Chapter 41: Unable to Buy a Ticket on Noah's Ark
Wang Qingwei finally got his day off. The couple hadn't seen each other for a week, and when they returned home a little after ten o'clock on Friday night, they felt a little strange. "What's going on with Lao Qian and Song Xiaoxiao? Are they really getting divorced?" Wang Qingwei stood at the door changing his shoes, and casually tossed his stinky socks on the dining stool. "Put your stinky socks where they belong, and I'll tell you what's going on." He Xiaolan was lying on the sofa, scrolling through her phone. She didn't even need to look up to know what Wang Qingwei was up to.
As he put the socks away, Wang Qingwei carefully observed the changes in the house. With Ms. Zhang Xinrong in Beijing, the house was much tidier than usual. There was even food left for Wang Qingwei on the table, and every dish looked healthy.
"The rice is in the rice cooker, go get it yourself. What should we do if Qian Helin won't leave? Your good brother has cheated on you. Teacher Qin and I heard it all." He Xiaolan turned over, not putting down her phone, and answered Wang Qingwei's questions with one mind.
"Where's your mom?" Wang Qingwei whispered, making sure his wife could hear him, even though his mother-in-law couldn't hear him. "Don't you see what time it is? She must have gone to bed. What's wrong? You want to pay your respects? I'll wake you up now."
"No, no, no, I'll still have time to pay my respects to her tomorrow." Wang Qingwei waved his hand quickly, scooping up his rice. He was still a little intimidated by Ms. Zhang Xinrong. When he first visited her, she practically dug up his entire ancestry and interrogated him.
Wang Qingwei didn't want his mother-in-law to come. After all, Ms. Zhang Xinrong often learned advanced family getting-along concepts from the Internet. The latest thing she learned was that there should be a sense of boundaries when getting along with children. It didn't matter how He Xiaolan and Wang Qingwei lived their own lives. They just had to do their best.
Ms. Zhang Xinrong's execution was rather awkward. She wanted to intervene, but because she had already threatened to do something, she swallowed it back. Out of sight, out of mind, she bought a pair of table tennis rackets and played table tennis every day in the neighborhood's table tennis room. She made a lot of new friends and helped alleviate some of the loneliness.
Early Saturday morning, the couple prepared to drive to Tianjin. Zhang Xinrong had already changed into her sportswear and was ready to play shuttlecock. "There are a few boxes of prawns in the refrigerator. I just bought them. They said they were freshly caught in Weihai. I'm giving them to Yueyue."
"No need to take it. The refrigerator in Tianjin is full. Let's keep it at home and eat it ourselves." He Xiaolan was packing the toys she bought for Yueyue this week into her bag. Most of them were free gifts when she bought coffee.
When He Xiaolan and her husband arrived at their home in Tianjin, they found only He Lianhua cooking. Wang Yunfu was nowhere to be seen. He Lianhua wasn't as energetic as usual, and didn't even greet He Xiaolan and Wang Qingwei when they returned. Yueyue was delighted, dropping her homework and circling around He Xiaolan. After running around the house three times in excitement, she sat beside her and chattered nonstop.
"Did Xiaohao bully you again this week?" He Xiaolan asked Yueyue worriedly, casually tearing open the snacks she had bought for her, and the mother and daughter shared a bite each. When Wang Qingwei heard that his daughter was bullied, he immediately jumped over and asked, "Who bullied Yueyue? When did it happen?"
"It's nothing serious, just a conflict between two kids. It's all in the past. I forgot to tell you."
"Next time something like this happens, you have to tell me early, otherwise what's the point of having me as your father?"
"I'm telling you, you have to find time to take care of it. You're always in meetings. Eight out of ten times I call, I don't get the call." He Xiaolan also felt resentful. For many years, there was no difference between having a husband and not having one.
Men can buy responsibility with money; as long as they're paid enough, they don't have to go home. But Wang Qingwei, in his situation, doesn't have much money and doesn't go home often, yet at the end of the year, he's ranked first in the list of those who contribute the most to the family.
"What's going on? What happened to that kid?"
"I was so angry that Xiaohao pushed Yueyue, and your daughter scratched him. That's all." Yueyue peeled an orange for He Xiaolan and forced it into her mouth. He Xiaolan shuddered at the sour taste of the orange, and Yueyue giggled beside her, "The oranges grandma bought are very sour."
"It's time to eat." He Lianhua placed a few home-cooked dishes on the coffee table. She listened to her granddaughter complaining that she was a little unhappy. "The three of us just sit here and play, and don't know how to help me." He Xiaolan could hear He Lianhua's unhappiness and quickly signaled Wang Qingwei to go to the kitchen to get chopsticks.
"Where is my dad? Why isn't he coming home for lunch?" It's said that men are the most stupid creatures in this world. He Xiaolan felt that He Lianhua was in a bad mood the moment she entered the door. Wang Yunfu was not at home, so the source of the whole thing must be Wang Yunfu. Wang Qingwei was still shamelessly asking questions here and there, and finally got the answer "dead", which made him remember and stopped talking.
Originally, He Lianhua was thought to be unhappy because Wang Yunfu went out fishing every day and didn't take care of the family affairs. However, when she took Yueyue out to play in the afternoon, Yueyue said to them in the car, "Grandpa goes to the park to dance every day, and he often partners with a Grandma Xia."
Yueyue went into Neilbao to play with other children, and the couple sat aside with a cup of coffee each, enjoying their rare "love time".
"Is your father cheating on his wife at this age?" He Xiaolan saw that Wang Qingwei was obviously much quieter after hearing Yueyue's words, but she felt a little happy when the words came out of her mouth.
"Your dad is the one who cheated on his wife."
"It would be a miracle if my dad didn't cheat on his wife. Let's not talk about things we already knew. Tell me what's going on around us, it's all about relationship issues. I feel like if we don't follow the trend, we'll be out of place." He Xiaolan admitted that she was a little bit of a watcher in her heart. After all, He Lianhua and Wang Yunfu were not her biological parents. Besides, she grew up smoothly even though her biological parents had such a quarrel.
In fact, the biggest worry is that if Wang Yunfu really has a twilight romance, it will affect Yueyue. Given He Lianhua's temper, she will not give up until she turns the world upside down. And she is far away in Beijing and cannot be with Yueyue every day. If she directly switches He Lianhua with Ms. Zhang Xinrong, I am sure He Lianhua will blame her again and distrust her. "I have only been in Tianjin for a few days, and you drive me away. After all, you are not your biological mother."
"It's all nonsense, just like Qian Helin and Song Xiaoxiao, and we don't have any evidence yet." Wang Qingwei finished his coffee in one gulp and stood up to look for a trash can.
"This is different from Qian Helin's case. That woman's husband is almost calling us in the face. This is not considered cheating. Tomorrow I will also find a man to call me wife. Would you agree?"
"I don't mind if it's good for Yueyue." Wang Qingwei took the ocean ball thrown by Yueyue and threw it back to her with a smile.
"I'm going to post a job posting tomorrow, looking for a stepfather."
Although the couple was joking, they each had their own agenda. Wang Qingwei felt humiliated. If he were to cheat at such an old age, he would be embarrassed in front of his wife and children, and his entire family. How would he manage to lead the family in the future?
He Xiaolan thought more specifically. She was thinking about how to get evidence of her father-in-law's infidelity and invite her mother-in-law and father-in-law back to their hometown in a reasonable way. It's not that they are so bad in Tianjin, but many of their habits are indeed not suitable for today's society.
One day, Yueyue called and said her grandmother had bought a sewing machine and insisted on making her some cotton pants. After going to school, her classmates laughed at her legs, saying they looked like two carrots. He Xiaolan told He Lianhua that wearing thermal pants was warm enough and that the distance from home to school was short, so she didn't need to wear them. He Lianhua kept saying that the thermal pants looked too thin. She was so young, and if she wore so little, she would get cold legs when she got old.
However, it still takes some effort to find substantial evidence. When the family was having dinner in the evening, Wang Yunfu behaved very normally. He Xiaolan deliberately mentioned dancing. He said that he did it to keep fit and didn't go every day. When he went out for a long time, he went fishing.
There's not even a fishing rod at home, so what can we use to fish? Even if we're lying, we need to have sufficient evidence. Men just love to treat others as fools. After dinner, Wang Yunfu was going out again. He didn't even watch the "News Broadcast" anymore and didn't come back until after ten o'clock. Seeing Wang Yunfu go out, He Xiaolan also wanted to drag Wang Qingwei out for a walk, leaving Grandma to accompany Yueyue to her online English class at home.
"He Xiaolan, you're being unreasonable. Why are you following my dad?" Wang Qingwei was somewhat dissatisfied with He Xiaolan's behavior.
"This is for Mom, what will she do if something happens to Dad? We should cut losses in time and nip it in the bud as soon as possible." He Xiaolan and I, Wang Qingwei, hid behind a tree in the park, carefully observing Wang Yunfu's every word and action.
Wang Yunfu's behavior wasn't unusual; the music played, and several elderly couples danced gracefully, creating a beautiful sight in the park. However, Wang Yunfu refused to leave even after the show ended, insisting on chatting with Grandma Xia outside in the freezing weather.
"Your dad is so stingy. He didn't even take the old lady to find a warmer place to sit and chat."
"roll".
"Isn't this just for the harmony of your family? You don't know how to appreciate a good person."
He Xiaolan was a little bit cold, but she was holding on to achieve her goal. Wang Qingwei urged her several times, but He Xiaolan refused to go home and insisted on finding out the truth.
"You'll catch a cold if you stay here, and you'll suffer the consequences." Wang Qingwei was a little unhappy. What He Xiaolan was doing was just slapping him in the face. She had no regard for his feelings at all. "If you don't leave, I'll leave by myself. You stay here."
"Go away! Who am I freezing here for? It's your mom. We're like Mr. Dongguo and the wolf, the farmer and the snake, you and me." He Xiaolan thought Wang Qingwei was overdoing it. She was only doing this for the sake of family harmony. Don't wait until something really goes wrong and everyone gets into chaos.
Neither could convince the other, mainly because they had been freezing in the wind for over two hours, and Wang Yunfu hadn't really done anything out of the ordinary. The couple slowly walked home. "I asked the agent last week, and he said if we wanted to sell the house, they'd have to come take photos. My mom's home now, and she'd definitely get suspicious if the agent came." He Xiaolan hadn't told Ms. Zhang Xinrong about Wang Qingwei's job change, simply because she didn't want her to worry about it.
"Let's wait and see. Maybe our situation will improve in a couple of days. Now's not the right time to sell. The price is a bit low." Wang Qingwei sincerely didn't want to sell his house. He had worked hard for many years, and this house was the result of his labor. Selling it would indirectly declare his career a failure.
They walked around and around downstairs, unwilling to go upstairs. Five people living in a 40-square-meter room were so crowded that even breathing was difficult. Their middle age was pushed into a small, cramped space where even a tear had no privacy.
But they still had to live there for ten, twenty, thirty years. Everyone was moving on, as if they were the only ones left behind on Noah's Ark. He Xiaolan began to reflect on whether she had made any wrong choices in the past fifteen years. At every fork in her life, her hesitation had become a boomerang that pierced her body fiercely.
If everything could be reversed, back to the day I graduated from university, would I still insist on staying in Beijing? The dream I once pursued is still a dream now, but the time to wake up is approaching.
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