Chapter 7

The call came while Chi Mo was on her way back to Huaicheng. Song Huaiyu.

The high-speed rail had opened three years ago, but this was her first time on it. She'd barely had a chance to take in the scenery before her phone rang.

These days, just seeing Song Huaiyu's name on the screen gave her a headache. So she skipped the pleasantries entirely. "I don't want the bag. Deal with whatever's inside."

A few seconds of silence. Then: "Where are you?"

"On the train."

"Going where?"

"Not—do I really have to tell you?"

"Huaicheng?"

Chi Mo blinked. "How'd you know?"

Song Huaiyu laughed. "That hard to guess? You only came to Jiangzhou for Guan Yizhou. Now that you've broken up, wouldn't you go back?"

"......" Chi Mo couldn't be bothered. She was about to hang up when he spoke again. "Coming to the engagement?"

The question was far too ambiguous for her current state. It took her a moment to even ask, "What engagement?"

"Guan Yizhou and Lin Qian. October 12th."

Chi Mo gripped her phone. Her face went still. For a long while, she said nothing.

Song Huaiyu let out another quiet laugh. "What? Didn't expect it so soon?"

"...I expected it. Song Huaiyu, what are you even trying to say? You think he's going to invite me to his engagement ceremony?"

"Oh, I just thought you might want to see it for yourself."

"You're insane."

By October, Chi Mo would already be in America.

Song Huaiyu sounded pleased with himself. Chi Mo figured he probably didn't get called insane very often—which would explain why he laughed like a lunatic.

"Anything else? I'm hanging up."

"Fine. I'll call you when I get to Huaicheng."

Then he hung up, giving her no time to react.

Chi Mo stared at the dark screen. It took her a second to frown.

What? Get to Huaicheng?!

*

By the time Chi Mo stepped out of the station, dusk was just settling in. The small county town hadn't changed in a decade—except for the brand-new station behind her. The streetlights were still that same dim, murky yellow.

She called her mother from the road, then got in a taxi and headed for the old district.

The streets were narrow, nothing like Jiangzhou's endless traffic. Sitting in the back, Chi Mo rolled down the window and let the evening breeze wash over her face. A rare calm settled in her chest.

The shops lining both sides looked just as they had when she left—some open, some shuttered.

As the car passed Huaicheng No. 1 High School, Chi Mo turned to look.

It was hard to imagine what Guan Yizhou had been thinking, transferring to a place like this.

Especially after Chi Mo had seen the glitter and glamour of Jiangzhou for herself.

A transfer student like him—you could've searched every school in Huaicheng and still not found another one.

He was too dazzling. So dazzling that everyone around him felt an inexplicable sense of inferiority. Chi Mo was no exception.

Back then, she was just an ordinary high school girl—full of fantasies, thin-skinned, bursting with endless girlish secrets.

She fell for Guan Yizhou at first sight.

Looking back, "love" was too strong a word for it.

Awe, she decided, was more accurate.

She hadn't known much of the world back then. She hadn't known a boy could be that pale.

He could play piano. He spoke perfect English.

Of course, later she'd learn there were people paler than him, better at piano, who spoke not just English but French and German too—Song Huaiyu, for one.

But to Chi Mo, whose world was small and narrow, Guan Yizhou was already a gift from the heavens.

She adored him. She marveled at every day he showed up at school.

The car turned past the school and followed another road through an industrial zone.

In the distance, a few lights seemed to be on. Chi Mo looked for a while but couldn't spot the Guan family's factory.

It should still be running. There were local incentives here—otherwise Guan Yizhou's father wouldn't have picked this spot for the new plant back then.

Chi Mo had never asked about any of that, though. So she didn't really know.

The car finally rolled to a stop at a residential complex next to the hospital. Chi Mo paid, pushed the door open, and stepped out.

Unit 3, Room 202.

She'd been here twice.

Chi Mo's mother was a nurse. The uncle was a doctor. He had a daughter from a previous marriage, about Chi Mo's age—they'd met once at the wedding banquet. But she was just as unhappy about the marriage as Chi Mo was. Young and proud, neither of them had ever treated the other as family.

How to put it... Chi Mo understood her. She understood her past self, too.

That useless pride—it turned her mother's remarriage into proof that she had no right to hold her head up in front of Guan Yizhou's parents. Which was pointless, really. Whether her mother remarried or not, she and Guan Yizhou were never going to match.

Forcing a way around that mismatch? Well. Everyone had seen how that turned out.

So Chi Mo put on a smile, picked up the two gift boxes she'd brought from Jiangzhou, and headed upstairs.

The door opened. Her mother came to greet her first. "Mo Mo."

"Mom." Chi Mo smiled, set the gifts down, and called out to the man busy in the kitchen. "Uncle Zhang."

"Ah—come in, come in, wash your hands, dinner's almost ready. Just let me finish this last dish."

"Okay."

*

The dinner table wasn't too awkward, actually. She hadn't come back much in recent years, but she was an adult now—finding a few topics to keep things lively was easy enough. But somewhere along the way, her mother brought up marriage.

"Mo Mo, you and Xiao Zhou have been together all these years. Isn't it about time you settled down?"

Chi Mo answered calmly. "Mom, we... broke up. The company's doing a reshuffle this year. They want to send me to headquarters for two years."

"Broke up?" Her mother froze. Then she didn't say much else.

Truth was, her mother had never been optimistic about her and Guan Yizhou. The gap between their families was too wide. If Chi Mo hadn't been so obviously head over heels, her mother would never have agreed to it.

After a long pause, her mother asked, "Your company's headquarters... that's overseas, isn't it? You're going abroad?"

"Yeah. America. If everything goes smoothly, I leave next month."

Her mother seemed to think of something. She looked Chi Mo over carefully, once more. "That's good... a change of scenery, that's good... America's just so far. You'll have to take good care of yourself."

"I know..."