Well, America doesn’t have any rule against young love.
Zhao Zhenzhen said to the twin-tailed girl, “The 1 dollar was just the bet. The reading is a separate price.”
The twin-tailed girl readily pulled out 10 dollars and slapped it onto Zhao Zhenzhen. “Go ahead, do it.”
“Wait.”
Zhao Zhenzhen withdrew her hand and looked at the leader.
“The bet isn’t over yet.” The leader crossed his arms and stared at her. “My name.”
Zhao Zhenzhen glanced at his personal panel, thought for a moment, and asked, “Do you want to hear it here, or should I and you…”
The leader dropped a “Follow me” and turned to walk into the school.
The others followed behind him, laughing and joking.
The twin-tailed girl enthusiastically linked her arm through Zhao Zhenzhen’s. “Let’s go?”
“…Wait, you guys go to this school too?!” Zhao Zhenzhen was shocked.
The twin-tailed girl gave her a strange look. “Otherwise, how would you have run into us at the school gate?”
Then something occurred to her, and she stared at Zhao Zhenzhen in shock. “So you really don’t know who we are?!”
Zhao Zhenzhen shook her head. “I’m poor. I have to go to work after school.”
The twin-tailed girl waved her hand dismissively, with an air of “oh, come on.” “Even the poorest people have friends. You though…”
She looked Zhao Zhenzhen up and down and spoke without any tact. “You’re invisible. Just like her.”
Zhao Zhenzhen turned her head and glanced at Betty, who was clutching her backpack and cowering at the very back.
The twin-tailed girl giggled. “You two are both invisible people.”
The kind of invisible where even if you’re bullied, everyone pretends not to see it.
Zhao Zhenzhen looked at the twin-tailed girl. “Is that so?”
The twin-tailed girl’s heart skipped a beat. She didn’t know why, but she found herself flashing Zhao Zhenzhen an ingratiating smile and linking arms with her even more enthusiastically. “But starting now, you’re not invisible anymore.”
“Of course.” The twin-tailed girl leaned in close to Zhao Zhenzhen, a sly look on her face. “If you spout nonsense and get caught, just wait to be properly ‘taken care of’ by us.”
“Trust me.” The twin-tailed girl flicked at the fabric of Zhao Zhenzhen’s clothes. “When that time comes, you’ll miss the days when you were invisible.”
Betty shrank her neck as she walked behind them, wishing she could crawl into a crack in the ground.
Zhao Zhenzhen stared steadily at the twin-tailed girl, meeting her gaze with clear eyes, then reached out, pressed her palm against the girl’s face, and pushed her away. “Smoke less. You stink.”
The twin-tailed girl was about to fly into a rage when Zhao Zhenzhen’s next words stunned her. “If you keep this up, you won’t be Grandma Kingsley’s favorite little granddaughter anymore.”
The twin-tailed girl’s eyes went wide. She didn’t even snap out of it when Zhao Zhenzhen pulled her hand away.
It took her a long moment before she cheered and chased after Zhao Zhenzhen, grabbing her hand and ignoring her attempts to pull away as she pressed for answers. “You—you can even see that?! But—but Grandma Kingsley already…”
“Yes, she already passed away when you were eight.” Zhao Zhenzhen was getting impatient. “Let go. The stench on you is affecting my judgment.”
She’d only made up that excuse on a whim, but the twin-tailed girl immediately released her, which actually made Zhao Zhenzhen pause and glance at her in surprise.
The twin-tailed girl followed meekly at Zhao Zhenzhen’s side, looking at her with eager eyes. “Is there anything else you know or can see?”
“That’s a separate price.” Zhao Zhenzhen brushed her off with an excuse.
The moment the words left her mouth, something was shoved into her hand. Zhao Zhenzhen snuck a peek—20 dollars?!
Looking at the twin-tailed girl again, she was clasping her hands together with a pleading “pretty please” expression, and cleverly glanced at the person walking ahead before raising a finger to her lips in a shushing gesture, then mimed zipping her mouth shut.
She’d keep it a secret! Please, please!
“…Fine.” Zhao Zhenzhen cleared her throat, quickly stashed the money away, and put on a serious face. “It’s not about the money. Since you love your grandma that much, I suppose I can share a little.”
The twin-tailed girl nodded vigorously. Even Betty, trailing behind, quickened her pace to catch up.
—When it came to gossip, even fear seemed to fade a bit.
“You have a small pink-and-blue blanket that your grandma sewed for you by hand… And you broke your grandma’s favorite vase and secretly buried it, but she actually knew all along…”
“Yes, yes, yes! That’s right!” The twin-tailed girl nodded like a pecking chick. Her voice grew louder and louder, completely oblivious that the companions walking ahead had already turned back to look at them several times, and were even gradually slowing their pace.
On the surface, their hands were in their pockets, but in reality they were leaning back hard, their ears practically stretching over to eavesdrop.
“Lastly,” Zhao Zhenzhen said, “you haven’t visited your grandma in a long time. Next time you go, remember to bring her a bouquet of Oklahoma roses—her favorite when she was alive. She was born in Oklahoma.”
The twin-tailed girl suddenly went quiet. After walking a few steps in silence, she threw her arms around Zhao Zhenzhen and burst into loud sobs.
Zhao Zhenzhen was small and malnourished—no match for her at all. Trapped against the girl’s chest, she struggled for a good while before shouting, “Your eyeliner is running!” and finally escaped.
Pfft! That stank.
Zhao Zhenzhen pressed down the dizzy feeling from being smoked out and looked at the leader. “This is good enough, right?”
Being forced to inhale secondhand smoke had put Zhao Zhenzhen in a foul mood.
“…Fine.” Not just the leader—everyone else shot her a strange look as well.
Zhao Zhenzhen didn’t turn around, or she would have seen the words “You’re so brave” written all over Betty’s face.
“All of you, back off.” The leader turned to Zhao Zhenzhen. “We’re going over there.”
Zhao Zhenzhen dragged out a chair and sat down in front of the leader. “Your birth mother named you Stone. She hoped you’d be strong, reliable, and responsible.”
Jin took a few deep breaths. His hands rubbed against his thighs a couple of times, and remembering that this was, after all, a school, he suppressed the urge to pull out a cigarette.
“So… what kind of person was she?” Jin pretended not to care, but his eyes stayed fixed on Zhao Zhenzhen.
Zhao Zhenzhen rubbed her fingers together, then spread her palm open. “I won the bet?”
Jin rolled his eyes, pulled out a crumpled wad of cash, and tossed it to Zhao Zhenzhen without even counting it. Grumpily, he said, “Yeah. You win. The extra is a consultation fee… or a psychic fee?”
“I’m not psychic. I just saw some things you didn’t.” Zhao Zhenzhen emphasized.
“Yeah, yeah. Spill it.” Jin leaned forward, pressing for more. “She… what was she like? Pretty? …No, forget pretty. What—what did she do?”
“Her hair was that caramel color—like sycamore leaves.” Zhao Zhenzhen said. “She smiled a lot, so she had laugh lines at the corners of her eyes. Oh, and when she smiled, she had a little parenthesis right here.”
Zhao Zhenzhen tapped her left cheek.
“What else?” Jin asked hungrily, desperate to know more.
“She loved you very much. She always held you and hummed a little tune. The melody went like this.” Zhao Zhenzhen tried to hum it.
Jin picked it up immediately. And honestly, with that smoky, whiskey-worn voice humming low like that, it actually had a certain charm to it.
If only it weren’t for the stench of cigarette smoke.
Zhao Zhenzhen thought this even as she nodded repeatedly. “Yes, that’s the song.”
Jin suddenly leaned back in his chair, lowering his head and covering his face with his hands to compose himself. After a long moment, he rubbed his face hard before lifting his head again. “I’ve always remembered that song. Vaguely. I used to think it was something my mom sang to me when I was little. But she was completely tone-deaf and never sang.”
Zhao Zhenzhen had watched Jin’s life memories and knew that the “mom” he referred to was his adoptive mother.
She had died in an accident when he was very young.
After that, he lived with his stepfather. But his stepfather was a piece of trash.
Jin started running the streets at a young age, and slowly, he became what he was today.
Zhao Zhenzhen unfolded the wad of bills and smoothed them out one by one. She didn’t mind at all that the money was crumpled.
When she counted it, there were actually over seventy yuan.
Zhao Zhenzhen raised an eyebrow in surprise. Feeling in a good mood, she decided to say a bit more. “Your eyes are exactly like hers.”
Sure enough, Jin was interested. He looked up at Zhao Zhenzhen, hoping she would say more.
“She looked beautiful in dresses, especially green ones. And…” Zhao Zhenzhen picked and chose what to say.
She ended up talking for over ten minutes.
“Then…” Jin stared at the tabletop. “Can you tell where she is?”
Zhao Zhenzhen sighed inwardly.
— She wasn’t surprised at all that Jin would ask this question.
But Zhao Zhenzhen wouldn’t tell him, because that biological mother was now living a happy life. And Jin wasn’t a child she had willingly conceived with someone she loved.
She loved him, but through him, she also hated another man.
Love and hate pulled against each other, tearing her into two halves.
She tried with all her heart to love Jin completely, but there was no way. In the end, she made the decision to give him up for adoption.
Now she had long since moved past that shadow, married the man she loved, and built a happy family with children. She had already moved forward long ago.
Jin was the abandoned remnant she had left behind, and they would never see each other again in this lifetime.
— Unless Zhao Zhenzhen told him.
“I don’t have that ability.” Zhao Zhenzhen spread her hands. “She secretly came to see you a few times when you were little. But that wasn’t allowed. You know how it is. After that, she never appeared again.”
Zhao Zhenzhen suddenly regretted saying so much, reawakening Jin’s longing for his biological mother.
He wasn’t going to start trying to find her because of what she’d said, was he?!
That wouldn’t do.
Zhao Zhenzhen’s face turned serious. “Actually, the two of you being separated was the best outcome.”
Jin jerked his head up, his eyes fierce. “Oh?”
Zhao Zhenzhen was startled but forced herself to stay calm. “You and your mother are mutually destructive.”
Jin’s expression went blank for a moment. After a long pause, he let out an “Huh?”
“Don’t doubt it.” Zhao Zhenzhen grew even more serious. “It’s a situation where either you die or she dies. When you were little, you nearly died several times, and the reason was that she had come to see you.”
“Now that you’ve grown up and become strong, if you go looking for her, then it’ll be her who ends up in danger.”
“The two of you are the closest people in the world, but also the ones who can never meet, like day and night. You can never come together.” Zhao Zhenzhen stared at Jin, emphasizing it again and again. “Otherwise, one of you will surely die!”
Jin’s eyes went wide.
He didn’t understand, but he was deeply shaken.
After being stunned for a long moment, he nodded. “I understand. I won’t go looking for her.”
The moment Jin finished speaking, Zhao Zhenzhen noticed that the life simulation branch on his character panel had disappeared.
This meant Jin had truly abandoned the idea of seeking out his mother, so his future life no longer contained anything related to her.
Zhao Zhenzhen let out a sigh of relief.
Finally, that was settled.
At the same time, a 【+2.5】 appeared beneath her quest panel.
Hooray! Adding it all up, she’d actually earned over a hundred yuan today!
Zhao Zhenzhen decided she would set up her street stall tomorrow!