Chapter 165 What Kind of Life Will I Live? "I might not amount to much in my life..."
Having waited outside for an unknown amount of time, Jiang Yueming leaned against the wall, the rough cement surface rubbing against his coat and leaving some white dust on his back.
Even now, he still feels it all feels like a dream. Jiang Yueming huddled in the corner. Looking back on all these years, it feels like a dream, a very, very long dream. He even thinks, maybe it really was a dream, otherwise why does everything seem so unreal?
He closed his eyes.
A movie started playing in my mind. Frame by frame, chaotic and disorganized.
At the train station that summer when he was seventeen, he left Shengping, where he had lived for seventeen years, pulling his luggage and looking back every few steps, to go to a strange place. The train traveled for a long time, so long that he forgot the time, so long that he thought it would go on forever to the end of the world.
Then there's the South. The perpetually humid air, the perpetually incomprehensible dialects, the endless assembly lines. Returning to his rented room after work at night, he had to walk through a very dark alley, without streetlights. He walked in that darkness, so tired he wasn't afraid anymore, listening to English practice in his headphones, calculating how much money he'd earned that day and what problems he needed to solve when he got home.
And then... he read it again. He climbed that five-story building countless times with all his might, and the sound of his crutch tapping on the cement steps still echoes in his dreams. That winter when he broke his leg, he lay in bed, wondering just how heavy the snow in Beijing really was, and how beautiful it would be when the ginkgo leaves turned yellow and fell to the ground, as Li Leshan had described.
As I thought about it, tears streamed down my face.
It's like a dream. Jiang Yueming thought, if it's not a dream, why have these years felt so hazy? Why do those days of desperate struggle always seem so distant when I recall them? And why is Li Leshan's face becoming increasingly blurry in my memory, until finally only an outline and a gesture remain?
But he remembers the pain, the exhaustion, and the hardship.
He really did escape. He fled from Shengping to the south, and then from the south to an even more distant city. He always felt something chasing him from behind, so he dared not stop, nor dared to look back.
For the first two years, he had the same dream almost every night: Li Leshan stood in front of him and asked him in sign language, "Where did you go?"
He wanted to answer, but no sound came out of his throat. He could only watch helplessly as Li Leshan's eyes gradually turned to disappointment, and finally to a deathly gray.
Because he always felt guilty, he didn't dare go back to Shengping, didn't dare face Li Leshan and his aunt. Later, he hid far away in another city, almost disappearing without a trace. He kept looking for part-time jobs and sending the money he earned to his aunt. Eight hundred, one thousand, one thousand five hundred, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. He felt that only in this way could he make up for something, yet he often felt that no matter what he did, he could never make up for it.
Where exactly did things go wrong? Jiang Yueming once desperately wanted to know the answer, and tried repeatedly to find one. Now, time has passed, and he no longer wants to find the answer. It's pointless. Even if he knew where things went wrong, what difference would it make? The ending is unchangeable; what's the point?
Time passed slowly, and Jiang Yueming leaned against the wall and slowly stood up, moving her slightly numb feet.
He gently pushed open the door. The light inside was still on—a nightlight, not very bright, casting a dim yellow glow in the room. Jiang Yueming realized that Lin Cuiqin was still awake. He turned his back and quickly wiped his eyes and cheeks. He cleared his throat, pretending nothing was wrong, and forced a smile. "Auntie, it's late. You're still awake?"
Lin Cuiqin patted the empty seat next to her, gesturing for Jiang Yueming to sit down. The passage of time had brought out some fine lines at the corners of her eyes and a few gray hairs at her temples, but her features were still so gentle. Lin Cuiqin smiled and sighed, "It's been so long since I've seen Leshan. I'm so excited. I can't sleep."
“I haven’t been back to Shengping since the year I went south,” Lin Cuiqin continued softly. “One thing after another has happened at home: your grandfather’s illness, Tian Tian’s need to go to school, and I can’t give up my job at the factory… Sometimes I think about it at night and worry about it, but there’s really nothing I can do.”
She paused, then lowered her voice, "Later, I met Leshan a few times in video chat. But I don't understand sign language, so we just exchanged greetings, said 'take care of yourself' and 'eat well'."
"After that, you didn't mention him much anymore." Lin Cuiqin looked up at Jiang Yueming. "Gradually, that child... faded away. Sometimes when I think about him, my heart aches, but life goes on, so... that's how it is."
"When I saw him today, I was immediately reminded of him." Lin Cuiqin's eyes were a little red, but she smiled. "I remembered what he was like when he was little, so quiet and sensible that it broke my heart. Now that I see he's doing well, I'm truly happy. Those were such hard days before, but thankfully we made it through. Really, Yueming, I'm so happy."
Jiang Yueming nodded, his throat tightening. He wanted to say something, but the words stuck in his throat and he couldn't get them out.
"How long has it been since you last saw Leshan?" Lin Cuiqin recalled the past with a serene smile on her face.
Jiang Yueming was stunned. How long had it been? Was it from the year he repeated a year of high school, or from that text message after the college entrance exam? He couldn't remember. He only knew it had been a very, very long time.
"It's been a long time," he finally said, his voice dry.
“Yueming, in the blink of an eye you’ve all grown up so much, you’re all big kids now, even Tiantian is in high school. But I still remember how old you all looked.”
She began to tell stories that Jiang Yueming had heard countless times, such as how he mischievously climbed trees and fell down, how he pestered her all day to buy him an ice pop, and how he got into fights with other children in the alley...
"Do you think I'm getting old? I'm getting too old and I always like to reminisce about the past," Lin Cuiqin said with a smile.
“Old? What do you mean?” Jiang Yueming smiled. “You’re still young, just like before.”
"Really?" Lin Cuiqin thought Jiang Yueming was just trying to fool her. "Then how come you've changed so much?"
"How have I changed?" Jiang Yueming asked. He wondered how he was different from before. He hadn't grown much taller, and his face was still the same. "I guess I'm still the same as when I was a teenager."
“Maybe things have changed a bit,” Jiang Yueming pondered for a moment, then grinned and said, “But haven’t I become better?”
Lin Cuiqin looked at him and patted his hand. "Yes, you've become more mature and sensible... But your aunt still misses the way you used to be, the mischievous one, the cheerful one, the carefree one... Those were such good times. No matter how big the problem was, you could cry and laugh, and the next day the sun would rise and it would be a new day."
Jiang Yueming was taken aback, not expecting her to say that. He felt a sudden pang of sadness, then shook his head, his voice muffled, though joking, it was genuinely sincere, "No, I was so bad back then."
Back then, he was so disobedient, so immature, so impulsive, and he made so many mistakes. I didn't realize it then, but now that I think about it, it was really worrying. There's really nothing to reminisce about.
“Who said that?” Lin Cuiqin was always the first to object to anyone who spoke ill of Jiang Yueming. “Don’t say that. He’s not bad at all. In your aunt’s eyes, he’s the best child.”
Jiang Yueming's throat tightened. He hesitated for a moment, then spoke in a casual, light tone, as if perhaps only in this way could he finally say what he had kept in his heart for so many years, "Auntie, I... I feel like I've done a lot of wrong things. Will you blame me?"
"I might not amount to anything in my life, would you blame me?"
Lin Cuiqin cupped his cheeks and looked at him carefully for a while, then shook her head with a smile. Tears welled up in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks, dripping onto the back of Jiang Yueming's hand. "No, Yueming. No matter how you live or what kind of life you live, your aunt will not blame you. As long as you are happy, I will be happier than anything else."
He had heard these words before; it was certainly not the first time he had heard them. Many years ago, but he hadn't understood them then. Or rather, he thought he understood, but he hadn't. So much so that now Jiang Yueming suddenly felt incredibly foolish.
He always felt that being loved was conditional. You had to be obedient, sensible, hardworking, and successful to be worthy of love. So he ran desperately, tried desperately to prove himself, and desperately wanted to live a decent life to be worthy of this love. So when he felt that he could never be worthy of it, he thought about escaping and running away.
But now he suddenly understands.
Love is love. There are no conditions, no standards, no "you must do this or that for me to love you".
Jiang Yueming's tears welled up without warning, flowing quietly and uncontrollably.
How could he forget? How could he forget that no matter what he did or what he became, his aunt would always be behind him? He came into this world with nothing, and for more than 20 years he has been loved unconditionally. How could he forget that back then? How could he feel that he had let everyone down?
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