CA | Chapter 13

◎Our Home.◎

After a few days of menstrual cramps, and after volunteering for a whole day, Ning Jia still had to get her tooth pulled, no matter how reluctant she was. Shen Yicheng’s idea was that if she had any other wisdom teeth, and if she could still hold out, she might as well have them all removed. Ning Jia immediately said, “I can’t hold out.”

He let out a soft laugh and pinched her chin, shaking it lightly.

These past few days, Shen Yicheng had been busy preparing for an exhibition. The day Ning Jia set out to have her tooth pulled, he received quite a few phone calls. At first, Ning Jia was worried he might leave. Sitting in the passenger seat, she listened and guessed the matter was no small one, but Shen Yicheng only frowned and drove toward the dental clinic.

By the time he was about to pull into a parking space, Ning Jia spoke first. “Uncle should go handle his business first.”

“What, not scared anymore?”

Ning Jia said, “I’m already this old, why would I be afraid of getting a tooth pulled?”

She said that, but her hands were still a little shaky. Shen Yicheng pressed the back of his hand to her cheek and explained, “One of the charity auction items was stolen. I have to show up personally.”

Ning Jia said in surprise, “That’s a huge deal.”

“I’ll try to come back and pick you up.”

“Okay.”

Ning Jia got out of the car, clutching her phone. Before she closed the door, Shen Yicheng said, “Get back in.”

Ning Jia turned around, and heard him say, “Not today. There’s no rush. Do you want to come with me for a trip or go home?”

But she said, “I’m afraid it’ll swell up again and affect my trip to Italy.”

Shen Yicheng gave a helpless laugh and asked again, “You really can manage?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t blame me?” he asked.

Ning Jia’s throat felt itchy. She shook her head and walked toward the execution ground alone.

Shen Yicheng felt uneasy the whole way, because of Ning Jia’s thoughtfulness. She had seen through everything, willingly giving up the power she held, forgiving his broken promise. No one knew when it started, but whenever Shen Yicheng saw that look on her face, he would feel a trace of tenderness.

He thought about making it up to her later, while Ning Jia grew a little frightened the moment she saw the row of dental instruments. She told the doctor about her condition, and a cold metal tool went into her mouth, pressing precisely against the gum that had only just gone down.

“There are probably two wisdom teeth. Let’s take an X-ray.”

Ning Jia stayed quiet the whole time, including during the extraction. She could feel the pounding and the slicing. The anesthesia took away her pain, leaving only the loosening and separation of flesh and tooth.

She felt a little like crying. Ning Jia suddenly remembered her mother’s threat from long ago, that if Ning Jia didn’t behave and stole food, she would have all of Ning Jia’s teeth pulled out.

Fear kept surging up. Ning Jia opened her eyes. The doctor set down the instrument and said to her, “You can get up now.”

After that came another X-ray, then instructions on aftercare and medication.

Altogether, it took an hour.

She thought Shen Yicheng wouldn’t be back so soon, so after notifying him she planned to take a taxi home. But Shen Yicheng said, “Wait a bit. Take out the cotton at the hospital.”

That meant waiting quite a while longer.

The dental clinic had prepared an ice pack for her. Ning Jia lay in the chair, bored out of her mind, scrolling through her phone. The receptionist praised her, “Coming here all by yourself, that’s pretty impressive.”

Like praising an eight-year-old child.

Ning Jia couldn’t even smile. Half her face was numb.

After the gauze packing used to stop the bleeding was removed, Shen Yicheng rushed back in a dusty, windblown state.

Ning Jia managed to get out a muffled “Second Uncle,” and then her tears fell.

She buried the uninjured side of her face against his chest. Shen Yicheng put one arm around her and gently pressed his forehead to hers in comfort. “Anything else?”

Ning Jia nodded.

The car moved very slowly on the way back, and people occasionally urged them along, but Shen Yicheng still drove steadily and smoothly. When they went over a speed bump, Ning Jia felt like her life might be ending right there.

Ning Jia thought that maybe she was fighting this hard just to go to Italy, but on second thought, perhaps she simply wanted Shen Yicheng to understand that she was obedient.

Only then could she tie him down and become his favorite new darling.

Ning Jia had guessed right. Shen Yicheng treated her even better, even more gently. He stayed at home these few days, even if it looked like he wanted to laugh at the sight of her being unable to eat.

She would occasionally inspect the wound in the mirror. By the next day it had already healed, and by the fourth day the stitches could be removed.

For those few days, she was afraid to eat anything. Aunt Zhang made some nutritious juices, and she lived on those for a week. Shen Yicheng smiled and said, “Hold on a little longer. After this, it won’t hurt again.”

A week later, the gaunt Ning Jia was reborn from the ashes and could eat things like lean meat porridge. By the end of July, she had even made up for all the meat she hadn’t eaten over those days.

At the same time, she also received her first-choice school’s admission notice. She showed it to Shen Yicheng, who gave her a flat, indifferent compliment, then added, “Studying this major doesn’t have much of a future in China. Go abroad early.”

Ning Jia replied just as flatly, “I’m broke. I can’t even afford overseas tuition.”

Shen Yicheng was reading the Arts Weekly, a huge spread in front of him. Hearing her say that, he put down the newspaper and took a sip of morning tea. “How much? Uncle will pay.”

“Several hundred thousand?”

“Several hundred thousand is nothing.”

Ning Jia really couldn’t hold back and burst out laughing. Shen Yicheng laughed too and said, “Don’t laugh. This is a very serious matter.”

She only took it as a verbal promise and didn’t hold out much hope. In her heart, she was thinking that if she ever tied Shen Yicheng up one day and went to the old matriarch to demand the reward money, it probably wouldn’t be just a few million. He was the old matriarch’s precious darling, so however you looked at it, it should be at least ten million.

Ning Jia watched him sitting at the dining table, one leg crossed over the other. His long legs were genuinely easy on the eyes, and what was even more infuriating was that he wasn’t thin and fragile at all, yet the faint lines of muscle in his legs were still visible. At a glance, he looked exactly like someone meant to sit on.

Her mind was always full of strange thoughts. After staring at his legs for a while, she took the admission notice in hand and went upstairs, setting a time with Zhou Yuyuan. She planned to dye her hair in a few days, like one of those viral posts that listed a few must-do things for summer vacation. Ning Jia had also turned her life into a to-do list.

*

Recently, Shen Yicheng had arranged for fresh milk to be delivered to her, under the noble pretense of helping her supplement calcium as compensation for losing a small tooth. The milk arrived at four or five in the morning. In weather this hot, it would spoil after a few hours, so Ning Jia had to get up early to fetch it. At seven o’clock, she rubbed her sleepy eyes and got up for the milk, only to run into Aunt Zhang, who had just arrived.

“Miss.” Smiling, she closed the gate and walked toward her.

Ning Jia nodded and went to the milk box by the door to get the milk. Aunt Zhang let out an oh dear and turned to leave. Ning Jia asked casually, “What’s wrong?”

“My memory is really something. I forgot the groceries I just bought.”

Ning Jia asked, “Where did you forget them?”

In order to buy fresh vegetables, fruit, and meat, Aunt Zhang had gone to the market early, then stopped by the supermarket on the way back and forgotten the vegetables from the market.

As soon as Ning Jia heard that, she remembered that Shen Yicheng had specifically told her to make breakfast on time today. He still had something to do at eight o’clock. With a round trip like that, there probably wouldn’t be enough time.

Seeing Aunt Zhang’s anxious look, Ning Jia sighed. “I’ll make the trip. You go ahead and boil the water and everything.”

“How can that do… ”

Ning Jia had already called a car. Aunt Zhang no longer refused and kept thanking her. Ning Jia wasn’t really some princess in a high tower anyway. She had been to the market before. Once she reached the destination, she spotted the big and small bags Aunt Zhang had bought, carried them back, and called another car. On the way back, she hit road construction and had to make a huge detour. Ning Jia gritted her teeth and carried the things into the neighborhood herself.

The load was genuinely heavy. Ning Jia checked the time, and it was already seven-thirty. Her pace couldn’t help but quicken.

She also found it strange. Why did she care whether Shen Yicheng got to eat breakfast or not? If he wanted breakfast at eight so badly, why not just buy him some fried dough sticks and soy milk from the roadside and stuff them into his mouth? Why did she have to carry vegetables and meat for him first thing in the morning?

The more she thought about it, the more indignant she felt. There was also a tall woman blocking the way ahead. Ning Jia had planned to pass her, but then she heard the woman on the phone, bragging into it, saying things like, “Of course it was Mr. Shen who specifically asked me to come,” and “Haha, I’ll take that as a good omen from you.”

The words “Mr. Shen” stabbed at Ning Jia.

He had made such a fuss just to invite this person to his house for breakfast? In the morning?

To that place, their home, where it was clearly only the two of them.

What about the Shen residence? Didn’t he have a more proper place to live? Or maybe at his company? Come to think of it, why did everyone call him Mr. Shen?

The woman wound this way and that, ending up on the same path as her. In the end, the two of them stopped in front of Shen Yicheng’s house. Perhaps finding it strange, the woman didn’t ring the doorbell first. Instead, she turned back and looked at Ning Jia hesitantly.

Ning Jia smiled and asked, “Looking for someone?”

“Looking for Mr. Shen… Little girl, who are you?”

Little girl… Ning Jia held back her displeasure and said with an air of regret, “Second Uncle has something to do today. What are you looking for him for?”

Hearing her say Second Uncle, the woman clearly became a little more serious, because compared with Shen Yicheng, his elder brother was even less someone people dared to offend.

“Mr. Shen said he wanted to carve jade and needed a model.”

“Oh, oh. I remember now.” Ning Jia set down the bags in her hands and sighed. “He told me today that if anyone came, I should tell her he has other things to handle these next couple of days, so there’s no need for her to come for now.”

The woman felt that Ning Jia didn’t seem like she was lying.

She didn’t even have Shen Yicheng’s contact information. She only dealt with his assistant. After hearing that, the hesitation and disappointment on her face flashed by, and then she left on her high heels.

Ning Jia carried the ingredients into the house, dropped them all onto the table, and went straight upstairs. She pushed open Shen Yicheng’s bedroom door. He usually slept like a dead pig. Ning Jia slid the alarm clock over with one hand. After doing all that, she suddenly felt very bored, very ridiculous.

Her arms aching, she lay back down on the bed. Drowsiness crept over her, and she was almost asleep when Aunt Zhang’s knock on the door pulled her back again.

The moment she stood up, tears somehow slipped out.

She wiped at her eyes, got up, and opened the door. Aunt Zhang asked worriedly, “You’re tired out? Do you want to go downstairs and eat?”

Seeing Aunt Zhang glance repeatedly toward Shen Yicheng’s room, Ning Jia took it upon herself to say, “Go back first. He’s done with things today.”

Aunt Zhang answered, “Oh,” and untied her apron. Ning Jia went downstairs with her, hugging a bowl of eight-treasure porridge, looking at the breakfast spread laid out in all its abundance, yet her mouth felt dry and bitter.

She drank the milk, ate a couple of bites of porridge, and by the time the dishes were almost cold, Shen Yicheng finally came downstairs. He looked left and right, saw Ning Jia, and asked, “What time is it?”

Ning Jia glanced at her watch. “Nine.”

Shen Yicheng clicked his tongue. “No one came?”

Ning Jia said nothing.

“What about my phone? Did you see it?” He remembered leaving it on the bedside table last night. When he woke up, the phone was gone. Maybe he had remembered wrong and left it downstairs, forgetting to bring it back up.

Ning Jia was holding his black phone in her hand.

Shen Yicheng reached out, but Ning Jia took two steps back and tucked both hands behind her. “This morning, I ran into someone. She’s a model.”

“Mm, that beauty reclining on a lotus you mentioned last time, I found a suitable piece of jade.” Shen Yicheng ran a hand through his sleep-tousled hair. He vaguely caught on and added, “You had exams recently, and you’d just had a tooth pulled. The studio was too noisy, so I didn’t start work.”

Ning Jia tightened her grip on his phone and suddenly felt that she had been too willful, yet she also couldn’t stop herself from testing his bottom line again and again. She put the phone on the table and lowered her head to lightly sway her toes.

“What did you do?”

“I told her you had something to do, so I sent her and Aunt Zhang back.”

“And you even pressed the alarm clock?” His tone had already taken on a hint of anger.

She was challenging his authority at home, actually daring to overstep him and change his schedule without permission. If he got angry, that was only natural.

Ning Jia’s nose stung. With her hands behind her back, she said softly while looking down, “I didn’t want to.”

Shen Yicheng frowned and asked what she didn’t want.

“I don’t want other people in our home.”

The air fell silent. Ning Jia’s tears dropped. She covered his phone with one hand, like a prisoner awaiting execution.

“Our home?” He seemed to laugh in fury.

Ning Jia said, “Then I’ll move out.”

Rather than endure this ambiguous torment, she might as well stop clinging to this tree of his. However ugly things might become later, it probably still wouldn’t compare to this moment. Her desire for his love had already been so obvious, yet he still pretended not to see it.