A Gilded Cage of Love - Chapter 14
The year I graduated, Jiang Qin came with me to take photos.
When the shutter clicked, he was looking at me.
Xia Xiao saw us from afar, hesitated for a long time, but still came over.
“He’s actually been with you for so long.
“The person who posted before was me… sorry.”
Relationships between people are always strange.
Before graduation, it didn’t feel like much, but graduation is like a switch; once you pass that point, everyone becomes kinder.
Jiang Qin is thirty now.
Yellowing leaves fall to the ground, and when the wind blows, it makes you shiver involuntarily.
He’s getting busier and busier.
We used to see each other two or three times a week.
But recently, a whole month passed and I only saw him once.
Graduation also brought questions from my family.
For four whole years, I hadn’t gone home.
Even when I returned to my hometown, it was just to visit Teacher Zhou, and then I hurried back.
The surgery was very successful, but it still hurt the body.
Teacher Zhou retired early, lying in bed and holding my hand: “Yaoyao is doing very well now.”
I held back my tears then, and Gu Chao and I tacitly didn’t mention the one hundred thousand yuan.
It was only when I was leaving that he chased after me to see me off.
The man had a weariness that shouldn’t belong to someone his age. He glanced at my expensive clothes, sighed, and hesitated: “I’m sorry.”
I shook my head.
So that broken, oppressive home always feels like it belongs to the last century. If it weren’t for the occasional calls asking for things, I wouldn’t remember them at all.
“Are you in Gang City?”
“Mom, I found an internship here.”
I was lying to her.
In reality, I was still writing novels.
The increasingly stable royalties made me feel that even after leaving Jiang Qin, I could still live well.
“What internship? I heard rent and salaries are high in Gang City. Since you can stay there, see if you can bring your brother over and get him a job.”
I used to get angry when I heard this.
But now, all that’s left is helplessness and irony, and I lie smoothly: “Mom, I’m sharing a room with two classmates, it’s about the same size as Ruan Zongyao’s room, I really can’t arrange anything.”
My mom spat: “You’re not in school anymore, so you have time to make money, right? From now on, give the family five thousand a month! If you don’t, come back and get married, so we won’t lose out on the bride price when we’re old…”
I hung up coldly.
Before I could put away my phone, a notification popped up.
The Jiang Family’s patriarch was seriously ill, the Jiang brothers were fighting, and the internal strife wouldn’t stop.
My heart skipped a beat, and I clicked on the news.
A family with assets worth tens of billions, with a tangled power structure and many industries involved.
And I’d known from the start.
Jiang Qin’s father had more than just his mother, and Jiang Qin wasn’t his only son.
The Gang City media loved to dig up all sorts of gossip, and the tabloids with no bottom line wrote stories about the family from the first wife to the seventh, savoring every detail.
Against this backdrop of turmoil, the peace between us seemed bizarre and unnatural.
But I always felt that something was about to happen.
Or rather, what was meant to happen was finally about to happen.
One day, Jiang Qin drank a lot.
He wanted me to pick him up, and as soon as he got in the car, he lay down on me.
He sounded aggrieved: “Yaoyao, I’m really so tired.”
I sighed, stroking his carefully groomed sideburns.
In families like this, when some news gets out, it only means it really can’t be hidden anymore.
No one knows what’s really happening inside; outsiders only see fragments of the storm.
After getting home, I went to make him some hangover soup.
In the study, Jiang Qin was on the phone, a bit out of control.
“What do you want from me, really?
“What do I have to do to satisfy you?
“No, nothing I do will ever satisfy you. Since you’ll never be satisfied, that means I don’t have to listen to you.”
…
The next day, I saw online that he was going to get engaged to a girl from Beijing with a red background.
A perfect match, socially speaking.
My phone slipped silently onto the carpet.
I had hesitated about leaving, and repeatedly examined our relationship.
With every hesitation, every examination, I ended up here.
I once listened to an episode of “Roundtable” about procrastination, where the host said that procrastination is essentially a kind of fear.
Fear of death.
Fear that the current state will end.
I forgot how I felt then; I just mechanically picked up my phone and unlocked the screen, a thought flashing through my mind.
See, this day has finally come.
And at that moment, I got another call from home.
It was like my soul left my body, watching myself calmly speak.
“What is it?”
On the other end, my mother’s sharp cries pierced through the receiver, drilling into my ears.
“Yaoyao, please save your brother, please save your brother.
“He lost 600,000 starting a business, borrowed from loan sharks without telling us. The debt collectors came, saying if we don’t pay, they’ll cut off his hand!! Your dad and I can’t even save 20,000 a year, what are we going to do!”
My mind buzzed.
Suddenly I remembered.
Not long ago, I had calculated.
After writing for four years, I’d only just made a million.
The money I gave my family was almost all from my royalties.
“Mom, where am I supposed to get 600,000?”
My mom couldn’t hear my question, only knew how to cry: “Can’t you help him? Zongyao isn’t like before, he just wanted our family to have a better life, that’s why he lost money starting a business.”
“Think of something, Yaoyao, you’re so pretty, can’t you figure something out? Aren’t there lots of rich people in Hong Kong? Think of something!”
This is what a mother says to her daughter.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
I used to think it was because my family was so bad that even heaven pitied me.
So even with this kind of relationship, Jiang Qin was sent to my side.
But now I finally understand, no matter how well I live, it’s all a dream I wove myself.
Now, it’s time to wake up.
