Chapter Ten: Drifting Duckweed in Turbulent Times
An old house in Hongkou in the early morning.
When Ah Xiu heard the "cat meowing", she sneaked out of the house.
Ah Chen was waiting for her behind the tree, carrying a bag.
“Brother Chen…” Ah Xiu blushed as soon as she saw him.
A sixteen-year-old girl, upon seeing her "crush" who is around the same age, naturally cannot hide her shyness.
Ah Chen's ears turned red. He hid the bag behind his back, but his eyes couldn't help but dart towards Ah Xiu's face.
"Brother Chen, you called me... is there something you need?"
Ah Chen then remembered the important matter and hurriedly took out a glass medicine bottle from the bag and handed it to her: "Master Qiao said to grind the powder in here and mix it into the porridge that Madam is drinking today."
"What...what is this?" Ah Xiu held the medicine bottle, looking at the white powder inside through the glass, her face turned pale with fright.
“Sleeping pills,” Ah Chen comforted her. “They’re the kind of pills that make Ren sleep. Master Qiao wants to send Madam onto the ship this afternoon, and he’s worried she might cause trouble, so he needs to make sure she gets a good night’s sleep.”
Ah Xiu hesitated for a moment.
“Ah Xiu!” Ah Chen grasped her wrist. “Everything Master Qiao did was for Madam’s good! If Madam Lin doesn’t leave, she will be dragged into the feud between the Chen family and the Green Gang sooner or later, and then…” He paused, remembering Master Qiao sitting in the car last night, and his voice suddenly softened, “Master Qiao loves her more than anyone else, you have to believe him.”
Ah Xiu's wrist ached from his grip, but her heart felt like it was filled with a warm piece of candy.
“Brother Chen… I believe what you say. Besides, I was originally someone that Master specially arranged to stay by Madam’s side…” she said softly, stuffing the medicine bottle into her bosom, “I will grind it up and mix it into the porridge so that Miss Lin won’t notice.”
Ah Chen breathed a sigh of relief, took out a packet of osmanthus sugar from the bag, and handed it to her: "This is osmanthus sugar from Fuxingli. You said you wanted to eat it last time... I went around half a street to buy it." The tips of his ears were so red they looked like they were about to bleed.
Lin Tang's voice came from afar: "Ah Xiu? Who are you talking to?"
Startled, Ah Chen grabbed the bag and ran towards the wall, shouting, "I'm leaving now! If Madam asks, just say I was feeding the cat!"
"Brother Chen..." she whispered to the air, put the osmanthus candy into her pocket, and turned to walk into the house.
Lin Tang stood by the window, her shawl draped over her shoulders: "Ah Xiu, where have you been? The porridge is about to burn."
Ah Xiu blushed and said, "I...I went to feed the cat." Her face was a little red, and she didn't dare to look Lin Tang in the eye.
Lin Tang smiled, unsuspecting: "Where's the cat? Why didn't you bring it in?"
"It...it ran away." Ah Xiu twisted her fingers. "Madam, are you hungry?...I'll go to the kitchen, the curse is still cooking..."
Ah Xiu ran to the kitchen as fast as she could.
Lin Tang narrowed her eyes slightly as she looked at the bag of earth in her hand.
...
Ah Xiu closed the door, leaned against the door panel, panting, and dug her fingers into the fabric of her apron.
Her hand trembled as she picked up the pestle. Just as she was about to strike, the pestle fell to the ground with a "thud" and rolled to her feet.
"Ah Xiu?" Lin Tang suddenly pushed the door open and came in, staring at the glass bottle on the ground, her brows furrowed. She bent down to pick it up, looked at the powder inside through the sunlight, and asked in a cold voice, "What is this?"
Ah Xiu's face turned pale instantly.
Lin Tang recognized the name of the medicine and said coldly, "Sleeping pills? What do you want? Who are you working for?"
"Madam, I didn't mean to!" Ah Xiu rushed over and grabbed her clothes, saying urgently, "Brother Ah Chen said that everything Master Qiao did was for your own good! He was afraid that if you stayed in Jiangcheng, you would get involved in the Chen family's feud, he was afraid that you..."
“Brother Chen?” Lin Tang’s gaze suddenly fell on the candy wrapper peeking out of Ah Xiu’s pocket. She paused, her voice hoarse, “So you guys were all in cahoots all along… In your eyes, I’m just a nuisance who’s going to be sent away, isn’t that right?”
Ah Xiu shook her head, crying, but couldn't say a word.
Just then, a knock sounded on the door, and a voice came from outside: "Madam, a Miss Cheng is looking for you."
Lin Tang wiped away her tears, turned around and walked towards the door.
She opened the door and saw Cheng Qing standing by the door. She was dressed very simply today, which was completely different from her usual style.
Lin Tang was surprised by the unexpected arrival of so many people. How could her small temple possibly house so many large Buddha statues?
She frowned. "Miss Cheng, what brings you here?"
“Miss Lin,” Cheng Qing began, “there’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”
"W-What are you going to do?!"
"Who...who are you?" Lin Tang stared at the scar, then suddenly remembered something, and her face turned pale.
Cheng Qing smiled and ran her hand through her hair. "Sister Jintang, don't you remember? When I was little, I was naughty and climbed a tree, but I fell and cut my back on thorns. If it weren't for you and Uncle Lin insisting on sending me to a foreign doctor, I might not have lived past seven?"
Lin Tang was stunned!
Cheng Qing then turned around and pointed to the red mole on her chest, "Have you forgotten? When we were little, we took baths together, and you said that because of the red mole on my chest, I would be troubled by love for the rest of my life..."
That little girl who always tugged at her clothes and called her "Sister Tang" in a clear voice; that figure chasing butterflies in the garden, her pigtails bobbing up and down;
The image of her mother holding her hand tightly at Aunt Gu's bedside, weakly entrusting her with the words, "Tang'er, if Manqing ever returns, you must let her live in this house..." now shattered into sharp fragments, piercing her heart.
"H-How is this possible?"
Lin Tang took a step back. How could she have imagined that the little sister she had been searching for was right under her nose, and that she was the mistress of Qiao Yuan, whom she despised?
“It’s me, Sister Tang.” Gu Manqing raised her head, her eyes filled with tears, her voice choked with emotion, “So many years… I… I’m back.”
Lin Tang felt a huge wave of sorrow rush to her nose and eyes. She suddenly reached out and tightly grasped Gu Manqing's cold wrist, with such force that it was as if she wanted to embed this lost and regained "sister" into her bones to confirm her identity.
She pulled Gu Manqing along, and they almost stumbled into the house.
The hall was dimly lit and filled with the old, musty smell of wood and dust that is unique to old houses.
Lin Tang pulled Gu Manqing straight to the center of the living room. She still held Gu Manqing's hand tightly, but her gaze was blankly fixed on a certain point in the void, as if she was trying to make out the outline of the person in front of her through the dust of time.
"How could it be you..." Lin Tang murmured to herself, her voice as soft as a sigh, "How could you... be here... in this capacity... Where have you been all these years? Aunt Gu... she thought of you until her death! Before she passed away, she handed me the keys to this house, saying that this is your root, and asked me to guard it for you, waiting for you to return..."
Lin Tang's voice choked again. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, her eyes were filled with unfathomable pain and confusion. "But you were clearly in Jiangcheng! You became Qiao Yuan's... You clearly knew who I was! Why? Why didn't you say so sooner? Why did it have to be after that...?"
Gu Manqing's tears flowed even more fiercely.
She slowly knelt on the blue brick floor at Lin Tang's feet, the cold ground seeping into her bones through the thin fabric of her cheongsam.
She didn't try to break free from Lin Tang's hand; instead, she covered it with her other hand, tightly enveloping Lin Tang's equally cold fingers, as if they were the only piece of driftwood.
“Sister Tang…” She looked up, tears washing away her makeup, revealing her true paleness and haggardness. “It’s not that I don’t want to acknowledge you… it’s that I… dare not acknowledge you, and cannot acknowledge you! Back then… I was abducted from my doorstep and sold to a poor mountain village in northern Anhui. I escaped, but was beaten half to death… Later, I was also sold into a brothel, and eventually ended up in a dance hall in Jiangcheng, where… I met Qiao Yuan.”
Mentioning that name, Gu Manqing visibly flinched. "He took a fancy to me and forced himself on me... I had no choice but to go with him. Until... until later I found out... that Mrs. Qiao... was you! Lin Jintang! The 'Sister Tang' I've been thinking of day and night!"
Gu Manqing's voice suddenly rose, filled with a heart-wrenching lament: "Do you know? When I first saw you from afar in the garden villa... I was completely stunned! I wanted to rush over and call out to you, but... but how could I call out? What am I? I'm just a kept woman he kept outside, a shameful thing! A tool Qiao Yuan used to humiliate you! How could I... how could I bear such a filthy identity, to defile your family's reputation, to reopen the wounds left by Aunt Gu?"
Lin Tang thought about how they first met, silently turned her face away, and gently wiped away the tears on her face with her fingers.
Gu Manqing was trembling all over from crying, almost unable to breathe: "I can only pretend I don't know you, I can only play the annoying Cheng Qing in front of you... Sister Tang, every time I see the way you look at me, that coldness and disgust... my heart... feels like it's being cut by a knife again and again..."
Gu Manqing sobbed uncontrollably, burying her face deeply in Lin Tang's knees. Her thin shoulders heaved violently as the grievances, fears, and pain she had suppressed for so long burst forth at this moment, and her scalding tears quickly soaked Lin Tang's clothes.
Lin Tang sat stiffly, feeling the dampness on her knees and the desperate trembling of the person in her arms.
Every word Gu Manqing spoke was like a heavy drumstick, striking her already wounded heart fiercely. Anger, heartache, disbelief, and a profound sense of absurdity... all sorts of emotions surged and collided violently within her.
"Manqing..." Lin Tang heard herself speak with difficulty. Her fingertips trembled, and hesitantly, but finally with a kind of broken tenderness, she gently placed them on Gu Manqing's black hair, which was wet with tears and disheveled.
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