Shu Guo Bing emerged from prison ahead of schedule. Shu Lu abandoned her burdensome parents and fled alone. Shu Guo Bing and his wife reported her missing to the police, only for the officers to roundly berate the couple instead. They demanded to know why, with hands and feet to labour, they shirked self-reliance and burdened a mere sixteen-year-old girl with toiling to support them.
Wen Ying learned of this grand drama only after New Year’s Day.
“Shu Lu has fled?”
“Fled indeed. She bought a train ticket to the demon capital!”
Wen Dongrong’s face bore an odd cast as he spoke.
Old Wen, a functionary, shunned feudal superstitions and scoffed at fate. To bow to destiny’s whims would see him tilling fields in the countryside, not ensconced in an office.
Sceptical though he remained, the Wen family seemed ever more entwined with the demon capital.
Wen Ying had journeyed there for the New Concept contest. Chen Ru rekindled ties with her old schoolmate Wu Chunqin from the city. Wen Ying eyed university there. The family had taken a loan for a flat in the place. Now even Shu Lu’s bolt for freedom led thither… As if some unseen thread tugged them all.
Wen Dongrong mused perplexedly, “So many spots across the nation, yet she spurns them all for the demon capital…”
“Let her go, then.”
Wen Dongrong knew not the why; Wen Ying could hazard a guess.
The demon capital held especial allure for Shu Lu, for Zhao Dong dwelt there!
Wen Ying deemed it no happenstance. Shu Lu had quit school some time past; she bolted neither sooner nor later, but precisely as Shu Guo Bing gained freedom.
“Dad, how came you by this? Surely not my little aunt reaching out?”
Wen Dongrong grew flustered, “Mind your tongue! I hold no truck with your little aunt’s lot now. Shu Lu ditched them and scarpered. The couple mean to chase her to the demon capital and sought fare from your grandma. She learned of it first!”
The postgraduate clearance buoyed Old Wen, yet rejections dashed him. He forwent his usual humblebrags. Chen Ru, seeing him occupied from dusk till dawn, tacitly allowed him to haul bedding back to the master bedroom.
Rongcheng now plunged into its chilliest season. Beside the stark, unyielding balcony, the main bed’s warmth and yield proved heavenly. To share a mattress with his wife anew, Wen Dongrong treasured it deeply!
Wen Ying queried curiously, “Did Grandma lend them the fare, then?”
“Of course not!”
Wen Dongrong chuckled, “Your grandma turned the tables: all these years, not a penny from them for her keep, yet they thicken their hides to squeeze her living funds. What reason for that? She laid into them good and proper.”
The tale sufficed for Wen Dongrong to crow before his wife Chen Ru.
See? Our mum keeps her wits sharp!
Grandma Wen held some savings, courtesy of Wen Ying’s home and third son Wen Changlin. Her board and lodging fell to Wen Ying’s great uncle’s care.
All three sons honoured their mother dutifully, shouldering her upkeep without murmur. It was their bounden duty; none shirked.
One side filial sons, the other a wayward daughter.
Hong Yan had alienated all three brothers. Should Grandma Wen siphon sons’ gifts to covertly prop her daughter, the sons might stomach it, but what of the daughters-in-law?
Folk fear not penury nor ignorance half so much as failing to see another’s heart as one’s own.
Chen Ru willingly slipped full rents to her mother-in-law in secret. Should Grandma Wen, purse loosened thereby, divert those funds to folk Chen Ru despised, such deeds would chill her heart!
Wen Ying found it all novel.
Resurrected once, and truly, all had evolved.
In her prior life, Grandma Wen proved no such resolute soul: a cloying, muddled old dear, rife with son-favouring, daughter-scorning ways, ever dragging the affluent sons to buoy the needy siblings… Yet now, so vast a shift!
“Grandma lent no coin. Does she truly trust Shu Lu to roam alone to an unfamiliar demon capital?”
“Not wholly. Still, your grandma said the books lay unheeded by Shu Lu’s choice. Forsaking study leaves naught but wage labour.”
Truth be told, the old lady’s heart was not so steely.
Dislike her though she might, Shu Lu remained a granddaughter.
A lass of sixteen venturing solo for work courted ready deception.
Grandma Wen lent Shu Guo Bing and his wife naught, yet tasked Wen Dongrong with gleaning details.
Wen Dongrong quizzed the station house: Shu Lu had reached the demon capital unscathed, contactable, her liberty unbound. She merely spurned life with her parents, no vanishing act!
Untold half-growns like Shu Lu quit school betimes for distant toil. No abduction, no vanishing, mere family strife: Rongcheng’s police would not trek leagues at the couple’s wails to truss Shu Lu homeward.
She avowed wage work; what then, drag her back for the post to feed the threesome?
Impossible, naturally!
Owing to Shu Lu’s “missive”, the constables schooled Shu Guo Bing and Hong Yan besides, bidding them earn squarely and foster self-reliance to mend kin rifts!
Shu Guo Bing and Hong Yan stood dumbfounded.
To be fair, neither proved a prize, yet ere Shu Guo Bing’s fall, both doted on Shu Lu. Wen Dongrong’s subsidies to the Shus flowed chiefly to her.
Only later did Wen Dongrong wise up and withhold. Hong Yan lost thousands more to swindles, retreating perforce to the countryside. As straits tightened, Shu Lu quit school.
Shu Lu’s “missive”, scant lines as it was, effaced all prior parental kindness. At the station, Shu Guo Bing and Hong Yan stood mum under reprimand, reduced to snivelling under the lesson.
Shu Lu that chit: a true ingrate, to kin no less. Scarce hope she recalled others’ grace.
What grace or grudge? Steadfast giving marked “grace”; the merest lapse turned it to “grudge”… All the Wen clan likely ranked as Shu Lu’s grudges now.
Wen Dongrong’s eyelids twitched. He cautioned Wen Ying, “Should you attend university in the demon capital, mind Shu Lu if paths cross. She feigns woe masterfully. Hear her out, but heed her not, whatever she prates.”
The demon capital, a teeming megacity, rendered chance encounters slim amid the throngs.
Yet Wen Ying, bestselling scribe, might grace promotions. She in the light, Shu Lu in shadow: Wen Dongrong dreaded envy unhinging Shu Lu to rash harm.
This marked Old Wen’s first unvarnished broaching.
In times past, kin worth lay his silent gauge.
Especially Shu Lu, subsidised for years by him: to deem her ill reflected his own shortfall.
Wen Ying eyed her father anew, and again, till Wen Dongrong squirmed, “Something on my face?”
Wen Ying shook her head, “Naught. I simply find it passing strange. You once bade me emulate Shu Lu: lively, outgoing, a model of virtue, intellect, physique, and grace, all rounded…”
Wen Dongrong would perish ere admitting it.
“You misheard. I said no such thing!”
“I heard aright. You did.”
“Then your memory plays tricks! You chit, scarce grown, yet recall less than your grandma. No, no; I must tell your mum. Time for tonics to mend that brain of yours. But months to gaokao now. You fare well in mocks; pray no slip come the true fray.”
Wen Dongrong ambled off, hands clasped behind, muttering. Wen Ying gaped.
All evolved, Old Wen included.
Others honed skills; Old Wen thickened his hide!
Or perchance, beneath that self-righting gall, sprouted a paternal tenderness, tender as a shoot piercing soil.
