"Mom." Zhang Yan tightly pressed her lips together and said softly, "I’ll go back first."

Seeing her daughter’s obviously evasive expression and listening to her pretended strong tone, Zhou Hui immediately understood.

The most feared thing still happened. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

"Ayin." Zhou Hui suddenly reached out and held her daughter’s hand, "I have something to tell you."

The rough hand, with calluses from years of labor, was unusually warm and strong.

The familiar warmth made Zhang Yan’s nose tingle, and she sat back down.

Zhou Hui politely said something to the two nurses beside her, and they immediately understood and exited the room, gently closing the door.

The room was left with only the mother and daughter.

Zhou Hui held Zhang Yan’s hand, gently and repeatedly rubbing it.

"Ayin," she looked at her daughter, her cloudy eyes showing clarity, "Mom didn’t have much education, lived a very unsuccessful life, and has no life experience worth learning from. To put it bluntly, she’s a useless person."

"Mom... it’s not like that." Zhang Yan’s lips moved, wanting to refute.

But Zhou Hui shook her head, interrupting her, and started talking about her two marriages.

"When I was young, to marry your dad, I fell out with your grandma’s family and ran alone to Yan Province’s countryside. I thought, as long as I kept the house, cultivated the land, and served him well, that would be the greatest support for him..."

"Later, I followed your Uncle Chen... I worked as hard as I could, treated his children no worse than Shuangshuang, let them handle all the big and small matters at home..."

As Zhou Hui spoke here, she wiped her eyes and laughed self-deprecatingly, full of bitterness and desolation.

Zhang Yan, for the first time, fully learned about her mother’s stories.

Zhou Hui truly was unfortunate.

In one marriage, she gave her all for love, only to be completely hurt; in another marriage, she gave her all for family and children, ultimately still defeated by cold reality.

And her whole life was spent in hardship, forbearance, and retreat.

After a long while, Zhou Hui paused her narrative.

Her gaze fell on her daughter’s face, more radiant than ever.

"Ayin, Mom doesn’t want you to follow my old path. I hope you can be happy and have someone who truly cares for and protects you in the future."

"For a woman, encountering a man who both sincerely treats you well and has the ability to protect you in a lifetime is really rare!"

She forcefully gripped her daughter’s hand, speaking each word deliberately.

"A steaming bowl of hot rice is sitting right there, if you don’t hurry to pick up chopsticks and eat, are you still expecting someone to leave you a mouthful? Don’t be so silly!"

"You being able to meet Tang Song, and being classmates since middle school, is your luck! It’s heaven seeing you suffer for so many years and feeling for you; it’s what you deserve!"

...

Tears blurred Zhang Yan’s vision, and she couldn’t control herself anymore, she plunged into her mother’s arms and began to sob uncontrollably.

Just like when she was a child, going home to her mother’s embrace after being wronged at school.

She cried while chokingly saying, "But... I’m not good enough for him, he has other girls he likes, who are a hundred times, a thousand times better than me..."

Zhou Hui embraced her daughter’s trembling body, listening to her heartbreakingly cries, her eyes also reddened.

She didn’t speak immediately, just stretched out that rough hand, patting her daughter’s back repeatedly, allowing her to release all her grievances and unease.

After a long time, when Zhang Yan’s cries gradually subsided.

She then said softly, "Silly girl."

"If he truly doesn’t have you in his heart, would he bother doing so many things for you?"

"Since he doesn’t think you ’aren’t good enough,’ why don’t you try fighting for it?"

"You have to know, some people, once you avoid them, they’re truly gone."

...

On the way back, the night breeze was cool.

Zhang Yan sat by the window of the bus, outside were the myriad lights of Yang City, like rivers of flowing light, flickering in her pupils.

In her mind, her mother’s words kept echoing—

"Once you dodge them, they’re truly gone."

Returning to Lanxin Garden District in a daze, she climbed up that familiar six-story staircase.

With a "click," she pushed open the door.

"Meow~" Orange, like a warm missile, immediately darted out from the darkness, affectionately rubbing against her ankles, using all its strength to act cute.

Zhang Yan bent down to pick it up, burying her face in its soft fur, deeply inhaling a breath.

She lit up the lamps in the room one by one.

Standing in the middle of the living room, she looked around.

After a full day of drying and airing, those once mottled, damp walls she was ashamed to show were now smooth as new, glowing with a gentle, warm white light under the lamps.

She couldn’t help but walk forward, softly caressing the wall with her fingers.

Then, her gaze swept over the shabby sofa, across the balcony, over the simple bookshelf with "Dragon Ball" manga.

Her mind was in chaos. At one moment, it was the confident and radiant face of Liu Qingning that’s hard to look at directly, another moment was Tang Song’s side with a smile and paint while accompanying her in painting walls, his kisses and hugs...

All the images intertwined and collided, making her gaze blurry.

The first time she heard the name "Liu Qingning" was over a month after high school started, on a similarly cool autumn day.

At that time, she was at Second Middle School.

In her heart, Tang Song was her best, and only friend.

He said, even if they attended different high schools, they’d always be friends.

She took it seriously, and remembered it especially earnestly.

But his QQ avatar never lit up again, she lost all ways to contact him.

Finally, on a certain Friday afternoon, she summoned the greatest courage of her life, and for the first time stepped into the gate of First Middle School, intending to ask if he changed his QQ number.

But she only saw him standing under a golden sun-drenched banyan tree with a girl as exquisite and beautiful as a porcelain doll, both smiling brightly.

Instinctively, she hid in the crowd. Then she heard the surrounding people’s discussions, heard the name "Liu Qingning."

Afterward, this name followed her, growing louder and louder.

Every time she went to First Middle School, whether on the playground, in the cafeteria, or on the pedestrian street and book café opposite the school gate.

Beside him, most times she was present.

At that time, she also worked tirelessly wanting to become a top student.

But despite her effort, her grades could only be considered average.

And precisely because of Liu Qingning’s dazzling reference, she became more and more self-abased and timid in the constant admiration.

Finally, she hid herself thoroughly in that neglected corner.

This hiding lasted ten years.

In the end, it was her ten-year vigil and a wish on "Dragon Ball" that finally brought about this incredible ’miracle’.

The reason a miracle can be called a miracle is because it’s implausibly extraordinary, possibly only occurring once in a lifetime.

"Once you dodge them, they’re truly gone... Tang Song... Tang Song..."

She clumsily wiped away tears that had unbeknownst to her slipped again, and unconsciously murmured this name repeatedly.

An unprecedented sense of discontent and impulse surged from deep within her heart!

The apricot eyes always carrying timidity now seemed to have a bright flame slowly starting to burn.

She took a deep breath, went to the bedroom, first clumsily changed into her "most presentable" autumn outfit.

Then, she took out the carefully hidden gift box from the nightstand.

Gently opening it, the pair of earrings shimmering with tiny starlight lay quietly on soft velvet.

With trembling hands, she clumsily wore them on her ears in front of the mirror.

The girl in the mirror seemed to "shine" along with the earrings.

Then, she dragged out a dusty box from under the bed, inside found an already prepared exquisite hard-shell gift box.

She placed 34 manga books, in order, inside one by one, until the gift box was packed full.

Picking up the heavy box, she said bye to Orange.

Rushed out the house.

The heavy footsteps echoed in the old corridor.

She dashed out of the unit building, into the cool night wind, and flagged down a taxi.

"Driver, to Four Seasons Hotel."