Chapter 64
Before returning to China, Jiang Mu still had no idea where Jin Chao was, nor could she reach him. But she knew he was out there, somewhere. He wouldn’t abandon her. And so, she had to go back.
There was something about the city of Nanjing that Jiang Mu found irresistibly magnetic. It was hard to explain why. Maybe it was about fulfilling an old dream. People always tend to long for places where they once left behind regret. So, she returned without hesitation.
When the plane landed in the capital, she didn’t linger. Instead, she first made a trip to Tonggang.
In just a few short years, the small town had completely transformed. The once run-down streets were now lined with new apartment buildings. The large plastic trash bins by the roadside had been replaced with automatic sorting bins. Even the familiar old bus stop signs had turned into digital displays.
The rapid modernization had erased the traces of the past. But some memories remained carved in her heart, impossible to wipe away.
Jin Qiang and Zhao Meijuan hadn’t changed much, but Jin Xin had grown into a young girl. Jiang Mu remembered the last time she saw her, and she had only been ten. Now she was just starting high school, with short hair brushing her ears, reminding Jiang Mu of her own high school days.
Unlike before, Jin Xin now smiled when she saw Jiang Mu. On this trip back, Jiang Mu had brought her a gift again, and instead of shrinking away, the girl blushed shyly and said, “Thanks, sis.”
Although Jiang Mu hadn’t interacted much with Jin Xin over the years, that one word “sis” filled her with a strange warmth. In that moment, she understood Jin Chao’s protectiveness toward her back then. They weren’t closely connected, yet there was a subtle thread of familial affection quietly linking them together.
She asked about Jin Chao over the past few years and tried to contact him again. But Jin Qiang only told her that Jin Chao sent them money every year, though he rarely visited. They hadn’t kept in close touch and didn’t really know much about what he was doing these days. He added that it had been several years since Jin Chao last returned, and for all they knew, he might’ve settled down somewhere else by now.
That one phrase, “settled down,” cast a layer of frost over Jiang Mu’s heart.
She hadn’t been in contact with San Lai for years either. When she first went abroad, she’d thought modern communication made it impossible to lose touch, unlike the old days of landline calls or letters. But she never imagined that once lives truly diverged, finding someone again could be so difficult.
She didn’t stay long in Tonggang, just two days. She made a quick visit to her old school and even snapped a photo at the gates, posting it to her social media. Pan Kai saw it immediately and messaged her, asking if she was really back in Tonggang, insisting they had to meet and that he owed her a meal.
Truth be told, Jiang Mu hadn’t seen Pan Kai since graduation. They agreed on a meeting spot, and Pan Kai rolled up in a flashy S300, pulling over with an air of effortless swagger. Stepping out of the car in head-to-toe designer wear, his hair slicked back, he looked like a young tycoon every bit, so much so that Jiang Mu couldn’t help but laugh.
Back in their high school days, Pan Kai’s college entrance exam scores hadn’t been good enough for him to shine in philosophy, so he ended up switching to a business and management major. After graduating, he returned home to inherit the family business. These days, he held the title of purchasing manager, maybe not fully in charge, since his father hadn’t handed over the reins completely, but he had certainly carved out a strong position for himself at the factory.
After Jiang Mu got in the car, Pan Kai sat with her in the back while a driver took the wheel up front. He carried himself with the polished demeanor of a seasoned manager flawlessly. But as soon as they got out and entered the private dining room, just the two of them, his old goofy side made a full comeback. He immediately started gossiping and told her that Yan Xiaoyi had gotten married, had a pair of twins, and had already divorced last year.
Jiang Mu sat there in stunned silence, feeling as if she’d only gone away for a few years to study, yet her old classmates had already been through so many twists and turns, weathering marriages and divorces. The passage of time hit her with a pang of melancholy.
Pan Kai really was a gossip. After finishing with Zhang San, he moved right on to Li Si. Jiang Mu was basically in a constant state of surprise listening to him. Eventually, he turned the spotlight on her, “What about you? How have you been?”
Before Jiang Mu could answer, something else seemed to pop into his head. “Oh man, for years I really thought you and Brother Jiu were relatives! I kept it to myself all this time, didn’t dare say anything. Then last year, when Brother Jiu came back, I found out you two aren’t even related! Scared the hell out of me…”
Clang — the spoon in Jiang Mu’s hand fell onto the porcelain plate with a sharp ring. She suddenly looked up and locked eyes with Pan Kai. “What did you just say? Jin Chao came back? What do you mean he came back?”
Pan Kai was caught off guard by her reaction and quickly explained, “Uh, yeah… Early last year, our factory had an issue with shipment, supply chain problems. The client had a standing order, and we couldn’t deliver, so we were facing a huge penalty. I was scrambling like crazy, reaching out everywhere, even cities nearby couldn’t help. I tried contacts out west, no luck. Then one day, I got a call from an unknown number. The guy says he was Jin Chao. He lists off a few product codes and asks if we’re short on stock. I was like, are you kidding? I asked him his price on the spot, and he quoted me lower than what we were paying before! The higher-ups and I thought it was a scam, but he offered to meet in person. The moment I saw him, I realized… it was Brother Jiu. Jin Chao was Brother Jiu all along! I’d been talking with him for days and didn’t even know!”
“……”
This was the first news Jiang Mu had heard about Jin Chao in years. Afraid to miss a single detail, she kept pressing Pan Kai for more information.
Pan Kai simply said, “Honestly, I still don’t know what he’s doing now. I wanted to treat him to a nice meal to thank him for pulling me out of that mess, but he said he didn’t have time. He only stayed a day. After helping us secure the new supply chain, he left the next morning. Came with some guy who kept calling him ‘boss’ and was super respectful toward him, just…”
“Just what?”
Seeing how eager Jiang Mu was, Pan Kai looked puzzled and said, “Just… felt a bit like he was sucking up. The guy even tried to help him walk up the stairs. Jin Chao gave him this glare, and he backed off real quick. These young guys nowadays are desperate for promotions.”
That intervention by Jin Chao had been a turning point for Pan Kai, earning him real clout at the factory, finally shaking off the “nepo baby” label.
Then Pan Kai said to Jiang Mu, “I only realized later why Jin Chao might’ve suddenly reached out to me.”
Jiang Mu asked, “Why?”
“Do you remember when you brought him to my dad’s factory to fix his car all those years ago?”
Jiang Mu nodded. Pan Kai clicked his tongue and said, “Back then, Jin Chao told me he’d return the favor someday. I had completely forgotten about it and figured he was just being polite, saying it to be nice. Never thought he’d actually remember it all these years later. I gotta say, I respect him. He’s a man of his word.”
Jiang Mu didn’t know about that conversation. Her chest tightened. If Jin Chao could remember a favor he owed Pan Kai, why didn’t he keep the promise he made to contact her?
Her brows knitted slightly. She asked, “Then you must have his contact info, right? Can you give it to me?”
Pan Kai took out his phone and began searching at a leisurely pace. “Yeah, let me find it.”
A moment later, he pulled up a number and sent it to her. Jiang Mu frowned as soon as she saw it. “A landline?”
“Yeah,” Pan Kai replied, “that’s the number he used when he contacted me.”
From the moment she got that landline number, her only link to Jin Chao, Jiang Mu lost all appetite for the meal.
After parting ways with Pan Kai, Jiang Mu walked aimlessly with her phone in hand, all the way to a quiet bench at the corner of the street. She finally sat down, trying to steady her nerves. She spent a long time carefully choosing her words, rehearsing how to start the conversation, how to keep it from sounding abrupt if he answered. She hesitated for ages before finally dialing the number.
To her surprise, it was disconnected.
Her emotions surged and crashed all at once. She couldn’t help but wonder if Pan Kai had been playing a joke on her.
She checked the number’s registered location: Changchun.
Jiang Mu wasn’t familiar with Changchun. She had never been there and had never heard of anyone Jin Chao knew there either. She had no idea why he would be in that city, and now, even the number she had couldn’t reach him.
On the way back, the more Jiang Mu thought about it, the more something felt off. Knowing Jin Chao as she did, if he had returned last year, there was no way he would have passed by home without visiting Jin Qiang. He wasn’t the kind of person to cut ties. Back when things were hard, he still made time to get medicine for Jin Xin and help support the family. There was no reason for him to disappear completely after his case was resolved.
Yet Jin Qiang had insisted he hadn’t been back in years. Unless… he had returned, but Jin Qiang deliberately kept it from her.
What kind of reason could lead Jin Qiang to keep something like that from her? The only thing Jiang Mu could think of was that sentence he had said yesterday: “For all we know, he might’ve settled down somewhere.”
At the time, it had seemed like a casual remark. But now, thinking back, Jiang Mu couldn’t shake the feeling that it had been a subtle hint.
Though she had never openly told Jin Qiang about her relationship with Jin Chao, Zhao Meijuan surely knew. And this was her second time coming back and asking about him with such urgency. There was no way Jin Qiang didn’t understand what was in her heart.
Jin Chao was already past thirty. Even if he had started a family, that would be completely normal. But the moment Jiang Mu thought about the possibility that he might already have a home, a family, somewhere out there, it felt like an invisible thread in her heart had been suddenly snapped, leaving her unmoored, with nowhere to land.
The unwavering conviction she had felt before returning to China was suddenly uprooted by an invisible gust of wind. At nineteen, she had believed in promises with all her heart, filled with hope for the future. But time inevitably stripped away the innocence and naivety of youth, revealing the world for what it truly was.
Even Yan Xiaoyi, who used to care about nothing but celebrity gossip, had gone through marriage and divorce. Who could guarantee that anyone would stay the same, frozen in time?
And yet, Jiang Mu couldn’t accept it. After returning, she asked Jin Qiang again, but he flatly denied that Jin Chao had ever come back.
Life had to go on. She couldn’t dwell on this forever. So, with her luggage in hand, she set off for Jiangsu.
Before reporting in at Nanjing, she made a stop in Suzhou. She had always felt that was where they had grown up, and she wanted to see it again. Back then, she had once told Jin Chao that after he left as a child, she often went to the old building to leave her contact information, hoping that one day, if he came back, he’d be able to find her.
Jiang Mu held on to the faint hope that maybe Jin Chao had done something similar, leaving behind a trace, a sign, some piece of information for her to find. As long as she returned, she thought, she would uncover something, even if just a thread.
But when she actually returned to the place where they had lived together for nine years as children, Jiang Mu almost got lost. The old neighborhood had long been demolished. In its place stood a gleaming commercial complex. Every surrounding road had been widened and renovated, erasing all traces of its cramped, worn-down past. If she hadn’t stopped to ask a local shop owner, she would have thought she’d come to the wrong place.
Standing at the intersection, she turned in helpless circles. The country had 9.6 million square kilometers of land. If he didn’t want to see her, where on earth could she go to find him?
In that moment, for the first time, Jiang Mu felt that maybe, just maybe, she and Jin Chao were truly destined to miss each other in this lifetime.