A Clumsy Blessing.
“Jiejie, go take a shower.”
Qi Song turned her head and pulled away, resting her forehead in the hollow of Yu Luo’s shoulder.
Yu Luo’s breathing was still rushed. It took her a good while to calm down enough to find her voice. “You go first.”
She raised a hand to push Qi Song away. Seeing the girl’s damp and intense gaze, she suddenly felt the skin on her neck, which had just been meticulously savored, burn even hotter.
Qi Song restrained herself, using her eyes to trace and commemorate the woman’s hazy charm at that moment, before saying a beat later, “…No, your health isn’t good.”
After speaking, she raised a hand and gently pushed the other woman into the bathroom. “Hurry and wash up. I’ll get your clothes for you.”
Yu Luo subconsciously glanced at her reflection in the bathroom mirror—the corners of her eyes were pink, her gaze shimmering like water. Her eyes landed on the mark left on the side of her neck from Qi Song’s kiss, and her vision trembled for a moment.
Her hand, hanging at her side, couldn’t help but clutch the soaked fabric, as if to bear the unfamiliar shyness in her heart.
They had almost kissed just now.
Qi Song had kissed her all the way up her neck, lingering on her chin and cheek. The pressure from her lips had a youthful recklessness to it, and both of them were so shaken they could hardly control themselves. In the end, they had just barely brushed the corner of the lips.
That soft touch made both of them pause subtly at the same time, before they both turned their heads away in a fluster.
But their chests, pressed tightly together and rising and falling with ever-deeper breaths, exposed the desire in their hearts.
There was a light knock on the bathroom door. “Jiejie, your clothes.”
Yu Luo opened the door and hurriedly took them, deliberately avoiding looking at the soft, thin fabric on top of the pile.
The moonlight after the storm was clear and white, tracing the contours of the woman’s profile, as hazy as jade.
Qi Song lay on her side, a sense of melancholy growing in her heart as she watched.
The more beautiful something was, perhaps the more fragile and easily broken it was. She was always worried it would be destroyed.
—Just like Yu Luo, who had started to come down with a heavy fever after being caught in the rain.
Glancing at the time, Qi Song got out of bed as quietly as possible and took the thermometer to check the temperature of Yu Luo, who was asleep in the adjacent bed.
She inevitably touched the delicate skin beneath the woman’s clothes, but she was in no mood for any heated thoughts, her brows furrowing with worry at the scorching temperature.
Thirty-nine degrees.
In her dizzy state, Yu Luo felt someone help her sit up halfway and feed her some bitter medicine.
The scent on that person was very familiar, and their movements were very gentle. So, in her daze, she began to act spoiled from being pampered1, turning her head away petulantly. “It’s bitter.”
That person stroked her head, coaxing her with a warm voice and fine words2.
She eventually finished it all, and then was gently fed a piece of milk candy.
It was very sweet.
It reminded her of a long time ago, when her mother came home from the factory one day and, for the first time ever, gave her a piece of candy.
She had felt incredibly happy and cherished it, unable to bring herself to eat it. She waited until her birthday, then stayed home alone and slowly finished the candy.
It was very sweet.
She thought at the time that her mother must love her, otherwise why would she give her such a sweet candy.
“Jiejie?”
Qi Song saw two lines of clear tears suddenly and silently stream from the corners of Yu Luo’s eyes as she quietly held the candy in her mouth. She panicked. “What’s wrong? Are you feeling unwell?”
She raised her arms and pulled the limp and feverish woman into her embrace, patting her back carefully. Just as she was about to ask again, she heard Yu Luo whimper into her neck, “I want to go home and see tomorrow.”
“I hate that place, and I hate her,” Yu Luo said in a low voice. “…But I miss her. Am I useless?”
Qi Song lowered her eyes, her throat suddenly aching.
She remembered Yu Luo saying before that when her mother abandoned her, she had said she was going to take the money from her grandmother and travel everywhere to enjoy life.
So that “home” on the other side of East Lake should have long since become a place where the things were the same, but the people were not3.
She was silent for two seconds, then held the woman tighter, her cheek gently brushing against the top of Yu Luo’s soft hair. “Don’t be sad. I’ll go with you, Jiejie.”
“It’s not your fault for hating her or for missing her.”
For someone who was raised by her mother alone, who had only ever craved a little bit of warmth from her mother since childhood, even after being hurt, her feelings would always be contradictory and complex—hating yet attached, unable to be easily severed.
“In any case, I love you,” she said solemnly in Yu Luo’s ear.
The hotel they were staying at was on the south shore of Y City’s East Lake, a place of beautiful scenery and exceptional tranquility.
But on the opposite shore, separated by the lake, the place where Yu Luo grew up was as desolate and dilapidated as it had been seven years ago, with low-rise buildings and crumbling walls lining the streets.
Yu Luo’s steps were cautious and slow.
It had been seven years since she left this place. Now, she was successful in her career, with a glamorous public image. She had thought she could revisit it with the calm and fearless attitude of someone who had completely escaped their predicament.
Moreover, with their fingers interlocked, the warmth of Qi Song’s palm gave her some courage.
But when her gaze fell on the wall where, on a dark and cold night back then, several people had forcefully held her down and injected her with drugs, her eyes still flinched.
That old building a little further away was her former home.
She still had a low-grade fever. Body and soul in a state of decay, Yu Luo stopped walking.
“Jiejie?” Qi Song, who was watching her intently, immediately grew nervous and raised a hand to touch her cheek. “Are you dizzy?”
Yu Luo shook her head gently, resting it on the girl’s shoulder. “I need a moment.”
“Qi Song, hold me…”
The words had barely left her lips when a tight embrace enveloped her, the pats on her back as gentle and comforting as always.
In the past, Yu Luo had always tried repeatedly to confirm whether Yu Yan loved her, or had ever loved her. Even in the seven years after leaving Yu Yan, she still couldn’t help but stubbornly ponder this question.
She searched through every detail, wanting to find evidence to convince herself. If there was even the slightest sign, she would work hard to construct a winding yet firm chain of logic that pointed to the answer she wanted. And with that, she deceived herself for many years.
But at this moment, being held in Qi Song’s arms, treated like a precious treasure, and cared for so meticulously, a powerful feeling of being loved filled her heart.
And so, she suddenly had a clear realization—
Love is not something you need to search for.
If you are loved enough, certainty will grow freely, dissolving all unease without a trace.
It seemed she had officially found the answer to the question that had troubled her for so long.
Unsure if it was sadness or relief, Yu Luo continued to walk towards her home, holding Qi Song’s hand, trying hard to pick out some of the brighter memories to share.
She pointed to the corner of the alley: “Right here, I saw a fluffy little puppy in the evening, and that was the first time I ever wanted to have a dog.”
“So, Jiejie, which do you think is cuter, that puppy or me?” Qi Song said.
Knowing she was deliberately acting jealous to cheer her up, the corners of Yu Luo’s lips twitched.
Just as she was about to answer properly, she suddenly heard a voice from the side. “Xiao Luo?”
Yu Luo’s heart skipped a beat. She turned to look.
It was Auntie Lin, the neighbor who used to live across the hall. She had once been very envious of Auntie Lin’s daughter, because Auntie Lin would always be nagging her while dotingly cleaning up her messes.
“Auntie Lin,” she called out, a little hesitant.
While traveling, Yu Luo had been wearing a mask and a baseball cap. She hadn’t expected to be recognized at a glance.
“You’re finally back.”
Auntie Lin wasn’t reserved just because she was a big star now. Instead, her tone carried a hint of blame.
“You knew to come back to sweep your mom’s grave?”
“…What did you say?”
After a brief moment of stunned silence, four words choked their way out, their tone unconsciously distorted.
Yu Luo’s hands were as pale as lifeless sculptures, only a hint of life spilling out through their trembling.
Her fingertips crinkled the several sheets of yellowed letter paper.
It was a letter that had been sent to S City four years ago, but was returned to sender.
The letter was long and heavy, covered in dense, weak, and messy handwriting.
A confession and an explanation that had been rejected.
Auntie Lin looked at the young woman who was always so glamorous on screen, now appearing sickly and weak before her, looking as if she had lost her soul and dropped her spirit4 after a heavy blow. She began to feel a bit soft-hearted.
“Your mother asked me to mail this letter to you on your eighteenth birthday, but it was rejected and returned. I thought you were living well with a rich family and no longer wanted anything to do with your past, so I stored the letter away.”
“She gave me a large sum of money before she passed. I helped her with some simple funeral arrangements, and I go to sweep her grave every year.”
“Do you want to go to the cemetery to see?”
…
It started to rain again.
The cemetery was solemn and gloomy. Yu Luo felt as if a heavy object was crashing inside her dizzy head, a dull, aching pain.
The face of the woman on the tombstone was made exceptionally cold by the rain. She leaned over, her fingertips wiping away the moisture.
“To be honest, I wasn’t originally looking forward to your birth. I was too young then, and I lost my head in the attraction of pheromones, choosing to elope with your father. He cheated on me while I was pregnant, but I persisted in being lost and not awakening5, only wanting to use the child to tie him down.”
“Until one day, he beat me so badly I almost had a miscarriage. When I woke up in the hospital bed, I cried with lingering fear. That was the first time I was afraid of losing you, simply because you were my child.”
“From that day on, I wanted to run away, but I was isolated and without help, and also cowardly and incapable. Knowing full well that you were destined for an unhappy childhood, I still couldn’t bear to part with you, and chose to give birth to you, barely surviving in his violence.”
“The time I truly decided to take you and leave was when you were two. He came home drunk. It was one thing for him to hit me, but that day, he even accidentally hit you. I finally couldn’t take it anymore. The next day, I fled with you, on my body not a single cent, wandering and living without a fixed place for a long time. It was only after I got a job at the factory that we had some semblance of stability.”
“Xiao Luo, you are the best-behaved child I have ever seen. Cute, independent, sensible, and kind. You always wanted to save everything for me, never complaining or asking for anything, only looking at me with a pair of clear, dependent eyes.”
“I was too selfish; I couldn’t bear to part with you at all. So when you were six, your grandmother came to our door saying she wanted to take you and raise you as her heir, and I refused. I deprived you of a life of golden branches and jade leaves6, and made you live with me in a dark, cold, dilapidated house, worrying about food and warmth, being bullied everywhere.”
“I loved you more and more, and because of that, I hated myself more and more. I fell into a vortex of self-loathing. So every time you were bullied, every time you turned to me for help in fear, every time you treated me with all your heart without holding any grudges, I felt pain, feeling that I deserved to go to hell. You deserved a better life, and I was your cage.”
“Thinking back now, perhaps I was never worthy of saying I love you, because every time I should have held you, I always succumbed to my own pain, preoccupied with regret and self-deprecation. And even so, I still never let go. Isn’t that despicable?”
“The year you were in your first year of middle school, I was diagnosed with mid-stage cancer, and I actually felt a sense of relief. I was a gradually withering vine. Even if I wanted to, I finally no longer had the strength to bind your future. I thought, I must love you well in the final stage of my life, and then, before I completely collapse, I will send you to your grandmother and let you receive your long-overdue light.”
“But… without the money or energy for treatment, while enduring the pain of my illness and working, it was as if my body was not my own to command and I became pathologically indifferent. I was irritable, cruel, and you, who knew nothing, bore it all. And you were only thirteen or fourteen at the time…”
“…I am so sorry that from beginning to end, I never made you feel loved. On my deathbed, I still don’t have the face to say I love you. I am writing this letter because I feel you deserve the right to know the full story. I also want to tell you that you have always been a good child worthy of being loved. I hope that in the future, you can have a happiness so certain that you don’t need to ask for it, or carefully confirm it.”
At the end of the letter, the handwriting became heavier and more distorted, burning the last bit of life to offer a regretful and clumsy blessing.
…
The grave had not been visited for nearly a year, and the grass and trees had a cold, lush vibrancy.
Yu Luo pressed her lips together, her eyes lowered as she quietly gazed at the spot.
Even now, she hadn’t cried, showing a somewhat cold composure.
The cemetery was located in the suburbs, surrounded by desolate, open land. A fierce wind, wrapped in rain, swept across the flat ground. Her body swayed, and she softly pitched forward.
“Jiejie?!” someone cried out in panic.
The author has something to say:
I was slacking off at work tonight writing, and I made myself cry. My senior colleague asked me why I was sobbing my heart out at my cubicle while looking at code, and if the stress of studying was too much (facepalm).
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