Chapter 51 Stumbling Block "You are all people who 'look forward'."...
Before the Lunar New Year, Jiang Yueming didn't stop for a moment.
When it comes to learning, you can't expect a small effort to yield a huge reward. There's no such thing as a free lunch. It's like going to a wishing well, tossing in a coin, and saying, "I want to go to Tsinghua University." If that were possible, you probably couldn't find a place to toss a coin; those places would be monopolized by some kind of entity. To get a coin in, you'd have to hold an auction, with the highest bidder winning.
Whenever he had free time, Jiang Yueming would run to Li Leshan's house. Lin Cuiqin would always jokingly tease him, saying that if she couldn't find Jiang Yueming anymore, Sheng Ping wouldn't need to try his luck anymore. She had gone to the skating rink and the Zhonghua Market before, searching far and wide without finding anything. Now it was much better; she could just go to Leshan's house and find him every time.
There was no other way. Their homes were so close together that it was impossible to avoid going to Li Leshan's house. It was just that his grandmother always tried to entertain him in different ways, which made Jiang Yueming feel embarrassed.
"If we have some free time tomorrow, we won't go to Leshan's house," Lin Cuiqin said to Jiang Yueming, who was packing his schoolbag.
"What's wrong, Auntie? What arrangements do you need me to make?" Jiang Yueming asked, puzzled.
“Your Aunt Yan is getting married and having a banquet. I have to go,” Lin Cuiqin said, with a hint of a sigh in her voice.
"Aunt Yan?" Jiang Yueming pondered for a moment, then suddenly jumped up from the sofa. "Aunt Yan is getting married? Remarried?!"
“Yes, her husband has been gone for seven or eight years. She can’t be all alone forever. It would be good for her to have a companion. She has two children at home.” Lin Cuiqin instructed, lowering her voice, “When you go there, don’t say anything you shouldn’t. Her son, Shuo Shuo, doesn’t want your Aunt Yan to get married. He’s made a scene several times.”
"I know, I know. Do you think I'm that clueless? I watched Shuo Shuo grow up." Jiang Yueming spoke as if there was a big age gap between them, but in reality, he was only three years older than him and not much more mature.
But, as the saying goes, "It's going to rain when the sky is clear, and a mother will remarry when she wants to." There's really nothing more to say. It's their family matter. Even if Jiang Yueming went, she could only smile and offer a few words of congratulations. What could she do? Further discussion is pointless. From anyone's perspective, everyone has their own reasons. These things can't be judged by right or wrong; they're impossible to unravel.
Aunt Yan's new husband has a house in a town in Shengping, so the family moved there. It's a little over half an hour's drive, not too far. Aunt Yan told Lin Cuiqin that she no longer cares about wealth and status. She believes that life is predetermined, and she has come to realize that she is not destined for wealth. Now, she only seeks stability. The man works in the same factory as her; he is honest and ambitious, and he will be promoted to a middle-level manager in two years.
The banquet was held at an old restaurant on the main street in town, with a small storefront. Inside, two tables were set up, and the noise was almost deafening. The relatives and friends who could drink were in one private room, and the rest were in another. The private rooms could hold quite a few people, and each table was crammed with 20 people, just enough to fill it up.
Aunt Yan wore a brand-new maroon sweater, the most festive garment she could find. She applied powder to her face, trying to conceal the dark circles and wrinkles under her eyes.
Her new husband, Zhang Yuan, stood awkwardly to the side, grinning sheepishly. The two toasted everyone in turn. She said she was getting old and didn't want the hassle of a wedding ceremony or a formal marriage ritual; just informing relatives and friends would suffice. As for gratitude and affection, it was all in the wine, all in the wine. She tilted her head back and drank the wine in her glass, her throat bobbing as the spicy liquid slid down, swallowing down a sob along with it.
Jiang Yueming took a couple of bites as a token gesture before putting down his chopsticks. He had surprisingly little appetite. In the corner, Xu Shuo squatted motionless on the ground. Jiang Yueming went to the door and squatted down with Xu Shuo. He had argued with Aunt Yan again that morning and hadn't eaten a single bite. The boy's face was pale, and his lips were tightly pursed into a thin slit.
In one private room, the men were talking loudly about "national and world affairs," their spittle flying as if they had the world at their fingertips; on the other side, separated by a thin wall, Aunt Yan held Lin Cuiqin's hand, her deliberately lowered voice, filled with endless grievances and exhaustion, breaking into Jiang Yueming's ears with unusual clarity.
"...Is it easy for me to get married at my age? Xiaoqin, you don't know how good I am to him. I provide for his food and clothing, and I take care of two children by myself. Is it wrong for me to want to find someone to share my life with? That guy, he said I betrayed him, that I just wanted to abandon him and live another life...!"
"Isn't it all for his own good? I'm afraid he'll feel inferior without a father, be looked down upon at school, and never be able to hold his head up. Is it wrong for me to want a better life for him? Zhang Yuan is a good person, and he treats him well, like his own son, but he's always getting angry at this or that..."
Aunt Yan's voice was faint amidst the noise, but Jiang Yueming heard it clearly, not missing a single word. He didn't need to turn his head; he just thought that Shuo Shuo probably heard it very clearly as well.
Time crawled slowly through the murky air. After a long while, Xu Shuo's cold voice finally rang out.
“I’ve lost my dad, and now my mom is going to die too.” Xu Shuo stared blankly at the dusty street outside the door. “She doesn’t want me anymore.”
"Don't think like that," Jiang Yueming's throat tightened, unsure of which side he should take. In this situation, what could he say? He could only try to smooth things over with the weakest words, "Aunt Yan has had a hard time. You have to think about her. She's tired, Shuo Shuo, and she's carrying this all by herself. It's too hard. Uncle Xu certainly doesn't want to see her working so hard all by herself."
"You don't understand, what do you know?!" Xu Shuo didn't even glance at him, her voice slightly urgent. "You adults are all like this, all siding with my mother! She's had it tough, but was my father's life easy? He got into this mess because of this family! And now, she's going to start a new life!"
How could Jiang Yueming not understand? Perhaps there are other things he doesn't understand, but he has personally experienced this kind of thing. He doesn't have parents either, so how could he not understand?! Perhaps it is precisely because of this that he cannot particularly understand Xu Shuo, he cannot understand his almost obsessive resentment. Aunt Yan loves him so much, everyone can see it, yet this love has actually caused him to harbor hatred over the years.
“I know,” Jiang Yueming said, her throat dry, “but Shuo Shuo, six or seven years have passed. You and Aunt Yan have to look forward, don’t you?”
“She looked forward, she looked forward a long time ago.” Xu Shuo’s tone was somewhat mocking. “Leaving my father alone in the ground, dying with his eyes wide open.”
He died with his eyes wide open, unable to rest in peace. Jiang Yueming felt a suffocating sense of powerlessness.
He hesitated for a long time, not knowing how to start. When Jiang Yueming entered the restaurant, he saw the white hair at Aunt Yan's temples. She had aged very quickly over the years, which was not in line with her age at all. He vaguely remembered that when he saw Aunt Yan a few years ago, she was still very young.
He vaguely remembered that a few years ago, on a summer afternoon, Aunt Yan was wearing a floral dress, smiling as she handed him and Shuo Shuo popsicles. Back then, although there were fine lines around her eyes, her eyebrows still shone with light. Now that light, along with her husband's life, had been extinguished, leaving only these heavy ashes.
He realized he couldn't express his opinion anymore, much less provoke Xu Shuo. He truly hadn't experienced that hatred and resentment firsthand. From an outsider's perspective, he couldn't condescendingly criticize anyone. He only felt weary and that fate had played a cruel trick on him.
“You’re all cold-blooded and selfish, you’re all the same…” Xu Shuo lowered his head, staring at the worn-out toes of his shoes, his voice muffled.
"What...what do you mean?" Jiang Yueming didn't understand and asked subconsciously.
"What are you pretending to be stupid for? Your mother is gone too. Aunt Lin has been gone for so many years, have you thought about her? No, right? I see you're doing just fine. So, are you like my mother, someone who's always looking 'forward'?" Xu Shuo said sarcastically. "What are dead people to you? Stumbling blocks! Stumbling blocks that should have been kicked away long ago!"
...
Jiang Yueming felt a sudden, sharp pain, as if a section of his brain nerves had been severed.
The moment he heard "Aunt Lin" from his lips, he suddenly felt all his strength drain away, collapsing to the ground as if he were in an ice cellar. Every word Xu Shuo spoke was like a heavy hammer, striking the most vulnerable part of his heart. The guilt, fear, and longing he had deliberately buried deep inside were now all exposed to the light of day.
A huge, belated, dull pain swept over him like a surging tide.
How could he forget? How could he possibly forget those longings, those memories…
Why did Xu Shuo dismiss him so easily? What does he know?! A torrent of resentment and anger surged in his chest, almost bursting through his throat.
"...How do you know I'm not thinking about her?" Jiang Yueming opened her mouth, but her voice was hoarse and broken, so weak that she could hardly hear it herself.
“Because you’re all the same. You keep saying you still have feelings for her, but deep down you’ve already let go.” Xu Shuo stood up without turning his head, his back cold and resolute. “I will not forgive her, and neither will my dad.”
After he finished speaking, he turned and disappeared into the gray, gloomy street outside.
Jiang Yueming remained slumped on the ground, the commotion in the restaurant seeming like a completely different world to him. The excitement or anything else here was irrelevant. He stared in the direction Xu Shuo had disappeared for a long time before slowly, tremblingly, raising his hand to cover his face.
It turns out that saying "look forward" is so painful for some people. It's like a dull knife slowly cutting through the flesh, without drawing blood, yet the pain is excruciating.
He suddenly couldn't understand how much a person had to carry to be worthy of moving forward into the future. What he saw as "looking forward" was, in the eyes of others, an unforgivable betrayal.
How can he live a life worthy of those who have left him?
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