Hedgehog's Belly - Chapter 60

Chapter 60

A person whose life has been stolen is stripped of the right to speak.

Ji Rongshu covered Luo Mu’s mouth, glancing anxiously into the house. Then, he whispered hoarsely in her ear, his eyes suppressed by a nameless fire: “Dad is home. If you don’t want to start a conflict, keep quiet.”

Luo Mu’s pupils trembled. She instinctively dug her nails into the back of his hand. In a daze, she remembered how she had hidden it from her father back then, applying to a university in Lingyang without hesitation. From beginning to end, Ji Rongshu was the only one in the family who knew.

She understood her father’s temperament all too well; if he knew her ambition was to leave the province, he would never let her have her way. Thus, Luo Mu chose to act first and report later, but when the admission notice was placed on the table, she found herself unable to defend her choice.

“Your wings have grown strong, haven’t they? Do you think I can’t control you?!”

“If you leave, don’t even think about coming back!”

From that day on, her father seemed to go mad, demanding the admission notice from her, declaring he would tear it up and burn it. Later, her father directly ransacked her room, turning over every material. Drawers were upended, books were torn to shreds, and paper scraps covered the floor, yet he never found that single admission notice.

Ji Rongshu had been lying lazily on the sofa playing games, his eyes glancing at the man who had lost control of his emotions.

Then, he couldn’t help but let out a “huff” of laughter.

In their youth, under their father’s surveillance, the fake hostility Luo Mu and Ji Rongshu performed for show became the catalyst here.

Her father had never directed his ferocious gaze toward this adopted son; he had never suspected him.

And that admission notice for Lingyang Foreign Languages University sat safely and calmly inside a hidden safe in the room of a younger brother with whom Luo Mu shared no blood.

Back then, Ji Rongshu always comforted her: “Let it stay hidden for a while. One day, you can take it to wherever you want to go.”

“Those books were destroyed. Are you sad?”

“It’s fine.” Luo Mu shook her head, using her knuckle to wipe the tears from the corner of her eyes. The swelling red on her face was the mark of the slap her father had left. “Is it that Chujiang can no longer tolerate me?”

Ji Rongshu remained silent for a long time, then slowly nodded, unable to bear hiding the cruel reality: “Yes.”

At this moment, the two years felt like a blur. The once-close siblings had become strangers in the interval, the underlying color of their gazes a ruthlessness that neither could see clearly. Communication had become exceptionally distant; even a slight tug carried a sharp pain.

Ji Rongshu let go of her, the veins on his neck prominent. He then turned back and spoke a few low words to the family nanny. Luo Mu stood dazed on the spot, her nose stinging with bitterness.

The nanny handed a delicate small gift box to Ji Rongshu. He took out a brand-new bank card from it, held it in front of Luo Mu, and murmured: “The password is the last six digits of your stepmother’s phone number.”

“These were left for you by her. She doesn’t have a job, so spend it sparingly.” Ji Rongshu’s gaze was complex—like a balcony hit by direct warm light but covered in a thick, old, and hazy layer of dust.

It was an unspeakable bitterness from family that one couldn’t bear to voice.

Luo Mu took the bank card with trembling hands. The string of small characters on the back stung her heart with pain.

“A-Mu.”

Everyone was growing, and everyone was bearing their own respective pains.

She wasn’t the only one being tortured.

Ji Rongshu felt he had said the wrong thing and quickly corrected himself: “Forget it. If you run out of money, send me a message and I’ll transfer some to you.”

“Mom and I are your support, but right now, you shouldn’t have come back.”

If you return now, you will never be able to get out again.

Luo Mu’s breath hitched, her hand gripping the bank card tighter.

She lowered her head, her slightly curled bangs perfectly covering the distress on her face. Her breath was weak; her trembling lips could no longer make a sound. The brain’s protection mechanism, amidst a buzzing tinnitus, prevented her from shedding a single tear.

Ji Rongshu frowned, yet his eyes held a profound calmness. He no longer comforted the fragile person before him as he once did.

They both understood all too well that life was destined not to be as perfect as a fairy tale.

“Don’t come back again,” he said, every word deliberate yet striking every nerve loudly: “Sister.”

Luo Mu was startled. Her gaze drifted, glancing at the wall beside them. The wall was marked with records of their heights from childhood to adulthood; the traces of time on the wall had long since faded.

She only remembered that during middle school, her father was always concerned with this adopted son’s height management. He took him to see famous doctors in Chujiang and bought many nameless herbal medicines and nutritional chewable tablets.

At that time, Ji Rongshu complained for the first time about the bitterness of the Chinese medicine, saying it was hard to swallow. Luo Mu watched him finish it in a daze.

But a child, in the end, doesn’t know what favoritism means. Luo Mu’s voice had been soft, simply offering a complaint: “Father never remembers me.”

So, every time Ji Rongshu opened a nutritional supplement jar, he would set aside a few bovine colostrum and cranberry-flavored vitamin tablets. He would naturally hand them to his sister, and while watching her swallow them, he would tease: “Don’t you think that bovine colostrum tastes terrible?”

The teenaged Luo Mu knew then that her father had spent a lot of money on this adopted son but had never thought of her. Luo Mu slowly savored the taste of the chewable tablet and said unhurriedly: “A little.”

Whether it was the tablet that was tart or she herself who was bitter, it had long since become impossible to tell.

Ji Rongshu suppressed a smile: “Then you’ll have to endure this bitterness with me.”

Because from beginning to end, they were family.

Ji Rongshu understood all too well what Luo Mu had been resentful about these past few years.

He wasn’t stupid; he could see it.

He also felt guilty.

As family, he certainly couldn’t let any obstacle become the reason Luo Mu couldn’t fly high.

Suddenly, a phone rang. The screen lit up with a contact consisting of those familiar three characters. Luo Mu quickly pressed the power button to darken the screen, but in those brief seconds, Ji Rongshu saw it.

“Not going to pick up?” Ji Rongshu’s voice was lazy; he naturally hadn’t expected Luo Mu to still be in contact with Yan Qingzhu.

Luo Mu blinked, her eyes filled with bloodshot veins.

She put the phone behind her back. Her long-term choking back of emotions made her voice numb. She cleared her throat, her voice slightly hoarse: “Take good care of Stepmom, and tell her,”

Luo Mu paused.

If possible, she wanted to breathe out these words along with her very life.

“Tell her I was here. I miss her very much.”

Ji Rongshu nodded candidly: “Okay.”

“Then I’m leaving.” Luo Mu turned around, remaining silent for a long time: “I won’t be back.”

Ji Rongshu didn’t respond, watching quietly until Luo Mu’s silhouette was no longer visible.

“Is A-Mu back?!”

Inside the house, a thin woman draped in a flimsy shirt ran out, her slippers falling off, her bare feet hitting the smooth floor. Her pupils shook as she gripped Ji Rongshu’s wrist, screaming with all her might: “Is A-Mu back?!”

Ji Rongshu bit his lower lip, restraining his emotions so that not a trace escaped. His eyes were firm as he denied it without hesitation: “No, someone just knocked on the wrong door.”

“But I clearly heard her voice…” Stepmom’s voice grew blurred, certainty and uncertainty mashing together at this moment, her eyes filled with shimmering tears. Her struggling, trembling hands tried to open the door latch, but she was ultimately stopped by Ji Rongshu.

“Mom!” Ji Rongshu shouted sharply, “She won’t be coming back.”

The woman was stunned, her hand suspended in mid-air for a long time without being lowered. Stumbling, she leaned against the cabinet in the entryway, repeating in a low whisper: “She won’t be coming back…”

Ji Rongshu slowly crouched down, supporting his mother who was about to collapse.

No matter how he answered, there would never be a standard answer.

The night sky in Lingyang was scattered with stars. Luo Mu had just stepped out of the high-speed rail station. The crowd was as crowded as a surging tide; if one wasn’t careful, they could disappear into it at any moment.

Luo Mu’s head felt heavy. She looked at the time on her phone screen, and the weather applet beside it automatically switched to Lingyang.

It was cloudy again in Lingyang tonight.

Luo Mu’s eyelashes flickered. The night wind was cool; she really had come back.

In a daze, a familiar figure took hold of Luo Mu’s wrist. The slight redness visible through that person’s knuckles picked her out of the crowd.

“Are you hungry? I brought you some bread.”

Yan Qingzhu’s hand slowly slid down the back of Luo Mu’s hand, lightly touching her beating pulse before finally interlocking their fingers. It was the tenderness of a lover; all emotions were dissolved at this moment.

But of the fluffy meat floss rolls she had traveled over ten kilometers to buy, Luo Mu only took one bite before simply putting the transparent plastic packaging away.

“Don’t like it? I’ll take you to pick out another flavor next time.”

Yan Qingzhu placed a helmet on Luo Mu’s head, adjusting the fit. She finally couldn’t suppress the smile at the corners of her mouth: “There’s a cool breeze today. I’ll take you home on the electric scooter.”

Luo Mu only then remembered that Yan Qingzhu was the only one who remembered the casual joke she’d once made about wanting to ride an electric scooter around Lingyang.

In a daze, Yan Qingzhu noticed that the corners of her lover’s eyes were red. That sorrowful, unspeakable gaze caused a brief sting in her, like the lick of a flame.

That trace of bitterness required no language to provide color.

“Are you sad?” Yan Qingzhu half-joked, her fingertip brushing aside the messy strands of hair from the other’s face. Luo Mu looked up, her pupils shimmering with a moist, warm light in the shadows—enough to melt the frenzy of a summer night.

So torturous, so enchanting. Unfathomable and endless.

Luo Mu paused for a few seconds, then shook her head.

Yan Qingzhu knew, of course, that she was lying.

“Let’s not take the shortcut. We’ll take the main road and ride slowly. We’ll go home a bit later.”

Luo Mu sat on the back seat and murmured upward. Her arms were wrapped around Yan Qingzhu’s waist, whose lines were slender and bold. Her thin lips inadvertently brushed against the skin of Yan Qingzhu’s neck—an indescribable sense of intimacy and pleasure spreading through her.

“Sure. I don’t want to go back so soon either.” Yan Qingzhu watched Luo Mu’s face through the rearview mirror, her right hand slowly twisting the throttle.

The brief summer night blended into the background of life amidst the flickering streetlights—cool and quiet. The evening wind blew Yan Qingzhu’s long hair. The delicate scent of bitter orange leaf matched the summer night; no longer indulging, no longer melancholy.

Luo Mu had never imagined that someone would eventually be willing to slow down the pace of their life for her, carefully cradling the lukewarm words she’d mentioned in passing as if they were a fervent passion held close to the chest.

The wind whistled. Luo Mu leaned close to the ear of the person in front of her.

“Today, I went back to Nanming.”

How strange; by Yan Qingzhu’s side, Luo Mu finally had the courage to speak frankly.

It was as if by being close to her, it became difficult for Luo Mu to remain silent; naturally, she felt no need for excessive caution in her presence.

“And then, I met that adopted son…”

Luo Mu intended to continue, but all her words at this moment were like a lump in her throat. Her voice weakened directly, gradually swallowed by the night wind of Lingyang, vanishing into the air.

The conversation stopped there.

Yan Qingzhu rode on calmly. On her earlobe, she wore the silver maple leaf earring Luo Mu had recently bought for her. Luo Mu didn’t know that Yan Qingzhu had rarely worn earrings lately; when the piercing was nearly closed, Yan Qingzhu had stood before the mirror like a fool, silent for a long time.

The rebellion and resistance against her mother from her youth had a new definition now at age twenty.

Perhaps she truly wanted to live once more for love.

Even though it was the wind of late midsummer passing over their faces, they both caught the scent of early autumn, mixed with a hint of bitterness.

Penetrating and enveloping.

They had no secrets from each other to begin with.

But Luo Mu simply didn’t know what kind of language to use to explain the various things she was facing.

No one is willing to be the one to turn a dagger toward their own throat.

Luo Mu didn’t say more, so Yan Qingzhu didn’t ask.

They rode along the main road of Lingyang, through neon lights and shifting shadows. Floating lights flashed through this city, hazy yet vivid. They were like wanderers who no longer pursued a destination, only enjoying the feelings along the road.

When they returned home, Yan Qingzhu handed a change of clothes to Luo Mu and then cupped her face in her hands, making her look like a puffed-up little hedgehog.

Luo Mu stared at her, unable to move: “Hmm?”

Yan Qingzhu gave a plain smile and leaned down, her thin lips lightly kissing her lover’s forehead. She couldn’t bear it, fearing she couldn’t carry the weight of this high-concentration sweetness.

“It’s nothing. Get some rest early.” A few hints of a smile appeared in Yan Qingzhu’s eyes. “I’ll warm some milk for you later.”

Luo Mu nodded. Then her eyes turned cunning, and her smile was no longer innocent: “Then will you stay with me tonight?”

Yan Qingzhu teased: “Do you know what Yan Yu asked me this morning?”

“Hmm?”

“She asked if we’ve slept together.” The corners of Yan Qingzhu’s mouth couldn’t help but lift, her tone level.

Luo Mu was shocked, her ears turning bright red instantly: “What?!”

“Alright, go take a shower.” Yan Qingzhu rubbed her head. “Rest early.”

After watching Luo Mu return to her room, Yan Qingzhu stood in the living room and withdrew her gaze. Her brow furrowed as she finally called back the number that had called a dozen times just now.

The missed call display showed the location as Chujiang, which had long made Yan Qingzhu alert.

“Is Luo Mu with you?”

On the other end of the line, a low, dark, and seemingly impatient voice tore through the warm atmosphere in the air.

Yan Qingzhu recognized the voice. Her eyes were instantly filled with a deep, dark hostility. Her fingertips stroked the stem of a rose sitting on the table. The stem was covered in thorns—the more beautiful it was, the more dangerous.

“Yo, so the adopted son Muzi-jie mentioned was you.”

She aimed her words directly at his flaw, slowing her speech and feigning polite conversation: “What? Feeling guilty toward her, so you’re acting with a show of sincerity?”

Yan Qingzhu was indifferent, frighteningly calm. She only sighed that Luo Mu was, in the end, a soft-hearted person, unable to do anything decisive.

She had once thought that if Luo Mu were willing, she would naturally step up and be the “bad guy,” clearing all obstacles for her.

But Luo Mu was unwilling.

Ji Rongshu let out a cold laugh, his tone fervent: “Speaking of guilt, shouldn’t you be the expert?”

Yan Qingzhu’s fingertip sank into a thorn, and a rose suddenly snapped from its stem. The thick, multi-layered petals bloomed like blood, falling all over the floor.

“That’s how it is, right?”

Ji Rongshu articulated every word heavily. They struck Yan Qingzhu like giant boulders, preventing her from finding peace.

The rumors and gossip from their high school days were now tearing away their masquerade piece by piece.

“The. Illegitimate. Daughter.”