Chapter 122
Chapter 122
After Qin Song got home, he downloaded another five or six novel apps.
He searched for “Huahua Xiao Saozi” over and over, but he still couldn’t find anyone who matched Huahua.
Then he logged into Weibo, which he hadn’t used in ages, and searched those words there.
At last, he found an account on Weibo with the ID “Huahua Xiao Saozi” and decisively followed it.
He was starting to get curious about Huahua.
He knew it wasn’t attraction between a man and a woman. It was the pleasure of finally finding a kindred spirit.
Huahua’s Weibo was empty. No follows, no followers, no photos. Only an avatar.
Qin Song studied that avatar for a while. It was an artistic portrait in a Cleopatra style, and he couldn’t tell whether it was Huahua herself.
But Huahua also had blunt bangs, smoky eye makeup, and liked wearing glittering gold jewelry. It was very close to the style of that avatar.
Qin Song had lied to Huahua. On one hand, he had changed the gender of the story’s protagonist. On the other, he would never tell Huahua the rest of the story.
The rest of the story was very simple.
On the eighth day after Huang Yuanrui died, Qin Song rummaged through an inner compartment of a bag and found a phone with a pink case. It was Huang Yuanrui’s.
He charged it and turned it on.
The lock screen passcode was the date they had first met. He knew it.
After opening WeChat, he began replying to the unread messages.
Aside from a few promotions and membership offers from gyms and beauty salons, most of the messages had come from Huang Yuanrui’s two best friends.
Xixi had sent the most:
“Where are you?”
“It’s been two days and not a peep.”
Two jokes.
One meme.
One missed voice call.
One missed video call.
“Girl, what are you doing?”
“Are you fighting with him?”
“Did he get divorced?”
“hello?”
“Hey, hey, hey!”
Qin Song started typing: “My phone broke. I just got it fixed.”
After typing it, Qin Song was a little afraid that Xixi would panic and call or video him. If she did, there was no way he could answer.
To his surprise, Xixi didn’t call. She typed back instead: “Holy shit, I thought you were dead.”
Qin Song: “We really have been fighting these past few days, but he and his wife finally got divorced.”
Xixi: “What what what? Divorced?!”
Qin Song: “Yeah. He took his anger out on me, so we’ve just been fighting these past few days. Everything’s been a blur.”
Xixi: “What are you fighting about? You can marry him now!”
Qin Song: “He did promise me that. Fighting is one thing, but I think in a few days we’ll be able to talk about getting married.”
Xixi: “It’s finally settled, then. Let me wish you happiness in advance.”
Qin Song put down the phone and let out a breath. He felt the story he had made up was rounded out well enough, and realistic enough too.
Qin Song stayed in Hu Heng’s house for another two or three months. During that time, he basically had no more hallucinations or nightmares.
Over those two or three months, his mental state gradually recovered. Although he was still nowhere near as healthy and full of life as he had once been, he was much better than at the beginning.
Qin Song decided to start over. To reboot his life.
With Hu Heng’s help, he changed to a new identity and continued living under the name “Wang Hai.”
He gathered his courage and bravely faced everything he had once feared.
He found himself a job at a local hotel. As the saying went, you had to get back up where you fell. He was afraid of hotels and resisted them, so he wanted to start there and force himself to overcome his fear.
He also decided to step into married life again, and in his heart he promised himself that this time, he would remain absolutely faithful.
Once, when Hu Heng came to visit him, Qin Song said to him, “I want to start a family.”
Hu Heng said, “You want to… find someone?”
Qin Song said, “I want to get married.”
Hu Heng asked, “Have you met a woman recently?”
Qin Song shook his head. “No. Do you still know anyone in Mingdu? See if you can introduce me to someone.”
Hu Heng lowered his head and thought for a while.
Qin Song felt that Hu Heng might refuse him. After all, he was a divorced murderer.
Hu Heng thought for a long time, then scrolled through his phone for a while before finally saying, “Neither of us is exactly young anymore, so I definitely can’t introduce you to some twenty-year-old… But I do know a few women around your age… Would that be okay with you?”
Qin Song nodded. “I’m not picky.”
Qin Song knew that what he wanted now was a chance to prove himself, to get right what he had once gotten wrong. So he didn’t care whether the other person was young and beautiful. As long as she was suitable for marriage, anything was fine.
Hu Heng said, “I have a primary school classmate. Her name is Li Juan. How should I put this… Her looks are honestly very average, but she’s steady, dependable, and a very upright person. I don’t think she’s really dated much. She’s in her thirties and still hasn’t gotten married…”
Qin Song said, “As long as the person is steady and reliable, that’s enough.”
Hu Heng said, “These were all introductions from one of my childhood friends. And when he mentioned it, that was already more than half a year ago. He wanted to set me up with her back then, but I really… It’s not that I looked down on her. I just didn’t like that type. Let me ask him again about Li Juan’s current situation. Maybe she’s already married by now…”
Two days later, Hu Heng called Qin Song. “I’ve got one good news and one bad news. Which one do you want first?”
Qin Song said, “The good news.”
Hu Heng said, “Li Juan still isn’t married. She’s working as a homeroom teacher at Jinhe Elementary School in Mingdu right now. Jinhe! It’s only two bus stops from my place, really close.”
Qin Song asked, “And the bad news?”
Hu Heng said, “The bad news is she has a kid with her.”
Qin Song said, “If she never got married, where’d the kid come from?”
Hu Heng said, “Her family situation is pretty complicated. They’re from the countryside. Her dad died after getting hurt on a construction site when she was little, and her mom is disabled and has trouble getting around. She originally had an older sister back in the village, but her sister was always being beaten by her husband. Later she ran off with some guy she met online, leaving the husband and the child behind.”
Qin Song asked, “You’re saying that’s her sister’s child?”
“That’s right,” Hu Heng said.
Qin Song frowned. “Doesn’t she still have a brother-in-law? Why doesn’t he take care of the kid himself?”
Hu Heng said, “Don’t even get me started. After her sister ran off, her brother-in-law drank every day, didn’t bathe, didn’t work. The whole house was filthy, like a pigsty. The village committee sent four old ladies over to help clean up, and the moment two of them walked through the door, they threw up…”
Qin Song’s brows knit together.
Hu Heng went on, “And he was awful to the kid too. Whenever the child misbehaved, he’d shove her outside in the cold and not let her back in. He even made her skip school to go pick cotton in the fields. The child ran crying to her grandmother and said that if she didn’t go back to school soon, she’d fall behind in class…”
Qin Song snapped, “Is that bastard even human?”
Hu Heng said, “I was furious after hearing all that too. My childhood friend said that later, Li Juan took the child in as the kid’s aunt. After that, her brother-in-law never even asked about the child again. He just sends two or three hundred yuan a month, like he’s tossing scraps to a beggar.”
Qin Song shook his head. “Poor kid.”
Hu Heng said, “And Li Juan herself is the quiet, reserved type. She’s a lot more talkative when she’s teaching at school, but in daily life she seems very calm and introverted. You probably wouldn’t like that kind of woman.”
Qin Song said, “Do I have any other choice?”
Hu Heng said, “There are a few more. One is a few years younger than you, divorced three years ago, has a house but no car and no kids, and she’s pretty too. Another is about your age, unmarried, but from a poor family and has a younger brother. There’s also a girl under thirty, from out of town, looking to settle down locally with a husband… I have photos. I’ll send them all to you in a bit.”
Qin Song listened patiently and said, “Alright, let me think about it some more.”
That night, Qin Song spent the whole evening flipping through the photos Hu Heng had sent him. The next day, he called Hu Heng and asked, “Can you arrange for me to meet Li Juan?”
Qin Song was honest with Li Juan and told her he had been divorced.
Li Juan asked, “Why?”
Qin Song said, “I hurt her.”
Li Juan asked, “Then what do you think about marriage now?”
Qin Song said, “I want to start over and make up for the things I did badly in my marriage. I don’t have a fortune to my name, but I’ll treat you and Xiao Hui well, and I’ll be absolutely faithful.”
Li Juan thought about it for a while, then said, “Then let’s give it a try.”
A month later, Qin Song and Li Juan moved in together.
Hu Heng hadn’t been wrong. Li Juan really wasn’t the kind of woman who was all fire and energy in daily life. But she was capable, thrifty, and meticulous in everything she did.
Li Juan looked plain. She didn’t like buying clothes, didn’t wear makeup, and didn’t wear jewelry. The things she ordered online were mostly household supplies, or clothes and books for Qin Song and the child.
The child Li Juan brought with her was called Xiao Hui. Coincidentally, her surname was Wang too.
Xiao Hui didn’t talk much, but she was very smart and knew how to read people’s expressions. Children who aren’t treated well tend to be like that, and Qin Song felt sorry for her.
Qin Song knew that if Li Juan hadn’t been too exhausted from raising a child on her own, she probably wouldn’t have agreed to marry him.
After they got married, Qin Song and Li Juan scraped together some money and wanted to buy a used car.
When they went car shopping, Qin Song looked around and eventually set his sights on a black Buick parked in the corner.
He pointed at it. “How much is that one?”
The owner said, “Why’d you pick that one? That car’s practically a grandpa! It’s a 2009 manual Buick. No accidents, not many miles. Fifty thousand, and it’s yours.”
Qin Song said, “Can you do forty-five?”
The owner said, “No problem. Drive it away.”
That car was very similar to the first one Qin Song had bought ten years ago, just a slightly different model. He cherished it very much.
Qin Song and Li Juan’s married life was as plain as boiled water. He soaked in that plain water for half a year. It had no taste at all, but he was very satisfied.