The bus departed at seven-thirty, and it took over four hours to reach Yizhou. By the time they arrived at the station, it was nearly noon. The parents of the students had been notified in advance and were already waiting at the stop. As soon as Yan Wei stepped off the bus, she spotted her parents in the crowd.
They were both respectable, cultured people, younger than they would be many years later. Her mother had fewer wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, and her father’s temples had not yet turned gray.
Yet as Yan Wei looked at them, her feelings were complicated.
A flood of emotions washed over her—awe mixed with a hint of fear, tinged with threads of sympathy and an overwhelming sense of helpless sorrow.
Before these feelings could fully settle, her mother caught sight of her and excitedly waved her hand. “Weiwei!”
Her father, Yan Tingyue, also wore a relieved smile on his face.
Dragging her lightweight suitcase, Yan Wei followed her parents out of the station. Yan Tingyue hurriedly took the suitcase from her and placed it in the trunk. Yan Wei climbed into the back seat, leaving the passenger seat for her mother, He Ping.
“Weiwei, are you tired from the journey? What’s going on with your school? Why did they let you come back so late?” He Ping began chattering as soon as she got into the car.
Leaning against the car window with her eyes closed, Yan Wei mumbled something unintelligible in response. Yan Tingyue glanced at her through the rearview mirror and gently admonished his wife beside him. “Of course, she’s tired after four or five hours on the road. Say less and let Weiwei rest for a while. She’d usually be asleep by this hour. When we get home, she can freshen up and go straight to bed so it doesn’t affect her energy during the day or disrupt her sleep schedule.”
He Ping agreed with her husband and turned to Yan Wei. “Go ahead and sleep. We’ll wake you when we’re home.”
Yan Wei hummed in acknowledgment, pressing her forehead against the window and half-closing her eyes to watch the scenery speeding by outside.
“Weiwei, we’re visiting Grandma tomorrow, so no sleeping in,” Yan Tingyue reminded her as he took off his shoes upon arriving home, already outlining the next day’s plans. “Remember to set an alarm for seven o’clock so you can have breakfast. We’ll go early and come back early so it doesn’t interfere with your homework.”
As she always had, Yan Wei offered no opinion on decisions they had already made, simply nodding obediently. “I understand.”
She returned to her room, greeted by familiar yet distant furnishings. Even though she hadn’t been back in over a month, the floor was still clean, and the desk was free of dust.
Yan Wei looked at the few books tucked between the bookends and suddenly remembered something. She walked over, pulled one out, and quickly flipped through it.
As expected, the doodles tucked between the pages were gone.
Every weekend, He Ping would clean Yan Wei’s room and tidy her desk, discarding anything she deemed inappropriate for a high school sophomore’s room—even if it was just a few meaningless scribbles.
Her parents rarely questioned why she spent time on such trivial things when she should have been studying. Yet beneath their seemingly gentle and tolerant demeanor, their actions were often more arbitrary, direct, and unreasonable.
In her past life—if this dream would ever end, she might as well call the memories of her experiences her past life—she rarely returned home after starting university. Sometimes, she even stayed in Fudu during winter and summer breaks to work part-time. Each time she saw her parents, she noticed they had aged a little more, but before she could fully process the regret, reality would set in as soon as they spoke. A few words would inevitably lead to arguments, often ending with Yan Wei storming out, leaving both sides upset and unresolved.
During the two years she stayed on campus for her postgraduate studies, she never once returned home.
Having been a good girl for too long, once she rebelled, it became unstoppable. The accumulated grievances, resentments, and the confusion and sorrow brought by Jiang Youyi’s death surged past their threshold, leaving her feeling exhausted and weary. She no longer wanted to continue playing the role of an obedient child just to please someone or avoid punishment.
Perhaps she was simply venting her emotions.
When things escalated to the point of cutting ties, everyone was at fault, but no one was willing to back down, especially her parents, who had been domineering for two or three decades.
But at least now, they still cared enough about her safety to rush out in the middle of the night to pick her up. She never doubted their love for her. From their perspective and standpoint, aside from their unconscious selfishness and unreasonable demands, they truly poured all their love and hopes into her.
It’s just that they never reflected on themselves, nor did they understand that such domineering and controlling love shackled her like chains, making her want to escape all along.
Her personality carried the same pride as theirs, yet due to long-term self-suppression, she developed feelings of inferiority, timidity, and fear. These contradictions twisted her values, causing her to accumulate rebellion while enduring a submissive life, wrestling with another self deep within her heart. Eventually, she erupted recklessly, burning everything from the past to ashes.
He Ping entered without knocking, handing Yan Wei a cup of warm milk.
She saw the book open in Yan Wei’s hands but asked nothing and said nothing, as if everything were perfectly natural.
Yan Wei put down the book, drank the milk in one go, and handed the empty cup back. “Thank you, Mom. You and Dad should rest early too. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.” He Ping smiled and left, closing the door behind her.
The next day, as soon as the alarm rang, Yan Wei opened her eyes and got out of bed without hesitation.
About two minutes later, He Ping pushed the door open. Seeing Yan Wei folding the blanket, she smiled with satisfaction. “Weiwei, breakfast is ready. Go wash up and eat.”
“Okay.” Yan Wei replied while smoothing the corners of the blanket.
Five minutes later, the family of three sat neatly at the table. Yan Tingyue and He Ping sat side by side on one side of the long table. Yan Wei glanced at the empty seat on the left but showed no emotion, quietly finishing her portion of breakfast with her head down.
At seven forty, they left home. Yan Tingyue drove his wife and daughter to the cemetery in the suburbs to pay their respects.
It was Qingming Festival. The sky was gray, and a light rain was falling. From a distance, Yan Wei saw a figure standing in front of her grandmother’s grave, holding a black umbrella.
Yan Tingyue and He Ping saw it too and stopped in their tracks simultaneously.
The person seemed to sense their presence, glanced back at the family of three not far away, and showed no expression on their indifferent face. Their gaze lingered on Yan Wei for a few seconds before shifting away. Then, without a word, they turned and descended the long steps from the other side.
A woman was waiting for them at the bottom of the steps.
He Ping took a deep breath and glanced at Yan Tingyue, whose face had turned livid.
“How dare she show her face?” Yan Tingyue’s temples bulged with veins. “How dare she bring someone here? What a disgrace to the family! Shameful!”
Yan Wei watched the two figures walk away and wisely remained silent.
The young woman was Yan Chu, Yan Wei’s older sister, three years her senior. The person beside her was her lover, and the two had been together for many years.
In Yan Wei’s memory, when she was in her second year of middle school, Yan Chu was exactly the age she was now, attending her second year of high school.
Yan Chu had an early romance, which was discovered by her teacher. The object of her affection was a woman eleven years older than her, almost old enough to be considered an elder.
Before this incident, Yan Chu had always been her parents’ pride and Yan Wei’s role model. She excelled both in character and academics, participating in numerous mathematics and physics competitions during middle and high school, winning countless awards. She was the teachers’ favorite, a true treasure.
After her relationship was exposed, she did not hesitate to come out to her parents. The argument that followed was earth-shattering. Yan Wei had never seen her gentle and considerate sister unleash such overwhelming force. Their refined and dignified father also went mad, slapping Yan Chu across the face, but it could not extinguish the stubbornness in her heart.
In the end, Yan Chu stormed out, got into that woman’s car, stopped going to school, and never returned home again.
Yan Tingyue and He Ping had tried to find her, but even after she was forced to drop out, she did not break up with her girlfriend.
From then on, the family silently accepted that she no longer existed. Neither Yan Tingyue nor He Ping ever spoke of Yan Chu again, only tightening their control over Yan Wei in every aspect of her studies and life.
Often, Yan Wei felt that perhaps her parents’ love for her was mixed with something else—like trying to find traces of the old Yan Chu in her.
But she was not Yan Chu. She lacked the confidence to be willful and dared not accept Jiang Youyi’s confession while burdened with such heavy shackles, dragging the already wounded girl into another abyss.
In her past life, it was only after Jiang Youyi died that she finally understood.
She was not truly willing.
Effort does not guarantee fulfillment, but without taking the initiative to fight, all that remains is regret.
She envied Yan Chu’s rebellion and courage. Life had given her a chance to start over, and even if it was just a dream, she did not want to let it slip away.
Not just to keep Jiang Youyi, but for herself as well.
The grave-sweeping ended in a stifling and oppressive atmosphere. After returning home, Yan Tingyue sat on the sofa, turned on the TV to watch the news, while He Ping went to prepare lunch. Yan Wei dutifully returned to her room to do her homework.
A high school student’s holiday was never short on homework; the workload was often even heavier than during school days. Teachers of all subjects always managed to reach an astonishing consensus when it came to squeezing students’ rest time.
During the three-day Qingming Festival holiday, each subject assigned two test papers, totaling twelve. Combined with the upcoming monthly and midterm exams after the holiday, the academic burden was heavy. Apart from studying, there seemed to be no other free time.
In this household, only studying was considered a productive use of time. And only during these moments, shut in her room studying, could she gain a brief sense of freedom.
Having spent over a decade with her parents in this superficially peaceful yet emotionally detached mode of interaction, she had long grown accustomed to it and had learned to discern its underlying patterns. The moment footsteps sounded outside her door, she could immediately judge and predict how many seconds it would take for the person to push open her room door.
Just as Yan Wei closed her drawer, He Ping’s voice accompanied the click of the doorknob turning: “Weiwei, take a break. Come out and eat.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I finish this problem, two minutes,” Yan Wei replied.
The door closed again. Yan Wei reopened the drawer, flipped through a few more pages of the thick stack of photo albums, and found a specific photo. She took it out—on the back, a string of phone numbers was written in ballpoint pen.
It was a graduation photo from middle school. On the day she received the photo, Yan Chu had come to the school to see her.
Yan Wei didn’t know if Yan Chu had changed her phone number in the past two years, but this was the only way she might be able to contact Yan Chu now.