273. Mother Is Back
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Although the pandemic isn’t over yet, it’s been over half a month since new cases appeared in the area.
Mostly because this isn’t a big city, and the government reacted swiftly; it’s only been about a month and a half since the pandemic first hit the news, and things are slowly stabilizing everywhere.
This has led many to let their guards down. On the fifteenth day of the Lunar New Year, just as the festivities were winding down, relatives finally showed up at Grandpa’s house to pay their respects.
Lin Nan was hiding on the third floor, listening to the noisy conversations on the first floor—those chatty old relatives spoke mostly in dialects, and her grasp of it was pretty rough. After half an hour, she understood barely half of what was said.
Wait, was that her mother’s voice?
She thought she heard her mother, and that nosy Aunt who turned on her heels and walked away when she found out Lin Nan’s secret was back too.
At least three or five people had come to pay their respects, each one loudly discussing who-knows-what and suddenly bursting into laughter.
Liu Xinyi dashed up to the second floor, hiding out with Wu Jiaming in Uncle’s room to steal some Wi-Fi. Uncle was downstairs mingling with guests while Lin Nan was up on the third floor, bored out of her mind and scrolling through a novel on her phone.
After finishing a chapter, as she tried to turn the page, she was hit with a payment prompt.
“What? Ten bucks for just a few days?!” she grumbled. But she couldn’t bring herself to fork over more money, so she hit the check-in button and dramatically tossed her phone aside with a sigh.
It was tragic.
Had she known, she wouldn’t have finished the book. Ten bucks could probably keep her reading two or three more stories for half a month. Instead, she was down to her last few coins in just a few days.
Just when she was torn over whether to recharge her account, her mother walked into the room with a big smile.
“What’s wrong? Your lips are poked out like you can hang an oil bottle on them.”
“Mom!” Lin Nan quickly shot up from her bed, greeting her with a face full of surprise.
Her mom reached over and ruffled Lin Nan’s dark, shiny hair, pulling out a necklace from her pocket with a smile: “Look what I got you!”
Lin Nan’s face lit up; she had always loved shiny things.
“Why do you already have one?” Her mom had planned to put it around Lin Nan’s neck right away, but then noticed the silver chain around her neck, her smile shifting into a teasing grin. “Is that Chen Yao’s love token?”
It suddenly dawned on Lin Nan that she already had a necklace.
At first, it felt a bit awkward to wear, but after a while, she forgot all about it.
Lin Nan defiantly countered, “This is a gift Chen Yao bought for his mom! She didn’t want it, so she gave it to me. It’s not a love token, okay?”
“Then…” Her mother’s gaze drifted to the bed stand, where a chocolate gift was wrapped like it was in a tight security blanket. “Is that it?”
Lin Nan’s face instantly turned crimson as she quickly stuffed the chocolate into her suitcase, panicking that her mother had seen it.
She had only taken it out while her cousin was out of the bedroom and Chen Yao hadn’t messaged her, but now here was her mother catching her red-handed.
Watching Lin Nan frantically squat down to hide the chocolate had her mother trying to hold back laughter, but then she suddenly felt a wave of melancholy, as if her daughter was about to get married off, and her smile vanished completely.
With a soft sigh, she thought about how she had neglected Lin Nan for too long. She wanted to make up for it, but Lin Nan had already found someone to stick around for life.
Truly, what a negligent mother she had been.
“Your Uncle told me you’re seriously with Chen Yao now, huh?”
Lin Nan froze up. She wasn’t sure how her mom felt about it, fearing that all the teasing had just been playful banter.
Frozen in place, she faced her mother’s back and timidly asked, “Is it okay…?”
“As long as you’re happy with him,” her mom replied without a definitive stance, a bit uncertain about Lin Nan rushing into having a boyfriend just months after figuring out she was a girl.
But somehow, she felt like she had no right to lecture Lin Nan.
“Just don’t get played, okay?”
“If I get played, I’ll just chalk it up to experience,” Lin Nan said, finally closing her suitcase and turning back to her mother with a serious expression. “For now, I think he’s pretty great.”
Maybe just a bit too much of a straight shooter, though.
But while many girls might find that intolerable, Lin Nan, having been a boy once, could easily empathize and see that Chen Yao’s words weren’t meant to hurt.
Her mother waved her over, and Lin Nan obediently sat beside her.
Being close to her mom felt even more nerve-racking than being with Chen Yao.
Lin Nan stiffened, feeling her mother’s hand running through her hair.
She waited for her mother to say something, but after a long pause, all she saw was a few tears rolling down her mom’s leg. Shocked, Lin Nan looked up, bewildered by her mother’s sudden tears.
What on earth was going on?
Perhaps noticing Lin Nan’s confused gaze, her mother quickly wiped her tears and put on a smile. “It’s okay. I’m just happy for you.”
“Um… I think you should find someone too…” Lin Nan pouted. “What’s the use of being happy for me if you don’t sort out your own life, like maybe with that… uncle?”
Her mother suddenly looked serious, her tone sharpening a bit. “Don’t talk nonsense! I have nothing special with that uncle; he’s just a pretty good friend.”
Really now?
Lin Nan gave her a skeptical look.
But the way her mom was acting didn’t seem like she was lying.
“Watch your mouth! Or I’ll sew it shut!” her mother pointed a finger at Lin Nan’s lips, clearly unimpressed. “I’ve never done anything to betray your father while married.”
True, her mother used to be on the go with her father every day. When she got home, she rarely went out for long. To be honest, she didn’t even have the time to cheat if she wanted to.
It was her dad who spent all his free time out and about, returning home plastered every chance he got.
“But I have a boyfriend now! Aren’t you even planning to find someone?” Lin Nan frowned. “I can handle anything, just as long as I don’t have to call that person ‘Dad.’ Can’t do it!”
She really didn’t want her mother to end up a lonely old lady.
But her mother didn’t want to dwell on that. Switching the topic, she said, “Aunt and Uncle are here. Aren’t you going to go downstairs and see them?”
When that came up, Lin Nan flinched, shaking her head vigorously like a rattle drum. “No, no, let’s skip it! Aunt isn’t too fond of me, and Uncle? Who knows what’s going on with him.”
“You have to face them eventually, right? It’s not like you can avoid family forever!”
If she could, Lin Nan would happily avoid any relatives for the rest of her life.
But that was clearly just a pipe dream.
