WC ⋆ Chapter 14

Qi Lin hadn't yet registered what was happening before Jiang Yishen grabbed him by the arm and spun around to run, but a voice boomed out from behind them, full and resonant: "Son!"

The two of them froze on the spot. Fortunately, the green light saved them. Jiang Yishen turned his head slightly to the side and saw the little Lincoln moving forward with the flow of traffic, his mom focused on steering the wheel.

Then, right before his eyes, the car drifted into a left turn and stopped in the lane in front of them. His mom turned her head back to look at them and called out a greeting: "Your mother's going to park the car, wait a moment!"

Qi Lin had wanted to play the part of a passerby just walking through, but Jiang Yishen had him in a death grip and he couldn't get away, so he could only squeeze out a few words through clenched teeth: "What do we do?"

"Maybe she didn't see where we came from." Jiang Yishen held onto a beautiful, wishful hope.

Qi Lin stared at him in shock. "Your mom knows me?"

"Ah." Jiang Yishen stood rigidly in place, thrown off by the question. "Oh."

"What does 'oh' mean?" Qi Lin grew anxious and started shaking his arm. "How much does she know?"

Jiang Yishen scratched his ear. "She knows we broke up."

"Then—"

A rapid clatter of high heels came from behind them. The two turned to look, and a woman wrapped in thick cashmere stepped out of the little Lincoln. She pulled open the rear car door and hauled out a large woven bag from inside.

It seemed the woven bag clashed too severely with her personal style, so she rummaged around and found a clear plastic bag, then stuffed the woven bag inside it.

"Come over here!" she called out in the middle of all this. "Just going to stand there and watch?"

Jiang Yishen and Qi Lin immediately walked over in quick steps, their legs moving faster than their brains, crowding in to help Mother Jiang carry things. Four hands waved busily through the air, while in reality it was still Mother Jiang doing all the work on her own.

"For you, take it." Xu Huaying set the heavy plastic bag on the ground and nudged it with the tip of her shoe.

"Mom, why did you come back?" Jiang Yishen finally found a gap to ask.

Xu Huaying brushed the dust off her hands. "It's almost New Year's, came back to take a look. I was actually looking for you. You're almost at finals, right?"

"Finals are in the next couple of days."

"Show some restraint during the exams, talk about the rest after. It's not a difference of a day or two." Xu Huaying said this in a completely natural tone, as if she were talking about what to eat for dinner today. Then she pulled open the car door. "Let's catch up a bit. I was thinking of coming down to find a place to sit, but I just looked and there's nowhere to sit around here, so let's just get in the car?"

She finished speaking and went around to the driver's seat first, leaving Qi Lin and Jiang Yishen struck by lightning, charred on the outside and raw on the inside.

Qi Lin glared at Jiang Yishen. "What do we do?"

"Reset, reset!" Jiang Yishen was also falling apart. "Loop one more time!"

He could not tolerate the two of them becoming, in his mom's mind, the kind of people who came out to hook up before exams. How was that any different from streaking in public?

The car's heat hadn't dissipated yet, carrying a faint scent of tea. Xu Huaying watched them from the rearview mirror and asked casually: "How have things been lately?"

"Didn't I already tell you on WeChat?" Jiang Yishen was slightly ill at ease. "Everything's fine."

Some things could be said online, but face to face they felt unbearably awkward. The foundation that allowed him to have heartfelt conversations with his mom was a sense of distance. Now there was only a seatback between them, and the overly close intimacy of family made him unable to sit still.

Xu Huaying didn't find it awkward at all. "Oh, and Xiao Qi?"

Qi Lin had no idea what kind of standing he had with Mother Jiang, so he picked a safe answer that couldn't go wrong, neither too humble nor too forward: "Also doing fine."

"I remember you're preparing for an exam? Graduate school?"

Qi Lin felt there was nothing wrong with discussing this sort of thing with Jiang Yishen's mother. He had learned about this woman he'd never met before, and she was smart and reliable, so he answered honestly: "Civil service exam."

"Oh." Xu Huaying raised an eyebrow slightly, glanced at him, and after a moment said, "I don't work in the interior. You're welcome to come find me with Xiao Shen when you have time. Once you pass, you won't be able to go abroad anymore, right?"

Jiang Yishen banged the seatback with a kick, the awkwardness written all over his face, practically sitting on a bed of needles: "We two aren't, aren't, not yet."

Xu Huaying's face finally showed a flicker of lively expression, and she turned to look over in surprise.

"Tsk!" Jiang Yishen leaned forward, both hands gripping the seat, trying to turn his mom's head back around so she wouldn't look at Qi Lin. "Yesterday Fan Zi drank too much. We both helped him settle into that, that, that. It wasn't us! Stop filling in the blanks!"

Xu Huaying seemed to smile. "That kind of alcohol tolerance really won't do."

"Let's not talk about him anymore." Jiang Yishen hurried on. "Why did you suddenly come back without telling me?"

The car was parked at the roadside, and his mom hadn't suggested finding a place to talk, which seemed to mean she wasn't planning on a long conversation.

In the previous loop, Xu Huaying's call had come in the evening, inviting him to dinner the next day. It seemed she had other plans today. Jiang Yishen didn't know what in this city could keep her busy for an entire day. He could only think it had something to do with himself or his dad, but he didn't dare think about it further.

"Getting the car serviced for your auntie." Xu Huaying patted the steering wheel. "I noticed just now that when you saw me, you weren't surprised at all."

That comment made Jiang Yishen break into a cold sweat. "Then let's go have lunch together in a bit."

"Not today." Xu Huaying rested one hand on the window frame and turned her head to check the time. "I have something to do later. Tomorrow, I'll set a time in the evening and let you know."

"What do you have to do?" Jiang Yishen pressed immediately.

Xu Huaying lowered her eyes, but the corners of her lips were still smiling. "Going to the insurance company. Since when are you this worried? Alright, you two head back to school. Xiao Qi joining us for dinner tomorrow?"

Qi Lin was suddenly called on and sat up straight. "That's not necessary, you two…"

"It's fine, it's just a casual meal anyway." Xu Huaying said. "Auntie's treat. You're so thin there's no flesh on your face at all. Look at Jiang Yishen, he eats four steamed buns in one sitting."

"I do not eat four steamed buns!" Jiang Yishen protested.

Xu Huaying laughed this time with genuine warmth. She directed the two of them to carry down the things she'd brought, and as they were leaving she said to Jiang Yishen: "At your age, there's nothing you can't get through."

After seeing her off, Jiang Yishen was still embarrassed. He wasn't just embarrassed about being misunderstood by his mom; he was more embarrassed by this sudden, unprepared reunion.

Four years without seeing each other, and his mom was still the same as he remembered her: direct, composed, decisive. Jiang Yishen understood that just now his mom had invited Qi Lin to dinner because Qi Lin had told her about his exam plans. It was a subtle blurring of boundaries. After all, these days the waters of human relationships ran deeper and deeper, and exams were inherently private matters, let alone an exam of this particular nature.

Qi Lin hadn't treated them as outsiders, so his mom was also willing to say things that went beyond what a parent would say to an ordinary friend.

But just now in the back seat he had also seen it: his mom's hair had been dyed, perhaps because white had already started growing in. The fine lines at the corners of her eyes bloomed open when she smiled, marks squeezed out by the years, marks that no amount of upkeep would ever make disappear again. Jiang Yishen hadn't witnessed these changes happening with his own eyes. Through a screen, it was as if the person on the other side was forever the way she'd looked the year he left home for the college entrance exam, when he was still young and his mom's career was in full bloom.

"Let's go." Qi Lin's voice called him back from his daze. "Are you going home?"

Jiang Yishen looked down at the large plastic bag stacked at his feet. "Put the things away first. Come home with me?"

"Hm?" Qi Lin was taken aback.

Jiang Yishen didn't look at him, just twisted the bag into a comfortable grip and repeated: "Come with me."

The red standing figure at the crossroads changed to a walking green figure. They crossed the street in the flow of people. Qi Lin didn't know why Jiang Yishen had suddenly become so direct and soft, but he knew that Jiang Yishen like this looked like he really needed someone's reassurance, so he said: "Sure. I just worried it might not be appropriate. Your dad probably doesn't know about me, right?"

"Never mind him, we're going to loop anyway." Jiang Yishen said.

The loop finally realized its true meaning at this moment. Jiang Yishen didn't even bother greeting his dad and charged straight home.

Taking the subway back from school was close to an hour. They finished lunch at the cafeteria first before heading over. It was an ordinary commercial residential complex. The buildings in this area weren't as tall as the newly built ones on the outskirts of the city, and they looked more like the low, red-brick old buildings of the city center.

Jiang Yishen led Qi Lin all the way toward home, giving instructions as they walked: "I suspect my dad is hiding something from me. My mom coming back definitely has something to do with him. Once we're inside, don't say anything, follow my lead. Wherever I point, you strike."

"What if we don't land the hit?"

"If we don't land it, we extract intelligence, then loop and try again." Jiang Yishen finished his tactical planning, shoved the key into the lock and turned it a few times. With a clunk the door swung open. He strode inside with chest out and head high.

The floor plans in this area were all one bedroom and two living areas, and the style in older folks' homes all seemed to be the same, which was to say: no unified style at all. There were wooden chairs, a leather sofa, a coffee table that looked like it had been used for twenty-odd years, and an incredibly smart hot-water-and-tea-brewing all-in-one machine. The room wasn't exactly tidy, but it was clean. On the table were heat-resistant pads and teacups, along with a half-written notebook covered in several scattered strings of numbers.

The sound of a chair scraping came from the bedroom. Dad had heard the noise and stood up to come check. But Jiang Yishen suddenly stopped. Qi Lin was following right behind him and couldn't brake in time, bumping into Jiang Yishen's back.

He sharply sensed something was off and immediately asked: "What's wrong?"

Jiang Yishen stared fixedly at the shoe cabinet to the right of the entrance. The instant his dad walked out of the bedroom, Jiang Yishen spun around abruptly and instinctively moved to go back out the door, only to come face to face with Qi Lin.

He opened his mouth and quickly said in a low voice to Qi Lin: "I think my mom was just here."

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