After Becoming a Spare Tire, I Got Together with My White Moonlight - Chapter 31

Yan Guiqiu: “…”

Jiang Xuehe: “…”

After a brief silence, Yan Guizhou raised her hand and said, “I agree!”

“I don’t object either,” Madam Meng quickly added, then softened her tone. “But matters like these should be decided by the children themselves. We parents can only offer some reference.”

Yan Guizhou nodded along. “Mom makes a good point.”

Before Yan Guiqiu could say anything more, Madam Meng and her younger daughter had already taken turns settling the matter and moving on.

Father Yan sat nearby, looking as if he wanted to speak but hesitated. He seemed somewhat dissatisfied but ultimately closed his mouth under his wife’s threatening glare.

“Eat up, eat up,” Madam Meng urged. “If any dish doesn’t suit your taste, Xuehe, just let Guiqiu know. If we’re not going out tomorrow, her dad will be cooking.”

Yan Guiqiu nodded and told Jiang Xuehe, “My dad once dreamed of becoming a chef.”

However, the Yan family, from top to bottom, exuded an aura of “ambition.” Not striving would have made him seem out of place, so cooking and similar activities became his hobbies.

As long as she wasn’t so busy she had to sleep at the company, Madam Meng never cooked at home, it was always Father Yan or the housekeeper who handled the meals.

Compared to the housekeeper’s cooking, Madam Meng clearly preferred her husband’s dishes and never hesitated to put him to work.

Father Yan shot his elder daughter an embarrassed glare.

Jiang Xuehe smiled and said, “Uncle is really impressive.”

Father Yan responded with a stiff “Hmm.” After a moment, perhaps realizing his tone was too rigid, he added, “If there’s anything you’d like to eat, just tell Guiqiu. I’ll only be at the company for half a day tomorrow and the day after, so I won’t be too busy.”

Jiang Xuehe, who had been listening to Yan Guiqiu and Yan Guizhou chat, was momentarily taken aback by his words. She then smiled, nodded, and said, “Thank you, Uncle.”

Only then did Father Yan seem reassured. He glanced down at the dishes in front of him, then at his wife’s bowl, and picked up two pieces of green pepper for her. Frowning slightly, he said, “No picky eating.”

Madam Meng’s smile froze. Not wanting to make a scene in front of the children, she resentfully stomped on her husband’s foot under the table.

Father Yan remained unmoved, his eyebrows twitching slightly as he averted his gaze, pretending not to notice his wife’s threatening expression.

Across the table, the three children nonchalantly looked away, acting as if they hadn’t seen anything.

After a lively dinner, the whole family gathered in the living room to watch TV and chat about everyday matters. When it was time, they each returned to their rooms to rest.

Father Yan and Madam Meng’s bedroom was on the third floor, while their two daughters lived on the second floor, in the bedrooms on either side of the staircase.

Yan Guizhou, carrying her laptop and documents from the car, yawned and headed into the study opposite her room.

Jiang Xuehe followed Yan Guiqiu upstairs, the last to ascend. Once everything had quieted down, she went into Yan Guiqiu’s room and sighed.

“Your parents have a wonderful relationship.”

Jiang Xuehe thought of her own parents. They, too, were affectionate, it was said they had fallen in love passionately and freely. After marriage, Madam Jiang held a nominal position in the Jiang family but knew little about work matters. She spent most of her time at home caring for the children. As the children grew older, she began socializing with other wives and ladies, gradually adopting the demeanor of a wealthy matron at home.

Yet, the family dynamics in the Jiang household were far less harmonious than in the Yan family.

“Well, my parents are both quite eccentric,” Yan Guiqiu thought for a moment and said. “My dad is pretty stubborn, once he sets his mind on something, he sticks to it no matter what. I heard he fell in love with my mom at first sight and then relentlessly pursued her. To keep him from being hauled off to the police station, my mom ended up marrying him.”

Jiang Xuehe: “…”

Jiang Xuehe: “Why would the police station be involved here?”

Yan Guiqiu closed the door behind her before continuing the gossip: “I heard that at the time, another guy was obsessively pursuing my mom and even followed her with some suspicious tools. My dad happened to be there to ask her out for a meal and ended up playing the hero to save the beauty. But in the end, the police mistook him for a troublemaker too.”

Yan’s father and Madam Meng met while studying abroad, living just a street apart.

Back then, Madam Meng’s father was still alive, and the Meng family was at the peak of their influence, while the Yan family was still a step behind. By the usual standards of arranged marriages based on social status, the Yan family wouldn’t even have been in the running.

However, neither of them knew about the other’s family background at the time. When Yan’s father first moved there, he fell in love with Madam Meng at first sight while she was having a meal at a restaurant downstairs. By the third time they met, he had already asked for her contact information and started asking her out.

They became a couple within a week of knowing each other, got engaged in the second week due to the stalker incident, and registered their marriage within a month.

It wasn’t until they graduated and returned home, meeting each other’s parents, that they realized what “running a small business” actually meant in their respective families.

Halfway through the story, Yan Guiqiu asked Jiang Xuehe, “So, what do you think after hearing all that?”

Truly your parents.

Jiang Xuehe thought about it but swallowed those words.

“From the outcome, it’s a romantic love story,” Jiang Xuehe finally said.

“Actually, even when I was little, they used to argue a lot,” Yan Guiqiu said. “It wasn’t about trivial daily matters but emotional issues.”

Love at first sight, a whirlwind romance, and a flash marriage, it sounds like the ultimate romantic fantasy for young people. But once the initial passion faded, all sorts of problems emerged.

There were clashes in personality and values, as well as conflicts and self-doubt about the conventional idea of “love that flows gently like a stream.”

In the first couple of years after Yan Guiqiu was born, the couple probably thought their daughter was too young to remember anything. When they were alone with her, they would occasionally complain about their past.

Madam Meng thought Yan’s father was only attracted to her looks and might ask for a divorce once the novelty wore off. But she had already made up her mind that, even if they divorced someday, she would fight for custody of their daughter.

Yan’s father, on the other hand, believed that Madam Meng had agreed to be with him for safety reasons while abroad and to fend off unwanted attention. He thought she might find someone better once they returned home after all, someone as dull and inarticulate as him probably wasn’t very appealing to women.

The reason they didn’t split up outright was likely because there was indeed “love” between them. Beyond their worries about the future, the joy and happiness they felt when together always outweighed everything else. Sometimes, they could just sit across from each other and smile foolishly all day. So, they decided to take things one day at a time, until one of them couldn’t take it anymore.

The truth finally came out because the prodigy child Yan Guiqiu grew impatient. She slapped her phone, live-streaming her father’s self-pitying monologue at her bedside to her mother.

The two had a huge fight over it and gave each other the silent treatment for several months.

Yan Guiqiu didn’t know exactly how they had reconciled in the end, but it seemed that after that thorough conversation, their relationship had eased, and they appeared even more affectionate and harmonious than before.

Since her younger sister was born, the two of them had never argued over such matters again, and their relationship remained strong to this day.

But Yan Guiqiu still remembered hearing her mother crying and shouting at her father back then.

She had said, “Do you think liking someone is such a simple and easy thing?”

Liking someone, loving someone in the end, it was no longer just a natural collision of emotions. Instead, joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness were all tied to the other person. Work, social interactions, and family already consumed all of one’s energy, leaving only a small portion of focus, which felt insufficient even when devoted entirely to one person. How could there be room for a second person to share it?

Although they had gotten together casually, they had never treated their feelings and responsibilities as something to be taken lightly.

Even if they left themselves a way out, it was never at the expense of hurting the other.

Perhaps it was this unspoken understanding that ultimately allowed them to overcome those barriers and obstacles.

Though there had been some twists and turns, the outcome was truly enviable.

Jiang Xuehe couldn’t help but think that if she were in Yan Guiqiu’s shoes, she probably wouldn’t want to disrupt this harmony either.

After sharing the gossip, Yan Guiqiu stood by the door, listening carefully for any movement outside. Only when she was sure no one was around did she whisper to Jiang Xuehe, “But A-Zhou doesn’t know about this, so don’t tell her, okay?”

Jiang Xuehe suppressed a laugh and nodded.

With that, the topic was dropped. The two chatted about other things in the room for a while, and Yan Guiqiu pointed to the certificates on the wall, explaining when she had received each one though she couldn’t remember many of them clearly and ended up making things up on the spot.

Jiang Xuehe laughed beside her, and Yan Guiqiu felt quite happy too.

Finally, Jiang Xuehe noticed the camera in the bookcase and asked, “Was your childhood dream to become a photographer too?”

Yan Guiqiu paused for a moment, glanced at the old camera in the display case, and nodded.

It was actually a wish from her childhood in her previous life.

But as she grew older, her time was completely consumed by work. Even when she fell ill, she had no time to go to the hospital for a check-up. Those long-buried aspirations were completely pushed into a corner.

Occasionally, when she thought back on them, it seemed she wasn’t as fond of them anymore.

The camera in the display case was one she had tinkered with for a while as a child, but she quickly lost interest. After regaining her memories, she picked it up again in college.

But in the end, it never held the same fervor as it had in her previous life. It was just an ordinary hobby now.

After a moment’s thought, Yan Guiqiu added, “Sister Xuehe, would you like to take some photos? But I left my camera in Yunhua City. When we go back, I’ll take you to the park for a photoshoot. The flowers are all in bloom now, and the mountains are beautiful.”

Jiang Xuehe had initially intended to decline, as she was merely curious. But hearing the latter part of the sentence, she swallowed her words and nodded, saying, “Okay.”

By the time her phone screen lit up again, it was already past ten o’clock.

Yan Guiqiu proactively ended the conversation, saying, “We’ve had a long day today. Sister Xuehe, you should rest early.”

With that, Yan Guiqiu quietly opened the door. The hallway was lit only by two nightlights, and the doors to the study and bedrooms at the other end were all closed. Though the rooms in the house were well soundproofed, Yan Guiqiu instinctively moved with extra care.

Jiang Xuehe’s guest room was just diagonally across, next to the study, only a few steps away. It had been tidied up before they returned, but Yan Guiqiu still insisted on accompanying Jiang Xuehe all the way into the room.

“If you need anything or feel uncomfortable with anything, just knock on my door,” Yan Guiqiu whispered softly. “Or you can call me directly.”

Jiang Xuehe glanced at her arm and reminded her, “Be careful when you sleep, don’t press on the wound.”

“Mm.” Yan Guiqiu pushed open the door to the guest room for Jiang Xuehe while instinctively glancing toward her sister’s room to make sure no one was coming out. Then she tugged at Jiang Xuehe’s sleeve and said, “Xuehe Jie.”

Jiang Xuehe turned to look at her. “What is it?”

Yan Guiqiu quickly brushed a kiss against the corner of her mouth, then stepped back, unable to hold back a smile as she whispered, “A goodnight kiss. See you tomorrow.”

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