Mother
"Sis, have you gained weight?" Yun Chen looked Yun Jin up and down.
Yun Jin retorted, "It's because you've become lighter, not me. Besides, there are other factors like impact, friction, and many more."
"Alright, alright." Yun Chen smiled helplessly.
"Yun Chen, you've gotten so much darker. Didn't you wear sunscreen?" Yun Jin leaned closer, scrutinizing Yun Chen's face. "How did you get this wound so close to your eye?"
Yun Chen held Yun Jin's hand and said with a smile, "In the mountains, you'll get tanned whether you use sunscreen or not. As for this wound, it was scratched by a tree branch, so it's nothing serious."
"Okay." Yun Jin withdrew her hand.
Yun Chen caught a glimpse of Shen Yi'an, who was still standing in the same spot, radiating a mournful atmosphere in the car.
She gently poked Yun Jin's waist with her hand: "Sis, behind you."
Yun Chen spoke softly, raising an eyebrow at a somewhat mournful person.
Yun Jin then realized that she had forgotten about Shen Yi'an because she was too excited. She quickly ran to the car, apologized to Shen Yi'an, and put her hands together, saying, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to."
Seeing her guilty look, Shen Yi'an couldn't help but smirk slightly, but he still crossed his arms and said in a mournful tone, "It's okay, I know you just forgot about me when you saw your sister. After all, I'm just a driver..."
He emphasized the word "that's all," which made Yun Jin's conscience even more uneasy.
"Oh dear, no..." Yun Jin quickly pulled Yun Chen over, trying to ease the atmosphere with a formal introduction, "By the way, Shen Yi'an, this is my sister Yun Chen."
However, as soon as she finished speaking, she heard Yun Chen and Shen Yi'an say almost in unison, "We've met before, have you forgotten?"
After saying that, the two of them paused for a moment, then shook their heads with the same helpless expression.
Yun Jin frowned, Yun Jin thought, Yun Jin suddenly realized.
Seeing Yun Jin's expression, Shen Yi'an couldn't help but chuckle. After drawing Yun Jin's attention, he coughed lightly, pretending nothing had happened.
He waved to the two sisters and said, "Alright, I won't bother you anymore... Yun Jin, remember to message me."
The Yun Jin sisters watched Shen Yi'an's car drive away.
Stepping into the cramped rented room, Yun Jin felt a long-lost sense of familiarity. The floor was spotless, with no dust on it.
However, the floral bed sheet on the bed looked very dated and was quite... jarring.
Yun Jin secretly rubbed her forehead and told him to wash the sheets, but he just changed them instead. And his taste was really outdated.
With a click, Yun Chen, who had entered from behind, closed the door. She looked at Yun Jin with a serious expression: "By the way, sis, you said Qin Yi was threatening you?"
“Yes…” Yun Jin sighed, paced around the room a couple of times, and said uneasily, “Qin Yi seems very confident about getting me to appear on the show, so I was wondering if you could cancel your appearance on the show.”
“Well… I’ll talk to Liu Li about this tomorrow,” Yun Chen said, pausing for a moment when he saw the bed sheet. “But it would be very troublesome to unilaterally breach the terms of the contract.”
Then Yun Chen sat down, patted the seat next to him, and gestured for Yun Chen to sit down.
"Sis, what happens next? What will you do if Qin Yi doesn't let this go?"
Yun Jin lay down beside her, staring at the ceiling. After a long while, she said, "I don't know. I think living in a different city or in seclusion would be nice. I think living in a place close to nature would be good too."
"Really?" Yun Chen tilted his head, looked at Yun Jin, and asked softly, "Is Shen Yi'an willing?"
“Well… I haven’t told him yet,” Yun Jin sighed. “Now I can only take it one step at a time.”
Seeing her like this, Yun Chen couldn't bear it. She gently patted Yun Jin's hand and said, "It's okay. Whatever you choose, I will support you."
Yun Jin grasped Yun Chen's hand and nodded.
The moon quietly climbed onto the windowsill, watched the two sisters talking inside, and then fell asleep.
——
"Sis, are you alright?"
As the morning sunlight streamed in, Yun Jin sat up with her hair all messy, her heavy dark circles and empty eyes clearly indicating that she had had a nightmare all night and her sleep was very poor.
Yun Chen ate her noodles in small bites while looking at her sister with concern. Since waking up in the morning, Yun Jin had hardly spoken and had been staring blankly into space.
Watching the noodles slowly expand as they absorbed the soup, Yun Chen cautiously reminded her, "Sis, if you don't eat soon, the noodles will absorb all the soup, and it won't taste good anymore. Or would you like something else?"
Yun Jin seemed to have come to her senses. She picked up her chopsticks and took a few bites: "Ah, no, I just need to calm down."
"Don't worry, sis, I'll talk to Liu Li this afternoon. Trust me, everything will be fine."
After saying that, Yun Chen picked up the bowl of noodles that had already been soaked dry, got up and walked towards the kitchen: "I'll give your family some hot soup, it'll taste even better that way."
When Yun Chen returned, she saw that Yun Jin still looked worried. She sighed and her gaze inadvertently fell on the package that Yun Jin had brought back earlier.
"By the way, sis, why don't you ask me why I bought these things?" Yun Chen asked, tilting his head.
"Oh? I forgot to ask," Yun Jin's two droopy cat ears suddenly perked up, "Is it a birthday present for me?"
Yun Chen smiled and dropped a bombshell in calm words.
"No, actually... I found my mother and bought it for her."
"What? That—" Yun Jin was so shocked that she almost dropped her chopsticks. Her eyes widened as she stared at Yun Chen in disbelief. "And then?"
Yun Chen placed his hand on his sister's shoulder, signaling Yun Jin to relax.
"On the night I went into the mountains with Qi Yu for research, I saw a figure near the camp that looked a lot like my mother. Although we hadn't seen each other for a long time, my intuition told me that it was her! So I immediately followed her."
“But,” Yun Chen pouted, “my mother would run away as soon as she saw me. Every time I was about to catch up, she would suddenly disappear. She would come and go, keeping me up for most of the night.”
"In the end, I had no choice but to tell Qi Yu that she was a cat I had raised for a long time and that she meant a lot to me. Qi Yu was very clever; he set a trap and finally caught my mother."
“Under these circumstances, my mother was still quite friendly to me, and I even told her that we would come back to see you together,” Yun Chen paused for a moment, “Of course, I fell for it. As soon as I let go, she disappeared without a trace.”
Seeing Yun Chen's disheveled expression, Yun Jin couldn't help but burst out laughing.
Yun Jin slapped Yun Jin's back in an annoyed manner.
"I even bought her such expensive things, and she still hurt my feelings like this," Yun Chen said angrily.
"So, Mother didn't actually want to come back, but only agreed because she couldn't get away?" Yun Jin suppressed her smile.
"Yes, so many years have passed, and Mother is still the same as she was back then, unchanged," Yun Chen sighed.
Hearing this little anecdote, Yun Jin smiled, feeling a little relieved.
"Oh, right, there's one more thing, but I don't know if I should say it." Yun Chen dragged out the last sentence, as if he was playing hard to get.
"Of course I'll tell you, I'm your older sister." Yun Jin also drew out her words.
"Then hurry up and eat your breakfast." Yun Chen flicked Yun Jin's head with his hand.
Yun Jin had no choice but to lower her head and slurp her noodles, because at this moment, her curiosity to hear the story outweighed everything else.
“I asked my mother why she didn’t like me, and she said it was because I wasn’t her biological child.”
Yun Chen's casual remark almost choked Yun Jin to death.
"Cough cough cough—" Yun Jin couldn't say a word, her face turned red.
Yun Chen quickly handed her a glass of water and patted her back.
It took Yun Jin a while to recover. She said softly, "Could you please not use this tone to say this kind of thing? Cough cough."
“I haven’t finished yet,” Yun Chen continued. “My mother said that after she gave birth to you, she went out hunting to replenish her energy, and when she came back, she found a white kitten in the den.”
"Uh, not biologically related, does that mean in a physical sense?" Yun Jin was on the verge of tears.
“Yes, although it was very dangerous to take care of two kittens, my mother still left me behind,” Yun Chen smiled helplessly. “Although she said she regretted it a little because I was sickly when I was a child.”
“So, your mother still loves you,” Yun Jin said earnestly to Yun Chen.
Yun Chen nodded.
After a moment of silence, the two sisters both laughed.
——
The sunlight outside the window silently shifted and left the room, leaving only tranquility inside.
Yun Jin leaned against the headboard, letting her thoughts drift away, recalling the memories of her childhood with her mother and sister. The fragmented moments were blurry but warm.
Their mother had tried to teach the two sisters how to hunt, but Yun Jin and the other two had absolutely no idea how.
Looking back now, perhaps that's why my mother considered letting them live as human beings.
The faint sounds of elementary school students leaving school, their playful laughter, the calls of street vendors, and the honking of vehicles could be heard outside the window, just like before.
In that instant, Yun Jin suddenly felt as if time had not passed. At some point in the past, on a certain afternoon, she heard the same sound, and nothing seemed to have changed.
Yun Chen has already gone out to find Liu Li. She is busy working for him and will probably be back in a while.
Yun Jin was left alone in the room, and she thought that this period of time would be very difficult for her.
But in reality, that's not the case.
Yun Jin is very calm now, even with a hint of determination.
As Yun Jin lay in bed staring at the ceiling, she thought that no matter what happened, she would face it bravely because she was not alone.
Fortunately, I have my mother.
Fortunately, there was Yun Chen.
Fortunately there is...
The phone buzzing beside her brought Yun Jin back from her distant thoughts. She looked down and saw it was Shen Yi'an calling.
Yun Jin let out a breath and answered the call.
"Yun Jin"
Shen Yi'an's voice was the same as before.
"It's me, what's up?"
"I only found out about this suddenly. I might not be able to participate in 'Amazing Furry Kids' with you."
Yunjin:
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