To Covet (GL) - Chapter 23

I was going to take off my clothes to shower anyway, so I grabbed a clean set of pajamas and walked out naked, stepping onto the bathroom tiles.

My back was pressed against the cold wall. I stood in front of the mirror for a moment, facing my naked self. Compared to a few years ago, besides my body being stretched vertically, my face was still the same unhappy face. There were no significant changes.

I tried to stand up straight, to overcome the hunching and cringing caused by the cold, but then I gave up.

The warm apricot-colored light made most of the marks on my skin disappear. Yu Zhouwan bit very lightly. I held up the showerhead, and a stream of water hit the mirror. When I could see again, all the hickeys were gone.

If I were to directly tell Shi Yunya that Yu Hanyang was a bastard, that he married Yang Chun and had me, and not only did he not bring home a single penny, but he also abused her and cheated on her, how much would Shi Yunya believe?

Then Yu Hanyang would get on his knees and beg for forgiveness, saying that he had been trying to change in this marriage. In the end, the three of them would happily understand each other and decide to stick together against the world.

I know I’m not rational, but I’m not stupid. This isn’t revenge; it’s just a child’s tantrum.

If I use Yu Zhouwan as a tool for revenge against Yu Hanyang, the odds could be completely reversed.

Just as I envisioned, everything was proceeding in an orderly manner according to my plan.

Shi Yunya could use her own feelings and marriage as a test, but she would not allow her precious daughter’s life to have even the slightest flaw. As her biological father, Yu Hanyang and I were inextricably linked. If our existence only brought devastating disaster to this family’s only hope—Yu Zhouwan—I believe she would cut ties with him without hesitation.

I don’t believe Yu Hanyang has the ability to get by on his own. Without Shi Yunya, he would immediately go back to having nothing.

The only variable in these events was Yu Zhouwan’s attitude toward me, which changed from extreme disgust to ambiguity. Fortunately, it wouldn’t affect the outcome.

It was easy to destroy this marriage. All I had to do was point at Shi Yunya in public and shout, “She’s a homewrecker!” and her reputation would be ruined. A woman who is a mistress will always be scorned—even if the man is the one who is truly at fault.

But I wouldn’t do that. It wouldn’t hurt Yu Hanyang in the slightest, and it would only let him get ahead by stepping on Shi Yunya.

The loud noise of the hairdryer covered the sound of the door opening.

As I was drying my hair, I was thinking about how to set a trap for a woman who was a veteran of the business world. A familiar face suddenly appeared in the mirror.

I was figuring out how to present Yu Zhouwan as a sacrifice to Shi Yunya to make the blow as devastating as possible—preferably a fatal one. Yu Zhouwan had already walked up to me, taken the hairdryer from my hand, and rubbed my head, which was still half-wet after a long time of drying.

“What are you doing in here?”

I refused her kindness and finished drying my hair in a hurry.

“Taking a shower,” she said.

“Okay, I’ll go out.”

She hooked her finger around mine. I pretended not to feel it and left, closing the door behind me.

Even if I didn’t understand Yu Zhouwan’s intentions, I was sure that there were other emotions involved—including a deliberate attempt to please me.

Please… I stopped at that word. No wonder she had been so active since that night at the hotel.

I immediately dismissed the thought. What if she did know? What had happened could no longer be changed.

If Shi Yunya hurts you, you can’t blame me. You can only blame your inherent homosexuality and your masochistic tendencies.

The day the midterms ended, I took a leave of absence from school and went back to Shucheng alone.

On one hand, it was for Yang Chun. I had to go through her belongings. On the other hand, keeping my distance from Yu Zhouwan would prevent me from having useless sympathy and adding to my troubles.

My grandmother had gone to my uncle’s house for a while. It was just me in this musty little house.

I took out a yellowed storage box from under a stack of magazines. Yang Chun had specifically told me what to burn. But my grandmother was too sad, and my aunt and uncle had no time to take care of it. So, except for her clothes that were burned for her journey, everything else was still there.

The marriage certificate was there, too. Yang Chun had planned to get a divorce from Yu Hanyang after she was discharged from the hospital and felt a little better.

But she never got out of bed again. Her fragile life quickly withered away.

I planned to go back and check the date when Shi Yunya and Yu Hanyang got married.

Even if Yu Hanyang didn’t get married until Yang Chun passed away, it was a seamless transition, and it was enough to disgust Shi Yunya.

I plugged an old, chipped phone into the power outlet. The charging port was so broken that I had to keep it at a specific angle for the screen to stay on.

After paying the phone bill, I logged back into Yang Chun’s social media account. I went through her chat history and didn’t find any useful information. Her photo album only contained photos of me from when I was a child and records of her work. There was nothing else.

I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket, and I put it on speakerphone.

“Keyi.”

It was already 8 p.m. I had been sitting in the corner of the room for almost three hours.

“Where did you go?” she asked me.

“I went home.”

After a few seconds, she realized that “home” meant Shucheng.

“Are you coming back tomorrow?”

I was silent, and the other end of the line was also very quiet.

“In a few days.” I still wanted to visit Yang Chun’s grave after I finished packing.

“Friday, or…”

I rubbed my eyes hard. I hadn’t really thought about it.

“Why are you asking?”

“It’s my birthday on Friday. Are you coming back for cake?”

She was thinking of me even though I was so far away. The voice on the phone was a little different from how she usually sounded. I almost thought someone was impersonating her to prank me.

“Maybe. We’ll see,” I said. I didn’t want to spend the next few days in Shucheng counting down. “You have fun. I don’t eat cake. You can eat it yourself.”

The cemetery was in a very remote suburb. It took a few hours to get there by bus. I didn’t go until the third day.

The tombstone read, “Here lies our beloved mother Yang Chun.” Below that were the dates of her birth and death. Yang Chun didn’t like to take photos. The photo on her tombstone was the same one on her marriage certificate.

Yu Keyi, you don’t have a mother anymore. You have to live on your own, I thought to myself.

I swept the ground and carefully cleaned her tombstone. Then I sat on the steps for a while.

I couldn’t sleep on Friday morning when it was still dark. I got up, put everything back in its place, and dragged my suitcase to the bus station to buy a ticket back to Linzhou.

I texted Xu Lanlan to tell her I was going back to school in the afternoon. She replied “received” immediately. It seemed she was playing on her phone during her lunch break. She also sent a photo of the mountain of homework that had piled up on my desk.

I planned to sneak out as soon as the dinner bell rang, but Mr. Gao suddenly called me over during the last period.

He had a performance ranking sheet with a lot of red marks on it next to his thermos. I glanced at it and confirmed that my position was about the same as last time.

He just wanted to urge me to maintain my grades and get a good score on the final exam to get into the right class. He also scolded me about skipping evening study sessions so often.

It wasn’t anything important, but it dragged on until the students who had gone to dinner started coming back.

I took out my phone. Yu Zhouwan had sent me a photo half an hour ago. There were people I didn’t know in it, but the background was familiar.

I sent “Happy birthday” and waited for her to reply on the bus home. She hadn’t replied. It seemed like she was having a lot of fun.

The moment I pushed the door open, the people inside went completely silent.

The person sitting next to Yu Zhouwan and cutting the cake was the senior sister named Yin Sien. I didn’t know anyone else.

“This is my sister.” Yu Zhouwan walked over, pulled my hand affectionately, and introduced me to them.

Everyone there was either her classmate or from her club. Besides Yin Sien, I had never seen any of them before. I said hello to them and planned to slip back into my room to rest. But Yu Zhouwan held my hand tightly, as if she was so focused on talking that she forgot to let go.

She was wearing a misty blue sweater and a knit skirt. There was a funny-looking gold birthday hat hair clip on her head. The atmosphere was much less formal than the birthday dinner her parents had arranged.

I looked around at the people chatting and didn’t try to pull my hand away.

There were no close friends of Yu Zhouwan there, so no one suspected anything about my sudden appearance as her “sister.”

They had already eaten dinner out and came here just for the lively atmosphere of cutting the cake, making wishes, and playing games.

I stood by and watched them fumble to put the candles in and light them. Yin Sien volunteered to turn off the lights. She fumbled with the switch, turning on the lights in every room one by one, which made everyone laugh.

I heard a sound that didn’t belong to the joyful laughter, coming from outside the door. I was about to listen closely when Shi Yunya suddenly pushed the door open.

“If you used your brain just once, you wouldn’t do such a heartless and stupid thing. If you don’t have a brain, don’t touch anything. If you don’t have a brain, can’t you at least be more careful?”

Shi Yunya got angrier and angrier, and by the end, she was almost shouting.

“I’ve never met anyone who thinks they’re so smart. I’m embarrassed for you.”

I had never seen Shi Yunya so furious. Even when she had disagreements with her daughter, getting angry was never the main goal, and her tone was always calm. But now, she had completely lost her composure, as if she was about to poke Yu Hanyang’s face with her finger.

She slammed her bag on the shoe cabinet. Her indignant accusations came out like a machine gun. She kicked off her shoes and stomped into the living room. Afraid of turning on the lights by accident, she suddenly looked up and saw the children staring at her. The sharp reprimands coming from her mouth came to a screeching halt, replaced by an embarrassed expression.