When Liang Xiaoqing had first chosen her quarters, she picked a single room. The larger dormitories had already been claimed by young married couples who came from out of town to teach, leaving very few options by the time it was her turn. Making the best of a less-than-ideal situation, she ultimately chose this room that nobody else was fighting over.
When she first arrived, apart from the essential appliances, the apartment looked entirely empty. Liang Xiaoqing had slowly added things piece by piece, remodeling it bit by bit until it became the space it was now. The apartment lacked nothing, but there was only one bedroom and a single bed—there was no spare. Which meant that for this period, Jiang Xu would have to squeeze in with her.
After dinner, Jiang Xu insisted on washing the dishes. Liang Xiaoqing couldn’t talk her out of it, so she walked over to the bedroom and stood before her bed, deep in thought.
Once the dishes were done, Jiang Xu announced that she wanted to take a bath. Liang Xiaoqing boiled a large kettle of hot water for her, explaining which bucket was for bathing and how to mix the hot and cold water to get the right temperature. Jiang Xu listened with an expression of intense, absolute concentration that almost made Liang Xiaoqing burst out laughing.
Just as Jiang Xu was about to step into the bathroom, Liang Xiaoqing remembered that Jiang Xu didn’t seem to have any proper loungewear. They had left in far too much of a rush, and most of the clothes Wang Cai had packed for her were outdoor jackets and trousers.
Saying she would find Jiang Xu a set of homewear, Liang Xiaoqing began rummaging frantically through the wardrobe while Jiang Xu stood obediently to the side and waited.
With the wardrobe doors flung wide open, Jiang Xu watched Liang Xiaoqing’s back. She blinked, her gaze shifting between the bedroom doorway, Liang Xiaoqing’s back, and the interior of the closet.
Inside the wardrobe, an array of bright, vivid colors caught her eye.
“I remember buying a set of pajamas a while back, but after I gained a bit of weight, I stopped wearing them. Hmm… they should fit you just about right.” Liang Xiaoqing muttered to herself, her head entirely buried inside the closet.
The wardrobe was connected vertically; the upper rail was hung with thick autumn and winter clothes in rather muted tones of black and gray. The brightly colored garments were tucked toward the back—reds, pinks, greens—some slightly warped out of shape, some faded, and others absurdly oversized.
If Jiang Xu were to wear them, there would easily be enough room left over to fit another entire Jiang Xu inside.
Wang Cai rarely bought clothes for Jiang Xu; from the time she was little, her clothes were either hand-me-downs Wang Cai begged from others or cheap bargain finds picked up at street markets during rare trips to town, always bought a few sizes too big so she could wear them for years.
Right now, those clothes were piled up and hung right alongside Liang Xiaoqing’s—wrinkled and garishly ugly in their brightness. Jiang Xu pulled her gaze away, stared at Liang Xiaoqing’s back for a moment, and then looked elsewhere. Beneath her composed exterior, her fingers unconsciously scratched at a faded print on the front of her shirt.
“Found it!” A triumphant exclamation echoed from deep inside the wardrobe as Liang Xiaoqing yanked herself backward like a carrot pulled from the ground. Losing her balance, she nearly toppled over.
“Teacher Liang.”
Jiang Xu took two quick steps forward, looking at her with a hint of worry.
Liang Xiaoqing waved a hand. “I’m fine.” She smoothed down her messy hair and handed the pajamas to Jiang Xu. “Here, put these on after you shower.”
“…No need.” Jiang Xu took two steps back, her gaze drifting past Liang Xiaoqing to land on her own colorful stack of clothes. “I have my own clothes to wear.”
Liang Xiaoqing stood up. As Jiang Xu retreated, she stepped forward, pressing the pajamas right into Jiang Xu’s hands. Thinking she had made some kind of mistake, she explained, “I can’t fit into these anymore anyway. They’d just sit in my closet doing nothing, so you might as well wear them.”
Jiang Xu pressed her lips together in silence.
Liang Xiaoqing smiled. “Go on and wash up, Jiang Xu. Teacher Liang is going to make up your bed so you can crawl straight under the covers the moment you’re done.”
Urged on by Liang Xiaoqing, Jiang Xu finally headed to the bathroom.
When Jiang Xu emerged after her shower, Liang Xiaoqing looked her up and down and nodded in satisfaction. The prints on the pajamas were a bit childish, but they fit Jiang Xu like a glove, and the bright pink hue even brought a healthy glow to her complexion.
She had also figured out the sleeping arrangements. There was only one bedroom—an unavoidable reality. But where there’s a will, there’s a way, so Liang Xiaoqing decided to lay down a makeshift floor pallet right next to the bed to make do for the time being.
She pulled Jiang Xu down to sit on the edge of the bed. “For the time being while you’re staying with the teacher, you’ll sleep right here, alright?”
Jiang Xu wasn’t foolish; she glanced down at the pallet on the floor. “Then Teacher Liang, you… I can just sleep on the floor pallet.”
Liang Xiaoqing gave Jiang Xu’s head a gentle rub. “It’s fine. I’ve layered two comforters down, so it’s very soft. You just sleep soundly on the bed.”
For some reason, this teacher whom she still wasn’t entirely used to seemed to have an endless fondness for patting her head.
Since Liang Xiaoqing had put it that way, Jiang Xu couldn’t think of any further arguments. She could only follow instructions and lie down on the bed to sleep.
Yet having slept so much during the day, she didn’t feel a shred of drowsiness now. At the same time, she didn’t want to disturb Liang Xiaoqing again, so she tossed and turned restlessly beneath the covers. She had no idea how much time had passed, only remembering that the desk lamp beside the study table was still casting a glow. Wrapped in such a quiet, peaceful environment, sleep finally began to creep up on her.
The room’s lighting had been turned off at some point without her noticing. The bed was wonderfully soft, and as Jiang Xu drifted into a hazy sleep, she sensed someone drawing close—an instinct that instantly put her on high alert.
Yet the faint fragrance wafting toward her nose immediately melted her defenses. Even with her eyes closed, she knew instantly who it was.
The person seemed to be leaning in very close, and a rustling sound whispered softly beside Jiang Xu’s ear.
A few strands of hair brushed lightly against her cheek, sending a ticklish sensation across her skin. She didn’t know what Liang Xiaoqing was up to, but she knew for certain that Liang Xiaoqing would never hurt her. Time seemed to stretch out infinitely, yet also passed in a flash. After a long moment, she felt the edge of the blanket being gently tucked in around her.
Her body grew even warmer as the drafty gaps were sealed shut. Soon, the tickling sensation against her cheek vanished, and the fragrance lingering at the tip of her nose grew much fainter.
She blinked her eyes open in a purely reflexive action.
A dim, soft glow still emanated from the desk area, though it was much darker than before.
Sitting before the desk was a figure. Though Jiang Xu hadn’t known her well until recently, a mere glimpse of that back was enough for her to recognize Liang Xiaoqing instantly. The light fell across the woman’s slightly hunched spine. Hunched completely forward over the desk with her head bowed, she held a pen in her hand, writing something that produced a faint, rhythmic scratch-scratch sound.
The surroundings were profoundly peaceful—the kind of sleeping environment she had always dreamed of but could never attain. Closing her eyes once more, Jiang Xu slipped back into dreams.
When she woke up again, the dim light at the desk was gone, and the silhouette was nowhere to be seen.
The room was pitch-black, save for a sliver of moonlight filtering in through the window, barely enough to let her make out the vague shapes of her surroundings.
Moving her eyes instinctively to search for that familiar figure, she remembered the pallet beside the bed. Turning onto her side to face the makeshift bed on the floor, she saw a bundled-up mound resting there.
The sound of steady, even breathing drifted over, rising and falling softly in Jiang Xiaoqing’s ears—wait, in Jiang Xu’s ears.
Liang Xiaoqing was already asleep, and soundly at that, making it feel almost as if the sight of someone working late into the night had been nothing more than a hallucination.
She had no idea what time it was. Making not a single sound, Jiang Xu shifted onto her back and stared blankly up at the dark ceiling. Having truly slept her fill by now, she was abnormally awake; falling back asleep was out of the question.
And so, her mind began to replay memories like a spinning reel, wondering how on earth she had ended up muddling her way into Liang Xiaoqing’s home.
Her thoughts drifted to the words Wang Cai had spoken to her right before she left.
Her relationship with Wang Cai could hardly be called close; she truly was the ungrateful, unlovable wolf cub Jiang Dagao always claimed she was. Yet all the scenes of Wang Cai caring for her over the years flickered across her mind. Sometimes she felt Wang Cai was awful, and sometimes she felt Wang Cai was good. After all, Wang Cai was her mother.
If not for Wang Cai, Jiang Dagao probably would have beaten her to death long ago.
Jiang Xu’s emotions were as cold and desolate as drifting snow, seemingly incapable of being warmed by anyone.
Blinking, she slowly pushed herself up into a sitting position.
In the dead of night, her solitary silhouette looked lonelier than ever.
Her hand felt around for her clothes, remembering that she had stuffed something inside her jacket pocket right before leaving home. Acting on a sudden impulse, she reached into the coat and pulled it out.
Inside the pocket was a cloth bag, the opening tightly cinched with a black thread wound around it a few times.
Untangling the tightly wrapped thread, Jiang Xu pulled out what was inside. In the moonlight, she saw that it was a roll of cash curled into a tight cylinder, bright red in color.
Completely astonished, Jiang Xu unrolled the bills one by one, counting them as she went. The outermost layer was wrapped in hundred-yuan notes, followed by a few fifty-yuan bills tucked inside, with single- and two-yuan notes packed tightly at the very center.
Altogether, the money in her hands amounted to just over a thousand yuan—clearly gathered bill by bill with painstaking effort. Clenching the cash tightly in her hand, a blank, dazed look settled deep in her eyes.
She had no idea how Wang Cai had managed to save up this much money, nor why she was giving it to her.
As far as she knew, all the household finances were managed by Jiang Dagao. Aside from tuition, money had to be wired to Jiang Lun for living expenses every month, leaving the family perpetually short on funds. Whenever that happened, Jiang Dagao would inevitably curse her as a good-for-nothing money drain.
Jiang Xu recalled the way Wang Cai had earnestly instructed her right before she left.
She didn’t know what Wang Cai had said to Liang Xiaoqing to persuade her to bring her home. She couldn’t understand why Liang Xiaoqing was willing to let her stay, nor did she know what Wang Cai would do if Jiang Dagao ever discovered she wasn’t home…
A vague sense of being abandoned flickered through her mind, though she was too afraid to dwell on it too deeply.
Nights in early autumn always carried a sharp chill, and the profound darkness of the late hour only magnified that feeling of cold. The warmth Jiang Xu had managed to build up in her body slowly began to fade away.
Folding the banknotes one by one, she tucked them back into the cloth pouch and slipped the pouch deep into her jacket pocket.
At thirteen years old, Jiang Xu felt as though her future was like a shattered little boat, rocking precariously over turbulent waters.
Her limbs felt completely drained of strength, leaving her unable to support her own weight. She sank back into the soft mattress and pulled the blanket up to cover herself completely.
Lying there for a while, still unable to find any sleep, she turned onto her side to face the makeshift bed where Liang Xiaoqing slept. Staring at the vague silhouette wrapped in bedding, she clearly heard the steady rhythm of her own heartbeat.
Thump, thump, thump.
Seeking warmth, her body instinctively curled into a tight ball. For reasons she couldn’t understand, she still felt cold.
Closing her eyes, a surge of hot tears welled up from the corners of her eyes, dampening the pillow beneath her.
Wiping the tears away with the back of her hand, she listened to the sound of Liang Xiaoqing’s breathing and closed her eyes once more.
Drifting off into a heavy, silent sleep.