial housing had replaced the dilapidated streets, automatic sorting bins had replaced the large plastic garbage containers, and electronic displays had replaced the familiar bus stop signs.
The ever-changing facade had erased the original traces, but some memories remained eternally etched in her heart, impossible to erase.
Jin Qiang and Zhao Meijuan hadn’t changed much, but Jin Xin had grown into a young woman. Jiang Mu remembered that the last time she saw her, she was only ten. Now she was a high school freshman with ear-length short hair, reminding Jiang Mu of herself in high school. Unlike before, Jin Xin smiled when she saw Jiang Mu. When Jiang Mu gave her gifts this time, she didn’t shy away but instead said shyly, “Thank you, Sister.”
Though Jiang Mu hadn’t had much interaction with Jin Xin, the word “Sister” felt inexplicably intimate. She suddenly understood Jin Chao’s care for her back then—though their connection was minimal, there was still a subtle familial bond linking them.
She asked about Jin Chao’s life over these years and tried to contact him again, but Jin Qiang only told her that Jin Chao sent them money every year but rarely came back and they seldom communicated. They weren’t clear about his situation outside, saying he hadn’t returned for several years and might have already settled down somewhere.
The phrase “settled down” frosted over Jiang Mu’s heart.
She hadn’t contacted San Lai for many years either. When she went abroad, she thought modern communication would make it impossible to lose touch, unlike the old days of home phone calls and letters. But Jiang Mu never imagined that once lives truly diverged, finding each other again would be so difficult.
Jiang Mu’s stay in Tonggang was brief, just two days. She visited her alma mater and took a photo at the school gate, posting it to her moments. Pan Kai saw it immediately and contacted her, asking if she was back in Tonggang and insisting on treating her to a meal.
Indeed, Jiang Mu hadn’t seen Pan Kai since graduation. They set a place to meet, and Pan Kai arrived in a flashy S300 to pick her up. As he parked by the roadside and swaggered out, dressed in designer clothes with a slicked-back hairstyle, Jiang Mu couldn’t help but laugh.
Pan Kai’s college entrance exam scores hadn’t let him shine in philosophy, so he ended up studying business management and returned home to inherit the family business after graduation. Now he was a procurement manager, and though his father hadn’t completely relinquished control, he was flourishing at the factory.
After Jiang Mu got in the car, Pan Kai sat with her in the back while a driver took the wheel. Pan Kai carried himself with perfect managerial poise, but once they were alone in the private room, his dramatic personality emerged. He told her that Yan Xiaoyi had married, had twins, and gotten divorced just last year.
Jiang Mu was stunned—it felt like she’d only gone away to study for a few years, yet her former classmates had already experienced such life changes, even marriage and divorce. It was truly remarkable.
Pan Kai was quite the gossip, moving from one person to another until Jiang Mu was in a constant state of surprise. Then he asked, “What about you? How are you doing?” Before Jiang Mu could answer, he remembered something else: “Damn, I thought you and Brother Jiu were relatives. I held my tongue for years, but when Brother Jiu came back last year, I found out you weren’t blood-related at all. I was shocked…”
With a clang, Jiang Mu’s spoon fell onto the porcelain plate as she suddenly looked up at Pan Kai: “What did you say? What do you mean Jin Chao came back?”
Pan Kai was confused by her reaction and explained: “Early last year, the factory had supply chain issues with a batch of goods. It was a long-term order, and we’d face hefty compensation if we couldn’t deliver. I was frantically contacting everyone, losing hair from stress. Couldn’t source from nearby cities, so I reached out to friends in the west, but they couldn’t help either. Then one day I got a call from a stranger who said he was Jin Chao. He listed some model numbers and asked if that’s what I needed. I was thrilled and immediately asked about the price. His quote was even lower than our previous average price. The company veterans and I thought it might be a scam. He said he’d come to discuss it in person, and only then did I realize it was Brother Jiu. Jin Chao was Brother Jiu—I’d been in contact with him for days without knowing!”
“…”
This was the only news Jiang Mu had heard about Jin Chao in recent years. Afraid of missing any detail, she kept questioning Pan Kai.
Pan Kai just said: “I don’t know what he does now. I wanted to treat him to a meal to properly thank him for helping me out of that crisis, but he said he was pressed for time. He just stayed one day, helped us connect with new suppliers, and left the next day. He came with someone he called his superior, who was very respectful to him, just…”
“Just what?”
Seeing Jiang Mu’s eagerness, Pan Kai said puzzled: “Just seemed bootlicking, trying to help him up the stairs until Brother Jiu glared at him. Young people these days are crazy about promotions and raises.”
It was because of Jin Chao’s help in turning things around that Pan Kai gained some authority in the factory and wasn’t just seen as someone who got in through connections any more.
Then Pan Kai told Jiang Mu: “I later realized why Brother Jiu suddenly contacted me.”
Jiang Mu asked, “Why?”
“Remember when you brought Brother Jiu to fix cars at my dad’s factory?”
Jiang Mu nodded, and Pan Kai clicked his tongue: “Back then, Brother Jiu told me he’d repay this favor someday. I’d completely forgotten about it, thought he was just being polite, but he remembered after all these years. I respect him as a man of his word.”
Jiang Mu hadn’t known about this conversation. Her heart tightened—he could remember owing Pan Kai a favor, so why had he broken his promise to contact her?
She frowned slightly and asked, “Then you must have his contact information, right? Can you give it to me?”
Pan Kai unhurriedly took out his phone and searched: “Sure, let me find it.”
He then sent her a string of numbers. Jiang Mu frowned when she saw it: “A landline?”
“Yeah, that’s the number Brother Jiu used to contact me.”
After getting this landline number that could potentially connect her to Jin Chao, Jiang Mu lost interest in the meal.
After parting ways with Pan Kai, Jiang Mu walked while holding her phone, finally sitting down on an empty bench at a street corner. She spent a long time calming herself and organizing her thoughts, considering what to say when the call connected to avoid awkwardness. After much hesitation, she dialed the number, only to find it was disconnected. Her emotions plummeted, and she seriously wondered if Pan Kai was playing with her.
She checked the landline’s location—it was in Changchun.
She wasn’t familiar with Changchun, had never been there, and had never heard of Jin Chao knowing anyone there. She couldn’t understand why Jin Chao would go to Changchun, but now even this number was disconnected.
On her way back, the more Jiang Mu pondered, the stranger things seemed. From what she knew of Jin Chao since he had returned last year, it made no sense for him not to visit Jin Qiang. He wasn’t heartless—even during those difficult years, he regularly bought medicine for Jin Xin and helped support the family. It seemed impossible that he would never return after the case was closed.
Yet Jin Qiang said he hadn’t been back for years. Perhaps he had returned, but for some reason, Jin Qiang was concealing this from her.
What reason could make Jin Qiang do this? The only thing Jiang Mu could think of was Jin Qiang’s comment yesterday: “He might have settled down somewhere.”
That casual remark now seemed to hint at something.
Although Jiang Mu had never told Jin Qiang about her relationship with Jin Chao, Zhao Meijuan understood. Her eagerness to find Jin Chao during both visits made her feelings obvious to Jin Qiang.
Jin Chao was past thirty now, and it would be normal for him to have settled down. But the thought that he might have a family somewhere made Jiang Mu feel as if the invisible thread she’d been holding onto had suddenly snapped, leaving her adrift.
That unwavering conviction she had before returning to China was suddenly uprooted by an invisible force. At nineteen, she had absolute faith in promises and hope for the future, but time inevitably strips away youthful innocence and naivety, revealing the world as it truly is. Even Yan Xiaoyi, who had once only cared about following celebrities, had gone through marriage. Who could guarantee that everyone would stay where they were?
But Jiang Mu couldn’t accept it. She asked Jin Qiang again after returning, but he firmly denied that Jin Chao had ever come back.
Life had to go on, and she couldn’t dwell on this forever. She could only take her luggage and head to Jiangsu.
Before reporting to Nanjing, she returned to Suzhou, feeling it was where they had grown up. She wanted to look around. She had once told Jin Chao that after he left in their childhood, she often left her contact information at the old building, hoping he would find her if he ever returned.
Jiang Mu thought that perhaps Jin Chao would use the same method to leave her some information—if she went back, she might find some clues.
However, when she returned to the place where they had lived together for nine years in their childhood, Jiang Mu almost got lost. The old residential complex had been completely demolished, and replaced by a commercial complex. All the surrounding roads had been widened, completely erasing the former cramped and dilapidated appearance. If she hadn’t asked the nearby shop owners, she would have doubted whether she had found the right place.
Standing on the street, she looked around helplessly. In China’s 9.6 million square kilometers, how could she find him if he didn’t want to see her?
At that moment, Jiang Mu realized for the first time that they might miss each other for their entire lifetime…