Chapter 17: The Sound of Family

6TH MAR 2022~ VERALUCTL

The alarm rang dutifully. An Jie opened his eyes, stared at the ceiling for half a minute, then rolled over and slapped it. His original plan was to get up early and do homework; after such a long high school career, he had suspicions that the printers of the school overworked themselves every weekend, test papers from every subject passing down like snowflakes without a cold weather warning, causing a huge blizzard in a moment, burying the wails of an entire classroom’s children underneath.

Apart from the tests the teachers printed, there were also the ones given to students grade-wide. The most horrid was the something-something National Joint Examination, opening with several folds until it became like an imperial edict1.

It was already so much, yet there were still a few brats who weren’t satisfied, squirming themselves into the bookstore after school, buying exercise books by the dozens, finishing entire booklets in days. An Jie stuffed his ‘snowflakes’ sorrowfully into his bag and thought, I’m approaching my forties, why am I doing this to myself?

But he was relaxed. Last night, An Jie had decided to give up. It wasn’t that An Yin Hu had no conscience, but truthfully that… he didn’t have much. It was fine if it was a normal kid, but Mo Cong, that inexperienced brat, had taken it too far. Of all the things he could do, he had decided to associate himself with the underground. The state was spending money on this group of future elites, yet this brat wasn’t studying to give back to society, but was instead already walking on a road of no return.

Now that he had decided to leave, there was no use pretending to be a good student anymore; he would drop out of school the following Monday. An Jie rolled over and thought as he hugged his blanket, adults always nagged after their children with their ‘study well’s, but when they actually tried it themselves, unless they were working towards some specific goal, their self-control wasn’t much better.

Laziness was part of human nature, huh? Except young people were a bit more oblivious- alas, he was once again reminded of that death-seeking wench, Mo Cong.

He slept until the sun peeked through the gaps in the curtains before finally climbing up and cleaning himself. He grabbed a bag of milk from the fridge, held it in his mouth, and brought out a map to see what his next destination would be.

As he did that, he was suddenly reminded of something and took out his phone. “Are you up yet?”

From the other side came sleepy fumbling before finally, a reply. “Fuck… An Yin Hu, are you trying to bring me back from the dead, calling this early?”

An Jie seemed to have heard a delicate female voice complaining as well and exclaimed, delighted, “Early? Now? What girl’s bed did you end up in? Take it easy!”

“I’ve only just begun.” Zui She woke up a bit and immediately started bragging. “Let me tell you, your brother is…”

“Alright alright, I’m not here to joke around with you,” An Jie said leisurely as he flipped through the brochure. “I’ll be returning this one’s house in a bit; you rented it out for me so I just thought to tell you first.”

“No, where did this come from? It’s barely been two months and you’re already sick of it?”

“A little bit.” An Jie shook his head. “Don’t mention it. It doesn’t feel right to be holed up like this, I feel uncomfortable.”

“Then your savior’s kids…”

“I didn’t ask him to save me. That old bookworm just randomly up and died, so why should he expect for me to return him any favors?” An Jie sneered. “I’m giving up. Let me tell you, I’m not doing this babysitting business anymore.”

“What happened this time?”

“Nothing. What can some brat kids make ‘happen’ anyway?” An Jie threw the empty milk bag aside. “You know, I came a long way; I even gave up exploring the corners of the earth to stay in this isolated nowhere-place. Just what was I doing it for? Whatever, I’ll return the house soon. On Monday, I’ll drop out of the school and order a plane ticket like I was supposed to.”

“Hey, I say… Hey. Hey?” An Jie had already ended the call. Zui She listened to the busy signal from his phone, his expression exasperated. A woman with long, luscious curls next to him pestered, “Who was that?”

“Nothing, just a friend. I went to Beijing some time ago for some business and he asked me to rent a house out for him on the way; now he doesn’t want to live there anymore.”

The woman lazily blew air into his ear. “Then he doesn’t have to.”

“If he really wanted to leave, why would he tell me? It won’t even take a day for him to stop bringing this up; does he think I don’t know him?” Zui She rolled over and pinned the woman beneath him. “Come here, babe…”

When he had left back then, was there anyone he had said goodbye to?

An Yin Hu had always placed righteousness first, but he had been hurt too deeply by his supposed brothers who had gone through life and death with him and forced himself to freeze his heart, to pretend to be vicious, to pretend to be cold, and pretend to be selfish… But Yin Hu, have you heard of the saying ‘a melon forcefully pulled off would not be sweet’?

===============
Noon passed. An Jie had a casual lunch for the sake of it and was pondering if he should go to Afghanistan to see what Talibans looked like when the doorbell rang. He answered and slowly got up to open the door.

Mo Cong was standing in the doorway with Mo Yu in tow. “An Jie, can I ask something of you?”

“What is it?” An Jie let the two in, a little surprised. It had been a long time since he had moved in, but it was the first time that Mo Cong had asked anything of him.

“Um… someone might come by this afternoon.” Mo Cong took a look at Mo Yu. The little girl sat quietly by the side as she listened to her older brother’s plight. “It’s really not a suitable situation and Xiao Jin has gone roughhousing somewhere, so can Xiao Yu stay here for a while? She’s very quiet and shouldn’t give you a hard time.”

“I thought it was going to be something serious.” An Jie agreed easily. Of the Mo siblings, Mo Yu was the least familiar to him. From his impression, she rarely left the house apart from going to and coming back from school, and even when they met, the conversation was just a brief ‘gege’.

Mo Cong smiled at him somewhat gratefully. Whether it was for taking in his sister, or for his thoughtfulness in not asking a single question, An Jie didn’t know. Going back to his room to bring over Mo Yu’s bag and heeding her to not cause An Jie-ge any trouble and the sort, he left in a hurry.

Mo Yu greeted him obediently before burying herself in the study to do her homework. An Jie made himself a cup of coffee and sank into the sofa as he searched for travel routes on his laptop. Neither of them made much noise, taking ‘peace’ to the extreme. After about an hour, Mo Yu had mostly finished the homework she had brought over and stuck out her head from the study. “An Jie-gege.”

“Hmm?”

“Can I look at the books in your study?” She considered before adding, “I’ll return them to their original places when I finish.”

“Sure, look around as you want.” Of the Mo family, Xiao Yu really was the one who made people worry least.

“Thank you, gege.”

Mo Yu had just retracted her head back into the study when An Jie heard a string of footsteps outside the door and the sound of the opposite door open. The sofa he sat on was quite close to the door, and as the building was fairly old and not well sound-proofed, he could clearly hear Mo Cong searching through a big bunch of keys and the door opening.

In between it all was a woman’s questioning. “Oh, how long has it been? You’re still living here?”

Her tone was calm and moderate, its quality even quite pleasant, yet for some reason, it made people feel a little turned-off. Mo Cong answered her in a low voice and the two went inside.

Mo Cong would never bring people from the underground into his own home, so who is that woman? Without realizing it, An Jie’s thoughts wandered off. After a while, he sighed and silently berated himself for getting worried. He looked up at the clock on the wall; Mo Yu had been here for almost two hours but apart from asking him for permission to read his books, she hadn’t even taken a sip of water, not even when he had placed a single-use paper cup by her.

An Jie stood up and grabbed a bottle of juice from the refrigerator. After a moment of thought, he took out a plate as well, slicing an apple into small pieces and sticking a few toothpicks into them, taking them both to the study.

Mo Yu was sitting upright in her seat, carefully reading through a book. The girl read the book with great care and attention, allowing the book to open naturally, one finger lightly tapping on the cocked pages without pressing down too hard. He guessed that the books she had read would never have marks left on the covers.

An Jie put the drinks and snacks by her and Xiao Yu courteously raised her head and told him a little ‘thank you’. An Jie smiled, wanting to pat her on the head. His hand had just reached out before he remembered he was only around seventeen to eighteen years old now and it wouldn’t be appropriate to do such a thing. Instead he took a look at the cover of the book she was reading. Even with just a glance, he couldn’t help but raise his eyebrows. “Mm, ‘Zhuangzi’? This version doesn’t have any footnotes, can you understand it?”

Xiao Yu nodded but also shook her head. “I’ve studied a bit of ancient literature. There are lots of places I don’t understand too well but I like it, so I just have to read through it slowly, guess the parts I don’t understand, and skip the parts I can’t guess.”

Her large almond eyes glanced across the bookshelf in a rare moment of excitement. “An Jie-gege, you have so much ancient Chinese literature.”

An Jie was a little disoriented. No… these books weren’t his; he didn’t have the interest nor the patience to read through them. Mu Lian had left them for him. He recalled that girl who had two dimples when she smiled. When she looked at you, you could sense the emotions in her eyes even if you weren’t paying attention, how straightforward and pure they were. And now, those bitter feelings of longing which had raged to the point of overwhelming him slowly dried in his heart, leaving behind a large crack that could not be filled. He could only let it break down little by little, spreading dryness throughout his soul.

“An Jie-gege?”

“Take your time, there’s no need to hurry; take it home with you if you can’t finish it. Just come to me if you want to read it again anytime.” An Jie carefully reminisced on the serious expression on that person’s face and smiled at Mo Yu, repeating the passage from his memories almost word by word.

For some reason, Mo Yu felt like such a sentence wasn’t meant to come from the young man standing in front of her. There was a certain sense of unnaturalness to it, an inarticulable feeling. But out of politeness, she simply nodded.

“Oh right, what do you want to eat for dinner? There’s no need to be polite here.”

Mo Yu paused for a moment. “Oh, there’s no need. Thank you, An Jie-gege, but I can go back home to eat.”

She spoke naturally and with confidence. An Jie frowned and immediately understood. This girl knew who the visitor was and when they would leave. Then why would Mo Cong send her away?

Mo Yu lowered her head slightly, the hair behind her ears falling down by her cheeks, making her face appear even smaller. “Sorry for the trouble, gege. The person here… they told me to call her mom, but I just can’t be bothered to see her…”

Mo Yanna’s ex-wife? An Jie was stunned. “Xiao Yu…”

Mo Yu said seriously, “It’s probably because she heard Mo Yannan went missing that she’s come back for appearance’s sake. She’s actually afraid, you know, that we might try to stick to her. An Jie-gege, I took a look at a senior’s biology textbook back in eighth grade. It said that females only looked after their young because of their hormones. Does that mean someone like Li Biyun is an example of an endocrine disorder?”

Saying that, a brief smile flashed by her mouth, light and quick, yet terribly cold.

A girl of her age shouldn’t have such an expression.

The sound of family… How come once it came to the Mo family, it became such an ugly thing?

1Chinese test papers are folded up A3 or bigger sheets, unlike Western booklet-style exams. Students literally unfold them for more and more questions. Don’t ask me how they work through them quickly, I have no idea. Think of an IKEA instructional manual, which only my desire to be faithful to the original text stops me from putting in the story itself.