22. Question
It's been three days.
Three days have passed since that heated argument, when Gao Sheng stormed out and then silently returned.
The house seemed to have regained its peace. Gao Sheng no longer scolded her harshly for a spelling mistake; he began to try sitting next to Haha while she did her homework, just reading his own book, occasionally glancing up, hesitant to speak. But that deliberate, cautious silence exhausted Ding Xiaojuan even more than her previous thunderous anger. It was as if a transparent yet resilient film separated them; they could see each other, but could never truly touch.
Haha also became unusually "sensible," doing his homework on his own after school, eating quietly, and turning the volume down very low when watching cartoons. But Ding Xiaojuan felt a tightness in her heart as she looked at his lowered head and overly obedient appearance. This wasn't relaxation, but a stress response after tension, a child's instinctive withdrawal from an unpredictable environment.
That evening after dinner, Gao Sheng, unusually, didn't go into his study or pick up his phone. Instead, he sat down next to Haha and picked up his math workbook.
"Isn't it simpler to do this problem this way?" He pointed to one of the problems, his voice very flat, even a little too gentle.
Haha glanced warily at her father, then looked at the question, and whispered, "That's not how the teacher teaches it."
“There are many ways to do things, as long as the result is right,” Gao Sheng tried to explain.
"But the teacher might mark it wrong," Haha insisted, twisting the hem of her clothes with her fingers.
Gao Sheng's brow furrowed almost imperceptibly, a habitual impatience stemming from the rejection of a better solution. But he quickly relaxed, nodding, "Okay, then let's do it the way the teacher taught us." A barely perceptible hint of frustration lingered in his voice.
Ding Xiaojuan was tidying up in the kitchen when she watched this scene through the glass door, her heart filled with mixed emotions. Gao Sheng was trying, she knew. But this effort bore obvious signs of "correction," like someone unfamiliar with the operating manual clumsily trying to operate a precision instrument. And Haha was that little instrument that had fallen into some kind of chaos due to a program update (father's return), and was now self-calibrating.
The mother-in-law wiped her hands and came over, sighing softly, "Xiaojuan, I think Gaosheng has been feeling really stifled these past few days. He told me that he doesn't know how to talk to Haha, afraid of being too harsh or too soft and it won't work."
Ding Xiaojuan dried her hands and leaned against the kitchen counter. "Mom, what is he in such a hurry for? I just don't understand. He's been away for so long, and now that he's back, shouldn't he be enjoying quality time with his son? Why is it like he's trying to meet a KPI, demanding to see 'progress' and 'results' from him right away?"
The mother-in-law shook her head, her eyes revealing the wisdom of someone who had been through it all: "Men, sometimes they are more stubborn and inflexible than women. He feels that the years he has missed are a debt, a loophole, and must be made up for in the shortest time and with the greatest effort. He thinks that being strict and setting high standards is being responsible, is 'making up for'. He doesn't understand that the holes in a child's heart must be filled little by little with patience and companionship; you can't rush it."
"But how can I explain it to him in a way that he will understand?" Ding Xiaojuan felt helpless. "I've already explained all the reasons I could."
“Logic won’t work.” Her mother-in-law patted her hand. “He has to figure it out himself. After hitting a few walls and feeling the pain, he might finally understand. Just like when he was learning to ride a bicycle, his father and I held him and taught him, and he kept falling. But later, when we let go, he wobbled a few times and learned by himself. Some falls, he has to fall on his own.”
Ding Xiaojuan smiled wryly. Let Gao Sheng "stumble" over her son? The price would likely be even more anxiety and tears for Haha. She didn't dare take that risk.
At the same time, He Miao is experiencing another kind of cognitive upheaval.
Ever since He Tian resolved Gun Gun's "eraser crisis" that night with an almost "lower-dimensional attack," He Miao's gaze towards him has changed. This man, whom she had complained about for ten years as "incapable of taking care of himself" and "knowing nothing but games," suddenly showed off his skills effortlessly and successfully in her most proficient "battlefield" of parenting.
The sense of superiority and certainty she felt as the "commander-in-chief" of the family quietly cracked.
That afternoon, Gun Gun was building Lego in the living room, trying to assemble a complex spaceship. After several failures, he became frustrated and threw the Lego blocks everywhere.
In the past, He Miao would have already yelled, "What are you doing! Getting angry just because you can't put it together? Pick it up! You have no patience at all!"
But today, she held back. She secretly observed He Tian.
He Tian was wearing headphones, seemingly engrossed in playing a game. Just as Gun Gun was about to kick the half-finished warship away, he suddenly spoke, his eyes still glued to the screen: "You used the wrong connecting shaft in the seventh district. You should have used the short blue shaft, not the long gray one. The long shaft doesn't have enough torque, causing the center of gravity to tilt forward, which is why it will collapse."
Gun Gun paused for a moment, then looked down and rummaged through a pile of blocks. Sure enough, it found a blue short shaft and replaced it. With a click, the previously shaky structure stabilized.
“Also,” He Tian continued, his fingers flying across the keyboard, his tone as casual as if he were discussing the weather, “the symmetry of your left-wing thruster module is off by 0.5 centimeters, so the overall airflow simulation will be unbalanced. Disassemble the right wing and reassemble it.”
Gun Gun did as instructed, his little face changing from anxious to focused, even showing a hint of admiration.
He Miao was dumbfounded. She never knew that He Tian could pay such precise attention to the details of his son building Lego while playing games, and provide effective guidance using a set of "engineering language" that she didn't understand at all.
That night, after putting Gun Gun to sleep, He Miao couldn't help but ask, "How did you know he used the wrong axis? And what about torque and center of gravity?"
He Tian took off his glasses and wiped them, saying casually, "Oh, that. When he first started building it, I glanced at the structure and roughly knew where the load-bearing points were. I had the data specifications of the blue short axis and the gray long axis in my mind, and I could tell at a glance that they didn't match." He paused, "It's similar to debugging the underlying architecture of a game model; you have to understand the attributes and connection logic of each unit."
He Miao was speechless. She suddenly realized that He Tian's seemingly indifferent attitude, as if he were immersed in his own world, might be a deeper kind of "presence" based on logic and observation. He wasn't ignoring her; he was managing things in his own way, but she had never understood it before, or even tried to understand his "language system."
"So... what do you think of my usual way of managing Gun Gun?" she asked somewhat awkwardly.
He Tian glanced at her, put his glasses back on, and thought for a moment: "You're very meticulous and responsible, and you take very good care of him." That was an affirmation. Then he changed the subject, "But sometimes, it's a bit like... over-protection. You always want to clear all obstacles for him in advance, to prevent him from making mistakes, failing, or feeling bad. But some stumbles he has to fall on his own; some problems he has to encounter and figure out himself, that's when the impression is deep, that's when he truly 'learns'."
He Miao listened, stunned. These "game design terms," spoken by He Tian, seemed strangely and convincingly appropriate when applied to parenting. She had always thought of herself as the one who had painstakingly studied and mastered the truths of parenting, but at this moment she felt like a "newbie player encountering a hidden master."
"So... I was wrong?" Her voice was a little dry.
“There’s no right or wrong.” He Tian shook his head, his tone calm. “You’re a mother, and your approach is full of love and protection, which is not wrong in itself. But perhaps you could… ‘go easy on’ him a little? Trust his instincts and learning abilities. Just like I trust my game engine. Once the basic framework is built and the rules are set, players should be allowed to explore freely within it, and even ‘use bugs’ (glitch) to develop unexpected gameplay. That’s where the fun and creativity lie.”
He Miao remained silent for a long time. Night deepened outside the window, and only the low hum of the computer fan filled the living room. Watching her husband's profile as he re-entered the world of code, she realized for the first time that this man she had known for over a decade might harbor a vast and orderly universe within him—a universe she had never truly entered. And within the laws of this universe, there seemed to be another profound and self-consistent logic regarding how to "nurture" a life.
She had always thought she was in control of the family's direction, but now she suddenly discovered that deep beneath the surface, there was a stable and intelligent ballast system that she had never noticed. The feeling was somewhat frustrating, but more than that, it was a strange, reassuring sense of relaxation.
Perhaps she could try loosening her grip on the rudder a little.
Meanwhile, Yi Yi was alone, sinking in that cold, deep pool called "Diagnosis," struggling to float to the surface.
"Ovarian dysfunction." The doctor's calm pronouncement was like an invisible curse, affixed to her thirty-seven-year-old life. These days, she still gets up early as usual, prepares breakfast, takes Kai Kai to school, buys groceries, cooks, tidies up the house... Every action is precise, yet it feels like she's doing it through frosted glass, the sensation is blurred, and the meaning is thin.
She researched extensively and learned that it wasn't a terminal illness, that many people had similar experiences, and that symptoms could be alleviated and the progression slowed through hormone therapy and lifestyle changes. Rationally, she accepted this "fact."
Emotionally, she felt that a part of herself—the part closely connected to vitality, creativity, and future possibilities—had been prematurely sentenced to a "probationary period." She was only thirty-seven; her career was stalled, her dreams were shelved, and now even her body was sending her clear signals of withdrawal. A sense of desolation, of "all is lost," would occasionally wash over her, overwhelming her.
Zhuang Jia noticed her recent silence and occasional absent-mindedness, but he attributed it to "a woman's emotional cycle" or "boredom from staying at home for too long."
"How about we take Kai Kai to the suburbs for a couple of days this weekend? To relax a bit," he suggested during dinner.
"Okay." Yi Yi nodded, her reaction indifferent.
"What's wrong? You seem listless." Zhuang Jia looked at her. "Are you feeling unwell?"
Yi Yi paused, her hand holding the chopsticks still. She wanted to say, "Yes, I'm not feeling well. Something inside me has collapsed. But I don't know how to say it, and even if I did, you probably wouldn't understand, and you might think I'm being dramatic or overthinking things."
So she shook her head: "It's nothing, I'm just a little tired."
"If you're tired, get some rest." Zhuang Jia put a piece of fish on her plate. "If you can't finish the housework, take your time. Don't push yourself too hard. Nobody's rushing you anyway."
See, in his eyes, her "tiredness" stemmed from housework, and her "value" lay in managing this small space properly. She couldn't bring herself to tell him that her tiredness stemmed from a deeper sense of confusion about the meaning of her own existence and a fear of her own vitality.
That night, after Kaikai fell asleep, Yiyi sat at her desk and opened her long-unused diary. The pen hovered over the paper for a long time before finally falling:
Looking at her still-young face in the mirror, T felt like she was being deceived. Inside lived a soul that was prematurely deteriorating. Kai Kai was still so young, and she wanted to stay with him longer, to be in a more vibrant and energetic state. But now, she had to learn how to live with 'decline' in advance.
“He Miao and Ding Xiaojuan each have their own troubles, but their troubles are ‘in progress’, about relationships, about education, and about the clashes with the outside world. Mine, on the other hand, is more like a ‘complete’ mourning, a mourning for a part of myself that has not been completely lost but whose end has already been seen.”
She stopped writing here. Tears silently dripped onto the paper, blurring the words.
She suddenly remembered that many years ago, her mother had sighed to her, "A woman's best years are only a few." At the time, she scoffed at it, thinking her mother's views were outdated. Now, those words she once despised echoed coldly in her ears like a belated prophecy.
It's not that the past is gone, but rather that the garden within us, which once nurtured life and gave birth to countless dreams and impulses, has received notice of an early autumn. The trees may still be full of blossoms, but the soil and root system that nourished them have begun to subtly change.
She closed her diary and went to Kaikai's room. Her son was fast asleep, his cheeks rosy, his long eyelashes drooping, and his breathing even. She leaned down and gently kissed his forehead, greedily inhaling the scent that mingled with the aroma of milk and sunshine.
This is her most authentic creation and possession.
Perhaps, under the shadow of this "completed tense," she needs to rediscover her own "present tense." Not as a mother, not as a wife, but as "Yi Yi" herself, how can she grow and exist within a limited, redefined space and time?
The night is still long, and the question remains unanswered. But at least, after the tears have dried, the question itself has clearly surfaced and can no longer be avoided.
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