Peaches and Plums Don’t Speak – Chapter 46
by Little PandaA False Proposition
After that, Yang Mengmeng and Anzhi’s relationship grew even better. Yang Mengmeng studied harder and didn’t spend as much time reading books online. Her parents were greatly relieved. Because they had been extremely busy with their business recently, they would occasionally let Yang Mengmeng spend the night at Yan Xi’s house.
Once the Poetry Conference program came to an end, Yan Xi had a short vacation. Since there was a newborn baby at the Yan Family Old Residence, Yan Xi brought Anzhi back to her place and also tidied up a guest room for Yang Mengmeng.
Yang Mengmeng and Anzhi could discuss any topic, but when it came to Yan Xi, they would be a little cautious. Mengmeng hardly dared to say anything too obvious. She knew that Yan Xi was truly being nice to her for Anzhi’s sake; even the guest room prepared for her was beautifully decorated.
“This… is probably what they call ‘loving the house and its crow,’ right…” Yang Mengmeng said to her.1
Anzhi pressed her lips together and smiled at her.
With a tacit understanding, Yang Mengmeng dropped the subject.2 For now, for the time being, their studies came first.
For a while, life seemed as smooth as a calm lake. At least, that’s what Anzhi thought. She was putting all her energy into getting into a high school that ranked in the top five nationwide. Just getting in wasn’t enough; she had to do it with outstanding grades.
She didn’t dare to think about other emotions, nor was she willing to dwell on them.
Anzhi, who was so good at solving problems, felt timid for the first time, shelving these emotions away.3 Perhaps when she was a little older, she would have the ability to handle them. The young Anzhi was certain that, compared to boys, she found girls kinder, cuter, and easier to get along with. But… she couldn’t understand, and was even afraid of, the feelings she was developing for Yan Xi.
It felt like it shouldn’t be.
Ever since Anzhi started school, she had always been ahead in her studies. She was long accustomed to discovering and solving problems on her own. She was used to encountering questions others didn’t understand, and she wouldn’t get anxious, because she knew that perhaps the knowledge she needed was just up ahead, waiting for her to find it.
Holding on to this thought, Anzhi felt herself growing stronger day by day. She no longer felt uneasy and even believed that nothing could ever hurt her again.
But life is life. It often slaps you across the face when you least expect it.4
It was Friday, the last Friday of junior high. The High School Entrance Exam5 would begin the following Monday. The examination halls had to be set up over the weekend, so the school simply let out early that day, allowing students to go home and rest.
“Five more days until we’re free!” The two of them walked with their bicycles, chatting cheerfully.
Suddenly, Yang Mengmeng let out a soft “Huh?” and said, “An’an, there’s a woman over there who keeps looking at you.”
Anzhi followed her gaze.
In May, Beicheng already had a hint of early summer in the air. School had let out early, and the sun was still a bit strong. Anzhi felt as if she were frozen to the spot, staring blankly as the woman approached from a distance.
She had thought she’d forgotten the woman’s face, but when she was standing right in front of her, that face was unmistakably familiar.
An indescribable sourness and bitterness welled up in Anzhi’s heart, spreading through her entire body.
“An’an?” Yang Mengmeng noticed something was wrong with her.
She eyed the woman standing before them suspiciously. She was very pretty and young, dressed in a form-fitting, pale yellow long dress, her neck slender and graceful. Her almond-shaped eyes were so pitifully lovely that even another woman would feel for her.6
“Anzhi…” she began. “Can you talk with me for a moment?”
Who in the world is this?
Yang Mengmeng heard Anzhi turn her head and say slowly, “Mengmeng, you should go home first.”
“But…” She saw that Anzhi’s face was completely white. Anzhi squeezed out a smile at her. “It’s fine. I know her.”
Yang Mengmeng watched their retreating backs uneasily. She didn’t have her phone with her. After a moment’s thought, she quickly got on her bike and hurried home.
“I’ve been back for a few months, I’ve been busy with renovations on the new house.”
Originally, she had wanted to take Anzhi to a café near the school, but Anzhi refused. They found a shady spot nearby instead, leaning their bicycles against a wall.
“I wanted to get everything settled before coming to find you. Chen Muqi and his wife said they went traveling. I… I also just found out that all these years, you’ve been… with Yan Xi…”
Anzhi listened in silence.
Because you never made a single phone call.
It wasn’t that she had never had expectations; she had just grown numb later on. From a very young age, she knew not to expect too much. If someone gave her something, she would take it. If they didn’t, she couldn’t cry.
It was just like when she first arrived at the Yan residence at the age of five. During meals, she would only eat the dishes directly in front of her. If someone gave her food she didn’t like, she had to eat it anyway.
“You really look like Chen Muqi…”
Anzhi’s mouth moved, but she said nothing. A wave of exhaustion washed over her, more tiring than doing exam papers for all seven subjects—Chinese, math, English, physics, chemistry, biology, and geography—in a row.
Chen Muqi had said she looked like Tao Zhenzhen. Tao Zhenzhen said she looked like Chen Muqi.
In a way, those two were a good match.
Anzhi’s heart felt heavy, and she didn’t want to listen to her beat around the bush any longer. “Is there something you need? If not, I’m going home.”
Tao Zhenzhen was taken aback. After a pause, she raised a hand to brush back her hair. Anzhi seemed to remember her having a head of beautiful, glossy black hair before, but now it was dyed brown.
Anzhi hadn’t noticed before, but with this movement, she saw a sparkling diamond ring on Tao Zhenzhen’s finger.
“I’m married. I’ll be living in the country from now on.”
Anzhi bit her lip.
“My husband grew up abroad. We met at work. He was transferred to Beicheng for his job, so we bought a house here. He doesn’t mind that I had a child before, but his parents might have some opinions… But it’s okay. You’re so grown up, and you’re sensible and motivated. They’ll slowly come to accept you.”
Anzhi gritted her teeth, her voice squeezing out from between them. “So?”
“Anzhi, come live with me. Before… I had to focus on my career… Now I’m capable of taking care of you…”
“Besides, you can’t stay at the Yan family’s house forever. After all, you’re not related to them by blood or friendship…”7
Anzhi shot to her feet, her entire body tense as she stared at her. “I don’t need you to manage my life!”
“Anzhi!” A flash of sorrow crossed Tao Zhenzhen’s eyes. “You have every right to blame me. I just didn’t expect Chen Muqi to be so unreliable as to just dump you with Yan Xi.”
“Didn’t you dump me with him, too?” Anzhi retorted sarcastically, her eyes red.
Tao Zhenzhen froze, as if she hadn’t expected Anzhi to say such a thing. In her distant memory, the tiny Anzhi would only stare at her silently with her round eyes, very well-behaved, never crying or making a fuss. But the young woman before her now was as delicate and slender as a spring willow branch. Though still childish, she already possessed a hint of the resilience needed to face the wind and snow.
“…” Tao Zhenzhen realized she needed to try a different approach.
But Anzhi didn’t give her the chance to speak. “If that’s all you have to say, then don’t bother. I’m doing just fine right now!”
“But you’ll have to leave the Yan family one day. Yan Xi will get married one day…”
That one sentence pierced right through Anzhi’s inflated defenses. She visibly deflated, crestfallen. She shook her head, then shook it again. “I said, I don’t need you to manage my life.”
“Anzhi…”
Tao Zhenzhen hesitated for a moment, then placed her fair hand on her own abdomen. “You’re going to be a big sister…”
For three seconds, Anzhi’s ears were ringing. All she could see was Tao Zhenzhen’s beautiful chin and the maternal glow on her face—the same glow she had seen on Eldest Sister-in-law Yan’s face when she was pregnant. Her lips were moving, and the words came out one by one: “I think… now… I can be… a good mother…”
At dusk, the sky was ablaze with fiery sunset clouds, and the summer heat had yet to recede. The air was hot and stuffy.
By the time Anzhi came to her senses, she realized she was lost. She was surrounded by unfamiliar tall buildings. She stopped to look around, her legs numb.
With a jolt, she remembered her bicycle. The scene just now had been beyond her capacity to handle. Not wanting to hear another word from Tao Zhenzhen, she had turned and fled.
Be a big sister? What a joke!
In recent years, the second-child policy8 had been relaxed. Many of her classmates, who had been only children, had middle-aged parents, some of whom had considered having a second child.
Some parents would ask their child, “How would you like it if Mom and Dad gave you a little brother or sister?” Others wouldn’t care about their child’s opinion at all, simply getting pregnant and then announcing it.
“What do you mean, having a little brother or sister ‘for me’? You’re the one who wants to have another kid, why make it sound like it’s for my benefit?”
“What do you mean, ‘having another child so we can take care of each other’? Please, we’d be more than ten years apart, okay? In the end, who’s going to be taking care of whom? They just say that to make me accept it willingly. See, the baby isn’t even born yet, and my parents are already playing favorites.”
The complaints of those few classmates still echoed in her ears. At the time, Anzhi had only listened, but she was surprised by how clearly she remembered them now.
Children who are loved by their parents can, of course, complain with righteous indignation and protest directly. As the old saying goes, the child who cries gets candy.9 But the old saying never said that all children who cry get candy. The unloved ones could cry their eyes out, and no one would pay them any mind.
She could only flee in panic.
“Parents naturally love their children.” If this were a true proposition, then why did everyone else have their parents’ love, but she didn’t? Would it feel better to consider this a false proposition?
Anzhi sobbed silently.
As evening fell, people getting off work bustled past, and cars hurried by. There were no schools nearby; it was a business district, and everyone coming and going was a somber-faced adult in formal attire. Anzhi walked and stopped wretchedly, looking at the street signs. Her phone was already dead; she didn’t even know the time.
A wave of fear washed over her, and she finally couldn’t hold back her tears any longer.
The hurrying adults only gave her a few strange glances. No one stopped to ask what was wrong. Perhaps this was the world of adults. They were entangled in their own trivial matters, with no time to spare for others. In this world, every person was a lonely tree, destined to grow in solitude.
Anzhi’s heart was filled with terror, and tears streamed silently down her face. It was as if she had returned to that first day, taking small, nervous steps behind Tao Zhenzhen after getting off the high-speed train. She had been so small then, and all the adults in her vision looked like giants, the cars and buildings like monsters. She had struggled to keep up, not daring to make a sound, terrified that Tao Zhenzhen would leave her behind.
Crying, Anzhi struggled to pull herself out of that memory, reminding herself that she was about to be a high schooler. She was no longer that short little kid who couldn’t seem to grow. She was first in her grade in every subject, she could speak English and a few phrases of the local dialect, she had money in her pocket, she had friends, she had Yan Xi. She was growing into an excellent person.
So, she wasn’t afraid of being lost anymore. She didn’t need anyone’s biased, belated care.
Anzhi wiped her eyes as she sobbed. She finally found the way back to the school. When she got back to the spot, her bicycle was already gone.
Footnotes
- An idiom (爱屋及乌, ài wū jí wū) meaning that if you love someone, you will love everything connected to them. It is similar to the English expression ‘love me, love my dog.’
- The original phrase is 心有灵犀 (xīn yǒu líng xī), an idiom describing a deep, unspoken connection between two people.
- The original phrase is 束之高阁 (shù zhī gāo gé), an idiom meaning to put something aside indefinitely.
- The original phrase is 猝不及防 (cù bù jí fáng), an idiom meaning to be caught completely unprepared by something sudden.
- The Zhongkao (中考) is a crucial standardized test in China that determines admission to senior high school.
- The original phrase is 我见犹怜 (wǒ jiàn yóu lián), an idiom used to describe a woman of such delicate, pitiful beauty that she inspires compassion in everyone, including other women.
- The original phrase is 非亲非故 (fēi qīn fēi gù), an idiom meaning to be unrelated.
- The second-child policy was a Chinese government policy implemented in 2015 that allowed couples to have two children, replacing the previous one-child policy.
- A common saying (会哭的孩子有糖吃, huì kū de háizi yǒu táng chī) meaning that people who are assertive or vocal about what they want are more likely to receive it.
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