“You really aren’t that magnanimous.”
Sun Mother pulled a long face, kicked the laundry basin at her feet, cursed at Granny Wan, turned and went back to the living room. Sun Jingfei took over and continued hanging laundry. After finishing, she went to Ke Yu’s room and asked him: “Is your phone off?”
“Forgot to charge it.” Ke Yu responded.
“Your dad just came and said he’ll take you back to Grandpa’s house for the Lantern Festival.” Sun Jingfei said.
“Oh.”
“Does ‘oh’ mean going or not going?”
“I’ll go.” Ke Yu didn’t look up, working on problems.
Sun Jingfei glanced at Zhou Yu who was grading homework, gently closed the door, came out and said to Sun Mother who was busy in the kitchen: “I’ll wash up later, you go play mahjong.”
Sun Mother ignored her. An hour ago someone had invited her to play mahjong—by now they’d long had enough people.
Sun Jingfei stood by the street smoking. Sun Youping came back from the public toilet and grunted as he passed her. Sun Jingfei asked him: “Dad, what are you grunting about?”
Sun Youping went straight back to the clinic.
Sun Jingfei followed behind him. “Dad, if you’re dissatisfied just say it—what’s with the grunting?”
Sun Youping put on his white coat.
Sun Jingfei found it odd. “There’s a toilet upstairs you don’t use—why must you go to the public toilet? And every time you go, you take off your white coat. Isn’t that troublesome?”
Sun Youping still didn’t acknowledge her.
Sun Jingfei found it boring and went back to smoke under the plane tree by the street.
Upstairs, Ke Yu cried silently as he wrote, tears dropping onto the test paper. Zhou Yu also said nothing, standing by the window looking outside—Sun Jingfei and Sun Jingcheng were standing under the tree chatting.
Her relationship with Sun Jingfei as sisters-in-law was just that—a sister-in-law relationship. Usually, aside from gathering at the Sun family home, they’d never privately gone shopping or had coffee together. First, they were each busy; second, they weren’t the same kind of people.
What could be said, what needed to be said carefully—it required great discretion.
Sun Mother often scolded Sun Jingfei for having no brains, but in Zhou Yu’s view, this wasn’t true—otherwise she would have made a huge fuss long ago about her husband’s affair. Precisely because of this, she couldn’t meddle in matters between mother and son—like why Ke Yu was crying.
Sun Jingcheng came back and ran into Sun Jingfei. The siblings stood by the roadside chatting briefly. Before long, the eldest and second brothers also called one after another to chat with her. Sun Jingcheng looked up and saw Zhou Yu at the second-floor window, waved at her, then immediately went upstairs. Going up, he was caught by Sun Mother who interrogated him, asking what was going on between Sun Jingfei and Ke Yong.
Sun Jingcheng carefully gave a simple explanation. After listening, Sun Mother was silent for a long time. After a while she urged them to go home, saying it was too late. Tossing and turning all night unable to sleep, the next morning she took the bus to Ke Yong’s workplace, carrying cheap paint bought from a street stall, found his car and splattered and smashed it.
Afterward Zhou Yu said to him: “Your sister hid this for so long—maybe she just didn’t want you to get involved.”
“Don’t worry, Mom knows what she’s doing.”
“If she wanted to make a fuss, your sister would have done so long ago.” Zhou Yu said: “She must have some plan.”
“She finds it shameful—don’t air dirty laundry in public.” Sun Jingcheng wore rubber gloves, washed the dishes, scrubbed the pot, and also cleaned the dining table. Seeing a stain on the floor, he took a kitchen paper towel, dampened it with water and wiped it clean. When everything was tidied up, he sought credit from the person practicing yoga: “Teacher Zhou, I helped you wash the pot and the dishes.”
Zhou Yu felt something was off about this statement but couldn’t immediately figure out what, so she replied: “Should I praise you?”
“Doesn’t it deserve encouragement?”
“Mm, you’re really great.”
“You’re so perfunctory.” Sun Jingcheng sat cross-legged beside her.
Zhou Yu smiled and ignored him.
Sun Jingcheng looked at her and said from the bottom of his heart: “Wife, lately whenever I think of you I feel very at ease.” Sure enough, the first half sounded good, the second half was irritating: “Although you love making trouble for no reason, I still feel very at ease.”
…
“I already make so much trouble for no reason, and you can still feel at ease?”
“See, see… you’re starting to look fierce and roll your eyes.”
“Get lost!” Zhou Yu cursed at him.
Sun Jingcheng laughed heartily. Then, in no hurry to go to work, he chatted with her: “Wife, do you feel I’m caring about you more and more?”
…
“Wife, sometimes when I think of you, I really want to pluck a beautiful star for you! But sometimes when I think of you, I grit my teeth wanting to hit you.”
…
“Early in the morning… there’s something wrong with you.”
“That’s being insincere.” Sun Jingcheng looked at her. “You clearly love hearing it.”
…
“Who loves hearing it?” Zhou Yu was too lazy to deal with him.
“When you’re happy, your eyes sparkle.” Sun Jingcheng was very pleased with himself, as if he’d discovered something extraordinary.
Zhou Yu stopped practicing—his emotional intelligence was beyond saving. She got up and went back to the bedroom to put on makeup. “Did people write you love letters when you were in school?”
“Yes, tons.”
…
“You must have read them aloud in public plenty of times.”
Sun Jingcheng caught on, too lazy to deal with her. “I’m not stupid—don’t girls need face?”