Chapter 15

But I didn't want to. His various gestures of care toward me had already exceeded what was expected of a brother-in-law, making me feel incredibly uncomfortable. I didn't want to owe him any favors, I didn't want to spend his money, and I didn't want to have anything to do with him anymore. Moreover, whenever my Elder Sister heard him offering to hire a tutor for me, her expression would darken. He definitely hadn't told her about this. Seeing that my Mom and Juyan were about to finalize the arrangement, I quickly stood up. "No! I've already found a tutor; I don't need anyone to hire one for me!" My Mom was puzzled. "You're at school every day. Where did you find a tutor?" I said, "It's a classmate of Brother Qi’s. He’s a top-tier instructor." My Mom said, "A classmate of Yan Qi’s... Oh, did Yan Luo introduce him to you? How is the tutoring fee calculated? How much of a cut does he take?" She always assumed the worst of the Yan Family Members. Angrily, I retorted, "I don't want a tutor anyway! Stop interfering in my life!" My Mom flared up too. "Are you looking for another beating? If you dare to go there for tutoring, I’ll go to the Yan family and get the money back!" "You!" My Mom was driving me crazy. It was all Juyan's fault! I looked at him, unable to hold back any longer. "What right do you have to hire a tutor for me? Whether I get into Yunda University or not has nothing to do with you! Why spend money on me? Why be nice to me? Are we even that close? Why do you keep coming to my house when you've already broken up with my Elder Sister? It's annoying!" My Mom had been posturing to hit me, but as she listened, she froze. "They broke up?" My Elder Sister’s fingertips turned white as she gripped her chopsticks, and her voice sounded more ethereal than usual. "No, don't listen to Xiaohe's nonsense..." "I’m not talking nonsense! I asked Brother Juyan that day at the police station, and he admitted it!" I was truly fed up with both of them. Neither would say a word, leaving me caught in the middle. "Why did you break up? Is it really because of me? You even bought the wedding home, and the curtains were the color Elder Sister liked..." As I spoke, I choked up. I shouted at my Elder Sister and Juyan, "Are you together or are you broken up? Can you just give me a straight answer? You're making me live in fear every single day—it's infuriating!"

My Elder Sister slammed her chopsticks onto the table. My Dad was so startled that one of his chopsticks fell to the floor. My Elder Sister didn't look at anyone and didn't say a word; she grabbed her bag and left. My Mom was still in a state of shock and didn't chase after her, only looking at Juyan with a mix of embarrassment and confusion. "Is what Lianhe said true? Did you and Lianxun break up?" Juyan stood up and nodded. "I’m going to go after Lianxun." Then, he left as well. Only I and my parents remained at home. My Mom looked at me through gritted teeth. I immediately hid behind a chair. "This isn't my fault! It's the two of them who hid it from you—they didn't tell the truth." Who told you to order Juyan around all the time? If he hadn't come over and poked his nose into things today, none of this would have happened. "You..." My Mom wanted to scold me but didn't know where to start. She closed her eyes in pain, held her head, and went back to her room. My Dad and I sat on opposite sides of the table. He sighed, his face filled with sorrow. I whispered, "Dad?" He pushed the braised shrimp toward me and smiled faintly. "Eat. Go to sleep early after you're done; aren't you going for a trial lesson tomorrow morning?" "...Yeah." The table was full of dishes, but there were more empty seats than people eating. It looked quite bleak. After showering that night, I lay on my bed, scrolling through my chat history with Juyan while recalling everything that had happened over the past six months. In the end, I hugged my quilt, wishing they had just stayed broken up. Before I met Juyan, my Elder Sister and I weren't exactly close, but we were family, and we never had any major conflicts. Ever since she got together with him, my house had been full of arguments because of this man. The Celestial Maiden Necklace alone had caused so much trouble. Perhaps it was just a turbulent time—my Dad’s car accident, my college entrance exam preparations, the break-in at home... my mood had inevitably become volatile. But Juyan was like a catalyst; as long as he was there, our home could turn into a battlefield at any moment. I wondered if he had managed to catch up with my Elder Sister. Just as I was drifting off to sleep, my Mom received a phone call. The moment she hung up, she came charging into my room barefoot. Hearing her angry footsteps, I instinctively jumped up and searched for a place to hide, but the room was too small, and there was nowhere to escape. My Mom kicked the door open and pinned me down for a sound beating. "Your sister really did break up with Juyan! Are you happy now?" "You just can't stand to see your sister do well, driving away such a good partner!" "What did your sister ever do to you? What did Juyan ever do to you? What did I ever do to you? You just have to stir up trouble in this house!" "You ungrateful wretch, you debt-collector! You’re just here to bring us bad luck! I shouldn't have..." My Dad was in the shower when she started hitting me, but he eventually rushed in, soaking wet. He grabbed my Mom’s hands and pulled her away, his voice laced with anger. "Why are you beating Xiaohe because Lianxun broke up? If Xiaohe hadn't exposed it today, we'd still be in the dark!" My Mom was weeping. "So what if we were in the dark? Juyan didn't say anything! If he had no feelings for Lianxun, why would he still answer my calls?!" "That’s just his good manners, he didn't want to embarrass you! They’re broken up, and we are all at fault! Stop taking your anger out on Xiaohe!" My Dad pulled her out of the room and then came back to help me up. "Xiaohe, are you okay?" "I'm fine." The beating was unavoidable anyway; I might as well let my Mom vent her frustration. I stood up and felt a tickle on the side of my face, as if I were sweating. I reached up to wipe it, and my hand came away covered in blood. My Dad was terrified. He grabbed a piece of clothing and pressed it against my head. "Quick, quick! To the hospital!"

When my Mom pushed me over, a protruding nail on the edge of the bed had grazed my scalp. Although I didn't need stitches, they had to use a whole tray of bloodied cotton balls to clean the wound, and I ended up getting a tetanus shot. On the way home from the hospital, my Dad wiped away tears the entire time. Seeing that she had gone too far this time, my Mom also stayed sulkily silent. Only I felt a secret sense of relief: now that blood had been shed, my Mom shouldn't blame me for their breakup anymore! The tetanus shot was very painful, leaving a large lump on my arm. I couldn't sleep comfortably that night for fear of pressing on it. The next morning, my Dad accompanied me to the trial lesson. My Mom didn't stop us; she only muttered, "You two really have money to burn." When we got downstairs, Yan Luo was already waiting. Seeing the white gauze on my head, he stepped forward in surprise. "What happened?" My Dad said, "Her mother accidentally bumped her." I nodded, too. "She really didn't mean to." With my Dad there, Yan Luo couldn't say anything, as it was my own mother who had done it. He said with concern, "With an injury like that, maybe you shouldn't go today. What if you catch a cold? You can't afford to get sick this month." I said, "It's fine. It looks scary, but it was just a scratch. Let's go; I can't afford to fall behind in English." Yan Luo sighed helplessly. "Alright then." We had planned to take the bus, but fearing the crowds, he called a ride-hailing car. My Dad tried to pay for the fare, but he wouldn't accept it. The trial lesson and tutoring were held at the instructor's home. The ironic part was that the instructor lived at Lingyuntai. The even more ironic part was that his place wasn't far from Juyan’s wedding home. It seemed being a top-tier instructor was quite lucrative if he could afford such expensive housing. Neither Yan Luo nor my Dad knew that Juyan’s wedding home was here, and thinking that less trouble was better, I didn't mention it. Anyway, we would be strangers from now on. Juyan probably wouldn't be staying there often, so we wouldn't necessarily run into him. When we arrived at the instructor's place, I realized this building was different from Juyan's. Juyan’s was one unit per floor, while this one had two units per floor and no glass corridor. I shook my head, trying to clear Juyan from my mind. Stop thinking about him. He was a nobody in my house now. The instructor’s surname was Jin. He was a capable and sophisticated young man in a white shirt and jeans, looking like a fresh university graduate. His home was bright and airy. The living room had no sofa and no TV, only a red yoga ball and a large white shag rug. Simple white walls were adorned with a few art pieces, and further in were a study room and a library. His time was precious, so after a brief introduction and pleasantries, he led me to the study. He looked over my three mock exam papers and then pulled a new sheet from the bookshelf behind him. "You have twenty minutes. Give it a try." I began to work on the paper. He started the timer and began circling and annotating my mock exam papers. The paper was filled with multiple-choice questions, the angles of which were tricky—all things I only half-understood. It felt as if he were digging into all my weak points. I scratched my head as I wrote. I had just finished the front side when the timer went off. I put down my pen, feeling completely drained. If these were the kind of questions on the college entrance exam, I’d be doomed. He reset the timer and began to grade the paper at lightning speed. It was only then that I noticed there was a pattern to the options: A on the left, B on the right. I had gotten many wrong, but Mr. Jin didn't show the slightest impatience and began to explain them one by one. After he finished, there were still ten minutes left, and he asked me to redo the problematic questions he had circled on my mock exam papers. My goodness, the logic was so clear this time!Previously, when I encountered a difficult problem, I would only memorize blindly and my mind remained in a haze. But now, I understand which knowledge point every question is testing. Even when I encounter something I don't know how to do, I can eliminate options, and my accuracy rate has shot right up!

The beep sounded once again. Teacher Jin stood up, full of confidence. He knew he had conquered me. I stood up too, with mixed feelings: now I was really going to lose a fortune.

Teacher Jin said that I pick things up quite quickly, so we would start with five classes to see the effect, and add more hours if that didn't work out. He also said that if studying with him didn't improve my score by twenty points, he would give a full refund after the college entrance examination. Five classes, ten hours, four thousand yuan, and my Dad paid immediately. Teacher Jin was busy today, so the lessons would start tomorrow. After we left his place, I hugged Dad's arm downstairs and couldn't help shedding tears. Dad was so good to me. Four thousand yuan was a month's salary for him, yet he spent it on me without blinking an eye. I didn't even know how to repay him. Yan Luo wiped my face with a tissue and said, "Stop crying, focus on your tutoring, and save your tears for after you get into Yunda!" Then he turned to my Dad and said, "Uncle Lian, we haven't seen each other in a long time. Why don't you call Auntie at noon and come over to my place for lunch?" My Dad waved his hand: "You finally have a break, don't make things hard for your Mom. I heard her back has been acting up severely again recently?" Yan Luo said, "She strained it carrying something heavy last week, but we got X-rays and nothing's major, just needs plenty of rest. My Dad has been doing all the cooking lately, Uncle Lian, if you don't come over, we're going to be stuck eating my Dad's terrible cooking again." My Dad laughed: "Oh, why didn't you say so earlier? Tell me what you want to eat, I'll go buy the groceries and cook at your place at noon." The three of us went to the vegetable market together, and Yan Luo hid my Dad's phone so he couldn't pay. My Dad had no choice but to let him buy. When we reached the residential compound, my Dad went over to Yan Luo's place first to unpack the ingredients, while Yan Luo accompanied me home to get Mom. When Mom heard that the tutoring was all settled, her heart ached terribly over that four thousand yuan. "If you had just applied yourself normally all this time, would you even need to spend money on tutoring? Your elder sister never needed a tutor, and neither did Yan Luo. You all grew up together, they manage to stay at the top of the class, how come you..." Yan Luo quickly chimed in, "Auntie, actually I've been eating deep-sea fish oil and brain-boosting oral liquid since I was a kid. My family spent quite a lot over the years trying to boost my brainpower." "Oh?" Hearing that Yan Luo also needed brain-boosting, Mom felt much more balanced inside. "Well, you really couldn't tell." I thought to myself that he was just making things up, of course you couldn't tell. Although Mom deeply suspected that the Yan family took a cut from that four thousand yuan, there was no one to cook at home at noon, so she reluctantly followed us to the Yan family's apartment. Once we met, I realized that Mom Yan's back injury was actually quite serious. She was wearing a brace and sitting motionless on the sofa. I walked over, looked at her brace, and felt a terrible ache in my heart: "Auntie, how did you get hurt so badly?" Yet she was the one feeling sorry for me: "Auntie is fine. Actually, this brace isn't even necessary, your uncle insists I wear it. But look at you, what happened to your head?" Before I could speak, Mom cleared her throat: "She bumped it last night, it's nothing." "It's bandaged up like this, how can it be nothing?" Mom Yan stroked my face, tears welling up in her eyes. "Why aren't you more careful, what if it leaves a scar? The college entrance exams are right around the corner, you're really suffering..." Her reaction was much more like a real mother's, which made my Mom feel a bit defensive and irritated: "She is as tough as nails!" Mom Yan sighed and called Yan Luo over: "Yan Luo, go take the Siwu Soup and fish maw out of the cabinet and pack them up. Sister Ding, these are all tonics, they are very good for women. Take them back and let Lian Ge stew them, you and Xiaohe can both drink them." If these things were only given to me, Mom would feel uncomfortable in her heart again. But hearing that she could drink them too, her expression softened considerably, and she said, "Since it's your kind thought, I'll accept this on behalf of Lianhe." During the meal, Mom deliberately brought up the matter of my tutoring, especially emphasizing that it cost four thousand yuan. Mom Yan chimed in with sympathetic emotion: "Raising a child really isn't easy nowadays. What the two of us earn in a day isn't enough for a child to spend in an hour. Seeing as his father and I are getting older, Yan Luo still has plenty of expenses ahead for his schooling, just thinking about it makes me worry." Mom said, "You should let Yan Qi help you out." Mom Yan said, "He has a hard enough time living so far away, and it's not like we're too old to work, how could we take money from our children?" "You raised Yan Qi to be so successful, he's even a doctor now, isn't it only right for him to show filial piety to his parents every month?"Mom Yan said, "He’s still paying off a mortgage and a car loan! Everything he has today he earned on his own. We can’t really help him with anything; the best we can do is try not to hold him back..."

My Mom pursed her lips.

My Dad had helped the Yan Family finish preparing dinner, so all that was left to do in the evening was heat it up.

After we ate and got home, my Mom immediately started complaining: "I think the Yan Family raised Yan Qi for nothing. He’s bought a car and a house in America, yet he doesn't even send money home."

I was about to point out that my Elder Sister had been working for a year without sending money home either, but my Dad spoke up first: "Stop obsessing over other people’s business. Focus on Xiao Xun instead! Go over to her place this afternoon to check on her. If it’s not going well, just bring her back here. Don't let her stay there alone, letting her mind run wild."

At the mention of my Elder Sister, my Mom glared at me. I quickly covered the gauze on my head.

Unable to vent her frustration, my Mom let out a dissatisfied huff. "Fine, I’ll go."

Then, she held out her hand to my Dad. "You spent four thousand on Lianhe; how much are you planning to spend on Xiao Xun?"

My Dad said helplessly, "After paying the tutoring fees, I really don’t have much left. Why don't you use your own money to buy Xiao Xun something to eat first..."

My Mom said defensively, "Where would I have any money? I only make a little over two thousand a month. By the time I buy a few clothes and some cosmetics, it’s all gone. I’m the one paying the utility bills for this house, anyway..."

My Dad waved his hand. "There’s a few hundred in the tissue box by the head of the bed. Take that and spend it for now."

My Mom turned and headed back to the bedroom to get the money. "So you've been hiding secret savings, have you..."

My Dad sat on the sofa, looking exhausted.

I poured a cup of hot water and brought it to him. "Dad, have some water."

My Dad took the tea and patted my shoulder affectionately. "Go back and study."

"Okay."

I returned to my room, unable to wrap my head around it: Why would a man as kind as my Dad marry a woman as selfish and mean-spirited as my Mom?

If he had married someone like Mom Yan, or perhaps even married Mom Yan herself, how wonderful that would have been...

My Mom didn't come home that night. She said my Elder Sister was in a bad emotional state and she needed to stay there to look after her.

I was a little worried about my Elder Sister and wanted to go see her.

But going over there would only upset her further, so I decided against it.

The next morning, Yan Luo accompanied me to Teacher Jin's house for my tutoring session.

Since we were ahead of schedule, we got out of the car outside Lingyuntai and walked in, taking the opportunity to look at the scenery of the high-end residential area.

There were trees, grass, flowers, and water—all arranged with a formulaic precision. Aside from the buildings being beautiful, I didn't see what was so "high-end" about it.As we walked along, I said, "You really don't have to accompany me. I know where Teacher Jin lives."

Yan Luo replied, "I don't trust you staying alone with him for two hours."

"You don't even trust your brother's classmate?"

He said with a straight face, "I don't trust men, except for myself."

I laughed. "And you call yourself a man? You're just a little kid."

Yan Luo grabbed my hand and pressed it against his stomach, saying triumphantly, "Do little kids have abdominal muscles?"

Through the thin fabric, I felt the faint outline of muscle—firm yet soft to the touch.

I curled my index finger and tapped on his stomach. "This melon doesn't sound ripe yet!"

Yan Luo chased after me to tickle me.

When we arrived at Teacher Jin's house, I went into the study for my tutoring session while Yan Luo stayed outside to work on practice problems.

The two hours passed quickly. Just as I was packing my things to leave, a girl walked in.

She was so beautiful that I was momentarily stunned.

The young beauty had fair skin and delicate features, with a pair of almond-shaped eyes that held a hint of melancholy.

She wore a peacock-blue dress that reached her ankles, and her long hair was pinned up with a hair accessory shaped like peacock tail feathers. On her wrist was a beautiful lacquer bead bracelet, and pinned to her feather-adorned shoulder bag was the school emblem of a private high school.Furthermore, the moment she pushed the door open, she brought with her a faint scent of sandalwood. She was too exquisite, the very definition of a high-society heiress. She placed her bag on the table and, ignoring me entirely, stared at Teacher Jin without saying a word. Teacher Jin, seemingly immune to her beauty by now, said in a flat tone, "I just finished my class and am taking a ten-minute break. What would you like to drink?" The beautiful girl didn't even call him "Teacher," replying indifferently, "Jasmine tea." "Alright." As Teacher Jin walked out, he asked me, "What would you and Yan Luo like?" I quickly followed him out and said, "We won't have anything; it’s time for us to head home." Teacher Jin didn't try to make us stay. As we left his place in the elevator, I looked at my reflection in the mirrored door: a white T-shirt and sweatpants, my hair pulled into a ponytail, and no fragrance on me at all. Then I looked at Yan Luo standing beside me. He was decked out in American brands, his hair styled in the latest trendy cut, and when I leaned in to smell him—well, would you look at that, he even smelled like laundry detergent pods! Even though I knew Mom Yan deserved the credit for his outfit, I still reached out and ruffled his hair into a bird's nest.