Hello, Old Times Chapter 46

Chapter 46: Save Me

“How are we different?”

Yu Zhou Zhou wasn’t able to explain.

She had already started to try and touch the nerves behind this world but faced with the criss-crossing strings of fate, she wasn’t able to see anything clearly.

Lin Yang didn’t continue to ask, instead, he exhaled a breath of white air and kicking the snow, asked somewhat lost, “Zhou Zhou do you want to grow up?”

Yu Zhou Zhou shook her head, “No.”

She had once really wanted to.

“You won’t be like Zhan Yan Fei and…”

“No,” Yu Zhou Zhou continued to shake her head,” I want…I want to go back to my childhood.”

“Childhood?” Lin Yang reached out and pulled her little pigtail – it had been a long time since he had pulled Yu Zhou Zhou’s ponytail. Her hair was icy cold and smooth and slipped away from his fingers, like a naughty fish. Lin Yang stretched out his hand again and played with great pleasure, without noticing Yu Zhou Zhou’s slightly sad expression.

“It’s because I was very happy when I was small and didn’t understand anything.” Yu Zhou Zhou closed her eyes and discovered helplessly that she could no longer remember the faces of the Duke and Viscount.

Do you guys no longer want the Queen? Or have you fixed your plane and have returned to your own planet?

She didn’t even get to say farewell.

When she opened her eyes, Yu Zhou Zhou froze for a moment, pausing her steps before quickly turning and sprinting off. In the deep snow, her clumsy figure left Lin Yang further and further away. Lin Yang’s hand was still hanging mid-air. Just like that, the black carp swam away from his hands, never to be captured again.

“Zhou…” He wasn’t able to react at all and stared in the direction Yu Zhou Zhou ran to for a while before he heard shouts in the distance.

“Lin Yang!” He turned his head and saw Jiang Chuan’s skinny figure on the corner of the street a short distance away. Jiang Chuan ran towards Lin Yang with Ling Xiang Qian following behind him.

“Have you finished up with your matters? You told us to go first but Ling Xiang Qian told us to walk slower so that we’ll perhaps be able to wait for you. See, sure enough.”

“Oh, oh…” Lin Yang nodded dispiritedly.

Yu Zhou Zhou hid behind a tricycle and a mound of debris. After a long time, she finally turned her head and quietly looked over at the place they had just stood at – Lin Yang was long gone.

She walked back. The footprints on the ground were messy and should couldn’t tell which ones belonged to him.

Yu Zhou Zhou didn’t know why she ran away.

Perhaps it was because she didn’t want to see him red-eyed with embarrassment after being slapped hard on the back of head by his mum again.

It was only because of this.

Yu Zhou Zhou couldn’t remember when the last time her mum came home for dinner was.

They had just started to eat when they head the clear sound of high heels from outside the door.

“Zhou Zhou, your mum is back for dinner tonight.” Her grandma’s voice was very weak. She only drank clear porridge every day and even her dishes were served separately to everyone else’s.

“Mum, I passed by the Lu Ou Department Store just now and saw electric heaters on sale. Our heater isn’t heating well this year, are your knees hurting again? I bought one back, I’ll put it in your room so try it tonight, if the room is warmer, it might allow your knees to get better.”

Yu Zhou Zhou watched as her mum bent down and placed a white box in the corner of the living room. The black cashmere coat she wore outlined her beautiful waistline. She took off her coat and hung it on the clothes hanger and said without raising her head, “Eat first, I’ll go wash my hands.”

As Yu Zhou Zhou lowered her head to eat the rice, she unintentionally saw her Auntie stare at her mum with slanted eyes, even with her head lowered.

She focused her eyes on the white rice hanging below her nose but used too much force as she stared cross eyed and got a headache.

“Zhou Zhou, are you not watching cartoons today?”

Her mum was wiping her face with cleansing wipes in front of the mirror. Yu Zhou Zhou sat quietly on the edge of the bed and shook her head.

“Mhm, I don’t want to watch it.”

It had been a long time since she last watched the 6 o’clock cartoons on the provincial channel nor the Big Pinwheel Show* but her mum didn’t know. It seemed that they kept missing out on each other’s lives.
*[The Big Pinwheel Show is a CCTV kid’s show.

Yu Zhou Zhou couldn’t remember when her mum started to change from that gentle, beautiful woman to the capable and sharp professional woman with the same fast pace as her high heels. Her mum was no longer able to stand outside the door with a glass of cola and gave prompts while she acted her little theatre like before in the past.

Yu Zhou Zhou knew that her mum was very exhausted. Previously, there were many times where she would pretend to be asleep until her mum returned and lay next to her before she could fall asleep peacefully. However, she would be able to hear her mum’s suppressed crying in the darkness.

She worked very hard to be an obedient child but didn’t seem to be able to ease that tight string in her mum’s heart in the slightest.

“Have you finished your homework? Is there some fee that needs to be paid?”

“There’s nothing that needs to be paid.”

Her mum finally put down the cleansing wipe in her hand and turned to look at her, “Zhou Zhou, what’s wrong?” Before she had even finished talking, her silver new Motorola mobile phone rang. She picked it up and after a few serious “mhm, mhm” sounds, she closed her phone and hurriedly redid her makeup before grabbing her bag and coat and rushing out the door.

Yu Zhou Zhou sat on the bed blankly and stared at the empty makeup mirror in a daze for a long time before lowering her head. She suddenly really wanted to cry.

She had prepared for a long time and was even afraid that after her mum learnt she had failed the Maths Olympiad test and Teacher Yu’s criticism, she would be angry or disappointed. After encouraging herself for a long, long time, before she anxiously walked into the room with the plan to ‘discuss’ it with her mum – ‘discuss’ her future.

Then, she failed before she even started.

Yu Zhou Zhou had never missed Grandpa Gu so much before.

Death is a dagger but it is the living that bleeds and is wounded.  

Yu Zhou Zhou sat in the room and through about all the acquaintances that she can remember in her short twelve years of life and discovered that she actually didn’t have anything.

She looked around the room blankly and finally set her gaze on the extension telephone.