Chapter 19

In reality, Li Muxue's sweet memory of the Immortal Forest was misplaced, unreal, a hallucination unconsciously conjured by her mind. The Immortal Forest candy was launched in 1988, and a year earlier, in the late autumn of 1987, Li Muxue had already broken up with Xu Chen. Therefore, while Li Muxue did indeed cry under the old locust tree because her goldfish died, the person who comforted her and gave her the candy wasn't Xu Chen, but Wang Lei—the chubby boy who couldn't run fast. However, those few Immortal Forest candies were undeniably given to Wang Lei by Xu Chen himself, who whispered, "Lei, give this to Xiaoxue, tell her not to cry. Tell her that no matter what happens, eating a piece of candy will make her feel better. I'm not going to see her anymore; she hates me now..."

After saying that, he quietly hid in the corner, watching the familiar figure under the old locust tree...

As for why Li Muxue now mistakenly remembers the person who gave her the candy as Xu Chen, it's because she has experienced too many traumatic events in the past few years. Her hatred for the Xu family, mixed with Xu Chen's past kindness towards her, clashes violently within her, leaving her trapped in a state of self-contradiction, repression, and anxiety from which she cannot escape. Over time, this has led to many self-deceptive illusions forming in her mind.

Two lines from Mavis Hee's classic old song "Iron Bars" perfectly encapsulate Li Muxue's inner world at that time: "Wandering between forgiveness and despair / The only feeling is pain, pain, pain..."

The smell of disinfectant filled Li Muxue's sense of smell, making her nose itch. The hospital observation room in the mid-1990s still had pale green walls, and the ceiling fan turned slowly, casting flickering light. After Liu Yuling left, she opened her eyes and saw her mother Qiao Kexin's anxious face. The collar of her polyester shirt with small floral print was stained with sweat, and the stray hairs at her temples were wet and stuck to her skin. Her usually meticulously styled hair was now loosely hanging over her shoulders.

"Xiaoxue, you're awake?" Qiao Kexin's voice trembled noticeably. Her cool hand touched her daughter's forehead and then quickly slid down to her cheek, as if checking on something fragile.

Li Muxue wanted to speak, but her throat was so dry it felt like it was on fire. She remembered the dizziness before she fainted—during gym class, she only heard the gasps of her classmates and felt her body go uncontrollable before the next second was deathly darkness. Now she lay on the hard hospital bed, under the white blanket, with a blood-soaked IV patch wrapped around the back of her hand.

"You child, how can you not take care of yourself!" Qiao Kexin's tone suddenly rose, filled with barely suppressed anger, but her eyes reddened first: "The teacher called your workplace and said you fell straight down on the playground. Do you know how scared I was? Huh? The doctor said you're malnourished! What have you been eating lately?"

Her mother's complaints fell like fine rain, carrying a pang of heartache, yet every word made her want to shrink back under the covers. She knew her mother worked in the assembly workshop of the machine factory, tightening screws, working three shifts, often until late at night, and still having to check on her homework when she got home.

"Did you not eat properly again?" Qiao Kexin used a cotton swab dipped in water to gently wipe her daughter's chapped lips. Her fingertips touched the sharp angles under her daughter's cheekbones, and her voice suddenly choked up. "Look how thin you are, your face is so thin... Mom knows you want to save money for the family and study hard, but you can't joke around with your health."

Li Muxue recalled her mother's silent profile as she looked at the report card after last week's mock exam, and how she clutched her aluminum lunchbox filled with steamed buns and pickled vegetables while her classmate flaunted his new Walkman. The unspoken words stuck in her throat like shards of glass. She wanted to say: she wasn't unwilling to eat, but had saved her breakfast money to buy study guides; she wasn't unafraid, but dared not utter a sound like "I can't hold on anymore" in her mother's weary gaze.

"Mom..." she finally found her voice, barely audible, "I didn't mean to. I want a soda, there's one on the windowsill, please open it for me."

"Silly child, why are you saying 'on purpose' to your mother?" Qiao Kexin forced a smile, reaching out to smooth the stray hairs on her daughter's forehead. But her fingertips trembled slightly when they touched her temple, where there was a faint bruise. Three days ago, when she was studying late into the night, she had accidentally bumped her head on the table because she was so tired. At the time, she had covered it with her hair, thinking her mother hadn't seen it.

Qiao Kexin walked to the windowsill, picked up the soda bottle, and bit down hard with her teeth. With a "sizzle," the familiar aroma filled the air as the cap popped open. When the sweet, familiar orange-flavored soda exploded in her mouth, Li Muxue's tears suddenly welled up. Not a loud wail, but like beads from a broken string, they rolled silently down her cheeks, dripping onto the sheets and spreading into a small, dark, damp patch. She saw the panic in her mother's eyes, saw her frantically searching for a handkerchief, but unable to wipe away the endless stream of tears.

"Alright, alright, don't cry, Mom won't blame you anymore." Qiao Kexin gently pulled her daughter into her arms, her movements careful, as if afraid of breaking something. Li Muxue buried her face in her mother's warm neck, smelling the faint scent of laundry detergent and sweat on her body, and finally couldn't help but let out a suppressed sob.

All the pent-up grievances, fears, fond memories of the past, the hardships of the present, and the uncertainty about the future burst forth with her tears at this moment. She remembered the heavy burden she dared not shed behind her mother's words, "Our Xiaoxue is the most sensible."

Only the soft breathing of the mother and daughter and Li Muxue's intermittent sobs remained in the observation room. Qiao Kexin gently patted her daughter's back and said, "It's alright. Now that your father is back, our lives will slowly get better!"

But Qiao Kexin didn't know that the wound in her daughter's heart, born of love, had already formed a thin scab that hurt at the slightest touch, through day after day of expectation and self-criticism...

(To be continued)