Chapter 5

“What remains in this world that you cannot accept?”

In my previous life, I saw a therapist for many years. She always told me that life was unpredictable.

I said I knew.

She shook her head and said I did not. If I truly understood, I would not have suffered so much.

Whenever we met, her most frequent question was, “What is left that you cannot accept?”

After my mother died, life brought one event after another, great and small. Slowly, I accepted them all.

After all, what could be harder to bear than learning that my mother had never loved me and that my closest sister had betrayed me?

I accepted my mother’s lack of love and my sister’s betrayal. From then on, I believed I could meet anything with perfect calm.

But the moment I saw Mom again and heard her explanation, the calm on my face shattered completely.

She made no attempt to hide it.

“Your Uncle Li returned me like damaged goods,” she said.

“Returned you?”

“Yes. He said he’d longed for me for years, but after we finally got together, he discovered I was nothing special—not even as good as his ex-wife.”

“So your sister and I will still have to rely on you.”

“You don’t need to attend No. 20 anymore.”

“The principal of County No. 1 found me. He agreed to waive your room, board, and book fees.”

When she finished, she snatched my luggage and turned toward home.

Zhien followed timidly behind her.

I walked last, numb and wooden.

Only one thought echoed in my mind: seven days.

Only seven days.

The happiness Mom had yearned for over decades had taken seven days to prove itself a fantasy.

I wanted to laugh, but I could not move the corners of my mouth.

After one night, I ultimately accepted that Mom, my sister, and I were a family again.

I agreed to attend County No. 1. Every year, it sent dozens of students to top-tier universities, something No. 20 could not begin to match.

But I did not ask Mom for money.

She did not offer any.

In her view, I should already be deeply grateful that she had not sent me far away and had secured room and board for me. Whether textbooks and daily necessities cost money once school began was none of her concern.

I even detected a trace of malicious pleasure in her cold eyes.

I accepted it calmly.

“What is left that I cannot accept?”

With her back to me, Mom muttered, “You look so much like me, your fate must be the same too. You’ll either curse a man to death or be rejected by him.”

She meant for me to hear.

Mom and I looked alike, while my sister resembled Dad.

I did not argue. I silently shouldered a basket and headed outside.

Although Uncle Li had sent Mom back, his conscience troubled him. As compensation, he delivered two pigs, dozens of geese, and more than ten sacks of grain.

Mom sent me to gather wild greens.

My sister tugged my trouser leg and whispered that she wanted to come.

Since returning from town, she still wanted to cling to me, yet feared I would find her annoying. Expectation and timidity alternated across her small face.

I crouched and looked into her eyes. “Zhien, do you truly want to come? There are many mosquitoes in the fields, and leeches too. If you can promise not to cry when they bite you, I’ll take you.”

She immediately let go and retreated a small step.

She knew I was telling the truth.

But I would not have discouraged her that way before.

I would have said, “Zhien, be good and wait at home. Sis will bring back the sweetest wild fruit for you.”

How had I changed?

The confusion was written plainly in her eyes: Sis, why aren’t you the same as before?

My lips twitched. “You aren’t coming? Then I’m leaving.”

I truly left.

As expected, my sister did not follow.

A touch of self-mockery passed through me. My therapist used to say that I was too self-centered, that I always interpreted everything through my own needs and refused to face reality.

I had always rejected that judgment. Only in old age did I gradually accept that she was right.

I never expected that by letting go of only a little of my own perspective, I would see a truth I had never noticed: the sister who, in my memory, depended on me with all her heart had understood how to weigh costs and benefits even at that young age.

If following me meant enduring leeches and mosquitoes, she chose to abandon me.

Abandonment and betrayal spring from the same root.