Chapter 48

Chapter 48

Shanghai Reunion (4)

Song Qi initially couldn't quite remember the last time he held Yu Man Yi in his arms. It seemed like it was that night when she jumped off the wall to sign up. However, that time, compared to an embrace, felt more like a fall from a height. He only remembered a dull thud in his chest, and then the two of them hurried off to the dock, without any time to process.

Today, she once again threw herself into his arms, but this time, her posture was not coquettish. It was entirely driven by a physical instinct to depend on him. Song Qi subconsciously opened his arms, letting her bury her eyes in his shoulder, her tears soaking into the collar of his shirt.

She appeared so suddenly, and he didn’t feel much resistance—only some surprise. Song Qi didn’t really understand his own feelings.

Yu Man Yi cried in Song Qi's arms for a long time, as though she had accumulated too much grievance and had suppressed it for too long, finally finding a safe outlet for her emotions. In her memory, the last time she embraced Song Qi wasn’t the night she first escaped the Yu family. Instead, it was the night in the cellar when he had held her as he brought her down the ladder to protect her. That day, he had embraced her from behind; today, it was from the front.

She embraced him from below, her arms passing around his waist. His right hand gently fell onto her back, softly patting her in rhythm with her sobs, even helping her settle when her crying turned into hiccups.

Her fingers tugged at his clothes, pulling at the fabric of his shirt. The places where her tears had soaked clung tightly to his skin. Song Qi lowered his head and looked, from her shoulder to her half-kneeling knees. The space between their bodies was perfectly filled by one person; she had a knack for finding just the right place to fit.

Footsteps could be heard downstairs, followed by the sound of a key turning in the lock. It seemed the tenant from the third floor had returned. Song Qi was concerned that the couple next door might come back soon and see this scene, which would be very inappropriate. Finally, in a calming tone, he asked, “Shall we... go inside and talk?”

Yu Man Yi sniffled but nodded slightly on his shoulder. She then pulled away from him, waiting for Song Qi to get up and open the apartment door.

She had been entirely focused on waiting for Song Qi to return, and only now did she begin to look around. From the outside, Song Qi's apartment was quite beautiful. The hallway was adorned with lake green mosaic tiles, continuing the building's refined aesthetic.

However, the light in the hallway was always dim. There was a window by the stairs, but it was divided into small sections by the window frame. The glass exterior had mold and water stains, preventing more light from coming in. So, this is what living in the city looks like.

With a "click," Song Qi opened the door. Yu Man Yi turned around and stood in front of the door for a moment. The lighting inside the apartment, just like in the hallway, was as usual, seeming to be a common issue with the apartment, as the steel-barred windows divided everything into small segments.

But aside from that, the room was tastefully decorated. The floor was covered with walnut wood, and there was a dining table in the living room, with a few books and a vase of flowers on it. There weren’t many pieces of furniture in the apartment, similar to the place Song Qi had lived in before. However, his home now had many more books, as if he finally had space for them, and they covered an entire wall.

Yu Man Yi had never seen so many books. She walked over and quickly scanned them, noticing some of the spines had titles in foreign languages, and some weren’t even in English—though it could be that her English was still at a beginner level.Aside from all of this, there was also a round mirror on the living room wall, framed with a circle of copper. Yu Man Yi walked over, and as she looked at her reflection, she noticed her eyes were red, and her hair was a mess—she suddenly felt unsteady on her feet.

She had intended to look a little disheveled to evoke Song Qi's pity, but after crying, it was a bit too much. She only wanted to appear as though she had been through a long journey, but she didn’t expect to appear so destitute and miserable.

Yu Man Yi quickly tidied up her hair. When she turned around, Song Qi had already poured a glass of water and placed it on the table, signaling for her to sit down.

She sat upright, then “gulped” the water down. When she put the glass down, Yu Man Yi saw that Song Qi was intently staring at her face. For a moment, she dared not make any large movements.

"I was just about to ask the little postman something."

"What?"

Yu Man Yi was startled by Song Qi’s words. Fortunately, the next moment, he added, “Fang Qian told me that the concubine from the You family heard from her hometown that the You family had a fire and the Yu family also had some trouble. What happened?”

“Fang Qian told you?” That was completely unexpected for Yu Man Yi. “What else did she say?”

“She said everything I just told you,” Song Qi replied, “The person isn’t from your hometown, so they only heard these things.”

Yu Man Yi let out a small sigh of relief.

She hadn't planned to tell Song Qi that... that she had set the Yu family on fire. Even now, recalling it, she thought it was extreme. It was like murder... but there was a part of her mind that kept telling her, they had put her life at risk first, and everything she did was for self-preservation.

But self-preservation had a price. Recently, Yu Man Yi felt as if a part of her soul had been left behind in that great fire. Many times, she dreamt in the dead of night of her third uncle forcing her to sign, and in those dreams, a massive fire would ignite. She would wake up from nightmares in the middle of the night and then force herself to forget during the day.

"So..." Song Qi placed one hand on the table, leaning slightly toward her with a concerned tone, "What exactly happened to the Yu family?""Yu family... Yu family..."

Fortunately, Yu Man Yi had already prepared a lie before coming here. She quickly adjusted her tone back to normal, then looked up at Song Qi, and said seriously, "The matter with the Yu family is the reason I ran away."

Song Qi did not respond, just listening to her.

"It was... my cousin," Yu Man Yi said. "My cousin... he doesn't want me anymore."

"Doesn't want you anymore?"

"Mm, he sent me a letter to break off the engagement. He thinks I'm too feudal, backward. He met his 'true love' abroad, and thinks I'm not up to his standard."

...

Yu Man Yi keenly sensed the atmosphere tightening. It seemed that Song Qi was upset by the words she used, and there was even a slight hostility in his expression. The last time Yu Man Yi told him her cousin had said that she was like any other girl, his expression had also shown this displeasure.

That time, he had gently said, "Maybe he just has poor judgment." However, this time, Song Qi bluntly said, "He's blind. I said he was blind a long time ago."

"So I'm not feudal, right?" Yu Man Yi seized the opportunity to ask cheerfully.

However, today, to evoke his pity, she had worn a purple yuhuan (swallow-tailed) dress and styled her hair in an old-fashioned way. Song Qi looked at her for a while but still couldn't bring himself to lie. He objectively stated:

"You do seem to have some... remnants of feudalism. But true feudalism isn’t about what you wear. True feudalism is in the heart. I look at your cousin, and even though he's been abroad, I’m afraid he’s still very feudal. I don’t even need to meet him to know that."

Although Song Qi’s words didn’t exactly deny Yu Man Yi’s feudalism, she still felt a brief moment of happiness.

After the broken engagement, everyone had scolded her cousin, but they did it because he had squandered the money the Yu family had spent on his education, because he had embarrassed the Yu family, and because he had interfered with Third Aunt and Third Uncle’s plan to take over the Yu family business. Until now, only Song Qi had stood on Yu Man Yi’s side, criticizing her cousin.Yu Man Yi was once deeply hurt because she realized that when they were angry, they didn’t refute the reasoning her cousin had given. Even the nurses and the fabric store owner only regarded this matter as something commonplace. It seemed that once men became "progressive," it was perfectly understandable and reasonable to cut ties with their first wives.

Yu Man Yi even started to doubt whether being abandoned was indeed so reasonable. And everything she endured after being abandoned was simply the inevitable consequence of her cousin pursuing freedom and progress.

It was as though women like her were meant to exist in this world—women who had their marriages arranged like objects and were then discarded in the name of freedom and progress. Perhaps, after several years, someone might sigh for them, but it would only be a fleeting sigh. No one would ever treat them as real people with flesh and blood. And after more years, perhaps someone might pity them, calling them relics and tragedies of the past. But this "relic," this "tragedy," would be their entire life, spanning over half a century.

But let's get back to the point and explain to Song Qi.

In any case, if it was just the broken engagement, Yu Man Yi wouldn't have bothered running away. After she waited for Song Qi to curse her cousin, she told him everything about the Yu family forcing her to marry a northern businessman, and even the affair with Miss You.

Song Qi's expression grew increasingly stern, and his hands slowly clenched under the table. Even though the people in their city were progressive, they were still far from the reality of the world. Miss You's aunt had peeled back a layer for him, and now Yu Man Yi had peeled back another layer.

She didn’t mention the fire, only that she had been forced to sign the documents and then arranged for the little postman to prepare a boat, escaping over the wall under the cover of night.

Then came more matters in Shanghai, including the interview with Jiang Yu, where she ran into Huo Shiwen again and got his new address. Finally, their separate experiences were synchronized.

Yu Man Yi tried to recount this series of events in a lighthearted manner, especially the times she had been rejected during her job interviews—truly both pitiful and ridiculous. As she laughed while telling Song Qi, he didn’t laugh with her, but his expression did soften a little.

He looked better when in a good mood, his eyes slightly curved, his eyelashes fluttering when he blinked. But Yu Man Yi noticed that since coming to Shanghai, his temper was noticeably colder than before.

After finishing her long story, Yu Man Yi, Song Qi took a large book from the table and absentmindedly started flipping through its pages.

Yu Man Yi heard the sound of the pages rapidly turning and colliding for a while. Finally, Song Qi asked her, “So, where are you staying now?”