Has your cousin settled in?
Shen Haoming suddenly asked.
“Tomorrow, my mom wants you to come over to the house for dinner—invite her along.”
Xu Yan said,
“No need, she has her own plans.”
Shen Haoming said,
“The day after tomorrow, the law firm has nothing going on; I can go with you to show her around and do some shopping.”
Xu Yan said,
“Okay.”
By the time she got home, it was already one in the morning.
Qiao Lin hadn’t gone to sleep yet; she was propped up in bed, watching TV.
She seemed to have been crying—she wiped her face and gave Xu Yan a small smile, saying,
“Have you seen this show? They swap a city kid with a rural one, letting them live in each other’s homes for a few days. In the end, that rural child saves up all the money the city ‘parents’ gave her for breakfast, wanting to buy a new crutch for her grandma back in the countryside.”
Xu Yan said,
“It’s all fake, arranged by the production team.”
Qiao Lin said,
“How could it be? That rural child was crying so heartbrokenly.”
Xu Yan changed into her pajamas and sat down on the edge of the bed, saying,
“How come you’re having insomnia? Aren’t pregnant women supposed to be sleepy all the time?”
Qiao Lin said,
“Every day, I lie awake until dawn, and everything I look at has double vision, like the souls of those things have all come out.”
Xu Yan asked,
“Have you seen a doctor?”
Qiao Lin replied,
“They said it’s from mental stress, but they won’t let me take sedatives.”
Xu Yan was quiet for a moment before asking,
“Do you regret it—keeping the baby?”
Qiao Lin smiled and said,
“How could I? I’ve already bought the clothes, white ones that work for a boy or a girl.”
Half a year ago, Qiao Lin had called, saying she was pregnant.
The guy was named Lin Tao, two years younger than her, and they worked as sales clerks in the same mall.
His parents had always warned him not to date Qiao Lin—if he got involved with her parents, he’d never have a peaceful life.
When he found out she was pregnant, he panicked and took time off to hide.
Qiao Lin swallowed her pride and went to their house; Lin Tao’s mother gave her some money to get an abortion.
Qiao Lin’s parents said,
“How could you abort it?”
They went to the Lin family to make a scene and even showed up at the mall to find Qiao Lin’s boss.
Qiao Lin quit her job and told her parents,
“If you keep making trouble, I’ll kill myself right in front of you.”
During that time, Qiao Lin often called Xu Yan.
Over there, she’d ask,
“Why is my life always filled with so much conflict?”
One morning in October, two girls stopped her at the school gate and said,
“You’re Qiao Lin’s little sidekick, right? You’d better stay away from that vixen, or you’ll end up tainted yourself.”
Xu Yan wasn’t entirely surprised.
She’d already noticed that Qiao Lin was quite famous at school—lots of boys chasing her, and plenty of gossip behind her back.
After school, she met up with Qiao Lin but didn’t mention the incident.
As they reached the main gate, those two girls appeared again.
They kept their heads down, faces twisted in misery, and said,
“We said the wrong thing, we’re sorry—please don’t take it to heart.”
Qiao Lin frowned, not saying a word.
They went to the cold drink shop again.
Yu Yiming showed up soon after.
Qiao Lin glared at him—
“You’ve got quite the network of spies.”
Yu Yiming said,
“What happened?”
Qiao Lin said,
“Don’t play dumb—you had Wang Bin go scare Li Jingjing?”
Yu Yiming said,
“They were too arrogant; how could I not show them some consequences?”
Qiao Lin said,
“If you really consider Wang Bin a buddy, don’t make him do stuff like that. He’s already got two demerits—if there’s one more, he’ll get expelled.”
Yu Yiming said,
“I absolutely won’t allow them to slander you like that.”
Qiao Lin smiled—
“I couldn’t care less.”
Xu Yan said to Qiao Lin,
“If I were you, I’d probably get an abortion.”
Qiao Lin looked horrified—
“How could I? He’s a life.”
Xu Yan said,
“There are a lot of mistaken lives in this world; being born would only mean suffering.”
Qiao Lin said,
“Stop it—I could never do that.”
Xu Yan knew very well that Qiao Lin couldn’t do it because of her parents.
They had started out opposing family planning, and later that turned into opposing abortion as well.
Especially Wang Yazhen—she’d become a real crusader on the issue.
She often stationed herself at hospital entrances, intercepting women heading in for abortions, telling all sorts of ghost stories about vengeful spirits, and even intimidating doctors and nurses, urging them to set down their scalpels and go to temples to perform rites for the dead.
A few women had listened to her, skipped the procedure, and after giving birth, the full-moon photos they took of their babies were enlarged massively by Wang Yazhen, who carried them around everywhere to proselytize.
She loved telling her own story too:
“My youngest daughter—they forced me to abort her back then, with hormone shots and poison injections. I had heart disease and nearly died on the operating table. But didn’t the child end up living healthy and strong anyway? You all have no hardships now—what reason could you possibly have not to keep the baby?”
In the future, she’d surely hold up Qiao Lin as the model single mother.
As for how Qiao Lin would actually raise the child, she never gave it a thought.
For years, it had been Qiao Lin supporting the family, and now she didn’t even have a job.
Their misfortunes always ended up as capital for her parents’ petitions.
Just like Xu Yan’s uterine tumor—it had been broadcast everywhere by them, all to squeeze out a bit more compensation money.
The anger in Xu Yan’s heart, like a dormant volcano, flared up again at that moment.
So perhaps it wasn’t entirely for Qiao Lin’s sake—more to rebel against her parents’ will, to strike them a heavy blow—that she called Qiao Lin.
Qiao Lin seemed a bit flattered, saying,
“You’ve never called me before.”
Xu Yan said,
“You’d better think it over again—keeping this baby might ruin your whole life.”
Qiao Lin said,
“But he’s alive, moving inside me—it’s truly miraculous, that feeling… you wouldn’t understand.”
Xu Yan let out a cold laugh.
“Yeah, that feeling—I wouldn’t understand. And from now on, I won’t meddle in your affairs anymore.”
Qiao Lin stopped calling after that.
Xu Yan would think of her occasionally, mentally calculating the months, wondering how long until the baby was born.
Qiao Lin was sitting on the bleachers by the sports field, gnawing on a popsicle, her mouth smeared with bright artificial colors.
Xu Yan walked over and said,
“Is hiding out here going to help?”
Qiao Lin didn’t speak.
Xu Yan asked,
“Do you especially like watching boys fight over you? If you don’t want to date them, why be so nice to them, letting them buzz around you like that?”
Qiao Lin said,
“Maybe I’m afraid of being alone.”
She lifted her head, grinning with orange-tinted lips.
“Do you really hate girls like me?”
Xu Yan lay down on the bed and reached out to turn off the lamp.
But the darkness wasn’t dark enough—a quivering sliver of light slipped through the gap in the curtains.
She was just hesitating whether to get up and block that patch of light when Qiao Lin’s hand reached across the blanket barrier between them and found hers.
She said,
“Do you remember? Back when Grandma was sick, I brought you home, and we squeezed together on my little bed.”
Xu Yan said,
“That was when we were really young. After starting junior high, I never went back.”
Qiao Lin gripped her hand tightly and said,
“I know I said the wrong thing last time. I’ve been wanting to call you, but I was really afraid you’d try to convince me to abort the baby again…”
Xu Yan said,
“Admit it—you regret it now.”
Qiao Lin said,
“No, I’ve come to terms with it. No matter what I give this child, a lot or a little, he’s heading toward his own fate anyway. You went through a lot of hardship as a kid, but you’re doing pretty well now, aren’t you?”
Xu Yan asked,
“And what about you? What fate are you heading toward? Why insist on carrying such a heavy burden?”
Qiao Lin laughed softly in the darkness.
“I like to show off, always thinking things can’t go on without me—but what good am I really?”
She squeezed Xu Yan’s palm.
“I’ve long given up hope on the petition stuff. It was just to spite Lin Tao. Back then, he said, ‘If your family really gets justice and stops causing trouble, then I’ll marry you.’ But how could that happen? He’s probably got a new girlfriend by now.”
Xu Yan turned over and closed her eyes.
She felt Qiao Lin’s labored breathing, like a ship on the verge of sinking.
An obvious fact that she’d always overlooked was that her cousin was living a miserable life—and perhaps she never would get better.
What could she do to help her?
