Chapter 1: If you don't agree, don't say anything
This year marks He Xiaolan's fifteenth year in Beijing. From the day she enrolled at university, she unilaterally signed an unbreakable pact with this city, which always lingers with the earthy, fishy air. Willow catkins in spring can smear the window screens, the subway in summer reeks of sweat, the autumn wind swirls with dust, and the winter snow quickly turns to black mud. Yet, in her daily video calls, Ms. Zhang Xinrong always mentions, "You're the most promising child in our family," and always adds, "Don't let people look down on you."
"Mom, what did my grandma say on WeChat?" The seven-year-old daughter Yueyue's hair was messy and her pajamas were full of wrinkles from sleeping, just like the wrinkles at the corners of He Xiaolan's eyes, which could not be smoothed out no matter how much she rubbed them.
He Xiaolan casually picked up a comb from the dining table and gently tied Yueyue's hair into two small buns. A first-grade uniform lay draped on the dining chair, neatly ironed, a rare "respectable" look in this messy little room.
Today is September 1, 2024, the first day of school for elementary school.
Wang Qingwei, an ordinary man with an ordinary name, an ordinary build, and an ordinary job, and He Xiaolan, an ordinary woman with average looks, a decent job, and an average family background, formed a family that couldn't be more ordinary. There were millions of such families in Beijing, and the two of them were an inconspicuous group among them.
September 1st was a typical workday. They were not in Beijing, but in Tianjin, a city next door to the capital. This was the "escape plan" the couple had found for Yueyue.
After staying there for fifteen years, she still couldn't get a household registration. When she was about to register for primary school, He Xiaolan calculated all the assets of her family for a whole night. Even if she took into account the rat's nest at home, sending her to an international school was a bit of a luxury.
With no other choice but to take advantage of the favorable policy, they quickly bought a decent school district apartment in Tianjin's Heping District. It was a small, 40-square-meter apartment, a typical old, run-down place with just enough space for a family of three. Even with this small space, the couple spent all their savings. So, after buying it, they didn't renovate it. They just cleaned it up briefly, bought some furniture from IKEA, and moved in.
They rushed here from Beijing yesterday, stuck in traffic for three hours. He Xiaolan was the HR director at a medium-sized company, and Wang Qingwei was a coder at a struggling internet company. Both were cogs in the capitalists' hands, and taking two days off was like asking for their boss's life.
"Are you sure you've taken the leave?" He Xiaolan asked again as she watched Wang Qingwei put the fried eggs on the plate. He always lost things. Last time, he spent three days looking for Yueyue's vaccination book in a drawer at the company.
Wang Qingwei glanced at his mobile phone, confirmed his leave information, and cleared a small space on the dining table to place the breakfast specially made for his daughter.
The home clothes Wang Qingwei was wearing had been washed and faded, with the loose collar drooping on his shoulders. The slippers on his feet were disposable slippers he had taken from a hotel last time. The soles had become soft and collapsed with every step he took.
Their current family financial policy is to not buy anything that is not necessary. After all, the two of them are burdened with a lot of loans, and if they don't make the right calculations, they will fall into the abyss.
"Are you still worried about me doing things? I must have taken some time off. After dinner, I'll take Yueyue to school. I'll take you to the airport and then pick up my mom. After that, I'll show her the way. I'll go back to Beijing tonight."
"You told your mom that you only need to do three things when you come to Tianjin: first, pick you up from school, second, prepare meals, and third, supervise your homework. You don't have to worry about anything else." He Xiaolan poured milk into the cup, and there was a milk stain around the rim that hadn't been washed clean.
When Yueyue heard what Wang Qingwei said, she suddenly put down the fried egg in her hand, pouted pitifully, looked at He Xiaolan and then at Wang Qingwei, and then she pouted and was about to cry.
Seeing that something was wrong, He Xiaolan quickly took a tissue and covered Yueyue's face.
"We agreed last night that from today on, you are a glorious primary school student and you can't cry whenever you want." Yueyue tried hard to hold back her tears, then held He Xiaolan's arms tightly with her two small hands.
"Mom, can I only be alone with Grandma tonight?"
Wang Qingwei was a little unhappy when he heard Yueyue's words. He put down the chopsticks in his hand and looked at Yueyue seriously.
"Isn't it good for grandma to come and accompany you? Why are you unhappy?" Hearing Wang Qingwei's slightly angry tone, Yueyue felt wronged. She pouted and scratched her hands without saying a word.
"You're the one who makes the decision yourself, okay? Ask a first-grade student, what can she say? Yueyue, hurry up and pack your schoolbag. We're getting ready to go to school."
The bedroom was piled with unpacked suitcases, Yueyue's teddy bear tucked into a corner, clothes draped over a chair, and a few pairs of socks scattered on the floor. He Xiaolan pretended not to notice. This was just a makeshift hideout. She kept thinking, if she ever got lucky and struck it rich, she could send Yueyue to an international school and avoid running back and forth like this. Then she'd throw on an Hermès cashmere shawl, have a driver drive Yueyue in the morning, and speak to the teacher entirely in English. At night, she'd hire a child care provider so she wouldn't have to supervise her homework. That would be a life like a normal person's, a life like a god's.
Thinking of this, she felt a sudden chill down her spine. The last time she read picture books to Yueyue, she didn't recognize many of the English words. Should she enroll her in a class to learn more?
"What are you dreaming about? Why are you laughing like that?" Wang Qingwei turned his head to glance at He Xiaolan who was sitting in the passenger seat, and then looked helplessly at the traffic jam in front of him.
This congested traffic situation made He Xiaolan instantly return to Beijing, where the third, fourth and fifth ring roads in the east, south, west and north are always congested no matter what time it is.
"How long will it take to get to school?" Wang Qingwei looked at the navigation and sighed, "About 20 minutes, I shouldn't be late."
"Mom, if you're late on the first day of school, will the teacher be unhappy?" Yueyue leaned forward in the seat in front of her with some worry. "It's normal to be late on the first day of school. You're only a first grader. Why are you being so strict with yourself?"
"But grandma always told me to be a child who has high expectations for myself."
"Do you know what this sentence means?" Wang Qingwei interrupted, looking at Yueyue with a smile in the rearview mirror.
Yueyue shook her head and said, "What grandma said must make sense, right, Mom." He Xiaolan felt a little proud. After all, in the child's heart, grandma is better than grandma, and that is her greatest victory.
When they reached the school gate, Yueyue skipped in, her pigtails swaying behind her. He Xiaolan watched her from behind until she was out of sight, then turned around. Yueyue was a worry-free person. She never cried or made a fuss, always listened to advice, and never caused her any trouble. This was the most comforting thing for her in the past few years.
On the way to the airport, Yueyue changed the nursery rhyme she listened to to the catchy song that Wang Qingwei liked. The lyrics about "love coming and going" gave He Xiaolan a headache.
"When will your project bonus be paid out? They said they would pay it last month, but there's still no sign of it."
"They said it would be distributed tomorrow. I'll ask the finance department when I go there tomorrow. What's wrong? Do you have no money on you?"
After being together for too long, the only thing that comes out of their conversations is the smell of money, and they no longer bother to talk about pots and pans.
He Xiaolan had once urged Wang Qingwei to change jobs. Wang Qingwei felt that since he had grown with the company, he had to keep his word. The stock options he had been promised when he first joined the company were now like waste paper, hanging in his account.
"Also, I want to sign Yueyue up for some tutoring classes. I see that many children in the parent group have already signed up. We are not here every day, so who will help her with her homework?"
"Why not just find a daycare center? The teacher will supervise the child until he finishes his homework and then let grandma pick him up."
"The teacher in the nursery class is not good enough, so you still have to find a one-on-one tutor. If you fall behind in the first grade, it will be difficult to catch up later. We can't make mistakes at every step."
He Xiaolan was deeply concerned about her daughter's academic performance. She had made it from a small county town to a big city thanks to her own hard work. In her view, academic excellence was the key to a bright future. Wang Qingwei disagreed, believing childhood should be a happy one. If the teacher didn't assign homework, it meant there was no need to do it. Finding tutors was a waste of money and a burden.
"Xiaolan, I think you are too nervous. Yueyue is only in the first grade. It's really unnecessary to be nervous about things that she can learn just by listening in class."
"Am I nervous? Why am I still embarrassed to speak English? Because we are learning dumb English. Think about the friends around us, who doesn't have special skills? What do we know? We don't even know the musical notation. When she was in kindergarten, I told her to learn either piano or ballet, but you didn't let her learn anything and sent her to learn swimming. What's the point?"
"How can this be useless? If you fall into the water, you can swim to the shore by yourself and it can also strengthen your body."
"Those who drown are all good swimmers."
The music in the car became noisy, and the old car that had been driven for ten years was also making a lot of noise. Why was Binhai Airport so far away? Why was the man in the car so annoying? No matter how I thought about it, I felt that I was blind, had a brain seizure, and was mentally paralyzed to marry this man and have children.
"Be careful and let me know when you arrive"
"Yeah." The sound of the car door slamming was the most tacit farewell between the couple, with a hint of resentment in it.
"Wang Qingwei went to pick up his mother. I just arrived at the airport. We had a fight on the way. Have you arrived in Shanghai?" He Xiaolan picked up the phone and quickly sent a voice message to Qin Tiantian.
Qin Tiantian, a 38-year-old female doctor, is known as a "strange warrior." She has been He Xiaolan's spiritual pillar since college. For Qin Tiantian, marriage is neither a casual meal nor a necessary financial obligation, but a poison she must avoid. Yet, she desperately craves love, and has been in and out of relationships since college.
During these two days, Qin Tiantian also happened to be on a business trip to Shanghai, but she arrived two days earlier than He Xiaolan to attend the school's teaching seminar.
Qin Tiantian, who was a person who hated trouble, immediately called. "Hey, your nemesis is coming. Let me ask you how you feel now."
"What can I feel? It's Godzilla vs. Ultraman. Ultraman's schedule is very busy this month, so let her be. We won't see each other much anyway."
"Your company is going to lay off a lot of people this month. You're the modern-day Madam Rong, and all you do is offend people."
He Xiaolan dropped her luggage and passed through security. She sat in the waiting room, listening to Qin Tiantian's constant chatter and watching the planes on the tarmac. One after another, they took off, and she suddenly felt that her life was like these planes, programmed long ago. She went to school at the right age, worked at the right age, got married and had children at the right age, and worried about her children's schooling at the right age.
This was what Ms. Zhang Xinrong was most proud of: her daughter, following a routine, had become "someone who is successful in the eyes of others." The air conditioning in the waiting room was a little chilly. He Xiaolan wrapped herself in her coat and looked at the boarding gate in the distance, feeling a sense of emptiness. The next time she came to Tianjin to see her daughter, she would have to wait until the weekend.
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