Chapter 3

The entire building fell silent. Those who had come out to watch or mediate the fight stopped in their tracks, looking at the rarely-seen man from apartment 301, whose expression now resembled someone who had swallowed an ostrich egg whole.

Fearful and confused.

Wang Shanshan sat helplessly on the floor, her expression hollow and numb.

This was supposed to be an unspeakable secret.

She had known for a long time that An Huaimin had a mistress. The woman lived in the city where An Huaimin had been transferred for work, just a few hours' drive from Wangcheng. They lived together, and An Huaimin had a home there.

Wang Shanshan could also guess why An Huaimin had never divorced. He still worked at the water plant, and he cared about his reputation. Besides, that woman had never had a child, and An Jiujiu was still his only daughter.

An Jiujiu found out about it in her first year of high school. Her unfaithful father hadn’t made much effort to hide it. On New Year's Eve, when all the family and work groups were sending red envelopes, An Huaimin was playing mahjong and didn’t have time to grab them. So, he handed his phone to An Jiujiu, telling her to grab some red envelopes for him, and whatever points she got, she could keep half.

He often tricked An Jiujiu this way, so she wasn’t too serious about the task.

An Huaimin’s phone was more advanced than An Jiujiu’s, so she decided to download a game on it and play with high graphics. That was when she saw a message from the woman: "Huai Min, can you come back on the second day of the new year? I miss you."

An Jiujiu was stunned, staring blankly at the message. She saw all their exchanged texts—An Huaimin hadn’t even bothered to delete the chat history. So, she ended up reading everything, the messages that were suitable for children to see and those that weren’t.

It was only when Wang Shanshan noticed her daughter’s abnormal behavior that she stopped her from rushing to confront her father.

Wang Shanshan’s reason was very practical: If they divorced, An Huaimin might stop sending the two thousand yuan monthly. More importantly, they were living in a house that had originally been allocated by the water plant as welfare housing. Later, the ownership was fully transferred, and it would only cost about forty thousand yuan to get the property title. Since An Huaimin was a local and the eldest son in his family, An Jiujiu’s grandparents said this was their first commercial property, and the forty thousand yuan could be raised by everyone, with her grandparents contributing a bit, and they requested that the property title include their names.

An Huaimin, being a dutiful son, persuaded Wang Shanshan, saying he was the eldest son in the family, and according to tradition, his parents would need to be taken care of by his family. When his parents passed away, the inheritance would be greater than what his siblings would get. They were all family, so it would be better to follow the elders’ wishes and not disappoint them.

At that time, An Jiujiu was only two years old, and the couple was still in the honeymoon phase. Wang Shanshan, naïve, didn’t think too much and agreed.

So, if the affair were exposed and they really divorced, An Jiujiu, still underage, and Wang Shanshan, with no job and no house, would have to fight for custody. An Huaimin only had An Jiujiu as his child and would definitely fight for custody.

That would mean time-consuming and costly legal battles.

So Wang Shanshan told An Jiujiu, "We’ll wait until you’re an adult, until you’ve entered college."

An Jiujiu endured for two years, but in the end, she couldn’t hold it in anymore.

"Who... who..." An Huaimin stood stunned for a long time, staring at his daughter. He gritted his teeth and finally managed to say, "Who the hell taught you to speak like that?"

At this point, he was still standing on the moral high ground of being a father, insinuating that Wang Shanshan had failed to teach their daughter properly.

An Jiujiu almost laughed out of anger. She actually did laugh, asking An Huaimin with the same harshness he often used: "Do you want to keep yelling at the door?"

At that moment, An Huaimin saw the same look on his daughter’s face as when he was angry. He had left home for years, claiming to be working hard to support the family, looking down on his disheveled wife with wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, and even had a low opinion of his own daughter.

He didn't know how it happened, but his daughter, at a young age, already had the look of someone who could easily charm others, and his ignorant wife still wanted her to become a star.

He had always been dissatisfied, criticizing everything when he came home.

Today, however, he realized that An Jiujiu actually resembled him, especially when she was full of anger.

The phrase "blood is thicker than water" suddenly popped into his mind. He retreated into the room, and for a moment, his emotions flickered with confusion.

That night, the drama ended in an empty, pointless way.After they went inside the house, Shi Tuo left. An Jiujiu sent him downstairs. Having grown up together, she knew all the problems in his family. When he left, Shi Tuo didn’t avoid the others; he bent down to look at An Jiujiu’s face and reminded her to apply an ice pack that night.

An Huaimin also left that same night. Before he left, he didn’t argue with Wang Shanshan about An Jiujiu’s audition; he just spat out harshly, "You two better behave, or do I have to take time off work to come back for this nonsense?!"

He was all talk and no action, but no one bothered with him.

Wang Shanshan sat in the living room all night.

The next day, during the summer classes for high school seniors, An Jiujiu took a leave. Shi Tuo sent multiple messages to her during school hours, but none of them were answered.

Around 8 PM, after his evening self-study session, Shi Tuo went to the hospital to accompany a patient and received a message from An Jiujiu.

Little Goose: [I fell asleep.]

Shi Tuo: [???]

Little Goose: [I’m so sleepy, I just woke up now.]

Shi Tuo: [???]

Little Goose: [I can’t go on, I’m going back to sleep.]

After that, even though Shi Tuo, pushing his compulsive tendencies, sent her more messages, not a single one was replied to.

The next day, An Jiujiu still didn’t show up for school, but Shi Tuo saw Wang Shanshan walking out of the teacher's office during the break.

"Auntie," Shi Tuo ran over. "What’s wrong with An Jiujiu?"

"Ah, Shi Tuo," Wang Shanshan looked a bit tired but smiled kindly when she saw him. "I was just about to go find you in your class."

"Jiujiu has a slight fever, so she’s staying home to rest," she explained. "It’s nothing serious, she’s just really tired. You know how she is; she’s always been able to sleep so much since she was little."

"She slept the whole day yesterday?" In the summer heat, Shi Tuo was sweating, and his lips were pressed tightly together, giving him a more serious look than his seventeen or eighteen years. "Should we take her to the hospital?"

Wang Shanshan looked at the boy in front of her.

Actually, when An Huaimin angrily referred to Shi Tuo as being from the tutoring center the previous day, Wang Shanshan had felt guilty.

These past years, she had been busy helping An Jiujiu get into the entertainment industry, handing out countless business cards, going wherever there were directors or modeling projects. She had indeed neglected An Jiujiu’s education.

Mainly, An Jiujiu was very sensible. Her grades were never bad, and when Wang Shanshan didn’t have time to cook, An Jiujiu would wake up early to prepare meals and pack them in the fridge. At parent-teacher meetings, teachers almost always praised An Jiujiu for being sensible, helpful, smart, optimistic, and having a good personality. Though occasionally, the homeroom teacher gently remarked that An Jiujiu smiled at everyone but didn’t really have any friends. She ate lunch alone, and at this age, many girls had close friends who would hold hands to go to the restroom, but An Jiujiu didn’t seem to have that.

In elementary school, she did have a good friend, Cen Ying. Just like the teacher had said, they were close enough to hold hands to the bathroom. But when they entered different middle schools, and with An Jiujiu's fame from the widely-recognized commercial, Cen Ying, who was introverted and didn't like being stared at, slowly distanced herself.

Since then, An Jiujiu had lost interest in making new friends.

So, strictly speaking, Shi Tuo was really An Jiujiu’s only friend.

Wang Shanshan had thought about the differences between boys and girls. There were several boys and girls in their neighborhood at this age who secretly held hands or hid in the bushes. She had even considered the worst case scenario — what if these two children, who spent so much time together, started to develop feelings for each other? What would she do then?

She didn’t dislike Shi Tuo, but... early romance was never good.

And with her daughter’s looks, staying in such a small place like Wangcheng was a waste.

But Shi Tuo was too steady.

This child had been unnaturally mature from a very young age.

At around four years old, there was one time when Shi Tuo’s parents weren’t home, and Wang Shanshan had kept him at their house. She still thought of the two kids as infants. When it was time for a bath before bed, she had intended to undress them as she had done before and place them in the water basin.As a result, Shi Tuo refused.

He said, "Auntie, I'm a boy, I can't bathe with a girl anymore."

Wang Shanshan was shocked at the time and mentioned it to Zhang Rou. Zhang Rou was also surprised, thinking the kindergarten teacher must have taught something, but the teacher said this would be taught in the next semester.

Maybe it was that shocking moment that left an impression on Wang Shanshan, and from then on, she always thought that Shi Tuo would definitely be able to handle things well.

And indeed, he could. He played games and joked around with An Jiujiu, but Wang Shanshan observed several times that since they were about thirteen or fourteen, their playful behavior had stopped at just talking, and there was no more physical contact.

She had even seen Shi Tuo scold An Jiujiu when she received a love letter from another classmate. Shi Tuo told her, "Boys at this age don't know what real love is. Don't accept gifts from them, and don’t be fooled by sweet words."

"You don’t need to go to the hospital. This is just one of her old habits, when she gets sleepy and ends up sleeping for several days."

Eventually, Wang Shanshan did mention the request she had been meaning to ask Shi Tuo. Mainly because she couldn't find anyone else to ask. She always felt that An Jiujiu’s constant sleepiness was somewhat abnormal, but she didn’t want others to know.

"Shi Tuo, can you help Auntie out and come by our house after your evening self-study?"

"Auntie has to go to your Uncle An’s place today and might not be back by tonight," Wang Shanshan explained. "If Jiujiu really starts getting too sleepy, she’ll probably be too lazy to even eat. Can you check if she’s taken anything out of the fridge? If not, wake her up and make sure she eats something."

"Her homeroom teacher just gave me this stack of papers. Can you also help me hand them to her?" Wang Shanshan handed over a folder with test papers to Shi Tuo.

Shi Tuo took it and said, "Okay."

He wasn't overly eager or reluctant.

Wang Shanshan paused for a moment, her voice softened. "Auntie is going to see your Uncle An about some... problems. I should be back by tomorrow night at the latest. I left a note for Jiujiu and told her, but when she gets sleepy, she tends to forget things. If she causes trouble, just call me."

"Don’t let her eat too many carbs or greasy foods. Her face tends to swell when she eats too much."

"You know about this problem of hers. We took her to the hospital before, and the doctor said it might be related to stress. Some kids avoid things when they're under pressure. Jiujiu’s sleepiness is probably a form of escape."

"But the trouble the other night... it still needs to be dealt with..."

The words were hard to say in front of a child, and Wang Shanshan spoke haltingly.

"I know," Shi Tuo interrupted her. "If she wakes up in the next few days, I’ll talk to her."

Calm.

Steady as a rock.