Chapter Eleven: The Last Night on Earth
Lin Yu finished telling the story in a few words, skipping over the potentially emotional parts, and then looked at Jiang Chuan with a playful expression. "I had almost forgotten about this, but you reminded me of it."
Jiang Chuan remained silent for a long while, then he covered Lin Yu's stiff palm with his other hand. Lin Yu believed that most of the time her self-awareness was dulled; only genuine warmth could make her perceive the cold.
"Perhaps she didn't know that just by hugging you back then, she could have been a better mother."
"Actually, I can now completely understand what she did back then."
As Lin Yu entered society, she no longer simply judged whether her mother's choice back then was right or wrong, but saw the heavy real-world pressure behind that choice and Lin Min's current sense of powerlessness.
“I remember when I was in elementary school, it was my turn to collect class fees once, and I accidentally lost two yuan. No matter how I counted it, it didn’t make sense. I was terrified at the time, I felt like the sky was falling, and I sat on the back of her bicycle, crying and trembling.”
Her cheeks were flushed with a tipsy blush, and her urge to confide poured out like a river bursting its banks. "But she just smiled and gave me two yuan, saying there was nothing to be afraid of, that she would be there for me even if the sky fell."
Lin Yu paused, then smiled and looked at Jiang Chuan with his chin in his hand. "Actually, when people are surrounded by enough security, it's hard for them to show their true, monstrous side."
She unconsciously stirred the straw in her cup. "I don't know if you've read 'The Night Watch,' it's one of my favorite science fiction novels. There's a line in it that goes something like this: 'We are neither light nor darkness, we are just twilight.'"
They were just ordinary people struggling in the twilight of life, shaped by their environment, making difficult and even imperfect choices at crucial moments. She understood that her mother's inaction at the time was not indifference or cowardice, but a passive, even self-sacrificing form of protection under immense survival pressure.
This understanding subtly dispelled her resentment; it was not an endorsement of the event, but rather an acceptance of her mother's helpless choice as a person in a specific situation.
"Perhaps human nature is just that complex. We all show completely different facets at different times. And the trajectory of life is often completely rewritten by these key moments."
The light and shadow from the stall cast dappled patterns on her face, and Lin Yu pursed her lips. "Like my mother, perhaps for her right now, stabilizing her life as soon as possible is more urgent and realistic than pursuing a specific instance of harm."
“The closer the relationship, the more complicated it becomes, especially between mothers and daughters.” She rested her chin on her hand, her eyes somewhat unfocused.
“I remember when I was little, my mother was home alone once, and two fake nuns came to beg for alms. My mother gave them some food, but they said through the security door that my father and I would have a bloody disaster and that it would take a thousand dollars to avert it.”
Lin Yu said with a self-deprecating laugh, "A thousand yuan was quite a lot back in the 90s, wasn't it? My mother, a teacher's college graduate and a highly educated intellectual, taught for half her life, yet she was easily fooled by such a low-level trick. As soon as she heard it involved me and my dad, she turned around and handed the money to those two swindlers."
"Looking back now, although she was always so rigid and not very romantic, she was also incredibly cute." As she said this, Lin Yu smiled unconsciously, revealing a shallow dimple on her lips.
"Later, my parents divorced, and she raised me alone, struggling in her work and life, and her personality became increasingly sharp."
"But now that I think about it, even if I went back to that time and started over with all my experience, I would probably still be like her, forced into a corner by life."
Lin Yu realized that she and her mother were inextricably linked in the torrent of fate. Lin Min's struggles and choices profoundly influenced her life, and her understanding and acceptance became a kind of solace for Lin Min's wounds. They experienced life's dramatic changes together, and through mutual hurt and understanding, they forged a deeper, more complex, and more genuine bond.
At this moment, Jiang Chuan suddenly overturned his previous misconceptions about Lin Yu and began to wonder how she could maintain such abundant love, kindness, and the ability to cope with pain in such a complex upbringing. She seemed so vibrant and multifaceted, so enviable.
This seemingly simple emotion was precisely what he lacked. Or to put it another way, in Jiang Chuan's world, any expression of emotion was difficult, excluded, and required him to fake it through constant, mechanical training. He firmly believed that a person with free will could not be bound by blood ties or complex emotions.
Lin Yu looked down at the empty wine bottle on the ground. Jiang Chuan noticed her long eyelashes fluttering gently like butterfly wings. "Attorney Jiang, how did you communicate with your mother before?"
Jiang Chuan recalled the past as the rusty iron gate was pushed open a crack. "My mother was a very gentle person, but I rarely communicated with her. They were always busier than I could imagine, and it was rare for them to sit down and have a proper meal as a family."
They recalled the day they went to the hospital to claim the body. He was unexpectedly calm, numbly holding his mother's hand that had fallen from the bedside, and tucking it back into the white cloth covering her body. His mother's hand was bone-chillingly cold. Jiang Chuan raised his own hand and looked at it calmly, as if the coldness was penetrating time and space, eerily clinging to his skin.
"People who don't know how to express love will live a very tiring life." Jiang Chuan's tongue was numb, and the words he uttered sounded more like he was talking to himself.
"Everyone can live a happy life, it just depends on what you're willing to give up!" Lin Yu said, pointing to his forehead.
"So I'm a very self-protective person. I'll escape at the last second before I sense danger, minimizing the possibility of being hurt, except for this sudden blow, of course."
Jiang Chuan squinted at the wound on her forehead. "It seems you've been exposing your wound too much to me tonight." He remained silent about the metaphorical meaning of the wound.
“The case is closed. You no longer appear as a lawyer. To me, you are just a handsome stranger who happens to know a little about my fragmented past. This has no impact on my life.” Lin Yu was under the influence of alcohol and began to speak more and more frankly. She did not notice that Jiang Chuan had not let go of her hands from beginning to end.
"Is that so?" Jiang Chuan's gaze was fixed on Lin Yu's slightly flushed face, his eyes were long and narrow, and the corners of his lips were slightly upturned.
“But I can’t accept being a stranger who has no impact on me, Lin Yu.”
After leaving the night market, Lin Yu glanced at the time and suggested going to a nearby cinema to see a late-night movie. She spent a while scrolling through her phone's apps and found a film with a particularly fitting title: "Long Day's Journey into Night."
Lin Yu was deeply impressed by the director's previous work, *Kaili Blues*, and thus, out of affection for the film, firmly believed that this new movie would also be a must-see masterpiece. The film's title, imbued with a romantic, apocalyptic feel, is practically the perfect choice for New Year's Eve.
However, within half an hour of the film's opening, Lin Yu was completely lulled to sleep by the fragmented narrative and the low, dreamlike dialogue, effectively shortening the film's runtime of over two hours by two-thirds.
When he woke up, the screen showed a close-up long shot of the white cat, played by Li Hongqi, eating an apple. The mechanical chewing and empty eyes lasted for three minutes, leaving Lin Yu, who had slept for almost the entire movie, completely bewildered and feeling a strange sense of absurdity.
The county town already lacks a sense of ritual for New Year's Eve, let alone accepting such an obscure and difficult-to-understand art film. From the beginning of the film's screening, there were constant whispers of complaints and undisguised yawns in the theater, and people gradually left early.
When Lin Yu woke up, he found himself leaning his head against Jiang Chuan's shoulder, his head pressed tightly against Jiang Chuan's shoulder.
She had deliberately chosen a middle seat in the last row of the theater, hoping to enjoy the movie undisturbed. Now, however, it seemed to suggest ulterior motives, making the atmosphere even more ambiguous. Lin Yu moved her slightly numb shoulders, a hint of barely perceptible panic in her voice, and moved her head away from his shoulder.
Jiang Chuan remained in the same position as when he first started watching the movie, leaning back in his seat and staring intently at the screen. His profile, in the flickering light and shadow, resembled a frame of a movie that had been removed from the screen.
The bridge of the nose cuts the darkness in two, one half sinking into the jawline, the other half floating in the flowing ripples of the film, the slightly upturned eyelashes casting shadows under the eyes, vibrating gently with the sound of an apple being eaten.
Lin Yu bowed apologetically. "I'm sorry, I must have been under the influence of alcohol and accidentally fell asleep. I hope I didn't hurt you?"
Hearing this, Jiang Chuan looked away from the screen. Lin Yu was then able to see the other half of his face, bright and beautiful under the screen's illumination. "Is the moon green in dreams?" he teased, quoting a line from a movie.
A hint of confusion flickered in Lin Yu's eyes. "Perhaps you're just lacking sleep, Lin Yu," Jiang Chuan reassured her softly. The two spoke in hushed tones in the quiet atmosphere of the movie theater, standing very close together.
Jiang Chuan made no comment on Lin Yu's lapse in composure, and this perfectly timed silence instilled a strange sense of goodwill in Lin Yu. He then extended a vague invitation, attempting to make amends for his earlier offense.
“Actually, I still admire his work quite a bit. It has a kind of rough yet delicate poetic violence.” She carefully chose her words. “Next time… I can choose a time when I’ve had enough sleep to watch it again carefully.”
Jiang Chuan smiled upon hearing this and glanced at his watch. "It's 12:20. Want to go back?"
Lin Yu nodded, and the two got up and left the cinema.
The car was still parked in the parking lot near the night market; the return trip wasn't far. The two strolled along the quiet midnight streets. Lin Yu stared at their blurry shadows on the ground and suddenly sighed. "Did we just drift into 2019 in our sleep?"
A gentle breeze blew by, and a withered leaf fell from a tree by the roadside into Lin Yu's hair. Jiang Chuan stopped, reached out to pick the leaf for her, and silently crushed it in his hand. He opened his palm and watched the powder be carried away by a gust of wind, dissipating into the night.
"For me," he said calmly, gazing in the direction where the powder had vanished, "this was probably the most meaningful New Year's Eve ever."
Lin Yu was slightly taken aback, taking it as a polite compliment from the other party, and returned the smile without delving into whether there was any deeper meaning behind the words.
Jiang Chuan escorted Lin Yu to the hotel downstairs, reminding her to keep her wound dry, and then waved goodbye to her from outside the door. Just as the glass door slowly opened and was about to close again, she turned around and saw Jiang Chuan still standing there, waving goodbye to her in the dim yellow light outside the door.
Goodbye, Lin Yu.
His voice came through the crack in the door as it was about to close, gentle and clear.
See you in Shanghai.
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