When Jiang Yanyi posed the question, Chi Xiaoxue felt as if all the blood in her body had frozen. Even though she didn’t actually have blood, her entire being truly felt a sense of paralysis.
Chi Xiaoxue clenched the banknotes in her hand.
At that moment, what she actually thought was: The biggest regret in life is indeed dying with money left unspent.
Since she couldn’t solve the problem anyway, Chi Xiaoxue steeled herself, looked up wide-eyed, and prepared to say she couldn’t learn it.
Before she could speak, her aunt called out from the other side:
“Don’t just stand there, come eat first.”
Chi Xiaoxue looked up, wide-eyed. “Eat… eat.”
“No hurry. Solve this first, then you can eat.” Jiang Yanyi leaned down, bracing one hand on the coffee table. His arm and body formed a semi-enclosing shape, hemming Chi Xiaoxue in.
Jiang Yanyi was just doing this unconsciously. He was somewhat nearsighted and had taken off his glasses while washing his hands. Without glasses now, this posture helped him see the screen more clearly.
Chi Xiaoxue, who was just about to use mealtime as an excuse to escape, found her path blocked.
“Hey, food, hurry up!” Her aunt urged again from the other side.
Chi Xiaoxue ducked her head down and, like a nimble kitten, slipped out from under Jiang Yanyi’s armpit. Then, without looking sideways, back ramrod straight, she walked towards the dining area.
Jiang Yanyi, who had watched her leave right before his eyes, remained frozen in his original posture for a long moment.
It wasn’t until his aunt got angry from urging him to eat and came at him with a big ladle to hit him that he laughed and dodged away.
Chi Xiaoxue held the small bowl containing the nutritional jelly, keeping her head down and taking small bites, not daring to look up at all. Because whenever she did look up, she would meet the gaze of Jiang Yanyi sitting directly across from her.
The feeling was too eerie, just like a nightmare Chi Xiaoxue had as a child.
Her math teacher came to live in her house, eating and sleeping with her.
Every time Chi Xiaoxue remembered that dream, she would break out in a cold sweat.
Now, the nightmare had come true.
I’d rather be dead. I’ll go die after spending the money in my pocket, Chi Xiaoxue thought.
Fortunately, her aunt kept talking to Jiang Yanyi afterward, which somewhat alleviated Chi Xiaoxue’s pressure.
They were discussing matters from yesterday’s visit to Xiao Bai’s maternal grandparents’ house. Upon hearing about planning to look at a burial plot for Xiao Bai’s mother, her aunt immediately said:
“Among the people I practice Tai Chi with, there’s an older brother Du. Older brother Du’s son’s girlfriend’s cousin works at the Tingsha Cemetery management office. Do you want me to ask for you?”
Jiang Yanyi picked up a dumpling and dipped it into his vinegar bowl, not looking up. “Older brother Du’s son’s girlfriend’s cousin? How did you get to that topic in conversation?”
“We, well…”
Her aunt thought for a moment, then smiled.
“Don’t change the subject. We’re talking about looking at burial plots. If you think it’s okay, I’ll ask someone to help inquire. Tingsha is a high-end cemetery. It’s very hard to get a plot there. Without some connections, you can’t even get in.”
Jiang Yanyi: “I’m in no hurry.”
Her aunt made a motion as if to hit him. “I’m talking about Xiao Dong. Don’t you try to joke your way out of this with me.”
Jiang Yanyi’s expression froze for a moment. He lowered his eyes, and after a while, said softly, “No hurry. I’ll think about it some more.”
Her aunt sighed, as if talking to herself, yet also speaking for Jiang Yanyi to hear:
“Water has no fixed form,flowers have their end. We will meet again. Yet human life is long spent in separations.”
Chi Xiaoxue listened in a daze. Logically, she considered herself quite knowledgeable, from ancient times to the future, from cultivation to apocalyptic worlds, both ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, widely read in many genres.
But why was it so hard for her to understand their conversation?
After lunch, Jiang Yanyi went to his room to pack. Chi Xiaoxue heard him tell her aunt he was attending an out-of-town academic conference, leaving today and returning the day after tomorrow.
The moment Jiang Yanyi left, Chi Xiaoxue instantly felt refreshed and light as a feather. She closed the lid of the study computer and put it away on the bottom shelf of the coffee table.
Then she went to the room to bother Xiao Bai a bit. Xiao Bai was napping, wearing a frilly nightcap, sleeping very neatly and properly.
Chi Xiaoxue picked up a strand of her own hair and brushed it across Xiao Bai’s face.
Xiao Bai wrinkled her nose, her chubby little hands flailing in the air. Chi Xiaoxue covered her mouth and silently laughed for a long time.
When Chi Xiaoxue came out of the room, she saw her aunt meditating by the floor-to-ceiling window, sitting cross-legged on a cushion, eyes closed, completely still.
Feeling bored now, she simply imitated her aunt’s posture, sitting cross-legged on the carpet, placing her hands properly below her navel, and closing her eyes.
Meditation requires inner stillness, but Chi Xiaoxue was someone who couldn’t settle her mind.
She only lasted a few seconds before finding it dull. She simply lay flat, arms and legs spread out, staring blankly at the large chandelier on the ceiling.
Her limbs idly moved up and down in a regular, rowing-like motion.
After a few strokes, she tilted her head and secretly glanced a few times toward her aunt.
Her aunt remained motionless as if someone had cast a stillness spell on her. Chi Xiaoxue simply rolled over and, using her hands and feet, began silently crawling outward.
Passing the sofa, she looked up and saw Xiao Bai in her little gray-checkered pajamas, curly hair fluffy, staring at her with a confused expression.
“Moji.” Xiao Bai called her, her voice tinged with the haziness of just waking up.
“Shh, shh, shh.” Chi Xiaoxue raised a finger, signaling her to be quiet, and quickly looked back at her aunt.
But it was too late. Her aunt opened her eyes and lifted her eyelids to glance at them.
“You two go out and play.Don’t disturb me,” her aunt said.
Ten minutes later, Chi Xiaoxue led Xiao Bai, now changed into overalls, out the front door. The afternoon sun was bright, bleaching the road white.
Chi Xiaoxue walked with Xiao Bai under the shade of the trees. Seeing the dappled light from between the leaves falling on the child’s fluffy curly hair, then sliding over her collar onto her own arm, she started giggling.
Perhaps it was because Jiang Yanyi wasn’t home, temporarily lifting the shadow of studying, Chi Xiaoxue was in a very good mood. Even seeing such ordinary things made her laugh out loud.
Hearing her sudden laughter, Xiao Bai turned to look at her. “What’s so fumy?”
Xiao Bai usually had the demeanor of a little old cadre, but she was only three after all. Like other children, sometimes her pronunciation wasn’t clear.
For example, before, Xiao Bai would say “we” as “我门 (wǒ mén)” instead of “我们 (wǒ men)”.
Now she said “怎么 (zěn me)” as “肿么 (zhǒng me)”. Chi Xiaoxue, who had a very low threshold for finding things funny, was tickled again and started laughing “Gah gah gah”.
Xiao Bai didn’t know what she was laughing at, but laughter is contagious. The little child also looked up and laughed along with her.
The two of them laughed until they were leaning against each other, then suddenly stopped.
This time, Xiao Bai didn’t walk ahead but fell back two steps to walk side by side with Chi Xiaoxue. “Moji, are we… friends?”
Xiao Bai asked, looking up.
Before Chi Xiaoxue became a vegetative patient, she was a social dynamo. With a sweet, pretty face, she could fit into any social circle, always surrounded by friends, never a moment of quiet.
She enjoyed making friends, so when Xiao Bai asked this, Chi Xiaoxue naturally replied, “Of course. We are… best friends.”
After saying it, Chi Xiaoxue felt something wasn’t quite right. She and Xiao Bai probably shouldn’t be friends because she was the transmigrated female lead who would later become Xiao Bai’s stepmother.
Just as she was about to correct herself, Xiao Bai stared at her with those bright, shining puppy-dog eyes and said solemnly, “Moji, I have no friends. You are my first friend.”
Then Chi Xiaoxue couldn’t bring herself to say anything.
Xiao Bai had only one friend. If even she didn’t be her friend, the little curly-top would have no friends at all.
That’s so sad.
How can someone live to be three years old without any friends?
Chi Xiaoxue couldn’t figure it out.
But she quickly decided. For now, she’d just be the little curly-top’s friend. After all, she was her only friend. She could become her mom later.
As Chi Xiaoxue led Xiao Bai towards the supermarket, Jiang Yanyi, on his way to the airport in a car, suddenly remembered that the math problem hadn’t been solved by the robot.
He was the type who acted immediately on his thoughts. He promptly took out his phone and dialed the robot’s built-in communication program. But for some reason, it kept showing a program error and couldn’t connect.
Jiang Yanyi then called his aunt’s phone.
His aunt was in deep meditation. Having been disturbed several times in a row, her tone was very poor when she answered the phone. “Speak!”
Jiang Yanyi: “…… Nothing. Just letting you know I’m almost at the airport.”
He even used the formal pronoun “您,” which he usually didn’t use. But his aunt was still unceremonious, hanging up the phone with a click.
·
In the supermarket, the strange human owner from the morning was no longer there. Now watching the shop was a round-headed, round-bodied metal robot.
Seeing them enter, the metal robot standing behind the counter said in a stiff mechanical voice, “Wewelcome gwanlim.”
With the strange owner gone, Chi Xiaoxue felt much more at ease. She stood with her arms crossed in front of the promotional rack, picking up a nutritional lollipop to look at, putting it back, picking up a jelly cup to look at, putting it back.
Xiao Bai looked up and asked, “Don’t like any?”
“I am…choosing.” Chi Xiaoxue frowned, looking focused and serious, like a completely different robot from the academic slacker who slacked off 18 times a minute while studying.
“Then choose the jelly.” Xiao Bai kept her hands in the side pockets of her overalls, her face expressionless, looking quite cool.
“But… home already… has… jelly.”
Xiao Bai then nodded her chin towards the lollipops. “Then buy a lollipop.”
“Haven’t had it.I’m afraid… of a letdown.”
Xiao Bai, hands still in pockets, lifted her eyelids and glared at her from below.
Chi Xiaoxue felt a bit guilty under her glare. “I have… decision… difficulty… syndrome.”
“What’s’difficulty syndrome’?” Xiao Bai asked.
Given Chi Xiaoxue’s literacy level, she couldn’t explain clearly what decision fatigue or indecisiveness was. After struggling for a while, she chose to pretend she didn’t hear and continued pondering which snack to choose.
Xiao Bai took two steps forward with her short legs, squeezing her small body between Chi Xiaoxue and the rack.
She lifted her eyelids, tilted her head, her sincere big eyes full of thirst for knowledge. “Is it because you’re poor that it’s difficult?”
Chi Xiaoxue hung her head. “Don’t… don’t say that.”