The woman wasted no time in opening the door.
"You are..."
Her mother offered the buns, smiling: "I'm Chang Xuyu's mother, from the fourth floor."
Chang Xuyu, Xuyu... oh!
She glanced at the buns in her mother's hand, thought for a moment, and finally remembered—
"That little girl from a few days ago! Oh my, you really went out of your way to come."
"I've been busy cleaning these past few days and haven't had a chance to visit the neighbors." She tucked her hair behind her ear, smiled apologetically, and gestured, "Please, come in."
...
Over time, the two women became close.
One day, Chang Xuyu had class duty and came home a little late. As soon as she entered, she saw her mother chatting animatedly with the downstairs auntie.
Chang Xuyu steadied herself, smiled, and greeted them obediently.
"Oh, Xuyu's back! It's getting late... I should head home." The woman checked her watch and stood up.
Her mother quickly grabbed her arm: "You'll just have to wash more dishes if you go home alone. I have soup simmering on the stove. I'll stir-fry a couple of dishes, and you can eat here."
The woman saw that mother was insistent and relented, smiling: "I'm troubling you again."
"We're neighbors! Don't be so polite!"
Chang Xuyu went to her room to do homework with her backpack. The noise from outside gradually died down.
She opened her door a crack and listened carefully.
The two women were sitting on the sofa, legs crossed, chatting intently.
After listening for a while, Chang Xuyu hadn't caught the "information" she wanted.
Finally, just as she was about to give up, she heard the word "Yi Zhuo" from the downstairs auntie's mouth.
She froze, frowned, and pressed her ear closer to the door.
"Ah, that boy Yi Zhuo had it tough. His father brought him to rent the place. I saw the man's car—he was well-off, but renting such a place for his son was rare..."
"I don't know much about his family situation, but that man was a real jerk. At first, he took care of Yi Zhuo's living arrangements, then one day he just vanished, leaving the kid here with no support. Later on, Yi Zhuo paid the rent himself. With a father like that, how much money could a child have? I asked him, but he wouldn't say. Some months he paid the rent, some months he didn't. Then he stopped paying altogether. When I came back to check, the place was already empty."
The woman sighed repeatedly.
Her mother frowned. She hadn't known about this. She had just assumed Yi Zhuo's father was rich and they had simply moved out whenever they wanted.
"Tsk tsk tsk. His father is a piece of work! Leaving a kid that young alone. Who knows how he got by every day. Probably half-starved. Poor thing."
"Exactly. I felt sorry for him, so I let it slide. The rent wasn't much anyway. I considered it charity." The woman took a drink of water.
Then they moved on to other topics.
Chang Xuyu couldn't hear the rest. She felt a buzzing in her head, as if something was piercing her skin, over and over, orderly and relentless, making her temples throb.
Her chest felt stuffed with cotton. She pressed a hand over her heart and sat down slowly on the floor, too sad to speak.
In less than half a minute, her tears fell like broken beads, one after another, hitting the floor, accompanied by her occasional quiet sobs.
She finally knew about Yi Zhuo, but she couldn't be happy at all. Nor did she have the courage to ask for more details.
The window was open. The thick fog outside had long since cleared, leaving only darkness and confusion, mixed with a chilling wind that traced red streaks across her tear-stained cheeks.
After dinner, she made an excuse to go out for a run.
She still had medium-length hair, wore a thick wool scarf and a dark long down jacket. She walked to a streetlamp, looked up at the black sky, and let out a slow breath that turned into white mist and gradually dissolved.
She had always thought that he had gone somewhere ordinary people couldn't reach, to enjoy himself in his own little world—no longer needing to give up the family car and escort her home across puddles every day.
It turned out he had been living poorly even before he left...
Even though Yi Zhuo seemed cold, he was a good person. He would hold stray cats under shelter during the rain.
Did good people really go unrewarded?
Chang Xuyu remembered the first time she saw him. He was ruthlessly kicked to the ground by a man who claimed to be his father, his knee bleeding and raw.
Why did he have to have such a hard life?
As she thought, the little girl slowly crouched down, wrapped her arms around her knees, felt a dryness in her throat, and tears fell again.
In the distance, a boy of about fourteen or fifteen watched her silently, his eyes dark and unclear, a complex emotion that was largely pity.