Chapter 14: Extra – One Day

“Let’s make a bet.”

“Bet on what?” He Chong and Han Yu asked in unison.

Ye Yinyin said, “Guess which number Momo will be when she comes out. Everyone pick a number, and whoever is closest wins.”

He Chong said “30,” Han Yu said “40,” and Ye Yinyin said “50.” Then the three of them waited at the exit, counting the passengers coming out one by one.

He Chong hadn’t thought much of it at first, but the counting made him inexplicably nervous. As Ye Yinyin counted heads, “47, 48…” he found himself silently counting along in his mind.

When they reached “86,” a tall figure appeared ahead. She wore a loose jacket paired with jeans and a baseball cap, pushing a large black suitcase covered in stickers. Though her outfit was entirely unremarkable, the moment she appeared, He Chong suddenly felt as if the overcast, early-summer sky had brightened up.

Ye Yinyin raised her arm high. “Momo! Over here!”

Zhou Mo’s eyes lit up, and she immediately ran over, dragging her suitcase behind her. Just as she was about to throw her arms around Ye Yinyin in a hug, an arm blocked her path, pulling her to the side, and she bumped squarely into a warm embrace.

He Chong’s deep voice came from above her head. “Didn’t see me?”

Zhou Mo giggled. “I saw you! I just wanted to hug Yinyin before hugging you!”

Ye Yinyin couldn’t bear to watch. “Go ahead and hug, go ahead and hug. I won’t fight Boss He for you.”

On the way back, Han Yu drove while He Chong and Zhou Mo sat in the back seat. Han Yu spent the whole ride going over the lunch plans, but the two in the back had their hands intertwined, completely distracted and not taking in a single word.

He Chong looked Zhou Mo up and down. She had been abroad for two years, and while they didn’t meet especially often, they managed to see each other every two to three months. Each time they met, He Chong felt she had changed. The little girl who had once been raised in a greenhouse like a delicate rose had imperceptibly begun to show the resilient, vibrant nature of wild grass.

He had received plenty of her photos and followed her social media accounts. He watched her travel across Europe all on her own, dragging her suitcase behind her. Her clothes became simpler and more casual, but her eyes grew ever steadier and brighter. His little girl had emerged from her cocoon, reborn and shining brightly.

Zhou Mo was looking at He Chong too. Over the past two years, he had opened a studio, leading a crew of youngsters nearly ten years younger than him as they tinkered with machinery. He still maintained that relaxed demeanor of someone who never let anything bother him, looking even more steady and composed now. Ye Yinyin often joked that in a few more years, He Chong would look like he was entering his middle-aged health-maintenance phase^[1].

Lunch was arranged by Han Yu at a restaurant with upscale decor.

Zhou Mo flipped through the menu. “Isn’t this a bit expensive?”

Ye Yinyin said, “It’s not really expensive, is it? Momo, you used to spend money like water. Small restaurants like this wouldn’t even register on your radar.”

Zhou Mo blinked. “Really? Was I ever such a spendthrift?”

Everyone answered in unison, “Yes.”

Zhou Mo grinned. “Things are different now! My money is all earned by me now, so I have to spend it carefully. Before I make a name for myself, I’ll be poor for quite a long time.” She pointed to her T-shirt. “This shirt right here? Seven euros.”

Han Yu clicked his tongue. “Old He, look at what you’ve driven your wife to. You make plenty of money, so why are you so stingy?”

He Chong felt completely wronged. “If you can convince Zhou Mo to use my money, I’ll truly thank you.”

As the four of them were eating, Han Yu suddenly remembered something. “Old He, you lost your chance to hear Boss Wang call you Grandfather.”

Zhou Mo and Ye Yinyin were completely baffled, so Han Yu explained, “The year before last, Old He made a bet with us, saying he’d marry Zhou Mo before Wang Song and I got married. If he pulled it off, Wang Song and I would kneel down and call him Grandfather.”

He Chong smiled nonchalantly. “That was just youthful recklessness… Is Wang Song getting married?”

“You don’t know yet? He posted it on WeChat Moments.”

“I didn’t notice.”

Ye Yinyin rolled her eyes at Han Yu. “You guys are so backward. How old are we even, and all you think about is getting married? Two words: No way!”

Han Yu reached out to grab her hand. “We’re getting married sooner or later anyway. Better early than late.”

“Who said I’m marrying you?”

“Then who else would you marry?”

“Hard to say. The world is so big, there’s bound to be someone better out there.”

“Come on, give it a rest. Tormenting me alone is enough. Don’t go tormenting anyone else.”

…

Amid laughter and the “suicidal” public display of affection between Han Yu and Ye Yinyin, everyone finished their meal.

Leaving behind a quick “You two make your own plans, we won’t bother you,” Ye Yinyin dragged Han Yu away and quickly slipped off.

He Chong pulled Zhou Mo’s suitcase along and looked down at her. “Want to come check out my studio?”

“Sure, sure!”

He Chong’s studio was located in the city center, a small office with only a dozen or so employees in total. The attendance policy was extremely casual, so only three or four people were present during working hours. He Chong took Zhou Mo on a short tour, finally pointing to a separate cubicle. “I sit over there.”

Zhou Mo sat down and spun around in the chair, savoring the feeling of being the boss. “Does Lin Xinghe work under you too?”

“No. He wanted to, but I didn’t agree and told him to continue his master’s degree instead. Still, if there’s a project that needs a major breakthrough, I’ll call him in.”

“What about Yan Tianyu?”

“No idea. Probably doing okay for himself.”

Zhou Mo curled her lip.

He Chong smiled. Sometimes that was just how things went; bad people didn’t necessarily get bad karma.

After visiting the studio, He Chong brought Zhou Mo home. He had ultimately bought an apartment in Xicheng. The keys had just been handed over at the beginning of the year, so it wasn’t renovated yet, leaving bare concrete walls.

Stepping inside, Zhou Mo felt a sense of déjà vu. She remembered waking up in He Chong’s garage back then to a similarly empty scene with barely any furniture.

“You live here?”

“Not often. I still spend most of my time in Yannan Town, but the place itself is pretty nice.” He Chong showed her around the layout. “Now I’m just waiting for you to decide how to decorate it.”

Zhou Mo looked at him with a smile. “So you want to get married too?”

“That’s up to you to decide,” He Chong said with mock seriousness. “If you think I’m handsome, charming, funny, mature, and dependable, you could consider marrying me. After all, you’re pretty, cute, cheerful, and talented, making us a perfect match. What do you think?”

Zhou Mo chuckled. “You’ve said it all. What’s left for me to say?”

He pulled her into his arms, leaned down to kiss her, and murmured, “All you need to say is ‘I do.'”

Zhou Mo held him tightly.

He Chong breathed warmly against her ear and leaned down to kiss her neck.

That tattoo was still clearly visible.

After dinner that evening, He Chong held Zhou Mo’s hand as they strolled along the river.

The sleeves of her loose coat were long and kept covering her hands, so He Chong had to stop every now and then to roll them back up for her.

Sometimes he felt she had matured, but other times she still seemed like the stumbling girl from two years ago, someone he could never stop worrying about. So all he could do was watch over her, keeping his eyes on her always.

Zhou Mo barely lifted her feet as she walked, scuffing her shoes along the path. Their two long shadows occasionally bent down toward the sloping riverbank.

Zhou Mo said softly, “My mom went to Paris last month. I had a meal with her.”

“How did it go?”

Zhou Mo shook her head. “She asked a couple of questions about how I was doing, and then we ran out of things to say. We just ate our own food without really talking.”

“She didn’t try to persuade you to come home again?”

“No.”

“That’s already progress.”

Zhou Mo hugged his arm, leaning half her weight against him. “He Chong, is the bond between parents and children something you can never truly sever? Even though they treated me like that, thinking about how I can never go back to the place where I spent twenty years still makes me feel a little sad.”

“Nothing is set in stone. I don’t have parents and grew up with my uncle, and I’ve done just fine. As for feeling sad, that’s completely normal. Do you feel happier now, or were you happier before?”

“Now.”

“Then that’s all that matters. Don’t expect everything to be perfect.”

Zhou Mo nodded.

He Chong squeezed her hand tightly. “Do you want to go back and take a look?”

Zhou Mo hesitated for a moment. “Yeah. But I don’t want to go in. I just want to take a look from the outside.”

By the time they arrived at the villa complex, night had fallen completely. They didn’t have keycards to get through the main gate, but surprisingly, the security guard on duty still remembered Zhou Mo and let them right in.

For a moment, Zhou Mo felt a wave of apprehension, afraid she might bump into Tang Shulan or Zhou Sipei.

Deep tree shadows lay heavy in the darkness. She still remembered the afternoons she had accidentally fallen asleep under the trees, the paths where she used to kick her ball around, the neighbor’s hydrangeas and roses, and the sunsets she used to watch from the balcony…

As they walked, they eventually arrived below the Zhou family’s home.

Zhou Mo stopped and looked up, suddenly freezing in place. The light was actually on in her room upstairs.

She didn’t dare think about what it meant. She simply blinked, feeling a touch of moisture on her eyelashes.

“Do you want to go inside? Should I knock?”

Zhou Mo shook her head and withdrew her gaze, whispering, “Let’s go.”

They walked back the way they came, He Chong holding her hand tightly.

There are always things lost along the road of growing up: the pebbles clutched tightly in childhood hands, the longhorn beetle trapped in a jar, the tadpoles promised to be raised, and the red dragonfly with broken wings… Back then, it always felt like those were the entire world, the whole of a lifetime.

But once setting out on the journey, one discovers that life is filled with ever-shifting desires, strange and endless. The original self was nothing more than a translucent cicada shell left behind on a tree trunk.

An entire summer passed just like that.

Accompanied by pain, a person grows up just like that.

The moon shone down from above, casting two long shadows on the ground, leaning closely together.

He Chong said, “Come on, I’ll buy you an orange soda.”