She flipped her phone over and pressed it face down on the bed. The vibration was muffled in the blanket, like a bee trapped in a cage.
“Mom.”
Xiao Niangao’s voice came from beside her, carrying the soft, sticky quality unique to early mornings, like rice cake just taken out of the microwave.
“Hmm.”
“Your phone keeps ringing.”
“Hmm.”
“Did you forget to put it on silent again?”
Shen Luning opened one eye and turned her head.
Xiao Niangao was lying on his pillow, propping his chin with both hands, his little feet dangling in the air, looking at her with that “I told you so” expression.
A five-year-old child, worrying like an eighty-year-old veteran cadre.
“Mom,” Xiao Niangao extended a finger and poked her cheek, “will that uncle from last night come again today?”
Shen Luning didn’t answer.
She rolled over and buried her face in the pillow. The pillow smelled of laundry detergent—the kind bought on sale at the supermarket, with too much lavender fragrance added, making it smell like it had been soaked in floral water.
“Mom, you’re pretending to sleep.”
“I’m not pretending to sleep, I’m thinking.”
“Thinking about what?”
“Thinking about how to send you to kindergarten.”
Xiao Niangao immediately sat up, looking serious: “Today is Saturday.”
Shen Luning paused for a moment.
She lifted her face from the pillow and glanced at her phone.
Even though the screen was face down, the calendar app’s notification stubbornly lit up: Saturday.
“Oh,” she said, burying her face back into the pillow.
Xiao Niangao sighed.
The tone, rhythm, and even the upward inflection at the end of that sigh were exactly like his father’s.
What he didn’t know was that his great-grandmother, the old lady of the Lu family, nearly had a heart attack the first time she heard that sigh.
Not out of fear, but because it was too similar.
That Lu Sihan, whose words in the business world could evaporate billions in market value, sighed exactly like this when he was five years old.
Sitting on the steps of the orphanage, watching other children being taken away one by one, he waited for three years. By the third year, he had learned to sigh like this.
“Mom,” Xiao Niangao poked the back of her head, “you don’t have to take me to kindergarten today. You can keep sleeping, but can you please put your phone on silent first? It’s bothering me.”
Shen Luning reached out from under the pillow, found her phone, and held down the power button.
Before the screen went dark, she caught a glimpse of the last message.
It wasn’t from WeChat.
It was a text message from an unknown number: You hid for five years, and he found you in just one night. Where do you think you can run to this time? Accept your fate, Shen Luning.
She turned off the phone, and the world fell silent.
The curtains weren’t fully closed, and a sliver of sunlight squeezed through the gap, drawing a thin golden line on the floor.
Dust danced in the beam of light, slow and unhurried, just as this morning should have been.
If it weren’t for last night’s livestream, today would have been a perfectly ordinary Saturday.
She would have slept in until nine, then been dragged out of bed by Xiao Niangao to make breakfast.
She would have fried him an egg, and he would have demanded the yolk be shaped like the sun—which was really just round and unbroken.
She would say, “All eggs are round,” and he would reply, “The last one wasn’t round.” She would explain, “That one broke when I cracked it,” and he would say, “Then be more careful next time.”
Then they would watch an episode of cartoons together, during which she would secretly reply to a few customer messages from her Taobao shop.
After that, they would go downstairs to the market to buy pork ribs. Xiao Niangao would ask for strawberries, and she would say, “Strawberries are too expensive.” Xiao Niangao would counter, “Then let’s buy half a box,” and she would reply, “Half a box is still expensive.” Xiao Niangao would insist, “I’ll use my New Year’s money to buy them.”
The New Year’s money was kept in a place he thought was very secret, but Shen Luning knew all about it—the second drawer of the bedside table, inside an Ultraman-themed tin box.
Sun-shaped fried eggs, half a box of strawberries, an Ultraman tin box.
That was their Saturday.
Simple, repetitive, safe.
But now, a tear had been ripped through it all.
Lu Sihan was like a rusty knife, recklessly hacking through the dam she had carefully built over five years. The floodwaters were rushing in, and though she didn’t know when the first wave would crash over her, she could already hear the sound of the water.
“Mom.”
“Hmm.”
“Are you thinking about that uncle?”
Shen Luning finally lifted her head from the pillow.
She looked at Xiao Niangao. The child sat beside her, his hair as messy as a bird’s nest, pillow marks still on his face, one eye bigger than the other as he looked at her—just how he always looked when he first woke up.
“Xiao Niangao.”
“Hmm.”
“What did you say to him last night?”
Xiao Niangao blinked, his eyelashes fluttering twice, then very naturally shifted his gaze to the water stain on the ceiling.
“Nothing.”
“You stood at the door and talked to him for a while. I heard you.”
“Oh,” Xiao Niangao moved his gaze from the ceiling to the curtains, from the curtains to the floor, and from the floor to his own curled-up toes. “I just told him to stop making noise.”
“And then?”
“Nothing else.”
Shen Luning sat up, crossing her legs and folding her arms as she looked at her son.
Five years as a single mother had honed one skill in her: the ability to tell if Xiao Niangao was lying from his micro-expressions.
Eyes looking to the upper left meant he was recalling something; to the upper right meant he was fabricating; pursed lips meant he had something to say but didn’t dare; fingers fidgeting together meant he was nervous.
Right now, Xiao Niangao’s fingers were fidgeting together, his lips pressed into a thin line, and his eyes lingered in the upper right corner for a fraction of a second.
He was lying.
“Lu Xingye.”
At the sound of his full name, Xiao Niangao’s shoulders trembled.
He looked up at her with his dark, grape-like eyes, a flicker of light in their depths.
That light wasn’t sadness, nor was it fear.
“Mom,” he said, his voice growing softer, “I told the uncle that you’re taking me far away tomorrow.”
Shen Luning froze.
“How did you know?”
“I heard you.”
Xiao Niangao lowered his head and began fiddling with a loose thread on the blanket. “I woke up when you were on the balcony booking plane tickets.”
Shen Luning opened her mouth but couldn’t find any words.
“Mom.”
Xiao Niangao’s voice was muffled. “Are we really moving?”
The room fell silent for a moment.
The curtains billowed in the wind, like a giant white balloon.
Sunlight danced on the floor, and dust swirled in the beams of light.
Shen Luning reached out, pulling Xiao Niangao over and holding her in her arms.
The child’s small head rested against her chin, her hair brushing against her cheek, soft and ticklish.
“Mom,” Xiao Niangao’s voice came muffled from her embrace, with a hint of a nasal tone, “that uncle, is he my dad?”