Chapter 22
The second day of my period.
Guan Nan rummaged through her desk and found a pink gift box containing "menstrual pain relief belt, day and night sanitary napkins, and menstrual precautions." The handwriting was clear and the strokes were sharp, showing the owner's distinctive style.
She stuffed the things into her desk, looked around the classroom with a puzzled expression, but couldn't find the owner of the handwriting.
The school bell rang, and Guan Nan looked away, tilting her head to ask in a low voice, "Jiang Li, do you know if anyone put something in my desk?"
"..." Jiang Li pulled out his book and glanced at her lazily: "I don't know."
Guan Nan rubbed her eyes: "Then you..."
"Listen to the lecture." Jiang Li tapped the table with his pen.
On the podium, the math teacher began his lecture. Guan Nan sat up straight and listened attentively for half the lesson. However, during the extension problem, her mind wandered, and she kept thinking about who might have put the object there.
This thing doesn't look cheap, and she can't use it with peace of mind if she doesn't know who the seller is.
Also, I don't know how I could give something of the same price to the other person as a gift.
"You really didn't see it?" Guan Nan asked him again, unwilling to give up.
Jiang Li lowered his head to practice calligraphy, yawned, and muttered, "I don't know."
He yawned several times, as if he hadn't slept well last night. Seeing this, Guan Nan was too embarrassed to ask any further. As she took the milk bottle to wash it, she happened to run into Chen Aimei, who was fetching water. She heard Chen Aimei kindly ask, "Are you feeling better?"
"Much better." Guan Nan smiled, her eyes crinkling. "Thank you for yesterday."
Chen Aimei's face went blank. She was stunned for two seconds, but she didn't ask any further questions. She said ambiguously, "Oh, you're welcome. We're friends, it's only right."
Guan Nan poured the water into the bucket, hesitated, and asked, "Do you know who is usually the first one to arrive at the classroom in our class?"
“Luo Haoyu, I guess.” Chen Aimei glanced at the bottle in her hand, then moved the half-filled hot water bottle to the cold water section. “He’s always the first one here, during morning exercises, and the last one to leave at night.”
Under Chen Aimei's persistent questioning, Guan Nan recounted the whole story to her, telling the truth word by word without any ambiguity.
“He should know, go ask him,” Chen Aimei said.
After washing the bottle, Guan Nan went around to the third group and stopped next to Luo Haoyu's desk, where Luo Haoyu was doing his homework with his head down.
Guan Nan gripped the bottle tightly, hesitating about how to begin.
The next second, a cheerful voice came from the right: "Luo Haoyu, the class monitor is looking for you."
Luo Haoyu was writing half of his words when he looked up and saw that he didn't see Guan Nan but instead met Jiang Li's gaze.
That look in his eyes, that expression, was ambiguous.
Yu Shu also peeked out and asked in confusion, "What is the class monitor doing?"
Jiang Li turned around, the pen that had been smoothly twirling between his fingers slipped from his grasp twice, but he remained silent.
"They wouldn't be..." Yu Shu stroked his chin, making a nervous guess, "...you know? Probably not. The class monitor doesn't seem like the type to date early. He's focused on his studies. Tsk tsk, have all the bookworms finally come to their senses?"
Upon hearing this, Jiang Li dropped his pen again, and expressionlessly put away the calligraphy copybook.
Luo Haoyu frowned, not having time to ponder the matter, and turned to say something, when he unexpectedly met Guan Nan's gaze. He paused, put down his pen, and asked calmly, "What's wrong?"
Seeing that she seemed reluctant to talk, Luo Haoyu kindly suggested, "Let's talk outside."
"Okay." Guan Nan looked at him with gratitude.
By the window in the corridor stairwell, Luo Haoyu learned why Guan Nan had come to see him.
He thought about it carefully, then shook his head and said, "After running the race today, I grabbed two steamed buns from the cafeteria and went back to the classroom. I didn't see anyone go to your seat in between."
To be precise, he added, "The earliest day students arrive is around 6:50."
"So late?" Guan Nan thought to herself.
“Hmm,” Luo Haoyu said, “Day students go home after the second period of evening self-study, while boarding students go home after the third period. When I left last night and locked the door, I didn’t see anyone go to your seat.”
“It’s Jiang Li…” Luo Haoyu paused, as if considering whether to say it or not.
In an instant, Guan Nan's heart jumped into her throat.
Could it be Jiang Li?
So what he just did...
"Several people went to Jiang Li's seat during the third self-study period. Some left their things there, and others looked through his books."
After hearing Luo Haoyu's words, Guan Nan breathed a sigh of relief, but was also inexplicably annoyed.
She said, "Okay, I understand, thank you."
"There are fewer people during evening self-study, I'll ask around for you tonight." Seeing her annoyance, Luo Haoyu, who didn't like to meddle, couldn't help but say so.
Back in her seat, Guan Nan was still a little down and listless.
Yu Shu couldn't resist asking gossip: "Class monitor, did you two have a fight?"
"Arguing?" Guan Nan was taken aback, her mind filled with questions, not understanding his words: "Why would you argue?"
"So what were you talking about just now?" Yu Shu asked her.
Guan Nan mumbled, "It's nothing."
"Impossible, I think the two of you—" Yu Shu said suspiciously.
Immediately, the class bell rang, and Guan Nan fell silent.
The class monitor entered the classroom with several forms in his hand and briefly explained that the student aid application process could begin after yesterday's meeting.
To protect the students' self-esteem, the specific conditions for agreeing were not stated: "Students who are eligible to agree should come to me to explain their situation and fill out the forms. The students from previous years should fill them out as usual. The required documents are still the same. I won't go into details here."
A student asked, "Teacher, can we all apply?"
Banban smiled and pointed at them, saying, "If you meet the requirements, you can apply. You guys don't need to ask anymore, you don't meet the requirements."
"Teacher, what are the requirements?"
The teacher pressed down on his palm, not giving a direct answer: "If you want to know, come to my office after class to find out. Now, let's start class. Where did we leave off in the last lesson?"
Hearing this, Guan Nan lowered her head and opened her book.
"What did you find out?" Jiang Li asked her the next second.
"No." Guan Nan lowered her head. As she listened to the lesson, she put the washed glass bottle into her schoolbag.
Jiang Li's lips curved upwards, and he raised an eyebrow, unsurprisingly.
Guan Nan returned to the classroom at noon, took out the registration card, the certificate stamped by the civil affairs department, and the photocopy of her household registration from her schoolbag, went to the office to fill out the forms, and came back.
I found Jiang Li sitting in his seat, head down, pondering the candybar phone he bought at the ghost market last time, but he couldn't figure it out after a long time.
"How do I log in to QQ?" Jiang Li asked, somewhat puzzled, after she returned.
The two phones were exactly the same. Guan Nan put the things away and taught him step by step, but Jiang Li had never used them before and found them very clumsy.
Guan Nan didn't think much of it. When she took the phone from him, the backs of their hands and fingertips were intertwined and pressed tightly together.
The warmth between their hands was continuously transmitted to each other.
The heat felt like it was about to pierce the skin.
Fine and dense, yet piercingly sharp.
Two seconds later, Guan Nan quickly withdrew her hand and pursed her lips.
She lowered her head, not daring to look at him.
At this moment, her mind was still blank, only her heart was beating erratically, as fast as a muffled thunderclap in the sky.
"Take it." It was at this moment that she heard Jiang Li say.
Guan Nan took it blankly. This time, she carefully took the candybar phone, being extremely cautious and avoiding any contact with it, as if she were holding a landmine that could explode at any moment, not a mobile phone.
As she clicked into the menu and demonstrated to him how to log into the browser, Jiang Li asked, "Are you busy on National Day?"
"I have..." Before she could recover from the shock, Guan Nan stammered, her words becoming increasingly incoherent, "I also have a part-time job."
Jiang Li frowned: "Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day are combined, and you've been working part-time for so many days?"
“Uh,” Guan Nan nodded, and said honestly, “That’s right.”
Guan Nan told him, "Go into this browser, keep scrolling down, click on QQ, and enter your account and password."
"You have to log in like this every time," Jiang Li took the phone, logged out, and tried logging in himself to access the server. "Can you remember my password?"
"Candybar phones are cumbersome to use," Guan Nan said. "It's possible. You don't need to log in every time. Just go to the top, return to the menu page, and you can log in again without logging in."
Guan Nan saw that he had selected "remember password", "silent login", and then "invisible login".
The browser login is very slow.
As soon as Jiang Li logged in, the message receiving page kept popping up. He ignored the pop-up list, clicked on the "Find Friends" section, and then slowly asked, "What's your number?"
"Huh?" Guan Nan glanced at him, not expecting him to ask that.
Jiang Li raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to speak.
"..." Guan Nan wanted to pretend she hadn't heard, but she couldn't fool him by staring at her like that, so she had no choice but to bite the bullet and give the number, "1572621261".
After he finished typing and applied to add the application, he turned to look at Guan Nan again.
Guan Nan consciously took out her phone, logged into QQ in her browser, clicked on the pop-up icon, and confirmed the addition.
Then, Jiang Li typed something into the input box with satisfaction.
Perhaps he wasn't used to typing on the keyboard yet, because he typed very slowly. To type two pinyin characters, he had to press the up arrow key to select a group, then right-click to select the last group, and then jump to the next page to select the next group of pinyin characters.
Immediately afterwards, Guan Nan received a message.
Jiang: [I am Jiang Li]
Guan Nan, inexplicably and equally absent-mindedly, replied: "I am Guan Nan."
Although they didn't know why, the two of them, sitting right next to each other, still had to rely on social media to communicate.
Immediately, a very soft laugh reached my ears, light and casual.
Guan Nan was speechless for a moment, realizing how foolish she had been, and immediately put away her phone and stopped looking at it.
"I have a performance during the National Day holiday," Jiang Li whispered to her, tugging at her ponytail.
Guan Nan hesitated: "Payments are higher on holidays, and part-time positions are in high demand."
The implication is that the part-time job pays well during the holidays, and there are so many spots available that you have to fight for them, so you'll be very busy and probably won't be able to come to the show.
Guan Nan even remembers that when he raised his chin, it was as if the matter was over.
However, when Guan Nan boarded the bus and stared at the words in the chat box repeatedly, she felt that all her previous reading comprehension exercises and high scores had been rendered meaningless.
Jiang: [2:00 PM, New City Plaza.]
Today is the Mid-Autumn Festival, a wonderful day for family reunions.
This unexpected message gave Guan Nan, who was anxiously and nervously heading to the hospital alone, a moment to clear her mind and a chance to catch her breath.
At 2:00 PM, Guan Nan stood in front of Kangning Hospital, hesitating and pacing back and forth.
At 2:20 PM, the dean came out and saw Guan Nan under the blue sign pointing the way.
After registering, Guan Nan followed the hospital director and handed over the thermos, clothes, and toiletries to the nurses for inspection.
The headmistress said, "Next time you come, you don't need to bring these things. Your grandfather and uncle are closely monitoring your mother's condition and will contact me if anything is missing. To be precise, the facility does not accept deliveries or takeout, but your mother's situation is special, so we are making special arrangements for her."
"Thank you, Dean." Guan Nan was very grateful to them.
In this enclosed environment, even after only a short walk, Guan Nan felt an indescribable sense of suffocation, while her mother had been in such a place year after year.
Her feelings at that moment shifted from happiness, nervousness, and heartache to fear.
"Don't be nervous." After giving her instructions, the headmistress handed her all the things she had brought, patted her shoulder, and smiled reassuringly, saying, "You'll be home soon, relax."
After saying that, Guan Nan waited in the visiting area while the nurse brought Ran Mingju out.
One minute, two minutes, three minutes, five minutes.
I never imagined that time would be so unbearable.
Guan Nan's pre-planned opening remarks, along with all the words that had been churning in her chest day and night, burst into tears the moment she saw Ran Mingju step out of the elevator.
In that instant, all language seemed so pale and powerless.
The vibrant, bright, and passionate adult in my memory—the moment the elevator doors opened, the gears of time began to turn madly, until they wore her down completely.
His thin, sunken cheeks and dull, lifeless eyes made him look like an empty shell without a soul.
Ran Mingju, dressed in a hospital gown, stood in the elevator; it seemed as if two separate worlds existed between them.
Guan Nan couldn't find her own voice: "Mom."
Upon hearing this, Ran Mingju stared at her mechanically, without any expression.
In that instant, Guan Nan seemed to see the doll from her memory, its limbs torn apart after being violently thrown to the ground and trampled, a doll that had been searched for a long time but could not be pieced back together.
The doll had no head, no face, no eyes, and its belly was torn apart.
Guan Nan clenched her fists tightly. In this sense of despair, she wanted to grasp something, but everything seemed to slip through her fingers.
The heartache is excruciating, and the despair and helplessness are unprecedented.
She was about to be submerged in it.
Ran Mingju opened her mouth, then sat down in front of her with a blank expression.
Guan Nan's vision blurred, and the tears she had held back for so long finally burst forth like pearls from a broken string. A large hand rose in front of her, slowly offering it to her, gently wiping away her tears.
But the tears just wouldn't stop flowing.
Ran Mingju opened her mouth, her voice sounding rusty: "Don't cry."
A moment later, Guan Nan tried her best to hold back her tears, forcing a smile through her red eyes, unaware that the nurse on duty had been watching her ever since she picked up the thermos.
Since pomegranates weren't allowed in the courtyard, she brought a few pomegranate blossoms instead.
The thermos contained the milk jelly she made.
After taking the first bite of the milk pudding, Ran Mingju's expression finally changed.
Suddenly, Guan Nan remembered what her mother had once said.
"Before I married into the family, your maternal grandmother always loved to make pomegranate milk pudding for me and your uncle."
"She would just sit there and watch me and your uncle eat."
Later, my maternal grandmother passed away, and my paternal grandmother forbade my mother to return to her parents' home. My mother didn't even get to see my maternal grandmother one last time.
As her mother, Ran Mingju told her time and time again not to hate her grandmother, because she was also a woman with a tragic fate.
But Grandma bullied Mom, and she bullied her her whole life.
"Guan Guan," Ran Mingju said, carefully examining the pomegranate blossom for a long time, "how old are you this year?"
In an instant, Guan Nan's eyes welled up with tears again.
She choked up as she said, "Mom, I'm 17 years old this year."
Upon hearing this, Ran Mingju stared at her for a while before correcting her: "16, 16."
After saying this, Ran Mingju was stunned for a long while, then raised her face and smiled, "My daughter has grown up, my daughter has grown up..."
Guan Nan laughed along with her, slowly introducing her to familiar places, mentioning the big pomegranate tree in Hecang Garden.
She said, "Mom, do you remember? You said, 'When other families marry off their daughters, they give them red bean curd as a dowry; when you marry off your daughter, you will transplant a pomegranate tree.'"
Ran Mingju didn't remember. Her memory had deteriorated a lot in recent years, and she couldn't remember many things. Even her daughter's face was vaguely blurry, but she still nodded.
“The pomegranate tree has grown so big now,” Guan Nan gestured and said with a smile, “Next time you come, I’ll bring you some pomegranate jelly, okay?”
Ran Mingju nodded, listening to the seemingly insignificant little things she was talking about, and smiled.
In all her conversations, Guan Nan never mentioned Guan Weimin.
After a long while, the nurse on duty reminded her that visiting hours were over. Guan Nan reluctantly pinned a pomegranate flower on her hair, wanting to say goodbye to her with a smile and dignity.
However, the uplifting mood didn't last long. Ran Mingju stroked Guan Nan's head and suddenly started to cry: "I'm so sorry, it's all my fault. My poor daughter..."
As Ran Mingju, tears streaming down her face, followed the on-duty nurse as she opened and closed the door, her figure slowly disappearing into the visiting area.
As Guan Nan walked down the street, her mind was filled with the words the dean had said when she saw her off, and the hesitant look on her face.
"I didn't tell you before because I wanted to wait until you came over."
"Your mother had several suicidal attempts while she was in the hospital. If you're bringing someone home later, you need to keep an eye on this. She's definitely much better now, but we can't guarantee she won't show any suicidal tendencies after she's discharged. You're still so young, I'm really worried."
I'm a little worried about her after her several suicide attempts.
You are too young.
I'm worried.
Her vision and mind went black in waves, and she almost fainted.
All her hopes were to "take her mother away from Fuling".
But today, Guan Nan suddenly felt "hopeless," as if everything she had done was in vain. In that instant, she seemed to lose sight of the future; everything before her was dark and bleak, as if no matter how hard she tried, it would be useless.
She was stuck in the swamp, sinking deeper and deeper.
Until it is completely submerged.
On the road, traffic flows back and forth continuously.
After returning from the farmhouse restaurant, Jiang Li, tired of looking at his phone, stared listlessly out the window.
He leaned lazily against the car window, listening to Jiang Siyao openly and affectionately talking to her boyfriend on the phone, and complained, "Dad, aren't you going to do anything about it?"
President Jiang, driving ahead, asked, "What's it to you?"
"She's in a relationship!"
“I don’t care if she’s dating too early, but I’ll care if you are,” said President Jiang. “I know my daughter; she knows what’s right.”
“Yes,” Jiang Li said, convinced by his words, “I wasn’t born from you.”
Jiang's mother, who was in the passenger seat, turned around when she heard this and said with a smile, "You were picked up from his trash can."
"Did you hear that? I found it." Jiang Siyao said smugly.
Jiang Li ignored them.
"Hey, no way," Jiang Siyao nudged him and asked, "You're so concerned about me, you're not dating anyone, are you?"
Jiang Li: "I still need my legs."
His father once said that if he dared to have a relationship too early, he would break both of his legs.
"You won't just pay lip service while secretly going against my wishes?" Jiang Siyao asked him.
Jiang Li: "Am I you?"
As the family was talking, Jiang Li's casual gaze suddenly fixed on the girl walking out of the hospital amidst the bustling traffic outside the window. He tapped on the car window and called for the car to stop.
Jiang Li made up a lie to appease them, and only crossed the road after the car had driven far away.
Jiang Li frowned, staring at the long list of words. Then he glanced at the girl squatting by the roadside.
When she looked up, her forehead was covered in sweat, and her eyes were blank and helpless.
Jiang Li reached out and handed her a tissue.
Upon realizing that he had been shielding her from the sun, Guan Nan wiped her face, lowered her eyes, and said in a hoarse voice, "Thank you."
Jiang Li asked, "Are there any part-time jobs this afternoon?"
Guan Nan shook her head.
The next second, a phone call came in. Jiang Li took out his phone, answered it, and simply said, "I have rehearsal this afternoon, I'll be back later," before hanging up.
Then, Guan Nan heard him say:
"Come with me somewhere."
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