To Covet (GL) - Chapter 12

“Yu Keyi, does your school have exams on Saturdays for makeup classes?” Shi Yunya, with her handbag on her shoulder, was about to leave but walked back to the dining room. “I mean those big exams that count toward the rankings.”

“No, just weekly math and physics tests.”

“Okay, good,” Shi Yunya tapped the table with her index finger. “Your dad asked me to tell you that he’s already gotten you and your homeroom teacher to agree on a leave of absence. You’ll go directly there later.”

“Go where?” Not only Yu Zhouwan, but I also didn’t understand what she meant.

I got a good score on the city’s joint exam at the end of September. I told Yu Hanyang directly that living at school with so many people was disrupting my routine. My request to move out of the dorm was still being processed, and I hadn’t finished moving my things out. Thankfully, I could live at home without any restrictions. Although this didn’t really feel like “home,” I was like a hermit crab, occupying a room that didn’t belong to me.

Shi Yunya was also surprised. “He didn’t tell you? There’s something wrong with your grandma’s health. You should go back and see her.”

My heart sank. I wanted to ask Shi Yunya for more details, but she had already left for work. The half-eaten bowl of red bean porridge in my hand suddenly became tasteless.

I was distracted until Yu Hanyang called me. I didn’t notice that when Yu Zhouwan heard what Shi Yunya said, she put down her spoon and looked at me.

“Here.” I took a roll of gauze from the side pocket of my backpack, roughly tore off a piece, and threw it to her. “Cover it up. It’s pretty obvious.”

Yu Zhouwan caught it. She lowered her head and looked at her wrist resting on the edge of the table. When she washed up this morning, the marks were a faint pink, almost white. If you didn’t look closely, you wouldn’t notice anything strange. But now, they had become especially prominent, with jagged, messy marks of varying depths. I thought that it must have been the result of a narrow elastic band being stretched to its limit.

The feeling of weightlessness as the elevator went down reminded me of that piece of gauze. My first reaction when I saw the marks on Yu Zhouwan’s wrist was fear. I was afraid that Yu Zhouwan would slip up under someone’s questioning and concern. Although she would definitely not publicize the fact that her own sister had tied her up, played with her, and bitten her last night, what if she did? After all, Yu Zhouwan was not going to school today but to a studio. There were almost a hundred people coming and going. What if she ran into someone who was more open-minded, and he had bad intentions…

I was lost in thought, and I didn’t even realize I had created a “hypothetical enemy” for myself. It wasn’t because I was afraid of being exposed. I was just afraid of losing the opportunity to toy with Yu Zhouwan in the future.

When I got to Yu Hanyang’s car, he suddenly honked the horn. The half-melted Snickers bar in my hand plopped onto the ground.

The delicious chocolate bar was covered in dust and concrete particles. I had no appetite, so I wrapped it in a tissue and threw it into a trash can far away.

Through the black tint on the car window, I saw a familiar figure walk to the neighborhood trash station. She raised her hand and threw something into the bin perfectly, then turned and walked away.

I couldn’t see what it was, but I only saw that it was a small white bundle. Her wrist was bare.

“Wanwan,” Yu Hanyang said, rolling down the window. “Get in. I’ll take you to the studio.”

“What’s wrong with grandma?”

The studio was next to a university in the high-tech zone. I buckled my seatbelt again. The car made several turns to get out of the city center and onto the expressway. I was the first to break the silence.

“Oh, nothing much. Her neighbor called and said she got clipped by an electric bike outside and fell,” the road ahead was congested. He slowed down and stopped, wiping his glasses. “Old people are more fragile. Even a little bump or scrape is more dangerous for them than for us. We can’t take it lightly.”

Shucheng was in the northwest of Linzhou, about a two-hour drive away. It got its name from the Shujiang River, a waterway that runs through the city.

Yu Hanyang drove quickly on the cross-river bridge. I rolled down the window, but the thick dust in the wind made it hard to breathe, so I rolled it back up and looked at the wide water below through the dark glass.

This was where I grew up, but my memories of it were only limited to the area around my neighborhood: one-way streets, small stalls, and old neighborhoods that had been built at least fifteen years ago. This was pretty much all there was to Shucheng’s local culture.

Yu Hanyang parked in front of the city’s People’s Hospital. He took a call, turned the car around, and followed the navigation for a few more turns. He finally found the small neighborhood with no sign and drove in through a group of randomly parked electric bikes.

“My little one.” Grandma opened the door and her first reaction was to immediately pull me inside with the hand that wasn’t holding a cane.

“Why are you still so skinny? Tell grandma, is it him and that woman bullying you and not giving you good food?” She glared resentfully at Yu Hanyang, who was holding a bag of health supplements.

“Grandma, I usually eat at school,” I said, reluctantly pulling her hand away.

Grandma moved to Shucheng when I was in middle school. Since Yang Chun only came home a few times a week, I spent most of my time with this little old lady. After Yang Chun passed away, my grandma, who always complained about not being used to living in the city, suddenly became quiet and stayed in this broken-down house. Her reason was that she didn’t want to waste the rent she had paid for the year.

“If the food at school isn’t good, you can buy some from outside,” the denim cloth wrapped around the head of her cane was so worn out that it was just a mesh. It made a rhythmic tapping sound on the warped floor. “If you don’t have enough money, grandma will give you some. It’s hard to study at this age. How can you do it if you don’t eat enough?”

The glass cabinet in the bedroom originally only had a picture of my grandpa. He had died very young. The photo was taken from his marriage license. Now, a picture of a woman who looked very similar to him was placed next to it.

“Why did you have to go and live with him? Ugh,” grandma’s back was even more hunched over. “It would have been so much better if you had gone to school here. Grandma would bring you lunch and dinner every day.”

She rummaged through a drawer and took out a cloth-wrapped bundle. She untied the thin strings layer by layer and took out a folded stack of hundred-yuan bills from some wrinkled tissue paper. She stuffed them into the bottom of my pocket and patted it with a worried look. “Don’t save it. Buy what you need. If it’s not enough, ask grandma. I still have a lot of money in my card.”

“Your dad is rich now, but he has a new family and another child. He’s not going to care about you. Is she a little girl, too? About the same age as you?” she said, spitting on the floor in disgust.

“You should go to the hospital and get a thorough checkup. I’ll pay for it.”

After grandma’s fall, my aunt and uncle had been taking care of her. But she insisted that she was fine and that staying in the hospital was stifling. They also worked in another city, so they had no choice but to let the old lady return home.

“You don’t need to feel sorry for this old bag of bones,” grandma said without turning to look at him.

Grandma wanted me to stay the night. There were clothes at the house. She had washed and dried them, but she couldn’t bear the thought of me taking the bus for several hours to go back to Linzhou all alone. Before dark, I followed Yu Hanyang back to Linzhou. She wanted to pack some food for me, but she was afraid the “bad woman” would get her hands on the good stuff. In the end, I only took the leftover braised chicken and a small wooden box the size of my palm.

“I left a bank card for your grandma, and I gave her the password. I also left her some cash,” Yu Hanyang coughed. “Your uncle’s family is planning on taking her in. I’m not comfortable with her living alone. It’s better if someone can look after her.”

I didn’t say anything.

“It’s too late today. Do you still want to go see your mom?”

The car’s headlights illuminated the old people selling vegetables at the entrance of the neighborhood. They were in a hurry to pull their plastic tablecloths away, afraid of getting run over.

“If you want to go, I can drive faster, and we’ll still make it.”

“No.”

He didn’t understand my grandma. She would find a way to stuff all that money back into my hand in the end.

“Then… should we find a restaurant around here, or wait until we get back to eat?”

“I’m not hungry.”

I felt a wave of drowsiness wash over me.

“Wanwan, where’s your drawing pen?”

“I forgot to take it,” Yu Zhouwan said, quickly getting out of the car.

“I’ll bring it to you tomorrow after work.”

“No. There are a lot of people at the studio. It might get stolen.”

Yu Hanyang got out to smoke. Yu Zhouwan came back in less than two minutes, with a pencil case in her hand.

I was woken up by the conversation and the sound of the car door opening. I couldn’t help but want to close my eyes and go back to sleep, but my arms were empty. I shot my eyes open and reached for the floor under the seat. I felt the bag strap in the corner and let out a sigh of relief.

Yu Zhouwan heard the commotion, turned to look at me, then sat back up straight.

“Wanwan, is your birthday coming up soon?” Yu Hanyang intentionally stayed outside for a bit longer to get rid of the smoke smell, but it was still overwhelming in the enclosed car. “I have a few friends coming to Linzhou in a few days. It’ll be fun with a lot of people. Let’s celebrate your birthday early. Then on your actual birthday, I’ll buy you another cake, and our family can have a nice dinner together, okay?”

“Whatever,” Yu Zhouwan said.

“Then I’ll book a hotel tonight. Remember to have your mom help you pick out a nice formal dress. It doesn’t have to be a gown.”

Shi Yunya wasn’t home. After Yu Zhouwan got home, she quickly went to her room and locked the door. Yu Hanyang was just about to lecture her for being so rude when she closed the door, but he just stared at the door for a long time without getting a response. He was puzzled and couldn’t figure out what he had said to make his daughter unhappy. He motioned for me to go knock on the door and check on her.

I yawned and said I was too tired, ignoring his request.

She was just avoiding me.