Jiang Ye lay around at home for several days, then dragged himself up to attend the graduation ceremony.
He hated crowded places more than anything, but he had no choice. It was the last day, he thought. Once this was over, he would not have to see anyone again.
His phone kept popping up with messages. Candy-Loving Witch was complaining again about how stupid and annoying her classmates were. She had a spoiled personality, like some rich young lady. When other people tried to talk to her, she thought their voices sounded awful. When someone gave her a birthday present, she thought the color of the box was ugly. Someone like her probably had a hard time making friends, but judging by how she spent all day saying girls were asking her out for milk tea, she seemed pretty popular.
Jiang Ye had no idea how she managed it.
Out of habit, he checked his call history. The record from Mom was still from yesterday. She had not called again today.
When he walked into the classroom, the boys and girls in his class were all dressed up. The ones assigned to give speeches were even wearing suits and little formal dresses. Jin Feize was already sitting properly in his seat, dressed in a neat, well-fitted formal outfit, with a new tie around his neck.
It was not the one Li Miaomiao had given him.
“Nice tie.” Jiang Ye sat down beside him.
“Thank you.” His eyes curved as he smiled. “Someone I like gave it to me.”
Jiang Ye frowned. “You have someone you like?”
He nodded. “I do. He treats me very well.”
“Then why do you still accept gifts from other girls?” Jiang Ye asked.
He seemed genuinely puzzled. “Am I not supposed to?”
Jiang Ye had nothing to say.
Forget it. It was someone else’s business. Why was he interfering so much?
He shook his head silently, which counted as an answer.
Jin Feize smiled and said, “So I’m not supposed to. I’ll remember that.”
Jiang Ye watched him write something in a palm-sized leather notebook and wondered, baffled, He can’t actually be writing down “don’t accept gifts from other girls,” can he?
Probably not. Jiang Ye felt he was overthinking it. Jin Feize was a model student. He was probably just taking notes.
After the graduation ceremony ended, Jiang Ye waited at school until Li Miaomiao got out of class, and the family driver came to pick them up.
The pitch-black sedan slipped soundlessly into the endless stream of traffic like a swimming fish. It was already late. The night wind added a bleak chill to the world, and neon lights reflected through the glass, mottling Jiang Ye’s face with shifting patches of brightness and shadow. They crossed the bridge over the river and entered the sparsely wooded suburbs.
Rich people liked places with good air. From the very beginning, this district had been planned around the idea of restoring nature. The neighborhood was very quiet. The villas scattered through it were all dark.
The closer they got to that so-called home, the more Jiang Ye resisted it inside.
He thought he really should not have run from the female ghost. Compared with staying in that house, dealing with a female ghost might actually be better.
The last time he had gone home for dinner was a month ago. He and his mother had parted on bad terms.
All because he wanted to leave as soon as dinner was over, and his mother accused him of being cold-hearted.
“You weren’t this kind of child before. Why have you turned into this?” his mother had snapped, both her voice and expression severe. “How many times have you come home this year? Do you even see this place as your home? Look at your sister. She comes home on time every day, tells her dad and me in advance wherever she goes out to have fun, and never makes us worry. Why can’t you learn from your sister?”
He listened without expression.
His mother had selectively forgotten that last time, Li Miaomiao had been caught hugging a boy at an intersection and had been lectured by his stepfather for an entire night.
He knew perfectly well that it was not that he could not compare to Li Miaomiao.
It was that in his mother’s heart, his position was far beneath his stepfather’s daughter.
Her voice rose with every sentence. “You moved out before you were even an adult. What are you making your dad’s business partners think of him?”
Dad again.
It was as if a basin of water had been poured over his heart, leaving it colder by the second. So it turned out that her anger and distress were not because her son never came home, but because she was afraid his stepfather would be labeled as someone who did not care for his stepson.
She still wanted to say more, but he, who had always been silent, suddenly spoke.
“Mom, I want to ask you something.”
She froze. “What?”
He raised his head, looked straight at her well-maintained face, and asked, “Do you know what year and class I’m in?”
His mother instantly fell silent.
“Second” and “third” circled in her mouth for a long time, but she never managed to give a definite answer.
Li Miaomiao, who had been standing off to the side as quiet as a frightened cicada, said blankly, “Mom, seriously? You don’t know what year and class my brother is in?”
Her expression turned awkward. “Mom has just been too busy lately. I’ve been buried in a project for the past few years. Every time Mom comes back, I bring you gifts. How could Mom forget you?”
He stood up and went upstairs to his room.
A while later, he came back holding a stack of boxes. He placed them in front of his mother and showed them to her one by one.
“This is the gift you brought me last time. A Gundam model. This is from the time before that. Also a Gundam model. The first time, the second time, the third time—they were all the same gift. Mom, every gift you bring me is exactly the same.”
Her face filled with embarrassment. She stammered and fumbled, not knowing what to say.
Jiang Ye stood there for a long while, waiting for her to say, “I’m sorry.”
In the end, she did not say a single word.
In truth, he did not have many expectations. As long as his mother apologized, maybe he would sulk for a few days and then forgive her. They were bound by blood. It was not as if he could hate her relentlessly for the rest of his life.
But she had never apologized.
She always wore an expression that said, “Mom has her difficulties, so you need to understand Mom.”
“Mom has been busy with a major project.”
“There’s been a new discovery in archaeology.”
He could almost guess what she was about to say next.
Sure enough, she opened her mouth. “Mom has her difficulties. My project has reached a critical stage...”
It felt as though a needle had pierced into his heart. The pain made his breathing stop short.
He hated that he understood her so well. The more accurately he guessed, the more it hurt.
He cut her off. “You don’t need to say any more. From now on, I’ll come home once a month. Dinner ends here today. I’m leaving.”
He picked up the schoolbag beside him, stood up, and left without looking back.
That night, he could not get a cab. He walked into the tree-lined road on foot, the night wind blowing his cheeks cold.
No one came after him. No one even sent him a message. His mother had even forgotten that her home was in a remote suburb, where no taxis passed through at night at all. The people around here were all wealthy households with their own drivers. Ride-hailing cars would not come all the way here to pick up an order either.
She cared about reputation.
She cared about achievements.
She cared about his stepfather.
She cared about so many, many things.
Only him, she did not care about.
Candy-Loving Witch suddenly sent him a message.
Candy-Loving Witch: Where are you?
Argos: What for?
Candy-Loving Witch: Your WeChat step count is shooting up like crazy. Are you night running?
Argos: Yeah. Night running.
Candy-Loving Witch: Stop lying. You said before that you couldn’t log on tonight because you had to go home for dinner. Did things go badly with your family again? You didn’t run away from home, did you?
Candy-Loving Witch: Send me your location.
Argos: ?
Candy-Loving Witch: Don’t worry. I’m not going to drop out of the sky in front of you.
He sent his WeChat location.
Half an hour later, a car stopped in front of him. Candy-Loving Witch had called a car service for him.
He stood by the road and hesitated for an instant, then got in with his backpack. The driver politely asked for his destination. He gave the address of his apartment, lowered his head, and typed.
Argos: Thanks.
Candy-Loving Witch: Is that all? Give me something practical.
Argos: Log on tonight. I’ll carry you.
Candy-Loving Witch: No. I want you to be my boyfriend.
Jiang Ye frowned.
He typed into the input box: Sorry, I don’t do online relationships.
Before he finished typing, Candy-Loving Witch sent another message.
Candy-Loving Witch: Open the window and look up!
If the sedan had not been moving at high speed, he would almost have thought a smiling girl’s face was about to appear outside the window.
He rolled down the window and lifted his head to look outside.
Huge fireworks exploded across the sky, brilliant purple and red, dazzling beyond words. The fireworks were enormous. He did not know where they were coming from, but all of Shenzhen could see them.
His phone buzzed again.
He lowered his head. Candy-Loving Witch had sent him a message.
Candy-Loving Witch: Happy birthday.
So today was his birthday.
His mother had forgotten.
He had forgotten too.
One cluster of fireworks bloomed after another. He leaned against the car window and watched that fleeting, brilliant light. In that moment, his dark eyes were illuminated.
He knew Candy-Loving Witch was interested in him. Every day, she waited for him to log on and kept him company until he logged off. At first, she had been terrible at the game, but later she had suddenly improved. She must have secretly practiced for a long time.
He did not like online relationships. Online relationships were virtual, like playing games. They could not be taken seriously.
But now, he suddenly did not want to distinguish so clearly between real and fake.
His mother was real, but she never cared about him.
Candy-Loving Witch was fake, but she set off fireworks for him.
He lowered his head and slowly deleted the words in the input box.
Argos: Okay.
Candy-Loving Witch: Okay what?
Argos: I’ll be your boyfriend. Okay.
Actually, he knew that with a girl like Candy-Loving Witch, her WeChat contact list probably had a whole crowd of people just like him, lining up every day to send her gifts. Even if she liked him, it was most likely only on a whim, as if she had picked a lonely fish from a pond to favor for a while.
But he did not care.
He spent money on her, listened to her meaningless nonsense, and endured her affectation and boredom because she remembered his birthday.
When they reached the door, he stopped and pinched the space between his brows. He really did not know how to face his mother.
“Brother...” Li Miaomiao sounded a little worried.
“Open the door,” he said.
Li Miaomiao pressed her finger to the fingerprint lock. The electronic indicator light came on. A string of clicks came from the door lock, and finally, with a beep, the lock opened.
Jiang Ye opened the heavy security door.
An indescribable smell rushed into his face. He could not say whether it was a stench or some other kind of odor. In any case, it was unpleasant. Fortunately, the smell was not strong. After staying inside for a while, it became easy not to notice it.
Li Miaomiao complained, “It’s all because of the incense Mom burned. She’s always being paranoid and saying there are cockroaches in the house. I aired the place out for days, and it still smells like this.”
“Dad, Mom—my brother’s back!” Li Miaomiao shouted.
No one answered from inside.
The room was deep and dim, filled with an indescribable oppression. The enormous art painting hanging on the white wall had mottled colors, and in the darkness, it carried a strangely eerie quality.
Li Miaomiao scratched her head and said, “Didn’t they say they were coming home today? Why aren’t they back yet?”
Jiang Ruochu not being home actually made Jiang Ye let out a breath of relief.
He turned on the entryway light and pressed the switch.
No response.
He tried several switches in a row, but none of the lights would turn on. He went outside to check the circuit breaker, but it had not tripped either.
“Did Dad and Mom forget to pay the electric bill?” Li Miaomiao was extremely depressed. “Do they even remember the two of us exist?”
Fortunately, there were streetlights outside, and their house had floor-to-ceiling windows, so it was not pitch-black.
Jiang Ye closed the security door, turned on his phone flashlight, and headed upstairs. There was no electricity in the house, so the elevator was unusable. They could only take the stairs. Li Miaomiao was afraid of the dark and followed behind him, clutching the strap of his schoolbag.
His stepfather and mother’s room was on the second floor. They went to check it. It was empty. The silk quilt was folded on the bed, with no sign that it had ever been opened.
The two of them really had not come back yet.
Jiang Ye swept his gaze around and found that many mold spots had grown in his mother’s room. Patch after patch, like black stains. They looked a little disgusting.
Li Miaomiao complained, “I told Dad ages ago we should buy a new house, but he refused. Look what our house has turned into.”
They returned to their own rooms on the third floor.
The farther up they went, the stronger that indescribable smell became. By the time they reached the third floor, the smell was noticeably heavier than on the first, though it was still within a tolerable range.
In the silent darkness, a sound suddenly came from the ceiling.
CREAK—CREAK—
Li Miaomiao shuddered and said, “It’s coming from the attic. There have been weird noises in our attic these past few days, and I’ve been too scared to go up and look... Brother, do you think a murderer is hiding in our house?”
Jiang Ye thought it was probably mice.
His stepfather had bought this house more than ten years ago, and it was in the suburbs. Mice showing up would not be strange.
“Maybe a mouse died in the attic,” he said.
Li Miaomiao understood at once. “No wonder it stinks so much.”
The smell was unpleasant. Jiang Ye did not know how Li Miaomiao had endured it for so long, so he decided to go up and clean out the mouse corpse.
The attic was above the third-floor ceiling. To get up there, they had to set up a ladder and open the hidden door in the ceiling themselves. He told Li Miaomiao to go to the first-floor kitchen for trash bags and disposable gloves while he went to find a ladder.
As it happened, there was an aluminum folding ladder in the third-floor hallway. He set up the ladder and looked up, only to see that the ceiling was covered in pitch-black mold spots.
The mold spots connected into a sheet, taking up nearly half the ceiling.
Once he dealt with the mouse, Jiang Ye decided, he would call a cleaning company and have them come clean the place.
He had just stepped one foot onto the folding ladder when Li Miaomiao’s scream came from downstairs.
He jolted.
Then he rushed down the stairs.