Chapter 58: Having a Home

When Yi Xingyue first came, she disliked her grandmother very much.

It was when her father had just died, and her mother sent her back to the countryside.

She thought her grandmother was old and ugly, and that she looked down on her for being a girl.

She clearly remembered how her grandmother often sighed at her: “If only you were a boy…”

But she didn’t know when she started to like her grandmother.

Maybe it was when she wanted to eat chicken, and in the dead of winter, freezing cold, her grandmother got up early to kill a chicken for her…

Maybe it was when she wanted a ballpoint pen, and in the pouring rain, her grandmother trudged through mud, stepping deep and shallow, to buy her one in town—though in the end she brought back a pencil…

Maybe it was when she cried and threw tantrums, and her grandmother never got angry, only smiled and gently stroked her cheeks with her rough hands…

Maybe it was in summer, lying beside her, eyes closed, gently fanning her with a reed fan…

…

Yi Xingyue didn’t answer her grandmother’s question, and her grandmother didn’t ask again.

The two of them went to town, and as usual, her grandmother went to the scrap yard to sell things.

But this time, she didn’t drag her little cart back home as usual.

Instead, she went to a shop in town and bought a hairband.

A very old-fashioned one—black, made of twisted wire, with no decoration or embellishment whatsoever.

Her grandmother put the hairband on her head and smiled at Yi Xingyue.

“Does this look neater?”

“Grandma looks beautiful,” Yi Xingyue said happily.

Her grandmother chuckled: “I’m just an old woman—what’s there to be beautiful about?”

Then she took Yi Xingyue’s hand and went to the toy store next door, where she bought her a pair of butterfly wings to wear on her back.

She picked the largest, most beautiful pair—and naturally, the most expensive.

She pulled out an old handkerchief from her pocket, counted out the coins bit by bit, and spent several minutes paying.

“Grandma, you still remember?” Yi Xingyue held the butterfly wings, feeling her eyes sting.

Aside from stationery and food, her grandmother rarely bought her toys; she thought such things were useless and would just be thrown away, a complete waste of money.

Her favorite saying was: “What you eat is truly yours.”

The last time she wanted her grandmother to buy her butterfly wings was because she’d seen a little kid in the village wearing a beautiful pair.

But her grandmother always said, “Next time, next time I’ll buy you one…”

And then there was no next time.

Yi Xingyue really wanted to tell her grandmother that she no longer liked this, that she had grown up, that she wasn’t a little girl anymore.

But—for some reason—she still felt a little happy.

On the way back, her grandmother helped her put the wings on her back.

“So beautiful—you look just like a little fairy,” her grandmother chuckled.

“Grandma, I’m dead now—I’m a ghost, not a fairy,” Yi Xingyue said.

Her grandmother fell silent, walked a long stretch of road, then said: “But I feel like you’re still alive—where’s the look of death? Isn’t your mother lying to me?”

Yi Xingyue shook her head, then told her about Shen Siyuan.

“So you met a master.”

Upon hearing this, her grandmother was very happy for Yi Xingyue.

“You must thank him properly,” her grandmother said, then asked in detail: What was the master’s name? Where did he live?

Yi Xingyue treated it like casual chatter and told her grandmother everything.

About two weeks later, one day after Shen Siyuan got off work and returned home, he found a note stuck to his door: Someone was waiting for him at the gatehouse.

So he met the old woman—she had arrived that morning and waited until he got home, carrying a slaughtered chicken, a basket of eggs, a bundle of loose coins wrapped in a handkerchief, and the butterfly wings.

No one knew how she found him, or how she carried all these things here…

That’s a story for later—let’s leave it for now.

From beginning to end, her grandmother never asked Yi Xingyue why she tried to kill herself.

Instead, Yi Xingyue couldn’t help but ask why her grandmother never asked.

Her grandmother said: “When people are alive, they often face walls they can’t climb over. When I was young, I often wanted to die too—but I was an adult, I gritted my teeth and pushed through. But you’re still a child—it’s normal if you can’t.”

Hearing this, Yi Xingyue burst into tears.

She hadn’t cried like this in a very, very long time.

Her grandmother stroked her cheeks, using her rough hands to wipe away her tears.

Through tear-blurred eyes, she said: “The thing I regret most is giving you to your mother—she’s your mother, she should’ve helped you get past it…”

“I didn’t want to either…”

“Mom, was Dad really part of the underworld when he was young?”

Seeing her father go into the kitchen, Zhu Tingting whispered to her mother.

Du Xiuzhi pulled her daughter close, stroking her hair, and said softly: “Don’t listen to gossip—your father was very quiet when he was young.”

“But… but…”

“You mean the tattoo on his arm?”

Du Xiuzhi turned her daughter’s face toward her and looked into her eyes.

Zhu Tingting nodded obediently.

“He got it to protect me—he probably cried his eyes out when he did it. Your father was a crybaby when he was young—he used to cry all the time…”

Zhu Tingting’s eyes widened in disbelief.

“I’m not lying.”

Du Xiuzhi smiled as she recounted the past.

“I was your father’s neighbor, but I was a good student, while your father was a fool—he dropped out of middle school and went to work outside…”

“When he earned money, he’d often buy me things…”

“Then my family had an accident—your grandparents died, and our relatives, seeing I was just a little girl, thought I was easy to bully. They all came crawling out, causing trouble at our door…”

“Your father stood up for me—he argued with them, fought with them…”

“To scare them off, he got a tattoo, dyed his hair, grabbed a knife, and cried while swinging it—your relatives all scattered like birds and beasts…”

“Then your father was arrested—he spent months in jail—but before they took him, he threatened my relatives: if they ever bullied me again, he’d come out and kill them all…”

“And after that, no one ever dared come near me again…”

“Wow, Dad’s so cool.”

Zhu Tingting’s eyes widened—never before had she felt such admiration for her father.

“So you see, don’t be too weak—weakness invites bullying. First, learn to be strong yourself. Don’t hide things from those closest to you—face them together, solve them. You’re still a child…”

Du Xiuzhi lightly tapped her nose, implying something.

“Then… what happened after?”

“After that… your father kept working, I kept studying. When I graduated, we got married, and then you came along…”

Du Xiuzhi smiled faintly, lost in memory.

Zhu Guangfa came out of the kitchen and saw the mother and daughter laughing happily.

He asked suspiciously: “You weren’t talking bad about me, were you?”

“Mom said you were a crybaby when you were young.”

“How could you tell her that? Don’t I have any dignity?” Zhu Guangfa exclaimed.

The mother and daughter laughed even louder.