Translator:
Larbre Studio
Editor:
Larbre Studio
The next day, a streak of sunlight lit up a three-bedroom apartment in Qingcheng Garden.
A woman sat up from bed in excitement. The fifty-three-year-old looked a lot younger with her brown curly hair kept at shoulder length and her fair, unblemished skin. Unable to hold back anymore, she went straight to knock on the door of her son’s bedroom without washing up first.
She was Xia Jingshu, Ye Hao’s mother.
Bang, bang, bang.
Pounding on the door.
Ye Hao, open the door!
The woman hollered, graced by a telltale grin.
Failing to ignore the pounding, Hao had no choice but to get up, rubbing his eyes. He feared no one but his own mother who happened to be going through menopause and was known to be garrulous.
What is it, mom? Today is the weekend, I don’t need to work.
Opening his door, he found his mother’s face utterly lit up in hilarity as if she had just won the biggest Powerball prize.
Xia Jingshu raised her head and smiled even brighter as the deepened wrinkles by her eyes would tell.
Confess, son, who was that woman you came back with yesterday?
What?
Addled, Hao was lost. What woman? He’s the only person in the room.
The one that’s with you last night. I was in the balcony and saw it all. You brought a girl with you.
She?
Hao arched a brow and burst into a chuckle. That’s what his mother was trying to gossip about.
She’s just someone I met who’s in need of help and I lent her a hand. That’s all. We don’t know each other well.
That was true – they’ve only seen each other twice. There was a little coincidence, though, that she signed an apartment that’s in the same development with his. They even lived in the same building and same unit – she lived right downstairs on the fifth floor.
In that case, it was justifiable to say that they would know each other well someday.
Nonsense,
the woman let the explanation brush her by, her face squeezing an even larger grin, pulling Hao’s sleeves,
well, my son, I saw you hug her yesterday. I saw you.
Xia grinned, amused, and looked at her own son in a mocking manner.
Hao:
…
His mother did have some imaginative views – he’d give her that. The gesture being interpreted into hugging was him giving her a lift since she was faint due to a lack of food intake. Forget it. He’d better not argue with his mom in case she grew more paranoid.
He turned around and started brushing his teeth.
Jingshu couldn’t resist it, though. She finally spotted a hint of his son’s romantic relationship, and she wouldn’t stop until she dug out what she wanted to know.
Well, my son, you’re almost 30, about time to have a wife. I went to see a fortune teller yesterday and he said that you were in the right track lately and would definitely find your wife within a year. That said, take her home for your mother to see if you met someone special. I wouldn’t be so worried about you that way.
Standing behind her son, Jingxia bumbled, a slice of sorrow fleeting through her heart. Her son wouldn’t be single at this age if he hadn’t been hurt four years before. She was also mad at herself for treating that woman well.
In the same building, Xiyan was making simple breakfast for herself.
A congee with sliced pork and two eggs.
It would have been too much for her alone, but for her baby she would need to eat more, eat regularly, and eat more healthily going forward.
She needed to return to hospital to do a venous draw for some tests. She also planned to buy some cookbooks to pick up one or two dishes suitable for pregnancy.
She left and entered the elevator.
It was already packed that she had to step out for a second before walking in the second time for the door to be closed. She stood in the front, facing the elevator door, while a woman in her fifties standing beside her had her eyes on Xiyan the whole trip.
