Chapter 14
After the incident, Jin Chao didn’t say a word to Jiang Mu, and even when they left together, he remained silent the entire time.
Never before had Jiang Mu felt so distant from him. Even when they had been separated by miles, she had always believed that there was still an irreplaceable corner for her in Jin Chao’s heart, just as there was for him in hers.
But after what happened to Jin Xin, she realized how laughable her past fantasies had become like bubbles bursting. The politeness that Zhao Meijuan had maintained for more than half a month disappeared in an instant, so what about Jin Chao? Would the bond they had shared as children also be completely torn apart after this?
The truth, however, was that although she had fought with Jin Xin before leaving home, she didn’t know if that argument was the reason why Jin Xin had climbed outside onto the balcony.
Guilt? Fear? Pain? Grievance? Jiang Mu didn’t even know what she was feeling anymore. All her emotions seemed to converge in her chest, making it hard for her to breathe.
Jin Chao walked ahead with a dripping umbrella, and Jiang Mu trailed a few steps behind him. When the elevator doors opened, there was a patient on a stretcher being sent to the emergency room. The small elevator was nearly filled with nurses and family members.
Jin Chao didn’t enter and instead walked toward the emergency exit. Jiang Mu silently followed him. When the door to the safety corridor opened and then closed behind them, the quiet of the night seemed to consume them, and it made her nerves unusually sensitive.
Suddenly, Jiang Mu quickened her pace to catch up with Jin Chao and said, “She lied. She can solve many problems. I saw it with my own eyes. When I asked her, she smashed the learning tablet and locked herself in the room.”
Jin Chao didn’t respond. His back was straight, but it seemed as though he was cloaked in a mist, and Jiang Mu couldn’t see his expression, though she could feel the weight of his suppressed emotions.
She tried to explain, “I knocked on her door, but she wouldn’t come out. I didn’t know she would climb out onto the balcony.”
As they reached the first floor, Jin Chao suddenly stopped. His voice echoed in the hallway, low and restrained. “Do you think I don’t know?”
At that moment, Jiang Mu was stunned. She hadn’t expected Jin Chao to be aware of Jin Xin’s state, to know that she had lied and deliberately refused to do her schoolwork. If he knew, why had he allowed her to act like this?
But just then, Jin Chao turned around. His dark pupils, in the pitch-black hallway, were like knives, making it impossible for anyone to escape. He locked eyes with Jiang Mu and asked, “What about you? Where did you go?”
“I went to buy something.”
“You had to run out in this heavy rain to buy something? What’s so important?”
Indeed, he didn’t directly blame her for Jin Xin’s accident like Zhao Meijuan had, but his words felt more like an invisible accusation to Jiang Mu.
She looked at the man in front of her, feeling a sense of unfamiliarity she had never experienced before. She even found herself thinking that when Jin Chao had first come to their house, he was already over two years old, and of course, a two-year-old child knew who their real parents were.
Since she could remember, Jiang Mu had given all her trust and emotions to him. But she had never considered that Jin Chao’s perspective on her was different from hers. From the moment she was born, Jin Chao had known that they didn’t share a single drop of blood.
She could still care for him and trust him even after all these years apart, but that didn’t mean he had the same attachment as her.
The light in Jiang Mu’s eyes gradually faded. She recalled what Jiang Yinghan had told her before going abroad, “That person is not your brother. You should keep your distance from him.”
Jiang Mu’s hands slowly clenched into fists, the pain from the nails pressing into her skin intensified by the rain. She gritted her teeth and turned to leave, heading for the door of the hospital.
Jin Chao asked, “What are you doing?”
Without looking back, Jiang Mu replied, “None of your business.”
She stepped halfway into the heavy rain when Jin Chao yanked her back. His gaze bore down on her, his voice low and demanding, “Isn’t it enough trouble already?”
“Do you think I intentionally left Jin Xin alone at home? Do you think I didn’t care whether she lived or died?”
Tears shimmered in Jiang Mu’s eyes, but she fought them back, turning her head slightly to the side. The automatic doors closed again. On the right was the empty hospital lobby, and on the left, the torrential downpour. Her voice was drowned out by the rain, and Jin Chao had to step closer to hear her clearly. But Jiang Mu instinctively took a step back, halting him.
The rain was falling curtain, the autumn rain like mist, blurring everything. She looked at him, her eyes filled with a light that was familiar to Jin Chao.
After the third year of high school, in the year that followed, Jin Chao saw that expression on countless faces, a look of gradual distance from him.
The sound of the rain was so loud that he couldn’t hear her clearly, but he watched her lips move, and in his ears, her voice seemed to echo.
“You’re not my brother. We have nothing to do with each other. You have no right to control where I go.”
As her last words fell, her figure disappeared into the heavy rain, heedless of everything, vanishing into the night. The shock in Jin Chao’s eyes was like the rain hitting the water puddles, splashing up turbulent ripples. Something deep inside his heart was torn apart, rejected, and abandoned.
Jiang Mu ran far away in one breath. She didn’t know the roads near Tonggang First Hospital, but she didn’t want to stay there any longer. She didn’t even want to wait another minute.
There were no taxis on the road, not even a pedestrian. She didn’t know how long she had been running, but she eventually reached a street corner and huddled under the roof of an ATM. The rain was pouring too heavily, and the splashing water kept hitting her.
She took out her phone from her pants pocket. The screen was wet, but luckily, it still worked. She opened the app to look for the next available train home. There was no direct train from Tonggang to Suzhou, so she had to look for one to Beijing. The earliest train wouldn’t depart until tomorrow morning. She lifted her head to look at the vast, rainy night, where there was no light, only sharp raindrops piercing into the ground. For the first time, she tasted the feeling of despair.
She wanted to call her mother, to tell her everything that had happened, to say she never wanted to stay in this dreadful place again. But just as she was about to dial, she suddenly stopped. Jiang Yinghan was in Melbourne. Even if she told her mother, Jiang Yinghan couldn’t immediately appear by her side and take her away from here. On the contrary, she would immediately call Jin Qiang, causing a huge argument. Not only would this make Jin Qiang and Zhao Meijuan think of her as a troublemaker who turns around and complains, but it would also make her mother, far away in Melbourne, worry herself sick.
Jiang Mu suddenly realized that this phone call wouldn’t solve anything tonight. She locked her phone with a snap, crouched down, and buried her face in her knees. Time passed silently, and within those few minutes, she thought about more practical issues.
The repeat school enrollment procedures were handled unilaterally by Jiang Yinghan and Jin Qiang. Even if she caught the earliest train tomorrow, what would she do once she returned to Suzhou? How would she attend school? What documents would she need? Where should she go to get them? Would her parents need to be present? She had no idea about any of these things.
The initial impulse was blown away by the strong wind, and Jiang Mu gradually calmed down. But once calm, she was met with an even deeper sense of helplessness and despair.
Warm liquid dripped down her arm, mixing with the rainwater on the ground. She wasn’t sure how long it had been, but eventually, the rain that had been hitting her seemed to disappear. Jiang Mu lifted her face from her knees and saw a large black umbrella hovering over her head. Jin Chao stood in front of her, panting. His eyes were no longer emotionless but instead filled with clear, unmistakable anxiety, like a flame lighting up the dark night.
He didn’t know how long he had searched, having almost run through all the streets near the hospital. He couldn’t bear to think how dangerous such a rainy night could be for a girl unfamiliar with the area. It wasn’t until he saw her curled up by the ATM that his heart finally relaxed. He walked toward her, a storm of anger boiling in his chest. But the moment Jiang Mu looked up, her red eyes and the look of helplessness on her face made her seem like a pitiful soul abandoned by the world. He couldn’t bring himself to say a single word of blame.
He slowly crouched down, the large umbrella enveloping them both. Jiang Mu tightly hugged her knees, her eyes flickering, while his breath was close to her. His gaze fell on the bloodstains on the back of her hand, and his eyes suddenly tightened.
Jin Chao raised his hand, his rough fingertips brushing gently against her cheek, attempting to wipe away her tears. But that slight motion only made Jiang Mu’s tears pour more freely as if a dam had burst open.
His hand moved to the back of her head, pulling her into his chest. She could feel the tremors in her shoulders as he softly patted her back, just like when they were kids, gently trying to calm her. His voice, deep and soothing, filled the silence between them, “She wasn’t like this before. When she first got sick, she was still positive about things. Maybe she was just too young to understand, but as her condition worsened, it kept spreading. Eventually, even her scalp was affected. Treatment required shaving her head. No one wanted to play with her in kindergarten, and things didn’t get better when she started school. Despite informing her teachers, she still faced… some unpleasant things at school. I suspected it before, but today made me more certain. Xin Xin might be suffering from a serious psychological issue. This means, that from now on, she’ll need not only physical treatment but also psychological care. I’m not blaming you, I just feel it’s a messed-up situation having you involved in this.”
Jiang Mu stared at him, her heart racing in disbelief. Jin Chao’s eyelashes were wet from the rain, and he, too, was drenched, not much better off than she was. He was explaining to her, explaining Xin Xin’s abnormal behavior, the growing anxiety that everyone was feeling, like a weight in Jiang Mu’s chest was slowly beginning to lift.
His comforting hand gradually stopped, his voice dropping a bit lower, “Can we go back now?”
Outside the umbrella was another world, a cold, unfamiliar one. Inside, he had provided her with temporary shelter. Jiang Mu, no longer stubbornly holding on, realized that she couldn’t stay there forever, fighting with herself in this miserable place. She needed to somehow get through this night.
She stood up, her gaze evasive, her movements awkward as she muttered, “There’s no car… how are we supposed to get back?”
Just as Jiang Mu’s words left her lips, Jin Chao’s phone rang. He answered it and quickly gave an address. Within minutes, a white Honda with its hazard lights flashing appeared in their line of sight. Jin Chao raised his right hand, holding up the phone with the lit screen, waving it toward the car. The Honda quickly turned and sped toward them.
Jin Chao held the umbrella, casting a sideways glance at Jiang Mu. She was still several steps away from him, clearly keeping her distance. With a sigh, he simply pulled her over, tucking her under the umbrella as they walked toward the car.
He opened the rear door and shoved Jiang Mu inside before circling around to the front passenger seat. As soon as she got in, Jiang Mu noticed the driver, San Lai, turning around with a surprised look on his face as he stared at her, then at the equally drenched Jin Chao and exclaimed, “Did you two out robbing tombs in the middle of the night? Until looking like this?”
He glanced back at Jiang Mu again, but she remained silent, her lips pressed tight. Jin Chao, unamused, reached up and twisted San Lai’s head back toward the front, muttering a terse, “Drive.”
The atmosphere in the car was tense. San Lai kept sneaking glances at Jiang Mu through the rearview mirror and then at Jin Chao with his peripheral vision. Finally, unable to hold back, he spoke up, “Did you two have a fight?”
Jin Chao, irritated, rubbed his forehead and said, “If you can’t drive, I’ll do it.”
San Lai fell silent, pouting slightly, and returned his focus to the road.
Jiang Mu’s house keys had been in the plastic bag she had thrown away. Jin Chao instructed San Lai to drive back to the dealership to get a spare key.
The night in Tonggang was particularly cold and desolate under the heavy rain. All the storefronts were shut tight, and the car parked in front of Speed Auto Repair Shop. Jin Chao opened the roll-up shutter door and walked through the dark repair area into the lounge room. He lifted the curtain and retrieved the spare key.
As he came out, he noticed Jiang Mu had followed him into the lounge room, her hands tightly clutching in front of her, her head slightly lowered. He glanced at her and said, “We can go now.”
Jiang Mu didn’t move and Jin Chao urged again, “It’s late.”
As he walked to the door of the lounge room and just stepped into the repair area, Jiang Mu’s voice suddenly came from behind him. “Do the words you said last time still stand?”
Jin Chao turned, twisting the key in his hand, and looked at her with a sharp gaze. “What words?”
“About… staying with you.”
Jin Chao’s hand, turning the key, paused mid-air. His sharp jawline slowly pulled into a slight curve, and the corner of his mouth twitched into a loose smirk, saying, “I’m not your brother. Do you think that’s appropriate?”
Jiang Mu bit her lip tightly, her face filled with the expression of someone bearing the weight of something painful. Seeing her like that made Jin Chao chuckle. He tossed the key to her, turned, and headed into the room, leaving a sentence, “Just for one night.”