Chapter 19: Going Home

Wang Jiexiang thought this cycle had failed, a complete failure.

But it hadn’t.

Yin Xian, safe and sound, was sitting beside her.

The green train carrying them slowly moved toward Wang Jiexiang’s hometown, and it was still dark outside.

She leaned on the train window, watching the scenery pass by.

The empty road, passing cars, a vast expanse of black trees, distant homes with lights on… As the train passed a tunnel, she saw Yin Xian’s reflection in the glass.

Everything seemed so unreal.

She asked him, “Why didn’t you call?”

He replied, “I realized I hadn’t thought it through. I’ll tell him once I’m sure.”

Holding the train ticket in her hand, Wang Jiexiang checked the destination printed on it several times.

“Can I really go home?”

He smiled lightly, enunciating the words carefully: “Yes.”

Wang Jiexiang came from a poor village in the southwest. At home, her father and grandmother never treated her well, and her only loving mother died during childbirth when her younger brother was born. One night, when she was 18, she stole money from her grandmother and planned to go to the city to find a friend and work together. Her grandmother chased after her, throwing stones at her on the mountain slope. Wang Jiexiang didn’t look back, enduring the pain as she fled farther away.

So she never imagined she could go back.

What would the house look like when she was that young?

At 22, Yin Xian was six years older than her, so she must have been 16 then? That was the time when she had a big fight with her family.

Her heart sank, and Wang Jiexiang suddenly woke up, crumpling the train ticket in her hand.

Was there any point in returning to that home without a mother, to that false home from another world?

Since Yin Xian didn’t call, she could just wait for him. Once he figured it out, she could leave.

What had she been thinking earlier?

“Hey, I say. You’re so nosy, dragging me onto this train for no reason. Who needs your help? Who needs your fake kindness? Can you just leave me alone? Do I even know you?”

To him, she was a strange child who looked like a thief, no matter how normal she actually was.

Wang Jiexiang spoke in a harsh tone, her words unpleasant. She wished that after annoying Yin Xian, he would throw a “Good intentions mistaken for stupidity” and walk away.

She glared at him fiercely, while Yin Xian remained like a true elder to her.

He calmly asked, “Do the adults at home treat you badly?”

Wang Jiexiang turned her head in a panic, facing the pitch-black window. She couldn’t hold back the tears welling up in her eyes.

Yin Xian handed her a tissue.

“I’m not crying,” she said, her throat feeling tight, raising her voice as if to prove she wasn’t weak.

He didn’t call her out, patiently placing the tissue in her clenched fist.

Wang Jiexiang lowered her gaze.

The tissue was white and soft.

This scene was strangely familiar.

When she and Yin Xian had that conversation, Wang Jiexiang had said it was a major mistake.

But she was the one who had pursued Yin Xian back then.

She clearly remembered the first time she was attracted to him, when he bought her a small pack of tissues.

He wasn’t warm-hearted and didn’t know how to comfort others; even when he helped, he didn’t show any eagerness to do so.

But she had long known that Yin Xian was kinder on the inside than he appeared, a truly good person.

Holding the tissue, Wang Jiexiang closed her eyes.

Her head tilted, she leaned against the train window.

Going home.

She softly whispered in her heart: Going home.

That night, her sleep was restless. The train reached a stop, and Wang Jiexiang was woken up by the noise from passengers boarding.

It was daylight.

The train carried them into a new day.

She gazed toward the sky, where thick clouds were filled with sunlight.

Gradually, the light grew brighter and spilled from the edges of the clouds, breaking through the morning mist and entering the carriage.

She looked back.

The whole carriage was filled with bright, golden-orange light.

Yin Xian was leaning back in his seat, asleep in the light.

He had thin, pretty lips, short hair, and a young face.

Wang Jiexiang stared at him, feeling as though she were crossing through time.

At this moment, they hadn’t met yet. They would have to wait two more years.

In two years, they would meet, live in a leaky rental house, and eat stale crabs. She would knit him a sweater too small for him, and he would make her carrot juice. They would quarrel and fight many times.

She was in that moment before everything happened, holding her face and staring at him.

Her ex-boyfriend, Yin Xian.

Her future boyfriend, Yin…

“Slap.”

Suddenly, a hand slapped the top of Wang Jiexiang’s head.

Yin Xian lazily opened one eye.

“What are you looking at, kid?”

She rubbed her forehead, baring her teeth and glaring at him.

“Staring at me, huh? Also a kid.”

He reached up to mess with her hair, roughly tangling it.

“Who’s a kid! You don’t know who I am!” Wang Jiexiang thought: You’re only 22, I’m actually older than you.

Feigning surprise, he said, “Not bad, didn’t expect you to know idioms.”

She lifted her chin, speaking arrogantly, “What’s an idiom? I can also recite ancient poetry.”

“Which one?”

Wang Jiexiang confidently replied, “Night Rain Sent North.”

She had taught him before, and at that time, he had admired her greatly.

Yin Xian clapped in disbelief: “Hurry up and recite it for me.”

She finally realized his teasing tone. Angrily, she jumped up and pretended to attack him with two imaginary kitchen knives.

Yin Xian easily stopped both of her “knives.”

“You should let me win. I’m a kid,” Wang Jiexiang struggled and shamelessly said something nonsensical.

He released his hold.

Immediately, she hit him with all her might.

“…Hoo hoo.” Wang Jiexiang blew on her hand, feeling no pain herself, but her hand hurt from hitting him.

Sitting down, the more she thought about it, the more aggrieved she felt.

If she didn’t get back at him, Wang Jiexiang really couldn’t swallow this anger.

“Did you break up with He Shan? Have you thought about what kind of girlfriend you want in the future?”

She shook her legs in triumph, glancing at him from the corner of her eye.

Yin Xian said, “I haven’t thought about it.”

Wang Jiexiang gleefully informed him: “It’s very likely to be someone like me.”

“That kind of possibility doesn’t exist,” he emphasized, “kid.”

Failing to get back at him.

Wang Jiexiang got even angrier.

Yin Xian glanced at his watch, the train would be reaching the station soon.

“What about you? Have you thought about your future? What do you want to do when you get home?”

She thought about her 16-year-old self, and what she was doing then…

“I’ll help take care of my brother, do some farm work, and a few years later, go to the city to work. Even if I don’t go, my family will force me to, or they’ll make me get married.”

Getting off the train, they transferred onto two buses and three public transport routes.

Looking around, all she could see were endless green mountains. The bus terminal was a two-story white brick house, standing there alone like a pearl dropped deep within the mountains.

Wang Jiexiang excitedly introduced the brick house: “This is my school.”

He looked around but didn’t see any homes: “Where’s your house?”

She pointed in one direction: “Over there. My house is up the mountain road. If the weather’s good, it takes three hours to get there.”

Yin Xian was surprised: “You have to walk so far to school every day?”

“Yeah, but I’m happy to have school,” Wang Jiexiang said nostalgically, looking at the small school building. “After my brother was born, I stopped studying much.”

Her words made him think deeply for a long time.

“Can I visit your school?” Yin Xian suddenly asked.

Wang Jiexiang shook her head: “The door’s closed, the teacher isn’t there. Maybe he’s sick.”

He frowned: “The school closes if the teacher is sick?”

“Yes, if the weather’s bad, they close too. Sometimes I walk there, and the school is closed, so I walk back. When I was younger, my mom would take me to school, and she’d always carry me when it rained.”

She opened up and bragged: “I really love studying. I was best at Chinese because I liked writing essays. When I was in school, my essays were always read aloud by the teacher.”

“Then you should continue studying,” he said.

Wang Jiexiang didn’t hear clearly: “Huh?”

“I said, you should continue studying.”

He sighed deeply, then looked at her, his eyes full of something profound.

“Can non-teacher graduates teach at your school?”

She didn’t understand why he was asking this…

“We’re not that formal. As long as you’ve graduated from high school, you can teach.”

Yin Xian fell into thought again.

Wang Jiexiang felt his mood was off, like he was about to say something but held back.

She silently observed him, her eyes trying to penetrate his body. Yin Xian, lost in thought, didn’t notice her gaze.

Suddenly!

Her gaze fixed on his chest.

There, a faint outline of something appeared.

It was a Key!

He was wearing a Key around his neck!