070｜(Sixty-nine) Dispute
An autumn rain brings a refreshing coolness.
It had been raining for a long time, and on the day of the holiday, the students couldn't wait to escape from the campus.
Footsteps echoed into the rain, splashing up tiny waves. The playground was deserted, and moss climbed over the old school walls, a patch of green followed by another layer of yellow, creeping along the tendrils of the ivy and covering the brick walls.
The girl's worries were drowned in the frequent rain. Xie Qingyan was like a lost soul, absent-minded. As soon as the bell rang, she didn't stop, blending into the crowd and rushing out of the classroom in a hurry.
The wind whistled through the school uniform jacket, causing it to flutter and sway.
The leaves along the roadside withered and trembled, scattering a golden carpet on the ground. Osmanthus blossoms, after being splashed and sprinkled in the rain, were bathed in a fragrant rain, their scent so sweet that it permeated the heart and lungs with every breath.
Xie Qingyan looked at the beautiful scenery with great boredom. She was in a terrible mood and just wanted to find a place to hide away, to be quiet and not be found by anyone. So she ran in the opposite direction of the crowd and squatted in a corner of the empty playground, piling up fallen leaves into a small mountain and counting the ants moving their nest.
She knew it was a pointless thing to do, but she'd rather do these pointless chores than leave school and run into someone.
As dusk fell, the school was cleared out, and the sky was filled with fine rain. She was like a fish, wandering aimlessly out of the school, not knowing when she would bite the silver fishing line cast down by the heavens.
Xie Jinyu called to ask when she would be home. Xie Qingyan reluctantly replied "immediately." The other end asked, "Which classmate's house did you go to this time? Should I let you stay over—"
"No!" Xie Qingyan refused decisively before Xie Jinyu could finish speaking.
"You child, you always get upset whenever Xiao Su is mentioned." Xie Jinyu sighed on the other end of the line when she saw her strong reaction.
"I wish you could be as sensible as him someday."
Xie Qingyan gripped her phone, already seething with anger, unsure where to vent it. Hearing her mother criticize her for speaking well of outsiders only made her more unhappy. She said sarcastically, "Yes, yes, he's the most obedient, the most sensible. You like him so much, why don't you let him be your son?"
She pouted and kicked a pebble hard.
Xie Jinyu said sternly, "Xie Qingyan! How dare you speak like that?"
She even yelled at her! Xie Qingyan felt extremely wronged. Why was Su Xingmao always so good in her mother's eyes? Could grades really overcome everything? Su Xingmao was clearly bad at everything except for her grades!
He is a despicable scoundrel with malicious intentions and wolfish ambitions, yet he pretends to be indifferent to worldly affairs.
She really wanted to expose everything, to reveal her affair with Su Xingmao these past few days, and to tell her mother, "I slept with him," in a fit of pique. She imagined Xie Jinyu's expression would be incredibly interesting then. Xie Qingyan's heart was filled with malice, and she was filled with thoughts of revenge.
Xie Qingyan's lips moved silently a few times before she gave in. She still couldn't overcome her cowardly heart: "I'm just telling the truth. Anyway, you've always liked him more than me since we were little. Why don't you just send me to France and adopt him as your son!"
She kicked the pebble again and saw it bounce a few times in a puddle before crashing down and creating ripples.
Xie Jinyu felt a throbbing pain in her temples and her vision blurred. She hadn't disciplined her daughter for a long time, and now she had truly gone too far!
Raising her voice, she said, "Xie Qingyan, what nonsense are you spouting? If you weren't my daughter, do you think I would care about you?"
Not to be outdone, Xie Qingyan, without thinking, growled at the screen, "Take care of it or not, it's best if you don't!"
Xie Jinyu was so angry she choked. Her years as a leader made her force herself to remain calm. Perhaps she felt that she had been busy with projects these past few months and neglected her daughter, so she turned a blind eye and swallowed these outrageous words. She ignored them and patiently persuaded, "Mom only thought that if you were as easy to take care of as he is, I could feel at ease. Look at what you're saying!"
From a young age, in terms of family education, Zhang Fulan was gentle and often played the good cop, coaxing Xie Qingyan to say nice things. Xie Jinyu, on the other hand, played the bad cop, mainly scolding him. Since the divorce, Xie Jinyu has devoted most of her life to her career and the other half to her children, and she is rarely seen speaking softly.
It's quite remarkable that he could still be patient and talk to Xie Qingyan properly even when he was angry.
But Xie Qingyan didn't appreciate it. Blinded by hatred, he stubbornly opened his mouth and said, "I just don't have any nice things to say. If you want to hear nice things, go find Su Xingmao!"
As soon as she spoke, Xie Qingyan's eyes stung. She clenched her teeth, refusing to let anyone hear her fragile voice, and didn't want to listen to Xie Jinyu's nagging anymore. She turned around and hung up the call.
The call was cut off, so Xie Jinyu immediately called back.
The phone rang only once before Xie Qingyan hung up again. Afraid that she would call again, he simply pressed and held the button to turn the phone off completely, just to have some peace and quiet.
The long street was illuminated one by one by the streetlights.
She was like a sleepwalker, wandering through an endless dream.
The liveliness belonged to others; she felt empty inside. Arguing with her mother did nothing to make her happy; it only added another source of trouble.
After hanging up the phone with her mother and the quiet surroundings subsided, the vengeful thoughts that had flooded her mind, such as "I might as well run away from home," "Since Xie Jinyu likes Su Xingmao so much, he doesn't care about her," and "I'd rather Xie Jinyu worry to death," quickly vanished.
She stood helplessly on the street corner, turned on her phone, and as the phone turned on, seven missed call pop-ups appeared one after another.
The six notes read "the world's strictest lady," and the last string was a line of numbers.
My gaze was fixed on that familiar number.
Xie Qingyan felt a lump in her throat and thought, if her mother... or someone else called again, she would wait a little longer, be a little reserved to show that she wasn't so easily coaxed, and then answer the call to let them come pick her up.
But I waited for a long time—two minutes, five minutes, ten minutes? A very long time passed.
She counted the pattering raindrops.
The time ticked by on the phone, second by second, while the loudspeaker at the bus stop blared again and again, as several waves of tourists passed by.
No one called again.
She started to panic.
Why don't you call her anymore?
As night deepened, the bustling streets, glittering with neon lights, flowed like a vast river across her.
Thousands of umbrellas swept past, heading towards the bustling crowd.
Among the countless pedestrians walking side by side under umbrellas tonight, she seemed to be the only one walking alone, without an umbrella, and could only huddle by the narrow eaves, hugging her knees with both hands.
I feel so lonely.
Half an hour passed.
The rain fell incessantly, pattering against my face, cool and refreshing.
Moss spread from the stone steps into Xie Qingyan's heart, and his mood plummeted. The gloomy, frosty atmosphere of the steps also spread from the ground to his face, making him look gray and somber.
His expression completely collapsed.
Self-blame and regret followed one after another. She wondered if she was wrong, if she shouldn't have argued with her mother, and even more so, if she shouldn't have hung up on her.
But where could she express her grievances?
Xie Jinyu is biased towards outsiders than towards her own daughter.
Lost in time, she couldn't remember how long she had stayed in that spot.
The traffic flowed back and forth like a river.
All that could be heard was the cold sound of rain.
The sound of raindrops, the pattering syllables, the rapid raindrops—her heart was submerged in the sound of the rain, beating erratically. Her world seemed to consist only of the falling rain, endlessly flooding her heart, her body swelling with moisture, and she shivered from the cold.
Under the overcast sky, a dark and tall shadow fell down, blocking out the light and obscuring her, like moss covering the stone steps, filling every crevice.
Someone is coming.
Xie Qingyan hesitated before looking up.
Then, the pupils slowly dilated.
The wind and rain were dark and gloomy, and the light and shadows gradually faded. In the hazy vision, a sparse shadow stood with its back to the light, its face dim and serene. Only a translucent, bluish-green umbrella tipped over its head.
Like the banana leaves we picked when we were kids, we would hold them on our heads to shelter ourselves from the rain across the mountains and fields.
Overlapping shadows are a hug without warmth.
The moment the windowsill opened, she saw those calm, unwavering eyes, and for a fleeting instant, her heart ignited with a spark of orange-red light.
The pebble that was kicked away in a fit of pique is right in the center of the lake, and the ripples are spreading outwards.
Five warm fingers gripped Xie Qingyan's wrist, pulling her upwards with unwavering force.
Xie Qingyan. He called to her.
"Get up, don't squat here, you'll get wet in the rain," he said.
She straightened up, enveloped by the gentle shadow, as if being pulled out of the rain.
With fingers intertwined, it's as if you can hear the steady, powerful pulse beneath your wrist.
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