Chapter 28

I'd like to ask you a question.

It seems there's never a peaceful day at home; Shi Qiyue is nowhere to be found.

She left early Saturday morning and hadn't returned by 10 p.m. when Yue Sheng came home. When Yue Sheng asked her where she was, he discovered that no one in the family knew where she had gone, so he inevitably flew into a rage at home again.

Aunt Chen called her several times, but no one answered. Finally, the other end simply turned off the phone.

She racked her brains for a while: "Xiaoyue went out very early this morning, and she wouldn't say where she was going. She used to tell me if she was going to be late, but this time..." As she spoke, she suddenly realized something and exclaimed, "Xiaoyue, could she have run away from home?"

Upon hearing this, Shi Yuesheng pondered for a moment, then his expression turned grim. He picked up his phone and made several calls, arranging for some people to go and search together.

Aunt Chen returned to her room, pondered the matter, and then secretly made another phone call to Shi Ziqian.

Shi Ziqian hadn't gone home this week and was alone in his dorm when he received the call. He answered the phone, and Aunt Chen asked him worriedly, "Ziqian, we don't know where Xiaoyue went today. You're at school, why don't you go to the junior high section and see if she's in her dorm? She doesn't have many friends, where could she go so late? Did she go back to school by herself?"

Shi Ziqian thought for a moment and said, "Okay, I'll go take a look."

After making the call, there was no further news for a long time. Around 11 o'clock, she heard Shi Yuesheng answer a phone call and then take Zhu Qing out.

She pushed open the door and came out; the room was already silent. She paced around a few times before finally sitting down on the sofa, her expression somewhat anxious.

Aunt Chen divorced years ago and never remarried or had children. Now, she has been living with the Shi family for over a decade and has practically watched Shi Qiyue grow up. In the past, Shi Qiyue would always tell her where she was going before leaving the house, but she didn't today. Aunt Chen was careless and didn't ask too much, but now she feels increasingly guilty.

Finally, there was a knock at the door. She quickly got up to open it, but the person outside was Shi Ziqian.

"Ziqian, you're back. How was it? Did you see Xiaoyue?" Actually, she already knew the outcome when she saw that Ziqian was all alone, but she still held onto a sliver of hope.

Shi Ziqian shook his head.

Aunt Chen said disappointedly, "Mr. Shi went out; he must have gone to look for her. We can't get through to Xiaoyue on her phone either. I hope something has happened to her."

"No, she won't," Shi Ziqian said. "We've already gone to look for her, we'll find her."

Perhaps because his tone was so certain, Aunt Chen felt a little more at ease and sat down on the sofa. She continued rambling on, "Xiaoyue has been in a bad mood lately and doesn't want to talk to President Shi. I wonder if they had some kind of conflict. This father and daughter... sigh."

Shi Ziqian sat down next to her and turned on the TV.

The TV was playing commercials, and the lively voices inside made the room less quiet. With Shi Ziqian by her side, Aunt Chen was at least less anxious.

After watching for a while, Shi Ziqian quietly got up, went upstairs, and pushed open the door to Shi Qiyue's room.

Her room was neat and tidy, with nothing missing and no signs of disturbance. He stood there for a while, then went downstairs and sat back down on the sofa.

It was nearly one o'clock when the door was opened again. Shi Yuesheng and the others had finally returned, with Shi Qiyue following behind them.

Aunt Chen breathed a sigh of relief and hurried over to greet him, but seeing that Shi Yuesheng looked unwell, she stopped and remained silent.

"Alright, go to sleep." Shi Yuesheng was unusually calm. He seemed exhausted after entering the room, and only said this before going upstairs.

Zhu Qing glanced at Shi Ziqian, who remained unmoved on the sofa, then at Shi Qiyue, and said earnestly, "Qiyue, stop being so willful. Your dad has been busy all day, and he still has to worry about you when he gets home. You're all grown up now, it's time to be more sensible." She rubbed her temples and followed him upstairs.

After the two of them left, Aunt Chen went to pull Shi Qiyue away. "Xiaoyue, where did you run off to today? Your dad and your Aunt Zhu were so worried."

Shi Qiyue lowered her eyes, her expression blank: "I'm going to find my mom."

Aunt Chen was taken aback, and hesitated before saying, "Why did you suddenly go to see her? You should have told your father first..."

Shi Qiyue gently interrupted her: "My dad said that when we got divorced, my mom didn't want me; she only wanted Shi Qile. I want to go ask her about it."

Shi Ziqian's gaze shifted from the television screen to her face.

"Ah." Aunt Zhang opened her mouth, looking at her, not knowing what to say for a moment.

Shi Qiyue raised her eyes and smiled, indicating that she was fine, and then calmly said, "Go to sleep, I'm going to sleep too." After saying that, she walked upstairs.

"Xiaoyue..." Aunt Chen reached out to grab her, but she dodged it. So she looked at Shi Ziqian for help, as if hoping he would say something.

Shi Ziqian silently turned off the TV and stood up: "Aunt Chen, there's nothing else. You should go to sleep early too."

"But..." Aunt Chen hesitated, then finally sighed.

Seeing that Shi Ziqian had followed her upstairs, Aunt Chen had no choice but to turn off the lights and leave the room.

The first floor fell silent once again.

Ziqian never sleeps well when he's home. Shi Yuesheng doesn't like having too many outsiders at home, so the only nanny who lives there is Aunt Chen. The house is too big, and it always feels too quiet and empty at night.

He was still a light sleeper tonight. He had only been asleep for a short while when he heard a faint noise outside. He lay there with his eyes closed for a while longer, then sat up and went out the door.

The door leading to the garden downstairs was open, and the bright moonlight illuminated a small figure sitting with his knees drawn up on a garden bench, along with a shimmering red halo.

"What are you doing?" Shi Ziqian asked, standing behind them and looking over there.

The figure on the bench was startled by the sudden sound, turned around and saw him, and said speechlessly, "Brother, can you not be so scary? Suddenly popping up behind someone in the middle of the night, you almost burned my hand." Under the moonlight, Shi Qiyue frowned, his oval face tense.

"What are you doing here all alone in the middle of the night instead of sleeping?"

"To admire the moon," Shi Qiyue replied matter-of-factly.

Shi Ziqian stared at her hand: "What are you holding in your hand?"

"It's a cigarette." Shi Qiyue even held out her hand and waved it to show him. "Don't you recognize it? You scared me so much that I almost dropped cigarette ash on my hand."

Shi Ziqian paused for a moment, then said, "You're only in the first year of junior high."

Shi Qiyue said nonchalantly, "So what? Lots of people in our class smoke. Don't be so surprised. Besides, you smoke too, don't think I don't know." She smiled at him, raising an eyebrow, "Like father, like son. Understand?"

As she spoke, she tried to exhale a smoke ring, but choked and coughed. Her small face, barely the size of a palm, was visible through the smoke; she still looked very young, yet she always tried to appear mature.

Shi Qiyue coughed for a while, and seeing that he didn't speak, she leaned back lazily and said, "Brother, since you're already here, sit with me for a while."

Shi Ziqian seemed unaccustomed to her sudden intimacy and glanced at her up and down a few times.

Shi Qiyue immediately understood his confusion and said, "What, are you scared? You gave me a birthday present last time, so I decided to call you brother. Anyway, Shi Qile doesn't care whether I call him brother or not, so I'll give you that title."

Shi Ziqian said calmly, "It's really easy to be your older brother."

"What can I do then?" Shi Qiyue said. "Nobody treats me well, so I'm so unprincipled. I'm easily fooled by a piece of candy."

Shi Ziqian looked at her for a while, then walked over and sat down. Shi Qiyue expertly offered him a cigarette, but Shi Ziqian didn't take it. He glanced at the one she had in her mouth and said, "Put it out."

Shi Qiyue shrugged, nonchalantly stubbed out the cigarette on the wooden bench, and then casually tossed the butt into the flower bushes.

Shi Ziqian frowned as he watched her actions. "Aren't you afraid of being discovered?"

"Who would find out? Oh, you mean those workers? Who would be so tactless as to tell Dad?" Shi Qiyue said nonchalantly. "Besides, so what if they find out? So many people come and go in this garden every day, who can say that I smoked it?"

She turned her head to look at Shi Ziqian and blinked: "And maybe... they'll think you lost it."

Shi Ziqian said, "I've given it up."

"Give it up? You're so young and you're already starting to focus on health?" Shi Qiyue asked, her face full of disbelief.

Shi Ziqian ignored her. She didn't mind, crossed her legs and leaned back in her chair. After a moment of blankness, she suddenly said, "I went to see my mother today."

Shi Ziqian nodded: "Mm."

Perhaps it was the gentle moonlight, or perhaps it was because she had never found anyone to confide in, but Shi Qiyue suddenly began to talk to herself in the empty garden in front of her.

“I used to hate Dad because he divorced Mom and then insisted on having custody, forcing me to live with him. I didn’t like this family at all. I didn’t like Zhu Qing, I didn’t like those two annoying kids, and I didn’t like you either.” At this point, she suddenly smiled. “Actually, I shouldn’t dislike you. We’re the most alike people in this family.”

Shi Ziqian remained silent and did not refute.

“Dad doesn’t need any more kids. There are already so many kids in this family, it’s enough to drive me crazy. So I often think, he doesn’t need me, why didn’t he just let me live with my mom when we got divorced?”

“But I only recently found out that they didn’t fight for custody at all when they divorced. My grandfather said that the boy had to be given to them and the girl didn’t want him, so my mother took Shi Qile and I was given to my father.” Her eyes reddened slightly as she said this, but she quickly regained her composure.

“I didn’t believe it, so I went to ask my mom today. My mom has a new boyfriend, I saw him. I asked her if she didn’t want me when she divorced my dad, and she said she didn’t not want me, it’s just that two children are too many for her, she can only choose one, so she chose Shi Qile.”

"They all mean roughly the same thing anyway," Shi Qiyue said.

“When Dad came to pick me up today, I heard the two of them talking. I heard Dad ask her, ‘Since the children still want to be with you, why don’t you let both children live with you from now on?’”

"Guess what my mom said?" she asked, then immediately answered herself, "She said, 'Why should I?'"

“My mom said, ‘Why should I?’ She repeated, ‘You want to just dump everything on me and make things easier for yourself? You wish!’”

"Isn't it said that children are a gift from God to their parents? Why do I feel like I'm a punishment from God in their eyes? They're both afraid of being punished too severely, and that they'll suffer the consequences."

Shi Ziqian couldn't answer her and could only remain silent. Fortunately, she didn't wait for his reply and continued talking on her own.

“You see, they don’t actually like children, nor do they want children. To them, I’m just a burden. So why did they have to give birth to me in the first place? They didn’t want me after they gave birth to me.”

She smiled enigmatically, then suddenly turned her head and asked, "What about you? Did your mom want you when your dad and mom divorced?"

Shi Ziqian leaned back on the bench, looking at the night sky.

"I don't want to," he said.

The entanglement between Zhu Sheng and Shi Yaosheng was very complicated. He was only five years old when they divorced, and those events are already very distant to him, so distant that he can hardly even remember Zhu Sheng's face anymore. He only feels a momentary daze when he occasionally sees Zhu Qing. The two sisters actually look very similar.

But he wouldn't tell Shi Qiyue any of this; she was just a child who had just turned 12. Shi Ziqian turned his head and saw her eyes, which, in the moonlight, were like translucent glass balls, cold and desolate, revealing a loneliness completely incongruous with her age.

Shi Qiyue was right; the two of them do look very alike.

Shi Qiyue's mother was Shi Yuesheng's second wife. As rumored, she was indeed the daughter of a high-ranking official, who, although now retired, had considerable influence in his earlier years. As for whether there were any financial or power-related connections between Shi Yuesheng and her marriage, that remains unknown. Shi Ziqian was quite averse to such matters and had never investigated them.

Their marriage didn't last long; they divorced soon after due to the involvement of a third party, and each of them had one child from the marriage.

As for the third party, it was Zhu Qing. Therefore, Shi Qiyue had to live under the same roof with the third party who destroyed her family from a very young age.

Upon hearing his answer, Shi Qiyue mocked, "You're so pathetic." Then, looking exhausted, she leaned back in her chair and sighed softly, "Me too."

Is he pitiful? Maybe so. Actually, he hasn't felt anything for a long time.

The moonlight in the sky was like a ribbon, quietly spreading its clear glow. Shi Ziqian gazed at the distant and bright crescent moon, gradually becoming lost in thought.

Shi Qiyue didn't speak again. She and Shi Ziqian didn't really have much to say to each other. Although they were considered siblings, they rarely interacted and always treated each other like air at home. She didn't know why, but she had said so much to him today.

She also began to space out, but suddenly heard Shi Ziqian's hesitant and confused voice in her ears.

"Shi Qiyue, I would like to ask you a question."

"Are you talking about me?" Shi Qiyue took a while to react, her face scrunched up, and she pointed to her chest in surprise, "You mean you have a question to ask me, someone who just graduated from elementary school?"