Chapter 12

It was the landlady.

She lived upstairs. When she opened the door, her eyes widened. “Who are you? Where’s Xu Tao?”

The soundproofing in this building wasn’t great.

It couldn’t contain the unrestrained arguments of four people.

She liked peace and quiet, and when I lived here, I was always quiet.

After she asked that question.

I watched as the four of them, as if choked, suddenly fell silent.

After a long pause, my mother spoke.

“We are Xu Tao’s family. She has passed away. We’re here to pack her things.”

The landlady was shocked and disbelieving, and eventually, she started to cry.

As she went upstairs, she sobbed, “Such a good girl, how could she be so unlucky…”

I wasn’t very lucky.

From birth until now, it had always been this way.

Interrupted, they couldn’t argue anymore and went back to silently packing my things.

But what was there to pack?

I came into this world with nothing.

My only attachment in this world refused to be attached to me.

Finally, my mother sat on the edge of the sofa, flipping through my therapy records.

It was dusk again.

The blood-red light of the sunset streamed through the window.

The sound of a car horn came from outside.

Her movements paused, her expression gradually becoming dazed.

Did she remember something?

Like that evening by the side of the road.

When she took my arm, and I gently pushed her away.

She had so eagerly withdrawn her love.

Towards me, she was always so stingy.

“Can you blame me?”

My mother closed the records, her voice hoarse. “She was never sensible, never close to me. Out of three children, of course I would favor the one who was closer to me.”

No.

Mother, you are wrong.

You have mistaken cause and effect.

When I first came home, I instinctively sensed your coldness, so I was constantly testing you.

When Xu Jiao offered to help with chores, you smiled and said, “What can a child like you do? Go rest.”

When I offered to wash the dishes, you readily agreed.

And then, because I broke a bowl, you poked my forehead and called me clumsy.

“Mother.”

I said again in a hoarse voice, words they couldn’t hear.

The broken sobs in my voice were now impossible to hide.

“Mother, you brought me into this world. I knew nothing.”

“How you loved me, is how I loved you.”

My love was a mirror reflecting yours.

Everything.

The vague coldness and sarcasm I learned, the hysterical emotional outbursts, you taught them all to me.

In this family, your significance to me was different from anyone else’s.

I was in your womb, connected to you by blood for ten whole months.

This connection lingered even after I was born.

So much so that even when I was a thousand miles away, it still pulled at me.

So much so that even after I died, I was drawn by this invisible force, my soul returning to her side.

I tried to convince myself that the world was vast, that life was broad, and that I didn’t need to be trapped in the cage of my family of origin.

I went to see mountains.

I went to see the sea.

I put away the sharp objects.

I took my medicine on time every day.

But when I passed through a city and saw a little girl at an amusement park, holding a red balloon and her mother’s hand.

I would still suddenly freeze.

Watching her.

Just like in elementary school, when my deskmate told me with a child’s unique pride.

That she had failed a test, and her mother had scolded her.

She had deliberately run away from home, and her mother, after finally finding her, had hugged her and cried.

She said she was so scared she would get lost and that she would never scold her again.

I didn’t know back then.

Only a child who is loved can do that.

So, another time when my mother locked me in the storeroom to reflect.

I suddenly pushed the door open and ran out.

I had run away from home.

Sitting on the old swing in the neighborhood, gazing at the sparse stars in the night sky, I rehearsed in my mind.

If my mother came looking for me out of worry.

What should I say?

She was my mother, after all. I couldn’t make her too sad.

I would just tell her to be a little nicer to me in the future.

But I waited until midnight.

The clouds covered the moon, and a light rain began to fall. The stars disappeared.

I returned home, soaking wet.

The house was completely silent.

Everyone was asleep.

Who would come looking for me?

The next morning, as I left for school with my backpack, my mother sat at the dining table eating breakfast and said flatly:

“So you decided to come back? I thought you were going to live outside forever. The family could have saved on one less mouth to feed.”

Only a child who is loved dares to act spoiled, has the right to throw tantrums.

I never escaped the strange loop of my childhood.

After the age of five, I blundered through a world without guidance.

I asked my mother why so many times.

I was practically begging her to love me.

I didn’t need to be her favorite.

I just needed her to love me a little.

Just like she loved Xu Ze and Xu Jiao.

You knew how, so why couldn’t you do it for me?

Why?

There was no answer.

Night fell.

She turned another page.

Before she could read it, the police station called again.

“Sorry, Ms. Zhao Su, we’ve been busy with the recent arrest. Your daughter has some belongings left here. Please come and pick them up when you have time.”

My mother and Xu Ze went out together.

The city lights were on, the streets bustling with traffic.

She walked with her head down for a while, then suddenly asked Xu Ze, “Do you think Xu Tao hated me?”

“N-no, she wouldn’t.”

Xu Ze was clearly startled, and it took him a few seconds to squeeze out the words.

“Mom, you gave birth to her… Like that murderer said, she was still calling for you before she died. How could she… blame you.”

He fell silent.

Xu Ze was already twenty-one, not an ignorant child.

He had never liked me much.

It was just that his malice wasn’t as obvious or proactive as Xu Jiao’s.

Most of the time, he just stood silently behind Xu Jiao, supporting her.

But a child’s behavior is just an imitation of the adults who hold the power of life and death in the family.

Without my parents’ tacit approval, Xu Ze and Xu Jiao would never have dared to target me like that.

I followed them to the police station for the second time.

The police officer handed my mother a bag of my belongings.

The contents were simple: a set of keys, a pack of tissues, a phone with a screen cracked like a spiderweb.

And a blood-stained, completely twisted gold bracelet.

Tucked inside was a crumpled card.

“Happy birthday, Mother.”

The moonlight was like woven silk.

My mother stared blankly at the gold bracelet.

At the blood-smeared words on the card.

For a long, long time.

Her eyes, which had always been either cold or fiercely emotional when she looked at me, slowly began to fill with mist.

On the seventh day after my death, in my twenty-fifth year.

My mother, for the first time in her life, shed a tear for me.