After Transmigrating As The Mother Of The Pitiful Female Supporting Character in a Campus Novel - Chapter 14

This was the second time Qin Zhijin had driven them home. However, once they reached the entrance, Qin Zhijin received a phone call. Finding it inconvenient to see Xia Shibai and her daughter into the residential area, she waved a brief goodbye.

With the engine off and the car parked at the curb, Qin Zhijin listened to her mother’s voice echoing the same old tired rhetoric.

“At your age, if you don’t get married soon, do you want your father and me to be unable to hold our heads up in front of our friends and relatives?”

“Stop reading those online articles; they’re just products of over-focused amplification. People these days will write anything for traffic. Send a few photos of yourself over later—pretty ones. Don’t go around with a bare face all day; what man would ever take an interest in you?”

“…”

Qin Zhijin gripped the steering wheel, her breath hitching rhythmically, her gaze helplessly fixed on the street already draped in the ink of night. In the deserted space, only that voice on the other end continued, making her head spin.

Every word felt like the tightening golden hoop on Sun Wukong’s head. Even though she hadn’t gone home in a long time and rarely kept in touch, she was still caught off guard, wounded by the person on the other end of the line. Her hands on the wheel wouldn’t stop trembling.

“Are you even listening to me? Was your education for nothing? All you know how to do is pull a face at your parents; you haven’t learned a single thing from other successful children!” the woman screamed in a fit of rage.

Qin Zhijin’s head was already throbbing, and now she felt dizzy from the lack of air. The terror of losing control over her own body forced her trembling hand to hang up on that piercing voice. When the interior of the car fell into a brief silence, she felt as if she had jolted awake from a nightmare, shivering uncontrollably. The next second, seeing the light of the phone flicker again, she frantically long-pressed the power button.

Only when the ringing that had been circling her ears vanished did her lungs and brain begin to function slowly again.

A nightmare. Qin Zhijin felt her mother was a presence more terrifying than any nightmare. Her nails dug into her palms, yet she couldn’t even feel the pain.

The car eventually vanished down the street, as if the vehicle that had been frozen in place just moments ago was a mere hallucination.

Qin Zhijin showered in a daze and leaned listlessly against the sofa. Her new apartment contained nothing but a crate of mineral water she’d bought when moving in—nothing to numb her thoughts.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor, she tilted her head back against the sofa. Her phone had been off for two hours; soon, her controlling mother would stop trying to call. Closing her eyes, her chaotic mind didn’t capture a medical term and start a chain of professional memories as usual.

Instead, a child’s face appeared. Then, from Xia Yaozhou’s face, she thought of her clever, reserved little movements, her milky voice, and her mother—who really didn’t look much like a mother.

Her memory stopped at the moment Xia Shibai held the mugs and asked if she wanted to “make a set.”

Startled, Qin Zhijin struggled out of her reverie. Her legs, which had been folded for too long, were numb and aching. She clutched her knees, her brow furrowed in pain, waiting for the feeling to return.

Limping to her feet, she intended to turn off the lights and sleep—she didn’t have work tomorrow, anyway. But as she reached the stairs, a sudden impulse struck her. Without even pausing to put on a coat, she went down to the garage in her slippers to get the mug.

By the time she returned to the 23rd floor, she felt a bit ridiculous. “What am I doing?” she muttered. Surely it wasn’t because she was afraid that the moment she closed her eyes, she’d see that person’s face again like a movie on repeat.

The exertion left her with a fine sweat on her forehead, and her sleepiness vanished. She turned her phone back on: nearly fifty missed calls and over a hundred unread messages. Her chest tightened. She deleted every trace of them before she felt like she could finally breathe again, as if surfacing from deep water.

After clearing her mother’s messages, she saw a text from Song Ling: “Urgent, call back ASAP.”

Qin Zhijin hesitated, putting the phone down without closing the chat. She stood dazed for a moment, then unpacked the mug, washed it in the kitchen, dried it, and poured a bottle of water into it.

She felt nothing, yet she felt a strange sense of peace. Thinking of her brief two encounters with Xia Shibai, she gripped the mug tightly. She bit her lip, thought of the well-behaved Yaozhou, and hurriedly chased the strange thoughts from her mind.

She wasn’t crazy enough to fall for a married woman—especially one with a daughter. The woman was clearly straight!

I’m gay, not insane.

She shook her head, deciding she needed to find something to control her straying thoughts. After a moment, considering the time difference, she called Song Ling to see what the busy international supermodel wanted.

At the same time, Xia Shibai caught little Yaozhou, who was still watching Ultraman. She grabbed the cat tail on the back of the girl’s pajamas and gave her two gentle pats.

“Ultraman doesn’t accept the light of children who stay up late!” Xia Shibai placed Yaozhou on the bed and tucked her in. “If you stay up late, you won’t grow tall. The monsters won’t see you and they’ll step on you.”

Yaozhou huffed after the two pats, rolling around in her quilt. “Why don’t they accept the light? Ultraman loves little kids! They aren’t mean monsters; monsters are ugly and scary!”

“Monsters are so, so tall! Unless I become Ultraman, even if I grow as tall as Mommy, the monsters won’t see me!”

Xia Shibai: “…” It’s only been a few days, why is my daughter already harder to fool?

“Go to sleep.” Xia Shibai tucked the corners of the quilt but didn’t leave immediately. She knew Yaozhou was a restless sleeper. Old folks used to talk about “pressing a dream”—a parent staying by the bedside to ward off evil. Xia Shibai knew the girl was just insecure because of Auntie Lin, but the principle was the same. She decided to stay and tell a story.

Xia Shibai cleared her throat, launching into a “sewn-together” fairy tale she’d spent fifteen minutes inventing. “Tonight, Mommy will tell you the story of the Little Mermaid who came ashore to become a Lucky Koi, jumped over the Dragon Gate, and met a rascal snake.”

The “illiterate” Yaozhou’s eyes sparkled. If her hands weren’t pinned by the quilt, she likely would have given her mother a standing ovation. Xia Shibai, who had no qualms about fooling a toddler, began her long career as a “fairy tale tailor.”

Shao Qing moved very fast. Gathering everyone’s input, she chose an exceptionally safe SUV—the kind rumored to remain unscathed even in a collision with a truck. The back seat was spacious; even with a car seat installed, there was enough room for a child to walk around. It had power windows and dedicated bottle holders in the back. Most importantly, it synced with an app to detect if a child was left in the vehicle, preventing tragedy.

Shao Qing would never admit it was that last feature that made her finalize the purchase for her boss. Heaven knows that a week ago, her boss was the “spiritual leader” of the Lansui Group; a week later, she was a “stay-at-home supermom.” Whatever happened in between, Shao Qing just wanted her little boss to stay safe and healthy. Even when lighting incense for the God of Wealth, she added: “As long as the little boss stays alive, it’s fine.” She truly didn’t trust her boss—who used to survive on instant noodles—to raise a three-year-old.

Xia Shibai was busy interviewing nannies and left the car pickup to Shao Qing. Xia Yaozhou, feeling better, begged to go play.

“Don’t play near the pond. Stay safe. If someone bullies you, come tell Mommy and I’ll bully them back,” Xia Shibai instructed without looking up from her stack of nanny profiles.

Yaozhou chirped an agreement, stuffed her pockets full as usual, and ran toward the sandpit. The sandpit featured a giant, complex slide—in a child’s eyes, a “beach castle.” Every day, kids from the neighborhood would bring their toy trucks and shovels to play there.

Yaozhou had wanted to play here for a long time, but Auntie Lin never let her because sand got into clothes and shoes. Auntie Lin didn’t want the trouble of extra laundry and would have screamed at her. So, she used to just stand on the edge and watch.

The sandpit was shaded by tall palm trees and thick bushes, keeping it cool despite the sun. As Yaozhou appeared, a chubby boy nicknamed “Xiao Pang” (Little Fatty), who was currently playing “Ultraman vs. Monster,” widened his eyes. His toy monster dropped, smashing a “sand empire” another boy had just built.

The other boy turned red with rage, pushing Xiao Pang with sandy hands. “Stupid Xiao Pang! You smashed my big villa! You owe me!”

“I’ll pay, I’ll pay! My dad has money!” Xiao Pang pointed at Yaozhou. “The boat is back!”

“I don’t care about no boat! I’ll kill your monster! Ahhh!” The boy, Xiao Qiu, didn’t care who was back. He just wanted to hit Xiao Pang for destroying his sand castle. Building a “Great Empire” was hard work! He couldn’t hit Ultraman, and he couldn’t really hurt Xiao Pang, so he settled for beating up the “ugly monster” toy to vent.