Back To The Past To Cherish You - Chapter 5

As soon as they got home, Si Chun took young Ling Yan by the hand and led her to the guest room.

Ever since she was little, Si Chun had held her mother’s hand tightly whenever she was afraid. It always made her feel safe.

Since young Ling Yan didn’t seem uncomfortable with being touched, Si Chun hoped holding her hand would give her a little comfort. She wanted the girl to know, as early as possible, that there would always be a place for her in this home.

“You can stay here from now on. If you need anything, just tell me.” As she spoke, Si Chun took the bedding out of the wardrobe piece by piece.

She was a child herself now, after all. She couldn’t carry the whole set as easily as an adult could. Before she had taken out more than two pieces, a slender, pale arm reached toward her and took the duvet cover from her hands.

—“Let me. I’m stronger than you.”

The woman’s cool, calm voice suddenly sounded in Si Chun’s mind. Her hands stilled. By the time she came back to herself, young Ling Yan had already started making the bed.

She seemed very used to it. She spread the sheet and slipped on the duvet cover with practiced ease, without needing Si Chun’s help at all.

The sight made Si Chun’s heart ache. She hurried over to help.

“The desk is here. If you think it’s too small, you can use the study instead. Usually only Mom uses it.” She went to the study for a spare chair, then wiped the seat and back with a damp cloth. “This will have to do for now. We can pick out a new one over the weekend. Um… I have a spare cushion for winter too. I don’t know if you’ll like it, but there’s no hurry. We can talk about it then!”

The girl lowered her deep blue eyes and murmured, “Okay.” Si Chun tried to resist, but in the end she reached out and stroked her hair.

Young Ling Yan didn’t move away. She kept her head lowered and let Si Chun pet her.

So good.

Once young Ling Yan was settled and Si Chun had left some snacks in her room, Si Chun went out and sat before her mother with her back straight and a solemn expression.

Si Jiao closed the door and had her sit on the window seat, away from it. She looked at her with exasperated affection. “Go on, then. When did you meet this ‘online friend’?”

She knew who Si Chun’s friends were in real life, but she had never monitored what her daughter did on her phone or computer. As for this unfamiliar girl of mixed heritage, Si Jiao had realized from the way Si Chun treated her that she meant something special to her daughter.

Naturally, she wanted to know more about an online friend her daughter was so close to.

Si Chun blinked and lied without giving anything away. “We met three years ago. I never expected we’d actually end up at the same school.”

They really had been together for three years. Their third anniversary was almost here, and Si Chun had even secretly prepared a present for Ling Yan.

“Do you know what her family situation is?” Si Jiao asked.

“Things were actually pretty good when her mom and dad were alive. I don’t know much about how things are now, but she seems to be having a terrible time.” Si Chun carefully skirted the parts of Ling Yan’s past she didn’t know herself. “I only meant to let her stay with us for one night so she could recover from the shock. But if she stays in that environment, she’s going to get sick sooner or later.”

The Ling Yan of the future rarely spoke to Si Chun about her illness. When she did, she described a withdrawn state that Si Chun found difficult to truly understand.

Ling Yan had said that when she fell into that state, unbearable, cruel words surrounded her. An invisible hand twisted every sound from the outside world. Whether someone meant well or ill, every word reached her mind as a thorn that stabbed her until she was covered in wounds.

“So I want to help her and let her stay with us for a while,” Si Chun said earnestly. “I can stop taking an allowance from now on. And when I start working, I’ll give you my wages as soon as I get paid…”

“Oh, you!” Si Jiao cut her off, torn between laughter and tears. Then she said seriously, “To tell you the truth, Mom was thinking the same thing. I’ll take responsibility for this myself. You and the friend you care about should just concentrate on studying.”

Si Chun stared at her. “Really? You want to help Ling Yan too?!”

“Would Mom lie to you?” Si Jiao gave a little huff, then returned to her earlier question. “If you ask her now, do you think she’d be willing to tell you about her family?”

Si Chun didn’t answer immediately.

In the future, if Ling Yan didn’t bring it up, Si Chun wouldn’t ask. She was afraid of accidentally touching an old wound and opening a rift between them that they couldn’t repair.

But now she had returned to the beginning. She hadn’t seen Ling Yan for nearly a month, and she had happened upon Ling Yan at her youngest and most open. Remembering all the arguments and cold silences, both large and small, before she traveled back, Si Chun felt she ought to take this chance to ask.

What if… she could still return to the future?

She wanted to spend her whole life with Ling Yan. If they were going to do that, they needed to work through the problems between them.

Ling Yan lay curled up on the bed with her face buried in the duvet.

Everything here was familiar to her.

She and Si Chun had even been intimate in this room. Si Chun liked to nestle in her arms and gently take the back of Ling Yan’s hand between her lips, using that to tell her whether she felt good.

A few times, Ms. Si Jiao had still been preparing lessons in the study next door late at night. They had deliberately kept their voices low, or gone into the wardrobe, as though they were sneaking around—even though they had already told her mother openly about their relationship.

Si Chun’s scent surrounded her. Ling Yan breathed it in greedily, without restraint, and felt her taut nerves slowly begin to relax.

But she soon pulled herself out of that comfortable state and began thinking about how to take her parents’ inheritance away from her uncle’s family too. Or perhaps… how to transfer it into accounts belonging to Si Chun and her mother.

After all, she was still legally related to that family. And there were obstacles everywhere for a minor who wanted to take action on her own.

Her best option was probably to find a reason to live with Si Chun’s family and wait patiently until she came of age. Then she could take back everything, down to the last cent, and leave nothing for those awful people.

As she made plans for the future, Ling Yan slowly closed her eyes.

But she soon woke with a start.

—“What about me?”

In her dream, the Si Chun of the future held her from behind and whispered against her ear, “Are you going to throw me away?”

No matter how Ling Yan struggled, she couldn’t escape.

She clenched her teeth and refused to say anything. Si Chun kissed her hard, trying to pry her mouth open with something soft. Ling Yan simply parted her lips and let Si Chun stop both her words and her breath. She closed her eyes, afraid to look at her.

Ling Yan opened her eyes, drenched in sweat. Before she had recovered, someone knocked on the bedroom door.

“Ling Yan? May I come in?”

Her heart gave a violent leap, like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. Several seconds passed before she hurried out of bed to open the door.

Si Chun came in carrying a plate of fruit. She closed the door and set the plate beside Ling Yan.

“Mom agreed. But we don’t know you very well yet, and you don’t know us very well either. So for now, we can only let you stay here. We can’t get you completely out of that awful home yet,” Si Chun explained seriously. “As you can see, it’s always been just Mom and me. There are only two of us at home, so there’s a limit to how much we can do.”

“That’s all right. I’m used to looking after myself,” Ling Yan said, shaking her head.

Si Chun had expected that answer, but it still gave her pause. “If there’s anything you need to use or buy, though, just tell us. You can keep saving your own allowance. Having money gives you more confidence, right?”

Ling Yan had taught her that.

Ms. Si Jiao had spoiled her so thoroughly that it wasn’t until Si Chun went away to university that she realized she needed to plan how she spent her money. Only after she started dating Ling Yan had she begun setting aside her income, little by little, in a savings fund of her own.

—“Money gives you choices. When you want to make a decision, you don’t have to worry so much about what other people think.”

Ling Yan had said it in an exceptionally calm tone, but the look on her face had been frighteningly dark.

“Your family…” Remembering that, Si Chun couldn’t help speaking. She chose her words as gently as she could. “Have they been withholding your money… and spending it on their own child?”

She saw Ling Yan lower her eyes—a small sign that she didn’t want to discuss it.

“They aren’t my family,” Ling Yan said anyway. “They never were. They only took me in because they wanted the inheritance my parents left me: the house, the car, and the money in their bank accounts. I don’t know who they intend to spend it on.”

She was willing to open her heart to the young Si Chun in her dream and show her every scar.

This had to be a companion she had imagined for her younger self. In reality, she and Si Chun had never crossed paths at this age. Si Chun couldn’t possibly have called her by name the first time they met, much less decided to overcome every obstacle and take her home after hearing only a few tearful words.

It wasn’t that the real Si Chun wouldn’t do those things. It was precisely because Ling Yan knew she would that she could imagine someone who stood so wholeheartedly on her side.

She had simply… guessed that she would probably never return to the future. Even if she somehow survived the car accident, her body, weakened by long illness, and her sensitive mind, already near its breaking point, would surely become a burden to Si Chun.

Yet before she died, she still longed to dream of being saved by her.

As she thought this, Ling Yan suddenly felt a gentle weight on her head. Si Chun was stroking her hair.

Ling Yan bit her lip and went on. “I want a family. They’re greedy and can never be satisfied. They don’t deserve to be mine.”

Before she had lost all hope in them, she had rarely described that family in such sharp terms. For years, she had been more accustomed to tolerating them, giving way, and choosing gentler words.

It was only after she had been hurt again and again, until she was covered in wounds, that she lost control of the feelings she had suppressed for more than ten years. During one episode of illness, she had lashed out at those awful people. Only then had she realized that sharp words could form a sturdy wall to protect her.

“Mm. I understand.” Si Chun lowered her hand and gently patted Ling Yan’s back, quietly relieved.

The fog that had always hung behind Ling Yan, hiding her past from Si Chun, had finally thinned a little.

Children at this age were still open and direct. They had not yet been steeped in the complications of society; they dared to say and do what they felt. It was only because Si Chun had returned to this time that she could hear the thoughts Ling Yan had kept so carefully hidden.

“Then… do you need me to go back there with you tomorrow?” Si Chun took the opportunity to ask.

“No.” Ling Yan answered at once. “I can do it myself…”

Now or in the future, the one thing she didn’t want was for those vile people to look Si Chun over with their filthy eyes.

Si Chun blinked. The reaction felt so familiar. She hadn’t expected Ling Yan to be like this even when she was so young.

She respected the older Ling Yan’s choices because the Ling Yan of the future was capable of handling things on her own. Hearing young Ling Yan say the same thing only made Si Chun think she was trying to be brave.

“But you said you really dislike them, didn’t you? Do they say a lot of things that hurt you too?” Si Chun asked. “Would it be a little better to have someone there with you, sharing the burden and shielding you from some of it?”

She sounded her out carefully, watching young Ling Yan’s reaction.

But the girl lowered her head deeply. She clearly didn’t want to accept Si Chun’s help.

After a moment’s thought, Si Chun offered a compromise. “Or… I could come and pick you up nearby? At the entrance to the neighborhood, maybe?”

She deliberately said “pick you up,” rather than “wait for you.”

Those long, beautiful lashes fluttered twice. Then came the faintest sigh.

“Okay.”