The two had just arrived at the sports center when Sun Jingcheng was pulled away by someone asking him to play tennis for a while. Zhou Yu stood outside the court watching, unconsciously comparing the men inside. Apart from the professional coaches, Sun Jingcheng had the best physique. The others weren’t bad either, of course—after all, they all exercised regularly.
Tennis involved large movements. Sun Jingcheng’s every action receiving the ball was so agile—wide strides, sharp turns, swinging the racket, serving. The beauty of his movements was no less than that of a professional coach.
She was enjoying the pleasant sight when someone handed her a flyer for the gym inside the center, saying they were running a promotion with great discounts for both membership cards and personal training. Zhou Yu looked at the flyer while the young man persuaded her, saying the gym had aerobic Latin dance, Pilates classes, kickboxing classes, jazz dance… at least two classes opened every day. Then he complimented her as a voluptuous beauty, saying kickboxing and Latin dance would especially help with body sculpting.
Zhou Yu handed the flyer back to him. “I don’t live here. I’m just visiting a friend.”
“No problem, miss. There’s a Latin dance class starting right now—would you like to try one session for free?”
Zhou Yu seemed hesitant.
Seeing her hesitation, he urged enthusiastically, saying how amazing the lead dance instructor was! Zhou Yu figured she had nothing else to do anyway, so she went with him. The gym was on the second floor. From the corridor, you could see Sun Jingcheng swinging his racket downstairs.
Zhou Yu already had a dance foundation. After standing to the side and watching for a while, she merged in and followed along. Dancing, she lost track of time. When the class ended and she came out to lean on the railing and look, Sun Jingcheng’s shadow was nowhere to be seen on the tennis court.
She thought Sun Jingcheng had gone home first and wasn’t in a hurry. She slowly walked back following the route in her memory. Arriving upstairs, the door was locked. The doorbell went unanswered, and she didn’t know the password, so she could only stand there waiting. When they’d come out to exercise, naturally neither had brought their phones.
After waiting for over half an hour until she was nearly frozen to death, Sun Jingcheng finally emerged from the elevator. Seeing her, the first thing he asked was where she’d gone—he and his friend had searched the entire complex.
Zhou Yu urged him to open the door. “I’m a grown adult—could I get lost?”
“Don’t you know to say something before leaving?”
“I was just in the gym upstairs.”
“But how was I supposed to know you were in the gym?”
“Fine, I know for next time.” Zhou Yu’s attitude was perfunctory.
Sun Jingcheng was very angry, obviously trying to control it. He put down his racket and went to the master bedroom to shower. Zhou Yu wanted to shower too, but she had no change of clothes here. She was left stranded in the living room. She forcefully suppressed the urge to return to their marital home and silently went to the balcony, staring blankly at the building across the way.
Sun Jingcheng came out drying his hair. Seeing her leaning on the balcony, he muttered, “You’re the one angry? I was worried sick looking for you. And you say I leave without telling you.”
“If you hadn’t left me hanging there, I wouldn’t have gone to the gym with that person!” Zhou Yu glared at him fiercely. “Every single time it’s like this—you say you’ll take me out, to meet your friends, but every time you bring me over and leave me hanging while you go off and do your own thing!”
After saying this, Zhou Yu went downstairs and took a taxi back to their marital home. She didn’t want to see him for even one more moment.
Last year when they drove themselves to the beach to camp and barbecue, because she was afraid of water and didn’t dare go into the sea, Sun Jingcheng and his friends went out to sea with fishermen in the evening and didn’t return until nearly dawn. There were quite a few people camping at the beach, but Zhou Yu didn’t know any of them. She just sat by the tent waiting for him. Only after he returned, with his accompaniment, did she find a place to use the restroom.
The more she thought about it, the more regretful she felt. Why make such a fuss over nothing? She’d endured for three years—why be unpleasant at the time of divorce? Acting like he was so important. It was also undignified.
By the time she reached the residential complex, that anger had gradually dissipated. Passing by a convenience store, she saw someone hunched over eating instant noodles, so she bought two packages planning to cook them at home. At checkout, looking at the bagged noodles in her hand, she went back and exchanged them for several boxes of the most expensive instant noodles.
From childhood she’d been influenced by Feng Yiqun—comparing prices at three stores, budgeting carefully. Before marriage, Sun Jingcheng had even laughed at her, saying her approach to daily life was like his mother’s.
Arriving home, she opened a box to cook. Watching the palm-sized noodle cake slowly expand, she still felt it wasn’t cost-effective—she should have bought the bagged noodles. Just as she was cooking, Sun Jingcheng came home. He stood at the kitchen doorway for a while, scratched his eyebrow, then went to the bedroom to change into house clothes.
Actually, Zhou Yu wasn’t hungry. She only felt hungry when she saw others eating, but when it was actually cooked, she had no appetite. Following the principle of not wasting, she picked at it twice, completely ignoring the person rummaging through the refrigerator in the kitchen.
After rummaging for a long time, Sun Jingcheng came out and asked her, “Is there more?”
Zhou Yu ignored him.
He didn’t find it awkward either. He sat down and ate her leftover noodles, consuming both noodles and soup completely clean. Zhou Yu ignored him from start to finish, brushed her teeth, washed up, and went to bed.
At noon, Sun Jingcheng was too lazy to eat outside food and made a big detour from the new district back to the clinic. Upstairs, Mother Sun was in the kitchen criticizing him. “The day before yesterday when your sisters-in-law came up from the clinic, your dad told them off.”
“Told them what?” Sun Jingcheng pinched fried fish balls from the dining table to eat.
“Not to come upstairs through the clinic…” Mother Sun saw him picking up the balls with his hands and slapped his shoulder. “Can’t you be a bit hygienic and use chopsticks?”
“Nearly forty years old and still can’t behave properly.”
“Open your eyes and look at people your age—they either have successful careers or happy families with children. Just you, still not settled down properly.”
“I used to think Jingfei was the most rebellious, but now I see she’s better than you. Among you siblings, she’s the most directed and promising.”
“Last week you were praising eldest brother like this…”
“Eat, eat, don’t talk to me. I get upset just seeing you.” Mother Sun stuffed a whole sheep eyeball into his mouth.
Sun Jingcheng’s mouth was blocked, naturally unable to speak.
“Fighting with Zhou Yu, aren’t you?” Mother Sun’s tone contained barely detectable schadenfreude. “Usually you never listen no matter how much I talk—now you’re suffering the consequences, right?”
“Anyway, you two can fight behind closed doors all you want. I’ll pretend not to know. Whether you live well or badly is your own business. Parents can’t follow you for a lifetime.” Mother Sun warned in advance, “If you really can’t make it work anymore, don’t come back through this door. Even if I wanted to let you in, your dad would stand there blocking it.” As she spoke, she grew sad. “You’re all old enough now—be sensible and don’t make both sets of parents worry.”
“There are so many people in their thirties and forties on the street, all living their lives steadily. Which one is like you…” Mother Sun said while wiping tears. “I’ve never seen a child as rebellious as you.”
Sun Jingcheng stood there dumbly, preparing to return to work. Mother Sun, exasperated at his failure to meet expectations, called him back. “You want to starve to death?” Seeing him turn back around, she stuffed another sheep eyeball in his mouth and filled a bowl with noodles covered in meat sauce.
Sun Jingcheng loved eating sheep eyeballs. Whenever the family cooked sheep head meat, the pair of eyeballs was always his.
After Mother Sun finished the kitchen chores, she brought him a jar of stewed preserved meat. “Take this home and put it in the refrigerator. Later when you and Zhou Yu don’t want to cook, just boil some plain noodles and scoop out a spoonful of meat. It’s better than anything outside.”
“You listen too—settle down and work properly. Don’t run around the world anymore. The day before yesterday when your dad heard you went to Huangshan, he was quite upset. Once you’re married, you need to take care of your family. You can’t just do whatever you want like before marriage.”
Sun Jingcheng came downstairs and stood idly on the roadside. The street was cold, and they said there would be snow tonight. Sun Youping returned from the public restroom on the left, passed by him as if he were invisible, went back to the clinic, put on his white coat, and continued sitting there seeing patients.
Sun Jingcheng’s foreign trade business wasn’t doing well—barely hanging on, enough to support the family. In his parents’ eyes, that wasn’t a proper job.
What was a proper job?
Sun Youping would say it was being a doctor, police officer, teacher… at the very least, an ordinary civil servant. Because these were within reach of common people, practical and realistic. Mother Sun believed it was doing business, like the second son—working in the food industry, opening several restaurants would be enough for a lifetime. Because food is essential to the people… food is essential to the people. Every time she passed by the second son’s bustling large restaurant, her heart felt comfortable and content.
Both second daughter-in-law’s medical aesthetics center and Sun Jingcheng’s foreign trade company were things she couldn’t understand. The medical aesthetics center was too grand—a place where rich people came. That money always felt insecurely earned. As for Sun Jingcheng’s small company, just those two rooms with a few people sitting there. This year she’d been following the news closely. The pandemic was more severe abroad, so naturally foreign trade was difficult too.
Zhou Yu returned to teach on Monday. With final exams approaching, teachers couldn’t take leave. The school had also handled Jiang Yuan’s matter—they paid compensation, and the parents took the child to Beijing for treatment. The school had also installed surveillance cameras in every classroom and every corner, except in the restrooms—everything could be checked.