The cramped little rental room trembled violently as Mengmeng's crying filled the air.
Each cry of "Mom, don't leave" felt like countless fine needles piercing the tip of Mu Qingxue's heart, causing a dense, throbbing pain.
She stood frozen in place, looking at Mengmeng, who was tightly clutching her shin, her little face flushed red and her whole body trembling. The hand that had originally meant to push her away hung in midair, feeling as heavy as a thousand pounds, unable to come down.
The pulling force deep within her bloodline made her internal organs twist tightly together, leaving her almost unable to breathe.
She wanted to flee—to escape this absurd reality that was upending everything she knew—yet her feet felt filled with lead, and every movement tore agonizingly at her heart.
Lin Fan stood to the side, watching the scene with total helplessness and a chaotic mind.
He wanted to step forward and pull Mengmeng away, but he was afraid the little one would cry even harder, and he was even more terrified that Mu Qingxue would suspect he was trying to take advantage of the situation.
For the first time, he realized that the tears of a five-year-old girl could possess such terrifying destructive power, capable of throwing the famously ice-cold, peacock-proud campus belle completely off balance and into such a wretched state.
"Waaah—Mom! Mom, don't leave... Mengmeng will be good... Mengmeng only wants Mom..."
Mengmeng's crying grew louder and louder, carrying a desperate tail end as her little hands gripped Mu Qingxue's pant leg tightly, as if it were the only piece of driftwood left in a drowning ocean, something she had to hold onto to stay alive.
Mu Qingxue's eyes turned completely red again, and the bitterness she forced back rushed straight up into her nasal cavity, instantly blurring her vision.
She slowly squatted down, wanting to comfort Mengmeng, but her voice carried an uncontrollable choke and tremor:
"Mengmeng... be good, Mom... Mom isn't abandoning you..."
Before she finished speaking, a scalding teardrop broke free first, landing on the little hand Mengmeng used to grip her pant leg, burning so intensely that her heart shrank.
Seeing this, Lin Fan could no longer worry about so much else. He bit the bullet and stepped forward, squatting down as well, and coaxed her in a somewhat hoarse voice:
"Mengmeng, don't cry. Dad is right here. Mom... Mom just has to go home, and tomorrow... tomorrow she'll come see you again, right?"
He looked at Mu Qingxue with a gaze carrying a hint of pleading, a hint of inquiry, and a panicked helplessness even he hadn't noticed.
When he asked that "right?", he had not the slightest bit of confidence in his own heart.
Just then, the sound of fists hammering "Thud, thud, thud!" against the partition wall rang out aggressively, accompanied by a middle-aged woman's shrill and impatient roar:
"So noisy! What are you crying for in the middle of the night! Sounds like a funeral! Are you going to let people sleep or not! Keep crying and I'm calling the cops on you public nuisances!"
This voice fell like a basin of ice-cold water mixed with slush directly over the heads of Lin Fan and Mu Qingxue.
Mu Qingxue's face turned pale as a sheet in an instant, her body shivering violently as her fingers gripping Mengmeng's little hand tightened reflexively.
Lin Fan grew tense in an instant as well, cold sweat breaking out across his back.
With all sorts of people mingling here and the sound insulation being ridiculously poor, what if someone saw Mu Qingxue leaving his poor student room in the dead of night, and connected that with the child's crying...
The consequences would simply be unthinkable!
He instinctively wanted to pull Mengmeng a bit closer into his arms, trying to block any possible prying eyes.
Jolted violently back to her senses by the angry roar, Mu Qingxue's remaining sanity told her she couldn't stay any longer.
If she stayed any longer, things would only get worse and might even be exposed right on the spot!
She looked at Mengmeng's red, swollen, weeping eyes and that little face stained with tears and snot, her heart aching as if being torn apart.
Her sanity sharply reminded her that she had to leave immediately, while her emotions made her want to hold the child tightly no matter what and never let go.
She took a deep breath, forcefully suppressing the choke in her throat and her churning emotions, and her trembling fingers brushed over Mengmeng's sweat-dampened, soft hair. Her voice repressed an indescribable pain and resolution:
"Mengmeng, be a good girl, Mom... Mom promises you, very soon... very soon I'll stay with you all the time, okay?"
Her eyes were filled with an intense, unyielding reluctance to part.
Perhaps exhausted from crying, or perhaps comforted by Mu Qingxue's promise born of blood and tears,
Mengmeng's crying gradually subsided into intermittent hiccups. She looked at Mu Qingxue with those red, watery rabbit eyes,
and asked pitifully with a thick nasal tone:
"Really? Mom... you won't lie to Mengmeng? Pinky swear... it only counts with a pinky swear..."
A tiny, tear-stained finger reached out eagerly.
"I won't lie to you." Mu Qingxue nodded with difficulty, feeling as though her heart were being tightly gripped by an invisible hand, hurting almost to the point of suffocation.
She extended a chilled finger and gently hooked it with Mengmeng's damp, warm little pinky, like completing a sacred and sorrowful ritual.
Seizing the opportunity, Lin Fan carefully picked up the somewhat exhausted Mengmeng from beside Mu Qingxue's legs, cradling her in his arms. He gently patted her back, coaxing her in a voice he himself found dry and raspy.
Mu Qingxue took one deep, greedy final look at Mengmeng,
as if trying to carve every single expression and
every single strand of hair deep into the innermost part of her heart,
before standing up in a wretched, stumbling manner, saying to Lin Fan in a hoarse voice:
"I... I have to go. Tomorrow... tomorrow I'll contact you again."
Her voice was terribly raspy, carrying the utmost exhaustion and bone-deep bewilderment, and her steps were somewhat unsteady.
Lin Fan's throat tightened, a thousand things stuck in his chest, and in the end he merely nodded heavily.
He watched Mu Qingxue's panicked departing figure quickly vanish into the dim, narrow hallway reeking of mildew, that slender figure appearing so fragile in the night wind.
He lowered his head to look at Mengmeng, who was still softly sobbing in his arms and dependently gripping his lapel, his heart a tangled mess of mixed emotions.
He knew that from the moment Mu Qingxue stepped out of this doorway, the trajectory of his life had completely deviated from its expected path.
Caring for Mengmeng was not just a responsibility dropped from the sky; it was the only reality he could grasp at present,
and also... the sole yet immensely heavy and fragile bond between himself and that icy campus belle.
That night, Lin Fan spent almost the entire night awake.
Mengmeng slept very restlessly, her tiny body occasionally trembling from hiccups,
her little hands grasping wildly at the air as she mumblingly called out "Mom... Mom, don't leave...", every murmur striking Lin Fan's heart like a small hammer.
He had no choice but to stay by the bedside, clumsily and repeatedly patting her tiny back until the eastern sky grew pale, at which point he finally closed his eyes for a little nap, accompanied by Mengmeng's slightly steadier breathing.
The next day after school, the moment Lin Fan stepped out of the school gates, his old phone in his pocket vibrated.
His heart skipped a beat as he pulled it out to take a look; it was an unfamiliar number.
Taking a deep breath, he swiped to answer.
On the other end of the line, Mu Qingxue's slightly hoarse yet still cold voice came through just as expected, though that coldness seemed to carry an unmaskable weariness and anxiety.
The two agreed to meet again in a corner of a long-abandoned basketball court behind the school, a place overgrown with weeds and rarely frequented by anyone.
Mu Qingxue had noticeable dark circles under her eyes, and her lips were somewhat pale and chapped, clearly having spent a sleepless night as well.
She was still wearing the simple blue and white school uniform, which could not hide the unworldly elegance carved into her bones, though at this moment that elegance carried a lingering haggardness and deep wariness.
She glanced at Lin Fan, her gaze lacking focus as if she were still struggling to digest this sudden, massive upheaval, and her voice carried an unquestionable decisiveness:
"Mengmeng... must be given a relatively proper arrangement. My family situation is very complicated; she absolutely cannot come back with me."
Her tone was straightforward, sounding more like the statement of a cold and cruel fact, leaving no room for negotiation.
Lin Fan remained silent for a moment.
After the chaos, the shock, and the restless tossing and turning of the previous night, he actually felt a strange sense of calm born of having nothing left to lose.
He raised his head, meeting Mu Qingxue's scrutinizing and probing gaze, his eyes much firmer than they had been yesterday at the library:
"Let her stay with me for now. I'll take good care of her."
This was the decision he had arrived at after a whole night of careful deliberation, and it was also the only thing he could and must do right now as the legal "father" on that DNA report.
Mu Qingxue seemed not to have expected him to agree so cleanly and decisively, pausing slightly before her pretty brows furrowed again, her gaze sweeping unobtrusively over Lin Fan's washed-pale uniform cuffs and his slightly slender yet stubbornly straight shoulders.
"You?" There was undisguised skepticism in her voice, not out of intentional belittlement, but as a natural overflow of reality.
"How will you take care of her by yourself? You still have classes, and the college entrance exams are right around the corner."
"There will always be a way."
Lin Fan replied in a calm tone, yet it carried a stubbornness and refusal to admit defeat unique to a youth:
"At least she needs a relatively stable place right now, instead of continuing to live in fear and panic alongside us day in and day out."
He paused, as if having made up his mind about something, and added:
"As for the money, I'll figure something out. You don't need to..."
"I'll give you money regularly." Mu Qingxue abruptly interrupted him, her tone unquestionable and carrying an irresistible assertiveness.
"And Mengmeng's clothes, shoes, formula, toys... all daily necessities, I will prepare them. Just tell me a safe place to store them, or I'll find a suitable time to bring them over."
She had clearly already considered these practical and trivial matters thoroughly, organized not like a panicked mother, but rather like a person in charge handling a tricky project.
Lin Fan wanted to refuse again, but looking into Mu Qingxue's cold eyes that spelled out "no refutation allowed," and thinking of Mengmeng's large, dependent eyes, the words of refusal choked right back down in his throat.
He knew that his current financial situation was indeed embarrassingly stretched.
For Mengmeng's sake, a temporary compromise and acceptance might be necessary.
"...Alright."
His Adam's apple bobbed as he gave that difficult response.