DF Chapter 5

Chapter 5 If you leave, what about me? What do I do?

The room was dim, with only the sound of a comedy show playing on the television and a green glow. Sheng Jia turned on the light, and the room was fully visible.

The walls of her house were not clean, but rather uneven. In some places, black stains had seeped through, and they had not been repainted or filled.

A woman was lying on the sofa, applying a cucumber mask. She didn’t turn her head when she heard the sound at the door, but lazily said, “You’re back?”

Sheng Jia responded and changed her shoes at the door, then went to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water.

Her mother, Sheng Huaiying, picked up a sliced pear from the table and put it in her mouth, saying, “I’m planning to go to Fajin Temple this weekend. Why don’t you come with me?”

Sheng Jia asked, “What for?”

“To pray to the Buddha. My luck has been terrible lately. Maybe donating some merit money will improve it. Aren’t you taking the college entrance exam next year? We can go together.”

Sheng Jia replied seriously, “I don’t believe in that.”

Sheng Huaiying paused slightly, then smiled without any special meaning, and continued, “Then just consider it as going with me. Xiyanghong downstairs said you’re unlucky and blocking my path to wealth. I argued with her. I don’t believe in that stuff, but she always says it to my face. Let’s ask for a powerful divination stick, and then she won’t dare to gossip. She’s most afraid of the Buddha.”

Xiyanghong was the old woman who had stopped Sheng Jia just now, the owner of the two apartments downstairs. Her children had all left, leaving her alone to live her retirement. She wasn’t a bad person, but she talked a lot and was a gossip center.

Sheng Huaiying often went to the mahjong parlor downstairs and argued with this old woman a lot.

Sheng Jia didn’t care what others said, but Sheng Huaiying cared. She valued face, whether it was her own or Sheng Jia’s, and she wanted to maintain it well.

“Alright,” Sheng Jia thought about canceling her Saturday part-time job and picked up her bag to go into her room.

Sheng Huaiying’s hand holding the toothpick paused, a conflicted expression on her face. She finally couldn’t help but stop her.

“Sheng Jia, he’s coming out in a year.”

Sheng Jia nodded, “I know. So?”

“Aren’t you afraid?” Sheng Huaiying bit her lip.

“By the time he comes out, my college entrance exam will be over, and I won’t be staying at home anymore,” Sheng Jia said slowly. “So I shouldn’t see him.”

Sheng Huaiying really wanted to ask, what about me?

If you leave, what about me? What do I do?

But she didn’t ask in the end. By the time Sheng Jia entered her room, her hand holding the toothpick was numb. She realized she had used so much force.

Thinking of the person who might be coming out in a year, she irritably pulled off the cucumber mask from her face and turned up the volume of the television, as if that would cover up the anxiety in her heart.

–

Sheng Jia’s room was very small, only about four square meters. It contained only a bed, a small wardrobe, and a plastic desk that Sheng Huaiying had bought secondhand for her from someone else. Beside the desk were stacks of books that were higher than the desk itself.

The sound of the variety show outside the door clearly entered, but she remained expressionless and took out her phone again.

An old-fashioned phone received another message, still from [R].

[R]: Why aren’t you replying? It’s not righteous to discard me after using me.

Sheng Jia replied expressionlessly: Help me keep an eye on where Xu Lijing is going tomorrow afternoon.

[R]: Okay. But what do you want to do?

Sheng Jia stared at the message, a smile appearing on her lips, but there was no emotion in her eyes. She only said: I just want to resolve the conflict between us. I don’t want her causing me trouble in the future.

[R]: Do you think I believe that?

Sheng Jia didn’t reply to that sentence. She didn’t care whether the other person believed it or not.

This time, Sheng Jia didn’t delete the chat history between them. The cheap desk lamp suddenly flickered, and her gaze fell on the calendar.

The date on the calendar wasn’t the present, but July 8th of next year. That day was circled with a black marker.

That was the day her nominal father, Wang Jian, was being released from prison.

When she was in the first year of high school, Wang Jian was sentenced to three years and one month for robbery. Sheng Huaiying filed for divorce during this process and succeeded. Sheng Jia was assigned to her custody because she didn’t have a job and needed to raise her daughter. The house was also assigned to her.

That year, Sheng Jia changed her name from Wang Jia to Sheng Jia.

The days without Wang Jian were unbelievably comfortable for Sheng Huaiying, and also comfortable for Sheng Jia.

So she didn’t plan to give Wang Jian another chance to come out.

Scum should stay in prison and reflect for the rest of their lives.

She wasn’t completely sure about this matter yet, so she didn’t plan to tell Sheng Huaiying.

Sheng Jia didn’t let these emotions and matters bother her for long. Even though the television outside was still so loud, she had already taken out her English practice questions and started listening practice with the headphones she had bought for fifteen yuan.

Her consistently ranking Grade/Year One didn’t come out of nowhere. Hard work was an indispensable part of the road to success. Being able to study undisturbed like this was something she had dreamed of three years ago.

When the clock struck one in the morning, Sheng Jia finished her nighttime studies. She pinched the space between her eyebrows, feeling a dizzy spell. This was a sign of hunger.

She had only eaten two steamed buns in the hotel’s staff room at night, and this little bit of food couldn’t withstand her energy consumption all night.

Sheng Jia walked out of her room. She remembered that there were two eggs in the refrigerator.

Sheng Huaiying had already gone to bed at some point, and the living room was silent. She quietly walked to the refrigerator, only to find a plate of sliced pears inside.

The refrigerator’s small light illuminated her face and the surprised expression on it.

Sheng Huaiying wasn’t a qualified mother, at least that’s what Sheng Jia thought. She had never had any expectations of Sheng Huaiying.

Sheng Huaiying had only done two things over the years that made her look at her with new eyes. One was after Wang Jian first injured Sheng Jia, Sheng Huaiying went crazy and picked up a kitchen knife to fight him. The second was when she made up her mind to divorce Wang Jian and beat a drowning dog, leaving him with nothing.

Besides that, Sheng Huaiying was cold, lazy, and incompetent. She didn’t really like Sheng Jia, probably because seeing Sheng Jia always reminded her of painful past. She was somewhat repulsed.

Sheng Jia could actually understand. Choosing the wrong path when young needed a vent. In the years when she was cowardly and didn’t dare to resist violence, her rejection of Sheng Jia was her vent. But later, she personally solved Wang Jian, and this rejection lessened. Her image gradually became that of a normal mother, but the mother-daughter relationship was already difficult to repair.

Even if Sheng Huaiying showed goodwill and cautiously tried to approach Sheng Jia, Sheng Jia didn’t really want to accept it.

Later, Sheng Huaiying didn’t show any more goodwill. The mother and daughter just got by like this for three years. It was hard to say what kind of relationship it was. She could speak to Sheng Jia in the tone of a friend and say some small talk, but she also knew very well that the two were the most distant mother and daughter. In this family, their conversations in a day didn’t exceed five sentences.

But tonight, the plate of pears left for Sheng Jia broke this distance a little. She seemed to see the maternal love that she had craved but rarely received as a child.

Sheng Jia’s stomach growled. She raised her hand and tied her hair into a ponytail, ultimately taking out the plate of pears and leaving a hundred yuan bill for Sheng Huaiying. This was half of her salary for tonight.

Sheng Huaiying worked in a car repair shop, earning a fixed salary, nine to five, with weekends off, 3,500 yuan per month. She gave Sheng Jia 700 yuan for living expenses, which was why Sheng Jia had to work part-time. Otherwise, she might not even be able to afford practice books and stationery.

Sheng Jia didn’t plan to accept her kindness now, preferring to unilaterally define this matter as a transaction.

She sat on the sofa in the living room and quietly finished the pears. The sweet juice overflowed in her mouth, alleviating some of the hunger after swallowing. She took the time to log into her WeChat and saw a friend request.

Clicking on it, it was indeed Song Ji’an.

Her profile picture was a pink pig grinning on the grass, an extremely cute appearance. The verification information was her own name, and the source was a mutual group chat.

Someone in the class group had already pulled Song Ji’an into the group. Sheng Jia scrolled to the top of the 99+ messages and found that after Song Ji’an entered the group, she sent two large red envelopes of 200 yuan each. The group was still bustling even after 11 PM, until Meng Yeran went online and reminded everyone that Teacher Liu, the homeroom teacher, would be conducting random recitation tomorrow morning. Only then did everyone wail and go offline one after another.

Song Ji’an’s red envelopes were selected based on the number of people in the class, so even though Sheng Jia was the last person to open the red envelope, she still had her share. She opened the first red envelope.

[Congratulations, you received 0.01 yuan]

Sheng Jia conveniently opened the second red envelope, this time receiving twelve yuan. Even though she was the last one, she became the luckiest.

She returned to the contact list and stared at Song Ji’an’s friend request for a while, ultimately clicking reject.