Less than a month after returning from Beijing, Qiao Lin gave birth to a daughter.
The baby came more than a month early, yet she was perfectly healthy.
She sent over a few photos — a tiny bundle, but with surprisingly long arms and legs.
Shen Haoming glanced at the pictures and said,
“Looks a bit like you.”
That month, Xu Yan was extremely busy. The TV station was preparing a new program scheduled to air during the New Year holiday. Each day she filmed for more than ten hours straight, repeating the same lines again and again.
During that time, she had gone to Shen Haoming’s house once. Shen Jinsong wasn’t home — only Yu Lan and several of her friends were there, playing mahjong.
Xu Yan sat in for a few rounds and ended up losing six thousand yuan.
As she was leaving, Yu Lan said,
“Let’s play again at New Year.”
Xu Yan thought that this might be a good way to please Yu Lan. So she convinced Shen Haoming not to go to Koh Samui for the holiday, but to stay in Beijing instead and spend it with his parents.
Maybe then, she thought, she could even run into Uncle Gao at the family dinner.
***
When Xu Yan received the phone call, it was evening.
Only three days remained until the New Year. That afternoon, she and Shen Haoming had gone out to buy a pile of fireworks.
On their way back, it began to drizzle. The forecast said it would turn to snow after midnight, with the temperature dropping ten degrees.
Beijing had been unusually warm the past few days, giving people the illusion that spring had already arrived.
Her phone rang — an unfamiliar number flashing on the screen.
At that moment, she was standing in Shen Haoming’s greenhouse, instructing the housekeeper to move the orchids inside.
Shen Haochen had been called over to help. Xu Yan thought it would be good for him to do some physical work — at least it would leave him less time to brood over nonsense.
He curled his lips and said, “These flowers are really ugly.”
Hands on her hips, she looked at him.
“And what kind of flowers do you think are pretty?”
“Fake ones,” he replied.
She told him to carry the pot in front of him into the living room, then answered the call.
It was her mother.
On the other end came loud sobs and choking cries — she was telling her that Qiao Lin had committed suicide.
She had gone out alone that night and jumped into the river at the edge of the city.
“Is she still being rescued? Still being rescued?” Xu Yan asked again and again.
Her mother said it had happened the night before — she was already gone.
Xu Yan hung up.
—
Silence closed in all around her.
She rubbed the dirt off her palms, picked up a pot of orchids, and started walking out.
The air was damp — it seemed that snow had already begun to fall. Something cold and sharp, like little claws, tugged at her scalp.
She stretched out her hand, trying to catch a snowflake in midair.
Then — bang!
The flowerpot slipped and shattered on the ground. Porcelain shards spun and clattered across the floor.
Buzz… buzz…
Shen Haochen walked over, glancing at the broken pieces at her feet.
“Heh,” he said smugly, “fake flowers wouldn’t break like that.”
“Get out of here!” she shouted at him.
Squatting down, she began picking the orchids out of the shattered porcelain.
Frightened, Shen Haochen froze in place, not daring to move.
Xu Yan brushed the soil off the roots, cradled the flowers in her arms, and left.
—
She placed the orchids on the passenger seat and drove out of the villa district.
Outside, the wind howled. Snowflakes, fierce and resolute like moths rushing to their deaths, slammed against the windshield.
Her hands gripped the steering wheel tightly; her entire body trembled. Tears welled in her eyes.
Frowning, she stared at the road ahead.
Why did Qiao Lin have to do this?
Anger surged through her. On that last night in Beijing, hadn’t Qiao Lin promised her — promised to wait for her news?
Why couldn’t she just wait a little longer?
The car veered off the highway, scraping past a truck, taking a few wild turns before finally halting in an empty parking lot.
She slammed her fists against the steering wheel; the horn blared, sharp and piercing.
“Didn’t you say you’d find a way?!” she cried. “Why didn’t you believe me?”
Leaning back in the seat, Xu Yan broke down and wept.
The phone rang several times on the seat beside her—it was Shen Haoming.
She sat in the darkness, waiting until the screen finally went dim, before murmuring to it, “My sister is dead.”
She didn’t go back for the memorial service.
On New Year’s Eve, light snow was falling.
She stood at the entrance to the courtyard, watching Shen Haoming light the fireworks.
She tilted her head back, gazing as the bursts of light bloomed and fell.
The sky darkened once more.
A few snowflakes landed on her face.
She made a call home.
Her mother cried incessantly, repeating over and over, “Why was Qiao Lin so heartless to abandon us?”
In the background came the wail of an infant, her father’s curses, the clatter of bowls and pots dropping to the ground with a tinkling ring.
Her mother asked, “When are you coming back, anyway?”
It seemed like the first time she had ever expressed a need for Xu Yan.
“In a few more days,” she replied.
“Don’t ever come back!” her father roared, and the line went dead.
Xu Yan never returned to Tai’an.
A rage simmered inside her, refusing to fade.
She felt Qiao Lin hadn’t understood her, hadn’t believed her, hadn’t even wanted her to be happy.
She’d done this to make her feel guilty forever.
For a long time, this anger effectively suppressed the grief, allowing her to sleep normally.
One day in April, she went to Shen Haoming’s house for dinner.
That evening, it was just their immediate family, feasting on oysters flown in from Paris and New Zealand king prawns.
Yu Lan complained that the oysters weren’t as fresh as last time.
“Aren’t you going to Paris next month?” Shen Jinsong said, remote in hand, changing channels; on the screen appeared a female host in a white suit.
She glanced at the script in her hand and looked up:
“In 1988, in a hospital in Tai’an, Wang Yazhen, suffering from rheumatic heart disease, gave birth to her second daughter.
She felt no joy as a mother, only deep panic.
Beside her, the infant weighing just three pounds and eight ounces opened her eyes, curiously surveying this world.
Did she know at that moment that what awaited her was not warm blessings, but merciless punishment?
Outside the operating room, Qiao Jianbin sat on a bench, having not slept a wink all night.
After months of shuttling between the Family Planning Commission and the hospital, he was utterly exhausted.
Yet their family’s misfortune was only just beginning…”
Xu Yan stared at the screen, one hand clutching the collar of her sweater, feeling as though she might suffocate any second.
“This ‘Legal Focus’ is sometimes worth watching,” Shen Jinsong said.
Yu Lan replied, “What’s there to watch? It’s either holdouts or people with extra kids.”
“Mom, Mom,” Shen Haochen said. “Do I count as an extra birth?”
Yu Lan said, “Darling, when you were born, the Canadian government even gave me a reward.”
“…The reporter arrives at Qiao Jianbin’s home.
After Qiao Jianbin was dismissed, the whole family has relied on this clinic to make ends meet. The sign ‘Peace Clinic’ still hangs outside the door, but no patients have come for several years.
The examination bed on the first floor is piled high with various health supplements. Some have long expired; Wang Yazhen keeps them for the family to take.
She picks up a bottle to show the reporter: ‘This one helps with sleep—my eldest daughter can’t sleep, so I have her take it…’
Over the past twenty-plus years, Qiao Jianbin and Wang Yazhen have sought help through every possible channel, hoping the unit will reinstate Qiao Jianbin’s job…”
