Wen Wanbing remained silent.
Rain cascaded from the obsidian sky, filling the cracks of the world with a fine, dense mist. It soaked the jagged shards of memory unearthed by her earlier emotional lapse, causing them to swell and press painfully against her chest.
Fu Junxue also kept her silence, choosing not to pry.
The sound of hurried, disorganized footsteps echoed from the stairwell. Before the person even arrived, their voice preceded them—it sounded like Pepper. “Jun! It’s raining! It’s raining! Save me—”
As the voice grew louder with proximity, Wen Wanbing, worried about Wen Xing, headed straight back into the room.
Perhaps because Wen Xing’s nerves had been so frayed before bed, she was sleeping quite deeply now. However, the German Shepherd was alert, its round eyes fixed on the door and its ears twitching at every sound. If Wen Xing were to wake, the dog would likely bark.
Reassured, Wen Wanbing stepped back out and gently closed the door. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Fu Junxue walking toward the stairs, warning Pepper in a low, sharp whisper: “If you wake the kid up, you’re setting up the canopy and the tents all by yourself.”
Having reached the top step, Pepper immediately clamped both hands over her mouth, tilting her head nervously toward the room.
Wen Wanbing shook her head. “She’s still out.”
“Thank goodness, thank goodness.” Pepper let out a massive sigh of relief, patting her chest. She lowered her voice further to speak to Fu Junxue. “Stop scaring me with the solo tent setup. I just talked to the shop owner—she said if this is just a shower that stops before dawn, we’ll be fine once the sun comes out. But if it keeps raining, there’s no way we’re spending the night on that deserted island.”
Pepper paused, her eyes darting to the side. The implication was clear: adults could endure a bit of hardship, but they had Wen Xing to consider.
“The suggestion is, if it pours until morning, this camping trip is a bust,” Pepper continued. “What do you think?”
Fu Junxue gave a noncommittal “Oh” to acknowledge the information but didn’t make an immediate decision. “Let’s wait until the rain stops before deciding.”
“The forecast says no rain for the next two days. Let’s hope it’s accurate and the rain stops soon so we get a big sun tomorrow.” Pepper remembered something and pulled a “Teru Teru Bozu” (sunny doll) made from a face towel out of her pocket. She used a window clip to hang the cotton string. “I was going to hang it downstairs, but when I told Meng Xuran the rhyme for this thing, she absolutely refused to let me.”
Wen Wanbing asked curiously, “What rhyme?”
Pepper turned and flashed a row of white teeth, her smile a bit eerie. “Better if you don’t know. I’m going to sleep in the car. I talk in my sleep, and I’ll definitely wake the kid up. You two should get some rest too.”
After Pepper left, Fu Junxue moved closer to Wen Wanbing and flicked the sunny doll. The clip wasn’t tight; the doll swung half a circle and fell.
Wen Wanbing’s hand shot out to catch it. Fu Junxue was a step slow—instead of catching the doll, she caught Wen Wanbing’s hand. Palm met back of hand; the collision of cool and warm merged into a gentle heat.
Rain rolled off the eaves, dripping into the water vat at the corner of the wall. Ripples spread across the surface in perfect concentric circles.
Fu Junxue scratched the back of Wen Wanbing’s hand with her fingertip. Watching Wen Wanbing’s fingers curl instinctively from the subtle tingle, she pulled her hand away with a smile.
Wen Wanbing rubbed the round head of the sunny doll between her fingers to hide her nervousness. “There’s a nail on the window frame. I can hang it there. Let me re-hang it.” She sounded like an employee reporting a work process to a supervisor.
Fu Junxue thought to ask: “If the camping trip really gets canceled, will you be very disappointed?”
“No,” Wen Wanbing replied, pinching the cotton string around the doll’s neck as she felt for the nail.
“No?” Fu Junxue’s tone held a hint of disbelief and surprise. “But you were looking forward to it so much.”
Wen Wanbing had poured so much effort and preparation into this “escape,” squeezing her time until one hour felt like three—balancing work, diving lessons, and preparing Xingxing mentally—all just to let herself drop her burdens for these two days.
The pitter-patter of the rain mingled with the distant chatter of the group.
For a moment, Wen Wanbing felt as if she were a child again, sitting in a classroom, listening to her classmates’ lively discussions. Even though she sat in the middle of the room, she felt as if she had been peeled away into a lonely, empty corner.
“Did you have school trips when you were young?” Wen Wanbing asked.
“Of course,” Fu Junxue laughed, finding the question interesting. “Didn’t you?”
“I did,” Wen Wanbing smiled along. “But I didn’t go.”
Perhaps because the “escape” was facing an unexpected delay, the news of the camping trip potentially falling through made Wen Wanbing think of her relationship with Fu Junxue. Perhaps one day, this relationship would end abruptly, and she wouldn’t know when she would see Fu Junxue again.
Driven by the emotions of such a thought, Wen Wanbing felt willing in this moment to peel back a layer of her past for Fu Junxue. It was also a way to stop herself from sinking further to let Fu Junxue see clearly that her soul, hidden in the depths, carried many shackles. A brief moment of sunlight could not illuminate all the darkness.
That soul wasn’t actually interesting, nor was it a perfect fit for Fu Junxue’s beautiful spirit.
Wen Wanbing wrapped the string around her finger once to keep the doll from falling, leaning against the wall and hiding herself in the shadows.
In an extremely calm voice, she said, “The first time the teacher announced a school spring trip… I think it was third grade? The class exploded like water hitting a hot frying pan. I was looking forward to it, too.”
Back then, she had listened to everyone around her discussing what food to buy. She started calculating how to save money from her meager meal allowance to buy a few snacks. She couldn’t focus on class, fantasizing about a trip she had never experienced, yet able to imagine herself in those dreamlike scenes.
“My parents divorced shortly after I was born,” Wen Wanbing paused to explain. “The woman you saw the other day is actually my aunt.”
Fu Junxue’s lips moved; she had many questions, but she didn’t ask. This was Wen Wanbing’s family business; it was for her to tell, not for Fu Junxue to intrude.
“I was awarded to my father. He found it a hassle, so he dumped me with my grandparents. They were old and had no jobs; they basically lived off my child support.”
And school trips cost money.
Before Wen Wanbing could finish, Fu Junxue had already guessed the ending. An image appeared before her eyes: she was standing beside a young Wen Wanbing, listening to the two elderly people scolding her. Phrases like “Where would we get that kind of money?” “If you want to go, make your parents pay!” “Neither your mom nor your dad wants you, and you still have the heart to play? You should be thrown out to see the real world. If it weren’t for us, you’d be in a trash heap right now, and you have the nerve to ask for money to have fun.”
“Later, my sister secretly gave me the money. She told me she couldn’t go on her first spring trip either, which left her with nothing to talk about with her classmates for a long time. She was ostracized, and she didn’t want the same for me.”
Wen Wanbing’s waveless voice finally carried a slight tremor.
“You didn’t go,” Fu Junxue guessed.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because the next day, my uncle beat my aunt and my sister. When he was checking the accounts, he realized 160 yuan was missing. And the amount my sister gave me was exactly 160.”
Wen Wanbing stared into the pitch-black night outside the railing, as if it were waiting to swallow everything. Her thoughts were carried by the wind into the mist, pulled back to that night of screaming where the dawn felt like it would never come.
“I’m actually not a good person at all. Do you know? When I held that money, I actually hesitated.” Wen Wanbing let out a small, self-mocking laugh. “I waited several minutes before I went to knock on their door. If I had been any later, my sister might have been beaten to death. Yet she never blamed me. The only thing she said was, ‘Why did you give the money back?'”
“That was money she earned copying homework for others and sewing dolls for the neighbor. She stayed up night after night, her fingers calloused, just to give it to me. In the end, it still ended up in my uncle’s pocket.”
But her sister didn’t know that knowing the truth made Wen Wanbing feel even more miserable and guilty. There was no way she could enjoy a trip alone.
Wen Wanbing lowered her eyes. The cotton string of the sunny doll had left a deep indentation in her finger. Fu Junxue looked at the doll swinging in the wind. The string wrapped around the doll’s neck made it look pitiful, like it was being strangled.
“Word of this reached my grandfather. He thought I had stolen the money from my aunt for the trip and gave me a beating.”
Wen Wanbing didn’t say that the beating nearly cost her half her life. The spring trip fell through naturally because she couldn’t even get out of bed, let alone leave the house.
“After that, autumn trips, school movies. I couldn’t go to any activity that required money. There was no money, and even if there was, they would say it shouldn’t be spent on such things.”
She looked up at Fu Junxue, her voice returning to its flat tone, as if the story she just told belonged to someone else. “From then on, no matter how much I look forward to something, I don’t feel disappointed if it doesn’t happen.”
She didn’t have the right to feel disappointed.
The night was a dense mist, heavy with moisture. Wen Wanbing saw a feeling akin to heartache slowly overflow in Fu Junxue’s damp eyes.
These beautiful, seductive eyes shouldn’t be clouded by such negative emotions. Wen Wanbing sighed softly. Mimicking what Fu Junxue had done to her before, she reached out and squished Fu Junxue’s cheeks. Seeing Fu Junxue’s expression shift to surprise, Wen Wanbing’s lips curved into a smile.
“Don’t be sad for me,” Wen Wanbing said, feigning lightness. “Actually, later on, my sister did take me out to play. We would lie to the adults and say we had extra classes, then sneak to the cinema where my aunt worked to watch movies, or wander around the small park in the city center.”
This was the first time Wen Wanbing had actively brought up her past and her deeply-guarded sister.
“Your sister was very good to you,” Fu Junxue said tentatively. “She was a wonderful person, wasn’t she?”
“Yes,” Wen Wanbing’s lashes trembled. “She was very, very good. I once wanted to become someone just like her.”
Fu Junxue’s heart skipped a beat. The chaotic questions circling her mind suddenly found their anchor. One gentle tug, and everything became clear.
The wind died down, and the rain stopped, but Fu Junxue felt as if she had just experienced a thunderous storm of realization.
And now, Wen Wanbing really had become her.