Chapter 20
Li Chi'an picked up the soup bowl in front of him, and a rich aroma wafted over him. A few goji berries and red dates floated on the golden soup surface.
This is my mother's best-made chicken soup with ginseng, a taste she's enjoyed since childhood.
She sipped the soup slowly, the warm broth sliding down her throat and relieving her fatigue.
"Why are you thanking me?" Ms. Wu was very happy to receive the clothes and shoes her daughter bought, but when she saw her daughter's thin appearance, she couldn't help but frown. "Look at you, you've become so thin, and you're still not eating dinner properly."
Li Chi'an gently put down his bowl. "Mom, I'll eat if I'm hungry, but I won't if I can't eat."
“You have to eat three meals a day at the right time. You can’t just eat when you’re hungry. That will ruin your stomach.” Ms. Wu sat across from her daughter, watching her sip her soup with a pained look in her eyes. “You don’t eat properly, and neither does Zui Zui. I’ve been making this soup for two or three hours. It’s so nutritious. I’m trying to get him to drink it, but he absolutely refuses. He insists on eating fries and fried chicken.”
"Oh, what did Zuizui eat last night?" Li Chi'an asked with a smile. "Have you eaten yet?"
"What are you going to eat?" Ms. Wu Taotao said angrily. "After all that fuss, I had no choice but to go downstairs to KFC and buy him something."
Li Chi'an's lips curled up slightly. "Sometimes he craves food."
"You're still laughing!" Ms. Wu Taotao glared at her daughter. "A six-year-old child is growing, how can she eat this junk food every day? You and your brother ate my cooking when you were little, and look how well you've grown up. Fried chicken and fries have ruined your brains."
“It’s okay to eat it once in a while, Mom,” Li Chi’an said softly.
"And another thing," Ms. Wu Taotao continued to complain, "your son insists on listening to this song called 'The Lone Warrior' before bed, and he only listens to it when I play it on my phone. He throws a tantrum if I don't. That song is so loud it gives me a headache, and I can't even understand the lyrics. When you were kids, didn't you all sleep alone? You didn't have so many demands then."
Li Chian couldn't help but laugh when he recalled his son jumping on the bed singing "War? War!": "He's a huge fan of 'The Lone Warrior' now, just like all kindergarten kids."
“You just keep spoiling him.” Wu Taotao shook her head. “I told him to read picture books to him, but he wouldn’t. How can you teach a child like that? Day after day, he doesn’t eat properly, he doesn’t sleep properly, and you’re the one who has to discipline him, but you still spoil him. How can you not discipline a child properly? A spoiled dog will climb onto the stove, and a spoiled child will be unfilial. I think you’ll have a good time in the future.”
After finishing the chicken soup, Li Chi'an put the bowl on the coffee table and turned to his mother, "Mom, my son is here to experience the world, not to be a perfect child."
Wu Taotao was stunned. "What do you mean by that?"
Li Chi'an took a deep breath. "Life is tough, Mom. A child's happiness is simple. Why don't we fulfill his simple happiness? When he grows up, life is so long, and so many worries, pressures, and anxieties await him. How difficult will it be for him to be happy then? I might have to try very hard to make him happy. So, since it's all happiness anyway, why not let him experience more of it during his childhood?"
A brief silence fell over the living room.
Moonlight streamed through the gauze curtains and fell onto the floor, creating a hazy patch of light.
“When you were little, I didn’t spoil you like this,” Wu Taotao finally spoke, her voice tinged with grievance. “You could take care of Songshi when you were three, go to kindergarten by yourself when you were five, and cook porridge by yourself when you were six. You got excellent grades in every subject after you started school. If I hadn’t been strict with you, would you have achieved what you have today?”
Looking at the wrinkles at the corners of his mother's eyes, Li Chi'an suddenly recalled the scene when he was a child reciting Tang poems and being punished by standing for making a mistake.
How envious she was of her friends who could play freely back then!
“Mom, I am truly grateful for your upbringing.” She held her mother’s hand. “But do you know what? What I remember most is not those certificates and grades, but the day you took me and Songshi to Shenzhen when I was in the third grade of elementary school. I’ve remembered the ice cream and the carousel that day for twenty years.”
Wu Taotao's eyes flickered, but she couldn't hide her anxiety. "But... children don't know any better. If you don't supervise them, they'll go astray in the future. You may only have this one child in your life, and it's a boy."
“Zui Zui is very smart and well-behaved. He knows what he should and shouldn’t do,” Li Chi’an said softly. “Last week, his kindergarten teacher praised him for being helpful. He saw his classmate at the entrance of our community and realized that he had gotten off at the wrong stop, so he pulled me to wait for him until the child’s grandmother and mother came looking for him. These qualities cannot be cultivated by forcing him to drink chicken soup or go to bed on time.”
“But we can’t just let him have his way,” Wu Taotao said, her tone softening.
Li Chi'an smiled and said, "How about we compromise? We'll try to ensure he eats a healthy diet most of the time, but he can have fried chicken and fries occasionally if he wants. We'll keep his bedtime regular, but if he wants to listen to 'The Lone Warrior,' we'll play it for him as bedtime music."
Wu Taotao sighed, "Kids these days are so hard to raise. You and your brother were so well-behaved when you were little. Your dad and I didn't have to worry about you. You did whatever we asked you to do."
That's because my brother and I would get beaten if we misbehaved.
“Times have changed, Mom.” Li Chi’an smiled as she got up, picked up the bowl, and prepared to go to the kitchen to wash it. “Do you know what Zui Zui said to me this morning? He said, ‘Grandma is the best grandma. She bought me lollipops and made me delicious braised pork.’”
Wu Taotao finally couldn't help but laugh, and quickly took the bowl from her daughter's hand. "This little rascal likes my braised pork. I'll go to the market to buy some pork belly tomorrow."
“He really loves you.” Li Chi’an helped his mother put the bowl into the kitchen sink. “He’s always so happy when you come. Yesterday he even secretly told me that he wanted to learn to sing ‘The Lone Warrior’ for you, because you’ve never heard this song before.”
Wu Taotao's face was filled with emotion, "Really?"
“Of course.” Li Chi’an nodded. “You know what? He calls you ‘Grandma Chef’ because you always cook so many delicious meals for him.”
Wu Taotao wiped her eyes. "This child... is so naughty, giving such strange and unusual names."
The night grew deeper.
Li Chi'an pushed his mother into her room, saying, "Mom, you should go to sleep. We have to take Zuizui to kindergarten tomorrow."
Wu Taotao stood up, hesitated for a moment, and asked, "Would he like a steamed egg for me tomorrow morning?"
"Food."
What would you like to eat?
"I eat very simple things, I'll cook for myself tomorrow morning."
"I'll do it all together, you can sleep a little longer while I'm here." Ms. Wu Taotao repeatedly urged, "You should also go to sleep early, don't write anymore, it's so late, you'll ruin your health."
"I know, Mom."
Li Chi'an was originally tired and wanted to sleep, but after chatting with his mother, he felt less sleepy. He went back to his room and sat for a while looking at the bay window bathed in moonlight. Ms. Wu Taotao was knocking on the door again.
"What's wrong?"
Ms. Wu Taotao entered the room and sat down on the edge of her daughter's bed. "Um... 'The Lone Warrior'... could you teach me how to search for it on my phone? Just in case Zuizui wants to listen to it again tomorrow night..."
Li Chi'an felt a lump in his throat, quickly stepped forward to take the phone from his mother's hand, and sat down next to her. "Of course, Mom, I'll download a music app for you."
The process of downloading software to his mother's phone took much longer than Li Chi'an had expected. "Mom, your phone is aging too slowly. I'll take you to buy a new phone in a few days when I have time."
"Why buy a new phone? My phone still works." Li's mother was used to being frugal, always stingy with herself, but generous with her children's spending. "I don't want you to spend money."
"It won't cost much." While waiting for the download to complete, Li Chi'an took out his phone and searched for a suitable phone for his mother on a certain platform. After finding one, he handed it to his mother to show her. "Look, isn't this phone nice?"
"Wow, this phone is so pretty." These days, what elderly person doesn't like a phone? Li's mother was quickly drawn to the pictures on her daughter's phone.
"Right? Look, do you like this pink one, the white one, or the cyan one?" Li Chi'an showed his mother the pictures one by one, while introducing, "This phone takes great photos. You can take videos of yourself and post them on Douyin, and you can also take videos of your favorite things to do outside for me. Isn't that great?"
"White gets dirty easily, pink is for young girls, this cyan is quite nice," Li's mother was indeed persuaded, but still hesitated, "But it costs more than five thousand yuan, that's expensive."
“It’s not expensive,” Li Chi’an said. “We usually spend tens of thousands on cell phones, but yours is only a little over five thousand. You should cherish it and use it for four or five years. It only costs a few hundred yuan a year.”
“Your phones definitely need to be good. You need to have a good one to communicate with your colleagues and superiors.” Li’s mother was still reluctant to part with the money. “Find me a phone that costs around two thousand yuan.”
"More than two thousand memory, that's not enough for taking good photos." Li Chi'an only realized how much she had neglected her parents recently when she started living with her mother. Many of the things her mother used and wore were long overdue, yet she was still using them. These were things that she should have paid attention to and helped update, but she hadn't done so before.
Conversely, Chen Li's mother used to stay at her house more often because they lived close by. She could see what was wrong with the other person and make adjustments or replacements as needed.
Thinking about it this way, she felt more and more that she had been immature, that she had not understood the essence of human nature, and that she had not distinguished between what was important and what was not.
No matter how close your husband, mother-in-law, or father-in-law are, they can be strangers at any time. But no matter how far apart your parents are, they are people you can never be separated from.
She was blinded by the relationships within her own small family, thinking it was her home, and poured all her heart and soul into it.
Only now does she fully understand that, apart from parents and children, many people are just passersby in a person's life.
That evening, after seeing the phone, Li Chi'an couldn't resist his mother's insistence and gave up the 5,000 yuan cyan phone, buying his mother a 2,000 to 3,000 yuan blue phone instead.
After buying a cell phone for her mother, Li Chi'an finally calmed down and sat on the bay window for a meditation. After the meditation, she remembered the soup in the kitchen and got up to go to the kitchen to put the unfinished soup in the refrigerator, only to find that the kitchen had been cleaned up and the soup and leftovers had been put in the refrigerator by her mother.
Thinking about the pitying or sighing looks my neighbors gave me when I took walks in the neighborhood these past few days, I realized that...
Everyone was pitying her.
What's so pitiful about her?
At thirty, with parents still alive and family in good health, you have influence, talent, dreams, and future freedom. All you've lost is an unworthy relationship and a scumbag husband.
Outside the window, the bright moon hangs high in the sky.
Li Chi'an quietly turned off the hallway light in the living room, then tiptoed back to his room, closed his eyes, and lay down on the bed. Before going to sleep, he decided to take his son and mother out for a trip this weekend. Zui Zui had always wanted to ride a cable car, and his mother had never tried it either.
The length of a person's life is the sum of all their experiences; happiness knows no age.
Who doesn't have a child inside them who longs for happiness?
...
"What time did you get back last night?" When Xu Zhuwen woke up in the morning, she saw Qian Song sleeping on the sofa in the living room, reeking of alcohol, and couldn't help but frown.
"I was drinking with some investors until after 3 a.m.," Qian Song said wearily, opening his eyes. "What time is it?"
"Seven-thirty," Xu Zhuwen replied indifferently.
"It's still early, I'll go back to my room and sleep a little longer." Qian Song got up from the sofa, still half asleep, without even glancing at Xu Zhuwen.
Xu Zhuwen watched with a slightly darkened expression as Qian Songji dragged his slippers to his room. He stood there for a while before going to the bathroom. The moment he opened the door, she smelled the lingering stench of urine in the air, which made her anger surge uncontrollably.
Upon seeing the urine stains on the toilet again, he stormed into the room, yelling, "Qian Song, go flush the toilet!"
Qian Song had just lain down on the bed, still feeling the effects of his hangover and his head was spinning. When he saw Xu Zhuwen's angry expression, his anger flared up as well. "Are you sick in the head? Why are you looking for trouble?"
"Am I sick or are you disgusting? How many times have I told you to be careful when you go to the toilet? Don't pee outside! It's disgusting, you know?" Turning her head, she saw the socks that Qian Song had carelessly thrown on the floor. "And your stinky socks! How many times have I told you not to litter? Don't litter! And you still left them on the floor! I just mopped the floor yesterday, and you come back and make a mess of it. You like living in a garbage dump, but I don't. Can't you be a little more hygienic?!"
"I think you're completely insane." Qian Song threw off the covers, his face ashen. "Going crazy first thing in the morning? What did I do to you? Do you know how tired I've been lately? Can't you be a little more sensible? Xu Zhuwen, you're almost forty, can't you be a little more sensible?"
"Ha." Xu Zhuwen was so angry she almost laughed. "You say you're tired, but did you earn back ten million or a hundred million? You're always talking about having dinner with investors, but I haven't seen you bring in any investment for the company. Where do you spend your time every day? Aren't you ashamed?"
"What do you mean, Xu Zhuwen?" Qian Song jumped out of bed, strode over to Xu Zhuwen, his face dark. "Are you looking down on me, huh?!"
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