Chapter 23, Year Three
"Do you need any help?" the ride-hailing driver asked habitually when he saw the passenger carrying a suitcase.
“No need,” Mu Yan replied, “please open the trunk.”
He didn't bring much, and the suitcase wasn't heavy.
Mu Yan put down his suitcase and got into the car. His wrist was empty, and he felt like something was missing.
Actually, he doesn't wear that bracelet all the time. Typing with the bracelet on is inconvenient, so he often doesn't wear it while working, and he also takes it off when showering and sleeping.
But for some reason, I still feel a little uncomfortable.
A hotel room for one night was too expensive, and he had nowhere else to go, so he took a taxi to his mother's hospital room, where there was a small bed for a caregiver.
Let's look for a new place tomorrow.
Elderly people go to bed early. When Mu Yan arrived at the hospital, it was already past midnight, and his mother and the aunt in the next bed were already asleep.
Mu Yan carefully unfolded the small bed. Fortunately, neither her mother nor the aunt in the next bed woke up.
Mu Yan and Lin Yi are both very thoughtful people. They provided everything in their mother's hospital room, including a pillow, an air-conditioning blanket for summer, and a winter blanket.
Mu Yan found the thick blanket with practiced ease, folded it several times, and planned to use it as a quilt. However, she couldn't find a pillow; her mother had probably fallen asleep using that pillow while scrolling through her phone again that night.
Mu Yan took off his coat, folded it into a square, and lay down on it as a pillow.
Whether it's borrowing money or looking at houses, let's do it tomorrow.
When he was a child, the words his mother said to him most often were, "You'll be fine when you wake up tomorrow."
When I want to add another half bowl of rice but there's no rice left in the pot, my mother will say, "Yan Yan, be good. You can eat more when you wake up tomorrow."
When the school needed to pay for materials but the family didn't have the money, my mother would say, "It's okay, we'll have it tomorrow."
Now he knew, of course, that the extra sweet potato that appeared the next day didn't just appear during the day, and that the money his mother gave him for the materials the next day was earned by her staying up all night sewing dozens of shoe soles and getting up early to go to the market.
Mu Yan's face was a little wet, and she didn't know when she had started crying.
Even though he himself had become the one who needed to solve the problem, he still had no reason to believe that things would be better tomorrow after a good night's sleep.
Mu Yan raised his hand and looked at his empty wrist in the moonlight filtering through the curtains.
It will be alright, tomorrow will be better.
"Everything will be alright after a good night's sleep," Mu Yan comforted herself.
We'll have the money for dialysis, and there will be people more suitable for us than Lu Chong in the future.
Mu Yan buried her head in the blanket, quietly waiting for fatigue and sleepiness to come.
Unfortunately, misfortune never comes singly; the aunt in the next bed happened to start snoring at that very moment.
Mu Yan has been studying in the town since junior high school. He usually applies to live on campus, so he has a lot of experience with communal living and is quite used to snoring.
But for some reason, tonight is particularly hard to bear.
There would be a long pause between each snoring sound, and just when Mu Yan thought the snoring had subsided, the next one would start.
My mother seems to have mentioned that the aunties in the ward sometimes snore when they are tired.
Mu Yan couldn't sleep.
Even when I feel sleepy between snores, my heart always feels like it's being lifted up in mid-air, unable to settle down.
A lot of things happened.
He and Lu Chong have been together for almost three years now.
From the moment they got together, Mu Yan had considered many possible reasons for their breakup. Perhaps Lu Chong grew tired of her and fell for someone else; perhaps they tacitly went their separate ways after graduation; perhaps Lu Chong's family disliked her because of her humble background.
Mu Yan is a very self-aware person. As soon as Lu Chong shows any sign of wanting to withdraw, he will take the initiative to leave.
But he never considered the possibility that he himself might be the one who wanted to leave.
I am a little sad, and it's hard to say I don't regret it.
Mu Yan was a very boring person with no hobbies or interests. In his spare time, he either worked or spent his time around Lu Chong.
When she realized that her relationship with Lu Chong was completely over, it felt like a piece of her body was missing, leaving her feeling light and empty.
But if he could go back a few minutes, he would still break up with Lu Chong and smash that bracelet.
That was his... older brother.
Even Lu Chong shouldn't speak of his brother like that.
Mu Yan was seven years old when Mu Juanhua brought Lin Yi to her home.
At seven years old, he was just beginning to understand things but couldn't yet distinguish right from wrong. News travels fast in a small village, and the villagers even learned before Mu Yan that Lin Guojun was bringing an omega woman home.
Almost all the men and women in this village are betas. The men are jealous that the idle Lin Guojun can marry an omega, while the women inexplicably hate people who are different.
The subtle aversion couldn't even be called malice, because the villagers didn't really do anything to their family; in fact, out of curiosity, they were quite welcoming after Mu Juanhua arrived.
"Your father is going to marry a stepmother. Do you know Snow White? All stepmothers are like that."
"Your dad stopped liking you after he married your stepmother. And your mom is even less likely to come back."
However, when Mu Yan was a child, he looked down at his clothes with a hole in them and thought, "He never liked me either."
His clothes were always old, and almost every piece had tears in them. Mu Yan was naturally clean and learned to wash his own clothes before starting school, but he never knew how to mend those holes, so he could only be more careful when washing them.
Children his age laughed at him, saying that his clothes were tattered because he didn't have a mother. Mu Yan wanted to argue with them, his eyes red, but he couldn't prove that he did have a mother.
He had never met his mother.
He knew nothing about the Snow White or the stepmother his neighbor told him. He only heard the sentence, "Your mother is even less likely to come back."
When Mu Juanhua brought Lin Yi to his house, he hid in his room and refused to open the door no matter how much Mu Juanhua knocked.
Lin Guojun kicked the door while cursing, and Mu Yan trembled in fright. In his memory, although Lin Guojun was lazy and loved to gamble, he had never hit him.
“It’s normal for children to be shy, so let’s not call them out,” Mu Juanhua said.
During dinner, Mu Yan was so hungry that she eventually ran out.
Mu Juanhua's cooking was delicious. She didn't make me call her "Mom," saying that calling her "Auntie" was enough.
Mu Yan didn't call the woman "Auntie," but smelling the aroma of the food, she honestly filled a large bowl with rice.
After dinner, Lin Guojun took Lin Yi's things to Mu Yan's room, and Mu Yan then realized that she would be sleeping in the same room as her so-called brother from now on.
Lin Yi wasn't the type to be overly familiar with others. He didn't take over Mu Yan's wardrobe; instead, he placed the bag containing all his luggage in the corner, then took out a quilt, sheets, and mattress from it and spread them out on the floor.
What are you doing?
Lin Yi was startled when the person who had been silent suddenly spoke.
"I... my mom told me to sleep on the floor for the next few days, and she'll buy me a bed later. Do you hate me? I... I can sleep in the living room too."
No, no.
Mu Yan pursed her lips, feeling somewhat guilty.
"You...you can come to bed and sleep here."
Lin Yi was very sensible and immediately put the quilt away.
"You have your own blanket, I don't want to share a blanket with you."
Lin Yi nodded and said okay, he wouldn't crowd Mu Yan.
Contrary to the neighbors' gossip, this aunt and her cheap brother weren't actually that annoying.
The day after Mu Juanhua arrived, she sewed up and patched all the holes in Mu Yan's clothes.
In those days, no one in the village was wealthy, and it was perfectly normal for clothes to have patches. Mu Yan's clothes used to always have holes, and he was often ridiculed for it.
After she arrived, Mu Yan finally wore the patched clothes that the other children had rejected for the first time.
Mu Yan started calling her Auntie, but he still refused to call Lin Yi Brother.
For a child of this age, having an older brother or sister who is a few years older is usually a very prestigious thing. But Lin Yi was just a stranger who had barged into his life. They were complete strangers before he moved into his house and took over half of his room.
Lin Yi is in fifth grade and has just transferred to this school. He doesn't know the way home, so every day after school, Mu Yan waits for him at the classroom door so they can walk home together. Mu Yan doesn't want to walk with him, but she's also afraid that he might really get lost.
He wasn't popular in class, but he occasionally saw Lin Yi in the cafeteria and found that he was quite popular among his classmates. He didn't want his older brother to see him in such a disheveled state.
Children are the most likely to bully the weak and fear the strong. Mu Yan has no mother, and Lin Guojun doesn't care about him, so he is often the target of bullying.
He wasn't afraid of violence; everyone has two arms and two legs, and he could always fight back. But it was the verbal mockery and physical isolation that were the hardest to bear.
On the duty roster arranged by the class leaders, he not only had to wipe the blackboard but also mop the floor, which were the dirtiest and most tiring jobs.
On several occasions, Mu Yan was the last to leave the classroom, and it was only then that Lin Yi discovered that Mu Yan was being bullied by his classmates behind his back.
After he found out, he didn't tell Mu Juanhua. Instead, during break time, he brazenly called out the class monitor of Mu Yan's class under the pretext that the teacher was looking for him, blocked him at the stairwell, and gave him a good scolding.
Children are always instinctively afraid of those older than them, so the class quickly changed the duty roster. That afternoon after school, Lin Yi was waiting for him at the classroom door as usual. When he saw that his duty had been to wipe the teacher's desk, he finally smiled with satisfaction.
There were still a few people scattered around in the classroom. Mu Yan saw Lin Yi standing at the back door and called out "Brother!" in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear.
Lin Yi was slightly taken aback, then replied naturally, "Are you done with your duties? Let's go home."
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