Chapter Twelve: An Angel Will Love You in My Place

Cheng Shi chose a newly opened bar on Hengshan Road as their meeting place. Before leaving, Lin Yu took a shower, put on full makeup, and rummaged through her closet to find a black bodycon mini dress that she had only worn twice before when she went on dates with Jiang Chuan, in order to deal with her picky friend with the highest level of social etiquette.

After getting ready, she glanced at her watch, put on a long khaki trench coat, and hurried to her meeting place.

On the way, she received a call from Yao Fangfang, who asked her why she had returned to Shanghai without saying a word and hadn't given her a chance to see her off at the airport.

"The company reimburses travel expenses, why waste your gas money!" Lin Yu said with a smile.

"You left in such a hurry, I didn't even have time to ask you," Yao Fangfang changed the subject. "Did you and Chen Guang have a heart-to-heart talk on your way home last night?"

“He told me he was divorced, and I told him I was getting married. If that counts as sharing our innermost feelings.”

"You two are such a conversation killer. I really can't figure out how you two hit it off," Yao Fangfang said with a light laugh.

“He wasn’t the one I initially liked,” Lin Yu said after thinking for a moment. “You know I like someone as steady and reliable as Jiang Chuan.”

"Who?" Yao Fangfang was taken aback, then realized. "Oh, your fiancé. I'm sorry, you two haven't known each other for very long, I can't quite remember his name."

Lin Yu didn't pay attention and instead asked, "Do you remember Zheng Qi from the next class, the one who played the saxophone?"

"That Zheng Qi who stole the show at the welcome party, right? So many girls wrote him love letters, how come I don't remember him?" Yao Fangfang laughed, instantly perking up.

"You always pick the best ones."

"Unfortunately, I didn't manage to twist one of them."

"Hahahaha, invincible, right? Now we've turned the tables on Jiang Chuan."

The two of them burst into laughter over the phone.

......

Lin Yu felt that falling in love with Zheng Qi was absolutely inevitable, albeit accidental.

Lin Yu comes from a single-parent family. Her parents divorced when she was eight years old, and Lin Min left with nothing, her only request being custody of her daughter.

Lin Yu still remembers the day her mother took her away. She couldn't tell if it was morning or afternoon, only that it was winter. She was wearing newly bought red snow boots made of polyester taffeta, and a thick, long, grey and white floral hooded rabbit coat.

It was probably a day when it was snowing and melting at the same time. Stepping on the muddy snow, the red shoes got dirty, and the snow water seeped into the insteps. An uncomfortable chill spread from the soles of my feet to my whole body, seeping into my bones through my skin.

Lin Min carried a heavy suitcase in one hand and pulled Lin Yu along with the other. Eight-year-old Lin Yu was underdeveloped, thin and short, and staggered behind her. The mother walked quickly, afraid of missing the bus back to her parents' home. The old-fashioned oil-powered bus was steaming with heat mixed with sweat, and the nauseating smell made people dizzy.

Lin Yu rarely took buses; in the past, Lin Jianguo would pick her up and drop her off in his company jeep. But she held back from vomiting and complaining because she knew that from now on, she would have to live like this every day, and she needed to adapt as soon as possible.

At this moment, Lin Min needed to be taken care of more than she did. Even though Lin Yu was only eight years old that year, she seemed to have broken away from her old self in an instant.

Lin Min was an extremely ambitious woman. Lin Yu's impression of his mother was that she was thin but always had a straight back. Her classmates, who knew little about her family situation, all assumed that she took her mother's surname. In fact, her parents shared the same surname, which sounded somewhat ironic, but Lin Yu never explained it much.

Lin Min was a high school English teacher, decisive and efficient at work, with a unique teaching style, a true workaholic. At that time, she had not yet divorced Lin Jianguo, and Lin Yu was still the princess pampered by her parents, confident and generous. When she met strangers, she could chat with them in accented English without any reservations, making everyone laugh.

Back then, Lin Yu attended the best schools, wore the most fashionable clothes, and consumed the most expensive children's health products. Every time Lin Jianguo returned from a business trip, his bag was filled with Lin Yu's toys, and the picture books were serialized picture books sent from Shanghai. Lin Yu remembers cutting off a corner of a page from each book, collecting a year's worth of pages, mailing them to the publisher, and receiving a handwritten letter and picture stickers from the editorial department as a gift.

She, in this way, only cared about her own preferences when making friends, regardless of whether the other person liked her back. Because she had always been the center of attention, her abundant confidence, or perhaps blind confidence, forged Lin Yu's strong inner strength. She couldn't understand what kind of expression people who didn't like her would have; the world seemed like a giant smiling face, a script written just for her.

Back then, Lin Min wasn't as conflicted as she is now. She was beautiful, strong-willed, and demanded perfection in everything, especially at work. She always strived to produce the best students, and Lin Min was the most outstanding English teacher in the small town, with a well-known reputation.

Lin Yu witnessed a mother who, because her child's English grades were poor, knelt down outside Lin Yu's house, begging Lin Min to tutor her daughter so that her child could go to school in Hong Kong. At that time, tutoring was strictly regulated, and Lin Min hesitated for a long time, but in the end, she was moved by this kneeling. Both were mothers, and for the sake of their children, they seemed to have lost their rationality and bottom line.

Finally, the child successfully enrolled in a Hong Kong school, and many years later, the child's mother would still mail English textbooks and books from Hong Kong to Lin Yu every year. These were rare items that couldn't be bought in the small town. However, she probably didn't know about Lin Min's divorce and still sent them to their former home, which is now Lin Jianguo's home.

Lin Jianguo works in the Environmental Protection Bureau. He has his own private office with a genuine leather chair and a set of old-fashioned reddish-brown office furniture. The window faces the government building.

In the afternoon, the sun always warmed people up. There was a printer, fax machine, and telephone on the table. Lin Yu used to sit cross-legged in the leather chair, pretending to make a business call, which made Lin Jianguo burst into laughter.

However, after the divorce, Lin Yu rarely went there anymore. When she did go, it was only to ask Lin Jianguo for money for tutoring books. She would take the money with her head down and turn around and leave, acting more like a creditor than a father and daughter. Or perhaps the two are essentially the same thing.

After the divorce, Lin Min rented a one-bedroom apartment near the school. The apartment building was old, with close spacing between buildings and poor lighting. Upon entering, one faced a dark living room, which the landlord had partitioned off into a small bedroom. A tall, small window connected the partition to the passageway, and iron bars were installed, making it look like a prison cell. Lin Yu lived there for many years.

The mother would occasionally peek through the high window, her wary eyes ensuring that Lin Yu was always focused on her studies. For those few years, the mother and daughter seemed to be locked in a fierce competition. Lin Yu spent nine years there, a period that felt like a prison, not only in terms of the environment but also in terms of her mental state; the arduous years of studying became tangible at that time.

Lin Jianguo was very busy with work, and since he was at a crucial point in his career advancement, he often had to travel to townships and towns for business meetings. He would collect the books sent to Lin Yu, wrap them carefully in oil paper, and when both he and Lin Yu were on vacation, he would drive several kilometers to Lin Min's new home to visit her.

Cars have a hard time getting around the old neighborhood, but Lin Jianguo is a skilled driver. Even in the dark, he can always park precisely in front of Lin Yu's building. His father is very smart, and both he and Lin Yu's mother were college graduates in the early 1980s. They can learn anything quickly and easily, and they are also very artistic. Lin Min probably valued these qualities in him.

But romance and marriage seem to be natural enemies. The mundane realities of daily life, coupled with unrealistic fantasies, ultimately lead to stagnation and exhaustion within the marriage. The fate of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, the father in heaven and the mother on earth, was already written for them on the very first day of their story.

Lin Jianguo had a fragile heart that was different from his outward appearance, as if he were the wife in this marriage. Lin Yu sat in the car holding the oil paper package, awkwardly refusing to speak. After watching for a while, Lin Jianguo turned his head and wiped away his tears.

"Banban, Daddy misses you so much, I haven't been able to sleep these past few days. Are you adjusting well? Is Mommy treating you well?"

"Not bad," Lin Yu replied coldly, unmoved.

"Dad will come to see you whenever he has free time."

"good."

It seemed there was nothing more to say except "yes," and all the tears had already been shed upon hearing the news. For a seven or eight-year-old child, the world was entirely constructed by adults; the breakdown of the marriage was accompanied by the collapse of their worldview, a life-altering event reminiscent of the Tangshan earthquake.

Lin Yu remembers the last night her father lulled her to sleep. She cried and cried, her eyelids like a burst dam, tears streaming down her face, only to be absorbed by the towel covering her cheeks. Unable to understand, unable to accept it, the night seemed endlessly long, but in the end, all she heard was her father's helpless sigh.

"Banban, there's nothing you can do about it, you just have to accept it."

Yes, Banban finally grew into Lin Yu. At the age of eight, he understood for the first time that adults in this world are not omnipotent. The image of his father collapsed at that moment, becoming an ambiguous comma in Lin Yu's life.

Lin Min was a homeroom teacher and also taught a graduating class. She often left early and returned late, leaving Lin Yu at her maternal grandmother's house during winter and summer vacations. Her grandmother's house was located in a remote area of ​​the farm, and she doted on Lin Yu. However, Lin Yu was dependent on her mother and afraid of being abandoned. She would often sit on the kang (a heated brick bed) at her grandmother's house at night, crying and wanting to go home.

As Lin Yu grew older, he gradually got used to this kind of life. During the day, he could play freely with the neighborhood children in the fields and countryside, and he no longer cried and fussed about going home. After all, even at home, Lin Min mostly couldn't spare the time to spend with him.

What's more, Lin Yu was afraid of the dark. He would often run back to his bedroom before dark, lock the door, pile the blankets around the bed like high trenches, turn on the light, and trap himself inside, reading fairy tales to his shadow on the wall. Such days were not as comfortable as staying at his grandmother's house.

When Lin Min got busy, she didn't even have time to cook for Lin Yu. Later, her mother came up with a solution: she would make dozens of steamed buns on a less busy holiday and freeze them all at once. That way, even if she didn't have time to cook, Lin Yu wouldn't go hungry.

Lin Yu knew that Lin Min was trying her best to balance family and work, and to be a good mother, but as a teenager, Lin Yu still found it difficult to fully empathize with her mother, and always felt that she did not love him as much as she did when she was a child.

Later, she gradually learned to cook some simple dishes. Although the taste was mediocre, she developed excellent knife skills, and the food looked quite appealing. This prevented her from eating only leftover buns every day, and Lin Min finally had a chance to catch her breath from the daily chores. In this environment, Lin Min naturally didn't have much energy left for Lin Yu, and could only offer her three meals a day and verbal instruction at most.

Lin Yu would occasionally ask her mother for help with problems she couldn't solve. Lin Min would only explain once, and if she explained too many times, she would sternly and painfully scold herself, asking why she couldn't do such simple problems and why she hadn't inherited any of her or Lin Jianguo's traits.

Over time, Lin Yu found himself becoming taciturn. His first reaction to problems was to escape and numb himself. He believed that as long as he avoided the problems, he could make his mother less disappointed and satisfy everyone.

Gradually, Lin Yu stopped asking questions and became unclear about what she truly wanted. It was as if her brain had automatically deleted some complicated processes, plunging her life into a chaotic fog. After all, imagining oneself without needs is painful, but forgetting one's needs is easy.

During high school, the increased difficulty of physics and chemistry caused Lin Yu's grades to become mediocre due to his inability to ask questions. In the end, even with hard work, he only managed to get into a mediocre first-tier university. On the contrary, his weight increased sharply due to studying late into the night and eating extra meals.

Over the years, her personality has become increasingly sensitive and delicate. Therefore, in order to prepare for her upcoming university life, she decided to start losing weight desperately.

Lin Yu was so hungry he felt weak all over. His main activity each day was climbing from his bed to Lin Min's bed to find the remote and turn on the TV. The rented apartment was small; the extra living room had been partitioned into Lin Yu's bedroom, while the only TV in the house was installed in Lin Min's bedroom.

Before the college entrance examination, Lin Min's bedroom was a black zone, and Lin Yu was forbidden from setting foot there. After the college entrance examination, Lin Min completely let go, only giving a slight reminder when she thought Lin Yu's eyes were about to go blind.

Lin Yu had no friends, and her mother never allowed her to make many friends, mostly for fear that it would affect her studies. So Lin Yu could only lie in bed every day with the remote control. At that time, internet TV was not yet widespread, so Lin Yu watched whatever was on TV. It just so happened that Hunan TV was showing "An Angel Will Love You in My Place".

To be honest, the costumes, makeup, and props in this drama are really third-rate, the plot logic is nonsensical, and it's full of the flavor of youthful melancholy literature, but the male lead is handsome and dignified, and Lin Yu takes a liking to him at first sight.

The TV series finale coincided with the start of Lin Yu's university semester, and Lin Yu inexplicably cried. Then, fueled by unrealistic fantasies about the male lead, she met the glamorous Zheng Qi at the university's welcome party.