Chen An’s unease was dissolved in busy internship work. Wang Liting felt that Chen An’s lack of understanding toward her was largely because he couldn’t empathize with her high-pressure workload. Who wouldn’t want to easily enjoy family happiness at home? But things were beyond one’s control. Once caught in the whirlpool of work, with thousands of matters revolving around you and hundreds of people depending on you for their livelihood, she was like a spinning top—once she started spinning, she couldn’t stop. She hoped Chen An could understand this helplessness. So she prescribed strong medicine, scheduling his internship work especially full—full to the point of far exceeding the pressure an ordinary seventeen-year-old could bear.
Wang Liting was in the import-export trade business. Chen An had no specific position. Nominally, he was the heir familiarizing himself with all aspects of the business, but in reality, he rotated through whatever work was most exhausting. He followed the factory warehouse workers to take inventory, load and stack goods; followed the foreign trade specialists to make samples, verify price sheets, and keep American hours with American clients; followed the marketing department to do research, write proposals, and adjust product lines…
He worked in continuous shifts, coming home so exhausted he could barely lift his eyelids. His plans to return to Taixi on weekends were completely shelved. Even so, he still insisted on supervising Cheng Lele’s study progress, having her send coursework and notes for him to review every day.
Seeing Chen An exhausted like a dog, Wang Liting felt sorry for him while thinking that Chen An should now understand that earning money wasn’t easy and would sympathize with her hardship. The truth was a world away from what Wang Liting imagined. Chen An was pondering something else: if he were an investor, he would never touch this industry. A sunset industry in decline, a management model riddled with holes, an unsustainable growth model… The points worth criticizing weren’t just one or two, and the problems were deeply entrenched—treating them or not wouldn’t make much difference. These few years they might still make some money, but after that it would depend on Sino-American relations and personal luck.
After working with them for some days, Chen An had thoroughly understood the operational methods. Now he didn’t need much mental effort and felt slightly more relaxed. The significance of this job to him was that it made him more determined about what he wanted to do and helped him see clearly what he was good at. Occasionally he sympathized with his mother buzzing around like a headless fly over certain trivial details and took the initiative to share some of the burden. Wang Liting was deeply moved. Little did she know it was her son’s condescending compassion—like a martial arts master who, knowing the other party was beyond saving, still transferred some true energy to make their death less painful.
Meanwhile, Cheng Lele’s life also underwent earth-shattering changes.
Ye Xiaomei’s depressive tendencies were beginning to show. She had been a woman loved by her parents and her husband. They had sheltered her from wind and rain, allowing her to become a gentle and affectionate person. Now they had left her one after another. Suddenly facing life’s cruelty, she was at a loss, in unbearable pain, increasingly sinking into the mire. Her longing for her beloved had nowhere to go, her worries about the future had nowhere to settle. The falling out with the Chen family wore on her delicate nerves, making her anxious and restless, unable to sleep night after night.
Cheng Lele remembered that Zhong Ming was a psychology student and borrowed some popular science books about depression from him, secretly flipping through them at school. Mom avoided illness and refused treatment, unwilling to see a psychologist. She could only sleep with her mom and try to chat about happy things with her as much as possible. She learned to cook, handle household chores, and still had to balance her studies. She was busy and exhausted, but didn’t dare complain to little brother. Ever since the long-distance argument with Godmother, Mom had become especially sensitive, constantly reminding her to maintain self-respect and self-love, and would suddenly check her phone on a whim with suspicion.
The two mothers’ interference in different ways gradually drove her and Chen An’s communication underground.
School didn’t allow bringing phones, and at home there was Mom’s full-time monitoring. Cheng Lele, like a spy chief, saved Chen An’s phone number as 10086, deleted text messages immediately after sending them, and the content was as brief as telegrams. Most of the time, they communicated about homework through email—an area Ye Xiaomei wouldn’t search.
Cheng Lele fell in love with studying.
Amid her mother’s intermittent emotional outbursts, through her day after day of settling down, Cheng Lele belatedly touched upon part of the truth behind Wang Liting’s abnormal behavior that day.
She realized that little brother’s sudden decision to change to Z University was because she could no longer travel far to Beijing, and he would rather pass up the two TOP 2 universities to choose a nearby school, making it convenient to take care of her.
And she was short-sighted, only able to take things one step at a time, never thinking about the future at all. It had taken her a very long time even to understand little brother’s decision.
No mother would allow her child to give up a bright future because of an outsider. Even if this outsider was her goddaughter whom she had watched grow up. After deducing this truth, she understood Wang Liting and didn’t resent her at all. On the contrary, she felt ashamed and full of regret. Little brother’s sacrifice was undoubtedly enormous, like a mountain pressing down on her. She only wanted to make herself more excellent, at least not to become little brother’s burden.
Before, she had been a member of the homework-copying party. Now, exchanging homework became something glorious and righteous. Studying could help her evade her mother’s shackles; studying could earn little brother’s approval. Studying made people happy.
At the end-of-term exam for the second semester of sophomore year, Cheng Lele’s grades gradually rose from the bottom of the class to average.
During this period, Chen An returned to Taixi several times. The first time he came back temporarily was on a weekend. Chen An stayed upstairs, stepping on Ye Xiaomei’s most sensitive nerve. She practically stayed by Cheng Lele’s side every step of the way, not allowing the two to have any communication. Only then did Chen An realize that Godmother’s condition was much more serious than he had imagined. He had originally planned to apologize to Godmother on behalf of his mom, but when he saw Godmother’s reaction, he immediately and rationally gave up.
He could negotiate with his own mother with ease, advancing and retreating freely, but he couldn’t maneuver with Godmother like that. Objectively, he couldn’t approach the Cheng household and didn’t even have a chance to speak. Subjectively, he was full of guilt toward Godmother and didn’t want to make her angry.
After returning, he made appointments with several famous psychiatrists in the provincial capital and described Ye Xiaomei’s symptoms to them. Of course they still strongly urged that the patient seek medical treatment early. At the same time, they advised that if he was the source of the patient’s anxiety, then he should temporarily not appear before her, lest he stimulate her and worsen her condition.
After this, Chen An changed to going to school to find Cheng Lele on weekdays. She couldn’t get home too late, so their time together was very brief—sometimes at the small shop by the entrance, sometimes by the school’s artificial lake. Although the earlier mention of “having an affair” had been a joke, even Chen An himself had the illusion of Zhang Sheng and Cui Yingying having secret meetings. Cheng Lele still chattered away in front of Chen An, but not like before when she would pour out all her joys and troubles to him in one breath. She picked and chose, reporting good news but not bad, selecting those few school anecdotes worth being happy about to recount in detail and with exaggeration for ages. She had learned from her mother that merely venting negative things was futile and instead made people involuntarily want to escape. She already possessed so little. She didn’t want little brother to also leave her one day. She tried her best to maintain their simple and happy relationship, as if by forcing a smile, nothing had changed.
But how could nothing change?
Summer was about to come, and she had never shown Chen An the tattoo hidden under her short sleeves. Back then she thought snow melted without a trace. Little brother had missed the original cheering and encouragement, so she had carried fervent joy and used the most indelible tattoo as a commemoration. Now the commemorative mark was etched into her bones, but it was like evidence of things beginning to fall apart, clearly revealing that happiness was gone forever.