Chapter 222 Epilogue - New World Arc (19)
The old woman, who was Yu Qingzhou's maternal grandmother, sometimes mistook him for Yu Rou.
That little daughter who was lost almost ten years ago.
Although in fact, Yu Qingzhou doesn't look like a little girl at all. If you had to say, it's probably the melancholy in her eyes that makes her look just like the girl she was before she disappeared.
In the words of the old woman's eldest daughter, she always looked sullen and unhappy.
[It's like he owes her something; she's such a little debt collector.]
Whether this statement refers to him or her is debatable.
Because when the woman said this, she wasn't really looking at Yu Qingzhou's face, even though just a moment ago she was clucking like a startled hen after suddenly catching sight of a silent child in the corner, clutching the gold necklace on her chest and glaring angrily.
But when the woman utters these words, her gaze often shifts elsewhere, her eyes distant, as if she is looking at someone who has long since died through the swirling smoke and candlelight in the room.
Yu Qingzhou simply observed quietly. He ate very little and rarely made any requests, except for that one time when he was asked what the child's name was when registering the household registration.
Apart from Yu Qingzhou, the rest of the Yu family members all looked caught off guard.
Yes, up to this moment, they had not asked the child if he had a name, or if so, what it was.
Although the police officers at the police station did mention it sporadically during the negotiations, who would care?
At least the Yu family wouldn't care.
They didn't even bother to find out where the village the child was talking about was, or where the deceased Yu Rou was buried. They simply and crudely accepted the fact that the girl had long since died.
Of course, they maintained a certain level of rigor regarding Yu Qingzhou's identity. If they had indeed considered doing a paternity test, it was initially the old woman's eldest daughter who suggested it.
The middle-aged woman may have harbored a sliver of hope, perhaps even a one in ten thousand chance that the child was not actually related to the Yu family by blood, in which case she would have a legitimate reason to refuse them entry.
Despite the fact that both appearance and specific descriptions point to the same unpleasant truth.
The matter was ultimately dropped.
The reason is simple: paternity testing requires out-of-pocket payment.
[Forget it, Mom has already decided it's my younger sister's... Whether it's my younger sister's child or not, we'll bring it home anyway. Keeping it around will at least help us buy more groceries.]
And so, everything came to a close.
At the household registration office, the little child stepped forward and, amidst the puzzled or impatient gazes of the others present, clearly stated to the staff: "My name is Yu Qingzhou."
Seemingly unprepared for this turn of events, the young woman behind the window paused for a moment: "Excuse me, young man, what's your name?"
[This is like a light boat, the kind that has already passed ten thousand mountains.]
I see.
The young woman smiled and nodded, then repeated as if confirming something: "So, is this how you register?"
It seems like the question is directed at the children, but it's actually directed at the adults present.
Seeing that no one objected, he quickly entered the corresponding name as the child had said.
As he returned the printed documents, he glanced at the middle-aged woman who had come to process the paperwork, a hint of ambiguous irony in his smile: "Sigh, we're all family now, the adults should at least be a little more considerate."
The middle-aged woman clearly wanted to argue something, but before she could speak, with a beep of the electronic call number, the next person to handle the matter stood next to her.
A burly, unshaven man with an imposing, stern face swept his gaze across the woman, silencing her nagging complaint.
Why choose such a name?
The middle-aged women kept muttering to themselves along the way.
Yu Qingzhou followed behind the other person without saying a word, letting the former nitpick over her name.
It doesn't matter, he told himself. No matter what the woman said, he had already achieved his goal.
—Because what matters is never the process, but the result.
The child silently added a sentence in his mind.
But he still found it a bit noisy. As he thought this, he couldn't help but look up at the sky, where a few wisps of white clouds floated in the azure sky.
Bright and serene, so beautiful it seemed like a scene from another world.
A gentle breeze suddenly rises, ruffling the child's slightly long hair; before we knew it, autumn had arrived.
He thought to himself, "Time really flies."
Then, her arm was suddenly pinched, which hurt a little but was still within her tolerance. Yu Qingzhou turned her head without saying a word and looked at the woman beside her.
It was as if they hadn't expected the child to react this way.
Too bland, so bland that it's almost not what a child of this age should have, especially those eyes, those eyes are so clear... so much like my little sister.
If we could turn back time, the images of my younger sister in my memory would have long since become blurry.
But the woman vaguely remembered that evening when she went to deliver food to her younger sister, who was locked in a small room.
By then, the woman was already married.
In her view, marriage is a major life event, and it's only natural that it should be arranged by one's parents. She herself had gone through this stage.
What she can't get over is nothing more than a little girl's fussiness.
As the saying goes, you should do what you're supposed to do at your age. Since you're not going to study anymore, wouldn't it be better to get married and have children early?
Listen to your older sister; it was all bound to happen sooner or later. Would your parents really harm you? Would I really harm you?
[...]
[I'm not a three-year-old anymore. It's time to accept my fate. With our family's circumstances, we're about a match for Lao Zhang.]
[...]
You should really settle down and stop dreaming of turning a sparrow into a phoenix. You may have that ambition, but do you really have the luck to achieve it?
The woman remembered how she had tried to persuade her sister with all her heart, but the younger sister hadn't appreciated it and had been sulking without saying a word—no, perhaps the other sister had also pleaded with her.
She begged herself to help her, begged herself to persuade her parents... but how could she possibly convince them?
My parents are such a stubborn couple, and this is definitely not my younger sister's fault. She used to be so obedient, so why did she suddenly become so unreasonable in this matter?
Strange, very strange. Just like back then—
The woman suddenly thought of herself when she was young. By "young," she meant she was probably four or five years older than the younger sister in the house.
In short, they are young.
It's only natural that someone in the bloom of youth would fall for a young man as verdant and upright as a green leaf.
However, they are not a good match... It seems like everyone is saying that. After hearing it so many times, even she herself began to doubt that they were not a good match.
And my parents back then were just as stubborn and inflexible.
So the woman finally gave in—no, she finally understood her parents' good intentions.
If I hadn't listened to my parents and gone to the South with that young man, I don't know where I'd be drifting now.
Since that's the case, and since I've come this far, why can't my younger sister follow the same path? Why should she be the exception?
Hey, that's how women are, they all go through this, it's all good.
Leaning against the door frame, the woman said this last thing to her younger sister.
It was eerily quiet inside, as if the place were dead.
That's fine, the woman thought.
When a person's heart is dead, they will no longer have any improper thoughts, and they can live a good life. Seeing that her eldest child is of school age, once her younger sister marries into the family, there will be an extra room to serve as the eldest child's bedroom. Wouldn't that be perfect...?
She made her plans to herself, and then glanced at the room one last time.
I didn't expect to see anything, but I was suddenly met with a pair of dark eyes.
The woman still couldn't understand how a little girl could have such a terrifying look, especially since it appeared on her usually well-behaved younger sister... In the cramped room where there was no sunlight, those eyes looked absolutely eerie.
The woman suddenly shivered, muttering innocuous words as she casually closed the door, but her hurried footsteps betrayed a certain panic in her heart.
It's hard to describe, but it feels like there are invisible ghosts following behind, their hairs sticking out of my back.
It was gloomy and chilly...
That night, the woman tossed and turned, unable to sleep, while her husband slept soundly beside her, snoring loudly and undisturbed. This only made her more unhappy.
I thought I would have insomnia until the early hours of the morning, but I ended up falling asleep anyway, and even sleeping more soundly than usual.
When I woke up again, everything had already settled down.
—My little sister ran away.
He climbed out of the third-floor window, stepped onto the edge of his neighbor's balcony below, and escaped.
Just a hair's breadth away from the wedding...
The woman finally got her younger sister's room, although it was a little cramped than she had expected after Da Bao's things were put in, but it would be alright.
Running away from an arranged marriage is an absolute scandal. So the family has always claimed that the younger sister disappeared by accident. As a result, they not only returned the bride price to the Zhang family, but also paid them some money as hush money, which at least resulted in a relatively decent ending.
It was from that time onward that the woman always felt uneasy, her heart was in turmoil, and she was always worried about how her younger sister was doing.
She thought that perhaps blood is thicker than water. Although she had some resentment, how could she not worry about her younger sister whom she had watched grow up?
Whenever she passed by the storage room where the younger sister was kept, and saw the repaired hole in the window, her thoughts would drift to some unknown distance...
There, her runaway sister was.
More often than not, in her imagination, her younger sister lived a life of wandering and hardship, with no one to rely on. Therefore, she often cried secretly in the middle of the night, missing home, regretting her past willfulness, and feeling ashamed to face her parents back home.
Occasionally, my younger sister would have different experiences. For example, she would meet a decent man and live a fairly good life with him. But then she would think, how could a man whose background she didn't know be more reliable than the son-in-law her parents had chosen? In the end, she would probably be abandoned...
The worst time was when the woman saw the man next to her younger sister, who was none other than the lover she had missed in her youth!
She hadn't seen that man for so long that his appearance remained that of a young man, at the most handsome and dashing age.
According to hearsay, the man apparently made a fortune doing business in the south.
The woman was unsure whether the rumors were true or not, but based on them, she fabricated a fashionable hairstyle and clothing for the other party at the time, as well as heavy pure gold jewelry, necklaces, rings...
In the imagined scene, the still-young younger sister leans on the shoulder of her successful lover, giving her utterly defiant smiles at her aging and faded older sister, saying, "Sister, look, wouldn't you say I've become a phoenix rising from the ashes?"
The woman suddenly woke up from a nightmare, drenched in cold sweat, with her husband still snoring like a dead pig beside her.
Fortunately, dreams are all fake. No, to be precise, it's the opposite.
The woman thought silently in the darkness for a while, and felt better. With a hint of resentment, she pulled the back of the object lying in front of her and touched her chest in a comforting manner. Suddenly, she felt empty, as if something was missing.
Oh, right, it's her gold necklace.
The woman had never owned a gold necklace before, but she thought, why can't I have one?
The next day, after lingering at the gold counter for a long time, she finally chose one she liked.
The golden hair hanging on my chest seemed to give me more confidence when I spoke.
A gossipy neighbor saw this and went up to talk to her. When asked, she said it was a gift from her husband.
Oh, that's really a blessing.
The neighbor lady clicked her tongue in admiration and reached out to take a closer look, but the woman nimbly dodged her.
Seeing the suspicious look on her neighbor's face, the woman laughed it off: "My husband said to keep it safe. Sorry, Sister Li."
Oh, I see.
The neighbor lady was clearly a little disappointed. The two chatted casually for a bit longer, then went to their respective doorsteps, said their goodbyes, and left.
The woman closed the door, leaned against it, and let out a deep breath.
She didn't feel guilty at all. How could something bought with her husband's salary not be considered a gift from him?
He carefully picked up the gold necklace and examined it closely in the afterglow of the setting sun, growing happier with each look.
It's just a little lighter, since it's hollow.
—Hey, it's better to wear something lighter around your neck, otherwise you might end up with cervical spondylosis, which would be a huge loss.
Thinking about it this way, the woman couldn't help but feel smug.
Until she heard her son's sullen question: "Mom, what are you standing there grinning about? Why isn't dinner ready yet?"
[Here it comes! Look what delicious treats Mom bought for Da Bao!]
As the woman spoke, she happily tied on her apron.
As the fumes rose along with the food in the pan, she felt an immense sense of satisfaction, believing that this was perhaps the beauty of life.
After that, she rarely thought about her younger sister.
The realities of life are simply too complicated: school district housing, tutoring classes, daily necessities... all of these things combined to form her ordinary yet fulfilling life.
The woman was enjoying a rare moment of leisure while traveling with her large family on the day she received the call.
She thought happily, "Although it's a bit expensive, there are advantages to being expensive."
Just then, the phone rang.
The woman answered the phone casually, and upon hearing that long-unheard name, she thought she was hallucinating.
Did you have auditory hallucinations because you were thinking about all the details of the trip the night before and didn't sleep well?
—That doesn’t seem to be entirely unreasonable.
So the woman hung up the phone decisively, but her strange expression still caught the attention of those around her.
What's wrong?
No... it was just a scam call.
That must be it. Isn't that kind of scam where people impersonate police officers quite popular lately?
Was it called telecom fraud or something? Anyway... it can't be true, after all, so many years have passed.
The woman was almost convinced of her decision, despite a lingering unease in her heart.
Just like that sleepless night many years ago, the bright sunshine outside the window, while shining on the earth, seemed to also reflect some dark corners that should not be touched.
It turns out that humans do indeed have a sixth sense, especially women like myself.
The moment the woman saw that face, she knew it was her younger sister's face when she was young, only presented as a boy.
For a fleeting moment, a vague thought flashed through her mind.
If, back then, the younger sister hadn't been a younger sister, but had indeed been a genuine boy, the long-awaited heir to the Yu family line, perhaps everything would have been completely different…
As the eldest daughter, I won't be left at home as a bargaining chip for marriage...
My little sister—no, my little brother—will grow up in the love and care of the whole family into a filial and promising young man. It's highly unlikely he'll drop out of school early. Maybe…maybe…
Amidst a myriad of thoughts, the woman's mind finally settled into two simple yet powerful words: "Thank goodness."
Fortunately, there are no "what ifs." Fortunately, as the first of two daughters, she was destined to have a place in this family.
In Buddhism, there is a term called sudden enlightenment.
The woman didn't understand Buddhism, but she vaguely understood that the term referred to a person suddenly realizing, in an instant, the fog that had long lingered in their mind due to some opportunity.
Just like the woman at that moment, who suddenly realized some truth.
It seemed she didn't actually cherish her sister that much. But then the woman felt relieved... After all, as the old saying goes, "Every man for himself," right?
If their positions were reversed, she believed her younger sister might not have done better than her...
Therefore, many things that followed seemed to fall into place naturally.
Like the barely perceptible ripples in a woman's heart upon hearing the news of her own sister's death, or even more so, the smug satisfaction of knowing what happened to her sister back then.
—Look, look, they say it's hard to persuade a damned ghost with kind words. This is what happens when you don't listen to her. This is what you deserve.
The woman thought contentedly, having almost forgotten the heart palpitation she felt when she first heard the news.
As for that child, that bastard…
She naturally disliked it, because it looked so much like her younger sister when she was young—an uncanny resemblance that always gave her a haunting feeling. But—
In some ways, it may well be proof of suffering.
In addition, my mother has been nagging endlessly since she got older, which is annoying and neurotic... I guess I'll just consider it money spent to buy peace of mind.
The woman thought that since she had already moved out of that old house, she would only go back once a week to make sure that the old couple were still alive and well, so out of sight, out of mind.
This is how it was originally—
But why do they even look so alike in the eyes?
Especially when the other person peeked out from the shadows of the room and stared at her silently, the woman would often mistakenly think... that it was the little girl she had seen years ago in the evening who had been reincarnated.
After all, that room...
That dark room, now shrouded in incense and smoke...
That place where the Bodhisattva and the children were enshrined... was the temporary prison where young girls awaiting marriage were held many years ago.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
