SES Chapter 129 Part 2

Then, almost in a murmur, “She’s grown up now. What’s her name?”

Luo Ren called Yan Hongsha, who passed the phone to Mu Dai.

“Xiang Silan’s awake,” Luo Ren said over the phone. “Do you want to see her?”

Mu Dai replied, “Sure.”

Yan Hongsha offered to come along, but Mu Dai shook her head. “I’ll go by myself.”

Her tone was calm, gentle even, but her decision left no room for argument. Cao Yanhua tugged lightly at Yan Hongsha’s sleeve, signaling, It’s her family matter.

Mu Dai left the house without a hat or mask, her hands in her pockets. She walked through the dim, yellow dusk, across Nantian’s landmark bridge. Halfway over, she turned back to look—the skyline was lined with new buildings, none of which resembled the city she remembered.

Nantian wasn’t her hometown. It was just a city that happened to be called Nantian.

Luo Ren waited at the hospital entrance. “Want me to go in with you?” he asked.

“I’ll be fine on my own.”

“I’ll wait outside, then.” He hesitated, then added, “She’s already guessed you’re her daughter.”

Mu Dai finally sat across from Xiang Silan.

The older woman was curled up on the bed, arms folded over her chest as if guarding the fragile organ beneath.

Mu Dai began, “When I told you your daughter died in that orphanage—what did you feel?”

Xiang Silan gave her a blank look.

Mu Dai let out a bitter laugh. Of course. After all, she’d abandoned her twenty years ago. Did it even matter how she’d felt upon hearing the news? Would it comfort Mu Dai to know her mother had been sad?

Changing the subject, she asked, “What are you planning to do from now on?”

“I need money,” Xiang Silan said.

Her eyes fixed on Mu Dai’s, full of faint, desperate expectation.

Mu Dai smiled. “You really think I’ll support you?”

“I sent you away.”

Xiang Silan’s voice lowered. “Look at you now—so clean, so pretty. Sitting here, head held high, talking to me. If I hadn’t sent you off, what would you have become? You’d have mixed with the wrong people, had a daughter young one you didn’t want, couldn’t raise, couldn’t even give away. Isn’t this better? You’re respectable now. You even have a man who loves you.”

Mu Dai gave a cold laugh. “You make it sound like I owe it all to you.”

Xiang Silan shifted slightly, every movement strained. “Back then, I didn’t get hungry even when I didn’t eat. I didn’t get sick. But now… It’s different. I can hardly walk, and can’t straighten my back. My heart skips beat. Sometimes I think—it might stop altogether.”

She knew her situation was dire, and she was quick to assess it, just as she had twenty years ago—always pragmatic.

Mu Dai smiled faintly. “Too bad. I don’t have any money to give you.”

“You should give me money.”

“Why should I?”

“Because you’re not my daughter.”

Mu Dai froze.

Xiang Silan sank deeper into the bed. “I picked you up from the bridge—the old wooden one over the river in Nantian, before they built the new one. One night, I heard a baby crying under it. That was you. You were so tiny, your face all red from crying, wrapped in a towel. I brought you home.”

Mu Dai stared at her. “Why would you do that? You could barely feed yourself.”

Xiang Silan chuckled. “Because back then, the police were cracking down on single women who came from out of town. I thought having a baby would make me look less suspicious.”

She added, “You think I spent money raising you? Please. I didn’t buy formula. You lived on rice water and vegetable broth. It wasn’t hard.”

“Later, I wanted to get rid of you, but no one would take you in. You weren’t a boy. So I kept you. Barely.”

Then she looked at Mu Dai again and asked, “So, shouldn’t you give me something? I picked you up, raised you, even sent you away. A little compensation—that’s only fair.”

Maybe it was fair, in its own twisted logic.

Mu Dai didn’t know what to say.

Just then, a quiet laugh came from the doorway. Luo Ren was leaning there. “Extortion?” he said.

He walked in slowly, glanced at Xiang Silan, then turned to Mu Dai. “Wait for me in the car.”

“Luo Ren, this—” Mu Dai started, unsure what he had overheard or where to even begin explaining.

“Go,” he cut in gently. “I’ll be there soon.”

Once she left, Luo Ren exhaled, sat down opposite Xiang Silan, and after a moment, reached into his coat. He pulled out a thick envelope.

Xiang Silan reached for it, but Luo Ren drew his hand back, and she grasped at empty air.

She blinked, confused, then said, “I’ll keep my word.”

“You’d better,” Luo Ren said quietly. “You know what this money is for.”

“I know. It’s to buy my silence—and my absence.”

He tossed the envelope onto the bed. “It’s to buy the rest of your life—not as her mother.”

Mu Dai leaned against the car, tracing aimless shapes on the ground with her toe.

When Luo Ren finally approached, she looked up at him, questioning.

“Get in,” he said, circling to the driver’s side.

When he started the engine, he realized she hadn’t moved. She was still standing there, looking toward Xiang Silan’s window, then back at him.

“What about her?” she asked.

“That place—we’re never coming back.”

“But she just asked me for money—”

“I handled it,” Luo Ren said, cutting her off. His tone was measured. “She’s satisfied. So am I.”

Mu Dai got in reluctantly. As she fumbled with the seat belt, unable to align the buckle, Luo Ren leaned over to fasten it for her. His hair brushed against her chin, tickling.

She tilted her head, watching him for a long moment.

“Luo Ren?”

“Mm?”

“She said… I’m not really her daughter. She found me under that bridge.”

Luo Ren paused, then resumed his movement calmly. “And what do you think?”

Mu Dai sighed. “You never seem surprised by anything.”

He chuckled. “Show me what being surprised looks like, then.”

She laughed softly, then, after a pause, said, “It’s strange. I actually feel… relieved.”

She looked up at him. “Why do you think that is? Is it because, deep down, I despised her?”

Luo Ren replied, “Maybe because when the pain doesn’t come from the people closest to us, it’s easier to forgive.”

Mu Dai fell silent.

Maybe that was it. When she’d heard Xiang Silan say she was just a foundling, there had been a fleeting moment in her heart of release.