After a long while, Qiao Qingyu got up and walked back to the teaching building. All second-year students were in the auditorium, leaving the second and third floors empty. Qiao Qingyu walked slowly up the stairs along the wall. Just as she was about to turn and enter Class 5 through the back door, she heard voices by the door.
“She’s still Er Hua,” Ye Zilin’s voice said, “What does it matter if Qiao Qingyu wasn’t raised in the village? Look at her country bumpkin appearance! How can she compare to her sister?”
Qiao Qingyu looked down at her pink striped short-sleeve polo shirt – a style from five or six years ago, Qiao Baiyu’s clothes.
“Alright, Young Master Ye, we know you have high standards. Only beauties like Qiao Baiyu can catch your eye,” Chen Yuqian spoke up, “But this Qiao Baiyu was something else. If Black Brother hadn’t told us, who would have known she grew up in the countryside? Both fashionable and pure, truly rare…”
Because almost all the photos circulating online were taken after she came to Huan Zhou, Qiao Qingyu thought silently.
When it came to buying clothes, her parents had always ignored her. Qiao Baiyu liked to chase trends, choosing bright colors, and even though Qiao Qingyu despised it, she could only let these outdated, exaggerated clothes make her stand out as different among her classmates.
“And she had such allure, those eyes showed she was someone with stories to tell. I just love that kind of experienced beauty…” Ye Zilin drooled, “The girls at our school are all too proper. There are many girls like Qiao Baiyu in the Jiangbin New District, but none are as beautiful as her. Qiao Baiyu was so easy, how did I never run into her…”
“Tsk tsk tsk, stop being disgusting, she’s already dead,” Chen Yuqian said, “Don’t you think about how she died.”
“AIDS, right,” Ye Zilin blurted out, then suddenly became terrified, “If Black Brother was her boyfriend before, wouldn’t he…”
“He was one of her boyfriends, they broke up quickly,” Chen Yuqian said seriously, “Don’t worry, I asked privately, Black Brother is fine. He broke up with her when he discovered her improper behavior. She got infected after they broke up…”
“Ah, beautiful women have always had tragic fates,” Ye Zilin sighed, “Looks like I still need to be careful, can’t find girls who are too open… Such a beautiful woman, what a shame she brought it upon herself. Why didn’t heaven give her a bit more brains, right, Ah Sheng?”
Only then did Qiao Qingyu realize Ming Sheng was among them, and unconsciously held her breath, listening intently.
“Stop gossiping behind people’s backs,” Ming Sheng sounded cold, his voice losing the mesmerizing radiance it had in the auditorium, returning to his usual casual tone, “You’re too chatty.”
“Qiao Baiyu is already dead, what’s wrong with talking about her?” Ye Zilin sounded unconvinced, “Everyone’s talking about it, and I wasn’t the one who brought it up, Chen Yuqian did…”
“I was just saying Qiao Qingyu’s nose and eyes look similar to Qiao Baiyu’s…”
“You even said Qiao Qingyu is prettier than Deng Meixi. Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for Er Hua?”
“Fuck off, as if I’d fall for her! Look at her! Ah Sheng’s already being lenient with her, and she’s getting cocky. How could I like her?”
“Weren’t you the one saying she looked pitiful when people mocked her…”
“I was just agreeing with what Ah Sheng said, she…”
“Enough,” Ming Sheng suddenly cut in, his tone sharp, “Aren’t you tired of this?”
The air went still. Ming Sheng switched to a softer tone: “Just don’t fucking mention Qiao Baiyu anymore, it’s depressing.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” Ye Zilin smiled ingratiatingly, “That woman was too dirty.”
“She was too tragic,” Ming Sheng said, letting out a quick breath, “Abandoned by her parents in the countryside since childhood, fucking hell, even more of a Les Misérables than Qiao Qingyu.”
His words shocked Qiao Qingyu.
She recalled feeling guilty toward Qiao Baiyu when she was very young. At four or five years old, she had heard adults in Nan Qiao Village joke about her and Qiao Baiyu more than once, laughing about letting Qiao Baiyu return to her parents in Shunyun while she stayed in the village with her grandparents. Such jokes often frightened her to tears, clutching tightly to Li Fanghao’s legs, saying she didn’t want to switch with her sister.
“No switching, no switching,” Li Fanghao stroked her head, “In a couple of years when we get a bigger house, we’ll bring your sister back, and the whole family can be together.”
Busybodies would continue to encourage Qiao Baiyu, listing all the fun places in Shunyun, and pressuring her about whether she missed her parents. Qiao Baiyu usually responded with silence, but once, when truly cornered, she had to speak: “Qingqing is my little sister, she’s still young, I should let her have her way.”
This earned applause from the adults, ending the tasteless joke. Qiao Qingyu breathed a sigh of relief but couldn’t feel joy. Qiao Baiyu’s watery eyes were filled with restrained sorrow, directed at her, weighing her down.
That was the first time, wasn’t it, that she felt deeply apologetic toward her sister-
During the National Day holiday, the noodle shop closed for three days, and Qiao Qingyu and Qiao Jinyu followed their parents back to Shunyun. Earlier, a typhoon had caused the creek to swell, and the muddy flood had soaked their grandparents’ old house into an uninhabitable dangerous building. Upon arriving in Shunyun, the family rushed straight to Nan Qiao Village.
Grandfather Qiao Lilong and Uncle Qiao Haisheng stood at the village entrance to welcome them. After exchanging greetings upon getting out of the car, Qiao Haisheng took Qiao Jinyu’s hand and led everyone to the new house not far from the village entrance.
Qiao Qingyu followed the adults to tour the new house, automatically offering words of praise. “Fortunately, we moved Mom and Dad here before the typhoon,” Qiao Haisheng said proudly, “It was Jinrui’s idea. That boy is thoughtful, checking the weather forecast every day, always worried about home.”
Grandmother Fang Zhaodi’s face wrinkled with smiles as she took Qiao Jinyu’s hand: “Xiaorui is capable, and Xiaoyu is also very capable. These two grandsons were truly born well, you two brothers are both blessed!”
“Will anyone still live in the old house?” Qiao Qingyu asked. Standing by the window in the third-floor corridor, her gaze passed over the undulating rooftops outside to the yellowed-white back wall of the old house by the creek.
“It’s uninhabitable now,” Aunt Liu Yanfen smiled, “Mom and Dad will live with us from now on. Lusheng, you all can come here for New Year’s, treat this as your own home. Don’t worry about Mom and Dad usually, we’ll take good care of them…”
Li Fanghao followed Liu Yanfen’s lead and began exchanging pleasantries. Qiao Qingyu found it boring and stepped into the room on the right—where she and Qiao Jinyu would sleep tonight.
The spacious room contained only one bed, emanating newness. In the corner was a deep red leather sofa, old, moved from Qiao Baiyu’s room in the old house.
“Sis,” Qiao Jinyu came over, “Time to go down for dinner.”
“How are we supposed to sleep?” Qiao Qingyu nodded at the bed, “Are you taking the sofa or am I?”
“I knew you’d worry about this,” Qiao Jinyu smiled helplessly, “Don’t worry, I’ll sleep downstairs with Dad, you sleep upstairs with Mom.”
Qiao Qingyu hadn’t shared a bed with Li Fanghao for many years; truthfully, she had no memory of sleeping with her mother. When Qiao Jinyu was born, she was one and a half, and according to Li Fanghao, she was already sleeping independently in another room by then.
The early autumn night was slightly cool. After showering, and walking up to the third floor in slippers, Qiao Qingyu secretly hoped Li Fanghao was already asleep.
She didn’t like being alone with her mother.
The room was lit only by a dim yellow bedside lamp, the bedding neat, Li Fanghao curled up barefoot on the red sofa, her head nodding drowsily, apparently waiting for her.
“Mom?”
Hearing her voice, Li Fanghao gave her a bleary-eyed look, let out a long yawn, and got up to walk to the bed: “Taking so long to shower? Let’s sleep.”
Qiao Qingyu wondered why Li Fanghao hadn’t waited on the bed. Perhaps she was reminiscing again, thinking of Qiao Baiyu.
Recalling Uncle’s explanation that the flood-damaged old house was uninhabitable and they probably wouldn’t go there anymore, with all of the grandparents’ needed clothing moved over—Qiao Qingyu glanced at the dark red sofa in the dim yellow light, couldn’t help but wonder—did that mean all of her sister’s things would be abandoned?
The old house was a traditional brick and tile building, two stories high. Qiao Baiyu had lived for eight years in a room on the second floor, without a ceiling—looking up, you’d see black tiles like fish scales and dark-toned round wooden beams. It was a long, narrow room with a wooden window facing southeast. The desk, bed, wardrobe, and sofa could only be arranged in a single line, and with the window closed, it felt like being in an endless tunnel. Qiao Qingyu remembered the red sofa was moved in later, apparently because Qiao Baiyu had seen it in a shop and liked it, and their parents, to please her, actually bought it.
A modern-style red sofa, placed in a room where everything else was antique wooden furniture, looked extremely out of place.