Cross the Boundary GL - Chapter 36

Looking around, the counters were piled high with goods. Ye Wanru sat in a pearl-white suit, elegant and composed amid the gilded splendor, exuding the air of a proprietress unlike anyone else at the stalls.

Through Qin Song’s translucent fingertips, Li Chu saw the jade ring on Ye Wanru’s hand — the size of a quail’s egg, its quality obvious even from a distance.

“You… what are you doing?!” She stammered for a long beat before forcing out, uncertain: “Who is this…?”

The fabric of her sleeve brushed her eyelashes, making her eyes sting. Li Chu glanced at Qin Song, then back at Ye Wanru, and suddenly everything clicked into place.

“…She’s doing well.” She said quietly.

Qin Song’s hand — veins visible — rested casually against the door. “The Ye family isn’t poor,” she said.

Right. Ye Wanqing had married Qin Zhen; after Ye Wanru’s divorce she naturally lived comfortably, kept well, and you couldn’t guess her age from her appearance.

“Let’s go say hello.” Qin Song abruptly reached out and yanked Li Chu up from the floor. Li Chu’s stunned expression hadn’t had time to change. “Where to? I don’t want to go—”

Qin Song didn’t ask. She hauled her forward and strode toward the counter.

Li Chu’s wrist had been twisted red; she couldn’t dodge and had no strength to resist, so she was dragged to stand in front of Ye Wanru, eye to eye — awkward.

But Ye Wanru’s eyes were round and bright, warm with a gentle light, almost identical to Li Chu’s, only the former carried more of the weight that comes with years.

She showed surprise for a few seconds, but then her gaze quickly slid past Li Chu and stopped on the tall woman with pink hair behind her.

Qin Song was too striking; even though she kept to herself, how could the Ye family not recognize a Qin daughter?

So Ye Wanru immediately recovered her composure and smiled softly. “Lele, is that you?” She stepped past Li Chu so she could stand before Qin Song. “I didn’t recognize you at first, but I knew it had to be you. What are you doing in Zhaoping? If you wanted to buy jade, you could have told your aunt.” Her smile was warm, and Li Chu’s frozen back contrasted sharply — loneliness and laughter side by side, painfully glaring.

Qin Song knitted her brows lightly and looked Ye Wanru over for a long moment before saying coolly, “We’re not buying anything.”

“Ah?” Ye Wanru’s mouth formed a tiny circle, her expression suddenly false. “Then what are you—?”

The bustling hall made the little corner they occupied feel ignored. Li Chu didn’t move, but Qin Song noticed her subconsciously clenched fist.

A sharp pain pricked Qin Song’s chest; her breathing faltered, then she struggled to calm herself.

Irritated, Qin Song flipped Li Chu around to face them, forcing the two women into a real face-to-face.

Yes — Ye Wanru was Li Chu’s birth mother. The DNA test results were still in the phone tucked into a pocket; there could be no mistake.

They looked at each other once. Ye Wanru lowered her head and forced a smile. “Lele… who is this? Your friend?”

Li Chu lowered her eyes and didn’t answer.

“You don’t know who she is?” Qin Song let out a laugh that was thin and merciless, words deliberately cutting: “Auntie has a bad memory, huh.”

Sometimes Qin Song could be very sharp — her edges revealed like a rose’s soft thorns; they didn’t look like much, but they hurt.

Ye Wanru started to get nervous; she was no better than Li Chu, lips white, trembling: “What do you mean?”

Qin Song, showing a little face that still belonged to the Ye family, gave them a sliver of courtesy: “Let’s go outside and talk.”

The three of them moved from the jade market to a private dining room at a restaurant.

Li Chu sat between Qin Song and Ye Wanru, rigid and dazed.

For reasons she couldn’t explain, Qin Song’s anger grew. The angrier she became, the sterner and more terrifying she looked. “You don’t recognize her?” she asked Ye Wanru.

“Do you need me to introduce her?” Qin Song said expressionlessly as she toyed with the windproof lighter in her hand. “Her name is Li Chu—”

But Ye Wanru suddenly shot up: “Don’t say anything!”

“Twenty-some years ago, outside the Hongfu Orphanage—”

“Stop!” Ye Wanru’s face contorted; she grew red with the effort of holding it back, her hand shaking on the teacup.

Qin Song pressed on coldly: “This is your child. Why not say so? Can’t the Ye family afford one girl?”

Li Chu regained a scrap of rationality. For some reason she felt Qin Song was angry because of Ye Wanru’s attitude toward her — a feeling she couldn’t explain.

“Li Qiming — that son of a bitch — I wouldn’t want him.” Ye Wanru blurted out, shocking them both. Li Chu stared, not understanding the implication.

Qin Song understood in an instant. Her brows drew in hard and she said with force: “What do you mean by that?”

By then Ye Wanru sneered and looked at Li Chu with a hard, venomous gaze: “Bastard. How dare you come looking for me?”

“I brought her here.” Qin Song’s eyes cut like blades, but her face remained expressionless. “I looked into it. Li Qiming was your ex-husband, and you divorced after six months — right?”

Ye Wanru had originally intended not to answer, but in front of this woman’s frosty stare she couldn’t help herself.

“Yes,” she ground out. “But you wouldn’t be able to dig up the reason I married him, otherwise you wouldn’t be asking foolish questions like ‘Why wouldn’t I take her?’” She fell silent with a colder expression.

At that moment Qin Song’s phone rang; she fished it out and glanced at the screen while Li Chu remained silent. The private room fell into deathly quiet.

After a while Qin Song shifted her gaze back to Ye Wanru, thumbs flicking over the screen. “She’s innocent.”

That was all it took. Ye Wanru couldn’t understand how Qin Song had the power to investigate everything, but she thought of the Qin family’s wealth and resources and, since so much time had passed, there had to be some cracks to pry into.

Her forced smile turned bitter: “But she looks exactly like Li Qiming. If I’d known she’d look like him, I never would have had her.”

Sometimes words are knives; each one cut until blood flowed. Li Chu’s tears finally spilled out, transparent and raw, like wounds reopening. Ye Wanru said, “Just looking at you makes me sick. The only thing you have like me are your eyes. Had I known how much you’d resemble him, I never would have given birth.”

When Li Qiming did his filthy deed, he purposely waited a long time before coming to propose; Ye Wanru discovered she was two months pregnant and wanted to drink medicine to terminate it, but she couldn’t bring herself to. If Li Chu had looked more like Ye Wanru than like Li Qiming, she might have kept the child.

On a snowy winter day in Nancheng, Li Chu had been left at the gate of Hongfu. Because she was the first child, they named her “Chu” — the beginning. A note of entrustment was left with her; it was the last remnant of the mother’s love Ye Wanru had for the child. After that, over twenty years, Ye Wanru married, divorced, destroyed Li Qiming’s life, remarried, and had another child. Li Chu’s life or death no longer mattered to her.

Ye Wanru’s gaze was cold, resolute, full of disdain and disgust. Continuing to look at Li Chu would only cause more pain. Qin Song slid the phone back into her pocket and reached up to cover Li Chu’s eyes; the tears soaked the skin of Li Chu’s eyelids and the palm of Qin Song’s hand — damp to the touch.

Though only the surface was wet, something inside Qin Song softened inexplicably.

“Let’s not see each other again.” Qin Song kept her hand over Li Chu’s eyes, her world-weary gaze reflecting an odd glint. “We won’t bid farewell.”

When Ye Wanru left, the two of them also left the restaurant and walked away in silence until they reached the neon sign of the jade market.

Qin Song thought this world was rotten.

Li Chu thought the same. Under the gaudy lights she saw that Ye Wanru had stopped by a car. The door opened and a small boy of seven or eight jumped into Ye Wanru’s arms, bounding with joy. They approached until they were only about ten meters away — the whole scene clear as day.

Ye Wanru’s eyes shone like the gemstones on her hand; she looked entirely different from how she had looked at Li Chu. Warm, affectionate, maternal.

“Chang’an, are you home from school? Come here, let Mom hold you. Oh, you’re heavy! Did Daddy take you somewhere for a treat?” She cradled the boy and stroked his head. “You’re sweating — Aunt Chen, get a tissue to wipe him. Always running around, huh?”

Li Chu watched the pair without a sound. As they walked away she cried quietly, the wind drying her tears and stinging her eyes.

In the private room she had only sobbed silently; now the dazzling glow and the boundless dark split the scene in two and doubled the mockery.

When they reached Qin Song’s car, Li Chu was already in tears.

Staring at the highway lights rushing backward into the dark, she asked, “So I’m not worthy of love?”

Qin Song drove, looking straight ahead, indifferent: “Does it matter? You never had any.”

“But why? I didn’t do anything.” Li Chu said.

“You can understand it.” Qin Song replied.

“I can’t.” Li Chu gripped the seat belt, eyes bloodshot. “I can’t understand why she hates him but takes it out on me. She gave birth to me and then abandoned me — why give birth at all?”

Qin Song had no answer, because she didn’t understand either.

“Don’t waste your tears.” She said, pulling out a tissue and pressing it lightly to Li Chu’s eyelids. “Wipe them.”

If it had been another day, Li Chu would probably have obeyed. Today was different; what had happened earlier was like porridge in her head, stirring her nerves into knots.

Li Chu took a deep breath and prepared to unbuckle. “Stop the car.”

“We’re on the highway.” Qin Song glanced at her coldly. “Be reasonable.”

“If you don’t stop, I’ll jump!” Li Chu cried.

Qin Song’s temple throbbed; she wasn’t about to stop, but she could speed up and open the window.

A gust of wind rushed in, lashes tearing loose. Qin Song suddenly braked and hit the hazard lights, and said, “You can get out now.”

From there to the city would take two or three hours on foot.

Tears streaming, Li Chu, full of grievance, knew Qin Song was seriously ill, but stubbornness drove her.

She opened the door, body half out. “Fine, I’ll get out!”

Don’t be stubborn — a bloody lesson. T.T

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