Chapter 66

Why inherit something else, but inherit this...

Dazed from the bump on her head, Gu Yi walked into the room, while Yu Dule entered with wet hair. Outside, the wind was howling, and the umbrella and chairs were blown askew. Liang Daiwen was about to go outside to straighten them up when Lu Ming stopped him, saying, “The electric wires might be soaked. Let’s wait until the wind dies down. Typhoons in Shanghai don’t last long, it’ll be over soon.”

Thankfully, the living room was a good place to stay sheltered from the wind and rain. The group used small stools to form a table to cut the cake. Yu Dule, still soaked, cut the cake carefully, rubbing his hands on his jeans repeatedly. After distributing the cake, he didn’t eat any and hastily began unwrapping presents. When he saw Gu Yi’s antique puppet, he wasn’t surprised: “This person must have gone out to buy it at the last minute.”

“Huh?”

“You think I don’t know you?”

The gifts from Lu Ming and Liang Daiwen were thoughtful—Lu Ming gave a graphics card, and Liang Daiwen gave a NAS. Yu Dule, clearly overwhelmed by the gifts, sighed: “Seriously, can you two stop being so typical guys? These gifts are better than locking me in a server room until I drop dead.”

Of course, his focus was on the gift from Guan Xingxin. When Guan Xingxin lifted the cloth from the corner of the room, everyone was stunned—there were 29 boxes, each marked with an age, big and small. Yu Dule rubbed his eyes: “This is a bit much.”

“You said you’ve never celebrated a birthday, so I’m making it up all at once,” Guan Xingxin said, laughing. “Open all 29 presents at once; it’s more fun than opening one each year.”

Yu Dule spun in the living room, holding Guan Xingxin, with the fragrance of flowers drifting in the corners where her skirt brushed. The typhoon showed no signs of stopping, and there were still many things to do in the room. Opening the 29 presents took an entire hour, ranging from baby bottles to footballs, sneakers, and down jackets... When they reached the twenty-ninth, Yu Dule opened a box containing preserved flowers, and Guan Xingxin said, “I made this one myself.”

“This birthday was worth it,” Yu Dule said, smiling. “I even found a fortune slip on the way here, but I wrote it myself.”

“What was it?” Guan Xingxin’s eyes lit up.

“Not telling you.”

Guan Xingxin rushed over to pinch Yu Dule’s neck. Yu Dule pulled a damp piece of paper from his pocket, showing it briefly to Guan Xingxin. Her expression froze, and her smile paused. Yu Dule, seemingly prepared, stuffed the paper into his mouth along with the cake—his whole motion was observed by Gu Yi in a daze. The group sat in the living room as the rain intensified, and the door wouldn’t open. Gu Yi felt dizzy: “I think I have a bit of a headache.”

She then leaned heavily on Liang Daiwen’s shoulder. Liang Daiwen touched her forehead and, carrying her, went upstairs: “I’ll go out and buy you some fever medicine.”

“Really don’t need it, I’ll just sleep it off.”

“Lie down for a bit.”

But Gu Yi held onto his arm, not letting him leave. In the room where they had once been apart, the wind howled through the window. Liang Daiwen seemed to recall some memories: “This room is really oppressive.”

Dazed from the fever, Gu Yi couldn’t respond to his words and drifted into sleep. Half-conscious, she felt a hand on her cheek, feeding her medicine. The voice was soft and gentle, but it wasn’t Liang Daiwen’s touch. There was a fragrance of flowers. When she opened her eyes, the bedside lamp was on, and Guan Xingxin was leaning against the side, reading a book. Her long legs were propped up with a copy of The Outsider. When she saw Gu Yi wake up, she pointed downstairs: “Liang Daiwen is in the yard having a phone meeting, and Yu Dule and Lu Ming have already gone to sleep. I came up because I can’t stand the snoring of men.”

“Do you want to sleep?” Gu Yi sat up. Her phone showed it was 4 a.m., and her fever had mostly gone.

“No, I’m not tired. I usually read or draw dolls at this time. I like the night.”

With her long, dark hair, Guan Xingxin touched Gu Yi’s forehead and gently peeled off the fever patch, so lightly that Gu Yi shivered. She closed the book, took Gu Yi’s hand, and held it: “Actually, I have something on my mind that I want to tell you.”

“Huh?” Gu Yi, who had been dedicated to virtual idols and La La, was suddenly unfazed at the news of Guan Xingxin being dismissed. The person who once insisted on wearing motion capture clothes and sweating during La La’s anniversary celebration would never leave such an opportunity to hide behind a virtual idol. Virtual idols don’t typically suffer from failure, and even if they had an unsavory private life, it wouldn’t affect the group. Gu Yi couldn’t understand why Guan Xingxin was removed.

“My parents heard I was doing virtual idols and planning to debut, and they thought it was embarrassing. They called the company and said it was ruining my future, so the company replaced me, saying I was too much of a troublemaker. But it’s okay; besides Luo Tianyi, no one in China will become a hit in virtual idols. The boss’s delusion about me is useless. It’s just... I’m a little reluctant to let go of the role of La La.”

Gu Yi rarely saw Guan Xingxin so angry.

“Recently, my other parents came to visit me—Chen Dad and Chen Mom. This time I didn’t kick Yu Dule out and even let them take a look at him. But Yu Dule didn’t know in advance, so that day when he came, he was dressed in baggy work pants and a hoodie, looking all casual. He was about to crash onto the bed when he opened the door and saw the elderly people. They made him sit on the sofa and asked him a lot of questions. Chen Dad and Chen Mom kept complimenting him on the surface, hoping I’d find someone successful, even if they were older. They thought someone like him, who dreams of using his monthly salary to buy a house and is inheriting a small shop, was better than this.”

Gu Yi listened, and Yu Dule had not noticed recently. He probably regarded these two elders as Guan Xingxin’s biological parents. As for herself, despite the late-night overtime work, her income was still decent. The post-production editing earned her more than 20,000 a month, which wasn’t bad. But Gu Yi quickly figured out the situation: Guan Xingxin probably wouldn’t show her biological parents to anyone; and as for her own parents, Yu Dule had no house, car, or permanent residence. He earned hard money working as a video editor and occasionally performed stand-up comedy, which was already like a continuous barrage of fatal shots directed at the elders.

Guan Xingxin said, “Dad Chen actually likes Yu Dule. As long as they’re not in a romantic relationship, they can be friends. He thinks Yu Dule is an interesting person.”

“I don’t understand. Yu Dule is talented and ambitious. What’s wrong with getting married? Many people admired him at the TV station back in the day.”

“If the elders could be persuaded, I would’ve said so already. They even did the math: in the downtown area of Shanghai, buying a decent house costs about ten million yuan. Yu Dule’s family certainly can’t come up with a 5 million yuan down payment, nor could they pay back a 5 million yuan loan. They don’t intend to sell this 4 million yuan house they gave me, because it’s their property and will remain with me before marriage. Actually, it’s funny—without Dad and Mom Chen, I’d still consider myself lucky to match with Yu Dule; but with them, it feels like I really need to find a man with a house in Shanghai, like some rich girl.”

“Our monthly salary is only a bit over ten thousand yuan.” Gu Yi, just recovering from a fever, blinked. She seemed not to fully grasp what had just been said. “A 5 million yuan loan with interest paid over thirty years is still ten million—being so critical of Yu Dule is cruel.”

“Marriage is essentially about taking advantage. What’s so special about good conditions? Isn’t it all about trying to climb the social ladder?” Guan Xingxin looked at Gu Yi. “I envy you. You don’t have family constraints. Even though you only have your mom, everything you get is love.”

“That’s not true. After my dad remarried, he secretly calls me sometimes. My mom also occasionally urges me to have children.”

“Oh?”

“She says I don’t have to get married, but I need to have a child because only then will I know that joy. She always talks about that time when she took me alone. I spent the last six yuan in my pocket to buy a water bottle at a scenic spot, and in a snowstorm, the fare for the little car suddenly went up. She refused to pay the extra one yuan for the temporary fare, and the ticket collector wanted to kick us off the bus. I was crying and begging beside her... those helpless childhood memories almost scared me to death, but she treasures them and uses them to urge me to have children.”

“They probably think those were the things that kept them going,” Guan Xingxin laughed. “When I lost my sight, I loved holding my mom’s left sleeve to walk, so her left sleeve is longer and dirtier than the right one. She’s a bit calculating, but when I think about those times when I could just reach out and grab her sleeve, I miss it too. Parents are strange, though. They’re usually stubborn. Whenever I try to patiently explain something to them, they defeat me in minutes.”

“Tell me about it.” Gu Yi asked, “What did the fortune Yu Dule just picked up say?”

“He said he hopes I will always be happy.”

Gu Yi, still dizzy from the fever, didn’t understand, and seemed to fall back asleep. Guan Xingxin opened the door slightly, and Liang Daiwen was still on the phone. She lay down next to Gu Yi. “Little rabbit, Liang Daiwen might be on that call until dawn, so it looks like I’ll be the one to sleep with you.”

“Normal. With a 13-hour time difference, he often wakes up in the middle of the night for meetings.”

“When you have time, can you go with me to see Xu Guanrui? He’s helped me so much, and I need to find a chance to thank him. Plus...” Guan Xingxin smiled. “The two of us talk so ambiguously. I can’t be alone with him.”

Gu Yi waved her hand. “No problem. I have some things to ask him too.”

After saying this, Gu Yi fell asleep. Guan Xingxin turned on the light and flipped open a passage from The Outsider to read again. “The scent of the night, the scent of the earth, the scent of sea salt, made my temples feel cool. The strange silence of the sleeping summer night, like the tide, soaked my entire body. Around the nursing homes where lives are ending, the night is like a moment of sadness…”

In the days when Dad and Mom Chen visited, when Guan Xingxin was going to the kitchen with a tray, she overheard a conversation between them. Mom Chen was seriously writing down things that Guan Xingxin was missing: “Two power strips missing, this one doesn’t ventilate well. I don’t know if the central air conditioning is cleaned regularly.” She grabbed a kitchen wipe to clean the grease stains on the stove, but was interrupted by Dad Chen’s impatience:

“You’ve got a problem. You need to get it treated.”

“What problem?”

“Xiao Yi passed away twenty years ago. You still can’t accept her passing?”

“I can’t.”

“They’re completely different. Xiao Yi was never content from the moment she was born. Xingxin was incredibly well-behaved, she’s a completely different kind of child.”

“I’ve said this many times, Xingxin is my daughter. The day I brought Xiao Yi home, I was in a hurry to return a phone call, and she got run over by a car. When I saw Xingxin sitting there, winding yarn, I knew right away—it was Xiao Yi’s eyes. She was saying, ‘Mom, come find me.’ In the market, a family that couldn’t even afford a fifteen-yuan watch to raise Xiao Yi—how could I not take her in?”

“They’re willing to accept our guidance because of the money. Xiao Yi wasn’t as pretty, and she definitely wouldn’t have been as well-behaved. We’ve given Xingxin enough. What I mean is, let her go. We still have Xiao Liang.”

“No, Xingxin is like me.”

“Where’s she like you? She looks just like her parents. Although we’re not lacking in money, you didn’t bat an eye when buying Xiao Liang’s house in Yanshan for 26 million. But you’ve been talking about this 4 million yuan house for Xingxin everywhere.” Mom Chen opened the fridge and began to organize things: “A house can keep Xingxin by your side forever, it’s worth it. I know she’ll marry for this house. Even though she despises these worldly things, it’s still a house. She won’t want to give it up.”

Guan Xingxin took a few steps back and, after adjusting her breath, walked in: “Mom Chen, are you and Dad Chen comfortable staying here?”

“It’s not bad. Your Dad and I live in Lujiazui. We can still enjoy the view.”

Guan Xingxin stayed silent. She knew everything Aunt Chen said was correct, but she had had enough of enduring hardships for the sake of pride. To spare her parents from spending too much, she insisted on being a daughter for all four people in the family. When she was renting a place on Shangcheng Road, her parents suddenly came to visit her. To make her mother comfortable, she booked a hotel near her house, the Motel 8, at over 500 a night. She accidentally mentioned the room rate, and her mother scolded her all night for spending money recklessly. The next morning, her mother insisted she find a family room for less than 200 yuan. She ended up staying at a Hu Jia Hotel 1.5 kilometers away, where there was no subway, at 179 yuan a night. Her parents dragged their suitcase over the overpass; the suitcase had been a prize from an old neighbor’s raffle, and the handle couldn’t come out. It left two marks where the metal had scraped, and one of the wheels had fallen off. Her father was so angry that every few steps, he would kick the broken wheel. There was no one to vent his frustration at, so he could only kick the faulty suitcase. They endured the 34-degree heat and finally made it to the hotel. Guan Xingxin was so tired and sweaty that she laid a bath mat in the bathtub, only to be sharply criticized by her parents: “This is a towel. What have you learned in Shanghai? How could your character have become like this?”

She couldn’t explain, but in her parents’ eyes, she was always in the wrong and needed to apologize.

Her father and mother, both from a small city, had lived a stable and happy life. They had done nothing wrong, but their mistake was coming to Shanghai to visit their daughter. It felt like she was a dish carefully prepared by her parents but had been bought by customers who added more to their order, only to be picked apart by those same customers. Aunt Chen’s house was worth 4 million yuan, something Aunt Chen casually mentioned during the Chinese New Year, but the family handled it with extreme caution because it was something they couldn’t easily replace no matter how many jobs they worked. Her mother even said, “If we have to, we’ll get married and have children first, and then wait for Aunt Chen to give us the house. Divorce later if needed.” Now, whenever Guan Xingxin thought about it, she remembered that sentence: “Mom won’t harm you. You must think I’m crazy, that I’ve forgotten our principles and don’t treat you like a person. But who hasn’t bowed down for a meal? When a meal is expensive and rotten fruit is all you can afford, you’ll realize dignity isn’t worth much. In the end, people who always talk about dignity haven’t been beaten by life. To give you medicine, I once bought rotten peaches for 50 cents, and the good part was only halfway edible. I don’t want you to experience this.”

Gu Yi woke up after Liang Daiwen carried her back home, her fever gone. She crawled up in a loose T-shirt. “Liang Daiwen, did you take off my clothes again?”

Liang Daiwen looked at her, incredulous. “You’re accusing me twice? You were talking nonsense when you had a fever, but now you’re saying I undressed you?”

“Taking advantage of me when I was vulnerable—you’re a repeat offender.”

“…Next time, I’ll record it and show you how you changed clothes perfectly, completely unlike someone with a fever.”

“You really watched, didn’t you?”

Liang Daiwen kicked over a sports bag by the door. Gu Yi leaned against the door frame, watching him fumble around, collecting the spilled squash balls. With her arms crossed leisurely, she said, “Men… in the end, they’re all perverts. I know you wouldn’t lie, so come on, tell me, what did you see?”

“You know you stripped down and played around with your chest, singing ‘Heaven Loves the Silly Child.’”

“…”

“Had a fever, drank too much, took off your clothes, sat on the bed rubbing your chest like a maniac. You were even more reckless than the old man on the street.”

“…”

“You even asked me if I was big.”

“Shut up!”

Gu Yi jumped up to cover Liang Daiwen’s mouth, and Liang Daiwen, caught off guard, fell on his bottom. “You told me not to lie. When I tell you the truth, you’re going to physically punish me? This isn’t even made up…”

Gu Yi couldn’t respond. She knew he wasn’t making it up; her mother did the same when drunk, even reaching for the wine bottle at the bedside. She was just glad they lived on the seventh floor with thick curtains, and there were no other houses within a three-mile radius. Why did she have to inherit this?

Weak people are controlled by the strong, and she was held by the forehead for a long while. “Your fever’s gone. I can’t stay with you today; I have to go to work. I’m in the Android team; we’ve made a software called ‘Sound Amplifier’ that’s already launched in the U.S. I need to monitor the Chinese version’s progress.”

“Sound software?”

“Yeah, it amplifies surrounding sounds using headphones and a microphone, kind of like an artificial cochlea on a phone. Hearing aids have strict medical standards and are expensive, but most people still use cheap phones. So launching this on Android will help some people. We still need a more relatable Chinese name. We’re brainstorming for it. But—why are we lying on the ground talking about this? Let’s get up and eat.”

Gu Yi perked up as she finally noticed the pleasant aroma. “Liang Daiwen, you can cook?”

“I can’t. But I bought rice, eggs, and ham recently, so I thought I could just cook something simple.”

Sure enough, there were two bowls of steaming porridge on the table. Gu Yi was so touched that she sat down and picked up a spoon, already preparing to praise the dish with all sorts of metaphors. However, after taking a bite, she immediately choked. “Oh my god, Liang Daiwen, how can this taste so bad?”

“It’s boiled in bathwater.” Liang Daiwen immediately changed his tone after hearing her criticism.

“Did a thousand-year-old turtle bathe in it? The porridge soaked up all the flavor?”

“Who’s complaining? It’s just ham and egg porridge, how could you hate it?”

Gu Yi ran to the kitchen, came out with her features nearly rearranged. “Do you even have basic knowledge? You put half a ham in the rice cooker and added salt? The ham is already salty!”

After washing his face in disbelief, Liang Daiwen walked around behind her, acting like someone who’d made a mistake. Gu Yi, confused, looked at him. “Now I get it. You don’t lack feelings. You lack a heart.”

“…Are we going out today?”

“Yeah, Guan Xingxin wants to see me.”

She didn’t think it was necessary to explain seeing Xu Guanrui, so she just got ready to go out, dressed simply as usual. When they arrived at a café called REGARD, she saw Xu Guanrui sitting with three musicians at a table. The café was very quiet, and the owner, after knowing they were Xu Guanrui’s friends, gestured for them to sit by the window. Coffee was quietly and politely served. The sound of the interview reached her ears, and Gu Yi felt like it had been a century since she last saw Xu Guanrui.