Around 7 p.m., Ha Yue closed the shop and locked it as usual, then walked to the dinner place she had arranged to meet Xue Jing.
She had already called Zhao Chunni in the afternoon to tell her that she would be organizing goods in the store that evening, and that she and Aunt Siqin didn't need to wait for her for dinner.
On Tuesday, after Zhao Chunni lost control of her emotions, Ha Yue took her mother to the Suicheng City Hospital for a check-up that morning. The test results were not ideal. The MRI showed that Zhao Chunni's entire brain tissue had a large-scale atrophy, with the temporal lobe and hippocampus being relatively severely atrophied.
This is enough to explain why she has recently started to experience frequent memory loss.
The small-town doctor offered no treatment advice for the patient with these test results, only nursing advice: it was necessary to keep dangerous items away from the patient, and the patient's three meals a day should be nutritious.
When the doctor learned that Ha Yue had not hired a caregiver for her mother, he specifically reminded her that if the condition continued to worsen, the patient would require 24-hour close care, which would be difficult for her to manage alone. He suggested that she should prioritize sending the patient to a specialized nursing home.
However, there are no nursing homes in Suicheng specifically for Alzheimer's patients, and even if there were, it would be difficult for aggressive patients to get admitted.
She needed to carefully observe Zhao Chunni's emotional fluctuations and try her best to comfort the patient.
A new lottery shop recently opened on Xing'an Street. It's filled with idle middle-aged people from morning till night. Some are gathered together, some are alone, but without exception, they are all squinting as they study the past winning trends on the wall.
Not everyone in the world can afford a life free from worries about food and clothing, but everyone can afford a two-yuan lottery ticket.
The lottery represents a sparkling stroke of luck, a possibility of turning one's fortunes around, much like a fairy tale fabricated by society for the poor.
Ha Yue slowed down as she passed the lottery shop. She was a little envious of the customers inside. Back in Jicheng, she was also obsessed with the lottery, never missing a draw and buying five random tickets on her way to work.
She can lack family background, wealth, and a partner; as long as she has a lottery ticket waiting to be drawn in her pocket, it's like having a blessed talisman. She can blindly believe that one day she will win a bright future.
Every high school student who has studied basic probability understands that pursuing success by buying lottery tickets is obviously ridiculous, as events with such a slim probability are practically guaranteed to never happen.
But at least back then, she was young, she was naive, and her shallow vision still held onto a glimmer of hope for the future, unlike now.
On Wednesday night, the mother and daughter talked in detail about Zhao Chunni's condition all night long.
Ha Yue certainly couldn't persuade her stubborn mother. Although she spent several hours trying to explain to Zhao Chunni that there might be a better treatment option in Jicheng, Zhao Chunni rejected her suggestion with just a few words after seeing the doctor's diagnosis.
Zhao Chunni said she only has two requirements for her daughter.
First, she demanded that Ha Yue promise she would never sell her house and shop in Suicheng to take her away. No matter how bad the city was, it was her root; fallen leaves return to their roots. She lived here, fell ill here, and would die here. Years ago, to raise money for Ha Yue's tuition, she sold the mud-brick house that belonged to her parents in her hometown. Now, this was her only home; it was everything to her, and she didn't want to lose everything.
As for the second point, she hopes that Ha Yue will choose to give up treatment for her when she completely loses her mind.
Her exact words were, “I have never asked anyone for help in my life. I didn’t ask your grandparents to stop me from going to school, and I didn’t ask your father to abandon the family because he cheated on me. But today I’m begging you to let me take charge of my own life.”
"If you truly care about our mother-daughter bond, then when I've completely lost my mind, please see me off on my way."
The streetlights suddenly came on, and the entire desolate and quiet street became hazy and ethereal because of the illumination.
Everyone has a unique definition of their hometown. For Suicheng in Harbin, it is a cruel yet warm dream.
It's not that she hasn't experienced the happiness of being a family of three, but those childhood memories that are not allowed to be remembered are long gone, and the memories of her teenage years and the hardships she endured with her mother are too dry and bitter. She can only barely bear those times by ignoring them day after day.
Now, this bizarre dream has found her again, hiding in the dim light of the street, following her, and occasionally threatening her with the wind blowing in her face: her life is a battle she can never win.
Turning her gaze away, Ha Yue stepped into the glow of another streetlamp.
Regardless of whether she is filial or not, Ha Yue, as a daughter, could not possibly promise to end her mother's life in the future.
That's a crime.
The night before last, she did not answer her mother's plea, but she knew that her and her mother's future had already been written down in black and white along with the diagnosis. The reason why Zhao Chunni chose to deal with it passively was the same as the reason she decided to stop buying lottery tickets a few years ago.
They no longer wanted to strive for an unattainable goal. It's certainly a good thing to have hope and live positively, but sometimes hope can bring unbearable pain.
The greatest evil in human nature is greed, and desire breeds countless unfulfilled desires.
Thinking is exhausting; a three-minute walk felt like a thirty-minute journey.
On the sidewalk, Ha Yue's steps grew heavier and heavier, as if her entire body had sunk deep into the gray bricks. She lowered her head, passed the lottery shop, and forced herself to wake up, but the drowsy feeling of falling asleep still clung to her.
After wandering through the desolate ruins for an unknown amount of time, Ha Yue finally arrived at the entrance of Mulan Street after turning a corner. She looked up, and in an instant, her self-pitying daydream was suddenly jolted awake.
Because amidst the colorful light pollution in front of the hotel, there stood a person who did not belong to Suicheng and was not burdened with suffering.
That person really had nothing in common with her. He was agile and clean-cut. From his hair to his fingertips, he was crystal clear, like a piece of Ru porcelain with a moon-white glaze.
Everyone has their own destiny, and she is not jealous of Xue Jing's current success.
But Xue Jing's innate radiance was too bright; the dazzling brilliance formed a mirror reflecting the true nature of her life. This mirror was used to remind Ha Yue from beginning to end that she was not worthy of dreaming, not even nightmares.
She's not like porcelain; she's more like weeds. Even if she's a loser in life, she has to grit her teeth, clench her fists, and get through each day without ever closing her eyes.
When Xue Jing returned to the hotel from the mountain in the afternoon, the first thing he did after opening the door was to dump all the clothes that had been folded into neat squares in his suitcase onto the bed and spread them out flat.
The Armani suit he wore when he got off the plane that day was the first to be rejected; he didn't want Ha Yue to think he was so shabby that he only had one decent outfit.
The Arc'teryx outfits he wore on the way up the mountain were also thrown on the carpet. The brand has a strong outdoor feel, and even though it has recently shifted its target users to lower-income groups and started to attract many young men and women who follow the trend, he was afraid that Ha Yue would laugh at him for becoming a greasy old man who "doesn't go out without wearing Arc'teryx and has wasted his day."
Excluding the law, Xue Jing's final choice was limited to a pilot's leather jacket he had once found in a vintage store abroad and a pair of Levi's loose jeans.
But when he put the clothes on, he felt that he looked like a street hustler showing off on a Harley in a Jicheng alley.
"Tsk." He straightened his collar repeatedly in front of the mirror, then looked at his Chelsea jerseys, completely baffled as to what he was thinking when he packed them up a few days ago.
Do you think that people have to dress like cowboys when they go to the Northwest?
He should bring a few Lemaire outfits; at least his understated and meticulous attire at each book launch is widely praised. Regardless of the book's content, his appearance always seems to match his erudition.
It was too late to go downstairs to find a place to buy clothes, and Suicheng didn't seem like a city with a collection of boutiques.
What if he changed his shoes? Would that make things better? He also had a plain T-shirt in his suitcase, which could barely cover up the flashy look of his entire outfit.
She spent two hours in the hotel repeatedly adjusting her clothes, and in the end, she didn't even have dry hair by the agreed time.
At 6:45, Xue Jing hurriedly pressed the elevator button. He was used to arriving at the agreed location 15 minutes before the scheduled time. This was a matter of manners, not a deliberate attempt to see his ex-girlfriend a few minutes earlier.
Xue Jing couldn't find a good reason to excuse his self-inflicted suffering, as he could have easily gone to the restaurant across the street to wait, but instead stood downstairs at the spot where they had parted ways that day.
It's probably just anxiety. Even though Ha Yue and he finalized the details of having dinner together, Xue Jing still had a lingering suspicion that she might suddenly stand him up.
Just like she had told herself many times during those two years that she truly loved him, but in the end she still broke up with him easily.
A disastrous past relationship can make a person sensitive and suspicious.
Standing on the street is embarrassing, and sitting in a restaurant is embarrassing. But standing on the street is better, at least passersby won't notice how long he's been waiting there.
Fortunately, people can live without love but they absolutely cannot live without food. One can live without love but die without food. Today, Ha Yue did not break her promise.
At 7 o'clock sharp, a man and a woman with a strikingly different personality walked into the hot pot restaurant side by side.
When ordering, Xue Jing pushed the menu handed to Ha Yue by the waiter. This was Xue Jing's way of treating people. Ha Yue smiled and did not hesitate to refuse. She began to carefully study how many dishes were different between the 139 yuan set meal and the 189 yuan set meal.
Perhaps because of the low wages, the waiters here don't have the spirit of providing excessive service.
Seeing that the customer did not intend to order quickly, the waiter put down the kettle on the table and went back to the bar, leaning back in his chair and cracking roasted sunflower seeds with the cashier.
The shop wasn't big, and a few couples with children sat around the perimeter. The happy children, needing no small talk, seemed to have known each other for ages, spinning like tops and occasionally creating miniature whirlwinds between the tables. Amidst the noisy conversation, Xue Jing tried her best not to frown, picked up the kettle, and rinsed their tableware with hot water.
While pouring water for Ha Yue, Xue Jing had already taken a good look at his ex-girlfriend's clothes.
She wore a gray hooded sweatshirt under a silver down vest, loose jeans over old high-top Converse sneakers, and her hair was tied up in a high ponytail to avoid obstructing her vision.
Ha Yue wore no extra accessories and was dressed more casually than she had four days ago. Xue Jing even noticed that a thin layer of fuzz had formed on the elbows of her sweatshirt due to frequent friction.
Looking at his still slightly damp hair and leather jacket that smelled of woody perfume, Xue Jing couldn't help but feel disappointed. The saying "women dress up for those they love" must be true. He probably misunderstood his ex-girlfriend's intentions in inviting him to dinner.
Back when they were dating, Ha Yue almost never wore the same clothes twice in front of Xue Jing. In the sweltering summer, she would wear a long sundress that reached her calves. Her shoulders and neck were thin and straight, and her two slender arms swayed with her waistline, like dancing willows.
She wasn't afraid of the cold in winter. On snowy days, she would wear such a short A-line skirt under her horn coat, revealing her slender legs and delicate skin. He couldn't help but press his palms against hers to warm them, fearing that she might get frostbite from the sub-zero temperatures.
Moreover, Ha Yue always wore makeup whenever she came to see him.
Even during the few weeks they lived together before graduation, the first thing Ha Yue did after waking up was to cover her face, scream, and run into the bathroom to wash her face. Before she could even dry the water droplets on her face, she would hurriedly apply lip rouge to her lips.
It was around that time that Xue Jing learned that there was a type of cosmetic for girls called "BB cream".
Ha Yue definitely wasn't wearing any makeup today, because Xue Jing could easily spot five small freckles on her cheeks. This was only the second time since their first meeting that Xue Jing had seen Ha Yue completely without makeup.
Last time she dressed like a caring rural older sister, but this time she looks like a high school student who has just graduated.
This was not the Ha Yue he knew.
As his fingers warmed, Xue Jing realized he was holding a teacup that hadn't cooled down yet. His knuckles tightened and twisted, and his fingertips turned bright red.
Ha Yue looked up, not paying any special attention to him, and was waving to the waiter in the distance to let him know that she could order.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
